Piracy? or Try before you buy? - General

[QUOTE=King Tiger;36780014]I understand exactly what he said. Before that quote though, he said h found it funny that people tried to distinguish between "types of pirates" and try to justify themselves. He then went on to give an explanation of why his pirating was OK. He's a hypocrite.[/QUOTE] His piracy is "I pirated your game, the end". He's tired of hearing people justifying why it's ok to pirate. He doesn't think it's ok, he just doesn't give a fuck, and people should just leave it at that and keep pirating without saying it's ok because this and that.

I dont tend to pirate games, but when I do I either own the game already e.g. I downloaded oblivion for pc because I own it on xbox360, I downloaded Sonic aventure DX because I own it on gamecube and xbox360 and sonic heros for pc because I have it on ps2. I also pirated skyrim, but only played the first 10 mins of it, as a try before you buy, I plan on buying it soon.

I have bought more games on Steam Sales than I've ever pirated, infact I've bought a ton of games on sales that I wouldn't even bother pirating in the first place.

[QUOTE=Im Crimson;36781495]Oh there's no shortage of those, got a few more here: [B]Tages [/B]- Obscure DRM which I encountered after buying STALKER: Clear Sky. Online activation was required to play, and the Tages activation servers were down for 48 hours. When it failed to activate it just handed me a generic error meaning I had to contact Steam support to find out why I couldn't play my game. It also has an activation limit, meaning I can only install it a few times before I need to buy a new copy. [B]Games for Windows Live[/B] - DRM client that, like Steam, manages your games and acts like a store. It launches the game for you, handles updates and work through an in-game overlay. It's cumbersome to run and prone to deliver confusing error messages, often locking you out of your games thanks to an update that won't install or because it doesn't like your router. You're forced to constantly download big client updates in order to log in, and you need to stay logged in in order to save your singleplayer progress, even. [B]SecuROM[/B] - DRM software that imposes activation limits. There has been reports of lots of software- and hardware incompatibility that requires work-arounds, and the program even goes as far in violating your personal integrity as stopping you from launching the game if it detect you have certain software installed that could potentially be used in copyright infringement (such as drive emulation tools). This whole approach of piracy prevention reeks of anti-consumerism and it's not hard to imagine why some people just don't want to deal with this.[/QUOTE] First of all, I've never encountered any issues with Games for Windows Live, but I guess some others may have. Yet, that only adds up to four "shoddy DRM" sources you can mention. "I'm asking you to [B]prove that DRM is a major cause of piracy[/B] because it makes the game too hard to play or something like that. [QUOTE=dgg;36784703]His piracy is "I pirated your game, the end". He's tired of hearing people justifying why it's ok to pirate. He doesn't think it's ok, he just doesn't give a fuck, and people should just leave it at that and keep pirating without saying it's ok because this and that.[/QUOTE] He did try to justify it though. That's the hypocritical part. He said: [QUOTE=POLOPOZOZO;36771058]That's wonderful the reality is they make huge profits and will continue to do so without your "support" and call me whatever you want but it makes sense to me to spend the money on something of greater importance than an intangible expression of ideas to keep yourself amused for a few hours.[/QUOTE] That's a justification. He's gave a reason for why his piracy is OK. I find it funny because he was bashing others in this thread for doing the same thing.

That isn't a reason for why piracy is ok that's a reason for why I don't like spending money on those things. My entire argument is that there is no ok reason for piracy and if you do it just do it and don't tack on some qualification phrases.

I pirate games and I don't care if it's wrong. fuq da polis

One of my friends pirated the first episode of Telltale's Walking Dead, and he loved it. What did he do when the second episode was released? Pirated it as well. And yes, he has plenty of money. That's being a cheap bastard.

[QUOTE=King Tiger;36793795]First of all, I've never encountered any issues with Games for Windows Live, but I guess some others may have. Yet, that only adds up to four "shoddy DRM" sources you can mention. "I'm asking you to [B]prove that DRM is a major cause of piracy[/B] because it makes the game too hard to play or something like that.[/QUOTE] Gabe Newell, founder of Valve says quite a few things on the topic, namely... "Prior to entering the Russian market, we were told that Russia was a waste of time because everyone would pirate our products. Russia is now about to become [Steam's] largest market in Europe."

