Denuvo 5.6 (used in Metro Exodus) got cracked in 5 days
187 replies, posted
So, ultimately you just don't want to pay for games. If it's about greed and morality, certainly you wouldn't then even pirate games, right? Since the product is result of that greed in the industry and nothing changes, except you get that product for no cost.
This just isn't true - in this case, a DRM-free indie game hit tens of thousands of downloads within a month after release. Piracy isn't going to become more prevalent with corporate greed because it's already become prevalent based entirely on consumer greed.
Let me ask you this when has fighting greed with greed every worked out?
Because the argument isn't about what causes piracy!
There are tons of ways to entertain yourself. You're not ENTITLED to the game. If you can't afford it, tough, but it's not a right or something you need. It's the same kind of argument like "I can't afford this expensive jacket, so I'll just steal it cause I want a nice jacket.". I'm aware piracy isn't directly stealing, but this reeks of entitlement. Go make your own games instead.
I think piracy is a good way to boycott a game. Not buying it goes unnoticed and market research parts of the company will just go to their high ups and go "lol, guess no one wanted this game at all", At least with piracy, it shows people want the game.
If it wasn't for piracy with shit like Napster and Limewire, you think shit like Spotify and Google Music would exist? The music industry would still be selling songs $1 per song on iTunes if people refused to just buy and never pirate.
Hell, piracy might help the Anime streaming industry, which is lagging behind on features, has issues, and doesn't want to improve since nothing wants to compete other than buying exclusivity
https://youtu.be/y4nHOABMEns
The person who even made this, gave all the money he was spending on streaming services to a charity for housing young animators which didn't look like it was going to get its funding this year.
Nah, it hasn't. I'm just calling it out. It doesn't really matter what I call it. Entitlement is just the fucking definition of the logic you keep applying to why you pirate.
I don't actually agree with Mattk50 because his argument can be applied to any creative work. A game is a product and it's a fact that it needs money to be developed. I don't think the public is right to feel entitled.
You must of skimmed over my post then if you really don't know what I am referring to, here I can help you
I'm not defending anyone. Maybe you should take a reading class.
1. It doesn't cost billions. So what? What does that have to do with anything? "It doesn't cost billions, therefore I should get it for free."
2. The public isn't entitled to art. Do you also think all museums have to be free? Mattk50 isn't automatically right just cause he wrote long post with big words. Even if the public inspired art, that doesn't give them a carte blanche on enjoying said art for free. That's just ridiculous. A piece of clothing is also art, should I just be allowed to grab it out of the store? No. So why do we pretend games (or other art) are exempt?
3. A game is a product. A product costs money. Not wanting to pay for the game and instead arguing that you should be allowed to enjoy it for free is bullshit. If everyone did that, there would be no game. How can't you see that? Your money funds development. No money? No development.
"Morality is dumb because it does not benefit me"
You are never entitled to somebody else's labor for free. Even in instances of, say, a government appropriating a lifesaving vaccine that was being withheld from the general public, the creator should still be paid for one core reason; labor has intrinsic value. If you're benefiting from labor for free, you are actively committing societal ill. In some cases, it's way more directly damaging than others (stealing vs pirating) but both are undeniably bad.
Someone else put in the work. If you want to morally grandstand, you can't also use the product. You can pirate it, do the slightly immoral act, and be done with it, but you can't do it and then also claim m oral superiority since you're literally doing something just as bad if not worse than what they did.
"you're literally doing something just as bad if not worse than what they did"
Are you kidding me? Some people pirating the game is worse that what DeepSilver and Epic Games has done?
If you look at the individual acts and direct results and normalize it for scale, yes
Microtransactions, DLCs, paid mods, non functional games, stupid "pre-releases", 10 different editions of a game, etc.
All of that was thanks to these kind anti-cosumer decisions by these companies over the past years.
What changes of the game industry has happened thanks to pirates that fucked costumers?
Those things are absolutely not the result of deals like this, and "effects on the gaming industry for consumers" is an absolutely awful way to judge morality and impacts of an action.
