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Thread: That old chesnut! Piracy in PC Gaming

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    Qualified Eye-Tician Iron Sights's Avatar
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    That old chesnut! Piracy in PC Gaming

    Not sure if anyone else has read this but its an interesting article examining piracy in video games.

    http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_1.html

    I've not finished reading it all yet!


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    Kendoka - Kendo For Life! IronWarrior's Avatar
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    Re: That old chesnut! Piracy in PC Gaming

    Read this back in 2008, it's nothing but bullcrap, the guy who wrote it doesn't know anything.

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    Banhammer in peace PeterB kalniel's Avatar
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    Re: That old chesnut! Piracy in PC Gaming

    Very interesting. I think I remember reading it when it was previously written, though they've added a few updates since.

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    Re: That old chesnut! Piracy in PC Gaming

    Looks interesting.. bookmarked it so I can have a proper read later

    Let's keep discussion in here above board though guys, piracy is a touchy touchy subject so consider this thread on wafer thin ice and my broomstick at the ready

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    Re: That old chesnut! Piracy in PC Gaming

    Quote Originally Posted by Knoxville View Post
    Looks interesting.. bookmarked it so I can have a proper read later

    Let's keep discussion in here above board though guys, piracy is a touchy touchy subject so consider this thread on wafer thin ice and my broomstick at the ready
    Agreed. If this was any other forum I wouldnt have bothered posting the article. But at Hexus, I like to think that the community here is a bit more mature and are able to constructively contribute to discussions.


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    Re: That old chesnut! Piracy in PC Gaming

    Quote Originally Posted by Knoxville View Post
    Looks interesting.. bookmarked it so I can have a proper read later

    Let's keep discussion in here above board though guys, piracy is a touchy touchy subject so consider this thread on wafer thin ice and my broomstick at the ready
    I read through most of the article (skimmed a few bits here and there as it goes on a bit of repetition spree at times) and i would say that its probably the best article i have ever read on the subject which would result in a healthy discussion. Based on my existing (somewhat limited) knowledge it does seem quite accurate but i would be interesting to know if anyone notices any discrepancies in it? I dont have time to background research the whole thing so i would hate to take it as gospel only to discover there is loads of BS in there.

    What i found as a real eye opener was the mention at the end of how much money some of these piracy site runners actually make. Its quite extraordinary!

    I also wasnt aware that steam constantly collected data about the user due to its T&C statement. Might have to dig a little deeper into that one.

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    jim
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    Re: That old chesnut! Piracy in PC Gaming

    The worst thing about Steam is their "subscription" nonsense. To cut a long story short, Steam do not deem themselves subject to any kind of consumer law other than the one they make up themselves. I desperately hope that one day somebody sues the arse off them and they have to give up their ridiculous policies, but I think that could take a pretty long time since the amounts of cash involved are likely to be low.

    As for the article, I think he's largely correct - we can quibble about figures all day, and I noticed a few bits where I thought he'd missed the point or got fairly useless figures, but the conclusions are more or less on the money.

    I think a couple of years ago I had a much more romantic view about software piracy, believing that it was an issue of price and demand, revolts against DRM, boycotts against certain business practices, and boycotts against short-sighted decisions by the developers and publishers, such as bad ports and removal of dedicated servers.

    Now, having seen so much evidence, I can't help but believe it's simply a matter of convenience. If people can conveniently pirate games, and pay nothing instead of £20, they'll do it. If the game's an executable, even more convenient. If the game takes ages to crack, people will buy it instead. Whether the game is indie, cheap, all the rest of it - nothing matters to nearly the same extent as convenience.

    I desperately wish it wasn't true, but it's hard to come to any other conclusion and feel unbiased.

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    Re: That old chesnut! Piracy in PC Gaming

    I tend to agree with this mate.

    Its like the old schoolyard piracy you used to get with the Speccy & C64. Stuff was dead easy to copy, you swapped a game with a mate and both of you copied it for yourselves as you didnt have the money at that age.

    But yeah, its not money or anything like that. Why go into town to a games store tomorrow morning when you can look about tonight on the net. Find what you are looking for and given todays broadband speeds in a lot of areas it could be downloaded in an hour or so and you could be playing it pretty soon without having to shift your backside.

    Quote Originally Posted by snootyjim View Post
    The worst thing about Steam is their "subscription" nonsense. To cut a long story short, Steam do not deem themselves subject to any kind of consumer law other than the one they make up themselves. I desperately hope that one day somebody sues the arse off them and they have to give up their ridiculous policies, but I think that could take a pretty long time since the amounts of cash involved are likely to be low.

