C&C 4 to require 'always on' internet.

[Kyorisu]

The two reasons I listed are separate of each other. I'm not saying it has to be cheap and easy just one or the other and sometimes both. Your examples fall right into my second point.

Case in point, I know someone who downloads camcorded films, so he can see if it's worth seeing in the theater, or to see if it's fit for his children.

That falls under 2. It's easy for him to see the movie and determine whether or not he likes it. If it was insanely hard to acquire a copy of the movie he'd probably miss it entirely right? Thus he pirates movies because it's easy as cost doesn't seem to be an issue if he's willing to go see it at the theatres.

I know someone who downloads music from bands he never heard of, just to see if he likes it; to discover new music. The band gets new fans which is like a snowball effect, if he tells other people about them. If you like it enough, you'll want the full quality album, or other albums or EPs by that artist, so you buy the CDs, or you'll go to the concerts, buy the DVD's, T-shirts, posters, whatever. The concerts are where the artists make most of their money anyway..

Again it's easy to find new music when it's available on practically every major P2P website.

Back to games: Getting the pirated version working isn't always 'easy', is it? Probably not as big a hassle as the store bought versions with DRM anymore, though.

It certainly is cheaper though isn't it? Of course the odd title game or otherwise isn't going to be easily acquirable on day #1 but that doesn't change anything.

 

[Tagaziel]

I mean, this goes with what I'm saying above to M.Grizzly. I might have 100 dollars, but that doesn't mean I can spend it on games. People have bills and necessities. Games are a luxury.

So you don't need them to survive, thus making stealing them a pretty asinine thing to do.

 

[VirusType2]

For the love of science. Pirating games is not stealing. Stealing is when you take something from someone. Downloading games is not taking a physical object from anyone.

So I'm not misunderstood, I'm not trying to justify software piracy! I don't download games! I don't even have a video card! I was making an example for the sake of the discussion!

To pirate a game, I guess I'd get about zero to 14 kbps. For a game of about 8 GB (a double layer DVD), I would probably have to download for like 8 months. And if you download it, I'm guessing there is a good chance it won't work, can't play it online, has trojans or something. I make plenty of money, so to me, it's easier to buy a game.

 

[Raziaar]

So you don't need them to survive, thus making stealing them a pretty asinine thing to do.

Whatever you may think about piracy, it is not stealing. By law it is 'copyright infringement'.

 

[TheOneFreeMan]

For the love of science. Pirating games is not stealing. Stealing is when you take something from someone. Downloading games is not taking a physical object from anyone.

If you commit credit card fraud, you're not taking anything physical from anyone. But it's still stealing.

 

[VirusType2]

Yes you are, you are taking money from them.

Nowhere in the definition of software piracy is the word 'stealing' or a likeness used:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...fet4j_Dw&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/software_piracy.html

http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia_term/0,2542,t=software+piracy&i=51693,00.asp

 

[Raziaar]

If you commit credit card fraud, you're not taking anything physical from anyone. But it's still stealing.

Wrong. Credit card fraud is stealing. You are stealing either physically the card, or you are stealing the actual money that belongs to the people in their banks. 100% of the time it's pretty much both.

And that money being stolen belongs to somebody. It's not some big magical pool of money that credit card fraudsters draw upon.

 

[VirusType2]

stealing credit card information or identity theft

 

[V-Man339]

When you pirate a copy, the publishers don't "lose money".

If you never would have bought the copy in the first place, that is not a lost sell.
That is some guy playing your game without signing your shitty terms of use agreement, or paying money to deal with your shitty drm.
Drm is rather pointless today, pleasing customers is overall more effective, and forcing people to use internet to play a game unnecesarily (especially when they claim it's for stats tracking) is overall going to lose more paying customers than it will gain them.

 

[Kyorisu]

You can only really link piracy to a potential loss in revenue. That's revenue the company may or may not get regardless of piracy in the first place. There are many factors at play. DRM certainly doesn't help sales but it's done anyway to give the false impression that a company is doing everything it can to stop piracy. Have to keep those investors happy after all. In CNC4's case it means no purchase from me and I've bought all the other CNC games.