I do not know why you call them modders when they are not modding they are "cheating". Modders change a game to make it a different way to play, "cheaters" modify the game so they can win and think its funny.
Wouldn't modifying the game so they can win be the EXACT same thing as changing a game to make it a different way to play?
It's true though, the 'modder' term being tossed around in here is only half right. The games are being modded, yes, but not by a mod team. It's technically reverse engineered .dll's, configs, and even port redirecting at times. So while in most cases a file or three are being 'modded', it's by no means a 'mod' in today's gaming terminology.
Lol at the Firefly reference. I still have no trouble cracking games but now I only use it to test out the game before I buy it. if I don't like a game enough to buy it then I don't like it enought to keep playing it either. I think the bulk of the pirate community has learned their lesson. If we don't provide a market for PC games then everything will go to the consoles. PC gaming is starting to come back in a bit so I want to encourage that as much as I can. many of my friends feel the same way.
Indeed. I think it's sad that so many people think the ‘try before you buy’ justification for piracy is universally bullshit, as it's true for me and more than half of the pirates I know. Not saying this means it must be the reason for most piracy, just that it's true for some.
Without ‘piracy’, I'd be spending less money on games, not more—and not even remotely the same.
So basically you are only a thief HALF of the time? What a bunch of steaming bull! A thief is a thief and in my opinion (and most of societies to be honest) one of the lowest forms of life on the planet.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
I've seen some people here avoiding the morals and even economic discussions on piracy by simply going for arguments like "It's against the law, therefore it's wrong! And that's all!".
Now I'm curious: in my country there is still no law against downloading or sharing material under copyright, piracy here is when you are making profit in some way using this kind of material (like selling burned DVDs). So does this make me magically right if I download a game here because I'm not acting against the law?
My point here is that this piracy discussion goes beyond law statements and sticking with just that is pointless. Also, laws can and should change with the world around them.
I also cry a little every time I see some random dude going all "Aww! Poor mega companies, they are just inocent victims in this cruel game of captalism". B**ch, please.
I think the most popular is music. If it wasn't from "piracy", some artist wouldn't be where they are right now.
And to be honest, where I live some artist make stuff like publicity against pirating music and stuff. I find it funny that they waste money on publicity that in the end... will change anything. And after they whine on : Oh but we don't make money when you pirate our music ! ... dha.
And I would add to the music departement that CD are just too much old school. If you're an artist and don't offer your song on the internet, seperatly, you most likely does not deserve people buying your music.
If you're smart enough to offer your music and sell each song separately at a cheap price like 1$ the song. Now you deserve alot more respect to be honest. Alot of people aren't interested in a pack of 10-15 song. Most of the time they only want one. And want the ability to listen to it before buying it.
About the movie. I'm a DVD collector. I have over 500DVD. I might have like.. 10 of them only pirated. I guess I deserve to get to jail ? I agree that ALOT of the pirated movie are pretty much crap and unwatchable if you have a little standard. But some are great. So yes, I consider myself able to get some free movie some time to time after encouraging the insdustry with 500+ DVD over the years.
I went to a concert of my favorite band. I openly told them I got most of their song from a program that take music from youtube. And I wanted to know what they think about that. They said : Hey, you are here encouraging us, you bought ticket to our concert. If you didn't get addicted by our music that you got for free and that we most likely gave out, you wouldn't have bought our ticket concert which make them more money than CD. And that every artist should know that the minute they put your music on the internet, it's like giving it for free. We had a great night.
i have a very simple moral ethic when coming to digital media. If i am iffy with a game, i wait till its on sale or its a trial. If i buy a shitty game, then oh well...you can buy anything (toaster, car, pens, etc) that can be shitty. Still isnt right to steal any item or intellectual property.
I look it like this....if i was making said product, would i want people stealing my hard work and income....most definitely not. Some of us have a moral compass.
