Titan Quest producer rants on PC market.

[OccupatedVoid]

I pirated Uplink way back, but I loved it so much that I purchased it. I even bought the Dev CD, but I haven't messed with that in a while.

 

[Xi]

I think piracy is an issue that deals with an obvious human flaw. If there is no consequence for an action, your standard Joe will not consider it wrong. This thread is full of standard Joe's, for instance. The real solution is to develop a system that provides consequence, so that your average Joe will understand that it's wrong.

You pirate video games, the court takes away your right to play video games and all direct ownership of games and gaming capable devices are siezed from your home. Then playing video games from there on out becomes a felony charge, until a certain duration of time has passed.

 

[Norfleet]

One point that has been overlooked is that pirating something is often simply far more convenient, AND it gets you a superior product, to boot! When I pirate a piece of software, I get a completely clean file with no additional cost or hassle. No broken DRM spyware breaking my computer or attempting to steal my personal information. No having to blow $100 worth of gas driving a 60 mile round trip through hostile territory just for the dubious privilege of paying $50 for a piece of lousy plastic which may or may not work. No dealing with shady online operators intent on trying to steal my personal information and violate my privacy.

Frankly, that's hard to beat: Convenience, a competitive price point, an actually superior product, and my privacy intact. Name ONE company which can offer me this if I buy their product.

 

[SuicideBunny]

You pirate video games, the court takes away your right to play video games and all direct ownership of games and gaming capable devices are siezed from your home.

for maximum (or in the case of humans, any) effect, this would have to be instantaneous, random, and equally mixed with (instant and random) reinforcement for buying games, which is impossible and the reason why laws don't teach or prevent anything.

besides, i would hate being punished this way for using piracy to make capitalism work.

 

[Western]

You pirate video games, the court takes away your right to play video games and all direct ownership of games and gaming capable devices are siezed from your home.

for maximum (or in the case of humans, any) effect, this would have to be instantaneous, random, and equally mixed with (instant and random) reinforcement for buying games, which is impossible and the reason why laws don't teach or prevent anything.

besides, i would hate being punished this way for using piracy to make capitalism work.

I'd switch to Ubuntu if PC gaming became that draconian anyway, most games are shit and not worth buying, and you can't trust the mainstream gaming media to give you an honest opinion on anything (how are you going to know if somethings any good without a demo or test drive?), the Witcher and Sam and Max are the only games I've bought recently. Fortunately my video store stocks PC games so I can just rent.

 

[eth]

Fortunately my video store stocks PC games so I can just rent.

Which is another form of piracy by the way, both for you and the video store, am i right?

 

[pkt-zer0]

I think piracy is an issue that deals with an obvious human flaw. If there is no consequence for an action, your standard Joe will not consider it wrong. This thread is full of standard Joe's, for instance. The real solution is to develop a system that provides consequence, so that your average Joe will understand that it's wrong.

There already is a consequence, namely: game developers getting less money (Seemingly around the 1% range in case of indies, if Reflexive's stats are more-or-less accurate). The fact that someone's not getting paid for their work if you pirate seems a pretty obvious conclusion to me, not beyond your "Standard Joe". So, how bad a thing is that?
When you can spend 50$ on a game, the developer only ever seeing about 5$ of that, or you can buy as many copies of Fallout as you want and still end up with the corpse-rape that's FO3, that pirated copy doesn't seem to make that much of a difference. More power to the gamers, less to the publishers, possibly?

 

[obediah]

I think piracy is an issue that deals with an obvious human flaw. If there is no consequence for an action, your standard Joe will not consider it wrong. This thread is full of standard Joe's, for instance. The real solution is to develop a system that provides consequence, so that your average Joe will understand that it's wrong.

You pirate video games, the court takes away your right to play video games and all direct ownership of games and gaming capable devices are siezed from your home. Then playing video games from there on out becomes a felony charge, until a certain duration of time has passed.

Ars just posted a nice article reviewing the history of property law in the US that shows why you are exactly wrong. Throwing more and more draconian laws at something people don't consider wrong is a recipe for epic fail.

Laws based on real research into piracy rather than industry shock numbers, and with punishment in line with damages is the real solution. That will set a reasonable framework for the industry to work with ( i.e. change their business model rather than throwing DRM and litigation at the problem).

