Best article on PC Piracy I've read in a long time

I find piracy to be bad, but I also find that in some specific cases, the world economy, in its flawed status, helps promote piracy in a way(or at least give incentive to). Capitalism is the best system we've developed for economy, but it is far from perfect.

Some people have to pay twice our price in places of the world for a same product(and they earn less too normally in those places). Sure you can say they don't need the game, but the fact is that they're economically disadvantaged in that sense and it does in a way give incentive to those people to pirate games.

Why does that guy in x country feel he needs to pay 3 times the price a US kid does when he makes twice as less for a same product? The fact is that this economic balance(or imbalance, call it what you want) does set up a world of cheapstakes and people who lowball free things. The concepts of "fairness" and "moral right" are imbalanced in our world, therefore we have people who steal, pirate, do crime and kill.

Capitalism and human greed go well together in some aspects(ex: survival of the fittest/richest), but they also don't go well together in some other aspects(I'm cheap because I'm not the fittest/richest).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not blaming our economic system for pirating, but I'm willing to bet it plays a part in certain scenarios.

Bottom line, does piracy hurt the PC gaming industry? It most likely is a factor, but is music pirating really stopping people from making commercial music? I'm betting the PC industry will try and reinforce itself or simply give up and gain way to the console industry(which will end up in a similar situation in that case).

 

That's a fair enough criticism, and I do regret, but only slightly, having taken his bait - that's why I decided to leave it at only one name, but didn't delete the name I'd already used.

In terms of actually convincing him, I'm afraid that that's a lost cause; however, he's also irrelevant as the more important point is focusing on those who are either uncomfortable with the software they've stolen so far, or who are on the fence about whether or not it's acceptable to steal software.

In terms of rhetoric, however, I'm afraid that I have to call a rose a rose (to mangle Gertrude Stein ); downloading unauthorized copies of software is theft, just as surely as writing fraudulent checks on someone else's bank account is theft.

With respect to the issue of RIAA, I think that both approaches are justified; although I would certainly accept the criticism of RIAA that they were way too ham-handed in their approach to prosecuting individuals. Clearly, the music industry (and the digital IP industries generally) will have to alter their business models in order to accomodate the new age; else they'll end up in the dust-bin of history (and deservedly so).

Nonetheless, there needs to be some public awareness of the fact that stealing digital IP is not something you can do with impunity, and a more modest scheme of targeted enforcement against individuals is also a necessary component of any continued business model - a watch-dog that everyone knows has no teeth is no watch-dog at all.

In point of fact, I would say that a lot of the misplaced outrage over the enforcement prosecutions by RIAA was the direct result of IP owners being way too lax about enforcing their rights against individual scofflaws in the past - in other words, because, historically, there hasn't been much prosecution of individuals who steal IP, the public has developed the unwarranted belief that people shouldn't be prosecuted for stealing digital IP now. That false belief can only be changed by having IP owners step up the level of enforcement against individuals who steal IP.

Basically, for every carrot, there must also be a stick, else the carrots will simply be stolen.

 

Really? So, let's see, I use up my own valuable time and effort (assume that my development costs other than time and effort are nil) to create a good, an identifiable thing that can be used by others, and yet, if the good I happen to create is something intangible, like a book, or, say, just for the sake of argument, a computer game, my desire to keep the fruits of my own labor to myself are "archaic?"

Please, if you would, explicate the distinction between a tangible good produced by one laborer and an intangible good produced by another laborer that justifies the difference in treatment you would favor.

Speaking of which, any Marxists here? If there are, you ought to be outraged at the degree to which the value of an intellectual worker's labor is being expropriated, not for the noble purposes of the proletariat state, but for those who, having sufficient leisure to indulge in the consumption of computer games, are most assuredly owners of capital in this context and not workers; I believe that, in the original classification of economic actors, such would qualify as the petite bourgeoisie.

 

Geez, wheres your moral values.

Sure greedy companies like EA have millions already. Banks have billions, should we rob them too?

