Garry tried that once with the "cannot shade normals" update. The threads of the 'error message' appear and so many kids were banned with certain degrees of hilarity, and no legit user got the error.

I'd like a show of hands - who here is saying "pirates are greedy assholes" on the one hand, and downloading game of thrones on the other? My hand's up!

badmofo, me to! By the way, last two episodes were awesome

But if there was no piracy, the Game of Thrones would never become that popular. On my PC I have every episode of Friends, How I met your mother, Scrubs, 30rock, House M.D., The Big Bang Theory, Doctor Who, etc. If there was no piracy, I wouldn't even know half of them existed. I would've watched only Friends because it is on TV every day. Life would be miserable!

I would love to support the Doctor Who team, I would love to buy some merch, not that there is any for sale here 😀

Isn't it our job to get stuff we like and support only stuff we love?

badmofo: me too :-I However Im not saying pirates are greedy.

Watched episode 5 yesterday! Loving it....Vikings is half decent too.

badmofo wrote:

I'd like a show of hands - who here is saying "pirates are greedy assholes" on the one hand, and downloading game of thrones on the other? My hand's up!

My hand is up.

Piracy doesn't bother me as much as the idea that you're somehow "forced" to do it.

In reality, if you don't like the terms of the license agreement, you CAN just say no. You don't "HAVE" to pirate it.

I download TV episodes. But I don't pretend that I'm entitled to do so.

Some 'pirates' are 'Robin Hoods' of the seas,
Some 'pirates' are 'Crusaders' of uncharted waters,
But the mainstream mass,
Still call them Outlaws.

Pirates are bums. At what Steam charges for games nowadays... it's really stupid to spend your bandwidth on downloading some pirated crap which might screw your pc up may not work, can't be patched, etc etc bla bla...Most games get reduced in price massively after a year or so, so if you just hang back the curve a bit, you could save substantial amounts. It''s not like you could play everything in a single month anyway...

Malik wrote:

Some 'pirates' are 'Robin Hoods' of the seas, Some 'pirates' are 'Crusaders' of uncharted waters, But the mainstream mass, Sti […]
Show full quote

Some 'pirates' are 'Robin Hoods' of the seas,
Some 'pirates' are 'Crusaders' of uncharted waters,
But the mainstream mass,
Still call them Outlaws.

I recall you saying in another thread that you use console emulators. So unless you dumped the all the BIOS files from consoles you own yourself and only play games that you purchased I'd dare to call this post hypocritical...

Greed, outlaws and hypocrisy! What a great thread!

leileilol wrote:

and that's counting only the naive pirates that don't use software firewalls!

And not the smart ones who bought the game and do have firewalls.

By the way, would the figures be different when the game would have DRM?
It also makes clear that gamedevelopers are the largest group of pirates, who on earth would want to play this anyway?

I'll admit, I've pirated all sorts of things over the years (who hasn't? 😜), but I think pirating an indie game that lacks DRM is kind of low, in my opinion.

You know what I think is funny though? People who are all like "l0l piracy is bad" then they go on YouTube to watch pirated TV shows/movies/music videos or listen to pirated music people have posted or whatever. I mean, even if you don't upload things yourself or "download" things, by viewing pirated materials on YouTube you're still contributing to piracy by encouraging it with views/favorites/subscriptions/ratings/whatever, and you're also still technically downloading the materials you're viewing, because hey, it all has to be cached SOMEWHERE locally so that you can view it. 😜

Case in point, I'm a pirate, and if you use the Internet at all you're probably a pirate as well! 🤣

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

I'll admit, I've pirated all sorts of things over the years (who hasn't? 😜), but I think pirating an indie game that lacks DRM is kind of low, in my opinion.

So there are "good" developers/content creators who deserve the money and others where it's OK to pirate, and then go online to rant about evil pirates who steal from the aforementioned "good" people? Interesting.

Malik wrote:

corporate bastar*s like EA and Bethesda are minting money by the second.

EA and Bethesda have thousands of employees who depend on their jobs to support their families. Should they be forced to take less pay so you can buy their employers games cheaper?

sgt76 wrote:

Pirates are bums. At what Steam charges for games nowadays... it's really stupid to spend your bandwidth on downloading some pirated crap which might screw your pc up may not work, can't be patched, etc etc bla bla...Most games get reduced in price massively after a year or so, so if you just hang back the curve a bit, you could save substantial amounts. It''s not like you could play everything in a single month anyway...

Yeah, not all steam games get drops. Look up Transformers: Fall of Cybertron, The Amazing Spiderman. These are a couple that almost never get a good deal cut down where as Max Payne 3 is always hitting the $9.99 mark. There is no way in hell I'm paying $60 for a game over a year old. I will almost always wait for a deep discount as it should be mostly patched up and problems identified by then.

Old games or games out of print I think are ripe for pirating. This way you get a patched and cracked version ususally ready to go. Sites like GOG may help but thats only like a 1/8th of released titles. I think the same for any media that doesn't have a easy avenue to get ahold of.

sgt76 wrote:

Pirates are bums. At what Steam charges for games nowadays... it's really stupid to spend your bandwidth on downloading some pirated crap which might screw your pc up may not work, can't be patched, etc etc bla bla...Most games get reduced in price massively after a year or so, so if you just hang back the curve a bit, you could save substantial amounts. It''s not like you could play everything in a single month anyway...

Yeah I agree with you there because at one point I was a serious pirate... then I grew some sense and stopped. The only things I seriously pirate these days are older games that are not widely available for a decent price or to try them out on Windows 7 before I purchase them since I lack a decent retro rig for older Windows games.

sliderider wrote:

Malik wrote:

corporate bastar*s like EA and Bethesda are minting money by the second.