    As for the article, I think he's largely correct - we can quibble about figures all day, and I noticed a few bits where I thought he'd missed the point or got fairly useless figures, but the conclusions are more or less on the money.

    I think a couple of years ago I had a much more romantic view about software piracy, believing that it was an issue of price and demand, revolts against DRM, boycotts against certain business practices, and boycotts against short-sighted decisions by the developers and publishers, such as bad ports and removal of dedicated servers.

    Now, having seen so much evidence, I can't help but believe it's simply a matter of convenience. If people can conveniently pirate games, and pay nothing instead of £20, they'll do it. If the game's an executable, even more convenient. If the game takes ages to crack, people will buy it instead. Whether the game is indie, cheap, all the rest of it - nothing matters to nearly the same extent as convenience.

    I desperately wish it wasn't true, but it's hard to come to any other conclusion and feel unbiased.

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    Re: That old chesnut! Piracy in PC Gaming

    Completely agree with the convenience argument. There are side issues which have minimal influences as snootyjim has mentioned, but by far the most important factor is convenience - that's why Steam works so well for us - I don't even have to open my wallet, 3 or 4 clicks and I've purhcased GTA4 or whatever for £6 in the steam sale. My payment details are stored online - it makes it easy.

    The industry needs to embrace digital downloads in a centralised system, in the way Steam does now. The idea of an EA Store, Windows Market Place, GoodOldGames, Steam, Direct2Drive, Impulse and whatever else all pulling in different directions as opposed to a single torrent site simply works against the industry as a whole.

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    Re: That old chesnut! Piracy in PC Gaming

    Actually that's a very good (business idea)...<strokes chin>. A DRM co-operative that increases convenience.
    Society's to blame,
    Or possibly Atari.

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    Re: That old chesnut! Piracy in PC Gaming

    Good article. I didn't appreciate just how rampant piracy of PC games was before. Pretty disgusting.

    I'm happy to pay for any PC games I play - they're extremely good value for money. I can't think of many forms of entertainment where £5 to £20 will give you 40+ hours of usage. Taking the Orange Box for example, I must have spent over 150 hours playing just TF2! And with Steam, it's incredibly convenient too, although I do wish they'd include a PDF of the user manual, or some such (or have I missed this feature?)

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    Re: That old chesnut! Piracy in PC Gaming

    Quote Originally Posted by Phage View Post
    Actually that's a very good (business idea)...<strokes chin>. A DRM co-operative that increases convenience.
    Isn't that what more or less every digital distribution network is trying to achieve anyway?

    A couple of them (impulse for eg?) set up a sort of code of conduct for publishers to sign up to with regard to DRM etc. as well, but I can't find it at the momemt.

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    Re: That old chesnut! Piracy in PC Gaming

    Quote Originally Posted by IronWarrior View Post
    Read this back in 2008, it's nothing but bullcrap, the guy who wrote it doesn't know anything.
    I'm interested to know why you think this. The article is extremely well written, well researched, and well presented, and yet you dismiss it totally with zero (decent) reason given.

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    Re: That old chesnut! Piracy in PC Gaming

    Quote Originally Posted by kalniel View Post
    Isn't that what more or less every digital distribution network is trying to achieve anyway?

    A couple of them (impulse for eg?) set up a sort of code of conduct for publishers to sign up to with regard to DRM etc. as well, but I can't find it at the momemt.
    Yes but are they co-operative ? i.e. does it matter where you buy the game from ?
    I thought that Steam and EA for example were not interoperable for their DRM.
    Society's to blame,
    Or possibly Atari.

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    Re: That old chesnut! Piracy in PC Gaming

    Quote Originally Posted by Phage View Post
    Yes but are they co-operative ? i.e. does it matter where you buy the game from ?
    I thought that Steam and EA for example were not interoperable for their DRM.
    True, but my point was each time someone creates a service they're trying to say just use this method/meta-service then you'll have no problems. The problem is someone else then comes along with their own version of an all-inclusive method which is different. Then again, if we didn't want choice we'd all be happy with standardised distribution monopolies and systems, like the consoles.

    It's largely not an issue for me any more - most services are hands off so once you install the game you don't have to worry about it (Steam is pretty much the exception). Then when you switch computers instead of rifling through discs you rifle through the download services pulling the games down again before forgetting about them.

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    Re: That old chesnut! Piracy in PC Gaming

    Quote Originally Posted by Fraz View Post
    I'm interested to know why you think this. The article is extremely well written, well researched, and well presented, and yet you dismiss it totally with zero (decent) reason given.
    nothing more than the usual misinformation from people who cant face reality is my prediction.

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