Ha, mininova torrents... Don't exclude the locally-hosted (by ISPs) downloads, that are preferred thanks to over 10Mbit/s rates. I guess 100k gamers in my country (out of 8 million population) probably pirated it.

somarix

@DaiMacculate: You forgot to mention that they may have simply figured out that they can't stop individual piracy, and decided to focus on companies.

Jonn

@DaiMacculate: adobe held a talk at a camera convention recently, asking who in the audience used photoshop and, unsurprisingly, everyone raised their hand.
they then asked who had paid for their copy, 2-5 people kept their hand raised. they didn't seem surprised.
seriously, their customers are the companies that can't afford, so to speak, to run anything but legit versions unless they want their services or products taken off the shelf. the regular joe, from enthusiast to novice is not who they really aim for.

xbulletholes

100k downloads?
yes please

foolalex

To get people to not pirate games..hmm

Downloadable extras that you need a code for from your box

Preorder treats and in box goodies maps, manuals, artbooks, cds, making ofs

Special members section on their website

Decent pricing ($50 and no trade in if it's buggy cause the devs don't bother patching? No thank you!)

Demos I can not stress the demos enough. Demos are the reason I've purchased many games I wouldn't have even looked at twice otherwise.

TAKE AWAY THAT FRIGGIN COPY PROTECTION. If you break your legal buyers computer they're never going to buy from you again.

If the game does not need the DVD to run(games way back when ran off the cd...now...) then do not make me put the DVD in every time I want to play it.

Launch day is not the end, PATCH YOUR BUGS.

But I doubt I'll ever see any of this stuff...

Ajh

@xbulletholes,Guizzy: The idea that Adobe doesn't care about Piracy would hold more water if Photoshop didn't have "Phone Home" software and Adobe didn't regularly break known pirated serial numbers. Also, the pricing has gone up far faster than other software packages, I could get the full version for under $600 10 years ago and now its pushing towards $1000 like I said in my first post.

I used to be quite the Adobe fan, now I'm highly skeptical of them as they've bloated Photoshop in both features and price without much real benefit over the last several years, and seem to care more about Pie in The Sky crap like AIR than their core customers.

They might be the new Quark, and I never thought I'd say that; Quark sucks!

DaiMacculate

@Evangel: Ohh I see, you really made your point there, because you know more than EVERY dictionary out there.

Just read what is said in the link I posted and stop making shit up.

Gigith

@SilverStar95: Dude, I've been reading your posts on this thread, and come on, deep down you know that all your arguments are nothing but sorry excuses. You're doing something that is wrong, and you're doing it on a massive scale, and you know it.

thinred

this numbers should get publisher to interest in smaller emergent markets.. I'll give you my example... i live in a country where you can't walk 2 blocks without finding someone selling bootleg movies... we have no copyright laws..
So as a big fan of Half life and dealing with the imposibility of buying an actual disk i downloaded it from a torrent (along with portal) ... not 25% into the game i learned Steam let's you buy from anywhere in the world (unlike the US only gametap). I obviously got steam and purchased the game.
But my story is not different from the millions opf gamers in smaller countries where you can download penalty free (except for the ocasional virus) and get the same support as if you bought the game (that is none)
Pc developers have to get on their mind the PC value of expansion and unified markets... this industry is not only of japan or US or europe... we have to get a global industry.

bunch.of.wackos

The seas are filled with thousands and thousands of ... pi-ratsss....

PJ Frost

I buy the games good enough to be worth buying. Always have.

GhaleonUnlimited

@DaiMacculate: I would be surprised if Adobe really had a problem with piracy.

Actually, I'd wager they even LIKE consumers getting pirate versions of their software.

It ensures that their software is the market standard, and will be bought for big bucks by the corporate world, which can't just pirate it.

When the 15 year old kid want to try his hand at photo-editing, and the like; it's obvious he won't buy Photoshop for hundreds of $. And those crappy "Elements" versions are not comparable to the competitors; the rather cheap Paint Shop Pro and the free GIMP and Paint.NET. Those would be what he'd use if it was impossible to pirate Photoshop. And when that kid starts doing it professionally, he'd use these rather than buying (or having his employer buy) Photoshop.

If it were not for its software being widely pirated, Adobe would have much stronger competition.

Guizzy

I don't pirate software. I ninja it.

Mr.SithNinja

@DaiMacculate: software companies like adobe don't aim to sell their product to the regular consumer, instead securing deals with businesses, universities and the like. they know that these places have to buy the license for their software and so care little about the mass-pirating that occurs.
games of course don't have that luxery.

xbulletholes

I am not sure if anyone already pointed this out but downloading games/movies/tv shows/music/etc. is not stealing. It is copyright infringement. Also, while it is illegal to download copyrighted material in the US, it is not illegal everywhere (for instance, in Canada). As to whether downloading copyrighted material is morally objectionable, that is up to each person to decide. Frankly, there are many more important moral issues that I actually feel passionate about such as abortion, euthanasia, etc. Piracy just seems inconsequential. People will always buy games and people will always find ways to pirate them.

AxCrusnik

@SilverStar95: you mention storage space and network speed, neatly avoiding advances in ram, processor speed, graphic card capabilities etc.
odd how piracy has done little to help them.

xbulletholes

@Koztah: Your argument is flawed. THC is illegal. Hemp is legal. I have clothes that were manufactured in the USA and made of hemp (marijuana).

Also, there is a difference when someone is minding their own business and ingesting psychotropic substances as opposed to someone freely downloading someone elses hard work and ideas for nothing. Big difference morally.

My wife rationalizes just like you and the rest, with the exception she tell me why she 'needs' another pair of shoes. Logic plays no role in your arguments. It's just trying to trick yourselves into thinking there are good reasons for stealing, or situations that make stealing games good or acceptable.

It's not like your stealing a loaf of bread to feed your family. This is purely a luxury product and thinking you have the 'right' to take games is emotional and illogical.

homernoy

On a less serious note, that screenshot up top gave me warm fuzzies. Unfortunately, my (retail) copy of Pirates! Gold (on 3 1/2" disc) died a long time ago.

Did the latest Pirates! game ever hit the bargain bin? Hope I didn't miss that one!

eugaet

I find it strange that some people are using "it's breaking the law" as an argument against piracy, especially when the law is generally flawed and there are much better moral arguments against it.

An example: Marijuana is illegal. Yet one acre of marijuana can produce as much paper as four acres of trees, marijuana oil can be refined into high quality plastics and fuel. It can be made into resilient textiles as well.

But it's illegal. Why? Capitalist conspiracy theories aside (Hearst, Dupont, etc), because people will likely also smoke it and mellow out. Egads.

"It's illegal" is never a good reason not to do something: one should be guided by their moral compass and by fact.

