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JP2daMC
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 Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 9:42 am Post subject: Life bans for pirates |
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| Life bans for pirates by Jason |  | | PALGN News: From Xbox Live, not the high seas. | | [View Article] |
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The_stud
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| Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 12:15 pm Post subject: |
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| PALGN wrote: | | "Don't worry folks, anyone who bought a copy early is ok,” Toulouse tweeted. “ |
LOL some legit reviewer was banned and voicing his concerns on xbox.com forums.
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Mush Man
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| Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 12:19 pm Post subject: |
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Edit (28/2/2011): Piracy discussion is stupid. This post was stupid. It is now removed.
Last edited by Mush Man on Mon Feb 28, 2011 11:27 pm, edited 2 times in total
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Infested Jibbs
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| Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 12:44 pm Post subject: |
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I don't pirtae cause it's just a pain in the arse and i'm too lazy.All sorts of modding and custom firmware and incompatibilities and version conflicts and arghh.
I'd rather just pop the disc in and play.One thing game companies still need to learn is to not punish pirates(cause they can easily avoid it and legit customers are penalised....yes securom im looking at you), they should reward legit buyers by providing stuff that cant be duped, like spiffy hard cover manuls and artwork, and making of dvds and keyrings and just misc junk.
Make the pirates envious, give them incentive to bite the bullet and go retail, because at the moment, what are they missing out on?A black and white 5 pg instruction manual?
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He need to cut the ego.
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| Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 12:57 pm Post subject: |
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I'm the same Infested Jibbs. Too much fart arsing around for me to bother with.
While this policy is ultimately good, it does make me ponder just exactly how they are going to discern those who pirate the game and those who legitimately get a copy of the game early. Surely there's going to be instances where legitimate people are going to be banned (as Mush Man has point out). Unfortunately this guy's amazing ability, stemming from his big ego presumably, to miraculously tell the difference doesn't exactly fill me with confidence.
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TamTam79
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| Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 3:10 pm Post subject: |
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All this says to me is that Microsoft actually have little idea who is pirating and who isn't. If they cannot tell the difference from a pirated copy from a retail copy, then it shouldn't fill anyone (besides pirates) with a great deal of confidence.
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shinhawk
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| Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 4:58 pm Post subject: |
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I don't know if this is the case with the 360, but I remember with the original X-Box M$ was able to detect over Live if people had a modded console and would ban said console from Live servers. This whole piracy stance reminds me of that.
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dloiscute
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| Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 5:38 pm Post subject: |
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I'm happy with my mod-free 360. It gives me more incentive to play the games I buy, AND get to have the alluring case and manual which is win.
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Passa
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| Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 5:43 pm Post subject: |
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I know this is in relation to the 360, but I'm going to base my argument a bit more broadly than that. A bit of my history, if you will. I think this is a very complex issue, and requires some deep discussion rather than the weak, two dimensional, black and white view adopted by Mush Man.
Some history here. I wasn't particularly well endowed with games as a child. My gaming was solely on the PC for most of my early years since I wasn't actually allowed a console until I bought my Gameboy Color at the age of 9. I had a disc of DOS shareware titles, so my first experiences included Doom, Descent, Jazz Jackrabbit, Raptor, Commander Keen and Sim City 2000. They were all just that, shareware. The vast majority of my gaming was with demo software.
I wasn't one to fall behind my peers. Everyone was into Pokemon when I was 5 or 6. I taught myself how to use a GBC emulator and a Pokemon Blue ROM I downloaded over our 28.8k dialup connection. When we got a more powerful computer, this led to Nintendo 64 emulation. I remember getting permission to leave the computer connected overnight so I could download the Banjo Kazooie ROM, excitedly waking up in the morning to see if it completed successfully. 28.8k was slow.
This was my only option at the time. Even after I managed to buy an Xbox with all my savings later on, my parents still didn't want me buying games, so I was largely restricted to the games that came bundled with my console.
When we were hooked up to broadband with a large download cap in 2005, my world effectively changed. Those Christmas holidays, I downloaded two new release games, Call of Duty 2 and Quake 4. I had no other way of being able to play these games, so pirate I did.
Let's skip to the present day. I actually own legal copies of both those games now. I'm obviously much older and able to purchase whatever I want. I spend a great deal of money each year on gaming software. But do I still pirate? Most definitely.
