Hacking Diablo 2 was awesome Item Grabber anyone ? lol.
Anyways the writer of this article is a fool any avg user can find a torrent for any single player game and install it. (they come with instructions comeon now). Even if the game requires steam theres hacked versions of steams dll file that allows you to do this. This entire article is one fool who is as dumb as the people he thinks hes writing about.
Coyote has written a topic which quite literally is a 2d view of ship to ship piracy without the slightest regard to the 3d watery depths.
At this very moment I know of at least 10 torrent sites that have AAA games being streamed by a average of 4-6k users 24/7. I will not now say this represents a million users or some fanciful number but it is many tens of thousands at the least. The gamining companies responses to this very real money loss has been steam and various software that has ZERO impact on the ability to pirate the game for the pros who crack the games but does indeed add annoyances for the average user.
If the game is not made of cardboard or the child like refernces to burned cds (who even has a cd anymore) then this game is on the net somewhere for those who have the ability to type a simple search.
Company creates something and offers it for a price. If you don't want to pay the price don't pay for it. If you do then pay for it.
You have no leg to stand on just because you feel something should be other than what it is. You are not entitled to it.
As far as I'm concerned game companies can charge thousands for a game that takes pennies to make and that is their right.
This isn't about people being mad at the price of video games.
It's your right to say no and that's the end of it. It's not food or medicine.
oh, and it's not ok because it's illegal, because our society generally operates under the idea that acquiring something that is not yours and that you are not entitled to is "wrong".
And it doesn't matter whether the whole game companies are losing money thing is correct or not. They can ask whatever they want and you can say no.
It is not very cut and dried. I asked a simple question why is it wrong? You came up with this. In your mind it is stealing. Is it stealing any more than borrowing a DvD from a friend or recording a song off of the radio? Is that even considered stealing to you? If my friend buys the game and I borrow it, install it and play it through to the end did I just steal the game? I did just aquire the game with out buying it. There are so many examples I could give of the same basic act that people do everyday and would never be told it is wrong.
If it was cut and dried these cases would never go to court.
Your post really did not answer anything I had said. Why did you even bother to quote me?
Hacking Diablo 2 was awesome Item Grabber anyone ? lol.
Anyways the writer of this article is a fool any avg user can find a torrent for any single player game and install it. (they come with instructions comeon now). Even if the game requires steam theres hacked versions of steams dll file that allows you to do this. This entire article is one fool who is as dumb as the people he thinks hes writing about.
Coyote has written a topic which quite literally is a 2d view of ship to ship piracy without the slightest regard to the 3d watery depths.
At this very moment I know of at least 10 torrent sites that have AAA games being streamed by a average of 4-6k users 24/7. I will not now say this represents a million users or some fanciful number but it is many tens of thousands at the least. The gamining companies responses to this very real money loss has been steam and various software that has ZERO impact on the ability to pirate the game for the pros who crack the games but does indeed add annoyances for the average user.
If the game is not made of cardboard or the child like refernces to burned cds (who even has a cd anymore) then this game is on the net somewhere for those who have the ability to type a simple search.
Really? I've played monopoly, chess, risk, etc, etc, etc on the net XD Actually, it's far easier to pirate cardboard games on the net if you're really that bored. Upload an image of the board, someone can download and print it out. most people have dice and can use whatever they want as the other pieces. And if it needs cards... again, download/print lol!
As you say cheaters are a bigger roblem for the USER not the company /economics by the time people know its a cheat game they already sold all they needed to sell/could sell.
hacking and pirates are two diferent problems that dont even belong on the same list
Its like comparing trafic jams that economicly cost alot whit smokers that bring in money (tax) but might cause danger for nearby other folks.
Pirating is overblown, it happens it always has and walways will but would have bin better to dig up the few science studdies that prove that pirating actualy increases sales instead of costing money.
will always be a point of discussion untill we all walk around whit nano chips in our head and even those we might hack so we can hack acces to stuff
i have to disagree i think that cheaters actually affects the company economics. Let me explain... You buy the game then get in and get powned badly, once you leave the game because its almost unplayable you spread word that the game is full of cheaters, that Greatly demoralize further customers and in result they loose sales, maybe not in a high percentage but still considerable.
As you say cheaters are a bigger roblem for the USER not the company /economics by the time people know its a cheat game they already sold all they needed to sell/could sell.
hacking and pirates are two diferent problems that dont even belong on the same list
Its like comparing trafic jams that economicly cost alot whit smokers that bring in money (tax) but might cause danger for nearby other folks.
Pirating is overblown, it happens it always has and walways will but would have bin better to dig up the few science studdies that prove that pirating actualy increases sales instead of costing money.
will always be a point of discussion untill we all walk around whit nano chips in our head and even those we might hack so we can hack acces to stuff
i have to disagree i think that cheaters actually affects the company economics. Let me explain... You buy the game then get in and get powned badly, once you leave the game because its almost unplayable you spread word that the game is full of cheaters, that Greatly demoralize further customers and in result they loose sales, maybe not in a high percentage but still considerable.
Which only proves that people are sheep and are fully unable to make their own decisions. Some of us though, have listened to the hype whether good or bad, bought the game/cd/whatever, tried it out, and either liked it or threw it away based on our own merits. This psycologically false viewpoint has been tossed around for decades about various things. It's kind of like blaming smokers for cancer: There's no 100% solid proof, nor was there any research of its kind done before the industrial revolution which put more than just cigarette chemicals into the air. Here's research that's never been done - Put 10 smokers in a garage for 1 hour and make them chainsmoke as fast as they can during that time. Then take 10 non-smokers and stick them in the same garage for an hour with a running vehicle. Who dies faster? Should we ban cars? lol
Pretty much wrong in every way. Most multiplayer games have single player modes, and if the only thing that's protected from piracy is multiplayer aspects and MMO games, then the PC will die and only consoles will remain.