Koztah

i think it's reasonable to pirate things as long as you buy what you really enjoy or get a lot of use out of. it's also nice to have a tangible copy of something you really like. everything else is just stuff you wouldn't have otherwise owned so doesn't really make a difference, it's not like you're depriving the original owner of anything.

cheeseboybeans

I've been pirating games since the early 90s. It's not that big of a deal. I own Tens of thousands of computer and video game software and hardware, so it's not like they're losing out on that much.
Not to mention that you need a legit CD Key to play any of the games online - so that usually leads to a person buying the actual game... or using hamachi.

Tizlor

sorry to burst your bubble but assassin's creed is fully playable to the end, just finished it, with a fix :p

Kaedex

Heh, everybody is upset (rightly so) about game piracy, but at least it hasn't really inflated the cost of games beyond that 40-60 dollar threshold for the most part (in the U.S., its obv. more other places for various reasons), its not like with Adobe Stuff where Photoshop costs over $1000 for the full deluxe package ($2000 if you want the whole CS3 package), and the piracy levels are as bad or worse, hence the justification for such pricing.

DaiMacculate

I downloaded Turning Point from Mininova, actually. It was atrocious.

Asper

I find people's willingness to copy something, just because it happens to be digital, pretty shitty.

I mean, this is years of people's work you're duplicating-without-paying-for. Screw the whole concept of whether or not you *can* do the thing - should you? Why shouldn't they get paid for their work? Why shouldn't you be paying for it?

People work hard to make these things; they expect to get paid for them. By you, for using it. If you can't pay, you shouldn't use it. Period.

gblock

Well next time sell your games at the same price in all the countries.

A $60.00 game cost here $90.00 and that is not fair...

That is why piracy exist... people play games in other parts of the world not just Europe, USA and Japan...

Kurow

How are these numbers "frightening"? They only show one thing: There's huge demand for these games. This seems like a good thing. The task is now to figure out how to get even a few percent of these to buy the game.

L_K_M

A recent Article proved that the MPAA lied on its web page regarding its losses due to piracy. It also shows that the data representing billions lost was in fact not creditable at all....Soon after MPAA admitted that many of its stats were in fact bogus.

Besides the movie side of the entertainment industry someone mentioned music. Well if you take a look at the sales for many labels there is a small drop in profit. But this has been proven to be caused by the increase of digital media and the state of our economy, NOT piracy.

...And Video Games cost what they do because of big company's like EA. The ones who buy all the little guys out and sale those products for more profit. Lets think of Sony for a minute that charge nearly 49$ and up for their digital downloads. WOW! That is strictly profit with maybe 2% of sales going to its dev's. Fighting piracy is useless. NIN is a perfect example of innovation in the market and doing this has increased their sales AND profit ten fold. And decreased the cost of the product for the consumer.

Finally I would like to mention the fact that Broadband speeds are not the majority. If you do a little research you will find the majority of the US alone still does not have high speed internet. What does speed have to do with piracy...have a go at it with 56k, have a good time.

auvii

@Phlycheez: Yea, people still download "Age of Empires", and "Starcraft".

tei

My experience with Piracy, is that follow the same pattern as no-piracy. The people that download stuff, want the stuff that the people that buy stuff want, but the people that download stuff... download almost all stuff!.

tei

Zero scientific basis behind these numbers... a better study is required. Also mininova pobably makes up its seed numbers to look good.

AbyssUK

CD-keys are a brilliant way to reduce piracy in those games where the biggest amount of fun and replayability comes from online play. I do however believe that for some users the chance to play the real game (and see if it's good) before putting out $50 is worth a lot. Demos are really a bit too scarce these days.

Jilkon

1 day of data is not enough to detect a trend :P

Herodito

@Komrade_Kayce: The sad thing - you think there are no illegal CD-keys out there on the interwebs to be had for free?

I think there's a lot to be learned here about marketing, and I don't think it just goes for PC games. There is a price point where 80% of the people that want something will pay top dollar for it. With games it's pretty much been proven it's in the $20-30USD range. The push the price to $60 and get less early adopters, and more pirates. There are folks pirating 360 and PS3 games all day long, too.

And the simple fact is that the hardcore pirates aren't getting torrent seeds, they are still using IRC and Usenet.

Bluvox

@Gigith: WRT identity "theft", you never lose your identity. You've still got it. Someone is impersonating you but you didn't somehow lose your identity when someone else decided to act as you.

Same case here, you get a copy of someones data, they didn't lose the data when you downloaded it.

If someone bought a car, lets say a high end one. I got permission to go and check it out, take it apart, find out how it works. I then goto a machine shop and make a perfect copy of it, did the guy who owns the car lose it? Did the car manufacturer suddenly no longer have a car to sell?

Evangel

@symphony_of_the_night: The day Trent has to pay millions of dollars to an entire team of people in several different fields to even get his idea off the ground is the day they're comparable.

Dioxen

The arguments about justifying piracy etc aren't really applicable ever. It is stealing to pretend otherwise is just wrong. Whether you do it or not is up to you but at least accept that you are a thief.

TearsandScreams

Throw in the thousand-to-one stat from a little while back (which as far as I'm aware is the only credible data on would-pirates-buy, so even though it probably doesn't apply in this situation, it's the best we can make up), and we can estimate that Activision lost a shocking 1,000 Call of Duty sales due to this torrent site. Multiply it by ten because it probably downloaded a lot more when it was new: 10,000. Woo-hoo. I bet they're in tears.

quen

Pirate ftw

auvii

@Marlor:

Well aside from what other people would do, if I download a game and like it I will go buy it at the next opportunity. I 'am tired of buying PC games that turn out to be rushed and buggy so testing the actual game first is the only way to ensure its ok. As for demos they will very rarely show you the state of the full game, and may even include bugs not present in the final release. So I would rarther test the actual product than an unfinished sample. As for reviews they are commonly biased and I gave up on then when I found myself constandly disagreeing with various reviewers. The only reviews I really look at now are the UK PC gamer ones, many online reviews such as those on IGN seem to be written by 12 year olds. As for benchmarks and performance requirements they do not tell you if the game is any good and they are not an issue to me as I always have a PC capable of playing anything.

kenjara

@kenjara:

I think that they provide a good enough representation to use as a guide as to whether to buy the game.

I mean, you can:
- Play a demo
- Read reviews
- Look at benchmarks
- Read forum impressions
- Look at the game's system requirements

And then make a decision whether you want to buy the game or not. That should be more than enough information to make a purchasing decision on.

There is no need to download the full game to "test it out". By doing so, you are supporting the illegal distribution of the game, and you are breaking the law. Also, let's face it, most people who download the game to "test" it won't end up buying it. They'll just play through their "test" copy, then decide not to purchase it.