I was saying that the action, normalized for scale, is just as bad; i.e, compare what they did vs them not paying a developer at all for work that they did.
So? The big guys are Epic Games and DeepSilver, his decisions are what fucked everyone in the end of the day. Also, maybe thanks to these exclusivity deal, now in the future a store without reviews or forums becomes the norm. So yeah, those things are result of deals like this.
Clothing is more like the sandwich in my example, it's a consumable good first and has artistic elements second, a better example would be a pattern for a shirt being shared online and made by tailors around the country. As you point out, some museams that don't get gov funding do charge for entry to maintain the space, looking at a painting can cost some small amount in that sense. But, the cost of piracy really is zero, those edge cases where money is needed to keep the lights next to the painting on don't apply when the art is instantly reproducable and sharable independently and with no cost to the original artist.
The notable point is that people are already funding the game, when those people still can't access it on reasonable terms then i don't think there's much of an ethical dilemma with piracy. The most clear example is people in countries where games aren't sold, maybe someone there wants to experience a specific culturally relevant piece of art, should they stop being so "entitled" and simply sit content with whichever pieces of art they're deemed allowed to view? Kind of a shitty world that creates, no cultural cross contamination unless it's artist sanctioned, i guess. While a country with no legal way to acquire a game is the easiest example of something being inaccessible on your own terms, you can see how it might form a spectrum with other barriers. Instead of needing to take a plane or moving, you need to support a specific business practice you don't like or install software you don't trust for whatever reason, and that's even with being willing to pay. At some point it's really not ethically wrong to pirate something, it depends on the motivation really.
Meanwhile, while companies are wagging their finger at pirates, they don't reinvest their money into more, better games. Instead we have fewer AAA games as companies have figured out that maximizing marketing budget for a single mediocre short dev cycle game is the best way to maximize profit, look at what EA has done with star wars since aquiring an exclusive license. Not only that, but they comprimise the art with shitty grind and monetization models to try to squeeze as much unneccassarry dosh out of people as possible with gambling systems and gamifying spending, this is a much bigger ethical problem than piracy which again, does nothing. To top off the shit, if copyright was fair rather than companies paying extensions into place, the original trilogy would be public domain by this point and we'd be getting likely hundreds of high quality games by a wide variety of fans, indies and full studios. Society builds on society, it's just really important to remember that derivative works aren't "stealing someone's hard work", it's the natural course of things, anyone who doesn't admit they are building on the shoulders of giants is a self important shit for brains, current artists need to avoid copyright law in particular but otherwise culture continues to build on itself, and of course for derivative works to exist the first step would be seeing the thing in the first place.
What about designer clothing? Clothing where artistic elements come first? Should they be public property? Games are a consumable good as well by your logic. Their main point is to entertain. It's true that games are more art heavy than your basic boxer-short from Walmart or whatever, but is something being primarily art a good reason for it to be public property?
There's more costs to art. Don't forget about stuff like conservative work (like retouching) and security. Aside from that, artists need to get paid too.
This hasn't been proven. Neither has been proven that piracy does cost money. That's because it's near-impossible to quantify. I understand that piracy may even be beneficial. Nevertheless, I think it's unreasonable to expect all forms of piracy to be committed in cases where a sale wouldn't have happened anyway. Either way, I've specifically not tried to argue this point. All I'm arguing is that you're not automatically entitled to get a game for free simply because you disagree with the publisher. Regardless of whether piracy is bad, whether it causes damage or anything really - I fundamentally disagree with this kind of entitlement.
I can agree with this but with a limited condition. Define 'reasonable terms'. If it's impossible to legally acquire a game, I think it's ethically fine to pirate. It's proven in this case that nobody is hurt in the process. Non-valid issues: a payment error (this can be sorted out), game not available locally (order online or buy physically elsewhere), the publisher is evil (don't play the game - you don't NEED to play it).
I have no qualms with pirating a game that cannot be legally played in your current country. Same with movies, comics, music, anything. Nevertheless, we should work towards making these products available in the first place. I do have an ethical issues with the companies in Asia that basically sell illegal games on markets. I see that as a form of unfair competition.