People are giving steam and its "cloud" way to much credit. Its stupidly simple to get around for single player games.
As for the whole "pirate" thing its a joke. Like the article said, for the most part everyone is buying there games. The amount of people actually going to private servers or getting pirated versions of games is really verry small compared to thoes who buy the games. The truth is though the clouds, online all the time, DRM...whatever you decide to call it is here and its not going anywhere. The reason is really simple. Regardless of how much complaining the gaming community does the majority still buy the games. So why would a company stop doing it when it only costs them maybe a couple hundred copies purchased compared to the hundred of thousands or millions of copies they will sell regardless.
Pretty much wrong in every way. Most multiplayer games have single player modes, and if the only thing that's protected from piracy is multiplayer aspects and MMO games, then the PC will die and only consoles will remain.
you can just as easily download and burn games for consoles as you can the PC.
Ahh I remember the good old days of being a broke teenager.. The piles and piles of pirated games / music / movies sitting around on my self and bookshelf. Pirating was so useful back then.. I could play all the newest games even though I could never afford them...
Now I am an adult and dropping 50-60 bucks once or twice a month for a brand new legit game I can play online is nothing.. Pirating isnt even worth the time it takes to download and burn it and hope you can get it working..
And I always pay for really good indie games.. I would rather pirate an EA game then the newest hit indie rpg or something.. You know, you really do vote with your wallet and I want to see small indie devs take more risks and put out more awesome games I make sure to always buy them..
My steam account is like 75 indie games out of 100ish total.. Ive always thought indie titles are MUCH more bang for your buck
Pretty much wrong in every way. Most multiplayer games have single player modes, and if the only thing that's protected from piracy is multiplayer aspects and MMO games, then the PC will die and only consoles will remain.
Are you saying Console games arent pirated? Because if you are, you are completely 100% wrong. If you arent then your statment makes no sense what so ever.
Ahh I remember the good old days of being a broke teenager.. The piles and piles of pirated games / music / movies sitting around on my self and bookshelf. Pirating was so useful back then.. I could play all the newest games even though I could never afford them...
Now I am an adult and dropping 50-60 bucks once or twice a month for a brand new legit game I can play online is nothing.. Pirating isnt even worth the time it takes to download and burn it and hope you can get it working..
And I always pay for really good indie games.. I would rather pirate an EA game then the newest hit indie rpg or something.. You know, you really do vote with your wallet and I want to see small indie devs take more risks and put out more awesome games I make sure to always buy them..
My steam account is like 75 indie games out of 100ish total.. Ive always thought indie titles are MUCH more bang for your buck
I completely agree with this in every way. The only diffrence being is some adults still need....alternatives because of finances lol. My buddy that I talked about sharing my steam account with is in that boat. I guess I should have mentioned that when he wasnt in such a rough state financially he always bought his games. He still does once in a great while if he sees a solid Indy game he wants and has the extra 10-20 bucks.
"the good fight" What crap. Why is it about "how does this affect me?" Pretty on par with the entitlement we see on this site. Listen, I don't care if you do it or not, the point is, knowing that whatever you are doing, is wrong.
You want to fight back against the big company, so you take their shit without paying for it. I get it. That doesn't make it right though. Games cost money to make, and even if they make that money back 10 fold, it doesn't change the fact that taking it for free when it isn't offered that way is wrong.
Liken it to any number of other products.
Is this changing the industry as a whole? No, not necessarily, we do see companies vying for different protections that require online access and that are tougher to crack, and in the future, its likely we'll see much more of this, to the point an online connection to a server may be required with no offline counterpart to crack.
Either way, as I stated before, its not that I haven't done it, or wouldn't do it again under certain circumstances.. but I'm not fooling myself into thinking its okay to do it. Its not.
In what way is it not ok? Is it not ok because it is illegal? Is it not ok because the Bible says not to steal and you consider this stealing? Is it not ok because in some way you think it creates a problem for you? I think the myth that developers are losing tons of money because of this has been proven just that..a myth. So what makes it so wrong?
Could it be that it's wrong just because you were told it was wrong?
LOL. Really? Lets talk about morality. I come to your house, and take your TV and bed. Thats not wrong, right?
If you are playing a game you haven't paid for, its not a trial provided by the company, or demo, then you are stealing. Simple as that. Is stealing wrong? Is it wrong because the bible says its wrong? (I'm not religious so this doesn't affect me, and if I was religious I wouldn't be christian.) Is it wrong because it is illegal? Well, in a societal view, yes, that would be one reason why it would be deemed as "wrong". Is it "wrong" because it creates a problem for *me*? It doesn't create a problem for me at this time, but I'm not self absorbed.
Just because something doesn't bother me or have an effect on me, doesn't mean I can't see that it really will have an effect on others.
The real myth here is that piracy is OKAY and that nobody is hurt by it. That is easily proven wrong. If you cannot play a game because you haven't bought it, but you want to play it, the only choice you have is to buy it. If you couldn't steal a game, you would have to buy it if you wanted to play it - is essentially the point here. Is this something you can disagree with?
Its a simple enough statement. Now, blurring the lines (well THIS developer has 1 game out, and someone who steals 10 games it really only costs the developer 1 purchase) or (they spend so much on protection that people just crack so they really are costing themselves money and its their own fault). Its all a fallacy.