I have legitimate reasons (as far as I'm concerned) for the titles I've pirated. I'll get to that in a moment. Speaking more generally however, I'd say it's a moot point. Do I represent lost revenue to these companies I've "stolen" from? They'd no doubt love to count me in such a statistic, but I currently own 37 Xbox 360 games and likely a higher number of PC games. I'd imagine I am a higher than average source of revenue for the games industry.
But that isn't my main point. The contemporary issue is what Jibbs has already touched on. The incentive to purchase legal copies of games has, in the case of some specific titles, evaporated. I remain vehemently opposed to copyright schemes that result in crippled versions of legal software, while the protection is easily defeated pre-release by pirates. Examples: BioShock, Far Cry 2, Spore and Crysis Warhead. I actually bought the last one, and regret it to this day, since the authorisation process failed for me and I had to crack my legal copy after a recent format.
In direct relation to the article, piracy isn't going to be stopped by measures such as these anyway. Chances are, if someone's pirating a game, they're not going to care about online play. Publishers should stop wasting time trying to catch pirates or prevent piracy and instead focus on making titles that people won't want to pirate. These new measures will no doubt catch innocent gamers as well, as already rumoured. Why are these companies insisting on burning their legitimate customers?
Wow, that was needlessly wordy/offtopic. Just goes to show I'm willing to do anything but get back to my HSC study. Sigh.
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spuderump
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| Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 6:09 pm Post subject: |
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who here has never downloaded a MP3 file? exactly were all guilty of piracy why punish the ones who are legimate who have obtaimed the game early like review copies etc. they say not to worry if you have proof, what if you bought it off ebay!
nice work again MS sh it company as always
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renegadesx
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| Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 6:17 pm Post subject: |
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| The_stud wrote: | | LOL some legit reviewer was banned and voicing his concerns on xbox.com forums. |
Do they run Xbox Live on Vista? 
I was going to pick up Borderlands on 360 but I heard about that and thinking "yep goes to show Microsoft dont know what they are doing... again"
The only games I "pirate" are the games I have already purchased (i.e. 16-bit roms) and feel I should not be forced to pay for the same game twice.
I am not sorry about that. I paid for that game already.
Im going to pick up Borderlands on the PS3 just incase. With that being said I am trying to not buy it soon because I got other games I want to knock over before I spend time on that one.
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Last edited by renegadesx on Mon Oct 19, 2009 6:20 pm, edited 1 time in total
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Jaws
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| Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 6:18 pm Post subject: |
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| Passa wrote: | | IA bit of my history, if you will. I think this is a very complex issue, and requires some deep discussion rather than the weak, two dimensional, black and white view adopted by Mush Man. <snipped to conserve page space> |
Forgive me if I'm wrong Passa, but are you saying you begun pirating games when you were younger because your parents didn't let you buy them, or was it because there were money issues involved? If the former is the case, I don't understand why your parents were okay with you downloading games as opposed to paying for them if they didn't want you to play in the first place.
As for pirating games due to restrictions such as SecuROM / StarForce, why not buy the game in addition to downloading it if you enjoy it so much, yet have problems getting it to run? Otherwise, the developers aren't getting paid in recognition for their work. It's kind of like going to someone's birthday emptyhanded with the intention of eating all their food & cake.
For an example, I'll use Batman: Arkham Asylum. I bought it a few days after release and it is phenomenal. Rocksteady have created something truly special here. Can you imagine how they'd fare if less than half of their customers paid them for their efforts?
I understand that pirating games is very easy to do; especially for people who don't have that much money available to them, but it's going to hurt all of us in the end if it's not held in check. Think about it this way.. if you knew there's a high chance you wouldn't get paid your full amount for working all year, would you stay in your job?
It's not surprising that companies are trying everything they can to prevent losing money - everyone's gotta eat.
Like Jibbs says though.. rewarding the purchaser instead of simply trying to punish the pirate (which is clearly proving to be a double edged sword) is the answer.
