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Must stop piracy and second-hand sales! Wait...what about
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I'm not so sure I'd go so far as saying all pirates are good for the games they pirate though.
I still regret pirating Alpha Centauri, if I could go back in time and pay for it I would, in the hopes that AC 2 would be made. Who knows if it would have if more people had paid, but at least I wouldnt hate myself for it now.
I actually used to pirate the hell out of games (and movies). I stopped that many years ago once I like...had more to lose (not like you could sue a broke teenager, a grown college student however...). That hasn't lead to me buying more games, actually it's lead to me buying less. I used to pirate because I liked games, and couldn't afford them. I stopped once I could, and had to think more carefully about what was worth spending money on, which lead to playing less games. Like coming off of an addiction, I found the less time I spent gaming, the less gaming I wanted to do. Ironic.
Back when I was a teenager, I'd at least buy the games I liked with whatever pocket change I was making at my part-time, mostly to be able to play it online with friends. Now, I don't even do that much. Admittedly, part of that might also just come from getting older and gaining a little more perspective.
I don't claim that would be the result for everyone, but for me, the lack of pirating didn't mean more money in the company's pocket.
EDIT - Oh, I forgot my original point. Anyway, the reason why nothing happens to eBay is the same reason that nothing happens to sites like Youtube; the majority of the jargon thrown at customers by game companies to instill fear and respect in them only works because most customers don't know any better. They are easier targets than a company like eBay that has the money to hire top-notch lawyers, the ones that can protect them through legal loop-holes even though they're technically profitting from second-hand sales.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
I know enough about malware and steam to back up my points with facts and not only fanboism. Steam is an intrusive, monitoring, reporting system that prevents me running software I paid for.
As a previous user of Steam, it created frustration and annoyance and caused problems on my system (crashes, conflicts, resource issues (I had to buy a new HDD and RAM to run a game + steam whereas I could have run the game fine without Steam), false positives from antivirus software. Its SteamService.exe demanded administrator permission to run on my system potentially creating a huge security hole if hackers discovered a vulnerability via that service.
On a personal level, to demand I subscribe to a service which I do not require, want or like, to demand my personal details, to demand to be allowed to collect information to which according to their privacy policy I consent may be provided to any third party they wish, so I can play a boxed version of a totally unrelated offline game which I paid for. This is unacceptable to me.
Given the above I consider it malware. The links and info I provided clearly show that Steam has SOME OF THE ELEMENTS of a malware program. You need to remember that the term Malware is a broad term for other types of software spyware, adware, viruses, trojans and also legitimate software. It also does not necessarily have to be destructive to be classified as such.
@GaenPrayer - where I come from (Australia) most software licences can be sold as long as you remove the software from your system. if its an unopened boxed version then its no issue at all. of course it ultimately depends on the laws of your country, the individual software licence and the main one, the cost of trying to track down and prosecute a person for a single boxed version vs tracking and prosecuting the owner of a server providing unlmited copies.
Ditto on both Lineage 2 and the point that this is just another MMORPG.com "It isn't that by the real definition, but it is by MY personal defintiion" thread.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
It's a bit out of date, but yeah tried it for a while. I don't really have a type of game tbh... I just like good ones.
Though in all honesty I do tend to steer well clear of lvl/ gear/ lass based open world gank PvP these days, it's true. I like to see how different games run though.
I should say though that I came away with a lot of good will towwards L2... it didn't turn out to be for me in the end but it is a good game.
Anyone that claims to want to see change in this industry should be supporting indie gaming IMO, and Steam is a fantastic promoter of that, giving a massive shop window to titles that would be otherwise ignored.
For that reason alone every gamer should be praising Steam to the high heavens.
I see Steam as little more than the industry's ongoing attack on the used game market. They don't want you selling your old unwanted games. They have to offer a few little tidbits here and there to make it seem more 'acceptable'. While there are still decent companies out there avoiding Steam, I'll keep playing.
Stop second hand sales.
WUT?
WTF?
How anyone apart of corporate suits can support this boggles my mind.
Maybe we stop second hand sales of books? Computers and other electronic equipment? Cars? Houses?