Yeah i though so, cowards. Hide behind your computer. lol

or you can just move to Iran where theres no copyright laws.

 

Yeah, only time companies say they love you is when you sign the check.

 

flipfire just said what i have been trying to say in 4 lines of text.


Stealing is bad no matter how you see it.

 

Ok, i wan't to reply to this as a THIRD WORLD CONSUMER point of view... Here in Venezuela the Minumum Monthly Salary is 800 Bs. (Bolivares) which translates to more or less 400 US$... So around the 60~80% or the working force gets around 5000 US$ a year (Yes the majority only gets the minimum salary)... I can safely say that this image resembles the situation in all Latin America, Eastern Europe and Asia, to say at least...

Now, here we don't have Big Stores like BestBuy, Wallmart, etc... Sadly we only can buy games from little stores who import them paying exagerated taxes (and adding way too high 'PROFITS' to the final price), so a game cost an average of 180~300 Bs. (90~150 US$)...

Now add to this that those 90~150 US$ aren't the same as 90~150 US$ in the US... Here things are way more expensive (expensier? sorry grammar) so just for comparisson in prices, a 'family economic' car average a price of 50~60K Bs. (you know, 25~30K US$), a pair of 'addidas' cost around 500 Bs., a laptop costing 600$ in the US retails here for around 3.5K Bs (1.7K US$)... So you can see here we get less money, but pay more for things... Again this can be translated to other places like parts of Europe, Asia and the rest of Latin America...

Now, i don't think piracy is good by any means, but it's just not the same situation here that it is in the US, you just can't study the 2 situations as a whole... Just check the link in the article about the countries with the bigger 'piracy' rates... http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_sof_pir_rat-crime-software-piracy-rate... USA STAND LAST WITH 20%...

For me, companies aren't worry about 'piracy' in the US (or at least not as much), as with the rest of the countries that actually are pirating games and software in big scale...

A solution would be to actually STUDY those markets and lower prices there, PRICES THAT ACTUALLY BE AFFORDABLE for this countries... Also if they are so worries about the pirating in those countries, TRY TO MAKE GAMES ACTUALLY AVAILABLE in those regions... Not doing this is like if (just as example) a NIKE store in lets say, AFRICA, call you ROBBER when your not buying his shoes for 1k US$ but buying from a guy in the street for 90 US$... I mean, the companies are charging the same (which actually translates to a bigger cost in those countries), almost no helping with the release of the game and crying when you don't buy them...

Another thing, Steam is great, but it isn't a solution for ALL... Again, due to the 'poor economy', the average worker here can't have a CREDIT CARD, so can't buy through STEAM...

NOW, i would like to all you 'i BUY ALL MY GAMES, you pirates are thieves, inmoral ppl, etc, etc, etc' ppl tell me, if games prices in the US were 200~300$, WOULD YOU BUY ALL OF YOUR GAMES??? (ppl are mad for the STARCRAFT 2 split in 3 games thing, imagine if games cost this price...

 

Nice notebook in your sig. Your notebook is twice as better than mine.

 

I somewhat agree with Joseperez though. The economy is far from "just" and "fair". Obviously, unfairness in the economic system is no excuse to rob or pirate things, but it certainly does become a motivation and incentive.

We have to look at it from different angles. Not everything is black & white. There are certainly grey areas.

 

Flipfire, i buy it in the US, after saving alot... I wouldn't be able to buy it here, first because i haven't see it, and second because the price would easily be 12~15K Bs, which is around 6 times the price in the US...

And i buy it through a family member... I have no credit card, so buying it from here was impossible for me... I never had a console since the Super Nintendo, my previous PC was a Pentium 4 1.6 with a GeForce 6200 (and that was just 2 years ago, imagine how outdated i was...)... What i mean, i bought the laptop thanks to a one time opportunity, it's not that a have the facility to buy a laptop whenever i want to (not for the money, but for the avalaibility, i won't buy a 600$ laptop for 3~4 times the price...)

