Serious ISSUE

[DaSmerg]

Bad news for the weirdos like me though who have a packaging fetish. I think I like the game boxes on my shelf as much as the games themselves; All lined up like little trophies.

LMAO  

[MONOLITH]

I'm going to take a picture of my game shelf.  

[baff]

a few notes,

DCMA laws don't apply to software.
Software copywright has remained unchanged by them.
You right to make a software backup is specifically mentioned in the DCMA regulations as being unaffected.

DCMA is about DVD movie piracy. It has no bearing on the software industry.

Starforce will nerf your drive everytime it hits an error. This could be caused by running a poorly copied disc, but it is also caused by scratches or just having an older drive.
Each time your drive experiences a CRC error, it drops the PIO mode of your drive. (Starting from 4) fairly soon your drive will be working in windows compatability mode only. (16 bit DOS stylee). Many modern drives are not designed to work in this fashion and may cease to function.

Windows XP SP2 addresses this issue and fixes it for Windows XP, but Starforce overrides this and brings it back.

There are many complaints of Starforce causing drive noise. Drive noise = physical damage. Starforce offered a prize for anybody willing to recreate the problem. (If they went to russia and re bought all the equipment off their own back). They made a big claim that no one had done so, but negelect to mention that this competition has already ENDED. People contacting them to take advantage of their offer have been turned down.


Cracking Starforce is easier than other protections. The cracking tool works on ALL Starforce games, not 1 crack per game.

Sony backed off with Rootkit because it was frontpage and televised news in every country. Sony is a major brandname for any number of devices and it's reputation is worth much more to it than it's CD sales.

Ultimately, legal action is a waste of time. Unless you are a solicitor it won't fix anything for you personally.




Example games that didn't use Anti piracy and were still financially successful.

Galactic Civilisations (1&2). a best selling single player game.

Vietcong. A best selling multiplayer game.

Vietcong is the most intresing example. It outsold rival internet shooters that used online CD key checking where it had none.

The problem with claims that anti piracy increases sales, is that there is no direct evidence. It's a faith decision.  




I have come to the point where I am no longer willing to pay for games that require me to but 1 copy per machine (even for online play), or that promise LAN support but still need 1 copy per machine with an active internet connection (Steam).

I tend to download and test my games as much as possible before buying them now, but unfortunately the ultimate test always requires the purchase of a first and then second copy. I simply am unable to tell if the product I want will work for the (advertised) purpose I am looking for without paying twice the going rate. (Just for a demonstration/test run).

I have anti piracy related technical issues with every game I buy except MMO's. I have done for the last 3 years.

I am now only intrested in buying games with pirate support.
If I cannot find a cracked server program and a cracked exe, I won't even buy it.

There isn't any point.

I will no longer pay for multiple copies of the same game. I will now only pay for one. If that means I don't get to play the latest and greatest, so be it.
It's a depressing shame for me, I've been playing PC games for 30 years now and 2/3 of that time they have been networked





One argument I hear a lot is that anti piracy such as Starforce does not stop piracy but it delays it during the opening days when full priced sales are the hottest and the company makes it's biggest return on the investment.

For myself, the opposite is true. Since I know from repeated bitter experience that games publishers will point blank refuse to technically support any anti piracy problems on principle, (and ban all talk of cracks as opposed to providing them), unless a pirate supports my chosen game, I will not buy it.

Most recent example: Red Orchestra.
I really wanted that game.
The current pirate versions allow everyone to play online using Steam.
 However when Steam has a purge, they ban anyone caught "breaking their licence agreement" for life.
I will not pay for a game only to be disconnected from it's usage anytime Steam feels like they deserve more of my money.

NB licence agreements, the law and you.
 
When you buy a software, you do not buy a licence, you buy a software. Publishers and rental companies buy licences, you do not.
How the company that sells you a software wishes you to use it is not important.
 They have the right not sell if they are in anyway worried.
There have been two court cases testing this so far.
 One against Adobe, and one against Novell.
In both cases the judges ruled that their is no licence agreement between the end user and the retailer or publisher. It is a sale.

When a Steam free pirate server becomes available, I will buy an enjoy the game. If it never does, I miss a game, they miss a sale.

I don't know if AP like Starforce delays pirates, but if it does, it certainly delays any sales to me at the same time.




@Sith Demon, I cannot give you one example of a game that I have not seen available for pirating within the first three days of release.
Some games, (ones that are released first in a foreign country first) are always available before release. And a very few games, usually the much hyped ones like Oblivion and Half-life 2 are released on pirate days before anywhere else.  

I understand your point about the "honor" system, but I am tired of this.
Two wrongs don't make a right.

Currently I am in the position where any game I buy I have already downloaded and cracked anyway.
The "honor" sales, of trying to convince me to buy a game I already have "because it's the right thing to do is about as weak as it comes.

I suggest the "better quality, better support and cheaper prices system" that every other industry is stuck with. Packaging and service are also a factor

Appealing to my better nature and then rewarding my "honor" with unsupported and game destroying (possibly drive destroying) bugs will only work so many times with me; and I reached that time last summer.

I'll keep my money and find something else to do with it.

**EDIT**
Crikey 3 pages, I only read the first, time to read 2&3 I guess.

[baff]

No it's not bullshit. If a friend of mine burns me a copy of 3Dmax and gives it to me, that company just lost out on the cash I would have paid to buy it, yes?

But would you?

Is that an honest answer?

This is a grey area.

The company only loses money if your the kind of person that has £3,000 to spend on it and had already made the decision to do so.

In that scenario the best form of anti piracy is to offer a reward to people who think they are using an illegal copy at work. Dob your boss in, earn £100. he has to buy it, and you take the same £100 sales commission they would have had to pay out anyway.
The games market at only £35 a copy is a bit of a tougher nut to crack.

Joe Bloggs ripping off Max and learning how to use it improves the chances of it actually being used in the office, which it's target market.
It would be preferable to the company if you bought a student copy, but it's all good.

How many of the modders in this forum actually bought Max?
A few of them have gone on to use it in a professional enviroment.
Being able to find trained staff is a factor in it's purchase.
If 3d max goes out of business, it will be because of Maya, not piracy.

Companies don't need to suffer through theft in order to expand their markets.

Can you give examples of these "suffering" companies please?

As a point of note if piracy is expanding a companies market, I would not describe this as "suffering".
Again there is no direct evidence of this. Such opinions can only be based on faith.

To be precise, piracy is not theft. It is copywright infringement.
Theft is an altogether more serious crime.
Piracy is clearly wrong, but so is speeding.
It would be nice however not to over react.
There is "wrong", and there is "degrees of wrong". No need to take extremes.
Example: Giving someone a black eye is "wrong", but hospitalising some one is "very wrong".

I see no signs of games companies failing due to piracy. I beleive it to cost them sales, but the facts are obvious, PC games are selling more and more each year. It's not the industry ending bugbear publishers have been labeling it for the past 30 years, rather it is a symptom of their increasing success.

[MONOLITH]

Can you give examples of these "suffering" companies please?

You know exactly what my statement meant. Your debating style of everything having to become a game of semantics isn't worth the effort anymore, to be honest.

A claim was made that piracy helped a company promote it's product.

I said there are plenty of better ways in place for product promotion, and tolerating theft shouldn't, and doesn't need to be, one of them.

The notion that theft is a good promotional event for a business is ridiculous.

Your 'yet more semantics' talk of "piracy doesn't equal theft" is about one of the dumbest things I've heard said.

This persistent promotion of piracy is going to be shut down soon, too. You'd be wise to make sure it's only the topic that gets shut down, and not your account here.

Other than that, have a nice day.