Are PC gamers hurting themselves?

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Eihli

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I think a major concern PC gamers should take heed to is piracy, and justification as to why companies are using programs such as Starforce. Let's face it, any game made for the PC will have significant lost revenue from pirating.


So if you were a prospering game company and you were out to make money why would you choose to develop a program for the PC market over the console market (which at the moment has a much faster growth rate).

I think as a PC gamer we are our own worst enemies.
 
First of all, what is there to be pirated? Not SP that's for sure. So many games now are built for online play. That is where much of the focus is. And in most of those games, you MUST have a valid serial, and there is almost no way around that. In Quake4/Doom3 for example, there was a big fuss about how scary SP is. So what did they do to prevent piracy? They checked your serial before you could even play SP. This is far more effective than using Starforce, SecuROM, Safedisc or any of that other garbage. I don't think piracy is much of a concern for game developers anymore.

Plus if they are losing any money, it is because of the game itself. A large percentage of games are considered faliures. If they produce a decent game, people will want to play it online, they will find a way to pay for it.
 
with games like WoW charging 15$ a month to play a game that you already shelled out $50 for, i think the game manufacturers could cry me a damn river.
 
The console market has piracy too. There really is no difference between a PC gamer downloading games vs. someone burning a game to play on a modded PS2. The thing is, piracy will never be stopped.
 
What? You can pirate any game WoW private servers, same w/ BF2

Anygame can be pirated.

The greatest achievement with antipiracy was starforce w/ TOCA pro race driver 2, no crack 4 for 2 years. THATS a record
 
kohan69 said:
What? You can pirate any game WoW private servers, same w/ BF2

Anygame can be pirated.

The greatest achievement with antipiracy was starforce w/ TOCA pro race driver 2, no crack 4 for 2 years. THATS a record
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Right now it's scarily simple to circumvent StarForce, though. And I don't like the whole install-drivers-without-user's-consent thing.
 
It´s not simple at all. And the attempts to pirate it just end up with crappy SF clones.

Starforce has been very effective. I can buy that some optical drives may have trouble with it. To change it´s not much money really.

So yes Starforce has been very effective fighting piracy. Now this is not a PC problem console games since they are so expensive I guess is pirated a great deal as well.

Now I don´t think people would pirate less no matter what price. People will make justifications why they would get everything for free anyway...

Think there is many people who would never consider stealing another ones bicycle but pirate games all the time... It´s the same thing really no matter if you would buy it or not anyway.

Doesn´t matter if the game would cost 50000$ or 50$
 
Tread carefully here gentleman. You are walking a fine line.

Piracy sucks, you want to play it, go buy it. Support the damn company so they'll make more games.
 
The thing you really have to think about is first off you 9 times out of 10 you cant play a pirated game online. in todays gaming that is a major downfall for piracy. second if the person pirates the game it could be that they dont have the financial ability to buy the game so it goes from being a lose / lose (no sale / no play) to lose / win (no sale / gets to play) in the end the company is acctually losing nothing but the player gets to participate in the experience of the game and the games culture though he normally wouldnt have due to financial reasons. in the end i dont think its worth it to punish the people who did buy the game with poor and abusive copy protection just to prevent someone who is never going to buy the game anyway from getting their hands on it.
 
If you guys want to discuss the issue ok. However, please don't own up to pirating anything as it is against the rules.

This is the last warning. I will lock the thread if it violates the rules.
 
Hey Rich don't you think you're being a little heavy handed? There was nothing illegal about Majin's post. Is it illegal for him or anyone else here to say they know someone who is breaking the law?
 
Well, alot of single player games have copy protection. Oblivion has already been leaked and it has a new version of securerom 7 on it. However that was easily fixed.
 
Well piracy for the most part affects the PC gaming industry. The consoles it's a bit harder because most people with consoles have no computer knowledge whatsoever. Since pirating consoles requires that you have all the PC requirements, the fact that you can rent games for consoles, and the fact that for say on the Xbox360 you need a genuine game to play on Live!, console game makers for the most part have much less to worry about. I think that is why we're seeing more and more console games ported to PC and not the other way around.

Steam for instance is the best thing that's ever happened for Valve. As much as people put it down for the little shortcomings it has done so much for Valve as far as anti-piracy. Of course there's that small percentage of people who have pirated HL2, but their chances of getting the updates that we, the payers, get are slim.

So pirating can't be stopped. Game makers just need to spend their money wisely in making a game that A. Doesn't Suck, B. Has good MP, C. Doesn't use StarForce, and D. Is worth shelling out $50+ for.
 
Sabrewulf165 said:
Hey Rich don't you think you're being a little heavy handed? There was nothing illegal about Majin's post. Is it illegal for him or anyone else here to say they know someone who is breaking the law?
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It's fine, I can see why he would delete it. I did own up to commiting Piracy in the past.

The fact of the matter is we all know someone who has commited piracy, that someone may even be your self. Piracy is illigal, but it has a good side to it sometimes.

Take CD prices before the internet really started to cause a lot of piracy. CD's were getting out of control in price, why pay $26.00 for a CD that is only going to have 2 good songs on it, when you could get them off the net for free? So what happened CD's have dropped in price and the companies have had to find ways to cope with Piracy. I tunes, for example, is a way for people to DL only the music they want at a fair price. No one has a problem with paying for what they want, as long as it's not to expensive.
 
Yes, we are hurting ourselves.

Everytime we have to open one of these idiotic threads in relation to "Is PC gaming dying?" "Are we becoming more violent by PC games?" "Are we as PC gamers hurting ourselves?"

Stop already, its been beaten to death countless times and nothing has been solved; other than the fact that these threads are assinine, idiotic and prove nothing.

Nothing will be solved by these types of threads. :rolleyes:
 
Rich Tate said:
Tread carefully here gentleman. You are walking a fine line.
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No, we're not. Were are discussing company's use of piracy protection. Were are not posting links on where to pirate games.
 
Obi_Kwiet said:
No, we're not. Were are discussing company's use of piracy protection. Were are not posting links on where to pirate games.
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As long as the convo doesn't go into admission of piracy and techniques therein, we're all ok. :)

Believe me, I want this one to go on, I like reading the thoughts. ;)
 
Moose777 said:
Nothing will be solved by these types of threads. :rolleyes:
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Nothing will be solved by talking about world hunger, or third world poverty neither. That doesn't mean people don't want to discuss it. :rolleyes:


My opinion on the matter is that developers of triple AAA titles will turn a profit regardless of the piracy.
 
Budwise said:
with games like WoW charging 15$ a month to play a game that you already shelled out $50 for, i think the game manufacturers could cry me a damn river.
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You technically pay only $35 since with EVERY mmo you recieve a free 30 days... also the $15 a month is to keep the massive servers and constant work on the games content. Unlike other games that are forgotten in 2 months MMOs need to be updated reqularly and also add content for free constantly, This is why these games can keep people playing for years.

Look at EQ1, its over 6 years old now and is still doing well when compared to many other titles that were suppose to be superior to it (DAOC and Anarchy Online).
 
I pirate illegal copies of starforce, and sell them for profit!!!1
 
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