 

I'm just going to point something out here. Recognizing piracy as a quantifiable problem (again, you should all RTFA), consider this: if you pirate a game from EA, you just figure "okay, whatever, EA makes loads of money anyhow and is a big evil greedy corporate empire." Fine, have it your way.

So if you keep pirating games indiscriminately, do you know who's going to suffer? The much smaller developers. If piracy and a lack of income causes these developers to fold - and it isn't unheard of - who's left? THE BIG DOGS YOU'RE DECRYING.

When Activision took over Vivendi it was a bloodbath. People lost jobs, and great projects got canned until other developers bought them out. And now we have three Starcraft IIs.

I mean if this is what you want, be my guest. When you're not spending on games and there are fewer dollars to go around, those dollars are going to get snatched up by the ones who can afford to spend money to make money. Whenever a market goes to hell, you get consolidation. In the end, it kills smaller, more innovative developers, leaving the larger gorillas in the room.

Enjoy.

 

I don't think that is a good enough argument, JosePerez, because you can argue that having games isn't a right, but a priviledge.

But, beyond the prices that JosePerez talk about, there's also the fact that many games simply aren't launched here, or the localization process take weeks or even months. If it wasn't for Steam, I confess I'd feel very tempted.

But in regard to it, there's space for innovation on the sales model.

One case in particular is very illustrative. Here in Brazil, the music industry was losing much due to illegal downloading. It was detected then that the average brazilian uses his cell phone as his personal mp3 player.
So now, every cell phone operator webportal has a music store attached. And the musics are charged on your phone bill, so no credit card necessary.
The sales have been great and music piracy took a great hit around here.

 

Yeah i know Zeve, but what i was trying to point out is that alot of purist that say piracy is bad, if i can buy you can, etc etc etc, wouldn't think the same if they were in our situation...

About the 'room for innovation' im 100% agree with you... Companies are crying about the problem, but aren't searching 'real solutions' for the problem (DRM isn't a solution at all)... They need to study the markets and try to 'adapt' to them... Like i said, maybe lowering prices, and actually making the games AVAILABLE here...

 

One can argue the equality of the right though. Why isn't this "privilege" the same for every person if in itself the privilege is the same?

Why should x person in y country pay 3 times the price when they make twice as less money if they're paying for essentially the same privilege as the guy who makes 100 000$/year?

The only answer we have is "the world isn't fair" or "the economic system isn't fair" and then we start talking about "fairness" and "righteousness" which impede onto human morals no?

As with the example you gave, if games were made more easily accessible to everyone in similar contexts, then I'm sure that side of piracy would go down.

 

5K?

Are you kidding? 5k would get you a monster. You must get ripped off hard when you buy a computer. I prefer pc gaming. Consoles are for noobs. You have a computer anyways. Why spend $400 or $500 on a console when you can spend $200 or $300 on a graphic card that can play games great.

 

I can relate with Jose Perez's point of view. I also live in a third world country where piracy is widespread. At least the difference here is that original games and software is not as expensive as those in his country. US/UK games cost more or less 50-60 USD as well.

Actually, there are gaming companies that make Asia Pacific versions of games. The main difference is in the price. EA is one of those companies. Their original games here cost 1,400 pesos, that's less than 30 USD. This makes the price of original software more reasonable given the lower wage and cost of living in the country.

 

Oh, is that what's bothering you? Tell you what, you come work for me and my company, and instead of writing you a check each week, I'll come by your cubicle, give you a big ole bear-hug, and tell you I love you. We got a deal?

No, I didn't think so.

 

@JosePerez:

I'd do two things in your position:
(i) Get rid of Hugo "I wanna be Castro" Chavez - the man's worse than Jimmy Carter as far as his effect on the economy (I have several close family members who are Venezuelan, so I have a pretty good idea whereof I speak); and

(ii) get off my lazy butt and start writing my own games - if games are that outrageously overpriced in Venezuela, that's in large part because they reflect the much higher labor costs incurred in the country in which they were developed; since, as you point out, labor costs in Venezuela are so much lower than in the U.S., there's a pricing differential that you could use to your own benefit (and that of your country-men and -women). After all, why be content with the leavings you manage to pirate from yanqui garbage cans when you could have first-rate home-grown software of your own?

