Dhruin
SasqWatch
Well, it wasn't a tactic to ignore your bold point - I was thinking about a number of things and ended up addressing only some. Off to work, so I'll respond when I get the chance.
So are you saying that actually the entire AAA PC industry, except Blizzard (which co-incidentally, happens to have a game mechanism that is pointless to pirate), is simultaneously suffering from over competition, poor product, poor marketing and other bad business situations?The PC game development industry, like every industry, has some companies that flourish, some that fail. Always has, always will. The difference with the PC gaming industry is that instead of attributing failure to stiff competition, poor product, poor marketing, changes in the market or any other of the very real reasons businesses fail, a large majority of them simply cry "piracy!". Now, for a very few select companies this might actually be the case, but everytime sales don't meet expectations? No.
It's not the sales rankings that are complaining about the piracy problem, it's the developers/publishers themselves - they have the real sales figures, not the charts.(also remember that all the major source of units sold don't consider on-line distribution, such as Steam, which form a large part of PC gaming sales).
Then why are video games sales up so much as a whole?Furthermore, the US is on the brink of a recession - companies are struggling in all walks of business, and you'd be hard pushed to blame piracy there.
A good point, and perhaps it could be argued that where once PC gaming was the hobby on only a few geeks, piracy has enabled a wider audience to take part who wouldn't otherwise part with money for a game. But on the other hand, console sales just seem to fly in the face of that one - why should people prefer playing the game on a console so much more than on a PC? In fact, why are they willing to pay more to do so as well?But what if none of them ever would have bought it? Then it would have had no impact on sales. The inventory would be lost, but that would be all (and the cost that would be insignificant).
So it's not a question of how many people play pirated games. It's a question of how many of those people would have otherwise bought those games.
How do you figure that out? Beats me.
face of that one - why should people prefer playing the game on a console so much more than on a PC? In fact, why are they willing to pay more to do so as well?
So it's not a question of how many people play pirated games. It's a question of how many of those people would have otherwise bought those games.
The whole "I want to be able to play the game whenever I want, even 10 years from now" argument is somewhat flawed because you can't do that with 10 year old games now, can you? In order to get most of your games from the 90'ies to run on your current XP or Vista PC's you have to install a third party program to make it work. So when push comes to shove: What is the difference between installing DOSBox and installing a "No Online Check" patch?
I was mostly agreeing until upto here. How is using OS/PC emulation or virtualisation in line with using a crack? This type of app (?) is becoming more common, and the crack on it's own is not going to get it to run on a non-supported system.
If the game works in this case, you will most likely need the cd-numbers or code-in-manuals.
I was mostly agreeing until upto here. How is using OS/PC emulation or virtualisation in line with using a crack? This type of app (?) is becoming more common, and the crack on it's own is not going to get it to run on a non-supported system.
If the game works in this case, you will most likely need the cd-numbers or code-in-manuals.
What game was it if I may ask? Some old ones are almost impossible to get.
The whole "I want to be able to play the game whenever I want, even 10 years from now" argument is somewhat flawed because you can't do that with 10 year old games now, can you? In order to get most of your games from the 90'ies to run on your current XP or Vista PC's you have to install a third party program to make it work. So when push comes to shove: What is the difference between installing DOSBox and installing a "No Online Check" patch?
Amount of actual inconvenience posed to overwhelmingly vast percentage of customers?: minimal
Amount of drama surrounding discussion of said copy protection scheme?: maximal
It was "The Beauty and the Beast" by Disney. DOS version. I just couldn't find it anymore, and to my greatest delight someone I think mailed me a copy.
My, was I happy !!! Because the demo had been one of my very, very, very first games on the PC ever !
Since this game is copyrighted by an ESA member (former the IDSA), or its subsidiary thereof, we are not permitted to distribute it due to the ESA notice. Please contact the company directly to either sell it to you, release it into the public domain, or give us the permission to distribute.
http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?id=111
....
It's mostly rubbish anyway - nearly all of my 90's games still work just fine thankyou. If we're talking 80's games then yes, some hoops are required.
Amount of actual inconvenience posed to overwhelmingly vast percentage of customers?: minimal
Amount of drama surrounding discussion of said copy protection scheme?: maximal
The drama on this thread is frikkin unbelievable.
Amount of actual inconvenience posed to overwhelmingly vast percentage of customers?: minimal
Amount of drama surrounding discussion of said copy protection scheme?: maximal
The drama on this thread is frikkin unbelievable.
It's mostly rubbish anyway - nearly all of my 90's games still work just fine thankyou. If we're talking 80's games then yes, some hoops are required - but all you're doing is creating the appropriate environment for them to run normally... you're not hacking the game itself in any way, it's purely the operating system environment that's being manipulated to make it more like what the game expects... something we've done with games for many, many years (e.g. upgrading display drivers because the game won't run - is that a hack now too?).
All it means is that every 10 days it will do the check. If you play for 10 days straight it will only connect once but if you play 1 time every 10 days then it will connect every time you start the game. That's it. You're not locked out unless it can't connect after the 10 days or your key has been banned.skavenhorde said:My concern is that I don't always just play one game. I'm always bouncing around different games and sometimes will let one go for a month or two before revisiting it. What about then? My 10 day experation date will have expired, LMAO it has about the same shelf life of milk now. I guess I'll have to crack it once it has "expired" or deal with EA tech support *shiver*