Do you steal a car before you buy it to see if you like it? No...you go on a test drive. Most games these days are coming out with trial levels and such, just look at steam for gaming (http://store.steampowered.com/freestuff/demos/) over 100 demos, or amazon you can go and sample music before buying, or just read some reviews (like metacritic or such). Utilize the services that are given to you, use your brain and decide for yourself. What you are doing is trying to justify your stealing because a) you cant afford an item at that time or b) rather get it for free. It's just that simple. I sometimes cant afford to pay 60 bucks for a game (3 kids will do that to you), so i just wait for steam or direct2drive to have their crazy deals they usually have. Priorities people.
If you owned a business, say a simple stationary store, would you want your "customers" walking in, and stealing a pen or binder or other item just to see if they like it?
Yeah in the music industry it's a bit diffrent an artist get a VERY small fraction or a CD or digital download. Like 1-5%. On a 10$ cd they MIGHT see a nickel.
You mostly stealing from the publishers. Which I've never felt very bad about since they ARE all crooks.
I do however go to concerts which is where most bands really make their money.
Back on topic. I pirited when I was in college before i got a job. Now that i have money to support developers i do. You can get almost anygame on steam 6 mothes after it comes out for <20 bucks. I want developers of good games to keep making good games.
Capitalism only works if the consumers buy from people they want to succeed *cough* walmart *cough*.Put your money where your mouth is.
Want EA to stop making crap...... stop buying it. Want more indie developers to try some triple A titles.... start buying their games.
Devs want their products to be pirated, the more copies of their game floating around the more likely that the gaming community is likely to spend money and even save money to buy their next game.
I pay for my games, music, movies. Hell I even pay for porn every now and then.
The only game I ever got pirate was FF7 and the only reason I did was, you can't buy it. Sure you can go on distribution sites and pay $200 for a back stock copy they paid $30 for but screw that. The reasons being as said. The "pirate" versions suck. They are buggy, incomplete and usually involve shady sites with spam and spyware.
Can I hack a game or a movie? Sure and do a good job but what motive do I have to dump 2 to 10 gigs of my bandwidth uploading hacked games or movies for someone else?
The original essay is bang on. I like most people don't think in the do it because I can way you need to think to hack and pirate. Besides that, I have a job. Hence I'm not bored and knowing the scams we face all over our consumer world? Its not needed.
If anything I consider "pirating" as a form of being smart with your money.
If the quality of movies/games/music/etc wasn't so questionable these days many of us wouldn't be so compelled to download it first before handing over our money.
Imo illegal downloading isn't really the problem, it's how all things entertainment are just being made for the sole purpose of cashing in and totally ignoring the entertainment side of things.
..or to put it another way.. If anyone has been watching South Park's latest season, the ep where Stan views everything as shit is really the perfect analogy for the entertainment industry lol.
Yeah people can argue it's a business and making money is the main goal, but that's not really how or why all these things got started. There used to be real passion and heart behind making something and it showed, but now that is a real rarity when is comes to all things entertainment.
There has always been crappy movies, games, tv shows, music, etc. It's not a new phenomenom. The change is in the Tech that makes it possible to get them free on a large scale.
Meh. You all callit piracy, I call it product testing.
Nowdays, Advertisments and 'reviews' are complete shit, usualy 'bought' by the company who made the game, in an attempt to make it look good. How often do u see 'Most Amazing fighting game ever' only to try it, and find out it is just a steaming pile of code.
I 'Pirate' a game, if I like it, I go buy it. I don't even bother OPENING some of them other than to look at the art in the box(got half a bookshelf next to me with unopened/unplayed games)
And thats how most of the 'pirates' I know are, we test, if its SHIT, damn RIGHT I'm not about to support your 'lets churn out more garbage and let our PR department sell it!' companies, but those guys like Bethesda, and other excelent logos going out of thier way to put out the top game they can? HELL yes they get my support.
Look at it another way, Us 'ebil piwates' are doing all you people a favor. Now the companies can SEE which of thier titles get bought and which get.. not.
I went through a huge movie pirating episode in the last 6 months because I was epically poor and the idea of spending $20 to sit in a theatre with sticky floors next to some 18 year old dip shit trying to impress his GF who is more interested in responding to text messages. I still pirate the new releases but I feel it's more an advanced pirate because it all eventually lands in Netflix or HuluPlus, which I pay for every month.
