Piracy Discussion

Ennui said:
Munro's forum, Munro's rules. He's rather adamant about the piracy issue.
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Plus Valve host the site. As to how much attention they pay to the contents of Hl2.net who really knows (it's not like we have the devs regularly posting here..more is the pity), but if it suddenly starts becoming considered 'acceptable' within the community culture to brag about game piracy, before you know it people are going to start openly trading links etc, and ultimately Valve would pull the hosting and bye bye HL2.net. Also quite a few posters here are either working for games companies in some capacity or have the desire and inclination to and are working on mods in order to get into the industry, it's just plain bad form to be bragging about game piracy in front of these people :dozey:
 
The concept of DRM makes me WANT to pirate games.

Me and my brother have not yet bought spore. First of all, I've very disheartened about the reviews... and then I hear there is a 3 install limit to the ****ing thing? **** THAT SHIT. That type of shit makes me want to pirate it(even though I won't). That not only gets rid of your ability to legitimately install several times if you have to(like me, I reformat my computer frequently), but also the ability to let your friend borrow your game and disc(which is perfectly legit), or later resell it.

I don't want to have to call in to the company to have them evaluate my case to determine whether or not I deserve more installs.

EA isn't getting my money. Will Wright isn't getting my money for this ****ing game. I'm not pirating it either. ****ing Spore. Stupid game took forever and he chose to dumb it the **** down just to gain more sales(he said that himself). **** that. I'm sorry I even paid the 15 dollars for the creature creator which I never touched.
 
Raziaar said:
The concept of DRM makes me WANT to pirate games.

Me and my brother have not yet bought spore. First of all, I've very disheartened about the reviews... and then I hear there is a 3 install limit to the ****ing thing? **** THAT SHIT. That type of shit makes me want to pirate it(even though I won't). That not only gets rid of your ability to legitimately install several times if you have to(like me, I reformat my computer frequently), but also the ability to let your friend borrow your game and disc(which is perfectly legit), or later resell it.

I don't want to have to call in to the company to have them evaluate my case to determine whether or not I deserve more installs.

EA isn't getting my money. Will Wright isn't getting my money for this ****ing game. I'm not pirating it either. ****ing Spore. Stupid game took forever and he chose to dumb it the **** down just to gain more sales(he said that himself). **** that. I'm sorry I even paid the 15 dollars for the creature creator which I never touched.
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Raz as I understand it the it's 3 installs and then after that you have to phone up EA for an authorisation code, same sort of shit as XP or Vista. It's not a case of 3 installs and that's your lot. Personally I think 3 is a bit low (some people upgrade every 6 months) but I don't think it's worth losing the plot over (I must of reinstalled XP about 12 times through upgrades and had to phone up a bunch of times). Maxis fan that I am, personally Spore just doesn't float my boat, however I might pick a copy up down the line when it hits the bargain buckets.
 
Kadayi said:
Raz as I understand it the it's 3 installs and then after that you have to phone up EA for an authorisation code, same sort of shit as XP or Vista. It's not a case of 3 installs and that's your lot. Personally I think 3 is a bit low (some people upgrade every 6 months) but I don't think it's worth losing the plot over (I must of reinstalled XP about 12 times through upgrades and had to phone up a bunch of times). Maxis fan that I am, personally Spore just doesn't float my boat, however I might pick a copy up down the line when it hits the bargain buckets.
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I've reinstalled XP about 30 times and have had to phone in 0 times. And to me, adding that sort of protection on an operating system is fine. But on a god damn game? No way, no how. That's unacceptable. I feel strongly about this type of retarded DRM. It's bullshit. Absolute bullshit, and I get furious over it.
 
Raziaar said:
I've reinstalled XP about 30 times and have had to phone in 0 times. And to me, adding that sort of protection on an operating system is fine. But on a god damn game? No way, no how. That's unacceptable. I feel strongly about this type of retarded DRM. It's bullshit. Absolute bullshit, and I get furious over it.
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Mine was first edition XP (mates girlfriend works for Big Bill so had initial launch copies to give away) so maybe that's the difference. However after 3 installs/significant upgrades my XP did require authorisation there on in, not that I ever got questioned about it. You just give them the code and they verify it.

Yes I agree it's an ass for games, however I'd rather that, than have some ass backwards disc based DRM like Tages, which won't remotely work with Vista 64 bit and has subsequently turned my precious BG&E CDs into little more than fancy Drinks Coasters. :dozey:
 
It has secuROM. SECUROM!

As a result of the protection scheme, around 90 % of the reviews on Amazon.com have given Spore one star, the lowest rating. Electronic Arts cited SecuROM as a "standard for the industry", and Apple's iPod song DRM policy as justification for the control method.[54] Former Maxis developer Chris Harris labeled the DRM a "screw up" and a "totally avoidable disaster".[55]

The SecuROM software was not mentioned in the Software license agreement versions of the game purchased online. An EA spokesperson stated that "we don't disclose specifically which copy protection or digital rights management system we use [...] because EA typically uses one license agreement for all of its downloadable games, and different EA downloadable games may use different copy protection and digital rights management.”[56]

Another feature of the copy protection is that the game is only playable by one account, another account must purchase another license to the game, despite the manual saying otherwise[57][58]. EA characterized this as a 'misprint'
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BWAHAHA! **** YOU SPORE! **** you!