Marlor

@Marlor: Because demos as they state do not represent the quality of the final product.

kenjara

@kenjara wrote: From these downloads you cannot assume these people did not go out and buy the game after.

The number of people downloading PC games via torrents is generally much higher than the actual sales for the games. So, I think it's pretty safe to assume that they aren't buying the games.

In any case, there are demos for most of the games in the list above, so why not use them to "try before you buy"?

Marlor

@kenjara: There's nothing wrong with that, testing to see if it would work.

Gigith

@OtakuPunk:

Most big-name PC games have demos available, so testing them out shouldn't be a problem.

In the case that they don't have a demo, then the game's requirements, as well as reviews and benchmarks should give you a good idea of how it will perform.

Marlor

From these downloads you cannot assume these people did not go out and buy the game after. I sometimes download a game to see if its any good before I buy it. I do this because you get alot of pc games nowadays that are not finished when they are released and I cant afford to waste my money on that kind of crap. I was lucky with cod4 as I brought it on the off chance after getting a big tip at work the night before. But my friends downloaded a copy and after playing it went and got 7 copies between them. So in that sense it helped the company rarther than hindered them.

kenjara

@Evangel: [dictionary.reference.com]
What about Identity theft? This whole idea you have as to what stealing is is stupid.

Gigith

I'm surprised to see so many people downloading COD4, what with the single player being fairly short and the main focus being the multiplayer (restricted to private servers for pirates).

I dont think the "lower the price to lower piracy" arguement holds up very well with PC games, most are around £25 already (a £20 discount from the console version).

The main problems with PC piracy are the lack of demos to test hardware on, and the ease of use of P2P. People dont want to run a PC game for the first time for it to run at an appauling pace so the test with the only way possible, piracy. This then tends to lead to people not buying the game as they have it already.

Maybe if a legal download service (read: STEAM) offered an option to download the first level only of a game for free the probelm may be helped.

With all that said at least people arent buying "Lost: Via Domus". That game is criminally short for its asking price. £40 for 4hrs?!

OtakuPunk

I find it interesting to note that Stardock games aren't on that list, even though they're probably the easiest to pirate.

Also, piracy =/= (that's Does Not Equal) stealing.

Stealing is when you go into a store, take something, and leave without paying. The store no longer has that something to sell.

When you pirate a game, who loses something? Nobody, it's copied, the person who gave it to you still has their copy.

To the inevitable "The publisher/developer loses money!", what guarantee do you have that the person copying would have bought it in the first place? None.

I'm going to point to Steam as an example of a download service done wrong. It's intrusive and you lose about 5-10fps (which is noticeable) with a legitimate Steam copy of the game compared to a cracked Steam game.

Oh yeah, Steam games get pirated just as much as any other game. They're cracked within hours of release.

Evangel

Alright, time for some qoutes I guess.

"And as for you... There's a difference between downloading and stealing. When you download, no copies are lost that would be sold. When you steal it off the store shelf, the store can no longer sell that copy, which they've already had to pay for. They're out money, both from pocket and from profit" -SilverStar95

Well, you get something for free that you would normally have to pay for via an illegal way, that's a whole lot like stealing, isn't it? If there was nothing wrong with getting it for free then why would anyone pay for a game?

"And by buying a lower cost CPU, you're stealing the difference between that and the top price for the most bleeding edge chip from the manufacturer's pocket."
-SilverStar95

So.. how does that make stealing games okay?

"And the whole thing about ripping MP3s is still valid. You are not entitled to ripping them, or transferring them to any other format than the one you paid for them in." -SilverStar95

Hahahahaha!

"I would have absolutely no problem with using a rapid fabrication machine to reproduce a fancy sports car from coded instructions. To you, that's no different than driving it off the lot without paying. To me, there's no loss of an original product. I pay for the media, the hardware and the bandwidth, which are my "materials", and wind up with a functional reproduction of the original, that I can use for the purpose of testing or short-term enjoyment."
-SilverStar95

So when you pirate games you remake every texture, and every bit of code by yourself?
Bit of a complex way to pirate games don't you think?

"Same reason why people will pirate their operating system. They'll invest hundreds of dollars in upgrading their hardware to get the best possible performance out of their rig, but won't pay anything for the OS to run on it. The reason is because if the hardware penetration is high enough, it promotes production of even heavier gear, which in turn generates a lot of jobs and generates higher revenues than that individual software purchase would have generated. And in turn, that means there's jobs for the software makers to go ahead and try to push the limits even more, which causes users to buy better hardware, which has a trickle-down effect in making it cheaper for the common user to actually buy their gear AND still spend their money on big games"
-SilverStar95

What a great little plan you have set out for a better tomorrow, and it all starts with breaking the law.

Gigith

@Marlor: lol, true ive been playing age of empires 3 but in the broad scope of things when you compare games with replay to games of no-little replay and compare that to old games its not nearly the same.

lancerknight

@CyN1caL: Might have to do with Portal, TM2 and HLEP2 all getting indivudually released, pirated versions, that is.

And yeah, downloading a game doesn't mean that you would have bought it in case you couldn't download it, and some do buy it after playing it pirated.

Ciremu

@lancerknight:

Plenty of games have replay value.

I've been playing Civ IV and Medieval 2: Total War repeatedly since they were released. They have an immense amount of replay value.

Marlor

@ Gigith: "Do you even read what you type?
Why am I even talking to you? Your not real, your some kind of cheap knock off of a functioning, thinking human being"

Really? I'm not advocating piracy but I'm not saying that i dont do it. MOst of us at one point in our lives have pirated something. To say that it is illegal is correct but not to be cliche "laws are meant to be broken" I love supporting companies that make things I like but with most things in the world that we live in are owned by giant companies that only care about making money. And when the CEO's of these companies make millions of dollars a year while the prices of these games often times dont reflect the quality of the game itself there is something wrong. When I find a game I like I buy it but I'm tired of spending what few dollars I have on games that blow. (Paying my way through college at 21,000 a year) And to say that someone dosent need something. ya sure they probably dont need it to live, but ultimatly you dont know them, you dont know there situation, they could very well pirate games because they cant afford them and they play these games to get there minds of their shitty lives. I know that i play games when i need to escape reality to get my mind straight. Games give people a way to escape reality and allow them for a brief period of time to forget about their troubles. Are there other ways of doing that sure, but maybe they dont work as well? maybe those ways would be pirated to so they choose their favorite??

@ Marlor: It would be lovely if games had the replay value they used to wouldn't it?

lancerknight

@KaliKOtt wrote: "After reading that 80% of PC games are pirated suddenly majority of kotaku readers DON'T PIRATE and hate piracy etc. Oh please so everyone in kotaku is the remaining 20% who don't pirate?"

Ideally, yes.

People who read Kotaku generally love games, and one would hope that they would therefore support the industry that creates those games, rather than kicking the industry in the balls through piracy.