 

While I don't agree with blindly calling pirates "thiefs" or outlaws. I agree its bad for many reasons, but blindly labeling them seems to remind me of the days of people labeling someone a commy or a gay person and then it was a crime(which was the case back in those days anyways).

The article does give some good points about the PC gaming industry though . As consumers, it'd be more beneficial for us and the industry to give word to the publishers of what is needed to keep the market going.

For example, more demos would definitely help . I know one of the reasons of pirating is because some people are too skeptic about a game to actually purchase it(since some places don't accept refund on games already played). Releasing more demos(preferably free) would allow companies to market their products on an actual experiential basis rather than TV or internet marketing.

The article also talks about release and pricing of games anyways, which relates to Perez' point. Companies should try and release games on a similar time frame everywhere where they intend to market them(and preferably they should market them as far and wide as possible). Also, it'd be great if they could price the game differently and accordingly depending on where it is released, taking into account the lifestyle of each place and the targeted consumer base(ex: don't put huge prices on games aimed for kids in Congo).

Of course, many of the article's points(namely the ones I put up) spawn a very Utopian market(ex: how could companies take the time to analyze the life conditions of every region where they release products?), but it's a good prospect to consider ^_^

Oh and btw, I don't think porting to consoles would really resolve piracy. Everyone would probably just migrate to consoles. Granted, pirating would be more difficult on a console, but it'd probably still happen, maybe evne more since the market would be even tighter.

 

ey for the 3rd world country thing.

im living in the philippines but most of my electronics and gadgets come from the states, how i do this is through my uncle who comes back 3x a year to do work, hes a doctor and stuff.

i can honestly say its much cheaper in the states than here when it comes to gadgets and games, see the laptop on my sig? i bought it 600$ here in the phil its 1200$!!! double!

when it comes to pirating i am guilty of downloading A FEW but only because
1. premium games are overpriced. crysis warhead costs like 2500Php and est 50$ and thats like 1/3 of my salary already which is around 8000-10000php. even red alert 3 alarmingly costs that much.
2. its not out. games dont come out the same time as US or UK. i might have to wait a few months

and a bunch of other reasons. hehe. but honestly price wise if i could afford it why not?! i love original games and the packaging and stuff. makes it worthy to own. esp if they are good. im not such an uber gamer but i do play

btw bioshock hasnt even been sold yet here =/

another suggestion. make the packaging more interesting and worth buying, a nice free bag with the game chars on it or something would be a nice incentive and its pretty cheap. hehe

 

This thread is getting long and dull. I thought this forum is supposed to be about gaming and graphic card, filled with brilliant extreme gamers. Not corrupt politicians with their trash talk. That article is an information for us, not a problem we need to discuss. Unless you are one of software programmer which is being pirated, don't talk about hating the piracy itself because, honestly, that would be a complete bs. Because nobody hates what's free in front of their face separated with just one click of a mouse.

By the way i like the article's content

 

Interesting read.

 

The only reason to buy games is to play online...whats the point in pirating? You could find some "other" servers, but they're usually crappy and might not have the game type you want anyways. Plus some companies are losing money, but really some just make crappy games and blame it on piracy.

 

I wonder how many members, whom have contributed commentary to this long in the tooth discussion, redistributed, sans authorization, an on-line article (complete with accompanied images) from a widely recognized printed publication.

...Ruthless, corporate Darwinism at its most brilliant.

 

Just curious, I live in the Philippines as well, and I just want to comment on the prices of the games you mentioned.

If you're familiar with Data Blitz, they sell both Crysis Warhead and Red Alert 3 for 1,400 Php. That's around 30 USD, more or less. These games are the ones I mentioned in my previous post, Asia Pacific versions of the game.

