News Peter Moore warns against suing filesharers

uh oh, you went and said the 'C' word

 

I believe I have a fantastic argument FOR piracy.

Last few years, seeing as I actually have a job, I've taken to buying a lot of games; games I've barely heard of, games I'll only play a few hours etc. I have the disposable income to do it, so I do it.

But, yesterday I discovered something rather horrible. Flat Out Ultimate Carnage; I bought the PC version through steam (iirc it cost me $49.99 + TAX and what not.); a proper impulse buy. We play a LOT of FlatOut 2 at the LANs I regular, so I figure it won't be much of a waste as we'll probably start playing FOUC insted of FO2. Considering I'll probably only ever play this game for a half hour every few weeks (maybe 8 hours in a year), thats some expensive entertainment.

Then I find out theres no LAN play. At all; the entire multiplayer system is done through the "Games for Windows Live" crap. I can accept that for the online modes, but seriously... no LAN play at all? Ok ok, maybe it's not all bad, lets see what new stuff they've added.

Lets see.... tracks.... all identical to the FO2 tracks (minus various visual improvements).

New cars? Nope.

New game modes? Yes, but they're hardly worth mentioning considering what they are. Carnage Races; smash everything in sight score points. Beat the bomb; Checkpoint-to-Checkpoint racing. Oh, and they modified the single player destruction debies (OMG U HAS LIVES AND POWERUPS!).

I've not even bothered to check yet, but I'm pretty sure none of the "new" modes are available in multiplayer either.

Then I find out its being sold for $19, on Steam, in the US.

So I've paid $30 (+TAX!) over the odds, for FlatOut2 with a few new knobs. Oh, and the developers polished the graphics up... but they didn't get around to changing any of the menu images from the XBox controller buttons either.

If I hadn't bought it through Steam, I'd be getting a refund; as it stands, I don't want to risk pissing Valve off over my Steam account, due to huge number of games I've bought through it