Taking something that is not yours is wrong. If you don't agree, you can easily publicly post your address anywhere, with a notice: "Stealing from me is OK" and see how long you keep your stuff, and how "not wrong" it feels. Just because you are an individual and they are a company means nothing.
I agree that hackers ruin games for players more then piracy. Diablo and Diablo 2 were probably the worst with FPS and RTS games being pretty bad nowadays. It just ruins the fun which is what games are all about.
And piracy's only effect on me is all the new DRM that makes it next to impossible to play certain games. Darkspore demo kicked me off because I lost connection to the server though I still had internet connection and I can no longer play Spore since I used up all my activations and EA won't give me any extra for my new comp.
And whats worse is how bad many of these hyped up games are. Piracy and video games have both been around before the internet but the internet has helpped game companies so much more. You think if actually bought darkspore I could get a refund since their servers suck. Of course not. All over these forums are people having to go through with charge backs since it's a pain in the ass to get a refund for broken games. It's not just cause I don't like the games, it's cause they are broken and are being falsely advertised. All of these console games being released for PC and yet not being able to get more then 30 fps above recommend requirements plus all the other issues.
Guess you just gotta vote with your wallet, but I can't feel bad for these big guys complaining about piracy when they try to scam players with shitty ports and false advertising
I also think the software companies are to blame for their unfair practices. The end-user agreements these days are just nuts. If I buy a TV and dont like it, I am free to give it to a friend but if I buy an online game or Microsoft office, I am not allowed to give/sell it to a frind according to the end-user agreement. Why is software treated differently?
Why are online games allowed to radically change the content and take years of your efforts and throw them away (like SOE did in SWG) but there is NO protection for the consumer? Why is a company like StarVault allowed to release an inferior product at a premium price and then NOT refund the money if a consumer asks? I can do it with any other consumer good, why not software?
"Sean (Murray) saying MP will be in the game is not remotely close to evidence that at the point of purchase people thought there was MP in the game." - SEANMCAD
Hacking, is the biggest issues in some online games. These people make a living off this crap. Ruining a game, for pure financial gain. Its not just the modders fault though. Someone has to buy'em. People that need to cheat to feed their ego's. They will always be around, keeping these modders in business, And their isn't much you can do against them, that does not cost the company too much, thus making it an unviable to do. They could update their hacksheilds, daily. And these failures would just put more time into what they do. I'm sure by now, they have it down quite well, and can make changes quite fast.
For the few comments i have read.
About saying piracy is Not an issue, I do not think the author intended it like that, He used it for a comparsion. I have quit 2 games due to Hacking, and the non control of it. They think banning accounts, did something. When they could just make a new one. That was their effort to fight hackers. That to me means 0 effort. And that deter's paying customers, for some of these games.
Its really an issue of online versus offline games.
Where with offline games, I could see priacy being the bigger issue, why? Because hacking in offline games effects nobody but that person. If they want to hack in a 1 player game, so be it, let them ruin their own experince.
With online games, hacking is def the bigger issue.
Company creates something and offers it for a price. If you don't want to pay the price don't pay for it. If you do then pay for it.
You have no leg to stand on just because you feel something should be other than what it is. You are not entitled to it.
As far as I'm concerned game companies can charge thousands for a game that takes pennies to make and that is their right.
This isn't about people being mad at the price of video games.
It's your right to say no and that's the end of it. It's not food or medicine.
oh, and it's not ok because it's illegal, because our society generally operates under the idea that acquiring something that is not yours and that you are not entitled to is "wrong".
And it doesn't matter whether the whole game companies are losing money thing is correct or not. They can ask whatever they want and you can say no.
It is not very cut and dried. I asked a simple question why is it wrong? You came up with this. In your mind it is stealing. Is it stealing any more than borrowing a DvD from a friend or recording a song off of the radio? Is that even considered stealing to you? If my friend buys the game and I borrow it, install it and play it through to the end did I just steal the game? I did just aquire the game with out buying it. There are so many examples I could give of the same basic act that people do everyday and would never be told it is wrong.
If it was cut and dried these cases would never go to court.
Your post really did not answer anything I had said. Why did you even bother to quote me?
I did answer your question, you just don't like the answer. or perhaps you don't like how I answered it? 'll give you that.
But I can't answer any other way.
I offer a product or service and charge what I feel like. you can either accept my offer or say no. Just because you don't like my offer doesnt' mean you can go behind my back and somehow acquire my product or service in a way that you prefer. You can come back with a counter offer but in this case, most game companies don't barter.
It's wrong because our society says it's wrong to acquire a good or service without maknig some sort of trade that is considered fair between both parties.
I do believe there are even mentions in the bible about "giving to ceasar what is ceasar's (of course that is talking about taxes). I imagine there is mention in other faiths as well.
The other alternative is to take it by force. We are trying, as a society, to get beyond that.
Things go to court because of grey areas.
Things that haven't been discussed before and seem like they should be one thing but perhaps they could be antoher thing when seen under a different light. This goes to your question..
So if you loan your friend a dvd then that isnt' a big deal. You know that friend and you own the dvd and have established a relationship with him/her. You have the right under fair use to use your product in this manner.
The cut and dried part is that the company didn't sell you a product so you could release it for free to thousands upon thousands of people.
they sold you a product to use in your daily life.
Not to release to the world for free.
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I admit, I pirate games sometimes. However, most of the games I end up buying. One because I like to support the developers, two because the games that I pirate extremely interest me and I'd like to play through them again eventually (going through Space Marine for the second time), and three I sure do like another box in my closet (not joking).
I've actually noticed people who would always buy the game and never pirate, start to get a pirated version because of the companies requiring online connections, drm crap. Like mentioned earlier with S7 and the horrid server connections.
