Last game I bought was Skyrim, on DVD. When I put the disc in the drive... the steam installer came up.

Then some sort of reflex reaction happened and next thing I knew, I was on the pirate bay...

jwt27 wrote:

Last game I bought was Skyrim, on DVD. When I put the disc in the drive... the steam installer came up.

Then some sort of reflex reaction happened and next thing I knew, I was on the pirate bay...

You can get versions of almost any game that requires Steam for activation and an always on connection to the servers from torrents with all the Steam crap stripped out within days of release, you just have to be careful of viruses and trojans being included.

luckybob wrote:

Starcraft 2 was a big letdown for me. major reason? no lan function. that's what made starcraft FUN. I would bring a copy to a LAN party. Everyone copied the disk and played for hours. MOST of those same people went out and bought a copy. Rinse repeat. I ended up owning FOUR copies.

I pirate games out of SPITE. I usually play them all, but 9 out of 10 times I quit half way through and delete the game, thinking "i sure am glad I didn't pay for this pile of tripe"

Basically, I look at software piracy as "shareware". If you make a quality product, i will buy it.

That's what makes new systems like Ouya so good. Devs are strongly encouraged to make evaluation versions of all their games available in the download store to prevent disappointment. I remember the days when you could bring software back to the store, no questions asked, for a refund. Then they, I don't know whether it was retailers or the software companies, started refusing returns once the shrink wrap was off the box and then all this DRM crap came in. Once you buy it, you're stuck with it. First they took away your ability to return the product if you don't like it, forcing you to sell it , and now they are getting you at the other end by not allowing you to sell it! The consumer MUST have some option to get their money back if they are not satisfied.

People admitting piracy and sliderider not going on a tirade against them?

Have pigs started to fly? 😳

vetz wrote:

People admitting piracy and sliderider not going on a tirade against them?

Have pigs started to fly? 😳

It's not piracy if you own the game legally and just want to play it without having to connect to Steam every time.

sliderider wrote:

vetz wrote:

People admitting piracy and sliderider not going on a tirade against them?

Have pigs started to fly? 😳

It's not piracy if you own the game legally and just want to play it without having to connect to Steam every time.

That's what I thought, yes. They already got my money, now I feel entitled to do with their product whatever I want. Their EULA will probably say otherwise but since I didn't install steam I didn't sign anything either. And if there was no way to play the game without installing steam, I don't think I would have played it at all.

jwt27 wrote:

sliderider wrote:

vetz wrote:

People admitting piracy and sliderider not going on a tirade against them?

Have pigs started to fly? 😳

It's not piracy if you own the game legally and just want to play it without having to connect to Steam every time.

That's what I thought, yes. They already got my money, now I feel entitled to do with their product whatever I want. Their EULA will probably say otherwise but since I didn't install steam I didn't sign anything either. And if there was no way to play the game without installing steam, I don't think I would have played it at all.

You should still install Steam and enter the registration code so there will be no question as to whether you are legally entitled to play the game because what stops you from buying the game, NOT registering it, downloading a torrent, then later selling the unregistered copy to someone else while you still continue to play the torrent copy? Registering gives you some cover in case you get caught using an illegal copy. All you have to do is show that the game is legally registered to your account and they don't have a case against you.

I honestly hate all this crap with steam and online activation, or to be honest even needing xp. I also dislike the lack of lan capabilities in recent blizzard releases. Though I was not blown away by diablo 3 - in fact aside of wow I don't think any recent game has caught my imagination. I tried the witcher but gave up after about 20 minutes /yawn. Went on to read the books though - always had a feeling games were book substitutes in some ways.

My strategy is to stick to pre-steam games I already have and/or buy on physical media, and otherwise just piss some money away on WoW and maybe other mmorpgs. Of course something else might come along but I doubt I would notice any more.

At least having to play mmorpgs online makes sense to me, even if I do wish lan and single player modes existed. And my old games hopefully all run on 2000 or earlier, with mom's on whatever is current.

sliderider wrote:

You should still install Steam and enter the registration code so there will be no question as to whether you are legally entitled to play the game because what stops you from buying the game, NOT registering it, downloading a torrent, then later selling the unregistered copy to someone else while you still continue to play the torrent copy? Registering gives you some cover in case you get caught using an illegal copy. All you have to do is show that the game is legally registered to your account and they don't have a case against you.

But then you would have Steam installed on your system which defeats the purpose of downloading a version that doesn't require Steam.

SKARDAVNELNATE wrote:

sliderider wrote:

You should still install Steam and enter the registration code so there will be no question as to whether you are legally entitled to play the game because what stops you from buying the game, NOT registering it, downloading a torrent, then later selling the unregistered copy to someone else while you still continue to play the torrent copy? Registering gives you some cover in case you get caught using an illegal copy. All you have to do is show that the game is legally registered to your account and they don't have a case against you.

But then you would have Steam installed on your system which defeats the purpose of downloading a version that doesn't require Steam.

You would have Steam installed, but you wouldn't have to load it to run the torrent copy of the game because those are cracked so it doesn't defeat the purpose at all. You are only using Steam to register, you are not loading it up every time you want to play.

sliderider wrote:

You would have Steam installed, but you wouldn't have to load it to run the torrent copy of the game because those are cracked so it doesn't defeat the purpose at all.

It does because the purpose is to not install something you don't want on your system.

