Piracy is "more popular than ever" suggests report

[valhar2000]

When it comes to games, the current degenerate state of the gaming industry makes piracy a necessity: intrusive DRM, micro-transactions, obvious-beta releases, absurd political propaganda, etc. Pirating a game and testing it thoroughly before buying is the only way to avoid getting screwed. Always pirate before you buy!

[Ironbuket]

Specifically in terms of games: Ive never in my life bought more games legitimately than in the past few years. Sites like Humble Bundle and regular sales on Steam, GOG etc make a game that would normally be too expensive and a potential to acquire via piracy, become just a waiting game until the price drops. @valhar2000 Your justification that piracy is required to allow you to try before you buy is negated by Steam's refund for any reason policy

[Ttaskmaster]

Pirating a game and testing it thoroughly before buying is the only way to avoid getting screwed. Always pirate before you buy!

I've never pirated a game. I just do a bit of reading, avoid early purchase/pre-order and have a bit of patience. I usually save money that way, too.

[ik9000]

I've not done this with windows 10, hardly other with games now, but I have cracked a game in the past purely because it needed the disc in the drive every time I wanted to play it just to check for the drm. I'd bought the game and I just couldn't be bothered with sticking the disc in EVERY time I wanted to play it so off I went and got a crack. Now technically I'd fall under the 'piracy' numbers some would likely be accounting for but I'm not actually pirating anything, I was just removing the drm lol. Funnily enough once the crack was applied it ran a bit smoother too...

yes, I remember someone I knew doing similar things. I will post some photos later of two CDRoms that blew up in their drive (if I can find the pics) due to the incessant spin-up,spin down during game play, despite the fact all content ran off the HDD. It was constant DRM bashing only. They then had to re-buy the game, and this time they were wise to the event. A quick DRM strip later and the entire game ran off HDD perfectly. So now they have bought the game twice, have two valid licence keys, and can ISO mount in win10. But someone with just the CDRom cannot; and that assumes their discs haven't split apart already!

[Ironbuket]

I remember someone I knew doing similar things. I will post some photos later of two CDRoms that blew up in their drive (if I can find the pics) due to the incessant spin-up,spin down during game play

Sounds like they either loaded the disc wrong or the drive was faulty. If you look this up, there have been a few tests done to bust this myth and none of them were able to get an intact cd to explode unless they ran it at speeds many times in excess of that which any normal drive could do. If the disc is damaged before being inserted (even just cracked a little), it can shatter in a very high speed drives, but what is more common is that a cracked CD gets stuck during eject and shattered by the eject mechanism rather than actually being shattered by the spin

[aidanjt]

Sounds like they either loaded the disc wrong or the drive was faulty. If you look this up, there have been a few tests done to bust this myth and none of them were able to get an intact cd to explode unless they ran it at speeds many times in excess of that which any normal drive could do. If the disc is damaged before being inserted (even just cracked a little), it can shatter in a very high speed drives, but what is more common is that a cracked CD gets stuck during eject and shattered by the eject mechanism rather than actually being shattered by the spin

I had a Diablo 2 CD explode in my DVD-ROM while a friend was playing it, cleared out the shards and the drive kept working just fine. The combination of ageing, and constant repetitive spin ups and slow downs fatigues the plastic until the inevitable eventually happens. Optical media was just never designed to tolerate constant random access for months on end. Its intended use case was always a slow straight linear read from start to end, with the occasional track jump. The fact that it can do a spot of random I/O seeks on data on the side is handy and all, but it's still an extremely poor substitute for a device that's specifically designed to do that, especially over a protracted period of time. That's why we don't run our operating systems and software off optical discs on a permanent basis. The throughput is low, the seek times are abysmal, and the reliability is pants.

[DDY]

I had an exploding CD too, my Worms Armageddon CD went bang in my CD-ROM drive.

WA loads a new soundtrack off the CD every few minutes, which corroborates with the cyclic spin cycle failure mechanism.

[Ironbuket]

CD plastic can degrade in sunlight or high temperatures. Never leave CDs out on your desk where sunlight can get on them for long periods of time. Leave them on a windowsill and they will be ducked in no time. UV light can damage some plastics and make it brittle, which could lead to the explosions described. The CD plastic should be stable if kept away from UV and not exposed to high temperatures. Ive used CDs since they first came on the market and CDROMs since the 1x drives, both for personal use and in IT as a business including running a software store for 10yrs. Ive never had a CD explode ever, but then Ive always taken care of discs and avoided sunlight explosure since I was aware of the dye issues from the very early days.