For a single player game, always found it pointless to require a connection, and a lot of people are turning to pirated versions now because of that. it is amazing in certain areas how often you see someone ask how to get something working, what to do with an iso, etc.
Another solution though if you really want to buy the game and not be online is, people just download a crack that lets them bypass it all. Of course you shouldn't have to resort to this in the first place to play a single player game you own any time you want not connected to someone else's server that may or may not be working.
LOL. Really? Lets talk about morality. I come to your house, and take your TV and bed. Thats not wrong, right?
The difference here is that I lost money by you taking those things. Did the developer lose money by me pirating a game that I would not have bought? If so how? Is the developer losing money by me pirating a game that I end up liking and buying a legit copy of? Your comparisons just do not work.
If you are playing a game you haven't paid for, its not a trial provided by the company, or demo, then you are stealing. Simple as that. Is stealing wrong? Is it wrong because the bible says its wrong? (I'm not religious so this doesn't affect me, and if I was religious I wouldn't be christian.) Is it wrong because it is illegal? Well, in a societal view, yes, that would be one reason why it would be deemed as "wrong". Is it "wrong" because it creates a problem for *me*? It doesn't create a problem for me at this time, but I'm not self absorbed.
So why is it wrong? If you had children would you not let them borrow a game from a friend? If one child got a game for his birthday would you not let his brothers or sisters play it because that would be stealing? Would you teach them that that is wrong? That sharing is not caring? Im just curious. Would you call your wife / husband/ life partner/ whatever a thief if they borrowed a DVD from a friend? Who deems these things wrong?
Just because something doesn't bother me or have an effect on me, doesn't mean I can't see that it really will have an effect on others.
How does my pirating a game that I would not have bought anyways effect anyone but me? Yes, I got something for free. Thats it. The developer lost nothing because there was no money they were going to receive. Who just got hurt? If I like it and buy it how did that have anything but a positive effect on the people involved?
The real myth here is that piracy is OKAY and that nobody is hurt by it. That is easily proven wrong. If you cannot play a game because you haven't bought it, but you want to play it, the only choice you have is to buy it. If you couldn't steal a game, you would have to buy it if you wanted to play it - is essentially the point here. Is this something you can disagree with?
Well no buying the game would not be the only option. I could rent it, or borrow it. I could play it at a friends house. Only one of those three options requires me to hand over any kind of money.
Its a simple enough statement. Now, blurring the lines (well THIS developer has 1 game out, and someone who steals 10 games it really only costs the developer 1 purchase) or (they spend so much on protection that people just crack so they really are costing themselves money and its their own fault). Its all a fallacy.
Honestly I havent debated this issue yet. It is a slightly different issue. On one hand the point about it only costing the developer 1 game is accurate. It usually doesn't even cost them that because people have to get a legit copy to crack it. So did the developer really lose? They gained one sale. Now on your side of it they sold one game at the expense of 10. Are you sure those 10 games the guy ripped actually stopped the sale of 10 legit games?
Taking something that is not yours is wrong. If you don't agree, you can easily publicly post your address anywhere, with a notice: "Stealing from me is OK" and see how long you keep your stuff, and how "not wrong" it feels. Just because you are an individual and they are a company means nothing.
Once again we go back to the top of this post for that answer. It is two totally different situations. You can't just lump everything in to the "stealing is bad" catagory because I still don't see how anyone is losing anything. Just to recap...
I dont have money or I am not going to buy the game anyways and I pirate it..who loses? The developer is not going to get my money anyways. The only thing that happens is that I get something for free. You are not effected. The developer is not effected and yet this is still stealing to you even though no one loses anything. How can I steal something if no one loses anything?
Is it just theft because I got it for free and you paid?
i have a good example as why piracy will not end any time soon (i dont support piracy, ok).... in my country (somewhere in the caribbean) xbox live is not supported, you can play through xbox live legally, but you cant buy games through xbox live.... and not most games are sold in stores there... so people are forced to hack their consoles to play all the games they want.... (no arcade games are available for them because they cant get the downloads).... so piracy is a necessary evil there... its always been like that....
in terms of mmos.... another example is WoW, no support for my country, so everyone there plays private(pirate) servers for free....
piracy is bad, but when you dont have alternatives, it becomes a necesity.
I did answer your question, you just don't like the answer. or perhaps you don't like how I answered it? 'll give you that.
But I can't answer any other way.
I offer a product or service and charge what I feel like. you can either accept my offer or say no. Just because you don't like my offer doesnt' mean you can go behind my back and somehow acquire my product or service in a way that you prefer. You can come back with a counter offer but in this case, most game companies don't barter.
It's wrong because our society says it's wrong to acquire a good or service without maknig some sort of trade that is considered fair between both parties.
I do believe there are even mentions in the bible about "giving to ceasar what is ceasar's (of course that is talking about taxes). I imagine there is mention in other faiths as well.
The other alternative is to take it by force. We are trying, as a society, to get beyond that.
Things go to court because of grey areas.
Things that haven't been discussed before and seem like they should be one thing but perhaps they could be antoher thing when seen under a different light. This goes to your question..
So if you loan your friend a dvd then that isnt' a big deal. You know that friend and you own the dvd and have established a relationship with him/her. You have the right under fair use to use your product in this manner.
The cut and dried part is that the company didn't sell you a product so you could release it for free to thousands upon thousands of people.
they sold you a product to use in your daily life.
Not to release to the world for free.
Ok so if I buy a DVD and have a party and 50 people show up and watch it is that stealing? Is it only stealing if I dont really know them? The next day I loan that DVD to a friend and he has a party with 50 people that I don't know at all. Are we stealing yet? Thats 50 people that I dont know for sure that saw my DVD. A DVD that they didn't pay for. Is it just the amount of people that makes it stealing? Does it have to be thousands? Is there a limit there? What if one of these 50 people liked it so much they bought it?