Marlor

I mean $1000 *worth

and yeah, Vista sucks, I forgot that part. Less features more hardware and memory requirements and slower gaming,

Linux can run better eye candy on PENTIUM 3 for god's sake. Try youtubing for Beryl

KaliKOtt

After reading that 80% of PC games are pirated suddenly majority of kotaku readers DON'T PIRATE and hate piracy etc. Oh please so everyone in kotaku is the remaining 20% who don't pirate?

I think the reasons that this happens to PC gaming is because hardware is too expensive to run their stuff, thats why games like fallout 2 are still in the charts and the really annoying part is that they just take too much space up. I mean come on, Starcraft is 10 years old and only takes up a few hundred megabytes and its still better than games nowadays. PC games today are so bloated and even console (ahem...MGS...ahem) games are starting this trend which i think is really bad for games. I don't have to get 1 TB of hard disk space and only fill up 10 games with it

Instead of requiring more and more and MORE disk space , the worst being Stranglehold with 13gb and only a few hours of gameplay, I think they should develop compression further to speed up the file accessing when games are compressed and to minimize and reduce the quality loss when things are compressed.

And damn they should drop prices already. The prices are almost the same with console games and yet you require $1000 word of hardware just to run them

KaliKOtt

@Marlor: Same here, I only get a new game at most once every 2 months.

I pass alot of time playing free indie games, stuff like that.

There's alot you can do to have fun without breaking the law.

Gigith

@SilverStar95: To extract a multi-parted RAR archive, simply move all the parts (plus the main) into one folder, open the "main" RAR file (the one without the .r## extension) and extract as normal.

*waits for v& now*

Frank

@SilverStar95:

If you can't afford a game, then that doesn't give you an entitlement to pirate it.

Play older games from bargain bins. Or rent games. Or just save up your money until you can afford them.

Back when I was a kid, we got a NES with Mario and Duck Hunt. Those were the only games we had for six months. Then I could afford another game, so I bought Zelda. Then another six months went by before I could afford Maniac Mansion... and so on. I could only afford two or three games per year.

I played the hell out of those games, and got my money's worth several times over from each.

Games aren't a necessity. If you can only afford to buy one every few months, then that's what you do.

Marlor

@SilverStar95: So if they would drop the price of the games you wouldn't steal them, I see.

If they were to drop the price of Vista people wouldn't steal it.

At which point does dropping the price of something become better than Free? At no point until it's free.

Let me point out some facts here.
1) You are breaking the law.
2) Breaking the law makes you a criminal.
3) You do not NEED those games, you WANT them.
4) If you were to be caught you could get three years in prison or be fined 250,000$

What I have found out about you.
1) You think you NEED something you don't.
2) You think the world owes you things.
3) You do not understand basic human logic.

Do you even read what you type?
Why am I even talking to you? Your not real, your some kind of cheap knock off of a functioning, thinking human being.

Gigith

@PixelRambo: Probably not a lot of difference for the big numbers there. Older games that never got to Europe, sure, but none of the titles on that list applies.

But I'd say Europe IS a bit more PC centric for one simple reason: No friggin region codes that spell "we hate you guys and make you wait longer even if you wouldn't mind an english-only version".

Nirual

The only games I've ever pirated were used as kind of extended demo. If the game was good enough, I bought it afterwards for real.

Nirual

What I'd really like to see is the chart for each continent to see how much is pirated in the US compared to Europe and so on.
In many posts people have claimed that Europe is more PC centric than the US so it would be nice to see if they pirate more or not.

PixelRambo

In my opinion, piracy is mostly confined to >30 year olds. Once you finish uni/school and head out and get a job and can actually afford to spend 100 NZ dollars on a game.

Piracy is in no way good. Bring on cheap digital downloads. The days of CD's/DVD's and manuals are long gone.

Tastykent

I'm not pro-piracy by any means and buy my games, but some of the anti-piracy arguments on here are over-simplistic. Does anyone actually believe industry estimates on the dollar value of lost sales? Even if those numbers are realistic and those who pirated the games actually paid then where is all of this money going to come from? Thin air? No, it's money that would have otherwise ended up somewhere else in the economy. I'm not saying that's right (it definitely isn't), but ending piracy is not going to deliver us to a nirvana providing billions in economic growth and have all the game companies out dancing in the streets. The money is finite and it's just being moved around.

Just like with music and movie downloads the rules around scarcity of resources are not a good fit for digital works, and as much as some would like to deny it law reform is inevitable. It might be five years away or it might be twenty, but it's going to happen. Those blinded by rhetoric of big business that ideas like fair use and format shifting should be illegal are merely prolonging the last gasps of a rapidly dying business model.

MattB

well i buy the game if i like it, i download to see, first time i downloaded half life 2, i played it and liked it and went to the store and bought it, proud of it, then I saw portal and the orange pack, how can i get only portal without ending up with 2 copies of half life 2? pissed me, so i downloaded it, but never installed, I am just waiting for Valve to start selling portal alone to go and buy it. Those kind of things make me download some games... it seems illegal but how can i play them without having to pay twice for the same thing?
common not everyone have the same need!

CheapSweet

@Poochy: All I see here, are "reformed" pirates, trying to argue against current pirates.

And the only difference, is the "reformed" ones either have a higher income than the current ones, or have simply curbed their media diet, so are trying to act like they're better. It's like a skinny person trying to say they're better than the obese one, because they learned how to control their appetite through diet and exercise, or a rich person turning their nose up at a beggar, just because they lucked out and got their dream job. They're ashamed of what they used to be, so are trying to push their blame, on the others.

SilverStar95

By the way, why does anyone in this day and age bother to argue against piracy?
Whoever hasn't downloaded copyrighted music in the past, let him be the one to cast the first stone.

Poochy

@Gigith: If I didn't "steal" the games now, I wouldn't be interested in playing them in the future. That means, the industry wouldn't get those tens of thousands of dollars I will be pouring into it, in the coming years.

Even now, as finances are getting easier, I'm buying more games. I have 12 unique games on my Steam list right now(Including the titles from Orange Box and Garry's Mod, which I've not even used for more than 10 minutes). As I said earlier in the thread, I have 10 Wii games. And I intend to buy quite a few more by the end of this year. My piracy just wets my appetite. It's the chips, to keep me fed until it's time for the real course of games I pay for and savor. Even when Wii gets fully cracked, I'll still be buying the games. I've gone from NES through Wii. I've owned each one of their consoles. I've bought as many games as finances allowed, and years later have gone back and emulated the games I either had to sell to survive(I had to sell my N64 and 7 games, in order for us to pay rent one month), or just couldn't afford at the time. I've even bought those games on the Virtual Console, as they're released, whether or not I play them at all now.