I pirate games that I don't know anything about - that appear interesting and DON'T HAVE DEMO'S. I feel that if a game company doesn't have a demo or a free trial, their game is shit and they are trying to hide behind a $50 price tag. All the snobs in the world can't change my mind about this, I've blown so much money on shit that I finally decided to reverse the man-love train and get some for myself without feeling raped after 3 hours of gameplay.
So, yeah...I pirate but it's mostly because Developers have lost my trust in their products. So frakk em.
And now to comment on the OP.
Yeah, most of the press about pirates is BS, it's never as widespread as they say it is. It's more like a core group of people who like to get stuff free "because they can", it's little more than that.
The best part of the article was about people being frakking retards. I work Remote Support for GeekSquad and MS, and let me tell you - there are some humdingers in this here world. Developers love to demonize the people who "steal" their product but roll their eyes at people who have paid for said product and complain about hackers. Hackers are the most distastful lot not because they hack but because they take their modified game and beat up on people who don't have a defense against it. It's just more BS from developers, another reason why paying for their product isn't always a "smart purchase".
So according to you i can't just download a torrented game to see if i like it or not so i dont waste money on a stupid game? wow just wow. Ok so most people who use pirated games dont buy the game. Thats fine. As long as they can't get onto multiplayer (which most of the pirated torrent games wont let you get on multi) then kudos to them. Me, im gonna keep downloading the torrents and seeing if i want to spend the money on it. If more games released demos then i would see where it would be a problem. But guess what! The demos for games is sadly lacking. Guess the industry dont care about the players who might want to try out a game not buy it and trash it cause they cant patch fast enough for an enjoyable game. If i see one more game where they rushed it to meet deadlines (cough big rigs offroad racing cough) i wont even buy that games releases. I think the gaming industry should worry more about finishing a game not worry about these so called gamer piraters who actually give us a chance to see if the game is good or not.
Piracy is a criminal act... bottom line... that should not be ignored. it affects a companies income, jobs, and further development. Its not all about the gaming world. I question the character of anyone who endorses or participates in this crap. This article unfortunatley makes it sound like its not a big deal, but it is. Your not just stealing $ you're stealing someone hard time and effort.
Its pathetic and sad to see the lame excuses people use to justify to themselves to steal.
****Fires soiled plungers at pirates and hackers!***
I see most pirates as potential revenue streams. Just like the RIAA and the movie industry, the gaming industry has failed to capitalize on the new distribution systems and economic models presented to them by the pirates. Hell, the pirates are doing the marketing and the market research for the entertainment industry.
And no, I don't pirate. I'm just a man watching the industry limp into acceptance of the new distribution methods and economic models right in front of their face while trying to get the courts and the legislator to make up for their failures in adapting.
Forever looking for employment. Life is rather dull without it.
Piracy, copyright infringment, is not stealing. It is copyright infringment. They are fundamentally different concepts though both are certainly bad in their own right.
Forever looking for employment. Life is rather dull without it.
Piracy, copyright infringment, is not stealing. It is copyright infringment. They are fundamentally different concepts though both are certainly bad in their own right.
Actually no, pirating IS stealing. You are taking something that is made by another person, without their permission, and using it against their express will, the are trying to sell it after all and make money for there hard work. Copyright infringement is when you take a part of something, physical or intellectual, and use it in your own product, while trying to pass it off as yours, AND without getting permission from the original owner.
In the end it does not matter what kind of polish you use with this subject, you are still only polishing a turd and it still stinks. It is theft and those stealing the products deserved to be punished for their theft. Unfortunately, it seems to only be the thieving distributers that get nailed for pirating most times, not the thieves that are downloading from them.
Maybe the thieves out there would not be upset about this, but next time you want to try justifying yourself think of this, how would you feel if someone walked up to your grandmother, took her purse, max'd out her credit cards and even though they were caught red handed, they were let go because it just isn't worth it to go after the small fish. She is still out a few thousand dollars though and has no way to recoup her losses. Hey though, it isn't a big deal, the thief was just trying out her credit cards for a little while . . . right?
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
Well then i guess America should give back the American land ownership to the native if ownership is so straight forward for you guys. I don't think people need document links to back this up right, especially when you are aware of Indian reorganization act from 1934 that is a pure mess.
