id love to buy Bioshock but there is an easy to use downlaod copy around that has no problems not buying that game or any of there games untill thay remove that type of protection as the Downloaded ver is Better then the payed for one (The protection only works to prevent legal copys of games to be installed for who have payed for it, it does not prevent the illegal use any way) i refuse to buy games that have *** protection that uses device drivers or sercrom (cant run some games due to Alcohol 120%, an Payed copy of Bioshock will not run on my pc) if it can be removed via an No cd i am fine i buy it (C&C4 no cd) but bioshock is part of the installer not even downloaded that game as i use the Mutiplay part of the games i pay the most of my games as punkbuster or just going online game will not let you due to key - i norm do try(as well as demos as well) before buy if the game is not intresting no point in spending money on it if i not even going to play it, so its no money lost to the devs any way
I admit to pirating games, haven't done it in a while. i download the game, if its good i buy it. i've bought too many expensive games cause they looked good and then found out that they're complete c**p but can't take them back cause the retailers complain about piracy. i would know, i work in an electronics store. if there were more demos around i wouldn't need to download the game to see wat its like. also, EA and others, if you're reading this, lower your prices. $100 for a game is ridiculous. unless its really awesome. i have crysis
I only read the first post, but in there he talks about the selling rate of COD4 on console vs computer... he said it was 10 to 1 in favor of the console... did he forget that COD4 is a ONLINE GAME? that 10 to 1 ratio simply means that 10 times more people play the game online via the console than computer, simple as that. Its just not the best game to use as an example since the multiplayer part of the game is the reason you buy it (for most people) and you can't play online without a legit CD KEY. Bioshock is a good example, but at the same time, the fact that the ratio was LOWER(4-1 vs 10-1) than COD4 is odd considering that its a single player only game, and you would think that it would be pirated MORE than a online only game. I'm not going to argue that piracy doesn't cause revenue losses. of course it does. BUT the easiest way to fight piracy is to take it away from your average computer user. If we were all still stuck in the usenet ways, a lot less people would be pirating overall. this is where i see STEAM shining. How fast have any of you seen STEAM only games get hacked? I mean aside from the ones they offer in a retail box, every time ive looked into hacking steam games, its a PITA. STEAM is headed in the right direction to help prevent piracy IMO.
I only ever download games for my 360, but when it comes to my PC i buy them, i have in front of me 10 games that I have bought brand new sealed over the last two years, that must be £300 or more I've spent. And I have paid for load's of stuff over Steam aswell.
I know people who pirate allot, and they do not have a problem with it. I have also convinced people to stop pirating. I use to buy pirated games because I was uninformed, as soon as I realized my mistake I got the BSA to close the company down. Since that day I have not pirated any games, I check or wait for a Demo and play it, read multiple reviews and then decide, I also have a habit of collecting the top 10 games of the year by buying them. No guy who pirates will ever convince me that there is a reason to steal! You can always make sure that you make the right decision before spending the money, Check with a friend, ask for a demo, read reviews, ask for an introduction to the game at the retailer, check the official and non official forums for issues with the game, wait until the first patch is released. There is honestly no reason to pirate. If you pirate you are the type of person that likes to use an opportunity to get stuff for free, and in that case you see it as the right thing to do, but it does not deter from that fact that you are hurting the industry, stealing someone else's intellectual property with out compensating for it. If you feel a game is too expensive just wait for the bargain bin!
I bought it for Xbox, and completed it. Buying the same game twice would have been...I dunno, I suppose it's the politically correct thing to do, because my way involved stealing, but in the common-sense way, there seemed no point. Yeah, I think profits determine legitimacy. I feel ok about stealing from large companies - not because I'm against them (au contraire, I love them) but because it won't impact. I don't pirate small games from small companies - except darwinia, and I feel really bad about that, and am going to buy it soon No employees are going to be fired or meals sacrificed by my pirating doom 3, whereas stalker, I made a point of buying, because I wanted to support them. That's the thing, see. It's a gesture of sorts, of approval or disapproval. Just as you can watch a film in the cinema and then give it a low score on IMDb, I pirate a game, and if I don't like it, I don't buy it. A small gesture. (Okay, THAT was a lame excuse. I apologise.) [immorality] It was no effort, really. I enjoy pirating, there's a momentary illusion of comradery when 300 peoples' torrents help you steal a product, and when the work of some cracker makes it possible for you to play it. [/immorality] I didn't like the game enough to buy it twice. I was just curious if there was anything in the PC experience that the xbox experience lacked. (answer: yes. So maybe I ought to buy it, now. But playing doom 3 three times? That's like...masochism.)
The point people are trying to make is they're not trying to stealing the game, they're testing it out to see if it's worth buying, the only way that causes a lost sale is if the person pirating the game decides the game is awful and they won't waste their money on it. It's kind of like a bookshop, they'll usually have an area where you can sit down and read a book to see if you like it. You pick out a book, read a chapter or two, if you like what you've read, you buy it, if you don't, you put it back.