 

[obediah]

You pirate video games, the court takes away your right to play video games and all direct ownership of games and gaming capable devices are siezed from your home.

for maximum (or in the case of humans, any) effect, this would have to be instantaneous, random.

Where do you guys get this shit? Random punishment is a terrible deterrent. A consistent minor deterrent works much better than a random major deterrent. Parking Tickets and speed cameras are perfect examples. And of course raising children. The kid that gets a 10 minute time out everytime they curse will learn faster than the one that gets their ass beat randomly once out of every 100 curses. Beating their ass every time would also work I guess.

 

[Section8]

I think piracy is an issue that deals with an obvious human flaw. If there is no consequence for an action, your standard Joe will not consider it wrong. This thread is full of standard Joe's, for instance. The real solution is to develop a system that provides consequence, so that your average Joe will understand that it's wrong.

Fail. Consequences don't need to be experienced first hand. Do you need to get assraped in jail for the rest of your life to understand that murder is wrong? Do you even need the example of others being assraped in jail as a pre-emptive deterent?

The issue is a cultural problem - piracy isn't seen as wrong by the vast majority. Assraping one or two pirates at random isn't going to deter anyone, it's just going to engender further hatred, distrust and disrespect toward publishers and law enforcement. It would makes piracy seem right by creating martyrs.

It's pretty much like speeding tickets and parking fines. The insignificant amount of revenue each one creates isn't worth the negative attitude it proliferates. The more distrust the public has toward law enforcement officers, the harder each one has to work, and the less efficient their law enforcement becomes. It also generates a distrust toward the laws themselves, and if a person is averse to a law, it's failed in its purpose.

What we really need is cultural change, not more and tougher laws. Of course, that's easier said than done.

 

[Naked Ninja]

Consequences don't need to be experienced first hand. Do you need to get assraped in jail for the rest of your life to understand that murder is wrong?

And how many more murders do you think there would be if there was no consequences whatsoever? How many more thefts and rapes? How many more running of red robots? How much more drunk driving? How much more illegal double parking and and and and.... Fail.

 

[SuicideBunny]

Where do you guys get this shit?

psychology lecture etitled "learning" in conjuncture with the accompanying course and reports on learned helplessness (tasering dogs = teh funz!) and extinction (kinky stuff), though granted, as it's only my supportive topic i didn't have to write an exam, thus paying minimum attention needed for my reports, why?

Random punishment is a terrible deterrent. A consistent minor deterrent works much better than a random major deterrent.

i'm not talking about deterrence, but operant conditioning, and all your examples are also forms of the latter and not the former.

Parking Tickets and speed cameras are perfect examples.

unless you take severe anti avoidance measures, speed cameras just teach you to slow down at known catching points or whenever you think you see a camera, and that's it. tickets work pretty much the same way, since streets that are checked are often checked in some order of preference.
avoidance takes the most direct course if you encounter constants, since you can deal with them..
smacking your kid when he smokes won't make it associate smoking with pain thus stopping smoking in order to avoid pain, it will instead make it associate YOU and smoking with pain, and thus avoid the combination of the two, leading to you believing it doesn't smoke, while in fact it is on its best way to lung cancer heaven.
also, once you are gone, unable, or unwilling to deliver the pain, it will puff smoke in yer sorry face.
this is how conditioning works

deterrence on the other hand works like this: you find out your kid smokes, make sure your kid thinks you didn't notice, then you go beat your neighbours' smoking little asshat to a bloody pulp in front of your kid making sure your little brat sees it and hears you crying "how dare you smoke you fucking faggot", hoping he will smoke less or drop it entirely.

deterrence requires little to no control as long as it has a steady flow of criminals to show, only requires punishment, but produces a lot of other direct and indirect problems and generally doesn't work all that well in suppressing or modifying behavior towards what YOU want at all, while operant conditioning is a practically failsafe method of modifying a behavior towards exactly what you want, but requires ressources and effort.

oc works no matter whether you use constant or random methods, but if you use constant ones, the resulting behavior will cease almost instantly the moment the punishment stops (similarly to deterrence), whereas random reinforcement/punishment produces way more stable and lasting results, either way, best results are achieved via punishment and rewarding, since punishment is easy to get used to.

btw, once out of 100 isn't random. proper randomness means you have an equal amount of punishments/reinforcements and non-punishments/non-reinforcements in a reasonable time interval.