Seriously get a grip people...
I would love to see the true statitics on that, but I am sure they are not as damaging as the industry would like us to believe. Lobby groups are on purposly spreading false information regarding pirating and a lot of (older?) judges seems to be easily swayed by those arguments. What the judges rule has hardly anything to do with law in this area, because duo to unupdated laws there is a lot of gray areas to walk in.
Anyhow I had problems with the newest settlers, while the true consumers where waiting for the crappy servers to be finially working allowing us to log in, the pirates where already playing the game. Then as a company you know your doing something very very wrong. Having no DRM is prolly the best way of battling pirates. There going to hack anything they are going to trow at them anyway. New systems might last a few weeks, but once that is broken it's broken and new games will be pirated within days.
Pirating is also nothing new really. It's as old as the cassette player. I know we copied music from cassette's and copied Amiga diskettes, with was not even illigal in my country and still is not (do not believe the new laws are in effect yet, but not sure).
I really wonder if the cost of the DRM is paying itself back. I really doubt that to be true and they might have gotten people to buy it because they did not wanted to wait for a cracked version, but I also believe people have been scared away from the games and might actually decided to pirate the game instead.
Piracy is also an easy scapgoat. With crysis they blamed pirates for the misirable launch. Not there own bad launch and the game that was lacking in a lot of departments.
I really do not see that. Digital download is simply a better solution for many people to get games. It's often even faster for a lot of poeple and less disc, manuals and key-code you lose laying around the house. That is why you have services like Steam, Gamersgate, etc.
Saying that Steam is malware is false. But if you feel like anyone can use the English language as they like okkkkkk. Let's have a go. EVE, UO, DAOC, Everquest 1 & 2, WoW, LOTRO, Guild Wars 1 & 2, ArcheAge, Age of Conan, TOR, TSW and every single game on this website are not MMORPGs. They are all single player games and they are malware which try to steal my personal information by asking for my credit card details to play. Why the hell should I give them my card details to play their game?!! I bought the game? Malware I am telling you. Did I mention that they intrude my privacy because sometimes they put other people in MY GAME???!!!! They also phish my PC for very sensitive personal information.
I don't see what's wrong with reselling games. Every other product you buy you can resell. Why should games be any different. Of course, some companies like Blizzard make this impossible because of the CD keys issues.
Pirating a game is wrong. It is basically stealing. It doesn't matter how you put it. You don't like having to install steam that's why you torrented the game? Well, that is still stealing. If you don't like steam, you don't play the game! There's no moral high ground which can justify you pirating a game. If you don't think a game is worth the asking price, you don't buy it. Simple as that. But you don't go and pirate it!
The only thing which I can understand is people torrenting a game to try it and then they BUY it. Although in this case I think that if you play through the game, you have to buy it. If you use it as a demo to try out the game for like 20-30 min that's okay I guess. Although imo you should download a demo rather than pirate the full game.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
the moment they use the word piracy its a scam to get money
if anyone has ever been to asia it is full of pirates if they are so concerned they would try to remove these pirates from the biggest markets in the world
in asia you can visit shoping centres and find pirated films, music and games all for sale i even went to a multi cinema and there was a pirated movie playing with showdow heads on the screen
if they really think that removing 100% of pirated movies games and films will net them more money they are in for a shock as most people only use pirated enterainment because it is cheap
if they really wanted to make a lot more money
then release the latest films and music for £3 it would sell by the bucket load and it just wouldnt be worth the pirate even trying to copy it
Around 75% of losses a publisher will face come from the USED GAME MARKET. Piracy is barely a blip on the radar when it comes to overall verifiable losses to the publisher.
Another rarely known fact is that piracy is more active certain regions. Many I have talked to assume piracy is rampant in North American, when in fact it ranks the lowest on the piracy list. Piracy is at its highest in, believe it or not... regions where the game is not available for domestic purchase or is over priced. For example, piracy is huge in China, the middle east and south america. In Australia and New Zealand, publishers charge easily over $120 for a game we here in the states would pay $50-60 for.
