Has anyone in this discussion on the pirate side ever written something creative, had it copied illegally, and thoght 'well, gee. it's okay because i suck at what i do anyway and i provide terrible service'?

I didn't think so.

has anyone on the pirate side ever written a book that would sell, composed a song that would sell, or done anything remarkably creative and original? I actually want to know this because my belief is that you are all retarded. I need to know. Is it simple stupidity that drives someone to believe piracy is okay? I'm not being sarcastic at all. Really. Who is the smartest pirate among you?

Have you ever been shafted by an asshole selling you faulty software that didn't work on your computer that more than met the requirements, was never fixed, and couldn't be returned?

Some developers have no business coding software, most publishers have no business publishing it. I've been bitten so many times I don't ever buy a brand new game now. The sole exception is Stardock, I'll even pre-order from them. The reviewers lie more often than not, you can't even trust them to just leave out everything they didn't notice or play long enough to see. Most of them are so lazy you wouldn't be able to recognize the game from having played it if you redacted all the identifying labels. Functional demos are downright rare these days. Even here, you had to wait weeks to try Sins legitimately. In their favor, it was actually a real demo instead of the scripted bullshit first campaign mission they're sending out for the typical RTS these days. Patience is a virtue very few people have. To not get screwed, you often have to wait weeks after a game has come out for the shit to hit the fan.

Music has the radio, motion pictures have TV previews, and since good demos are no longer the in thing to do, software has piracy. A sensible reason to pirate before you buy, if technically illegal.

Let's not forget just how badly a bugged copy protection can ruin it for the legit players. Remember, kids, all software is buggy unless it has no budget (say medical real-time software where death is a reality if a bug shows up). The gaming industry has proven that nicely. So developers who use this FADE protection are pretty much guaranteeing that some small minority of people who paid for it are getting a sub-quality game.

This is why games like Titan Quest die - the company screws over legit users, while pirates (eventually) are able to get the crack just right.

As for this topic, it should probably be closed. It's clear the original poster just wants another pointless flame war (and has gotten his wish).

Also: http://www.gameburnworld.com/protections_fade.shtml

Note that while cracking the game isn't an option, making a CD image via Daemon Tools or Alcohol 120% is. So once again, the pirates have a good solution, and a legit minority of users have been given the shaft.

I'm glad I only buy Steam and Stardock stuff.

Yeah. Yeah I have. I write historical fiction and yes I was plagiarized way back in High School and it was pretty awful, especially considering the piece was given an NCTE award. Get off your high horse.

I think you should stop putting your foot in your mouth now.

According to their THQ publisher, that is why IronLore recently closed their doors.

Too bad, the Titan Quest games were OK.

WWW Link

~ Wyndstar

Before I bought my PC, I've spent quite some time getting in touch with latest technological achievements in IT industry, studying prices, quality of products and such. As the result I got the best configuration I could have got for the money I had on me. When I was buying my fridge, I've spent time comparing volume, durability and power consumation of engine, quality of material used etc. The result was that I got the best fridge I could with money I dedicated to buying of same.

I have more than 400 pirated games. I've played most of them, and for most of them I compared gameplay, storyline, requirements, price and such. That resulted in buying some of those games (even the SP games that you pass once and forget them), and now I have some 20 original games. IMHO they were all worth the money I've spent on them and for some of them I would even pay double than what I've payed.

I had pirated version of DA and ToA, but when I found out that another expansion is coming out, and when I read what beta testers said about it I decided to start saving money for buying the whole series (I'm living in "barbarian" country where life standard is between 5 and 8 times lower than in US, so I needed quite some time to get the money needed). I had pirated copy of SoSE, I passed all the maps in SP, for no apparent reason and uninstalled it... I didn't buy it and I don't have any intention to do so, it's just not something I like.

Now, piracy in my country is partly illegal (anti-piracy laws started to get implemented last year, but the process is slow). In my particular case there is no law that could allow any1 to sue me (with hope of positive outcome) for piracy. Anyway, speaking hypothetically, if I lived say in US I would still have 400 pirated games, but instead of 20 originals I would prolly have around 50 or 60 in my possession. It piracy somehow stopped existing, I would have 0 pirated games, and I would prolly have less than 5 original games in my possession, since there is no way in hell that I give someone my hard earned money before I know all the facts about the product I'm buying. What I'm saying is that in my case I didn't cost legal industry a dime, since I wouldn't buy their products if the choice was to buy or not to have at all, in fact, piracy only helped industry... again I'm pointing out I'm speaking only in my own name.

About FADE protection, it was extremly amusing when I read about it on this thread, and I intend to buy Operation Flashpoint ASAP just because of amazing originality of DRM. I do have the pirated game already, but alas, I wasn't aware of FADE part of equasion until now .

Last, IDK how or why do people like to feed trolls... It is proven fact that trolls feed on attention... I mean when you see someone called "Sly Drivel" you can't really expect anything intelligent coming out of his fingers....
That being said, all of those saying piracy is evil and whatnot rubbish and those saying piracy is great and it should be more present should get poles and meet up with each other on a field, and discuss their differences there, and let the normal people hope that not one of them survives the confrontation. NOTHING is black and white, everything is more or less gray.