if you want to wrap your mind around it, it's much easier to swallow if you go the other way round, looking at rewards, since the two work pretty much the same in this regard.
you give a cookie to your kid for some simple action you want to reinforce. you do it every time, the kid soon learns to do the action every time you want, you are under the impression the kid learned what you wanted from it, so you stop giving it cookies, or simply ran out of those, resulting in your kid not getting one the next time it does what you want, and voila, within days the behavior will disappear without a trace.
in your example, the kid will learn rather fast not to curse in your presence while calling its schoolmates shitcocks and motherfuckers. that's of course assuming the conditioning is the only action you take in order to affect that behavior, as is never the case with reality.

now assume your kid only gets a cookie once in a while, effectively every second time, but not in any pattern it could learn since it's pretty much random...
you run out of cookies, your kid keeps up the behavior far longer, because the possibility of not getting a cookie was part of its expectations. the behavior will continue for a long time even when you kick the bucket (effectively having thaught your kid something for life) without anyone giving cookies to the kid.

and so on, awake for 30 hours, need sleep now. go read up on operant conditioning on the web.

 

[Gnidrologist]

 

[Western]

Fortunately my video store stocks PC games so I can just rent.

Which is another form of piracy by the way, both for you and the video store, am i right?

I'm assuming this is being said tongue in cheek

But if it's not, the law is likely different here in Australia, then wherever you happen to be. That stores saved me a few times though, I was considering buying Oblivion until I had the chance to rent it

 

[Yahweh]

One point that has been overlooked is that pirating something is often simply far more convenient, AND it gets you a superior product, to boot! When I pirate a piece of software, I get a completely clean file with no additional cost or hassle. No broken DRM spyware breaking my computer or attempting to steal my personal information. No having to blow $100 worth of gas driving a 60 mile round trip through hostile territory just for the dubious privilege of paying $50 for a piece of lousy plastic which may or may not work. No dealing with shady online operators intent on trying to steal my personal information and violate my privacy.

Frankly, that's hard to beat: Convenience, a competitive price point, an actually superior product, and my privacy intact. Name ONE company which can offer me this if I buy their product.

Have you even read any of this thread? Pirating is not a sure thing, and the people doing it can't tell they haven't fucked something up. Crashes like the ones here are NOT intentional, but because the pirates did a shitty job removing the antipiracy stuff.

It also doesn't take a genius to see that stuff you download off torrentts is a lot more likely to fuck your system than any antipiracy stuff. A few games have shitty DRM, but most of them have stuff that's relatively innocuous. The only bad one I ever ran into that I just had to play was starforce for just one game out of all the games I have played.

Again like the stupid people who just think a game is buggy, these people also complain that windows is so buggy. Why? Maybe because they are installing random crap on their machines? Then they are surprised they constantly have spyware...well, I have never had any spyware, or any virus. A lot of them have keyloggers and don't even know it.

It astounds me how ignorant people are.

 

[Ratty]

Have you even read any of this thread? Pirating is not a sure thing, and the people doing it can't tell they haven't fucked something up. Crashes like the ones here are NOT intentional, but because the pirates did a shitty job removing the antipiracy stuff.

That might hold true for someone who has no idea what they are doing, but anyone who has used pirated software for any length of time is experienced enough to know how important it is to obtain their "product" from "respectable" groups with a long history of delivering quality cracks and warez. I personally have used hundreds of cracks over the years (even for the admittedly small quantity of games I legally own) and in all that time I encountered two, maybe three problems with cracks that failed to remove copy protection fully. One of these games was Sims 2, notorious for the high number of insidious copy protection measures that disabled various elements of the game's functionality. In the end, it was all my bloody fault for not reading any of the numerous cracking / emulation forums, where a great number of people pointed out problems with early Sims 2 cracks that were floating around file sharing networks, and where I also quickly located methods to remedy the situation.

Bottom line: my many years of experience with pirated software and "sticking it to da man" have taught me that problems that arise from using such software are infrequent and easy to remedy if you exhibit a modicum of caution and common sense (but not *too* much common sense, else you might end up purchasing the legit copy ), unlike problems with intrusive or faulty copy protection, which have become all too frequent over the years and which usually result in thousands of users wringing their hands in desperation and pleading assistance from tech support departments which usually neither know how nor care to help them. After all, the company already has poor sod's $50, and it's not like alienating him and thousands of others who end up reading his bitching on forums and blogs could possibly have any impact on company's credibility and, ultimately, future revenues... oh, wait.