Here are some quotes you can look them up if you like...
Jeff Raikes, a Microsoft executive, stated that "If they're going to pirate somebody, we want it to be us rather than somebody else." He also added [8] that "We understand that in the long run the fundamental asset is the installed base of people who are using our products. What you hope to do over time is convert them to licensing the software." In a different case, Microsoft has admitted that piracy of its Windows operating system has helped give it huge market share in China that will boost its revenues when these users "go legit." Bill Gates said, "It's easier for our software to compete with Linux when there's piracy than when there's not."[9] He has also said in reference to China:
As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade
So if you look at it from their POV it has helped them not hurt them..but what does Microsoft know? The area is not as black and white as you would like it to be. Well not for everyone.
Sure piracy is stealing, you're depriving the owner of the ability to sell the copied product by giving it away or selling it yourself even though you don't own the rights to it. Gray areas aside, the law makes perfect sense. If the laws were applied equally to rich and poor in this world in all matters, I would support the law.
But since we all know the rich and powerful are almost never taken to account for the laws they break and in fact often deprive the poor and powerless of their time, money, and even lives without ever breaking the law at all (because the laws are tailored to suit the rich and powerful), I couldn't give a rat's bare behind that a company like Sony, caught with its hand in the price-fixing cookie jar and fighting it with high dollar lawyers through every court in the US, gets ripped off. Doesn't matter to me one bit, sorry. It's stealing, but stealing from crooks just doesn't get my blood boiling, y'know?
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
I can agree with the banning peoples ip idea. Excellent idea actually but its hardly ever done. If they do ban, they ban that email address and name, and there's nothing stopping the person from just creating a new one. And its about more than modding. Its about griefing, harassment, and more. Its not that hard to prove, and there needs to be more moderating of things like live chat channels in online games.
The devs need to start doing whats needed instead of worrying about money.
ipconfig /release
ipconfig /renew
This doesn't work due to the majority of people not having static addresses, and banning in blocks would cause other users to be banned as well. That's why it's not done.
Wrong. And why is it wrong?
Yes, you can force an address change. It is not easy and you need to know what you're doing. /release /renew will NOT change your ip address. Why? Because your ip address is assigned by your internet provider, NOT by your computer system. Yes, its dynamic. That means your PROVIDER has a rotating system. Comcasts WAS set 3 months rotation when I worked for them. That means that once you /release /renew, you will most likely get the same address back.
How do I know that particular tidbit? Because it happened to me. Someone with the same ip address as me (it just changed to a new one) tried to hack into the EQ2 network when I played EQ2 and I suddenly lost access when my ip address switched. I had to call my ip and SOE to get it reactivated so I could play. I was incredibly aggravated when that happened and quite ticked when I talked to them on the phone because I had done nothing wrong.
BUT... I am a full supporter of ip banning. Once I found out what happened, I totally understood why they did it. Only a child wouldn't.
IP banning doesn't really work because of the dynamic nature of IP addresses. The lease time on the DHCP assignment is set by the individual ISP and varies wildly from ISP to ISP.
ISP's that have a ton of IP address space available set long lease times in order to reduce the load for requests on thier DHCP servers (I'm guessing Comcast falls under that category) , others who are tight on address space set short lease times in order to more efficiently utilize that space. Lease times of hours or even minutes are not all that uncommon.
Now, a DHCP client wo's lease has expired WILL try to obtain the same IP again if it's availble....and will only grab a different one if it's not....however the /release /renew (or simply setting a Static IP address and then rebooting) WILL cause the client to forget it ever had a lease and thus not try to reobtain the same address.
Then we come to the issue of NAT......whether it's Carrier Grade or Enterprise/Institutional. NAT is basicaly IP address obfuscation/sharing..... and it's extremely common use. It not uncommon for hundreds, even thousands of individual users to expose themselves to the public internet as a single IP address.
This is pretty common on college campuses, for instance, an there is even one small country (Quatar, I believe) which shares a single public IP address behind NAT. CGN is also becoming more common due to IPv4 exhaustion. Thus you could end up banning an entire University Campus just because 1 kid on it cheated.
Then you have the issue of proxy servers. Real Hackers...the ones who are truely up to mischief...pretty much never connect to their target through thier own IP....they'll use a Proxy..... often this will be a machine that has been botted/root-kit-ed. However there are places on the internet that offer proxy services as well. These have legitimate as well as illegitimate uses.
Then we come to IPv6 where we not only have 6:4 tunneling to enable connectivity while IPv6 routes are still uncommon...but also IPv6's concept of "privacy addressing" which is assign a rapidly shifting series of IPv6 host addresses to a device using the public internet in order to preserve the end users privacy.
The technical competency behind using any of these technologies is trivial, even for the average script kiddie.
Bottom line.... unless you intend for the ban to only be effective for 10 minutes or so....IP banning is not an effective solution...and ends up hurting alot of innocents along with the guility.
The real use for recording IP's is for forensic analysis where you have an exact date/time stamp to go with the IP....that you can use to back track through the NOC of the ISP and/or enterprises to get to a physical address that had that IP at that exact moment. However that requires significant cost and effort....not something anyone is going to go through for simple cheating/greifing in a video game.....that's the kind of stuff reserved for people that hack into banks or defense contractors.
i have a good example as why piracy will not end any time soon (i dont support piracy, ok).... in my country (somewhere in the caribbean) xbox live is not supported, you can play through xbox live legally, but you cant buy games through xbox live.... and not most games are sold in stores there... so people are forced to hack their consoles to play all the games they want.... (no arcade games are available for them because they cant get the downloads).... so piracy is a necessary evil there... its always been like that....
in terms of mmos.... another example is WoW, no support for my country, so everyone there plays private(pirate) servers for free....
piracy is bad, but when you dont have alternatives, it becomes a necesity.
