Game News The Witcher 2: BitTorrent Collector's Edition now only $1230

[BLOBERT]

BRO NO WAIT NOW THEY ARE COPYRIGHT FAGS ONE TIME MY DAD TOUCHED MY SOMEWHERE BAD THEN NEVER PAID ME NOW I THINK OF HIM WHEN I SEE THE WTICHER

 

[Burning Bridges]

If you mean that they sent out these letters in response to the lawsuit, keep in mind that they first announced they would do this in November 2010, nearly six months before the game came out (link). There was even a Codex thread about it. Similar letters were also sent to people who pirated the first Witcher in the UK (this is mentioned in the TorrentFreak article linked in the OP), but the articles I've found on the subject are unclear as to whether it was CDProjekt or Atari that hired the firm responsible for sending them.

I also remembered this thread. Thanks for digging it out.

 

[Wunderpurps]

Well here's another ideological enemy for you.


I'm betting that at least 95% (low ball estimate) of the people given these letters are more than guilty and deserve everything that's coming for them. They are parasites on the system, enjoying the fruits of IP investments while refusing to pay for it. They are the reason for the dearth in singleplayer RPG's, and the reason for the rise of facebook games and microtransaction games and of course MMORPG's. They should be treated like all lawbreakers, with fines adjusted to the severity of the broken law and the chance of getting caught, to maximize the risk in breaking the law. The only thing to regret here is that the catching of pirates is not efficient enough.

And I should get 2000000 PLN for my father abandoning me and 12000 PLN each month he didn't pay alimony and 1000000 PLN for each time he tried to hide his incomes.

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I hate to break it to you but there's nothing that says your father has to support you. You never did anything for him, he owes you nothing at all.

The only reason the courts try to make him pay is because they don't want the burden of uncared for orphans to fall on their shoulders. Just like the only reason the courts allow them to bill idiots who share other people's games is because they feel people who do work and have the work used by others deserve to be paid for it.

So you can go be a little bitch your whole life and add poster 101 to your ignore list orjust grow up already and realize no one owes anyone shit.

It's nothing to do with the decline, it's everything to do with assholes trying to take what they can by force. You can't just decide who you pay for shit and who you can't and expect no consequences to occur.

 

[Gord]

I hate to break it to you but there's nothing that says your father has to support you. You never did anything for him, he owes you nothing at all.

There's this little thing called "responsibility". Look it up in your dictionary. It's a bit out of fashion in this times.

 

[Shannow]

I find it pretty amusing that some people in this thread are going 'waaaaaaah if I knew they'd do that I wouldn't buy OMG YOU LOST A CUSTOMER' when they've been announcing such measures way before releasing the game.

But then, I also remember how everyone's reaction to that announcement was 'haha yeah like they will ever try it'.

Lawyers specialized in suing people for downloading torrents the lawyers put up themselves...
Great move CDproject. Winning hearts and minds nearly as good as the yanks when they're bombing hospitals.

Disclaimer2: Good for CDP that the Twitchers games weren't my cup of tea anyway. Otherwise they would have lost future sales...

Come on, guys. Dig up quotes from the first thread and from these new threads that actually support your claims. "Some people" or "everyone's reaction" (in this case clearly disproven) just don't cut it.

Though I admit, that I completely forgot about the first announcement
Perhaps the drama now will be enough to make it stick...

I guess they must (attempt to) fine whoever's name is on the internet plan? Regardless of if that person or even anyone in their household pirated their game. Plenty of people still have insecure wireless networks running in their homes.

That's why the media corporations lobbied until the law was changed. At least in German you must secure your network. Otherwise you're liable. And, AFAIK, if you claim that it wasn't you who torrented it and that perhaps your secure network was penetrated you have to prove that. Where in a normal system one is innocent until proven guilty.
Add to that that the lawyers usually charge 500€, although the law states that for first time offenders 100€ is the maximum, and ass raping cease and desist conditions...
Gods, I hate those lawyers and people who employ them so badly...right next to most politicians and banksters.