This is where I disagree. I'll tackle these examples case-by-case.
Having to give up a week's salary
Save small amounts of money so you can afford the game later. If that's not an option, pool money together with friends and play in turns. I understand that a pirate without money would normally not buy the game anyway, but I don't think it's inaccessible if they really wanted it.
Maybe you'd need to support a specific business practice you don't like or install software you don't trust for whatever reason
Tough, your only justifiable option is to not play the game. Personal ethical dilemmas are not a good excuse for piracy. You're still ethically in the wrong if you pirate because you don't like the DRM. Don't like the publisher/developer/store/proprietor? Don't use their product. Nobody requires you to do so.
The key point is that you don't NEED a game. That's why I use the word 'entitled'. There are things you need, like food and water. I don't have a problem with stealing those if you're in dire need and have exhausted all other avenues. As it stands, games are a 'luxury' product. Their status as art shouldn't suddenly relieve people of ethical issues with piracy.
I absolutely agree, the game industry commits more and more scummy acts. But that's not the point I'm refuting. You don't fight ethical problems with ethical problems. This isn't some kind of karma system. "Publishers do bad therefore I'm allowed to do bad" isn't much of an excuse. To repeat, I understand piracy isn't a clear-cut problem (we don't know if it's totally bad or good) - but there's still potential ethical issues with it. Considering the status of games as something you don't completely need, I don't think you're automatically ethically just in pirating because the other party isn't ethically just. I think you get my point.
Yeah, that'd be great. I strongly believe that the current copyright, trademark and patent systems are outdated.
I'm sure that point isn't directed at me, but I naturally agree that derivative work isn't stealing. I'm a little confused as your original arguments seemed to pose that the public is entitled to experience art on their own terms because the public had a hand in funding it (I'm paraphrasing of course). Are you saying that I'm entitled to experience derivative work of my own 'work' on my own conditions? If that's what you're saying, do you believe it's just that people claim YouTube video revenue in the case of fair use? For example: a movie publisher claiming the revenue of a movie review video. I'm not sure if that's what you're insinuating, so I'd like you to clarify.
are you calling me, a pirate who downloaded this game, greedy because i refused to let the publisher screw me over? i want to support the developers for creating something i very much love, but if i were to buy it from the epic store, i'd be showing the publisher i support their bullshit regardless, and i very much don't
if they didn't do this, i wouldn't have pirated metro exodus, but they did it anyway. that's not healthy competitive practice, and i don't support it
The benchmark for DRM success is 1 month, and in the case of games launching outside of a major sales season (like Metro Exodus launching in late February) it's considered success to stay unbroken until after the next major sales season.
if something is provided for you on a specific platform that you don't like, and you hate the platform, sure, but that's not a justification for pirating the game. it's still piracy, and everything that comes with it.
How many cracked titles is required for Blaukovich to fuck off with his bloatware already?
Based off of experiances, when the game releases on steam, people who pirate it now might actually end up buying it again, most likely when it's on a discount.
People that pirate games just to get it for free where never going to buy your game anyway. However, this doesn't stop people that actually feel like buying the game from doing so.
Kid Dev Timmy gave some good insight into this, because they treat it well with Euro Truck Sim. Piracy is actually a pretty big gateway to their game, but because they update it very frequently, people, like myself, initially pirate it, and then pick it up legally down the line. Same goes for skyrim, (buy it again), but I did the same thing for that when the workshop was introduced.
In contrast, Using G2A or other markets, people now own your game, without any of the developers seeing any money.
Piracy is in theory more ethical then a grey market.
People morally crusading while pirating games literally think they are entitled to playing a game and that's just sad.
The fact it has Denuvo is enough of a reason to pirate it. Yeah fuck off, I'm not paying for something that I'll probably lose access to in a decade or two once the DRM service/servers shut down because the devs were too lazy to remove it. Can't believe devs/publishers think this kind of stuff is a good idea.