Brazil and all the "3d world" should literally die because the big chemistry corporation in the US refused to lower their price on medications to the point government had to tell them "fuck you guys, we'll do those medicine ourselves for 1/100 the price", and now even in the western country people buy those medication where they were supposed forbidden by some property right.
And it is even more discussable when SOE obviously force you to sign an agreement so you can't sue them as a customer because most law stipulate the companies have the obligation to protect their costumer data. Because well you are the one that "own" those info and companies have to respect this right. But naturally SOE don't want to have to deal with that right? Yet they don't want people to use what they consider their own too...
SO really ownership is clearly a very strange concept, everyone is pulling to its side, and many time laws are just an instrument in those fights. ANd its certainly not as black and white as most people here seam to claim. As it depend a lot on cultures, history and other slippery concepts. As such for some population ownership is to be the first to defend, for other freedom of speech, or free circulation of knowledge. Since internet is the direct result of the scientific community to share all their knowledge whatever countries or believe they belong to, well because science run better with full freedom of knowledge, and any personal or governmental interest in manipulating them slow its progress.
So all in all, you guys that think ownership can be squeezed under an on/off switch, should really try to learn about ownership and morality in our civilizations, rather than taking everything for granted as overfed ducks. Its not like you guys can't access those data, internet have it all under your fingers. So people stop being so narrow minded, or at least if you are get something to back up your rigid claims and attitudes.
As usual, another great article by OP. Ummm...I tried to copy some movie dvd's that I own to my hard drive and it was copy protected so I gave up. I have an amazing tv now so it doesn't matter. Never pirated a game or software, ever. Never cheated in an online game.
I used to play an fps years ago. I was good, really good. I had total control over the matches. I was a god...or demigod. Then hackers/modders started to emerge. The wall hacks, aim hacks. People hacking me so I would lag. I gave up on competitive gaming. I loved it so much, but the cheaters ruined it. And what REALLY pissed me off is when people who loved the game confronted the cheaters and the cheaters would defend the cheats by saying everyone cheats. No...not everyone.
Any thread about piracy brings out the idiots who think there is no such thing as ownership etc. Go and see what the real world is like, get a job and a life; don’t just rely on what you heard in Sociology 101 and can find on the internet.
By the way a modder does not change a game to cheat in it. Modders do great work giving us new levels, scenarios and so on. Typically this is with the permission of the company that made the game. The OP is talking about hacking here, hackers who open a game to insert cheats.
Lol at the Firefly reference. I still have no trouble cracking games but now I only use it to test out the game before I buy it. if I don't like a game enough to buy it then I don't like it enought to keep playing it either. I think the bulk of the pirate community has learned their lesson. If we don't provide a market for PC games then everything will go to the consoles. PC gaming is starting to come back in a bit so I want to encourage that as much as I can. many of my friends feel the same way.
Indeed. I think it's sad that so many people think the ‘try before you buy’ justification for piracy is universally bullshit, as it's true for me and more than half of the pirates I know. Not saying this means it must be the reason for most piracy, just that it's true for some.
Without ‘piracy’, I'd be spending less money on games, not more—and not even remotely the same.
So basically you are only a thief HALF of the time? What a bunch of steaming bull! A thief is a thief and in my opinion (and most of societies to be honest) one of the lowest forms of life on the planet.
down troll down! be honest, you dont really care about what I do & I don't really care what you think about it. If you want to know the truth, over my course of my time playing games & computing (since the late '80s), my computer has been %100 pirate. pirated operating system, pirated applications, pirated games. for years I never paid for anything. I even ran a warez site for a while. now its different, I see the damage that has done, not to the companies, they make their money, but to myself & other players. I still run pirate win7 but the games I play I pay for cause I want them to keep making them.
before you get all indignant remember that it doesnt bother me that you don't like it
I pay for my games, music, movies. Hell I even pay for porn every now and then.
The only game I ever got pirate was FF7 and the only reason I did was, you can't buy it. Sure you can go on distribution sites and pay $200 for a back stock copy they paid $30 for but screw that. The reasons being as said. The "pirate" versions suck. They are buggy, incomplete and usually involve shady sites with spam and spyware.