Hell, I even wrote essentially the same stufff...

Evil scum? Hardly. I don't care about most pirates.
Heck, I pirated most of my games while I still was at school, too. Although this was before torrents and such. You can't spend money you don't have (not that it is morally right)...
Same if you only pirate a game as a "demo" because there is no real one available, fine, go ahead. But I doubt that this is more than a minority of all cases. And from an ethical point of view, you either have to stop playing once you conclude that it's not worth your money or buy it if you find to like it enough. Also you wouldn't stand a chance in court.
The only "type" of pirate I can't stand are those that elevate pirating games to some sort of big revolutionary fight for freedom or try to justify it with token complaints like "I don't want the evil publishers to get any of my money, lol!".
Overall though I find the topic to be too complex to warrant an easy answer like "piracy is the satan, herpderp" or "piracy is cool, hurrdurr".

We're pretty much of the same opinion then, but I was talking about something else

I agree on your opinion on the lawyers motivation, but this is much more serious than a simple scam scheme.

If it is what I think it is (a so-called "Abmahnung"), their letters are in accordance with german law. You can not simply ignore it.

They've even started auctioning off Abmahnungen.

 

[Wunderpurps]

I hate to break it to you but there's nothing that says your father has to support you. You never did anything for him, he owes you nothing at all.

There's this little thing called "responsibility". Look it up in your dictionary. It's a bit out of fashion in this times.

Like guilt responsibility is entirely optional, esxcept in how the law decides to enforce it. The government has much less right to step into family matters than they do between two strangers when one of them is fucking the other over. But people are too softhearted to let unwanted fucktards starve on the street or become sex slaves so they make a bunch of laws. That doesn't mean it's right to burden some uncaring father with supporting some byblow for twenty years, though, it's just what's popular and practical.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Come on, guys. Dig up quotes from the first thread and from these new threads that actually support your claims. "Some people" or "everyone's reaction" (in this case clearly disproven) just don't cut it.

I don't think I'll buy any CD-Project game again.

Welp, I'm not buying their games again, off of GOG or otherwise.

CDP, you lost a customer.

(Btw CDP... I bought Witcher and I were considering buying II for christmas, this may actually influence my sales decision. Negatively. GG!)

Fucking liers.

And here I thought they were the "good guys".

Anyway, I bought TW1 and TW2, gonna pirate TW3.

 

[made]

Let's be honest, what father wouldn't have abandoned Awor as soon as it became apparent what a dumbass he would grow up to be?

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

I don't think I'll buy any CD-Project game again. I don't buy from child-abusing monsters.

But you don't have any money to buy games anyway, so what's the difference?*



* Reference to the Indie game thread where Awor was too poor to pay $10.......

Too poor to pay $10? And that despite the fact that his father owes him, his mother owes him support, the society owes him welfare and developers owe him free games? It breaks my heart. Why so poor? Must have something to do with not being a nerd but a kickass hooligan and whatnot.

If it is what I think it is (a so-called "Abmahnung"), their letters are in accordance with german law. You can not simply ignore it.

As for this whole Abmahnung-scheme, I agree with SCO. How did they identify those people anyway? Only your provider can match time, IP-Address and person. And your provider sure as hell isn't supposed to give away that info (not to some random lawyers anyway) . Furthermore, in Germany a provider has to store these logs with all the info for 3 months and then delete it (for data privacy protection reasons - this is an actual law) so, for instance, now so many months after the incident you couldn't prove jack shit anyway.

So yes, it's about getting a few faint-hearted to pay up out of fear, or more precisely, have their parents pay up.

Plus, the Abmahnung-concept is an abomination in the first place and is abused by lawyers all the time.

 

[visions]

You can't just decide who you pay for shit and who you can't and expect no consequences to occur.

If you download shit from the internet, no consequences will occur in more than 99% cases. Saying that you can't expect no consequences to occur in these cases is like saying you can't expect NOT to win the jackpot when buying a lottery ticket.