If you have an unreliable or slow internet connection, I can understand how Steam can truly get your goat. Mine is perfectly satisfactory, so I am not so anti-Steam that I go looking for downloads on the 'bay. I have only purchased a two games from Steam, and only because I was curious.

One thing I will never do is to purchase classic PC games, whether DOS or Windows, from GoG, Steam or some other download site. I do not need GoG to set up DOSBox within a bloated installer. I try to collect floppy disk and original CD-ROM images. To me, installing a game from the media or images of the media is part of the game's experience.

I am not sure how friendly GoG is to vintage PCs with games that were made for Windows 9x. I can tell that the resulting installs may be awfully large for disks of the time. Baldurs Gate, for example, originally came on 5 CDs + 1 for the expansion. If my hard drive did not have a spare 2.5GB, I would have to swap discs. Not ideal, but with the original release I still have the option to do that. Can't do that with a GoG release. Give me images, proper documentation and scans and I will happily spend my meager weekly allowance on GoG.

SKARDAVNELNATE wrote:

sliderider wrote:

You would have Steam installed, but you wouldn't have to load it to run the torrent copy of the game because those are cracked so it doesn't defeat the purpose at all.

It does because the purpose is to not install something you don't want on your system.

The purpose of not wanting to install Steam is not having to run it every time you want to play a game or having an active internet connection even if you want to play in single player. Just having it sit on your hard drive unused other than for the purpose of entering your registration codes does no harm.

I don't think you even need to have it installed to register game codes. Just need an account and do it directly on the webpage, but don't quote me on it. I'm not 100% sure that is possible.

Otherwise, downloading from the Bay is going to bring up the 1 copy = 1 lost sale statistics from the publishers 😉 I personally don't download any new games and I take a much firmer stand against it compared to downloading abandonware that isn't available anywhere. I like the multiplayer components and being able to talk with my friends ingame through Steam/Origin, so for me the pirated versions are at a loss. Cloud saving also makes it much easier to play where I left off regardless if I'm on my desktop or laptop.

vetz wrote:

downloading from the Bay is going to bring up the 1 copy = 1 lost sale statistics from the publishers 😉

I think the publishers might be the only ones to not realize this is a bull**** statistic.
1) They don't know how many sales they would have had were shared copies not available.
2) They don't know exactly how many copies were created through sharing.
3) It's possible people already decided not to buy their game but seeing it shared made them want to try it. So sales may have stayed the same.
4) It's possible after trying a shared copy people decided to buy one. So sales may have gone up.

Like I said before, I pirate every game out of pure spite. if I like it, i buy it. if not, it gets deleted. I make no apologies for it.

Valve is the ONLY company that has my loyalty in any sort of the term. Why? When left 4 dead came out, a LOT of copies were pirated. Instead of cracking down on the "criminal scum" they decided to offer sales and entice people to go legit. I will also buy anything Blizzard makes and anything with the word Fallout on it, but that's beside the point. The other companies, for some reason, don't seem to realize when you treat your customers like shit, they stop buying your product. With sites like the pirate bay, the slighted customers still get to enjoy the game and then they feel like they "stuck it to the man".

Blizzard was always a prime example of great support, but that has changed with their newer games. Now the only question is when Epic is going to follow their example.

"3) It's possible people already decided not to buy their game but seeing it shared made them want to try it. So sales may have stayed the same.
4) It's possible after trying a shared copy people decided to buy one. So sales may have gone up."

Once you have the free copy in your possession, what incentive do you have to go legit? Most people who download copies do so because they have no conscience about who they are hurting by doing it so they will most certainly not part with any money once they have the game unless they are forced to. They have this entitlement mentality that they are entitled to the work of others without compensation and that the only ones hurt by torrents are big, evil corporations. They don't know, and likely don't care, that corporations are made up of people who depend on the sales of the corporations products to feed their families. Not just the programmers and artists, either, secretaries, janitors, publicists, advertising people, and many others. these are regular people just trying to make a living and you are depriving them of that by downloading illegally.

As far as your argument about copies not affecting sales, if the copies were not available, then many people would have bought it through legal channels because that would be the only way they can get it.

@sliderider

exactly my point. Valve went out of their way with the L4D series to get people to buy it. They are a company that for now seems focused on the customer and making quality titles. (except HL3) They now have a fan base that Blizzard enjoyed in their hayday. Sadly Blizzard is on a downhill slide into the ranks of Ubisoft and EA, where making a profit is goal #1 and fuck everything else.

Why do people pirate games? These are the reasons that I see:

#1 fight the power! (I won't buy it)
#2 I don't have the money at all. (under 18, no job, parents wont allow it, etc)
#3 Let's see if it is worth the $60 + $40 in DLC (my camp)

sliderider wrote:

Once you have the free copy in your possession, what incentive do you have to go legit?

The desire to reward those who have made a quality product that gave you hours of joy, and to encourage them to make more.

Most people who download copies do so because they have no conscience about who they are hurting by doing it so they will most certainly not part with any money once they have the game unless they are forced to.

As far as the music industry is concerned, research has shown that the biggest pirates are also their biggest customers. I'd be very surprised if this didn't hold for the gaming industry. I know that if I had to pay full price for every crappy game I've played, I'd just find something else to do with my time. That hurts the entire industry.

IMO, if you haven't made your players happy enough that they want to give you money after they've played the game, you didn't do a very good job.