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Passa
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| Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 6:46 pm Post subject: |
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| Jaws wrote: | | Forgive me if I'm wrong Passa, but are you saying you begun pirating games when you were younger because your parents didn't let you buy them, or was it because there were money issues involved? If the former is the case, I don't understand why your parents were okay with you downloading games as opposed to paying for them if they didn't want you to play in the first place. |
Money was never the issue - I wasn't permitted to spend my own money on games as a child because my parents felt they weren't a good influence. I acquired the games illegally on my own prerogative since I had no other way to play them.
| Jaws wrote: | | As for pirating games due to restrictions such as SecuROM / StarForce, why not buy the game in addition to downloading it if you enjoy it so much, yet have problems getting it to run? Otherwise, the developers aren't getting paid in recognition for their work. It's kind of like going to someone's birthday emptyhanded with the intention of eating all their food & cake. |
You mean buy the legal game, install it and then crack it so I skip the activation process? I don't want to reward publishers with my money when I'm getting a product that will be inferior when used legally compared to pirated versions. I found it a slight kick in the teeth just three days ago when my reinstall of Crysis Warhead failed for no explicable reason. I had to follow a tutorial that applied to users who pirated the title to get it working.
Your analogy doesn't apply either. I'm baking a cake identical to the one at the party, except not including the rat poison the recipe calls for. In other words, I didn't affect 2K's bottom line for example in pirating BioShock on PC, since I was a lost sale as soon as they announced it would be limited to 5 installs to "combat piracy". Hey guess what, my copy has unlimited installs! It's worth noting I haven't finished BioShock, or virtually any other of the games I've pirated in recent years.
| Jaws wrote: | | For an example, I'll use Batman: Arkham Asylum. I bought it a few days after release and it is phenomenal. Rocksteady have created something truly special here. Can you imagine how they'd fare if less than half of their customers paid them for their efforts? |
I imagine not very well at all. However, for those that did pirate Arkham Asylum, I wonder how many would have bought the game if piracy was not an option. It's also worth noting that Arkham Asylum also includes this backwards thinking SecuROM DRM, and also worth noting that it too was cracked on release. Enjoy your inferior game.
| Jaws wrote: | | I understand that pirating games is very easy to do; especially for people who don't have that much money available to them, but it's going to hurt all of us in the end if it's not held in check. Think about it this way.. if you knew there's a high chance you wouldn't get paid your full amount for working all year, would you stay in your job? |
The methods currently being employed by publishers are not halting piracy, rather they are either accelerating it. See: Spore. Publishers should instead focus their efforts on delivering higher quality experiences to those who have invested their money in a legal purchase of the game. See: Sins of a Solar Empire.
| Jaws wrote: | | Like Jibbs says though.. rewarding the purchaser instead of simply trying to punish the pirate (which is clearly proving to be a double edged sword) is the answer. |
No.. this is not a case of there being a double edged sword. That implies some eventual benefit for the publishers by taking on such draconian policies. The fact of the matter is, these anti-piracy schemes do not deter piracy. Full stop. Microsoft announcing this policy shows they don't have sufficient ability to ensure, with 100% accuracy, that someone is playing a pirated copy of a game. These are scare tactics, and if they really are rolling out a policy like that, I no doubt expect many false bans, as is already apparently being reported.
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Last edited by Passa on Mon Oct 19, 2009 6:48 pm, edited 1 time in total
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fullmetal_adam
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| Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 6:46 pm Post subject: |
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Why are there a bunch of nobs commenting on MS's inability to discern whether or not the game is a legit copy? You have no evidence that they don't have a very good anti-piracy system in place. Some anonymous "reviewer" on a forum somewhere is not proof. Sure, there could be some mistakes, but there will be avenues to sort it out with MS, and get back on live. How often would someone get their hands on a legit copy of a game before release date anyway?
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Gamesta
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| Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 6:56 pm Post subject: |
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| Passa wrote: |
Money was never the issue - I wasn't permitted to spend my own money on games as a child because my parents felt they weren't a good influence. I acquired the games illegally on my own prerogative since I had no other way to play them.
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Wait so buying games is bad influence but but illegaly dl-ing games which is basically stealing ISN'T a bad influence?
Something else confusing is that your parents let you play games even though they were supposedly a bad influence, as long as you didn't pay for them? Does that somehow make the ga,es a better influence does it?
| fullmetal_adam wrote: | | How often would someone get their hands on a legit copy of a game before release date anyway? |
Quite often theses days.A fair few games, mostly games with no street dates get released a day or two earlier.
Last edited by Gamesta on Mon Oct 19, 2009 7:00 pm, edited 2 times in total
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Fly
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| Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 6:57 pm Post subject: |
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| fullmetal_adam wrote: | | Why are there a bunch of nobs commenting on MS's inability to discern whether or not the game is a legit copy? You have no evidence that they don't have a very good anti-piracy system in place. Some anonymous "reviewer" on a forum somewhere is not proof. Sure, there could be some mistakes, but there will be avenues to sort it out with MS, and get back on live. How often would someone get their hands on a legit copy of a game before release date anyway? |
And you have no evidence that they in fact do thus creating a circular argument in which the great and omnipotent Alf reigns supreme. Do you want Alf to return? Do you really? Quit dooming the rest of us to Alf because of your desire to create circular references or so help me I'll take my +7 boot and stick it up your ass!