 

[Wunderpurps]

You can't just decide who you pay for shit and who you can't and expect no consequences to occur.

If you download shit from the internet, no consequences will occur in more than 99% cases. Saying that you can't expect no consequences to occur in these cases is like saying you can't expect NOT to win the jackpot when buying a lottery ticket.

That's true but the point is you can't expect the law to support that kind of behavior. You can't run an economy by everyone taking whatever they want then paying what they feel like, that's exactly why thirdworldia is thirdworldia in the first place.

 

[coldcrow]

Seems there is no real understanding about the implications of digitalization for human society. Mass availability of media makes the stupidity of capitalism so obvious, it is not even hilarious anymore. I raise a healthy "Go die in the next imperialist war as cannonfodder" to all the mindless drones defending the company.
Not that many pirates actually know why it is OK to do so...

 

[Wunderpurps]

Seems there is no real understanding about the implications of digitalization for human society. Mass availability of media makes the stupidity of capitalism so obvious, it is not even hilarious anymore. I raise a healthy "Go die in the next imperialist war as cannonfodder" to all the mindless drones defending the company.
Not that many pirates actually know why it is OK to do so...

Filthy fucking commies and their sense of entitlement. I used to laugh at my dad because he was so pissed that he had to stop at berlin and didn't roll straight through to Moscow but now I see how naive I was.

 

[Burning Bridges]

I hate to break it to you but there's nothing that says your father has to support you. You never did anything for him, he owes you nothing at all.

The only reason the courts try to make him pay is because they don't want the burden of uncared for orphans to fall on their shoulders.

I agree. The law in most countries, especially western welfare states is made after precisely this principle.

If mothers want to get rid of unwanted children they can get an abortion, or if they missed that, comfortably dispose them in a baby hatch. But fathers, no matter if they want or not, must pay for their own chldren until they are almost 30, their ex spouses, even someone else's children if they are unlucky. In many cases all they ever going to see from their children are payment requests. In fact, states make sure that everyone is entitled for support from family members (99% fathers) whenever possible .. not because it is right, but because that way the public budget can save a lot of money.

In my opinion no one should be forced pay alimony. You hit the nail on the head, by asking, what, actually, have you done for your father?. If the answer is nothing, then that's what he owes you. I mean, don't get me wrong, of course fathers should take care, and having a great relationship with your father is a wonderful thing. But great gifts as this should not be demanded as a matter of course, and in our culture the generosity of fathers is already shamelessly capitalized on, with absolutely nothing given in return.

Apart from the financial aspect, I can somehow understand that AS is angry when most others have been lucky to have a father that cares for them. But have you really tried to get in contact with your father, and get to know him as a person, not only as a debitor?

 

[fizzelopeguss]

Let's be honest, what father wouldn't have abandoned Awor

?

 

[Burning Bridges]

As for this whole Abmahnung-scheme, I agree with SCO. How did they identify those people anyway? Only your provider can match time, IP-Address and person. And your provider sure as hell isn't supposed to give away that info (not to some random lawyers anyway) . Furthermore, in Germany a provider has to store these logs with all the info for 3 months and then delete it (for data privacy protection reasons - this is an actual law) so, for instance, now so many months after the incident you couldn't prove jack shit anyway.

So yes, it's about getting a few faint-hearted to pay up out of fear, or more precisely, have their parents pay up.

Plus, the Abmahnung-concept is an abomination in the first place and is abused by lawyers all the time.

I think it depends on the provider. Some ISPs give away the information quite liberally, others try to withhold it. Although Germany has pretty strict laws to protect our privacy, such things are not handled according to the law. For example, registration offices should not give away information to anyone except policy and tax collection office, but they give it absolutely unquestionably to the the GEZ (an organization that wants money from anyone who owns a TV set), even though it is not even a public authority. I never ever gave them my adress, but still, even before even my bank or my employer knows that I moved, they send me letters. When money and company interest is involved, our privacy protection laws are worthless.

 

[hiver]

Darth Roxor, my "fucking liers" line is about lies they made about the game various features during the prerelease hype bullshit, not about this issue.