I'm a hardened pirate, but not one who feels everything should simply be given to me for free, unconditionally, until the end of time. At one point, I enjoyed movies quite a bit. Then, when rental prices went up, I started to lose interest in them. When I built my own computer and got cable for it, I started by downloading a lot of movies and music. Now, I download less than 1 movie in 2 weeks and maybe one album a month. It's slowed to a trickle. Even my game downloads are few and far between now. Last game I downloaded, tried out, and then tossed away was Universe at War, shortly after it came out. Not a game I'd want to buy. Since then, I've only downloaded Sins of a Solar Empire, which I then turned around and bought a few days after trying it out.

If I stopped downloading games altogether, I'd lose interest in them. I actually hope to one day get back to my old ways of being a real, hardcore gamer. I used to rent a game every weekend, and be able to beat it. No matter what the game was. I owe the game industry a lot, for helping me keep my sanity through the harder parts of my life, and I intend to repay them as best I can, by buying the good and the great, when I have the income to afford it. If I didn't want to buy them, then the industry would have no use for me. I've not cost them a dime, downloading as I do, nor have I cost anyone else any money. If you don't have the money to pay, you don't have the money to pay. But I'm not stopping someone else from paying. Even with other software, I refuse to pirate, or help anyone pirate, the latest version of any software, unless it's been out for over 18 months.

Hell, if MS drops the price of Vista Ultimate a little more, I might even make the switch to that, despite being very happy with Windows XP. Or at the least, buy a boxed copy, so I have a legit license for the version of XP I'm using now.

For me, and the vast majority of other pirates, it's a matter of what something costs, compared to what their funds are and the value they see in that product. If it's a game that will only serve them 5 or 6 hours of play, with no replay value, they will see 40-50 dollars as being completely unworth the investment. Even for me, I try to aim for a $1/hr rate. And I'm finding fewer and fewer games coming out that hit that point. If the prices were lower, sales would be higher. And I mean, lower price when the game is launched, not 8 months later after it's become stale and no one really remembers it anymore.

For example, Audiosurf hit at $10. In 2 weeks, it managed to outsell everything else on Steam, both in numbers and in revenue. If it hit at 20 dollars, it would have sold less than half as many copies, and would have been pirated far more often.

I would actually put money down, betting that if the PC industry tried dropping the brand new, launch-day price of top-shelf games to $25-30, they'd see a 300-400% increase in sales figures, largely from those very pirates who wouldn't afford it, or otherwise buy it, at the 50-60 dollar price point games debut at, these days. Even without a lick of copy protection beyond a CD key with online validation.

SilverStar95

@Gigith:

"Your just some person who doesn't want to pay for games, so he steals them online."

So are you saying that interstate78 and SilverStar95 are one unified, male being? And by "your just some person" I assume you meant that they--or, rather he, since you are saying they are the same being--own or are in the possession of a person who doesn't want to pay for games?

I don't see how anyone could possibly argue with you as it would be pointless---you're nothing short of a genius.

Poochy

@dumptruck: If they did they wouldn't charge MS and Sony etc for online gaming usage.

Gigith

@interstate78: @SilverStar95: Don't turn this into some robin hood, poor people living in the streets eating trash while the rich play video games thing. Your just some person who doesn't want to pay for games, so he steals them online.

You can come up with all the justifications you want, none of them are a good argument because you never came here to prove your "point" you just want to convince yourself that your not stealing, that somehow by you breaking the law your helping, or at least not hurting anyone.

Should we have game stamps like foot stamps? Should the poor get free games because their poor? You have one messed up view of the world, well, I doubt you do, you'll believe anything just as long as you don't feel guilty for what you've done.

Gigith

Har har...
like if everyone's good kids here and have never done this..

Devs: consoles ftw!!!

TheApprentice

@SilverStar95:

You could claim that only 1 in 10,000 people who pirate a game would buy it, but frankly, that's a number that is pulled out of the air.

I could just as easily say it is 1 in 10... and honestly, I think my number is much closer, even if it pure conjecture as well.

The only solid figures we have for this are concerned with specific games in the casual market, which is totally different to the market for games like Crysis or Call of Duty 4.

When more people are downloading PC games off Bittorrent than are buying them, then there is something terribly wrong, no matter how you spin it.

Marlor

People mentioned selling, for lack of a better term, OEM games (No manual, box art, case etc...) in an attempt to lower costs, reduce piracy and increase sales. I think this would be a great idea, not to mention the Steam-like digital distribution. Unlike years years past manuals are almost useless as every game released now explains how to play it while in-game.

On top of the OEM concept, I think splitting a game into separate purchasable single-player & multi-player SKUs would be amazing. Some may think me odd for saying but personally I next to never play multi-player in my games. I always end up playing through the single-player storyline then put it back on my shelf until I decide to go for another play through. Conversely there are those who never even touch the single-player mode and do nothing but online multi-player. Now to me, this just seems like I wasted $25 of the $50 I just spent on my brand new game. I would be MUCH more likely to invest in other games I saw at the store if they were divided in such a manner. Then should I decide I wanted to play online with friends I could go out and purchase the multi-player stand alone "Expansion."

What do you think?

VoidnessMD

@SilverStar95: Sorry for the flaming I did, I got worked up.

However if you can't afford games that's okay, you could play older, cheaper games, no a huge deal.

I've been poor, I had to sell every console I owned and every game I owned when I was 11 to help pay for gas money when my Dad left, I'm not some rich guy who throws trash at poor people from my mansion.

You might have to steal for food, but playing video games doesn't keep you alive, if you can't pay for a game wait for when you can. All of your opinions on this are based around you trying to justify your theft.

Gigith

Hehe. There be an argument going on.

The way I see it is that most people who pirate games and such see downloading/cracking the game as easier than driving to the store. Notice the lack of money. There are a few that do it for the money (even then, they are the kids in high school and college who can barely pay for the game--let alone the PC--because they don't have enough money), but most pirate a game because it's easier than asking a parent to drive them, or to get off their lazy asses and go drive themselves (if they can). If the games industry would just embrace the ease of the Internet, I wouldn't be surprised if piracy drastically decreased.

I'm in high school now, and if I really wanted to play PC games, I'd be pirating them. But when I got out of college and got a job that allowed me to buy the game without much of an impact elsewhere in my finances, I'd be buying every game (especially if the games were available for download from the Internet).

Frob

@dozerking wrote: "The business suits investing big money behind developers are making decisions regardless of what the truth is. They look at piracy as people playing their product without paying and there's nothing that's going to change that mindset."

That's what piracy is, whether people like it or not.

Piracy must be hurting sales. You can't tell me that the people upgrading their PC for Crysis, then pirating the game, wouldn't pay the $35 to buy it if they couldn't find it on Bittorrent.

