Ossian/Atari BEGS people to torrent instead of buying

[Azrael the cat]

I tried to buy Mysteries of Westgate today, via direct to drive, thinking that it would be a bastard of a thing to pirate from a small rpg developer. I expected that after the delay in the game's release, that they'd be rather keen to have people purchase their product to get some cash flow going through.

It appears that I was wrong.

Log in to direct drive. Select 'Mysteries of Westgate'. Select download, enter paypal details. Click enter....


....and get 'This item was removed for your shopping cart due to: country of purchase restricted'.


WHAT THE FUCK???? Seriously, in this day and age, on a fucking INTERNET release, what possible justification could Ossian or Westgate have for going OUT OF THEIR WAY to prevent people in some countries from purchasing their game when it is first released. Given the prevalence of internet-purchasing, and the ample time that Atari have had to synch up the release with retailers in Australia, it can't be due to retail contracts That leaves only one fathomable reason:

Atari and Ossian want as many people to pirate this as possible. They want pretty much every single Aussie and Asian fan that has been following the game to find out that they can't legally buy it at release, so that they pirate it isntead and seed it on torrents out of spite. They really want to make sure that their game gets a good solid torrenting base in its first few days, just to make sure that it is more convenient to torrent than purchase.

Well, normally I never pirate from RPG developers, even the one's I don't like. And I'd NEVER advocate pirating from a small developer against their will. But here they've so clearly indicated that this is what they want their potential customers to do, to the point of making it the only means by which those in Australia/Asia can get their games, that frankly I think it would be kind of rude if I DIDN'T pirate it.

I don't like the idea of getting something for free though. Does anyone know whether The Pirate Bay are taking donations? I want to donate them $10.

 

[NiM82]

Is it even on the torrent sites yet?

I just had a quick glance at some and couldn't see it listed... that's very fucking fail. Worst marketing/release strategy evah...

Not that I care enough to remove it from an inventory, judging from the reviews.

 

[Silellak]

Is it even on the torrent sites yet?

I just had a quick glance at some and couldn't see it listed... that's very fucking fail. Worst marketing/release strategy evah...

Not that I care enough to remove it from an inventory, judging from the reviews.

I haven't seen any negative reviews yet. What are you referring to?

 

[sirfink]

This is nothing new. Lots of Internet radio and TV (e.g. Hulu) don't work outside the US. This is due to byzantine distribution agreements between the companies involved.

Oh, and the Ossian guys got paid long ago for completing the project.

As for pirating it, something tells me porn star Sandee Westgate is going to see a rise in popularity in the next week or so.

 

[MetalCraze]

Is it even on the torrent sites yet?

I just had a quick glance at some and couldn't see it listed... that's very fucking fail. Worst marketing/release strategy evah...

Not that I care enough to remove it from an inventory, judging from the reviews.

I haven't seen any negative reviews yet. What are you referring to?

That's kinda the whole point. Bad games don't get bashed by press - and when you see that all media opinions are one-sided you just know that something is very wrong.

As for pirating it, something tells me porn star Sandee Westgate is going to see a rise in popularity in the next week or so.

Yeah I've learned that name today

 

[Silellak]

Is it even on the torrent sites yet?

I just had a quick glance at some and couldn't see it listed... that's very fucking fail. Worst marketing/release strategy evah...

Not that I care enough to remove it from an inventory, judging from the reviews.

I haven't seen any negative reviews yet. What are you referring to?

That's kinda the whole point. Bad games don't get bashed by press - and when you see that all media opinions are one-sided you just know that something is very wrong.

If it were a mainstream game, I'd probably agree with you, but when it's something like MoW, I highly doubt the publisher cares enough to grease up the reviewers to get pretty scores.

For that matter, I haven't actually seen ANY 'mainstream' reviews for MoW yet.

 

[Spectacle]

I suspect that MoW is too marginal for any pirates to want to rush to crack it, so it might be a long time until it hits torrents, if ever.

 

[DemonKing]

I live in Australia and managed to purchase it from DLgamer.com.

I also managed to buy Mask of the Betrayer direct from the Atari store in the US so you could try there too.

Direct2Drive is not the only option out there.

 

[Azrael the cat]

I live in Australia and managed to purchase it from DLgamer.com.

I also manager to buy Mask of the Betrayer direct from the Atari store in the US so you could try there too.

Direct2Drive is not the only option out there.

