I will put my vote in that this Topic will end badly right now. It is destined by the stars!
I enjoy watching swashbuckling pirates engage in fisticuffs.
it's fairly weird to think a MMO can be piratedUltima Online, Lineage, Counter-strike, half-life series, Warcraft, WoW, a lot of other examples.
I enjoy watching swashbuckling pirates engage in fisticuffs.
If they're swashbuckling, then they aren't engaging in fisticuffs.
Ooh. i sense a flamewar.
Games has always been ridiculously expensive to buy even if the price might have increase somewhat.
The moment you start hunting them, piracy begins in increasing numbers.
The moment you start hunting them, piracy begins in increasing numbers.
fixed.
The moment you start hunting them, piracy begins in increasing numbers.
fixed.
...It would probably help to use an example.
Like Spore. If I recall correctly, it had about a 1 to 1 ratio of people who purchased it to people who pirated it. Many people pirated because of the invasive DRM that it had which was removed in pirated copies. Hell, you could play the game early if you pirated it!
Spore costs $60, and you were only allowed to install it thrice before they would de-activate it. If you installed it on three different computers, only one of them would work.
I can understand pirating a game that modifies your hard drive to prevent it from installing something more than three times.
Yeah, if you go out and buy something, then pirate it to escape its draconian security... why not? Seems fair to me.Yes, but it would only be fair if you didnt distribute that pirated version to others, even then it should/is illegal to pirate it.
Yeah, if you go out and buy something, then pirate it to escape its draconian security... why not? Seems fair to me.
The moment you start hunting them, piracy begins in increasing numbers.
fixed.
...It would probably help to use an example.
Like Spore. If I recall correctly, it had about a 1 to 1 ratio of people who purchased it to people who pirated it. Many people pirated because of the invasive DRM that it had which was removed in pirated copies. Hell, you could play the game early if you pirated it!
DRM (ineffective counter-measure) != Law Enforcement (Cops knocking on your door)
But the devil is in the details, isn't it? The difficulty in making and enforcing that is very difficult, and may cross with other laws concerning piracy. That's why it is not implemented for home users anywhere.
In Hong Kong it is illegal to use pirated software in companies - jail time for both the employee and employer. I don't see this law being enforced anywhere yet.
Although I don't know how this carries over to games I remember reading a study that people who pirate music are apparently eight time more likely to actually buy it or something similar.
The moment you start hunting them, piracy begins in increasing numbers.
fixed.
...It would probably help to use an example.
Like Spore. If I recall correctly, it had about a 1 to 1 ratio of people who purchased it to people who pirated it. Many people pirated because of the invasive DRM that it had which was removed in pirated copies. Hell, you could play the game early if you pirated it!
DRM (ineffective counter-measure) != Law Enforcement (Cops knocking on your door)
But the devil is in the details, isn't it? The difficulty in making and enforcing that is very difficult, and may cross with other laws concerning piracy. That's why it is not implemented for home users anywhere.
In Hong Kong it is illegal to use pirated software in companies - jail time for both the employee and employer. I don't see this law being enforced anywhere yet.
That's a terrible law that would put a lot of innocent people in jail. Think about it. Your employer tells you to use some software. How do you know if its pirated? And even if you do, if you refuse and your employer is arrested of fires you you now have no job. How could you consider thinking that that law should be applied anywhere!?
Yeah, that's me. Music piracy drove around 75% of my music purchases before Pandora came to be.Pandora isn't working since years ... but youtube still does, wierd ...
Piracy != TheftFixed that for you.
However piracy still = Bad (mmmkay)
FixedI disagree on several levels.
where would we be today without galileo or sokrates?
If you feel like you were cheated out of your money, why dont you read online reviews/the back of the case first? I hate pirating, so.That might be the case once reviewers start reviewing on objective terms rather than how fun it was for them. Not to mention the bribery that goes on in the gaming industry. Game (p)reviews are simply not a reliable source.