I was in love with spore, but now I absolutely hate the idea of it. I won't touch it until they remove this shit.
 
Right on Raz. To me this kind of DRM is more offensive than the idea of piracy itself. There will always be chancers and dodgy dealers; get angry about it or don't, it's a fact of life that bootleggers and pirates will always exist somewhere on the fringes of the market, just as they always have. But I don't see why it has to be a fact of life that we have a market that treats legitimate users like they're potential criminals and forces them to jump through hoops to enjoy the product they've bought, just out of some delusional notion that sales are somehow being protected.

Companies like SecuROM have a nice scam going. They're milking morons like EA out of millions for a service which completely fails to do what it says on the tin while turning their own consumers against them.
 
Raz has the kind of willpower I envy.

I hear they're adding it to RA3 as well, but I can't bring myself not to buy it.
 
As pissed off as I am about the whole DRM and securom shit, I can't get as angry about it as Raz, even though I want to. How do I summon my inner beast Raz!?

The hype was more fun than the actual game, which is a real tragedy. :(
 
Barney Trouble said:
The hype was more fun than the actual game, which is a real tragedy. :(
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Heh, I was only barely interested in the game. The hype o meter is through the roof on this. Also F*** DRM, securom, DRMrom, secuDRM, and whatever else they try to pull on these discs. They get cracked an put on the netz anyways, it fails.
 
Is it OK to listen to music, that you don't own, on youtube?
 
In America you guys make at least $800 a month and use that salary to pay for a $50 game- That's only 6.25% of one's salary.

But in Malaysia, a student(currently studying in college and working part time, with parents to pay for his education) RM600 a month and use that salary to pay for a ($50x3.5)RM175 game - That's ~30% of his salary.

So I would only buy quality games like the Half life series and pirate other games. Guess I'm a big greedy bad guy after all.
 
Try Australia, live in the city and you earn bugger all and have to fork out for $100 games. However, I'm moving to Queensland soon to get a break from my current occupation and will be performing bananna work for 6 months and sugar cane train work for the other 6 months. $1000 a week easy and no skills required apart from a basic train license. I'll also be starting up my own business in the area for computer services as I know the locals and can completly crush the current operators. Fun.

Meanwhile a student on youth allowance will earn $400-500 a month or can work for about the same per week in a decent job that pays $20+ per hour on weekends.
 
$100 for a game? **** that. Man, I wouldn't buy any games at that rate. I'd be mad about it too. Like .. vengeful.

I won't pay more than $50.

I did pay $55 for Half-Life 2, but I was like, "this is going to be the best game ever.", and I wasn't sorry.
 
Well the big shops have started dropping to around the $70-80 mark but the Aussie dollar has gone down to 80cents compared to the US dollar so it's not looking good right now. Stalker is still $30 USD for aussies on steam compared to $70 retail though.
 
Well I'm a student and I get **** all from my goverment or wherever you get the youth allowance from :|
 
In Ingerland we get student loans of 3k+ a year and grants of about 1k if you're poor.

Social democracy ftw
 
I download stuff from youtube, but I don't use the pirate bay or anything like that. Too unreliable. I never do films or games; not out of any moral code, you understand, but I am lazy.
 
**** it, if EA the chance they'd steal you and everyone you love.
 
And put them to work for 60 hours a week on the new Need for Speed.
 
Companies should not push more people to piracy by continuing to remove more and more freedoms from people that buy games. They lose lifetime customers. I think that probably, once you go to piracy, you mostly never go back.


In 2005, I did buy Half-life 2, never having heard of steam and not knowing what it was. I did read the box and knew that it required internet to play it.

Steam has been a nightmare for me. Once every 5 months or so, or once a year, I just want to play the game I bought, but it requires all kinds of downloads and if you've got a new OS install - where is my password, etc. This doesn't work.

I will probably never buy another Steam game. Steam is definitely not suited for a casual gamer, it seems to be aimed at advertising and selling more games also with the same crippling and restrictive anti-piracy features.


In 2007 I bought Bioshock, which knowingly required the internet to activate. My computer doesn't run the game very well and I haven't played this game since I bought it. I would like to uninstall it until a later time because I need space on my hard drive. But with intermittent internet access and a limited number of activations, I'm afraid to remove it from my hard drive.

I most likely will not buy another game that requires online activation.
 
VirusType2 said:
Companies should not push more people to piracy by continuing to remove more and more freedoms from people that buy games. They lose lifetime customers.
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Fair point. It's funny how EA tried so hard prior to all to this DRM disaster on re-building it's company image, yet in one simple move, mitigated virtually everything it's done. What EA fails to grasp here, is the basic business premise of building lasting customer relationships. Forcing DRM into consumer's throats does nothing to improve the product, in fact it more or less does the opposite. Pirated versions are basically superior versions of their legit product due to the nature of it being DRM-free.

In a nutshell, EA needs to take a page out of StarDock.
 
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