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I also gotta say, sorry for adding posts after another, I never once said that people downloading the game were not to blame. I was ONLY trying to offer up an opinion on how the problem could be solved. when I said that the people who are posting the software are destroying the industry I'm sorry I didnt have my words articulated correctly. I didnt mean in any way that they were the ONLY ones.

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I appreciate you taking the time to clear it up.

If somebody hacks a game and puts it on a P2P but nobody downloads it there is no issue. It's the millions who go to that site and download it to their PC (and most likely share it themselves) that cause the issue.

I'll have a little more fun with you and even argue that the people doing the cracking as a whole are less culpable than those doing the downloading as a whole. At least the cracker can make a real argument that they did what they did for legit reasons. Think of a no-CD crack. There are a lot of legit consumers out there that really would want such a thing and the person who creates it may be doing so with the honest game owner who doesn't want to use the CD in mind. The fact that other people use an otherwise harmless crack to avoid having to pay for the game themselves does not necessarily mean that the original cracker had ill intentions in mind when they created their work. Maybe they did or maybe they honestly bought the game and didn't want to have to use the cd, we can't really know. What we do know is that the people using it to pirate the game do have ill intentions in the way they use it. So who's more guilty, the person who made the crack that could be used for good or bad or the person who only uses it for bad?

Thats true, but as I said before I never said it was entirely the hackers fault, people who are downloading are still at fault too just not as much as the people who go out of their way to make it readily available for download. and just out of fun and sheer curiousity. maybe you can answer these for me mr. smart guy who thinks he's so smooth.

First off, a lot of new games like my crysis warhead make it so you dont need no-cd crack, I can play it without the cd having to be in the cd drive and I did not have to download a no cd crack. So where is the excuse for the hacker who made that crack?

secondly, tell me where the excuses are for the people who created the keygenerators for people who want to download the game. Shouldnt one person only need one key.

thirdly, since anyone who buys the game has had problems with securom or drm w/e they were always allowed to install it again if they just called in their product. so, why I ask you, does someone go out of their way and create a program, or series of programs that can buypass a securom or drm when they could have called in and got to install the game. a few weeks worth of programming and testing vs just calling in for less than 30 minutes.

where's the excuses for these hackers???????????

oh no worries, it was my fault i should have been more clear. sorry if I came off kinda mean too, its just I was trying to make an innocent point, bad analogy or not, and I got flamed for it. Right now for some reason this guy pulp or w/e is still trying to flame me, even though at the very beginning of his conversation with me, he said he agrees with me... yeah Idk....

Easy, and you pretty much already answered that question yourself. Activation limitations can be a real pain, whether you've had to reinstall multiple times or just don't have internet access at the time. I legally purchased Spore and also downloaded an activation crack, just in case. The same goes for every version of Windows that I've legally purchased.

Every lose a booklet or case? You may end up needing a new key for a game you already own and as long as the key you are using isn't stopping somebody else from using the game what's the big deal? I have several games which I've purchased but at some point lost the key and had to find a new one.

If you can't figure out why somebody would spend weeks developing such programs rather than just calling tech support, well then I have to assume you do not know many programmers.

After you defending so many things hackers do to make stolen games readily available to other theives theres only one conclusion I can draw from this. You must pirate games, and or be a hacker that makes it readily available to theives. I'm sorry, thats just the way you come off because if your trying to be funny, your not, this is a serious situation, and I just read robwrights thread on how fallout 3 is already in thousands of piraters hands. To me, I wouldnt doubt if you had it in your hands right now. I dont respect people who flip flop their points of views as much as you and people who pirate, so I'm done.




(plus I gotta go to work lol) ROFLMAO

You probably agree with the CEO of EA with his claims that only 0.2% of gamers dislike SecureROM.
That, or someone who hasn't had a lot of hardware failures, windows activations blown away by SPD errors, and spent the requisite telephone time recovering. The idea of calling every software company to beg for permission to use each software program I have after a hard drive failure is just ridiculous, but very conceivable if everyone just goes along quietly. Punishing people who buy your product sounds stupid, and yet there're lots of people waiting to defend it for free.

I have games over 10 years old, some I play occasionally that have publishers that are long gone, so if they had to "call home", they would never work without a crack. No, publishers won't release patches to remove restrictions if they shut down, no bankruptcy judge would authorize the expense.

SecureROM is Sony's way of recouping some of the losses they took over XCP. It only makes sense to use the tech from their rootkit to sell to anyone willing to buy it.

For me, I'm just skipping these titles loaded with secretive crap, I don't trust in the benevolence and kindness of corporations anyway, I trust them to do anything possible to enhance profits, even if it's unethical as long as it's at least arguably not in direct violation of law. I'd expect nothing less as a shareholder.

YMMV.