Yes, great MMOs right there. :|Quoteit's fairly weird to think a MMO can be piratedUltima Online, Lineage, Counter-strike, half-life series, Warcraft, WoW, a lot of other examples.
Do what you want because a pirate is free. (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v68/soulwind/external/Pirate_full.swf)Heh. I wish I could dig like that. :D
I've mistaken Galileo with Christopher Columbuso_O How?
Soulwynd, that post was awesome! ^_^Thanks. I just wanted to lighten the mood, but I think some people might be offended, haha.
Pirates will pirate games for 3 reasons:You confuse pirates and users.
1) They want to try before they buy
2) They don't have money
3) They just want free shit.
QuotePirates will pirate games for 3 reasons:You confuse pirates and users.
1) They want to try before they buy
2) They don't have money
3) They just want free shit.
Pirates:
they want to earn money as other people, though not really in a legal way.
Users:
1) They want to try before they buy
2) They don't have money
3) They just want free shit.
P.S. 4) They don't want the f*cking DRM/Starforce/Whatever trojan in their system. ;D
Pirates:the number of those kind of pirates has been decreasing over the last decade. In fact I can safely bet that at the moment the number of people who produce free torrents (for whatever reasons) outweighs the number people who sell bootleg DVDs of games by an order of magnitude. Torrents generate a lot of things- traffic, complaints, virus distribution, etc. But not money.
they want to earn money as other people, though not really in a legal way.
Well the virus torrents usually either are just there to grief, or to steal identities. Identity theft generates money.Pirates:the number of those kind of pirates has been decreasing over the last decade. In fact I can safely bet that at the moment the number of people who produce free torrents (for whatever reasons) outweighs the number people who sell bootleg DVDs of games by an order of magnitude. Torrents generate a lot of things- traffic, complaints, virus distribution, etc. But not money.
they want to earn money as other people, though not really in a legal way.
Torrents generate a lot of things- traffic, complaints, virus distribution, etc. But not money.
Virus torrents? Show me some (no links please) :).They usually show up around the release date of the game. and usually through elimination, they eventually have low enough seeds that no one downloads from them.
The ones I know are without such thing.
It do generate money for the ISP. Most people that want high speed connections are the ones that download a lot and the ones needing such bandwidth for legal material are rather few i belive.
Virus torrents? Show me some (no links please) :).
The ones I know are without such thing.
About difference between pirates and users: well, users are harder to punish because there's too many of them and they can't give anything to companies. I think every workplace have at least one pirated program, so it's not possible to catch or punish them. However if it's a big pirating company or market, they can be made to pay.
No they don't, the internet just gets ever faster, that's all. Even the cheapest connection my ISP offers, 10Mb down/1Mb up, is more than enough for torrents. I'd settle for a tenth that speed for my everyday browsing, but there's simply no such option anymore.
People (as a whole) are scum; if they can get away with pirating, they will do it regardless of price or if they can afford it, and in the process make all sorts of excuse to justify the stealing. It's human nature; you can see the same with drug abuse, excessive drinking, gambling and smoking.
To the OP, what about EA's games, where they charge normal price, then make you buy half the original content for 100's?No, i would not. I prided myself on having the sims 2 and near all the expansion packs [exluding the stuff packs and glamour stuff]
Would you pirate the full game?
If I ever created a decent game and wanted to sell it, I might consider a system where you can get the full game for free, but it has a little "byu" button in a corner of a menu, out of the way and unobtrusive. It would even gave a setting to remove the button. It would encourage players to "buy" the game, and what they would get, is what they already have. No additional downloads, nothing unlocked. No DRM. The site could even list torrents that have been approved, and checked periodically by trusted people. That way, the only thing you get for pirating the game is a chance of getting a virus or trojan. Even better, a "purchase" may come with a unique unlock key that does nothing, but could be used by a forum to gain access to a "I bought a game" section, or maybe in another game to unlock bonus content. Rank the forum users in an additional category, games purchased? That gives users a minor incentive to actually buy.So you want to sell 'smug'? :P
Maybe state in the license that the user agrees to purchase the game some time within the next infinte years.