Steam is more than enough for DRM
Seems like this discussion on piracy is going in circles around morality.
Among the ethicacy of piracy I'd wager the people who pirate purely out of personal greed and entitlement.
I got insight from a video where propagandist brainlet Tucker Carlson was trying shift blame of corporations only providing unethical choices to the consumers as a problem that consumers have to change and acting extremely dumbfounded when his guest tried explaining that the consumers have little power and the changes have to come from a legistlative level to make the corporations provide ethical choices and that Carlson's vision for a fix only works in a libertarian utopia.
Piracy is a side effect of people either not being able to afford the games, being denied service, fixed pricing causing disagreements of value and paying customers being shafted.
The first one is self explanatory.
And I, among others have touched the first one, but I'll chime in with some anecdotes:
In my teenage years I tried to buy the first Assassin's Creed via retail, but was denied due to age restrictions and I pirated other games or received pirated copies from my friends because we didn't have cards open for online purchases. But to this day I have purchased many of the games that pirated in my youth.
Now with the fixed pricing and consumer shafting we are coming into interesting territory.
The AAA-industry has held on to the fixed price range of 60$/€, whether the game be a linear shooter or an open world multi hour genre mixer, the fixed pricing makes it difficult for the customers to judge whether they're getting their moneys worth with the product, a problem which has especially been compounded by the AAA market cutting and splitting content into separate editions, often making it so that there is no way to actually receive all in-game content other than piracy.
Which brings us to the shafting, now I used to be and still am a huge fan of the old Assassin's Creed title's, each release I bought a special edition up til Black Flag.
But when I first noticed that I was getting shafted was with AC Revelations. Now I really like in-game cosmetics in 3rd person games and with AC Revelations, Ubisoft split the cosmetic costumes into different special editions exclusive to different retailers and to my dismay I only got my least favorite armor of the whole series as an outfit.
But the slap to the dick came when my friend who pirated it got all the outfits and more extra missions than I did.
And not only that, but with AC2 for example those that pirated it get to play it offline and with AC2, Brotherhood and Revelations; those that pirated it can freely mod the textures with Texmod.
Not to mention AC2 and other games with always online DRM.
AAA publishers have created an environment where paying customers know they would have received a better product if they didn't spend their money and pirated instead. Yet still the publishers wonder why people are pirating their games.
literally no one is trying to bring this "muh morals" discussion except the "waaah piracy bad" people.
No one pirating could give a single fuck and no one's better than anyone for not doing so. The effect of a person downloading a crack is so minuscule that it's grey at worst, it has the exact same end result as not buying into the game at all. Like people have said, grey market sites and refund tests do more direct damage to the developers than a pirate download ever could. There are even indie devs that support your choice to pirate, often times you'll see them in comments thanking people.
He made a cogent and very precise argument that successfully offers a good counterpoint to your logic, and your only response is "Nah brah, what I believe is right, agree or leave"???
If that's what you boil pages of discussion down to, I don't think we're going to have a good discussion here. I've previously explained that piracy isn't bad nor good because we can't prove the effects.
None of this matters. The discussion was about the entitlement towards art/games, and supposedly being in the right for pirating a game if you don't like the publisher's actions. The discussion isn't about whether piracy is damaging. If you had read the thread and not simply done a hot-take here, you would have known that.
That's exactly what I'm saying, when are you gonna stop?
irony is fucking palpable here, the word morals is literally in the post I'm responding to
this whole thing started off of someone not knowing what understandable means and pretending Zeb is being righteous. I read the entire thread, you seem to have just came into the middle of it. The entitlement shit is just as stupid and basically warrants the exact same response as morals. Nothing is being demanded or taken away. They're not being entitled.
Don't talk about reading when you're not only not reading any of the context of the thread but the contexts of posts you're responding to
If the whole point of DRM is to prevent piracy for the first few days, and piracy afterwards is "no big deal", then why don't publishers simply remove it after that delay and spare their legitimate customers the hassle of having to deal with DRM-related limitations?
the good ones actually do remove denuvo after a bit
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