When you are paying hundreds of dollars for upgrades, the price of a few games is chump change. But piracy is so damn easy that many gamers just don't bother buying the games. They are just a few clicks away on Bittorrent.

Piracy has become the norm for many PC gamers. The notion of paying for games just seems strange and archaic for many people. They have become so accustomed to easily accessible pirated games that they wouldn't even consider buying them.

Marlor

@Generico: I'd extend it closer to 1 in 10,000. People will often pirate, because they don't have the money to buy it. And when they do have the money, there's something else they want to play. As an earlier commenter mentioned, if not for piracy while he was in school, he wouldn't be a gamer now.

In my case, I don't have the money to buy all the games I play. But, I still play them, on my terms. When I do have the money, I buy the games I want to play. When I see something I feel is worth owning, I'll save up the money to buy it. Everything else is disposable media.

So, Gigith, how about you just go kill yourself, instead? Seriously, trolling is so eighth grade. I get it, you don't like piracy. But, even hardened pirates would buy a greater portion of their media intake, if they had the disposable income to do so with.

Western culture is based on the Haves Vs. the Have-Nots. It just happens that with the coming of the digital age, it's turned into Customers Versus the Pirates. But the difference is, the more you try to fight the pirates, the less likely they are to become customers, when they do have the money. If you stopped trying to fight them so viciously, then when they grow up and get a stable income, they'll become customers. They've already developed a taste for your particular brand of media, they already have that brand loyalty. It's up to the companies whether they want to harbor that loyalty, or shun them for being too broke to afford to play their games.

I'm sure that if you were to ask ANY game company which situation they'd rather have, between A) person downloads games for 10 years, gets a stable job, starts buying the series they've been downloading, retains brand loyalty and continues buying media from that company in the future, or B) person never downloads anything of that company's releases, never gets exposed, eventually downloads a different company's assets and starts buying from that company instead, they'd pick the first option. They'd rather suffer fictitious losses now, from people who wouldn't be able to pay anyway, in order to get future sales, than have no fictitious losses now, and never sell any product to that person in the future.

SilverStar95

I think people love their money too much.

There's two kinds of people I guess:

1- those who will purchase a game only when they've tried it and they know it's good and they're sure they're going to put so many hours into it that in the end the price will seem trivial.

2- The others, who buy stuff just because it's there and it's new and it seems cool.

I'm in the second category. I've downloaded the Patapon demo but I bought the game before I even tried the darn thing. Ok so it was only 20$. So what? Some people talk of 50$ bucks on here as if their life depended on it.

I just don't buy into that 'try before you buy' mentality that pirates always talk about, or even the 'I only pirate games I wouldn't buy'. That's just horseshit. You have the luxury to go that route just because piracy is an option.

What would you do with your damn gaming time if you didn't have those ''games unworthy of your precious bloody dollars'' if you couldn't play all those games you pirate? You'd play the 5 oldass games you got on your shelves?

I have friends just like you. That's always their excuse. Somehow the last two games they actually paid for seem to be World of Warcraft because they didn't know a workaround, and Starcraft because broadband wasn't all the rage back then.

You go ahead pirates, live in your dream world where everything is free. Just don't complain so much when EA owns every developer and every game is a sequel of something oh so familiar.

interstate78

I'm shocked, while I believe in piracy under certain situations I'd never have guessed this much went on. Foreshame on all of them.

Morberis

@SilverStar95: That has nothing to do with my argument, your just coming up with random instances of where the law is fuzzy.

Let me put it so that you can understand, people make video games, they sell games, you download them for free without paying which is breaking the law.

Also keep in mind that there is no law that says you can not convert a DRM song into a MP3, you can not break the DRM seal, yes, but you can play it back to yourself and record it.

It'd rather you just kill yourself now

Gigith

If the piracy vs sales lost ratio is even 500:1 - which is quite conservative, given the few actual studies available - that's still only 2,000 lost sales from 1,000,000 downloads. Those aren't exactly the kind of numbers that crush a million+ selling game.

Generico

@SilverStar95: And the whole thing about ripping MP3s is still valid. You are not entitled to ripping them, or transferring them to any other format than the one you paid for them in.

Wrong again, chief. Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 says that "the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings" is explicitly permitted. When you buy a CD you are actually buying a license to the material on that CD, and via Fair Use are allowed to transfer that license onto any media you wish - especially if you're using it for archival purposes.

Note that this only applies to the person doing the ripping. Buying the item and doing the transfer yourself is legal. Not buying the item and getting the transfer from somewhere else is illegal. Buying the item and getting the transfer from somewhere else is also illegal.

And don't attack other posters, it only makes your position look weaker in comparison.

baberg

@Gigith: And the whole thing about ripping MP3s is still valid. You are not entitled to ripping them, or transferring them to any other format than the one you paid for them in.

Otherwise, just because you bought a vinyl of an album back in the 70s that has long since been warped and scratched beyond listening, it'd be just fine to download or steal a copy from somewhere else.

Critical thinking, plz. Your own arguments fall apart when put in a different light.

SilverStar95

@SilverStar95: Should have paid for, as in the only to get it without breaking the law is to pay for it.

Get off the Internet.

Gigith

@Jetsetlemming: Ah hah, one of the first statements that I can agree with. Reason #1 that I don't play PC games anymore.

For those of you who keep asking themselves whether they own something they should have paid for - Ask yourself why you have such deep seated fears about owning something that you "should have paid for." Is it because you were raised in a society that taught you from birth that consumption is king?

Yum, consumerism.

Hrist

@Jetsetlemming: you know what though man, it doesn't matter what we think, the business suits investing big money behind developers are making decisions regardless of what the truth is. They look at piracy as people playing their product without paying and there's nothing that's going to change that mindset.

What we do know is that is having a dramatic effect on our platform. It's killing PC exclusives and putting more multiplatform junk on the PC platform than I care to like.

dozerking

@emulsifier: Your argument sucks. You don't own ANY of that stuff. You only have a limited-use license. Ripping the music, according to the RIAA, is stealing. Ripping a movie? Stealing.

And as for the "Did I get something I should have paid for?" argument: Linux. You -should- have paid for an OS that can run a web browser, but instead you got it for free!

Take it to the next step, and look at Wine. Lets you play Windows games and other software, without having to buy Windows. Guess by playing Orange Box in Wine on Linux, you're stealing the full ticket price of a boxed copy of Vista Ultimate out of Microsoft's pocket. And by buying a lower cost CPU, you're stealing the difference between that and the top price for the most bleeding edge chip from the manufacturer's pocket.