 

[crufty]

Throwing more and more draconian laws at something people don't consider wrong is a recipe for epic fail.

Word.


Intellectual Property is the property of the commons. That is the basis for all copyright. When IP infraction becomes a criminal offense, the state starts regulating thought and you cease to have a free/open state.

Let the free market decide.

 

[Futile Rhetoric]

You pirate video games, the court takes away your right to play video games and all direct ownership of games and gaming capable devices are siezed from your home. Then playing video games from there on out becomes a felony charge, until a certain duration of time has passed.

Xi making the world a better place, one silly post at a time.

 

[Section8]

And how many more murders do you think there would be if there was no consequences whatsoever? How many more thefts and rapes? How many more running of red robots? How much more drunk driving? How much more illegal double parking and and and and.... Fail.

You can bet it wouldn't be 90% of the population.

 

[Norfleet]

Have you even read any of this thread? Pirating is not a sure thing, and the people doing it can't tell they haven't fucked something up. Crashes like the ones here are NOT intentional, but because the pirates did a shitty job removing the antipiracy stuff.

Pirating is as sure a thing as quantum mechanics. If someone fucks up cracking, I have a dozen alternative solutions to try, or I can wait, and someone will do it right eventually, and even if not a single one works *AND* I know for certain it is NOT because the game itself is just buggy crashware, I am STILL not out $150, $100 of it being completely unrefundable no matter WHAT I do, and if I want my $50 list price back, I have to blow another $100 in gas. At least that gas money will almost certainly wring a refund out of the hapless store, but what kind idiocy involves burning $200 worth of gas on a $50 product?

And buying from shady dealers over the Internet? GOOD LUCK with that. Now you have a company that has hidden all responsibility out of range, AND they own you now, since you've foolishly given them all of your personal info. I will never, ever, buy from such services. I am not stupid enough to allow them to associate personal information with a uniquely identifiable spyware tracker.

 

[Yahweh]

Have you even read any of this thread? Pirating is not a sure thing, and the people doing it can't tell they haven't fucked something up. Crashes like the ones here are NOT intentional, but because the pirates did a shitty job removing the antipiracy stuff.

Pirating is as sure a thing as quantum mechanics. If someone fucks up cracking, I have a dozen alternative solutions to try, or I can wait, and someone will do it right eventually, and even if not a single one works *AND* I know for certain it is NOT because the game itself is just buggy crashware, I am STILL not out $150, $100 of it being completely unrefundable no matter WHAT I do, and if I want my $50 list price back, I have to blow another $100 in gas. At least that gas money will almost certainly wring a refund out of the hapless store, but what kind idiocy involves burning $200 worth of gas on a $50 product?

And buying from shady dealers over the Internet? GOOD LUCK with that. Now you have a company that has hidden all responsibility out of range, AND they own you now, since you've foolishly given them all of your personal info. I will never, ever, buy from such services. I am not stupid enough to allow them to associate personal information with a uniquely identifiable spyware tracker.

It's interesting how defensive you get. I am not talking at all about the morality of pirating. But, you could easily say to all that - well, tough shit! Don't play the game. You're not entitled to jack shit. I think one thing people should be entitled to is upfront knowledge about any sort of DRM that might cause problems before you buy a game, though. I've looked intot hem all, though, and honestly aside from a few things like steam or starforce I've seen nothing at all to cause alarm. If you're alarmed more over DRMs than installing cracks...well, what can I say except you are seriously mistaken.

You have also sidestepped things completely. The whole point is you don't know when there's a bug and when it's an issue with a crack. How can you possibly know unless you have the real deal as well? You also don't know for sure you are not getting spyware and viruses. They usually don't say "Hey you have a virus!" when they install. You also don't know if your registry has been fucked up, either.

Vrok makes a good point where if you spend a lot of time with it you can read up and know (mostly) how good cracks by a certain group are. But then is it really truly worth it? It also comes back to morality. Seriously, you follow up on a game and read the forums and post. You search long and hard for a good crack you are pretty sure is reliable and not a keylogger (and most people won't even realize they have it and will wonder why all their accounts get hacked). You invest all this time and energy into it and then you say you are justified to steal the game.

I am not talking about you specifically here, your case might be different. But seriously. As much as you say games today suck blah blah blah you must be getting something out of them to put in all this fucking effort. And to then argue about piracy and justify your actions ad nauseum, and in most cases very defensively like you.