In other non jestful news, how refreshing it is to once again hear companies shouting from the rooftops about the big bad pirates circumventing their most valiant attempts at a cease and desist order forcing even more intrusive and irrelevant wards of protection to negate such scum and villainy of prospective buyers and the gaming public at large. Because when a small minority sticks their thumb up at you and gets things for free that logical conclusion is gas the lot of them by using Godwins Law!
Because that is how absurd the concept is. You hear that pensioners? Quit voting against thing sin groups or I'll so annex humanity because of it in some non voting scheme thing... YEAH TAKE THAT!
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Phreakuency
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| Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 7:10 pm Post subject: |
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I think it is GREAT news that MS are banning people, if they can tell it's a pirated copy. Nothing short of a life ban will stop them doing it again.
How people can pirate a game and then winge when they can't play online or even go to official forums for help is beyond me.
I still give big props to Sony for not allowing their PS3 to be hacked for this long, but huge props must also go to MS for this move.
I'm sure the devs who have lost a lot of money to games like NFS Shift, NBA Live, Borderlands etc being leaked before release are happy with MS too.
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He need to cut the ego.
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| Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 7:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | The methods currently being employed by publishers are not halting piracy, rather they are either accelerating it. See: Spore. Publishers should instead focus their efforts on delivering higher quality experiences to those who have invested their money in a legal purchase of the game. See: Sins of a Solar Empire. |
Publishers have been releasing fantastic games for many, many years and piracy has just grown and grown. The issue is so bad now that they're putting all these ridiculous restrictions onto games that is hurting the legitimate purchasers. And now, of course, the technology incorporated into PC games these days is giving piracy advocates more of a 'justification' for pirating games, like you touched on, which is absolutely laughable because this technology is a direct result of continual piracy which is now at the point where publishers feel threatened and feel the need to take drastic action. There's only one group of people to blame for this technology and I'll give you a hint: it's not the publishers (Ok, so it is a bit, but you get my point  ).
Releasing more 'purchasable' software won't curb the piracy epidemic because that's what they've been doing all along.
Piracy is a black and white issue. You pirate, for whatever reason, you are in the wrong. Individual circumstance is not a justification for breaking the law. Using excuses such as, "I also buy tons of games!" or "I had no intentions of buying the game anyway!", or "I had no money growing up" or "my parents didn't let me buy games" is not a valid excuse to pirate.
(ftr, I am a big music downloader so I break the law. I'm not preaching that we should all be law-abiding citizens, but I am not going to sit here and try to justify that my actions are somehow morally right. What I do is wrong. Plain and simple. Any consequences that stem from these actions I just have to cop on the chin. The same applies to video game pirates I guess.)
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Sinthesys
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| Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 7:21 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah, because I hear gaming companies are living off dishscraps...
Piracy isn't the right thing to do, but its hardly akin to actually going into the retailer and swiping the game, like some people are insinuating. I'm all for buying full licensed versions of games I think are really great and deserve my patronage (especially small, independent developers), but lets not pretend if you pirate the latest EA sports game or something, you are somehow personally robbing the very poor programmers, etc who made it. They still get their wage at the end of they day and are already paid after the completion of the game.
People seem to gloss over the fact that pirating a game is not a loss to the company in any tangible way. It is a loss of potential profit, and there is no way to confirm the pirate was actually going to buy the game, if said game was unavailable for pirating. In fact, I'd rather that people pirated things have have annoying and/or plain stupid piracy protection, as maybe one day, companies will look back on the data of what was and wasn't pirated, and see that the protection they put on there actually encourages piracy. Maybe then, I'll be able to play PC games without all this bullshit.
| Quote: | | There's only one group of people to blame for this technology and I'll give you a hint: it's not the publishers (Ok, so it is a bit, but you get my point ). |
Of course its a very reactionary thing to do in response to pirates, but if you pay money for better locks, knowing they will be broken within a day, its bad business not to try a different strategy. Their anti-piracy protection would be a fantastic and heavily supported idea - if it actually worked. At this point in time, the only people it inconveniences are the legitimate users.