Can I hack a game or a movie? Sure and do a good job but what motive do I have to dump 2 to 10 gigs of my bandwidth uploading hacked games or movies for someone else?
The original essay is bang on. I like most people don't think in the do it because I can way you need to think to hack and pirate. Besides that, I have a job. Hence I'm not bored and knowing the scams we face all over our consumer world? Its not needed.
naw, its dirt simple. the process for cracking a game hasn't really changed since the introduction of copy protection & most of the time it's stable. in fact FF7 has no copy protection at all & can be played strait from the image or CDR. most of the older games were like that.
Any thread about piracy brings out the idiots who think there is no such thing as ownership etc. Go and see what the real world is like, get a job and a life; don’t just rely on what you heard in Sociology 101 and can find on the internet.
Ownership is a concept thus cannot be found "in real life" as you seam to pretend, its not an apple or anything physical. As any concept it is subject to history of mankind, and history isn't writen in your job, or life, it is written in the knowledge of people as any other concept.
This naturally if you don't consider yourself as getting your knowledge directly from God in your real life, naturally
I used to live Asia where piracy is everywhere and it is no big deal. I still never used to watch movies from them becuase the quality was horrible. I ratehr pay to see it in a cinema but they censor stuff so I would occasionally get bootlegged copies to watch the uncensored bits. I lived in Brazil and that drug debate was very relevant. The did sell generic and they were right to do it. The price those drug companies were asking were nuts and they should be ashamed of themselves considering how they use third world countries in drug trials.
Comments
Wouldn't modifying the game so they can win be the EXACT same thing as changing a game to make it a different way to play?
It's true though, the 'modder' term being tossed around in here is only half right. The games are being modded, yes, but not by a mod team. It's technically reverse engineered .dll's, configs, and even port redirecting at times. So while in most cases a file or three are being 'modded', it's by no means a 'mod' in today's gaming terminology.
So basically you are only a thief HALF of the time? What a bunch of steaming bull! A thief is a thief and in my opinion (and most of societies to be honest) one of the lowest forms of life on the planet.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
I've seen some people here avoiding the morals and even economic discussions on piracy by simply going for arguments like "It's against the law, therefore it's wrong! And that's all!".
Now I'm curious: in my country there is still no law against downloading or sharing material under copyright, piracy here is when you are making profit in some way using this kind of material (like selling burned DVDs). So does this make me magically right if I download a game here because I'm not acting against the law?
My point here is that this piracy discussion goes beyond law statements and sticking with just that is pointless. Also, laws can and should change with the world around them.
I also cry a little every time I see some random dude going all "Aww! Poor mega companies, they are just inocent victims in this cruel game of captalism". B**ch, please.
I will get flamed.
I know.
But I'm not against piracy.
I think the most popular is music. If it wasn't from "piracy", some artist wouldn't be where they are right now.
And to be honest, where I live some artist make stuff like publicity against pirating music and stuff. I find it funny that they waste money on publicity that in the end... will change anything. And after they whine on : Oh but we don't make money when you pirate our music ! ... dha.
And I would add to the music departement that CD are just too much old school. If you're an artist and don't offer your song on the internet, seperatly, you most likely does not deserve people buying your music.
If you're smart enough to offer your music and sell each song separately at a cheap price like 1$ the song. Now you deserve alot more respect to be honest. Alot of people aren't interested in a pack of 10-15 song. Most of the time they only want one. And want the ability to listen to it before buying it.
About the movie. I'm a DVD collector. I have over 500DVD. I might have like.. 10 of them only pirated. I guess I deserve to get to jail ? I agree that ALOT of the pirated movie are pretty much crap and unwatchable if you have a little standard. But some are great. So yes, I consider myself able to get some free movie some time to time after encouraging the insdustry with 500+ DVD over the years.