To the OP, what about EA's games, where they charge normal price, then make you buy half the original content for 100's?No, i would not. I prided myself on having the sims 2 and near all the expansion packs [exluding the stuff packs and glamour stuff]
Would you pirate the full game?
EA may make shitty, spawn of satan games, but there is literally NO justification to pirating a game, in my view, the only one is buying the actual game first, then create a pirated version and not distribute it to others. As a developer you learn to have a different perspective.To the OP, what about EA's games, where they charge normal price, then make you buy half the original content for 100's?No, i would not. I prided myself on having the sims 2 and near all the expansion packs [exluding the stuff packs and glamour stuff]
Would you pirate the full game?
Congratulations on supporting a faceless corporation with a shitty business model wherein they make you pay $30 every two months so you can get five new pieces of furniture for your little digital people.
Granted, this is good for them, but you have to consider something here. It's a shifty tactic to get as much money as possible out of people, and not really a justified amount for the amount of "new" content they add. There used to be ethics among software companies. It wasn't about making expansion packs every other week to grub as much money out of stupid consumers as possible. Once upon a time the gaming industry was about providing a quality entertainment experience for people to enjoy in their spare time. It's long since become everything BUT that.
Although I don't know how this carries over to games I remember reading a study that people who pirate music are apparently eight time more likely to actually buy it or something similar.
EA may make shitty, spawn of satan games, but there is literally NO justification to pirating a game, in my view, the only one is buying the actual game first, then create a pirated version and not distribute it to others. As a developer you learn to have a different perspective.To the OP, what about EA's games, where they charge normal price, then make you buy half the original content for 100's?No, i would not. I prided myself on having the sims 2 and near all the expansion packs [exluding the stuff packs and glamour stuff]
Would you pirate the full game?
Congratulations on supporting a faceless corporation with a shitty business model wherein they make you pay $30 every two months so you can get five new pieces of furniture for your little digital people.
Granted, this is good for them, but you have to consider something here. It's a shifty tactic to get as much money as possible out of people, and not really a justified amount for the amount of "new" content they add. There used to be ethics among software companies. It wasn't about making expansion packs every other week to grub as much money out of stupid consumers as possible. Once upon a time the gaming industry was about providing a quality entertainment experience for people to enjoy in their spare time. It's long since become everything BUT that.
No, because i don't like the different colored furniture and wouldn't buy/pirate it, if you truly truly want some of that different colored furniture then buy it.EA may make shitty, spawn of satan games, but there is literally NO justification to pirating a game, in my view, the only one is buying the actual game first, then create a pirated version and not distribute it to others. As a developer you learn to have a different perspective.To the OP, what about EA's games, where they charge normal price, then make you buy half the original content for 100's?No, i would not. I prided myself on having the sims 2 and near all the expansion packs [exluding the stuff packs and glamour stuff]
Would you pirate the full game?
Congratulations on supporting a faceless corporation with a shitty business model wherein they make you pay $30 every two months so you can get five new pieces of furniture for your little digital people.
Granted, this is good for them, but you have to consider something here. It's a shifty tactic to get as much money as possible out of people, and not really a justified amount for the amount of "new" content they add. There used to be ethics among software companies. It wasn't about making expansion packs every other week to grub as much money out of stupid consumers as possible. Once upon a time the gaming industry was about providing a quality entertainment experience for people to enjoy in their spare time. It's long since become everything BUT that.
So what if you bought the original game...Would you pirate that new set of different colored furniture?
Pirates:the number of those kind of pirates has been decreasing over the last decade. In fact I can safely bet that at the moment the number of people who produce free torrents (for whatever reasons) outweighs the number people who sell bootleg DVDs of games by an order of magnitude. Torrents generate a lot of things- traffic, complaints, virus distribution, etc. But not money.
they want to earn money as other people, though not really in a legal way.
Not here.not where?
