cutterjohn
Sentinel
- Joined
- October 26, 2006
- Messages
- 314
While I don't pirate games, I DO utilize the fruits of the pirating, namely the no-CD/DVD executables that allow me to a) remove the onerous copy protection and probably security holes and incompatibilities that they bring with them as well as not insignificant performance degradation caused by their utilization, b) protection of my original media(try getting replacement media and one at a reasonable cost, I gave up LONG ago), c) freedom from the inconvenience of having to maintain a pile of CD/DVDs just to play a game or use some piece of software, etc.Not really. The main reason people pirate, is economic. Sure some do it just because they can, but I think that number is small. The other reason could be 'delay'. Nothing annoys me more than having to wait several months after N/A release or even European release for something to be released here (if at all)!! I can afford to order overseas and pay the shipping, many can't.
The only things I BT are TV shows which won't be seen here for at least 6 months after airing elsewhere. That annoys me!! I don't support pirating, it damages the industry, but when you have to wait 3-6 months for a game to be released here after it's released elsewhere, and it costs $90-100, I can understand why some people do it!!!!
This whole argument goes the same way as MPAA and RIAA arguments, and there have been several arguments pointing out that losses aren't really losses as 99.9999% of those people pirating wouldn't or couldn't buy the software in the first place, ancillary pirating(if you for example, consider my common utilization of cracked executables even though I own the game as pirating which is generally implied), etc.
All of that said, I've only ever had one single game that ever was totally broken out of the box such that it wouldn't install and that was Red Alert. This game failed to install in a very poor fashion as well, as the installer would appear to start up and then do absolutely nothing, no error message, no dialog box, just a white box drawn on the screen with absolutely zero support coming from the publisher and/or developer(win2k was up-to-date at the time, so a pirated version would've likely worked if I had bothered to look for one). As it turns out in this case it was likely an installer bug with win2k as when I remembered it, and tried installing it several years later, voila the installer suddenly worked fine IF the win2k install was updated to SP4 plus fixes(never tried anything less than an original win2k release).
Every other game/app has worked unless my machine didn't meet the specs, in which case I avoided the problem by simply not purchasing the software. In other cases it's very likely that the end users machine is not updated. OTOH we have draconian copy protection software/libs that refuse to play nicely with other software, especially those which allow virtual devices, e.g. Alcohol 120% which is a perfectly legal piece of software(potentially).
Console software is eventually just as readily piratable as PC software, esp. in certain countries where legitimate fully protected media is just copied and released, along with movies, PC software, music, etc.
I just don't buy many games myself as most of them are uninteresting or in genres that I'm not enough of a fan of to bother with, e.g. FPS, strategy games, adventure games, etc. I do like SOME games from those categories, but RPGs are pretty much the only genre that I buy most of what comes out for. These other genres just have very few games which I find interesting enough to bother and most of those I find because friends, etc. have convinced me to try them out, e.g. Half Life. Add to that I generally abhor real time, so in another case, strategy games, I used to buy quite a bit of but now that most games have to be RTS I just find the compromises made to make RTS workable just have ruined the genre for me, e.g. general dumbing down, poor AI, etc.
Bottom line here is: Whining about pirates doesn't excuse crappy games and poorly marketed or buggy games that justifiably fail in the market place, which is exactly what it comes down to.
[EDIT]
Almost forgot:
This also doesn't include the fact that most games come out in almost identical form on multiple platforms, e.g. PC & Console, so in a sense by multi-platforming they are immediately cannibalizing potential PC sales.
[/EDIT]
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- Joined
- Oct 26, 2006
- Messages
- 314