You're right about notebooks though, better purchase your notebook from overseas. Those are definitely overpriced locally.

 

I love the sheer irony of how you blissfully ignore whatever's in the article then just add as a footnote "By the way i like the article's content"...

YES its everyone's (every PC gamer's) problem. We pirate too much and they'll stop producing good, quality singleplayer games. More and more of it will be (expensive) MMORPGs or online-only games. Even worse, we might just get stuck with a lot of crappy console ports a la GTA IV.

"brilliant extreme gamers"... Brilliant extreme gamers are out practicing or getting laid, not posting on forums such as these to people such as you.

Even in Singapore they cost significantly more than in the US. Although, if you can afford the trip, the prices here probably aren't as extreme as in the Philippines.

 

These games are not overpriced many companies spend 3-6 years making them and have over 50-100 odd people at any one time working on producing the game. crysis for example had a 27 million dollar budget to make that money back they had to sell at least 540,000 copies they sold 1.5million making an estimated 40 million in profit. just like a movies avg profit.

i hope thoughse figures are accurate but their interesting

 

What ever happened to the days where Piracy was just for DVD's, and CD's? If it keeps up, PC gaming might be to far gone to get back.

See you all on Xbox 640! LOL

 

yer to right mate,

that the way its going in the next 8 years,

unless people can just pay money for these things,

 

I take umbrage at this remark.

Plenty of people have time for both video games and getting laid. Why, just the other day I had "relations" with an attractive woman (read also: human, my age, and not fat) after she played Fallout 3 for three hours while I fixed laptops and watched Star Trek: The Next Generation.

 

This is what sets you and me apart from the other nerds here.
We enjoy our attractive females, attractive females who happen to be nerds.
That, and you seem to be the ONLY OTHER PERSON HERE WHO READ THE FRIGGEN ARTICLE! THANK YOU!

On that note, the article is irrefutable, taken as a study on Video Game Piracy, it leaves no angle unchecked.

Piracy, and morality, for that matter, are deeply personal. I used to pirate, not really games so much as television shows, but it only took me a few months to realize that I wasn't comfortable with what I felt was blatent copyright infringement. Many people, including people on this board, are perfectly fine with copyright infringement, but all I ask is that they admit what they are doing. Because morality is personal, they don't see it as wrong, they have all sorts of justification, it is generally illogical and invalid justification (seriously, read the article, you CANNOT argue with it), but it is justification enough that they do not feel bad pirating software.

If you can afford the games you pirate, then I want to extend a very personal SHAME ON YOU. If you cannot, if you live in a place where game prices can be measured anywhere near 1% of your yearly income, I honestly don't mind as much. I don't really like much the idea of wealth redistribution, of taking much more from the rich and very little from everyone else, but if you work 10 hours a day in a factory and still cannot afford a game because your family is starving, I am not going to feel quite as justified throwing a SHAME ON YOU.

This is certainly a gray area morally, at least in the circumstances I outlined. What is not gray is the fact that copyright infringement is not legal or valid using ANY argument.

 

It's not that simple.

The PC gaming industry f**ked over the audience.

A few idiots started pirating. Then they started with CD-Keys... A thing that made everything more complicated. In the end it was just a little annoyance for pirates. But for everyone else it has been god forsaking annoyance.

And it just went on and on... And it finally came to this. DRM. You can't justify crap like that. You just f**king can't. The gaming industry makes more money now than the movie and music industry. they totally take advantage of the situation.


Look at GTA4 on PC. What a pile of s**t. They released it so buggy, so unifinished, just to get the early christmas salers. but who gives a crap, right? They are just gonna patch it later. This is the freaking sad PC gaming mentality. It shouldn't be like that.


The pc game industry screws over the audience. they lie about system requirements, release unfinished games, at higher and higher prices(at least where I live), they make it a bigger and bigger hassle just to install and play the games etc...