[QUOTE=InUndenial;36796617]I pirate games and I don't care if it's wrong. fuq da polis[/QUOTE] This is how it's done

[QUOTE=Zally13;36797240]Gabe Newell, founder of Valve says quite a few things on the topic, namely... "Prior to entering the Russian market, we were told that Russia was a waste of time because everyone would pirate our products. Russia is now about to become [Steam's] largest market in Europe."[/QUOTE] I'm not sure what you're trying to do by saying this. You just gave an example of DRM (Steam is a DRM) stopping piracy.

[QUOTE=King Tiger;36797563]I'm not sure what you're trying to do by saying this. You just gave an example of DRM (Steam is a DRM) stopping piracy.[/QUOTE] I guess the main difference is Steam provides more than just the DRM, it provides services as well. Which GFWL did try to implement itself, so it was more than just DRM, but it isn't anywhere near as nice as Steam to use.

I pirated Sins of a Solar Empire, then bought it because I wanted to play online.

I've yet to pirate anything so far in my life, but damn, the combination of developers straight-up lying about features and the lack of demo's for a lot of games these days is pushing me ever so slowly towards pirating it beforehand just to see what the game is really like.

[QUOTE=King Tiger;36797563]I'm not sure what you're trying to do by saying this. You just gave an example of DRM (Steam is a DRM) stopping piracy.[/QUOTE] People have a tendency to forget that Steam is DRM. But you know why? Because it doesn't act like DRM, so why should they? It doesn't impose activation limits. It maxes your download speeds without any problems. It keeps your shit organized with the library. It makes it neat and fun to run games through steam because of the achievements system that you can compare online with, tracks game time, allows you to see if your friends has the game (on steam), allows you to chat with other people even in-game with a nice clean un-interrupting interface that allows for quick access to browse web and check your achievements progress. It makes installing games a breeze as it does all the work for you. Steamworks allows your Windows games to be played on Mac as long as the developers/publishers has chosen so. It loves community interaction from everything to giving you some power over sales, affecting games directly with the Workshop, gathering and then sharing hardware statistics for everyone to see (useful to show the industry some hard facts and allow for better optimized games for those that care), and now soon Greenlight that will allow us to vote on games to get on Steam if the publishers/developers want it there. (The fact that Greenlight is even a big deal when it's basically getting games on a DRM solution rather than off says a lot about how great Steam is and how it really isn't considered as DRM). Steam also only requires a small visit online and then allows you to go offline and play your game, so it's not really always-online DRM either which is a huge deal for many. Not all games are installed in such a way that you are forced to use Steam either, you just need to go to the Common folder and start up the .exe file and voilà, DRM free, but this is generally not the case, just saying. Other DRM solutions happily force you with activation limits. Forces you to be always online (which isn't possible for everybody). Forces you to go through 3-4 windows/clicks with sluggish animations and loading between to get where you want. Loves having you sign in on this thing and then open up that and then wait for that to validate this and then you can maybe continue if it didn't crash or fail to validate for fuckall reason. The only, and I do mean only, problems with Steam is A) You can't chose where to install your games. B) Playtime isn't always tracked for some reason. C) Some have problems with offline mode.

I live in a country that is in even worse state than Russia (games are extremely cheap) economically, but retail games are more expensive than in western europe, so i either order retail from UK or buy from steam (tend to buy discounted, but i had a lot preorders)...Valve is ok, they divided europe on 2 regions, and their games are cheaper in mine region...so they are mega bros, i would probably buy gaben turd if they offer it on steam store... Last game i pirated was Space Marines and Mass Effect 3 and i never even installed them... Conclusion: Steam made me legit consumer

[QUOTE=Carne;36797197]One of my friends pirated the first episode of Telltale's Walking Dead, and he loved it. What did he do when the second episode was released? Pirated it as well. And yes, he has plenty of money. That's being a cheap bastard.[/QUOTE] One thing some pirates think is that buying a game after you pirate it is going to undo all of the bad you did. When the publishers look over the statics of who did and did not buy their game, they don't check off a list and go "Oh, customer 3,215,116 bought the game a year after he pirated it, I'm going to remove his name from the "pirate" list!"