I went to a concert of my favorite band. I openly told them I got most of their song from a program that take music from youtube. And I wanted to know what they think about that. They said : Hey, you are here encouraging us, you bought ticket to our concert. If you didn't get addicted by our music that you got for free and that we most likely gave out, you wouldn't have bought our ticket concert which make them more money than CD. And that every artist should know that the minute they put your music on the internet, it's like giving it for free. We had a great night.
i have a very simple moral ethic when coming to digital media. If i am iffy with a game, i wait till its on sale or its a trial. If i buy a shitty game, then oh well...you can buy anything (toaster, car, pens, etc) that can be shitty. Still isnt right to steal any item or intellectual property.
I look it like this....if i was making said product, would i want people stealing my hard work and income....most definitely not. Some of us have a moral compass.
Do you steal a car before you buy it to see if you like it? No...you go on a test drive. Most games these days are coming out with trial levels and such, just look at steam for gaming (http://store.steampowered.com/freestuff/demos/) over 100 demos, or amazon you can go and sample music before buying, or just read some reviews (like metacritic or such). Utilize the services that are given to you, use your brain and decide for yourself. What you are doing is trying to justify your stealing because a) you cant afford an item at that time or b) rather get it for free. It's just that simple. I sometimes cant afford to pay 60 bucks for a game (3 kids will do that to you), so i just wait for steam or direct2drive to have their crazy deals they usually have. Priorities people.
If you owned a business, say a simple stationary store, would you want your "customers" walking in, and stealing a pen or binder or other item just to see if they like it?
Yeah in the music industry it's a bit diffrent an artist get a VERY small fraction or a CD or digital download. Like 1-5%. On a 10$ cd they MIGHT see a nickel.
You mostly stealing from the publishers. Which I've never felt very bad about since they ARE all crooks.
I do however go to concerts which is where most bands really make their money.
Back on topic. I pirited when I was in college before i got a job. Now that i have money to support developers i do. You can get almost anygame on steam 6 mothes after it comes out for <20 bucks. I want developers of good games to keep making good games.
Capitalism only works if the consumers buy from people they want to succeed *cough* walmart *cough*.Put your money where your mouth is.
Want EA to stop making crap...... stop buying it. Want more indie developers to try some triple A titles.... start buying their games.
I want to snuggle up into Coyote Sharptongues warm and fuzzy nothingness and die happy.
TRUST THE COMPUTER! THE COMPUTER IS YOUR FRIEND!
Stay Alert! Trust No One! Keep Your Laser Handy!
Yellow Clearance Black Box Blues!
But won't they just pirate that one, too?
I pay for my games, music, movies. Hell I even pay for porn every now and then.
The only game I ever got pirate was FF7 and the only reason I did was, you can't buy it. Sure you can go on distribution sites and pay $200 for a back stock copy they paid $30 for but screw that. The reasons being as said. The "pirate" versions suck. They are buggy, incomplete and usually involve shady sites with spam and spyware.
Can I hack a game or a movie? Sure and do a good job but what motive do I have to dump 2 to 10 gigs of my bandwidth uploading hacked games or movies for someone else?
The original essay is bang on. I like most people don't think in the do it because I can way you need to think to hack and pirate. Besides that, I have a job. Hence I'm not bored and knowing the scams we face all over our consumer world? Its not needed.
There has always been crappy movies, games, tv shows, music, etc. It's not a new phenomenom. The change is in the Tech that makes it possible to get them free on a large scale.
Meh. You all callit piracy, I call it product testing.
Nowdays, Advertisments and 'reviews' are complete shit, usualy 'bought' by the company who made the game, in an attempt to make it look good. How often do u see 'Most Amazing fighting game ever' only to try it, and find out it is just a steaming pile of code.
I 'Pirate' a game, if I like it, I go buy it. I don't even bother OPENING some of them other than to look at the art in the box(got half a bookshelf next to me with unopened/unplayed games)
And thats how most of the 'pirates' I know are, we test, if its SHIT, damn RIGHT I'm not about to support your 'lets churn out more garbage and let our PR department sell it!' companies, but those guys like Bethesda, and other excelent logos going out of thier way to put out the top game they can? HELL yes they get my support.
Look at it another way, Us 'ebil piwates' are doing all you people a favor. Now the companies can SEE which of thier titles get bought and which get.. not.
This is a semi-interesting topic.
I myself have pirated loads of titles.