EA and Bethesda have thousands of employees who depend on their jobs to support their families. Should they be forced to take less pay so you can buy their employers games cheaper?

EA and Bethesda also have execs who depend on their jobs to support their SUVs. Should the consumers be forced to pay more so the game company CEO and execs can get higher bonus and golden parachutes?

Really, I never understand some people's obsession to worship the Atlas instead of becoming a rational egoist themselves; people who treat corporations like sports teams, people who relentlessly defend their favorite corporation(s) using any debating tactics possible, including false assumption fallacy.

I'm a consumer, and more over, I'm a rational egoist consumer. When spending my hard-earned money, I seek to maximize my own interest, not the interests of Bethesda, EA, or Microsoft execs. I have no interest to put my hard-earned money on the holy altar of corporatism so the Atlas can have more expensive three-martini lunches. Granted, the job loss of game company employees is most unfortunate, but it is simply the height of naivete (or hypocrisy) to falsely assume that overpriced products is a necessity to support thousands of employees.

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

EA and Bethesda also have execs who depend on their jobs to support their SUVs. Should the consumers be forced to pay more so the game company CEO and execs can get higher bonus and golden parachutes?

🤣. They sell VIDEO GAMES. Nobody's "forced" to buy them. I giggle whenever I hear people use the word "forced" when it comes to games, music, movies, TV, whatever.

Do executives operate a business to maximise profits? Of course they do, they're not a charity.

As long as people are willing to pay up to $100 for a piece of entertainment software, companies will charge that much. It's not a conspiracy, there's no elaborate psychological analysis necessary, it's business.

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

I'm a consumer, and more over, I'm a rational egoist consumer. When spending my hard-earned money, I seek to maximize my own interest, not the interests of Bethesda, EA, or Microsoft execs. I have no interest to put my hard-earned money on the holy altar of corporatism so the Atlas can have more expensive three-martini lunches.

You put your hard-earned money on the counter at the game shop because you want that dose of pixels enough to pay the asking price. Anything that happens thereafter is immaterial. The reason you did or did not buy something is irrelavant outside your own cranium.

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

it is simply the height of naivete (or hypocrisy) to falsely assume that overpriced products is a necessity to support thousands of employees.

Oh god. There's that word. "Overpriced". Hahaha.

If people are willing to pay a price for an item, by definition it's not "overpriced".

You, or some other "egotist consumer" might decree that you personally find it "overpriced", but this is little more than an opinion. Your thoughts and circumstances are far from universal.

SquallStrife wrote:

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

EA and Bethesda also have execs who depend on their jobs to support their SUVs. Should the consumers be forced to pay more so the game company CEO and execs can get higher bonus and golden parachutes?

🤣. They sell VIDEO GAMES. Nobody's "forced" to buy them. I giggle whenever I hear people use the word "forced" when it comes to games, music, movies, TV, whatever.

You don't get it. I merely returned sliderider's argument from the flip side of the coin. Whether the game is actually overpriced or not is debatable, but that's not the point. The point is: it is utterly ridiculous to justify a corporate greed in the name of its employee. What makes sliderider assume that the money raked by EA or Bethesda automatically translate to their common employee's benefit?

SquallStrife wrote:

Do executives operate a business to maximise profits? Of course they do, they're not a charity.

Precisely. The only goal of a corporation is maximize profit. There is nothing wrong with seeking profit in itself, and yet there is no moral justification for it either. That's why I never understand arguments like that of sliderider - arguments that (desperately) try to use moral reason to justify profit maximization. Not to mention appeal to emotion fallacy.

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

The point is: it is utterly ridiculous to justify a corporate greed in the name of its employee. What makes sliderider assume that the money raked by EA or Bethesda automatically translate to their common employee's benefit?

I can't speak specifically for EA or Bethesda, but many large companies have employee profit-sharing programs or annual bonuses that are tied directly to how well the business does that year.

So in many case "money raked" does translate to the employees' benefit.

Maybe sliderider knows something about this for EA or Bethesda?

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

Precisely. The only goal of a corporation is maximize profit. There is nothing wrong with seeking profit in itself, and yet there is no moral justification for it either. That's why I never understand arguments like that of sliderider - arguments that try to use moral reason to justify profit maximization.

You know what usually happens when companies fail to maximise profit?

People lose their jobs.

Seems like that's plenty justification.

SquallStrife wrote:

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

The point is: it is utterly ridiculous to justify a corporate greed in the name of its employee. What makes sliderider assume that the money raked by EA or Bethesda automatically translate to their common employee's benefit?

I can't speak specifically for EA or Bethesda, but many large companies have employee profit-sharing programs or annual bonuses that are tied directly to how well the business does that year.

So in many case "money raked" does translate to the employees' benefit.

Would you like to know how the fourth most profitable game company treat their employees?

Money raked by a corporation may translate to employee's benefits, but that's not always the case. A company can still treat their employees like shit despite the large money it rakes. Ever heard of Wal-Mart?

SquallStrife wrote:

Maybe sliderider knows something about this for EA or Bethesda?

I would like him to show some facts instead of false assumption fallacy and appeal to emotion fallacy to justify corporate greed.

SquallStrife wrote:

You know what usually happens when companies fail to maximise profit? […]
Show full quote

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

Precisely. The only goal of a corporation is maximize profit. There is nothing wrong with seeking profit in itself, and yet there is no moral justification for it either. That's why I never understand arguments like that of sliderider - arguments that try to use moral reason to justify profit maximization.

You know what usually happens when companies fail to maximise profit?

People lose their jobs.

Seems like that's plenty justification.

Profit = revenue minus cost.

Employee's salary is cost. A company can have zero profit and still be able to pay its employees.