[ik9000]

Sounds like they either loaded the disc wrong or the drive was faulty. If you look this up, there have been a few tests done to bust this myth and none of them were able to get an intact cd to explode unless they ran it at speeds many times in excess of that which any normal drive could do. If the disc is damaged before being inserted (even just cracked a little), it can shatter in a very high speed drives, but what is more common is that a cracked CD gets stuck during eject and shattered by the eject mechanism rather than actually being shattered by the spin

nope, it split when the CD was spinning in the drive during use - with a loud bang (as the spinning disc then stopped rapidly, the radial split allowing the disc to form more of a segment of helix that then was too tall to be able to rotate.) Presumably a defect that induced fast-fracture failure when the stresses built up enough to grow the crack beyond its critical length, and possibly a manufacturing defect inducing out-of-plane stresses given the shape it became. What is odd is that both discs should fail in exactly the same way. And while it is possible there was a sharp point on the spindle in the drive, nothing else put in the drive ever suffered the same fate. And half life got a lot more use in it that RA2 did IIRC the time we spent back then. But then Half Life didn't keep ramping up and spinning down like RA2 did if memory serves me right. Still not had chance to post the images - will dig them out.

edit ps The CD was either inside the machine or in its (black plastic) case. No UV degradation or similar at play.

[Spud1]

CD's breaking/exploding is very, very rare and in 99% of cases even if that happens, write/email/ring the publisher and they will send you out new disks, usually free of charge. I clearly remember it happening to me when by C&C Generals CD cracked in the drive - one call to Westwood's service agent and 2 days later I had a brand new copy and they even chucked in the expansion pack as an apology. It sucks when it happens but its not the end of the world and certainly isn't an excuse for piracy or really even for using "no-cds", although that discussion is slightly more nuanced.

[Moonister]

I've never pirated a game. I just do a bit of reading, avoid early purchase/pre-order and have a bit of patience. I usually save money that way, too.

no amount of reading is better than as a couple of hours of testing the game yourself. Especially in an age where there is so much paid and careless reviews.

[spacein_vader]

no amount of reading is better than as a couple of hours of testing the game yourself. Especially in an age where there is so much paid and careless reviews.

Demos are available for some games, I've also found youtube lets play type videos offer some insight.

[Ttaskmaster]

no amount of reading is better than as a couple of hours of testing the game yourself. Especially in an age where there is so much paid and careless reviews.

Who said anything about reading reviews - I'm on an internet forum full of people who paid for the games and don't give a toss about saying what they really think.
Since I don't have the money to waste on trying all these titles out only to find it's a buggy pile of cack with double the purchase price in further DLC, I'd rather learn from someone else's mistakes...

[Moonister]

Demos are available for some games, I've also found youtube lets play type videos offer some insight.

You used two key words in your post, that's 'some'. There are hardly any demos these days and they're timed in the way so that it's not available when needed (around fullbgame release time). Back in the days (90s) a demo was a must...now for a (cost conscious and sensible) consumer demos have been replaced by pirated copy. Never buy something without trying / seeing it first. Simple rule but always works.

[Spud1]

You used two key words in your post, that's 'some'. There are hardly any demos these days and they're timed in the way so that it's not available when needed (around fullbgame release time). Back in the days (90s) a demo was a must...now for a (cost conscious and sensible) consumer demos have been replaced by pirated copy. Never buy something without trying / seeing it first. Simple rule but always works.

As has already been mentioned in this thread, that argument is a load of rubbish - just because something isn’t available in trial form (or at all) isn’t any excuse to pirate it.

You can actually demo the vast majority of games that are released anyway - again has been mentioned already but both steam and origin allow full refunds of digital purchases provided you return within a few days of starting up th game and don’t play more than 2 hours. Like a demo, but better as you can check that Everything works Andy the drm doesn’t cause issues.

[Moonister]

Who said anything about reading reviews - I'm on an internet forum full of people who paid for the games and don't give a toss about saying what they really think.
Since I don't have the money to waste on trying all these titles out only to find it's a buggy pile of cack with double the purchase price in further DLC, I'd rather learn from someone else's mistakes...

I don't think you understand my point. My argument is that there should be completely free content (demo) that would allow you to try the game before buying. Currently, there aren't enough demos available nor is 2h return policy on Steam sufficient. Add terrible state of games these days and you can understand why sensible consumer turns to pirated games. Some of us don't like to be screwed.

Reading a number of (very often) contradicting opinions (reviews are opinions too and vice versa btw) of people with different backgrounds, views and likes / dislikes will make your decision of parting with your money much easier!? :-) It's just a huge waste of your time, from a consumer standpoint makes no sense whatsoever. It's too subjective too biased too much money in the sector (and all anti consumer stuff that comes with it). Pick your poison. I've been there done that. I take playing / trying a game over reading someone's opinion anyday. With my gaming experience I can usually see a good game after playing for half an hour although devs are more and more sneaky with eye candy and padding ;-)