But, yeah, it's a lack of steady employment. Kinda a problem when you're a student. When I'm actually working full-time again? Probably spend most of my money buying games, at retail. Just like I did in the days of the Dreamcast, when I owned 80 legit games, all bought brand new, at retail. When the money ran out because of other situations, I kept playing games, but I didn't pay for them except for the select few. Now, money is picking up some, so I already have 10 Wii games, all purchased new at retail. When I have money, I pay. When I don't, I get it how I see fit. And even when I do buy PC games, I'll still crack them if I need to, so I use them on my terms. Even getting a crack to bypass copy protection measures is a "pirated" copy, to any distributor.

SilverStar95

@dumptruck: and you're right. The big internet providers have been lobbying for quite sometime to get the rights to charge for bandwidth, not only that but anti-Net Neutrality legislation.

While this will surely impact us in the US, the majority of Eastern Europe and Asia will need to be regulated as well in order for this to have any bearing, since that is where most piracy takes place. Very scary when you think about it too, especially for all of us legit PC Gamers who play online alot, that will be one expensive bill for playing online, for online console users too. Multiplayer gaming will surely add up.

Maybe demo disks will become popular again in our favorite magazines again...

dozerking

Ridiculously small numbers. Want bigger ones?
[www.steampowered.com]
60% of PC gamers (not counting the WoW ones who are too busy leveling their dark elves to play anything else, and are largely a group that doesn't intersect the Steam community) only have single core processors. 40% don't have Shader Model 3 hardware yet (This number has only decreased 10% in the last 6 months).
Those PC games are losing FAR, FAR, FAR, FAAAR more potential customers to system requirements than piracy.
Piracy hysteria is bullshit, straight and simple.

Jetsetlemming

@baberg: I was raised a pirate, my brother got me into emus and roms back when I was 7, but then I got older and I stopped downloading roms, now I pay for my music and games. Though I do sometimes try games out before I buy them... their called DEMOS!

Gigith

basically other than portal I am a multiplayer kind of person so hopefully Multiplayer games wnt be hit as hard as single player games with Devs now seeig some hard data on the subject.

Hand_O_Death

@L: It wouldn't be illegal for Ford to build a Chevy. It would be illegal for them to SELL it. If I decide to build some piece of hardware and am not making any money on it why should that give someone the right to stop me from making it?

Actually, it could be illegal for Ford to build a Chevy if they took copyrighted technology from the Chevy (i.e. their logos, their interior design, maybe the software that runs on the onboard timing chip, etc). Intellectual Property laws apply to meatspace just as much as they apply to cyberspace.

As for you building hardware for yourself, it all depends on what the hardware is. If you reverse engineer a complete Xbox 360 you'll be violating the DMCA (assuming you live in America, but other regions have similar laws). Heck, if you reverse engineer the Dashboard, you'll have trouble under the DMCA, even if you never show it to anybody, you've broken the law.

IP law is very tricky stuff.

baberg

@baberg:
"Did I get something I should have paid for?"
Exactly. The same thought made me stop pirating music.

Demonbird

@Gigith: Your analogies could kick my good analogies asses.

Hehe, don't feel bad. I had a bad bout of piracy in college (mostly music, some games) and as a result thought a lot about what it meant to really "own" something and tried to rationalize my piracy, and no matter what I kept coming back to that standard:

"Did I get something I should have paid for?"

baberg

Well, nearly 1 million pirated copies possibly... that's a very disturbing figure...

Demonbird

@DannoHung:
Yes they are. Why else would there be a ridiculous # of pirated CoD4 servers?

orangedude

@Dakobah: However in the end you can't reason with them, people who pirate want it all, they want to steal stuff without thinking they stole it. They live in a strange world where only they matter.

Gigith

IW should release a $20 version of CoD4 with just the SP campaign, because I guaran-god-damn-tee you that they're not pirating it because of the incredible multiplayer/RPG elements.

DannoHung

@L: but you didn't sell it but you profited from it.

if you didn't go into the store and purchase it how is it not stealing?

they lease it to you? nope.

Rental? nah you can return a torrent and there is no fee or expiration of a torrent.

try before you buy? nope, no trial times or limited access to it.

Full version of game that you got for free without giving the developers money?

yep stealing.

how is it different then walking it to a store and taking stuff of theirs? im not going to sell it, im just going to keep it for me.

please.

Dakobah

@Hrist: So a better box will keep people from wanting the same product for free?

I don't see how my mentality of "Paying less (Nothing) for something is better than paying more (Paying anything)" is flawed.

People pirate games because, here's the shocker, IT'S FREE! No matter how much crap you give away with real buys it's still easier to download it, at home, for free.

I never said I had an idea how to stop it, nor have you, I also never said that yelling at criminals online would fix things.

However we agree on one thing, it should be stopped.
And to do that there are many things they need to do, like you said, but giving away crap to people who don't break the law isn't one of them.

Gigith

@dowingba: It wouldn't be illegal for Ford to build a Chevy. It would be illegal for them to SELL it. If I decide to build some piece of hardware and am not making any money on it why should that give someone the right to stop me from making it? (Remember, I'm not selling it so its just for me alone and no one else.)

L

@dowingba: DS... and that thing prints money. I understand where your coming from though. PC gaming is dieing but its not just piracy thats killing it. Consoles are just becoming more dominant which is to me the major reason why PC gaming is dieing. I think in the long run itll be ok though. I think things like Steam are definitely a step in a positive direction for PC gaming and i hope thats the way things move for PC in the future. Cheaper games via digital distribution i think will help the PC game market alot.

Detre

@emulsifier: I doubt the latter is possible, but your first point is a concern. I'd stop buying from them and find another store that buys official copies and just sells the keys. Unfortunately, I cannot tell if they are stealing them or not and I doubt anyone can prove it. Here is the site, tell me if you find anything suss about it.

Libo

Mark my words me hearties: The corporate media and tel cos are going to use piracy as an excuse to switch internet access from flat rate to metered. This is going to get so out of hand the government will cave and re-regulate the net. It's going to happen eventually. Then we'll see a lot less P2P traffic as people have to pay per GB. Yay!

dumptruck

@SilverStar95: When piracy drives software companies out of business what are you going to be doing with your 5000 dollar paperweight and 400 HexaByte hard drive? (A hard drive which was created by intelligent computer engineers, not greedy software pirates btw.)

On a Serious note, I have ~150gb of hard drive space that I nearly have filled with games I've bought within the last 3 years. And a secondary hard drive that has about 10gb of mp3's that I've ripped over the last 10 years. Would you like me to now rip my entire dvd collection so I could take up more space? That would be pointless but I could fill Terabytes easily with data I actually own a license for.

Your argument sucks, get a job.

emulsifier

@dsmx: dsmx you always try to find an excuse for your lame ass ways of pirating!!! GET A REAL JOB(and life as well) AND BUY THE GAME!!!! I hate pirates who try to find "legitimate" excuses for not buying games. I work in the industry and jackholes like this piss me off!!

m3tallic7

@baberg: Your analogies could kick my good analogies asses.