The real culprit has always been the Used Game Market. Retailers reselling the same game over and over and over, oftentimes barely undercutting a new copy. EULA's are often ignored and some actually think they own the game as opposed to owning the license to run the game. These are fundamentally different concepts.
If selling used copies of games becomes actively illegal (technically it still is but its ignored) ebay will not allow those sales.
In the case, Vernor vs Autodesk, Autodesk won. The courts reinforced the idea that you cannot resell copies of license based software without their permission.
On another note:
Everytime you buy a used game, you commit something worse than piracy. In some cases piracy has actually helped a publisher. Game's like Gothic 1 would have never been popular outside of Germany if it wasnt for piracy and fan translations. Other articles suggest pirates are often the biggest spenders on games, where as other articles write them off as non consumers altogether. Perhaps it is a mix of both. There is no way we can actually verify which category they belong to other than the fact that Piracy is not the big bad evil hurting the industry that some make it out to be.
Used games are responsible for developers holding out content to resell as DLC as a means to offset losses. They also force developers to make more online only games in which the game is tied to an online account.
Its always good to keep it in proper perspective.
I don't understand how a used game is illegal to sell. When we buy in the shop we do not sign an agreement which prohibits a resale of that item. In most countries, exhanging money for a product makes us the owner of that product.
Only on installing the game on our system do we agree to the licence conditions and by then its too late to impose restrictions on ownership. I can't see how any reasonable court would find that after paying money for a boxed version of a game, without agreeing to not resell that boxed version at a later date that we couldn't legally resell it.
To put it in perspective, if we were to buy a vehicle and when we got the keys they said, "oh hey, btw you only bought a licence to drive this vehicle, it still belonngs to us, if you decide to drive this vehicle you may not resell it to anyone" I think no court would agree that this is reasonable. And I think thats why people ignore the eula because a lot of it is nonsense but put in as a just in case they don't take it to court they may think its true and legally obligating.
Windows and Linux are malware as well then.
I can actually understand gaming companies wanting to stop piracy. After all, they want to sell as many copies of their new game as they can, and once a game gets pirated, many many people that would otherwise have had to buy it, wont.
What pisses me off thought is them going after people buying 2nd hand games. Once someone has bought a game it is theirs to do with as they wish. They own it. The gaming company no longer has any rights to it.
Its just pure greed by the gaming companies seeing that there is a lucrative 2nd hand market, and crying because they arent getting a cut of it. So.... they introduce all these bullshit measures to stop anyone but the original purchaser of the game enjoying it fully(unless they pay)..... just so they can make money off of the 2nd hand market
Cluck Cluck, Gibber Gibber, My Old Mans A Mushroom
When you purchase a title outside of steam (a retail version of shogun 2 for example) you are required to load steam. Additionally steam software is required to be running on your system to play even in offline mode. This is frankly quite a bit different to having a system specific bit of software loaded such as a driver or a hub which is directly related to your software.
So yes it's needed to be loaded for me to run the game, monitors and reports to steam, its taking partial control of my computer.
Also I have never had an ISP or computer service provide software that checks what programs I have running, refuses to let some programs run if I don't have their unrelated software running or requires that I allow it to upload information on my system and programs to possibly be shared with 3rd parties. Doesn't happen and if it did they'd be bankrupt pretty quick.
Now it's absolutely clear you haven't the slightest clue about the issue you're poorly attempting to rabble about here.
You are right, the store doesn't let you see or sign the agreement before purchase. You agreed before you installed, but that's an argument that's two decades old and if you haven't learned anything on that front by now, you certainly aren't going to learn in a couple pages of an MMORPG.com thread so I won't waste you or my time explaining it. Here's something you clear don't understand, though, and until you figure it out, no one is really going to take you seriously:
"The Software is licensed, not sold. Your license confers no title or ownership in the Software."
But, see.. Steam... that evil, malware something or other you are raising torch and pitchfork about.... Steam lets you read and sign the subscriber agreement (SSA) before you purchase. The SSA hasn't changed in two years, so if you've read it once in the past two years, you're set. As someone rallying about the dangers and oppressive nature of Steam, you have read the SSA, right?
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
People who pirate games probably wouldn't have bought the game in the first place so developers are punishing the loyal customers..whats new there!