To use an analogy: Car manufacturers are tired of people stealing their cars. They put in a device that makes it so that everyone has to register their car key with a fingerprint and a blood sample, making it a bit of a bitch to get in and out your car/buy and sell one, but hey, if it stops car thieves, good on em. The next day the system is cracked and people can get around this key registry thing if they steal a car, but legitimate customers still have to keep the key registry for insurance purposes. End of the day - the system only serves to annoy the customer. Why? Because for all the hoops they make you jump through, it doesn't bloody work.
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Last edited by Sinthesys on Mon Oct 19, 2009 7:36 pm, edited 2 times in total
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Gamesta
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| Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 7:22 pm Post subject: |
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I only pirate games that are hard to get like NES or SNES games.But If I ever saw the good ones in a store I would by a physical copy because I preferr them.
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Jaws
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| Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 7:45 pm Post subject: |
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| Passa wrote: | | You mean buy the legal game, install it and then crack it so I skip the activation process? I don't want to reward publishers with my money when I'm getting a product that will be inferior when used legally compared to pirated versions. I found it a slight kick in the teeth just three days ago when my reinstall of Crysis Warhead failed for no explicable reason. I had to follow a tutorial that applied to users who pirated the title to get it working. |
Im not talking about rewarding publishers for whatever transgressions they make, I'm talking about giving the grunts / developers the money they deserve for their time. If you hate the way the product is bundled, go ahead and download it at the same time. Throw the disc away for all I care! Just splash the money down to show the devs that you respect their work so they can feed their families.
| Passa wrote: | | I didn't affect 2K's bottom line for example in pirating BioShock on PC, since I was a lost sale as soon as they announced it would be limited to 5 installs to "combat piracy". Hey guess what, my copy has unlimited installs! It's worth noting I haven't finished BioShock, or virtually any other of the games I've pirated in recent years. |
Hang on a second.. you still played the full game right? Somewhow, I don't think the "I wouldn't have bought this game due to copyright resrictions" card really cuts it here. Regardless if you finished a game or not, you still haven't given the people who made it a cent after installing and enjoying the game you were interested in playing and thus should ideally have paid for. Yet again, I say if you want the freedom of DRM-less software, go ahead and download it and use that copy instead of your disc one - just pay for the goods on your way past!
I see your arguments Passa. You say that you refuse to put up with archaic 'security' measures that really only prove to bitchslap the consumer. Fair call. But will this attitude of yours and other people change the stance of the companies trying to sell their product legitimately? The more prevalent it becomes, the less likely that companies will back down because they're seeing less sales. That's what I meant when I refer to this whole thing as a double edged sword. It is hurting the consumer as much (if not more) the pirates who prance around these measures quite easily anyway.
Just look at what Nintendo's latest firmware debacle has done for the Wii. It is bricking honest, 'clean' consoles in it's effort to stop people ripping off games. I realise you have to protect your product, but I don't think Nintendo or anyone else would be pursuing things so aggressively (read: recklessly!) if there wasn't such a big problem to respond to in the first place.
As far as Microsoft goes. Yeah, it looks like they're in anti-piracy overdrive too if legit gamers getting banned are anything to go by.
What they're doing isn't too bright, but it's clearly a reaction to an itch that seems to be turning into a nasty rash for their business.
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Passa
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| Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 7:53 pm Post subject: |
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| Gamesta wrote: | | Wait so buying games is bad influence but but illegaly dl-ing games which is basically stealing ISN'T a bad influence? |
I highly doubt my parents had the technical expertise to discern whether or not the game I was playing was pirated or not. Nor is it basically stealing. I don't recall my mum ever sending to the shops wearing a parka large enough to fit a few video games hastily grabbed off the shelves of Big W, with the wise words of advice "if it isn't locked down, it's yours". Because what I was doing was copyright infringement, not stealing. No one lost a tangible good.
| He need to cut the ego. wrote: | | Publishers have been releasing fantastic games for many, many years and piracy has just grown and grown. |
No - games have been pirated for years and years and years. Just like music was copied for years and years and years. I'd also argue you have no stats to prove your statement that piracy has grown. Mainly, because of this:
The difference between those days and now is the advent of the internet. Piracy now takes place over the internet. The numbers of illegal downloads are easy to obtain, and publishers are looking at these figures and s**tting themselves.
| Jaws wrote: | | The more prevalent it becomes, the less likely that companies will back down because they're seeing less sales. That's what I meant when I refer to this whole thing as a double edged sword. It is hurting the consumer as much (if not more) the pirates who prance around these measures quite easily anyway. |
And here's why I disagree with you (and do what I do). You should take note in the fact that EA have dropped their controversial implementation of SecuROM since the Spore debacle. Infact, I think Crysis Warhead was the last title published by EA to include it. The Sims 3 included no activation of any kind, and while still widely pirated, nowhere near to the extent Spore was.