Oh, pirates of the caribbean! Yoho! ^^
Sorry, just a harmless joke.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
"They have no clue on how to pirate something and if they do, they rarely do it well. Ask anyone in a computer or tech related position how savvy and able your average user really is. When the horror stories are finished along with whatever remaining faith you had in humanity, you’ll start to understand the impossibility of pirates lurking around every download."
I would tend to agree with you on this statement except for the fact that every comp tech or IT guy I know has hundreds of gigs worth of HD space taken up by pirated software... the layperson may be clueless, the techies are not however.
Comments
Coyote has written a topic which quite literally is a 2d view of ship to ship piracy without the slightest regard to the 3d watery depths.
At this very moment I know of at least 10 torrent sites that have AAA games being streamed by a average of 4-6k users 24/7. I will not now say this represents a million users or some fanciful number but it is many tens of thousands at the least. The gamining companies responses to this very real money loss has been steam and various software that has ZERO impact on the ability to pirate the game for the pros who crack the games but does indeed add annoyances for the average user.
If the game is not made of cardboard or the child like refernces to burned cds (who even has a cd anymore) then this game is on the net somewhere for those who have the ability to type a simple search.
It is not very cut and dried. I asked a simple question why is it wrong? You came up with this. In your mind it is stealing. Is it stealing any more than borrowing a DvD from a friend or recording a song off of the radio? Is that even considered stealing to you? If my friend buys the game and I borrow it, install it and play it through to the end did I just steal the game? I did just aquire the game with out buying it. There are so many examples I could give of the same basic act that people do everyday and would never be told it is wrong.
If it was cut and dried these cases would never go to court.
Your post really did not answer anything I had said. Why did you even bother to quote me?
Really? I've played monopoly, chess, risk, etc, etc, etc on the net XD Actually, it's far easier to pirate cardboard games on the net if you're really that bored. Upload an image of the board, someone can download and print it out. most people have dice and can use whatever they want as the other pieces. And if it needs cards... again, download/print lol!
i have to disagree i think that cheaters actually affects the company economics. Let me explain... You buy the game then get in and get powned badly, once you leave the game because its almost unplayable you spread word that the game is full of cheaters, that Greatly demoralize further customers and in result they loose sales, maybe not in a high percentage but still considerable.
Which only proves that people are sheep and are fully unable to make their own decisions. Some of us though, have listened to the hype whether good or bad, bought the game/cd/whatever, tried it out, and either liked it or threw it away based on our own merits. This psycologically false viewpoint has been tossed around for decades about various things. It's kind of like blaming smokers for cancer: There's no 100% solid proof, nor was there any research of its kind done before the industrial revolution which put more than just cigarette chemicals into the air. Here's research that's never been done - Put 10 smokers in a garage for 1 hour and make them chainsmoke as fast as they can during that time. Then take 10 non-smokers and stick them in the same garage for an hour with a running vehicle. Who dies faster? Should we ban cars? lol
Pretty much wrong in every way. Most multiplayer games have single player modes, and if the only thing that's protected from piracy is multiplayer aspects and MMO games, then the PC will die and only consoles will remain.
People are giving steam and its "cloud" way to much credit. Its stupidly simple to get around for single player games.
As for the whole "pirate" thing its a joke. Like the article said, for the most part everyone is buying there games. The amount of people actually going to private servers or getting pirated versions of games is really verry small compared to thoes who buy the games. The truth is though the clouds, online all the time, DRM...whatever you decide to call it is here and its not going anywhere. The reason is really simple. Regardless of how much complaining the gaming community does the majority still buy the games. So why would a company stop doing it when it only costs them maybe a couple hundred copies purchased compared to the hundred of thousands or millions of copies they will sell regardless.
you can just as easily download and burn games for consoles as you can the PC.
Ahh I remember the good old days of being a broke teenager.. The piles and piles of pirated games / music / movies sitting around on my self and bookshelf. Pirating was so useful back then.. I could play all the newest games even though I could never afford them...
Now I am an adult and dropping 50-60 bucks once or twice a month for a brand new legit game I can play online is nothing.. Pirating isnt even worth the time it takes to download and burn it and hope you can get it working..
And I always pay for really good indie games.. I would rather pirate an EA game then the newest hit indie rpg or something.. You know, you really do vote with your wallet and I want to see small indie devs take more risks and put out more awesome games I make sure to always buy them..
My steam account is like 75 indie games out of 100ish total.. Ive always thought indie titles are MUCH more bang for your buck
Are you saying Console games arent pirated? Because if you are, you are completely 100% wrong. If you arent then your statment makes no sense what so ever.
I completely agree with this in every way. The only diffrence being is some adults still need....alternatives because of finances lol. My buddy that I talked about sharing my steam account with is in that boat. I guess I should have mentioned that when he wasnt in such a rough state financially he always bought his games. He still does once in a great while if he sees a solid Indy game he wants and has the extra 10-20 bucks.
LOL. Really? Lets talk about morality. I come to your house, and take your TV and bed. Thats not wrong, right?
If you are playing a game you haven't paid for, its not a trial provided by the company, or demo, then you are stealing. Simple as that. Is stealing wrong? Is it wrong because the bible says its wrong? (I'm not religious so this doesn't affect me, and if I was religious I wouldn't be christian.) Is it wrong because it is illegal? Well, in a societal view, yes, that would be one reason why it would be deemed as "wrong". Is it "wrong" because it creates a problem for *me*? It doesn't create a problem for me at this time, but I'm not self absorbed.