And don't freaking get me started on the state of gaming itself. Fact of the matter is that most of these devs try so hard to push out the next technological envelope, that they have mostly forgotten the gameplay. the result now is uninspiring 5-10 hour single player games with tacked on multiplayer. the games are mostly repeatable segments of each other. we are just seeing sequels and sequels and sequels. the originals have completely stopped selling. even with the boom in the industry still going up. there is no profit in originality. and particularly not in pc gaming.


PC gamers lost the respect of game companies a long time ago. it was not like it used to be 10-15 years ago. these games are not worth the price. and have they done anything to improve on that?
can they not freaking see why so games sell so well in retail and as legit games? games like Diablo 2, Warcraft 3 and WoW which all sell well in stores even after all these years! they where always priced nicely, they always had low system requirements. people don't wanna play at low settings. its a broken game then.


developers should try and get a hint. I have one or two game companies I admire. Like Valve... their steam engine is so well optimized and runs great on so much hardware. unlike almost everyone else, they didnt lie about system requirements, broken promises and all that. NO! They have even continued to update their 4-5 year old games. same with Blizzard. and Arenanet with Guild Wars.

There are a few companies out there who keep to their promises, and people should honor their agreement. but the rest? No... just freaking no. it's not immoral.

What's immoral here, is what they themselves have done to the pc industry. they put it where it is, and now everything will soon be run by goddam nintendo wii and mario games. it's such a depressing fact.

we're almost in 2009. I can't believe we still live in a world where it's still so freaking unconvienient to go down to a shop and buy a game, and then go through all these hassles just to install. it's retarded.

Developers should move all their restrictions, and price their games probably and have realistic system requirements. i don't want to have my CD in the drive just to play, I don't want to put in cd-key everytime I install, I don't want no stupid DRM...

I don't wanna go home and find out that I have to play my games on low settings.


but all these things are insignificant next to the fact that most games just aren't worth the price you pay, to mildly entertained for 5-10 hours. most of these big budget action games are rescycled set pieces with nothing new under the hood. latest examples would be GTA4, Red Alert 3, Mirrors Edge, Assassins Creed etc... what a bunch of overhyped crap.



the guide:

1)remove all the annoyances and restrictions
2)price really low
3)optimize your games and fix bugs before SHIPPING TO RETAIL. It's unethical to release something broken and then fix later. most games never really gets really fixed. GTA4 on pc will never be truly fixed. it needs 6 months more hardcore 120-man development time to fix all the goddam memory leaks and such.
4)have lower system requirements. people want to play at good quality. look at how much force you get out of the consoles. the 360 has like a geforce 7000 card. pc hardware is not optimized at all for anything compared to the power they possess.
5)trust the user by making everything accesable. stardock, valve and blizzard all have gotten respect and good retail sales because people want to support them. they don't want to support the rest of you who are the cause of the dire state of the industry.




another problem is the way the industry works. most of the sales ends up back at the publisher. not with the developer, and not with the talented staff(s). That's why you don't see designers who are vastly desired for their particular skill in game making.

In the movie industry you have legendary composers, cinematographers, editors, sound engineers, actors, 1 ads, directors, pms etc... but in the game industry you know a few game designers and that is it.
there is no award or glory to be had making games as an animator or concept artist or QA person. no competition, no drive..

it's all just the publishers taking the money, and who gives a crap about moneyless suit men who don't know jack about games. they take the risk, and get the funding, right... but developers should have more. much more.


the game industry is still immature, spoiled and a joke compared to the movie industry. larger revenues, but still a subject to idiotic conventions. the game industry needs another crash. but that will never happen now with the digital revolution.

all that is left is for the console manufactureres to fail, and then the pc gaming industry to start over with free to play, free to download games run by cash shops and advertisment and other methods. going to buy games on pc will be a thing of the past, I think.

 

Even when the prices are actually as HIGH as i already told, for me that's not the whole problem, but GAMES not being AVAILABLE in these places... How can they (the companies) cry about piracy in Latin America, ASIA, if they don't even try to distribute games there? I, and i'm being very honest, I would pay the 50$ for a game if i could actually buy it in a store for that price...