I went through a huge movie pirating episode in the last 6 months because I was epically poor and the idea of spending $20 to sit in a theatre with sticky floors next to some 18 year old dip shit trying to impress his GF who is more interested in responding to text messages. I still pirate the new releases but I feel it's more an advanced pirate because it all eventually lands in Netflix or HuluPlus, which I pay for every month.
I pirate games that I don't know anything about - that appear interesting and DON'T HAVE DEMO'S. I feel that if a game company doesn't have a demo or a free trial, their game is shit and they are trying to hide behind a $50 price tag. All the snobs in the world can't change my mind about this, I've blown so much money on shit that I finally decided to reverse the man-love train and get some for myself without feeling raped after 3 hours of gameplay.
So, yeah...I pirate but it's mostly because Developers have lost my trust in their products. So frakk em.
And now to comment on the OP.
Yeah, most of the press about pirates is BS, it's never as widespread as they say it is. It's more like a core group of people who like to get stuff free "because they can", it's little more than that.
The best part of the article was about people being frakking retards. I work Remote Support for GeekSquad and MS, and let me tell you - there are some humdingers in this here world. Developers love to demonize the people who "steal" their product but roll their eyes at people who have paid for said product and complain about hackers. Hackers are the most distastful lot not because they hack but because they take their modified game and beat up on people who don't have a defense against it. It's just more BS from developers, another reason why paying for their product isn't always a "smart purchase".
So according to you i can't just download a torrented game to see if i like it or not so i dont waste money on a stupid game? wow just wow. Ok so most people who use pirated games dont buy the game. Thats fine. As long as they can't get onto multiplayer (which most of the pirated torrent games wont let you get on multi) then kudos to them. Me, im gonna keep downloading the torrents and seeing if i want to spend the money on it. If more games released demos then i would see where it would be a problem. But guess what! The demos for games is sadly lacking. Guess the industry dont care about the players who might want to try out a game not buy it and trash it cause they cant patch fast enough for an enjoyable game. If i see one more game where they rushed it to meet deadlines (cough big rigs offroad racing cough) i wont even buy that games releases. I think the gaming industry should worry more about finishing a game not worry about these so called gamer piraters who actually give us a chance to see if the game is good or not.
I see most pirates as potential revenue streams. Just like the RIAA and the movie industry, the gaming industry has failed to capitalize on the new distribution systems and economic models presented to them by the pirates. Hell, the pirates are doing the marketing and the market research for the entertainment industry.
And no, I don't pirate. I'm just a man watching the industry limp into acceptance of the new distribution methods and economic models right in front of their face while trying to get the courts and the legislator to make up for their failures in adapting.
Forever looking for employment. Life is rather dull without it.
Piracy, copyright infringment, is not stealing. It is copyright infringment. They are fundamentally different concepts though both are certainly bad in their own right.
Forever looking for employment. Life is rather dull without it.
Actually no, pirating IS stealing. You are taking something that is made by another person, without their permission, and using it against their express will, the are trying to sell it after all and make money for there hard work. Copyright infringement is when you take a part of something, physical or intellectual, and use it in your own product, while trying to pass it off as yours, AND without getting permission from the original owner.
In the end it does not matter what kind of polish you use with this subject, you are still only polishing a turd and it still stinks. It is theft and those stealing the products deserved to be punished for their theft. Unfortunately, it seems to only be the thieving distributers that get nailed for pirating most times, not the thieves that are downloading from them.
Maybe the thieves out there would not be upset about this, but next time you want to try justifying yourself think of this, how would you feel if someone walked up to your grandmother, took her purse, max'd out her credit cards and even though they were caught red handed, they were let go because it just isn't worth it to go after the small fish. She is still out a few thousand dollars though and has no way to recoup her losses. Hey though, it isn't a big deal, the thief was just trying out her credit cards for a little while . . . right?
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
Well then i guess America should give back the American land ownership to the native if ownership is so straight forward for you guys. I don't think people need document links to back this up right, especially when you are aware of Indian reorganization act from 1934 that is a pure mess.