Awesome, i'll check DLgamer then. Still, that makes it all the more bizarre that D2D won't sell it.

 

[santino27]

Is it even on the torrent sites yet?

I just had a quick glance at some and couldn't see it listed... that's very fucking fail. Worst marketing/release strategy evah...

Not that I care enough to remove it from an inventory, judging from the reviews.

I haven't seen any negative reviews yet. What are you referring to?

Actually, Gamebanshee gave it a 6.8 of 10, for what that's worth.

http://www.gamebanshee.com/reviews/software/nwn2mow.php

 

[DriacKin]

Well, I'm enjoying the game thus far. I think I'm only about halftway through the game, but the dialogue and setting are decent, and there seems to be a decent amount of C&C (I don't know how differently the game would played out had I chosen different choices.)
I mean, the camera sucks ass and the combat is mediocre, but its still a well made campaign. Not nearly as blissful as MotB, but still decent.
Also, I did actually buy the game. I've never pirated a game in my life.. I suppose being a sofware developer makes me sympathize with the game companies.

 

[Jaime Lannister]

Bad games don't get bashed by press

too human, kane and lynch, storm of zehir

 

[Elzair]

Gerstmann Affair

Bad games don't get bashed by press

too human, kane and lynch, storm of zehir

Jaime, do you remember when that Gamespot reviewer was fired for giving Kane & Lynch too bad of a review?

 

[aries202]

As I understand it, buying MoW at D2D is only for US customers at the moment; Australians need to buy the game from DLgamer, I think. Or maybe from atari.co.uk?

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

There probably would have been a mainstream review of it at PC Gamer since Desslock was creaming his Canadian panties over it, but he got shitcanned so god knows if they're going to review it now.

 

[santino27]

So anyway, can we officially declare this thread a non-issue, since there is once locale for people to buy it digitally in the US, and other for users who are external to the US?

 

[Jaime Lannister]

Re: Gerstmann Affair

Jaime, do you remember when that Gamespot reviewer was fired for giving Kane & Lynch too bad of a review?

It got bad reviews from other websites, and you didn't address my other two games.

 

[MetalCraze]

Well that's easy - some games are so bad that you can't just ignore that taste in your mouth.

 

[Crispy]

So what's the current status of MoW being cracked? Is it all over the torrent sites yet? (Don't know, don't go to any of them myself)

Just wondering if Atari's supremely f-ed up DRM plan actually bought them more than 24 hours.

 

[NiM82]

Is it even on the torrent sites yet?

I just had a quick glance at some and couldn't see it listed... that's very fucking fail. Worst marketing/release strategy evah...

Not that I care enough to remove it from an inventory, judging from the reviews.

I haven't seen any negative reviews yet. What are you referring to?

Gamebanshee's, notably. I''m in the skyway camp when it comes to SoZ, so the fact it's generally sounding like a weaker SoZ isn't exactly good.

 

[Malachi]

Purely as an academic exercise, I did a Google search. MoW is theoretically available right now at torrentreactor.net, though not yet at Pirate Bay. So the DRM maybe, just maybe, bought the publisher one day.

Assuming that the MoW torrents are for the actual game and not trojans (big assumption, I know), this is clear and convincing evidence that the draconian DRM does not actually accomplish anything. Except, of course, pissing off legitimate customers who would like to be able to install and uninstall their game more than 3 times. Not to mention the many instances in other games where Secure-Rom (sp?) and the like actually interferes with the installation / running of the game on some people's systems.

For the record, I do not advocate downloading of warez, since I believe it hurts the computer games industry, and I want them to produce more and better quality stuff. I don't expect people to work for free. But you've got to wonder why they bother with the DRM in the first place, since it seems so completely pointless, if not counterproductive.

 

[serch]

I think that nowadays they try to fight reselling more than piracy.

 

[sirfink]

I dare you to download the "torrent" at torrentreactor.net. That site is pure bullshit.

 

[abdwef]

Purely as an academic exercise, I did a Google search. MoW is theoretically available right now at torrentreactor.net, though not yet at Pirate Bay.

That torrent is a fake. MoW is not available on any P2P network.

I suspect that MoW is too marginal for any pirates to want to rush to crack it, so it might be a long time until it hits torrents, if ever.

That is also my thought. Atari will hold this up as proof that its system worked.

 

[felicity]

Let's see if MoW can prove its crack worthy-ness to Atari.