Ubisoft previously included StarForce in their PC titles, and later activation implementations of SecuROM. Their recent release of Prince of Persia on the PC included no SecuROM, no serial key, in fact no security or copy protection whatsoever. Not even a CD check.
Those are only two of the biggest publishers in the gaming world.
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Jaws
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| Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 8:01 pm Post subject: |
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| Sinthesys wrote: | Yeah, because I hear gaming companies are living off dishscraps...
..but lets not pretend if you pirate the latest EA sports game or something, you are somehow personally robbing the very poor programmers, etc who made it. They still get their wage at the end of they day and are already paid after the completion of the game. |
Shut down due to money issues: Factor5, Troika Studios, Elixir Entertainment, Free Radical.. the list goes on. Dishscraps sounds about right to me when I read about how some these companies went out.
So where do you think all these now "big" publishers earn their money from? If EA were making it even bigger on the stock exchange I don't think they'd bother making games anymore. They're in it for the money, and the money comes from you. Just because they are a larger production studio, this doesn't mean they can give their games away. Do you think paying for licensing costs for the likes of NFL, NBA, NHL is cheap? Tiger Woods charges millions to create a golf course for you. How much do you think his asking price is to have his name/face/likeness in a game?
Ego is right. It's black or it's white. There's no grey area with this sort of stuff. I'm not saying that we aren't getting the pooey end of the stick as consumers in some cases, but "fighting" the system by pirating some more will not make the problem go away.
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He need to cut the ego.
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| Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 8:03 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Of course its a very reactionary thing to do in response to pirates, but if you pay money for better locks, knowing they will be broken within a day, its bad business not to try a different strategy. Their anti-piracy protection would be a fantastic and heavily supported idea - if it actually worked. At this point in time, the only people it inconveniences are the legitimate users. |
That's true. I don't believe the technology is a step in the right direction (and frankly I'm not an expert on the issue so I don't what what a better alternative would be), and it is easy to blame the publishers - after all they're the ones putting the technology into the games. But at what point do the pirates take responsibility for this? Should we not put equal, if not more, blame on them?
I just find the whole thing a bit odd.
- Person A pirates games.
- Publisher puts restrictions on games due to pirated games.
- Person A then whinges about this, and continues to pirate, using restrictions as a justification for his law breaking.
Points 2 and 3 only exist because point 1 does. And yet, the publishers are the evil ones in this whole situation? I'm a simpleton so maybe I'm missing something here...
| Quote: | | No - games have been pirated for years and years and years. Just like music was copied for years and years and years. I'd also argue you have no stats to prove your statement that piracy has grown. |
Wait, wait, wait, you can't argue with my statement! It's completely built upon no facts whatsoever, just my opinion
You're right. I don't have any stats that prove piracy has grown (I haven't looked either so maybe there is...). I've just assumed so given the rise in people being more technological savvy, and the growth of the video game industry. Back in the day there was a guy who knew a guy who could burn you a PC or a PSX game for $5. Nowdays, it takes a simple Google search to acquire the game you want.
Having said that, clearly it's at a point where publishers now feel the need to do something about it, so putting a few things together could very well lead one to believe piracy has grown if we were to compare it to, say, ten years ago.
But no proof. Let me stress that
Last edited by He need to cut the ego. on Mon Oct 19, 2009 8:19 pm, edited 2 times in total
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palm pre
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| Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 8:13 pm Post subject: |
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Pirates are created by the corporations. How many times have you been duped into buying a game you thought would be good and it was so bad it was barely playable. $60 is a lot of money! Pirating is wrong but there is no other way for the consumer to protest by mass. It's too late to use your "buying power" as a protest because you already BOUGHT the game.
It is well known now that the media is sometimes "paid off" to sway our opinion of upcoming games by either holding off on bad reviews or giving a little bit higher of a score than they really want to because they don't want to lose the company's money they receive for advertising. Those are DIRTY tactics, and those type of actions create piracy.
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