Now, about:

Well, this isn't a socio-political, moral forum so i won't start a issue about this, but all i can say is, if that's how you see things, SHAME ON YOU...

 

i love your stories.... but tbh your irony is becoming somewhat annoying. Until you realise that piracy is not just 'black and white' as others have said.. you can't see the otherside of the coin.
i'd try to represent my argument using a story but tbh i can't really be bothered

 

720?

360 x 2 is 720 yas?

 

just some extra information:

i'm not sure its quite advisable to call half the people in the UK thieves... but in any case go ahead a 16 year old thief I am ...

 

Creating backup copies is perfectly legal

 

PC piracy is so largely rampant because it's so simple. The average mentally challenged person could find, download, and install a pirated PC game in minutes (not counting download speed). For consoles you must buy special expensive disks, mod your system, use certain burning methods, risk being banned from their respective service etc. The mere fact that 1/6th of the global population owns a PC means that PC gaming cannot die, ever, that statement is blatantly arrogant. Whether it's simple browser based games, or indie games, or big budget games, the market is there.

I finished reading that entire article. There's definately some things that I agree with, and don't agree with. One of those things is about the use of Securom 7. He goes on and on for several paragraphs about how it isn't that bad, yet fails to see the point. How is less than 99.8% of users unaffected by the install limit if it's something that will effect 100% of it's users at one time or another? When us buyers purchase a license to play a copy of a game, we do not spend $50 to play a game 3-5 times, and even if this is the case, why should people have to buy a product that will do nothing but induce worry in the buyer that they might not be able to play the game they just bought in the next few weeks, or if at all because the copy protection is incompatible with their system, when illegitimate pirates will never have to deal with this.

His statement saying that DRM doesn't cause piracy, piracy causes DRM is only half true. Yes, Piracy lead to DRM, but now the DRM methods in use are so obtrusive that it makes legit buyers such as my self wonder why I bother.
I have no problems paying $50 for a game I like, I'd welcome that and hope that they continue to develop great games, but these new methods give pirates incentives to pirate. I don't see a problem in CD checks, I don't see a problem with most DRM methods. Personally I have no problems with Tages, or StarForce, and don't remember ever using SafeDisc, nor did I have a problem with SecuRom. Online activations aren't even that big an issue for me, but they are an inconvenience, but when install limits start showing up, that's when I have to say no more, and no longer buy these games that include this method.

Steam, while I like steam, and have always loved steam since I first bought HL2 over 3 years ago, since september 2008, I can't stand it anymore. The reason I use steam is for the convenience, and to have all of my games in a convenient spot. But, since sep 2008, you can only have steam logged on with one computer, if you try to log on with multiple computers, it will lock the other one out, and force you to exit, or relogin and lock the other user out. This doesn't work for me since with retail boxed copies, I can play one game, and let someone else play on one of my other gaming PC's with no issues. Now, if I'm playing L4D for example, and someone wants to play TF2 on one of my other computers, they cannot do this because it will force me to exit and log out of the game, even though they are completely seperate games. I cannot accept this either since it basically means only one person can ever play any game I buy at any given time.

Saying that consoles will take over also isn't a very good opinion of this. PC piracy is so rampant because it's so easy and so large. When PC gaming isn't an option anymore, people will find a way to simplify piracy on the next largest platform. This is something that is absolutely guaranteed to happen.

 

For the poeple that are against pirtaing just buy all the games u want and have fun wasting ur money on virtual stuff. For me i will never buy a game unless i have to.

Stop bashing the pirates, if u wanna waste ur money buying games u can get online for free its ur problem.

 

That's so ignorant. It's talk like that, that's making developers look away from PC game development. There's so much more I would say right now, but I wouldn't want to get banned..

 

PC game development won't die and if it does i still got Consoles

 

We're done here.

This thread has gotten to the point where people have expressed their opinions and now we're picking bones with each other.