And game... pirated games still legal, cause the ones in power DOES NOT KNOW SHIT about video games anyway.It was sort of the same over here (http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=56.945836,24.139595&sll=56.946472,24.114304&sspn=0.222085,0.727158&ie=UTF8&ll=56.946248,24.139374&spn=1.776781,5.817261&z=8) back in the 90s and early 2000s. I don't have any proof that the people were pirates of course, the CDs were always well made (not some fake looking ones with the name written in marker), but you could tell most of them were in fact pirated (with your 5$ copy of Starcraft you could still feign ignorance , but when you bought abandonware compilations from the same companies, the illusion was lost completely).
But doesn't that fact show a bit about the demand? Of course a lot of computer related demand is caused by people having no idea what they need ("what do you mean i can write a letter without a dual core?") But not all of it. If there was still enough demand to justifiy a rack of 56k modems taking up valuable space, from an ISP POV, you would be able to buy that kind of service.
there is literally NO justification to pirating a game, in my view
I dunno.. it's sort of the problem when you have something really cheap to manufacture, but expensive to produce. I think they just have to go for an unpiratable business model. Fighting pirates is just way too expensive and too difficult.
I dunno.. it's sort of the problem when you have something really cheap to manufacture, but expensive to produce. I think they just have to go for an unpiratable business model. Fighting pirates is just way too expensive and too difficult.
Moreover, they're going about it in completely the wrong way. DRM and copy protection schemes? Pirate groups compete for rep and prestige with each other in cracking them! Making a better copy protection only spurs them into even greater effort to pirate your game!
How about if you know you wouldn't buy the game?
I remember reading a study that people who pirate music are apparently eight time more likely to actually buy it or something similar.
Yes but that was an independent study made by a highly qualified group of people with no connections to the Video Game Industry and thus was biased
That's why piracy is the same as stealing.
Piracy isn't really true theft though
When you prevent the company access to use their property and you chose to possess it against their will in what way isn't it theft?
in what way does making a copy of some data prevent the company from accessing that data?
I can suggest a policy equal to NeoGaf.Or we can be friendly and not talk about how to pirate things as if you don't know how, you shouldn't do it.
Ban people for admitting that they pirate games. Temp ban or something. Though, it puts more work in Toadies hands....
It is probably better off in the end that talk of piracy be purposefully heavily derailed or ignored by members. No problems need be made.
And in what way does making a copy of some data prevent the company from accessing that data?Invasive DRM, of course.
Simple do they have access to the disk or your computer?
your point is...?
actually, either it is equal, in which case they have access, or it isn't in which case you previous point (about property rights) is if not invalid, not entirely correct.Quotein what way does making a copy of some data prevent the company from accessing that data?
OOH!!! I didn't think you would say this. Equivocating the original with the copy.
But again, doesn't the EULA or box say that you can't make copies?
can we get back to piracy?Not unless you have a valid privateer certificate from your approved government.
And i was trying to decide whether you were debating on what was pirating or how to pirate.... lolBut again, doesn't the EULA or box say that you can't make copies?
For the EULA to be applicable you'd have to agree to it, which a pirate obviously isn't going to do. But yes, the law does state that you can't make copies. Although I was under the impression were were discussing morality, not legality (not much to discuss there).
can we get back to piracy?Not unless you have a valid privateer certificate from your approved government.
Wait, woops. Wrong piracy.
Its great, ever play Uncharted Waters: New Horizon?can we get back to piracy?Not unless you have a valid privateer certificate from your approved government.
Wait, woops. Wrong piracy.
No no, I like this one better.
Piracy isn't really true theft though, because it's possible to pirate without the company losing something, if you pirate something you would never have bought the company hasn't even lost a sale. Compare to if I go into a supermarket and steal a game CD that supermarket can no longer sell the CD. Piracy is intellectual theft which in my opinion shouldn't be classed as theft at all. I'm stealing their right to be the sole producer of that game which is an entirely different kettle of fish.
Put another way, for every 1,000 pirated copies we eliminated, we created 1 additional sale.and, yeah, it's not a real study...