Gigith

The kids shooting each other up in street gangs may become soldiers of the future, so we should let that keep going on as well. Sure, it's only going to be a select few that'll end up choosing that path, but they may end up doing a world of good in the near future!

muu

"the copy of Assassin's Creed is a preview build of the game that won't let you into Jerusalem."

How poetic is that. :D

dadeisvenm

@Gigith: That's just the mentality that people have, and that's the problem. There is a way to make an actual retail copy more enticing, whether it's physical extras (what about all those preorder bonuses that people always seem to love?), packaging (the LOTR special edition packages are pretty sweet) or other things.

And as for digital deliveries? Who knows. There are probably certain enticements that can be offered to make pirates consider just plunking down the money, but the devs and publishers aren't thinking in those terms. They're thinking in terms of, "How we do make the pirates feel guilty about what they do?" or trying to shut them down but, as we've seen, that doesn't work.

Pirates pirate because it's fairly easy and they don't see any reason to put down money. Now it's up to publishers and devs to find a creative solution to giving them a reason to put down their money rather than just download. How they can do that, I'm not really sure, but they need to break out of their current mindset if they want to make any progress against piracy.

Hrist

i only pirate games that I cannot find in stores anymore otherwise I try to support the devs. I dont buy crap games though b/c I rely on reviews.

dukeaw

@SilverStar95: How exactly do you DIY pirated games? Buy an engine and build Assassin's Creed for yourself?

But for the sake of argument, let's say I build myself a chair. Did I get something? Yes. Did I pay for it? Yes, in buying all of the raw materials and putting in the time to build it. Thus, I paid for my chair.

Stop trying to rationalize your theft. It doesn't work.

baberg

@soccerdrew17: Of course it's a coincidence. I mean, why would a pirate pay for something that's quality and won't slag their system, and is just generally actually -worth- a purchase?

I downloaded it at first, tried it out, then decided it was worth an actual purchase. So now I have a boxed copy on its way right now. Go figure, huh?

SilverStar95

I think the fact that each PC game does not have the guaranteed capability to run in the first place also factors into the "need" to pirate games.

Consoles don't quite have that problem because everyone has the same system. The PC is really such an unknown, and I'm in no way condoning pirating, but this unknown makes it tough to take that risk and put down $40 or $50.

JohnnytheFuture

@baberg: By your logic, every DIY'er is a thief. They should have bought some tool that does the same thing as what they just rigged up, so they directly stole it!

SilverStar95

i seem not to see the extremely well selling and drm free sins of a solar empire. coincidence?

soccerdrew17

I understand music(its all garbage today anyways)but games? Something we all love and are passionate about why not show appreciation to devs who feel the same? Its shameful really I always support devs by buying a retail version of something they put their heart into.

GodzillaVsJapan

@emulsifier: The reason why computer technology advances as fast as it does, is because of piracy. As piracy increases in rate and range, demand for the services and products to do the pirating increases in step.

Are you prepared to give me a list of 1TB worth of completely, unquestionably legal software you could fill your computer up with, that you would have any need to transmit over a 1gigabit ethernet connection through a home server network, that would cost you less than 50 thousand dollars to purchase?

As storage becomes cheaper, it becomes easier to store pirated data. Because of this, pirates will buy more storage space(I'm up to 1.2TB now, while only a little over a year ago I was only at 100GB total). And when they have this storage space, they will pay for the higher speed internet services. Which finances them rolling out the common, lower speeds.

Without piracy, the very idea of broadband would still be limited to university and military uses, which would come at a truly tremendous cost. Yet, today, you can rent a connection that is hundreds of times faster than you could even 15 years ago, for even less than it cost back then. And it's not because every mom and pop needs to send 30KB emails to grandma and they don't want to wait 10 seconds for the file to send.

Face it, if you're using anything of a modern gaming PC and using any sort of highspeed connection, you owe it to piracy. Moore's Law has held steady because pirates can make better use of the resources than the common user can. We stress the hardware, we look for better stuff, and we have a hunger that can't be sated.

And in a lot of cases, those who started off as pirates, are the ones running your company's IT department. They got their training on that high-end software without paying for it, which gave them the experience needed to do their job right. Again, you owe piracy.

Just be glad most people who pirate most of their stuff don't bother to tell the retarded n00bz what an ISO is, or how to extract a multi-part RAR archive. We keep the pool clean, and drive the would-bes back to the store to buy their stuff, thinking the whole piracy thing is too difficult to deal with.

SilverStar95

@MrSatan:

you made your decision on a pirated copy! who's to know that its not messed up from that?

it could just be a bad pirated copy!

Dakobah

@SilverStar95: Um, no. Piracy is not the driving force behind the evolution of hardware and the (comparative) cheapness versus the same hardware X years ago. For you to even claim that is quite a stretch.

Don't try to defend piracy as anything but stealing. It's pointless. You received something that, by all rights, you should have paid for. That makes you a thief, whether it's something physical like a new car or a stick of bubble gum, or something ethereal like music or the experience of playing a video game - if you should have paid for it and didn't, you're a thief.

baberg

@MrSatan: Why the fuck would you expect a pre-release to be as bug free as the real thing? People who downoad pre-release versions of games LOVE to perpetuate bullshit rumors about a game not working which can KILL sales even though the real thing would have sold just fine. Buy the game or don't play it asshole.

emulsifier

@SilverStar95:By downloading it for free they are not getting money they would have if you paid for it like a non-criminal.

I'd rather you just turn off your Internet now and kill yourself, but that's just me.

Gigith

@SilverStar95: Right... the ONLY reason why technology advances is because of software pirates... are you serious? How do you explain fire, the wheel, electricity, automobiles, or anything invented before 1970?

emulsifier

@Koztah: Piracy. Thats why there are no Carmen Sandiego or Oregon Trail games anymore.

Thanks mysterious PC rapper

MBC

I will admit I downloaded a pre-release copy of Assassins Creed and I still hate the game. They fucked up the anti-aliasing bad, the way it does it is TERRIBLE. Needless to say I deleted it immediately. I usually use "pirating" to test and choose a game to buy. Sad to see Age of Empires is on there, I own and currently play III quite a bit.

MrSatan

@SilverStar95: Regarding everything you wrote: I am.........speechless.

homernoy

It's a lot cheaper to find a nitpicky flaw (COD4 has respawning enemies in singleplayer! This is terrible, so I won't buy your game!!!! I will ignore the fact that it has the best single player of 2007 despite being the best multiplayer game of 2007 and will not spend any money on it.) to justify pirating it and then playing it for 20+hours.

And then they bitch about why the PC games industry is dying and there are few good games left to pirate, so now they have more free time to post on the internet about how the PC developers have wronged THEM.

Legba33