I pirate most games I play because I wouldn't have considered buying them, Skyrim, fo3 fonv, etc, tons of others. Most recent games I bought have all been indie titles because they actualyl deserve the money, Its pretty sad how a team of 1-3 people can make a game thats unique and ends up selling like 500k+ copies, yet a dev that has a huge budget.. well the best they can do is rehash the exact same game over and over again (fps games are a major culprit of this, i mean what is diff in each cod game? bascally nothing) I can't remember the last time I seen a non-indie made game that was actually worth buying, mostly cuz its all the same shit in a diffrent wrapper with these big name devs.
Then you have instances lie ebioshock where the pirates were able to play the game way before the legit buyers did due to the drm they decided to use to stop piracry (which as you can see drm etc is virtually non-effective vs piracy at all). You want people to stop pirating your games? start making shit WORTH buying and people would. The indie games I bought I'll admit I pirated first, but I liked them so much I went out and bought them shortly after. Terraria, Dungeon Defenders, The Binding of Issac, Space Pirates and ZOmbies, and I plan to buy Space pirates and zombies 2, and starbound on release.
I mean I play the games released by big name devs lately and I am like.. "This game has to much of that Been here done that feel" and I end up just uninstalling and deleting the iso off my hdd cuz the game just ain't fun to play.
Also yeah, most pirates out there would never have bought the game in the first place so its not really a sale lost at all. They mostly are losing sales because the games are just bad, or boring, or too much of the same crap over and over again. The devs etc know this, yet they still try to blame piracy for loss of sales.
Being a pessimist is a win-win pattern of thinking. If you're a pessimist (I'll admit that I am!) you're either:
A. Proven right (if something bad happens)
or
B. Pleasantly surprised (if something good happens)
Either way, you can't lose! Try it out sometime!
So these horrible nasty mainstream games are not worth your money, but they ARE worth your time?
What a crock... using elitest judgement as a self superior smokescreen to cover up unethical cheapness.
It's people like you, and your weak rationalisations, that make copy protection in all it's ugly glory required. Yeah, thanks for that.
Here is a thought; any game that you are willing to put in to is worth your money. So stop looking for a free ride on the backs of others, crack open your wallet, and buy it.
If it isn't worth your money, don't play it.
That way you don't help inflict a situation we don't want on the rest of us.
From my experience the majority of Pirating of software, music, movies and pron is overseas in 3rd world countries.
lol please just stop, by your definition half the software I purchased and installed on my computer is malware including the operating systems itself, yes the OS controls part of my physical compuer. Really just stop this nonsense.
I havent read most of the shit beeing said in this thread, but all im gonna say is this; If video games wherent as expensive as they are NOW i wouldent have a problem getting more games legally. You see gameprices have gonne up a bunch i dont know if u guys check the prices online but that shit is scary. All the new games coming this quarter and next have some pricey tags, 69.99?? are u fucking serious? and its not ofc the so valuable collectors edition that is priced at 100 and up that comes with the thong of ur favorite character; No but seriusly i remeber games at 59.99 for me where expensive but now? and dont get me started on that 10 dollar bullshit for using online in used games thats just pisses me the fuck off. To all of u out there saying ``the pirates are cheap assholes´´ well listen here homie That shit is what a ``cheap´´ bastard does charge you to play his game online if u didnt expend the 70 bucks to play his shitty campaing. There not even creative anymore, All and all i think the gaming industry is corrupt as fuck and they dont even drop good games at all they just milk franchices. (remeber Assasins creed 2? that shit was good). So yeah we need more games like the hd collections that are 40 euros and pack good games from the old era, and less 70 euro brain dead games. PEACE
Whilst I agree with you(as do many people), don't you mean steamworks rather than steam itself? i.e. The drm rather than the retailer.
May need to point out for the idiot fanboys that it isn't just valves drm that is considered malware.
wiki link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malware incase anyone missed it.
Second hand sales and piracy aren't really the same thing.
And companies aren't ignoring ebay etc. since most drm kills resale value, but propogates piracy I think attacking the second hand market is one of the main reasons for its use.