When I was much younger (at least 20 years back) I "copied" a few games - I even broke the copy protection on a few (using a simple hex-editor, It was so easy back then). Since then though - I won't even consider it. I'd break the protection with no-CD cracks on a game I bought (just to make it less of a hassle to play) but I wouldn't pirate it. Generally games are pretty good value for the money (at least the good ones are) when compared to movies, DVDs, the symphony (don't laugh, I enjoyed it), concert tickets, ...
Used to for pc back in the day. honestly if i had a decent pc anymore, i probably would. As much as i enjoy piracy, i get tired of pc gamers getting mad at games going to consoles, and then they pirate the game when its released on pc.
You still have to deal with the copy protection **** IIRC though, you still only get a limited number of installs, etc.
Yeah I can see that being a problem depending of the hard drive space. You are supposed to be able to re-ask them free redownloads if you need them, and I think you are given them back over time. I can't remember where I read this though so I may be wrong.
Yeah, although to begin with at least, uninstalling the game didn't give you one your your install credits back, I think that's fixed now. I don't really see the need for double copy protection, surely just using steam as the DRM for the steam version would be enough.
I used to download both PC and PSP games until recently. I'm not going to cover that up with any excuses. Also, movies and music heavily as well. But as I get older, I realize exactly what I'm doing. True, I'm a teen and wouldn't of been able to buy the game even if I had wanted to, but it's people with attitudes like my old one (it's free - why pay for it?) that are killing idustries all over. I'm hoping once I get a job soon, I'll be able to buy a copy of XP (running on a pirated one ) and all my favourite games. I can't justify piracy anymore - it's wrong no matter how you slice it. Within the last 2 months or so though, I've been legit, and I feel better knowing that I'm not supporting the death of the industry anymore.
There is one programme that basicly is "the godfather of protection" going wrong. For over a decade Steinberg's Cubase is using custom protection code to protect from being copied. The 'protection' code is throughoutly woven into the source of the programme on all levels. From basic mouse-movement to note-on registration. The protection works together with a USB dongle, where all the checksums are sitting. Although the usb keystick is a lot better then the printerport dongle from years ago. It still causes all kinds of trouble. Mostly intevering with other audio plugin usb keys. There are 2 mayor flaws in this woven protection Steinberg is using; 1) without all the protection code, Cubase would have worked 20 times faster and would crash less then now. 2) The protection has always been cracked. Infact it is one of the most 'prestige cracking targets' from crackers around the world. There are only two loosers here, one being Steinberg that still thinks protection works, the second being the users who are working with a slow sometimes crashing expensive program. One example from my own experience. When I had Cubase VST with a printer dongle. I never could get it to work without crashing. I have contacted steinberg many times. They even send me a new printer dongle. But in the end I had better luck with the cracked version. And with me there where many professional producers around the world, that uses the cracked version instead of their (getting dust on the shelf) original version.
Yes il admit it but I have ALWAYS bought the games I enjoyed. I no longer download any except to try them when theres no demo. If i enjoy them i have no problem parting with my cash to buy them. If not i deleted them off. To be honest since a young age I have bcome tired of buying a game on its marketing and also bias reviews only to get it home and realise its a pile of **** (yes EA im looking at you and your rehashes) Its just way too expensive to be falling into this pit especially when vendors dont allow returns on software. The last game i bought was Frontlines Fuel of War and god i wish i had pirated it but no...i took the risk and i paid the price. I sold it the same night on ebay at a loss even though it was brand new literally. Iv bought the great games - Call of duty 4, Gears of War, Crysis, The orange box and im waiting for more to come along. If i like a game iv downloaded i will buy it, i have to anyway because the only games im interested in are FPS and RTS games that require cdkeys to play online which is what im always after - the online experience. I dont play single player games anymore or extremely rarely, they have waaaay too limited appeal yet online play with others is way more gratifying. I played BF2142 for donkeys and im living of Gears of War online even despite its buggy as hell and its a nightmere finding and joining low ping games but i love its gameplay and am very happy i bought it and will do so if the game itself is good. Single player games are always going to suffer from piracy, developers can counter by allowing online play, throwing in legitimate cdkeys that are needed and a sophisticated ranking system and your guarunteed sales .
That's my whole thing with copy protection. First and foremost, I always buy a copy of software if I'm using it in a for-profit manner (which hardly applies to games, but that's beside the point) - I see using pirate software for profit as no better than selling pirate movies. But there's still any number of things that I'll run a cracked version of so that I don't have to fuss with activation and other such nonsense. Anything that requires a hardware dongle is going to be immediately returned and swapped for a competing product - that takes it to a level way beyond irritating. I can't speak for CuBase, but I saw similar problems for some video editing software at a place I once worked.
I voted 'Yes, but I often buy the game too. Really.' but in truth ive only pirated a game once. Isnt there an easy way to avoid this sort of thing? Force people to pay for accounts? its much harder to pirate WOW because you have a pay for an account, sure u can play on someone elses account but at the end of the day the developer still gets money..... Now i appriciate that i probably wouldnt be to happy if i had to do this,but i think it would work pretty well