Personally I find piracy far less acceptable for games then for say...songs or TV shows. I still have yet to pirate any software other then earlier versions of photoshop (what 15 year old high school student is going to have 600 dollars to pony up for version 6?), it just makes a lot less sense then buying the game especially after direct2drive and stardocks impulse make it way easier to install and play normally. The bane of my PC playing existence is losing CDs and needing them in the drive to play. There is nothing that annoys me more then being punished for the sins of hackers.

As far as buying games goes I see no valid argument for complete piracy. In the case of a song the argument can be made that nothing is REALLY being stolen, I mean what, 4 guys singing and playing instruments for a few hours in a studios is worth 15 dollars? Please. I still usually pay for music (especially with small bands) but the argument against piracy is not particularly strong since the product is so cheap to produce. To anyone who won't make music unless they're paid millions good riddance.

Alternately even a small game developer (perhaps especially a small game developer) spends millions on any decent game. Even galactic civ 2 which didn't spend tens of millions of dollars on render farms and high end textures still cost a good deal of money and time from dozens of workers. Even small company indy games cost millions to make, gone are the days of AOL shareware where two guys could make a functional current game for a few hundred bucks in their spare time. While I can say Metalica is silly for suing its fans over not paying 15 bucks for a few hours of their time I strongly believe it is completely correct for software providers to be angered about piracy especially if they are charging a fair price for their product. There is a much higher connection with quality out and money in with games, music can be made on the cheap in a garage, decent to good games can't anymore.

I do think the cure is worse then the disease however, I absolutely hate DRM in all its forms, especially CD checks and regularly have to crack my own purchased software because using it the "correct" way is so much of a chore. I hope that the future is more like Impulse where you can download, and more importantly redownload, games as often as you want and on as many computers as you want (which is important considering I have 3 I use regularly, all of which can run Gal Civ 2). My only worry is that eventually the service folds and I'm left with the rights to a lot of games I can no longer download.

Of course the easiest DRM of all comes from creating a compelling online experience that is unplayable without a unique purchased CD key. Perhaps there are ways around it where people can play something like Diablo 2 or whatever online without a unique copy, but in theory that's the best future for non DL service DRM. Whatever is done the most important aspect is not making it harder for the honest consumers to use what they paid for; to be honest the pirates will get their stuff for free no matter what, its infinitely easier to crack a lock then design one and every penny spent on clever DRM to be hacked within a week could be spent better tweaking AI or updating textures. I love stardocks approach with Gal Civ 2, Political Machine and Sins of a Solar Empire, I've installed all of them on multiple machines in minutes and they all run flawlessly, if only more companies wrote off the pirates as non sales and just made games easy to install and use like Stardock.


One thing I forgot to add is a semi valid reason for piracy. Buying a game is a BIG investment even for most semi well off 50-80k making families. Even if you make that much with taxes, mortgage payments, car payments, gas, food ect ect ect truly disposable income is seldom above a few hundred dollars a month for most in the gaming demographic (18-mid 30s). That means that there are really only 10-20 games which anyone can purchase in a given year for full price. That is where rentals come in (and no demos are not the same). For games I know will be good I just take the plunge and buy it sight unseen (Metal Gear Solid 4 for instance) but for others I'm not sure about, say Persona 3 for the PS2, I will rent and then decide. Often that works very well since some games like, for example, Ninja Gaiden 2 are not even in the same league with expectations so by renting it for 7 dollars I saved 50 in not buying it's horribleness. With PC games there is really no such option. I bought Gal Civ 2 solely on positive word of mouth (and from playing political machine, which was great) but I would have bought way sooner if I could have played it for real a few years ago. I don't see why there isn't an option for PC game rentals where one pays say 10 dollars which can be applied to the cost of the full game and gets either a set number of full games or a set number of days to try not a small limited demo, but the full game rental style. Like the guy above said to many piracy ends up being the rental market for games, it would seem prudent to have a more legitimate rental model as it would encourage testing of non hyped games at a much greater rate. I know I would have bought Gal Civ years ago if I had known how great it was in 2006 form a real rental demo.

THQ is why Iron Lore failed.

1.They forced them to release their game before it was finishd.
2.They then refused to allocate money for patches to fix the issues with Titan Quest.
3.They then refused to provide funding to Iron Lore for further games.

THQ compromised Iron Lore's artistic integrity, they compromised their works and then they bled them dry.

The fact that an employee of THQ, acting in an official capacity, shows such contempt for their customers should speak volumes about their business tactics and ethics as a whole.

The end result is that I'll never buy another THQ product again.

I see. You stole your way to success. And you've admitted you're a pirate. I'd like to see something you've done. Why not take this opportunity to advertise? Although, I'm pretty sure I liked what you wrote better when George Lucas wrote it and it was called Star Wars.

OM NOM NOM NOM NOM.
I taste good.

Interestingly, he meant to say "stop shooting yourself in the foot" or perhaps "put a foot in your mouth". If I already had one there, I wouldn't be talking. See, that's what happens when you try to take too much from other people at one time. I am curious about him though. He spends time making something and doesn't care about taking the work of others. Maybe it's really because he's never actually created a thing in his life.

Oh, but we've already been over this so many times. You're not even trying and you're not even good. There's really no reason I should spend time on you, except pointing finger and laughing.

Fact is, I just taste so damn good.
Now go away, little troll. Nothing to see here, except delicious cheesecaek.

Is this the average American mind? Are we really that stupid as a whole?

on second thought, I will not feed the trolls

NOM NOM NOM

Delicious caek