Why are you downloading a copy if you know you would never purchase the piece software?Because it might be worth playing as a freeware game but not as a commercial one? For example, I wouldn't purchase an EA sequel if my life depended on it, because it's more of a minor update than a sequel (or a downright downgrade), but if they distributed it free, I wouldn't mind at least trying it. The case is similar for some in case of piracy, there's a certain threshold for quality versus price for some people and they might settle for a game of lesser quality, but only if it's free (even if it does mean breaking the law) or really cheap. Hence why the heavy weekend discounts are becoming more and more popular.
So the moment you download a pirated copy, that's a lost sale RIGHT THERE.Piracy doesn't translate to lost sales 1:1. That's publishers' wishful thinking, which really fucking backfired when they tried applying hard to crack but also intrusive DRM (read Starforce) to "regain" those mythical lost sales. The only thing Starforce and the likes changed was that legitimate customers had problems and pirates simply waited longer. I'm not saying there aren't any pirates who would buy a game if they couldn't pirate it, but they're definately not the majority.
That's theft.
Ok, i figured this was the right place to put this topic so-
What do you think of pirating?
Personally, i have to rant a bit. I believe that the company should sell their game however they see fit, even though i do dislike it sometimes, i dont go to the low of pirating. If you just payed $60 dollars for a crap game, it was the companys choice to make the (Crap)game sell for 60, even though almost all new games cost that much. If you feel like you were cheated out of your money, why dont you read online reviews/the back of the case first? I hate pirating, so.
On a side note, i believe the pirate bay got purchased by a swedish telemarketer company
Hey, let me say it again!
I am not supporting piracy, also I am not supporting big companies which do whatever they please with their "protection", while they break laws trying to trojan my system.
So both sides are wrong. Whichever side you pick, you've evil. Play indie games :D.
there was a study done with some online game, where the developers included better copy protection with new updates. Basically per every 1000 people who would suddenly stop appearing afterwards (it is assumed they were the pirates) sales went up about 10 copies (or 20, I don't remember precisely).
So as a baseline we can say you are cheating the big companies out of about a dollar (on average) every time you pirate. for shame!
It's unfortunate when the reality is, they all love games and take a lot of risks producing games and supporting developers.(http://epc.ucsc.edu/cosmos/Disc%20Images/ea.jpg)
It's simple: Give a server-side benefit.
You can control server-side content, but not client-side.
Allow users to see who is properly authenticated with a unique ID, though don't block authed-nonauthed user games entirely, otherwise regular users will switched to the pirated versions so they can play with the larger crowd.
Rather, release frequent updates that affect the code, and prevent out-of-date versions from plaing at all, that way, the pirate players will always lag behind at least an hour, and the hassle of updating/completely retorrenting every week will be the penalty for getting to play online. Naturally, someone will develop an updater for the pirated version, but unless they are supergeniuses, there will always be at least a 10-minute cut out for all pirated versions before they can release the unofficial patch.
Give neat features such as profiles and profile-actions server-side maybe linking a forum profile to the in-game profile to unlock bonus content such as a user forum section for each game that is read-only for non-purchasers, and allow people to create threads/topics about a server with an in-forum link and status indicator. This will be considered a very neat feature, and allow server mods an easy way to allow playtesting by letting users read everything and join without having to find the server out of the list of hundreds.
Piracy should be encouraged and discouraged at the same time, so that rather than blocking pirated versions entirely and installing invasive DRM, users who can prove themselves to be using a legitimate unmodified game are rewarded.
As a bonus, give out a free demo that can join servers but not create them and doesn't quit after the first hour, and then when an update comes out it will be BETTER than the pirated hacked versions for the first hour(s), and as a bonus, players who cannot afford the game can still play!
If the game doesn't even require a CD to play, but simply blocks more than one player from using a single key online, LAN games will be easier.
To fight pirates, don't use DRM, use server-monitored features!
ever heard of the word "cracked server"?
ever heard of the word "cracked server"?
EA don't make games, or at least not many. They provide the investment and marketing for other studios to make a game (Maxis, in the case of Spore, for example). You might say the studio is automatically evil for taking EA's tainted money, but then again...