Unfortunatly Piracy can also be a good thing and companies like EA are not making good use of it or offering something simular. I was a pretty big PC gamer back in 1997-2001. Had pretty much all of the C & C titles, Homeworld, Fallout, Freespace, etc. Real life hit and we all know how that goes.
I recently discovered my box of old games and to say that a few of the disks are gone is an understatement. I have the CD keys but their is no real legitimate way to get these old games except through Piracy.
Between 2001-2005 I missed quite a few titles and understandably these games cannot be purchased. There is quite a few I missed out on that I would enjoy and if I could purchase I would but there isn't a way to do so. Once again someone like myself is left to turn to Piracy.
I would love to see all these companies get together and just create one website where you can purchase old games for a dollar or two. Right now all those games are just disappearing or would have disappeared had it not been for Piracy.
I do buy the current games that come out but what I find myself doing is turning to Bittorrent so I don't have to load a disk. I do have Game Jackal but with Vista it's just easier to have the game where I can I just click and paly. No hassle with Disks or looking for them. No scratched disk and my kids can play without bothering me to figure out how to get them to work.
I also found it irritating that a game I purchased was censored. I'm a 37 year old adult and I want to play the game the way the developers intended. The Witcher was a big deal for me. I have the US disk but I pirated the uncensored one not only to have the game the way it was intended but also so I could have the no disk feature.
Blizzard was pretty wonderful. All those old games from them I can just download and play. I like purchasing and putting the box up so the Orange Box was pretty sweet. Spore's DRM didn't bother me as the positives of no CD and easy installation made it well worth it. I am a little bothered by the fact I may not be able to play it 10 years down the road but even in that I don't see a problem.
Though Bittorrent has generated a lot of heat about easy access of Piracy the truth is that there is a need for a central data base of easily downloadable games, that are easy to install, and require no CD to play. If a company could do that with the option of being able to get the box and a registered key through the mail (they could even charge extra for it and I would pay for it) then I think you would see Piracy begin to decline greatly.
Most consumers would rather purchase and legally own a product than steal it. The fact that Piracy is so rampant is because the companies are not giving what the customer wants and there is a way for the customer to get what he wants. The fact that it is free is just a bonus.

I'd really appreciate a model where publishers did what most brick & mortar stores did selling games 1-2 years after they come out. Sell them cheaper. I realize stores do this to clear out inventory, but I really like supporting developers like Bethesda, but $40+ for a game is out of my (reasonable) reach. I usually end up buying things second hand of amazon, but I'd much rather support the developer by buying a new copy, but direct-download, from my experience, never seems to change the price of a game.

As far as DRM goes. CD-keys, server authentication for online play are great, but not very effective, especially for single-player games (RPG's). I don't mind Accessing the server to start up a game, but I'd rather if it weren't every time. Maybe check every time it's started up, but let a game load/be played even if it doesn't pass, just make it so you can't fail 3 times in a row or something. If you're like me, and your ISP sucks and internet goes down fairly regularly, this would be a big boost. If my internet's not working, I play SP games, if my SP game needs to access the internet or close, I'm left with nothing. Let me play the game I bought!!!

There are a few places that sell old games, but $10 seems to be the low end of price. I think publishers just don't want to deal with what does/doesn't work on current hardware and can't support those titles.

When they give them away I think they can get by without support, but if some people pay $5 for something, they'll demand hours and hours of support for it or threaten to sue. Been there, answered the phone, turned it over to the legal department.

This won't stop. Sleep well, the companies that make the games are still turning a profit.

If there are torrent sites, there will be illegal downloading. The truth is, everyone will always crack some game, no matter what security thing it has bundled with it.

You simply CANNOT play any steam games on VAC online servers. Maybe some actually manage to find a way, but it is very very limited.

For exemple, L4D is coming in a couple of weeks. I just KNOW that I won't be able to play online with a pirated version. Same for TF2. Oh, and what's that ? 20 $ for TF2, well thank you sir. Updates and new contents every months ? Thanks !

Funny story. I was playing single player Gears of War on PC, pirated version, and thought that it would be a kickass online coop-versus game. So i went the SAME DAY to get this game at my local EB gamestore. The game is there, 50$. Ok, knida expensive but I'll take it anyway ! The guy then tells me i need an XBOX LIVE ACCOUNT TO PLAY THIS GAME ONLINE. HAHA. I don't have and never will have this crappy gaming box, why should i pay for their services ? I simply laughed (with him, cuz he thought that was the stupidest **** ever) and replaced the game.

Behind him, i see TF2, 20$. Read some good reviews on this, played CS for a long time, I'll try it. I've been playing TF2 since then non-stop, every single day. And i can assure you that everybody that plays this game, on thousands of servers, did pay the full price.

And for all of you saying pirating is killing the business. PLEASE, that's ****.

Let me say this: SPORE.
Yes, the super-hyper hyped game of our generation. The one game that would change EVERYTHING, the way we play and interact in games. I simply COULDN'T WAIT for this game. I was buying this game ASAP. 1 week prior release, it's released on torrents. Heck, no exams or essays this week, I'm kinda free, let's try it ! I finished the game (as in get to the center of the universe, buy evertything, use everything, destroy/mess around/socialize/piss off every neighbors) in just under 3 days. And then i thought ... that's it ? This is the game ? Sure, i can't use the online community features and DL user created contents, but ... so what ? I can make them, I can use the whaky and funny AXIS created content. THIS IS WORTH 50 $ ? Nerver played this game again.

So many games are not worth it, and it's goddamn frustrating to have to pay so much for so little. I pay for every single online games i want to play, and the others better be worth my $. Btw, i bought on steam TF2, HL2, HL2 episode 1, HL2 episode 2, and still got my CS CD somewhere. Wanted to buy COD4 on steam too but wouldn't work, so i bought it in a store.

So yeah, i would say that STEAM works pretty well