Just because something doesn't bother me or have an effect on me, doesn't mean I can't see that it really will have an effect on others.
The real myth here is that piracy is OKAY and that nobody is hurt by it. That is easily proven wrong. If you cannot play a game because you haven't bought it, but you want to play it, the only choice you have is to buy it. If you couldn't steal a game, you would have to buy it if you wanted to play it - is essentially the point here. Is this something you can disagree with?
Its a simple enough statement. Now, blurring the lines (well THIS developer has 1 game out, and someone who steals 10 games it really only costs the developer 1 purchase) or (they spend so much on protection that people just crack so they really are costing themselves money and its their own fault). Its all a fallacy.
Taking something that is not yours is wrong. If you don't agree, you can easily publicly post your address anywhere, with a notice: "Stealing from me is OK" and see how long you keep your stuff, and how "not wrong" it feels. Just because you are an individual and they are a company means nothing.
I agree that hackers ruin games for players more then piracy. Diablo and Diablo 2 were probably the worst with FPS and RTS games being pretty bad nowadays. It just ruins the fun which is what games are all about.
And piracy's only effect on me is all the new DRM that makes it next to impossible to play certain games. Darkspore demo kicked me off because I lost connection to the server though I still had internet connection and I can no longer play Spore since I used up all my activations and EA won't give me any extra for my new comp.
And whats worse is how bad many of these hyped up games are. Piracy and video games have both been around before the internet but the internet has helpped game companies so much more. You think if actually bought darkspore I could get a refund since their servers suck. Of course not. All over these forums are people having to go through with charge backs since it's a pain in the ass to get a refund for broken games. It's not just cause I don't like the games, it's cause they are broken and are being falsely advertised. All of these console games being released for PC and yet not being able to get more then 30 fps above recommend requirements plus all the other issues.
Guess you just gotta vote with your wallet, but I can't feel bad for these big guys complaining about piracy when they try to scam players with shitty ports and false advertising
Make games you want to play.
http://www.youtube.com/user/RavikAztar
I also think the software companies are to blame for their unfair practices. The end-user agreements these days are just nuts. If I buy a TV and dont like it, I am free to give it to a friend but if I buy an online game or Microsoft office, I am not allowed to give/sell it to a frind according to the end-user agreement. Why is software treated differently?
Why are online games allowed to radically change the content and take years of your efforts and throw them away (like SOE did in SWG) but there is NO protection for the consumer? Why is a company like StarVault allowed to release an inferior product at a premium price and then NOT refund the money if a consumer asks? I can do it with any other consumer good, why not software?
I concur with the writer.
Hacking, is the biggest issues in some online games. These people make a living off this crap. Ruining a game, for pure financial gain. Its not just the modders fault though. Someone has to buy'em. People that need to cheat to feed their ego's. They will always be around, keeping these modders in business, And their isn't much you can do against them, that does not cost the company too much, thus making it an unviable to do. They could update their hacksheilds, daily. And these failures would just put more time into what they do. I'm sure by now, they have it down quite well, and can make changes quite fast.
For the few comments i have read.
About saying piracy is Not an issue, I do not think the author intended it like that, He used it for a comparsion. I have quit 2 games due to Hacking, and the non control of it. They think banning accounts, did something. When they could just make a new one. That was their effort to fight hackers. That to me means 0 effort. And that deter's paying customers, for some of these games.
Its really an issue of online versus offline games.
Where with offline games, I could see priacy being the bigger issue, why? Because hacking in offline games effects nobody but that person. If they want to hack in a 1 player game, so be it, let them ruin their own experince.
With online games, hacking is def the bigger issue.
I did answer your question, you just don't like the answer. or perhaps you don't like how I answered it? 'll give you that.
But I can't answer any other way.
I offer a product or service and charge what I feel like. you can either accept my offer or say no. Just because you don't like my offer doesnt' mean you can go behind my back and somehow acquire my product or service in a way that you prefer. You can come back with a counter offer but in this case, most game companies don't barter.
It's wrong because our society says it's wrong to acquire a good or service without maknig some sort of trade that is considered fair between both parties.
I do believe there are even mentions in the bible about "giving to ceasar what is ceasar's (of course that is talking about taxes). I imagine there is mention in other faiths as well.
The other alternative is to take it by force. We are trying, as a society, to get beyond that.
Things go to court because of grey areas.
Things that haven't been discussed before and seem like they should be one thing but perhaps they could be antoher thing when seen under a different light. This goes to your question..
So if you loan your friend a dvd then that isnt' a big deal. You know that friend and you own the dvd and have established a relationship with him/her. You have the right under fair use to use your product in this manner.
The cut and dried part is that the company didn't sell you a product so you could release it for free to thousands upon thousands of people.
they sold you a product to use in your daily life.
Not to release to the world for free.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I admit, I pirate games sometimes. However, most of the games I end up buying. One because I like to support the developers, two because the games that I pirate extremely interest me and I'd like to play through them again eventually (going through Space Marine for the second time), and three I sure do like another box in my closet (not joking).
He who keeps his cool best wins.
I've actually noticed people who would always buy the game and never pirate, start to get a pirated version because of the companies requiring online connections, drm crap. Like mentioned earlier with S7 and the horrid server connections.
For a single player game, always found it pointless to require a connection, and a lot of people are turning to pirated versions now because of that. it is amazing in certain areas how often you see someone ask how to get something working, what to do with an iso, etc.