[QUOTE=milkandcooki;36805676]One thing some pirates think is that buying a game after you pirate it is going to undo all of the bad you did. When the publishers look over the statics of who did and did not buy their game, they don't check off a list and go "Oh, customer 3,215,116 bought the game a year after he pirated it, I'm going to remove his name from the "pirate" list!"[/QUOTE] All the bad the pirates did?

[QUOTE=milkandcooki;36805676]One thing some pirates think is that buying a game after you pirate it is going to undo all of the bad you did. When the publishers look over the statics of who did and did not buy their game, they don't check off a list and go "Oh, customer 3,215,116 bought the game a year after he pirated it, I'm going to remove his name from the "pirate" list!"[/QUOTE] I don't think you understand the argument at all. It's the fact that it happens, and that it has always happened, and that it is no different than borrowing a book/game/movie from your friend, that it should not be looked as "lost sales" but "potential customers" instead. The number of pirated downloads does not take into account people re-downloading and not bothering to play it, or hell, not even bothering to install it. A lot of them probably only played for 1-2 hours as well thinking the game is shit and uninstalls it. The numbers dwindles down in amount from the raw statistics to effective numbers of actually stolen, played, enjoyed and still not paid.

I don't care for pirating. Of course I do it, but having a clean, unbreakable, owned version of the game is much better than having a potentially dangerous, could-be-buggy, illegal copy. A lot of the time, they require a lot of effort to get an multiplayer game work (CS:S or something), I think of it as a downgraded full copy. Sorta like how Arma 2 has Arma 2 free. (Still clean, and has multiplayer available and whatnot if I remember correctly).

I read somewhere that Australians are paying about 50% more for our games, movies and software. Until that shit gets sorted out I'm not paying for overpriced music. Unless they're an indie or local band of course.

[QUOTE=rovar;36872787]I don't care for pirating. Of course I do it, but having a clean, unbreakable, owned version of the game is much better than having a potentially dangerous, could-be-buggy, illegal copy. A lot of the time, they require a lot of effort to get an multiplayer game work (CS:S or something), I think of it as a downgraded full copy. Sorta like how Arma 2 has Arma 2 free. (Still clean, and has multiplayer available and whatnot if I remember correctly).[/QUOTE] If you're downloading the game just for the single player it's usually pretty painless. You're right about multiplayer though. It's usually worth the price because of the replay value and the legitimate setup.

[QUOTE=Splarg!;36880860]If you're downloading the game just for the single player it's usually pretty painless. You're right about multiplayer though. It's usually worth the price because of the replay value and the legitimate setup.[/QUOTE] Exactly. I mean, for games that are pirated such as the Fallout series, since it's a single player game you can bet that people will get a hold of a cracked copy. Hell, even games such as Dead Island or Borderlands where LAN is usually available, those will be downloaded so you can play with your friends via Hamachi or whatever you use.

[QUOTE=AaronTAB;36798672]I pirated Sins of a Solar Empire, then bought it because I wanted to play online.[/QUOTE] Yeah I did the exact same thing

I only download games that are too old to be found anywhere else. Other than that most games have demos, and most if not all of them are on youtube.

I pirate games and anime, but I would buy more often if my bank allowed me to make purchases from the internet and I had a full time job.

If more companies did demos like Universe Sandbox (wherein you get access to the full game but for a limited time and you can't save your progress), fewer people would pirate games as a "try before you buy". Because what happens a lot of times (I'll say from experience in downloading music), someone will pirate a game/movie/album or whatever and they'll say "ths is really good, I'm going to buy it". However, the temptation to not buy it and just continue using the pirated copy tends to be quite large.

I try before I buy because I don't like wasting money. You can't get refunds with most PC games and 50-60 bucks down the drain is quite a sum.

All the games I've pirated I've bought unless they're not good or the developer doesn't deserve my money for prostituting themselves (ref. Dice) I once sent a cheque for £30 to Volition for pirating RFG because I felt that THQ didn't deserve my money.

Pirating games... I pirate the games to play them. If the game is REALLY GOOD and i PLAY IT long enough, like Garry's Mod, I buy the game, usually, i don't.

I usually like to buy my games from steam, but I do pirate non-steam games and music that isn't on a main album release (EPs, special editions, Japan only, etc). Unless it's indie. It's like saying a fuck you to some rich pigs.