 

[Dantus12]

Why so much wondering about?

The 1mil machines of the people that bought the game are identified on their servers, as well the people that have multi instals and multi e-mail addresses Google and other search engines make sure that the e-mail user is identified all the time even between google-yahoo-hotmail.

And no one uses a 10 min e-mail to register His games.
Further the DRM got advanced . It's incredibly modern to repeat stuff like Ubishit DRM , when Ubishit is having a great time with Anno 2070 now, and most importantly has a stigma from the glorious Starforce Protector days.
It's fairly easy to identify pirates vs legit users now, parts of all
interfaces use Adobe air for example, and there's better stuff, it's like a software fingerprint on the users hardware inside of a game that identifies, example even the models
if in stolen copy via a encryption algorithm. And most importantly enables each model to be encrypted in a randomized manner, so it's known from which game model no 77890.... the epic friendly group of crackers provided their torrent-rapidshare copy, everyone with a game that contains model 77890...... is a pirate
- end of line.

More important is i also that it works on levels, models, UI's so for countries that have a law against it it is perfectly valid to use such a method . The users PC and the content on it is a unique fingerprint of the user on the internet, most of the time
IP changing, MAC spoofing and in some cases sandboxing are completely useless , sooner or later the machine will enter Safe mode, than everything is over.

So the defense forces of piracy may try whatever they want, unless their country has liberal laws or simply doesn't care there are ways and methods to be found.
Also there are people that should only and most importantly the silly believe that their pirated copy is not traceable this in not 1997,a Xbox even, is to much hardware for them,
Here a wonderful example of idiots trying to play Pirated :

http://www.develop-online.net/news/3916 ... re-pirated


As for the point of loving my software to be freely distributed , and known -sure, works wonderfully for one person, except the fact that sooner or later I will have to pay the people that work for me and than there is zero profit for them.
And in companies that don't work on the principle "hire fast , fire fast," but take their employes even remotely serious as artists, programmers and persona's, the long therm development cycle , where resources are needed to survive the time in between the transitional period without fireing anyone , is hard.
As smaller they are as harder it gets, most of the time they will spend lots of time convincing the publisher that the game is worth publishing and getting actually some funds. So teams like PB, Larian, Bohemian, CD Project ... will need to live with the
publishers axe above their head till they deliver something that
the publisher deems worthy, and no one will work for free when feeding a family.

The pirates way is the path of lesser resistance mostly of people that clocked 100 hours in a pirated game wasted 300 posts on bashing it, and never went out to buy it-because the game was a 1oo hour playable piece of shit , but they got competence on it now.
Not everyone is like this, but the wast majority, the twisted logic is that supporting Razer,Reloaded...is more logical than somebody that actually created something, and that is what the battle is about, the downloader is the long arm of the criminal uploader, it makes the downloader a criminal.


----------------------

 

[Roguey]

Darth Roxor, my "fucking liers" line is about lies they made about the game various features during the prerelease hype bullshit, not about this issue.

What were those again? It always seemed to me that they were honest about what they were making, the only thing I remember them going back on is turning alchemy into a minigame (because they ran out of time).

 

[Burning Bridges]

By now, I believe piracy is really one of the reasons that companies are moving away from PC. But if there was no such thing as piracy, the companies would have to invent it. It is easy to demonize because laws forbid it in most countries. Interestingly, no one questions these laws any more, since we have adopted a stupid anglo-american idea (ownership of information) already long before World War II, and most people accept it by now, athough the idea is alien, and did not exist until the 19th century.

The truth is, Pre-owned sales is a much bigger reason and it isn't a crime at all. What no one tells you is, even if there was no piracy we would still have DRM and the move to consoles because of that.

 

[circ]

By now, I believe piracy is really one of the reasons that companies are moving away from PC.

Maybe you should look this thing up called console piracy? The only reason they are opting out of PC markets is because console and portable and cellphone markets are easy moniez for minimal effort, where you're guaranteed a big queue of retarded unquestioning consumers.