Brazil and all the "3d world" should literally die because the big chemistry corporation in the US refused to lower their price on medications to the point government had to tell them "fuck you guys, we'll do those medicine ourselves for 1/100 the price", and now even in the western country people buy those medication where they were supposed forbidden by some property right.
And i think George Hotz and the SOE affair is to put in the same bag, since Apple lost in front of the court for the Iphone jailbreaking and this was made legal (http://news.cnet.com/8301-31021_3-20011702-260.html), but SOE won over the same kind of jail breaking, well in fact its more like they force Hotz to sign an agreement with them to stop jailbreaking their products. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_public_participation
And it is even more discussable when SOE obviously force you to sign an agreement so you can't sue them as a customer because most law stipulate the companies have the obligation to protect their costumer data. Because well you are the one that "own" those info and companies have to respect this right. But naturally SOE don't want to have to deal with that right? Yet they don't want people to use what they consider their own too...
SO really ownership is clearly a very strange concept, everyone is pulling to its side, and many time laws are just an instrument in those fights. ANd its certainly not as black and white as most people here seam to claim. As it depend a lot on cultures, history and other slippery concepts. As such for some population ownership is to be the first to defend, for other freedom of speech, or free circulation of knowledge. Since internet is the direct result of the scientific community to share all their knowledge whatever countries or believe they belong to, well because science run better with full freedom of knowledge, and any personal or governmental interest in manipulating them slow its progress.
So all in all, you guys that think ownership can be squeezed under an on/off switch, should really try to learn about ownership and morality in our civilizations, rather than taking everything for granted as overfed ducks. Its not like you guys can't access those data, internet have it all under your fingers. So people stop being so narrow minded, or at least if you are get something to back up your rigid claims and attitudes.
As usual, another great article by OP. Ummm...I tried to copy some movie dvd's that I own to my hard drive and it was copy protected so I gave up. I have an amazing tv now so it doesn't matter. Never pirated a game or software, ever. Never cheated in an online game.
I used to play an fps years ago. I was good, really good. I had total control over the matches. I was a god...or demigod. Then hackers/modders started to emerge. The wall hacks, aim hacks. People hacking me so I would lag. I gave up on competitive gaming. I loved it so much, but the cheaters ruined it. And what REALLY pissed me off is when people who loved the game confronted the cheaters and the cheaters would defend the cheats by saying everyone cheats. No...not everyone.
Any thread about piracy brings out the idiots who think there is no such thing as ownership etc. Go and see what the real world is like, get a job and a life; don’t just rely on what you heard in Sociology 101 and can find on the internet.
By the way a modder does not change a game to cheat in it. Modders do great work giving us new levels, scenarios and so on. Typically this is with the permission of the company that made the game. The OP is talking about hacking here, hackers who open a game to insert cheats.
down troll down! be honest, you dont really care about what I do & I don't really care what you think about it. If you want to know the truth, over my course of my time playing games & computing (since the late '80s), my computer has been %100 pirate. pirated operating system, pirated applications, pirated games. for years I never paid for anything. I even ran a warez site for a while. now its different, I see the damage that has done, not to the companies, they make their money, but to myself & other players. I still run pirate win7 but the games I play I pay for cause I want them to keep making them.
before you get all indignant remember that it doesnt bother me that you don't like it
naw, its dirt simple. the process for cracking a game hasn't really changed since the introduction of copy protection & most of the time it's stable. in fact FF7 has no copy protection at all & can be played strait from the image or CDR. most of the older games were like that.
Ownership is a concept thus cannot be found "in real life" as you seam to pretend, its not an apple or anything physical. As any concept it is subject to history of mankind, and history isn't writen in your job, or life, it is written in the knowledge of people as any other concept.
This naturally if you don't consider yourself as getting your knowledge directly from God in your real life, naturally
I used to live Asia where piracy is everywhere and it is no big deal. I still never used to watch movies from them becuase the quality was horrible. I ratehr pay to see it in a cinema but they censor stuff so I would occasionally get bootlegged copies to watch the uncensored bits. I lived in Brazil and that drug debate was very relevant. The did sell generic and they were right to do it. The price those drug companies were asking were nuts and they should be ashamed of themselves considering how they use third world countries in drug trials.
You are my hero.