I've said many times I don't really care if people pirate boxed PC games (hopefully they will support the indy guys that have no publisher but I don't hold my breath for this), yet people are so defensive. Obviously what you guys are doing is wrong, period. You all know it or you would not have to argue the point so much.

There are levels of wrong and it's not like bashing in an old lady's head, but it makes me sneer to see all the losers out there justifying their shitty actions (again this is not aimed specifically at you) through all of these retarded rationalizations. For the people who later buy all the games they complete, good on you...but seriously, they do make demos for a reason. If a game doesn't have a demo these days you don't need to pirate it to know it's crap. It's crap. Period.

 

[Joe Krow]

Companies should be allowed by law to put discreetly virus infected versions of their own products on file sharing services. A ruined hard drive or two and pirates would loose interest real fast.

 

[Raapys]

They probably do already, but file sharing has quality assurance too.

 

[Xi]

You pirate video games, the court takes away your right to play video games and all direct ownership of games and gaming capable devices are siezed from your home. Then playing video games from there on out becomes a felony charge, until a certain duration of time has passed.

Xi making the world a better place, one silly post at a time.

Bask in your own stupidity, I do not care.

 

[Norfleet]

It's interesting how defensive you get. I am not talking at all about the morality of pirating.

I'm not either. Morality is a concept people made up, anyway. I'm unconvinced it really exists. There is practicality. All else is secondary.

But, you could easily say to all that - well, tough shit! Don't play the game.

Yes, but after a certain point I'm inclined to stab people in the face when they try stuff like this. Like I said, I don't really believe in the entire morality play. If they're trying to screw up your computer and steal your info, I see it as completely reasonable to disregard their opinions of what you should be doing.

You have also sidestepped things completely. The whole point is you don't know when there's a bug and when it's an issue with a crack. How can you possibly know unless you have the real deal as well?

Research. You learn these things when you dig around a bit. Also, not all cracks function as cracks. If you test using emulated images, you can avoid the cracking issue entirely. You may argue, "Why invest all this time in researching?". Well, quite simple: I have to do it anyway, just to make sure that a LEGAL version would be safe to install. So this is a fixed cost regardless of which route you choose.

You also don't know for sure you are not getting spyware and viruses. They usually don't say "Hey you have a virus!" when they install. You also don't know if your registry has been fucked up, either.

True, I don't know for SURE that I am *NOT* getting spyware and virii when I install a pirated versoin. On the other hand, I *DO* know for sure that I *AM* when I install the REAL version. I'll wager an uncertain negative, one that experience has told me carries a miniscule probability on the same order as being road waffled crossing the street, against a certain one any day. The fact is that experience tells me that I have a slightly higher chance of being killed trying to get to and from the store than I do of having anything happen with a pirated version.

You search long and hard for a good crack you are pretty sure is reliable and not a keylogger (and most people won't even realize they have it and will wonder why all their accounts get hacked).

Search? Long? Hard? It's on the freaking disk! Like I said, the convenience factor. I *KNOW* when I download a pirated version that IT WILL WORK. It doesn't matter WHY I know this. It is, however, a proven fact that pirates take pride in their work. Actual companies? You're kidding me, right?

I am not talking about you specifically here, your case might be different. But seriously. As much as you say games today suck blah blah blah you must be getting something out of them to put in all this fucking effort. And to then argue about piracy and justify your actions ad nauseum, and in most cases very defensively like you.

Actually, I haven't defended or argued anything. I'm just saying that, from a pure convenience perspective, if you want a quality product, and you want it with no hassle, you pirate. Simple as that. Morality is irrelevant. Your belief in the the quality of the game itself is irrelevant. I'm saying, quite simply, that if I'm presented with two equally available options, that of buying the game, and that of simply pirating the game, ignoring the actual cost of the game itself, I will pirate the game. If I have to choose between RECEIVING THE GAME AS A GIFT and pirating the game, I will PIRATE THE GAME. The point is that the situation is often SO BAD that even if THE GAME ITSELF WAS AVAILABLE TO ME FREE, I WOULD STILL PIRATE THE GAME. That's right: If I could have an entirely legal version of the game, delivered to my doorstep free of charge, completely anonymously, purchased and delivered at the expense of another, vs. pirating the game off the Internet, I will STILL choose the pirated version. Why? Because IT IS THE SUPERIOR PRODUCT. THAT is my point.