 

[waywardOne]

I think companies are moving away from PC because as a group PC gamers are less tolerant of shitty games than console gamers as a group but "piracy" is an easy out for shitty devs.

 

[Burning Bridges]

^of course, explaining things with a single cause will always fail.

But what I am really concerned about is the idea of intellectual property. I find the whole idea selfish and childish. If children find something first, they want no one else to have it either. *I found it first, it belongs to me, bah!*

But in all cultures before the 19th century it would have been absolutely natural that if you see or find someone had a great new idea of doing things ( like bow and arrow, making fire or having sex in the missionary position ) you would of course copy the idea.

You often hear the argument if there was no copyright laws, why would anyone develop important stuff like new medications? The truth is, everything would have been found, only later, and free for every one.

Ideas and information cannot and should not be protected. If you are afraid that someone else uses "your" ideas without paying you, you should not be delving in immaterial things in the first place. You should move to create something that you can protect, something real. If you don't like it, keep your ideas secret, or live with the fact that they can be used by everyone.

What we had until recently was compromise. Companies could make money with intellectual property, because a good share of the population pay for it, but people could also use ways to circumvent it, like watching a show through a hole in the fence. But what we are having now is governments that drive us toward a capitalist dictatorship where the immaterial wealth is as unequally distributed as the material world, and where "crimes" of various kinds have been invented that are "perpetrated" without any harm to anyone. Like making it a crime to look at someone's butt on a photo, because that butt "belongs" to them.

 

[MetalCraze]

It costed about 6.5 mln euro to develop .

And marketing?

Marketing is a part of budget.

I think companies are moving away from PC because as a group PC gamers are less tolerant of shitty games than console gamers as a group but "piracy" is an easy out for shitty devs.

Oh cut the crap.

Selling on one platform = 1x copies
Selling on three platforms = 3x copies

Simple as that.

Modern PC gamers are as tolerable to shit as console gamers.

 

[Wunderpurps]

^of course, explaining things with a single cause will always fail.

But what I am really concerned about is the idea of intellectual property. I find the whole idea selfish and childish. If children find something first, they want no one else to have it either. *I found it first, it belongs to me, bah!*

But in all cultures before the 19th century it would have been absolutely natural that if you see or find someone had a great new idea of doing things ( like bow and arrow, making fire or having sex in the missionary position ) you would of course copy the idea.

You often hear the argument if there was no copyright laws, why would anyone develop important stuff like new medications? The truth is, everything would have been found, only later, and free for every one.

Ideas and information cannot and should not be protected. If you are afraid that someone else uses "your" ideas without paying you, you should not be delving in immaterial things in the first place. You should move to create something that you can protect, something real. If you don't like it, keep your ideas secret, or live with the fact that they can be used by everyone.

What we had until recently was compromise. Companies could make money with intellectual property, because a good share of the population pay for it, but people could also use ways to circumvent it, like watching a show through a hole in the fence. But what we are having now is governments that drive us toward a capitalist dictatorship where the immaterial wealth is as unequally distributed as the material world, and where "crimes" of various kinds have been invented that are "perpetrated" without any harm to anyone. Like making it a crime to look at someone's butt on a photo, because that butt "belongs" to them.

A patent is not a copyright.

Copyright laws are COMPLETELY FINE, except for one very important thing, transferability. Transferance is the bane of the world because it means that people creating things no longer matter, they become commoditized. Your rights are bought out before you even see your frst cent, so there's no reward at all for people who make something good.

Patents are another story. They are fine in concept but in practice the courts do poorly at determining what valid patents are. Like the idea of recording tv on tivo, what a joke. All software patents need to go.

 

[Marobug]

This thread is getting more and more hilarious
The whole "u just lost a customer" thing is down right pathetic. the cdproject dudes are probably far away from the codex so they probably won't hear you crying. But even if they did they would hardly take you seriously.
*developer A announces new anti-piracy measures* *pirates rage*. How shocking.