Another solution though if you really want to buy the game and not be online is, people just download a crack that lets them bypass it all. Of course you shouldn't have to resort to this in the first place to play a single player game you own any time you want not connected to someone else's server that may or may not be working.
i have a good example as why piracy will not end any time soon (i dont support piracy, ok).... in my country (somewhere in the caribbean) xbox live is not supported, you can play through xbox live legally, but you cant buy games through xbox live.... and not most games are sold in stores there... so people are forced to hack their consoles to play all the games they want.... (no arcade games are available for them because they cant get the downloads).... so piracy is a necessary evil there... its always been like that....
in terms of mmos.... another example is WoW, no support for my country, so everyone there plays private(pirate) servers for free....
piracy is bad, but when you dont have alternatives, it becomes a necesity.
Ok so if I buy a DVD and have a party and 50 people show up and watch it is that stealing? Is it only stealing if I dont really know them? The next day I loan that DVD to a friend and he has a party with 50 people that I don't know at all. Are we stealing yet? Thats 50 people that I dont know for sure that saw my DVD. A DVD that they didn't pay for. Is it just the amount of people that makes it stealing? Does it have to be thousands? Is there a limit there? What if one of these 50 people liked it so much they bought it?
Here are some quotes you can look them up if you like...
Jeff Raikes, a Microsoft executive, stated that "If they're going to pirate somebody, we want it to be us rather than somebody else." He also added [8] that "We understand that in the long run the fundamental asset is the installed base of people who are using our products. What you hope to do over time is convert them to licensing the software." In a different case, Microsoft has admitted that piracy of its Windows operating system has helped give it huge market share in China that will boost its revenues when these users "go legit." Bill Gates said, "It's easier for our software to compete with Linux when there's piracy than when there's not."[9] He has also said in reference to China:
As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade
So if you look at it from their POV it has helped them not hurt them..but what does Microsoft know? The area is not as black and white as you would like it to be. Well not for everyone.
Sure piracy is stealing, you're depriving the owner of the ability to sell the copied product by giving it away or selling it yourself even though you don't own the rights to it. Gray areas aside, the law makes perfect sense. If the laws were applied equally to rich and poor in this world in all matters, I would support the law.
But since we all know the rich and powerful are almost never taken to account for the laws they break and in fact often deprive the poor and powerless of their time, money, and even lives without ever breaking the law at all (because the laws are tailored to suit the rich and powerful), I couldn't give a rat's bare behind that a company like Sony, caught with its hand in the price-fixing cookie jar and fighting it with high dollar lawyers through every court in the US, gets ripped off. Doesn't matter to me one bit, sorry. It's stealing, but stealing from crooks just doesn't get my blood boiling, y'know?
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
~Albert Einstein
IP banning doesn't really work because of the dynamic nature of IP addresses. The lease time on the DHCP assignment is set by the individual ISP and varies wildly from ISP to ISP.
ISP's that have a ton of IP address space available set long lease times in order to reduce the load for requests on thier DHCP servers (I'm guessing Comcast falls under that category) , others who are tight on address space set short lease times in order to more efficiently utilize that space. Lease times of hours or even minutes are not all that uncommon.
Now, a DHCP client wo's lease has expired WILL try to obtain the same IP again if it's availble....and will only grab a different one if it's not....however the /release /renew (or simply setting a Static IP address and then rebooting) WILL cause the client to forget it ever had a lease and thus not try to reobtain the same address.
Then we come to the issue of NAT......whether it's Carrier Grade or Enterprise/Institutional. NAT is basicaly IP address obfuscation/sharing..... and it's extremely common use. It not uncommon for hundreds, even thousands of individual users to expose themselves to the public internet as a single IP address.
This is pretty common on college campuses, for instance, an there is even one small country (Quatar, I believe) which shares a single public IP address behind NAT. CGN is also becoming more common due to IPv4 exhaustion. Thus you could end up banning an entire University Campus just because 1 kid on it cheated.
Then you have the issue of proxy servers. Real Hackers...the ones who are truely up to mischief...pretty much never connect to their target through thier own IP....they'll use a Proxy..... often this will be a machine that has been botted/root-kit-ed. However there are places on the internet that offer proxy services as well. These have legitimate as well as illegitimate uses.
Then we come to IPv6 where we not only have 6:4 tunneling to enable connectivity while IPv6 routes are still uncommon...but also IPv6's concept of "privacy addressing" which is assign a rapidly shifting series of IPv6 host addresses to a device using the public internet in order to preserve the end users privacy.
The technical competency behind using any of these technologies is trivial, even for the average script kiddie.
Bottom line.... unless you intend for the ban to only be effective for 10 minutes or so....IP banning is not an effective solution...and ends up hurting alot of innocents along with the guility.
The real use for recording IP's is for forensic analysis where you have an exact date/time stamp to go with the IP....that you can use to back track through the NOC of the ISP and/or enterprises to get to a physical address that had that IP at that exact moment. However that requires significant cost and effort....not something anyone is going to go through for simple cheating/greifing in a video game.....that's the kind of stuff reserved for people that hack into banks or defense contractors.
Oh, pirates of the caribbean! Yoho! ^^
Sorry, just a harmless joke.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
"They have no clue on how to pirate something and if they do, they rarely do it well. Ask anyone in a computer or tech related position how savvy and able your average user really is. When the horror stories are finished along with whatever remaining faith you had in humanity, you’ll start to understand the impossibility of pirates lurking around every download."
I would tend to agree with you on this statement except for the fact that every comp tech or IT guy I know has hundreds of gigs worth of HD space taken up by pirated software... the layperson may be clueless, the techies are not however.