They can crack the master-server, with all it's unreleased code, and few even getting the program itself?
Sure, the game server included with the game can be cracked, but can they create an up-to-date master-server with even some of the features the official one is?
Can they keep it up-to-date with updates?
Can they integrate it with the official forums?
Most of those are no, unlikely, and probably not.
They can host a cracked game, but few people would care to even try to recreate it, much less have access ot the kind of computing cluster and extreme internet connection to host one.
EA don't make games, or at least not many. They provide the investment and marketing for other studios to make a game (Maxis, in the case of Spore, for example). You might say the studio is automatically evil for taking EA's tainted money, but then again...Publishers have amazing control over what the game looks like. Especially if the publisher provides majority of the funding (as they do with most games).
Why are you downloading a copy if you know you would never purchase the piece software?No your wrong, I don't buy many games because I don't have a job. I don't have a job because in my mind the advantages (lots of free time) outweigh the disadvantages. (No spending money except what I scrounge off my mum.) Now lets place this example for a second in a world without piracy, I would still feel this way, I can get all the games I really want simply from birthday/christmas presents. So my choice not to buy games is not made because I can get them for free but rather because I don't view the effort required on my part to buy them as worthwhile. Now if you introduce piracy to the picture all of a sudden I can play games that I otherwise wouldn't even consider. And sometimes it turns out I like it a lot and then I normally ensure that I gain a legal copy. So the net result of my piracy is a gain for great games and no loss for anything else.
Because you want to get it for free.
err... so what you are saying is that if they made bug fixes (like developers should), the new customers were all (most?) new users? And piracy prevention doesn't lead to new sales at all? :-\there was a study...For such a study to be meaningful the devs would have to touch nothing but the DRM. Have they added features, expanded the content, fixed bugs, etc, along with or between the fixes? Doesn't say, and if they had then it's fairly obvious where the increase in popularity came from.
QuoteIt's unfortunate when the reality is, they all love games and take a lot of risks producing games and supporting developers.
Are you SURE?
Yes, when companies use antipiracy and such they are just trying to make money that is rightfully theirs. If you don't like the game, don't buy it. Still, you're too extreme to assume that large corporations are never assholes. At least piracy isn't invading other people's property or privacy like some trojan programs do, although you could say that stealing risks as much damage to the victim's assets.
Of course, in a perfect world no-one would pirate and there would be no DRMs. If there were better ways to prevent piracy, maybe that would mean less trojans. Of course, I'm sure the fancy software was (they thought) better than whatever came before.
Look, whether you like EA or think EA is full of assholes the fact remains, they invest in games. Without that investment, developers can't make and distribute the games in the first place.
They are still the good guys.
To offset this serious post, some comic relief:um... we kind of had that video in this thread already. same exact link too. ;D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALZZx1xmAzg&NR=1&feature=fvwp
Damn, sorry. The topic was kinda longish...To offset this serious post, some comic relief:um... we kind of had that video in this thread already. same exact link too. ;D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALZZx1xmAzg&NR=1&feature=fvwp
If you need the internet to acess the game then thats worse then needing the disk, the disk you can carry around.
The best anti-piracy measure I know is Unreal World <...> it's cheap enough.that is incredibly true. Games are overpriced. In Latvia a typical legit-game-with-case-and-manual costs about 75$. You might say that that's what it costs to make a game, but that is really a problem of mismanagement. It costs about as much to make a Hollywood blockbuster, but DVDs are 9.99$ a piece, right?. Also Independent developers sell games (which are comparable to some of what the big names sell) for some 10-20$ (and you can look up the statistics those 15$ games are pirated way less).
(and you can look up the statistics those 15$ games are pirated way less).*Flies into thread*
Heh, and most of the people who argue on the side of piracy just want to justify getting something for nothing. If only the average person were so passionate about other things :P
that's exactly what I'm talking about: World of Goo is sold for 7 times more money then UnReal World does. and so it has 90% piracy rate.