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Demigod has more pirates than customers
Author: Joe MartinPublished: 17th April 2009
Demigod has apparently face massive piracy problems, with actual customers outnumbered five to one.
'Massive piracy problems' may be a bit of an understatement though, as Stardock's Brad Wardell has claimed that there are at least five pirates for each paying customer so far.
Speaking to the Demigod community in the official forums, Brad revealed statistics that show the game servers flooded with users - far more than have actually bought the game according to sales data. Internal sales data show around 18,000 sales for the game so far, yet more than 120,000 people have attempted to activate a copy of the game so far, though luckily many of these have been thwarted.
"Sadly, most of the ~120,000 connections are not customers but via warez. About 18,000 are legitimate. So anyway, we spent a lot of time today trying to isolate out the warez users from the legitimate users," said Brad in a day-one status report.
It's times like this that DRM systems like SecuROM become a bit more understandable, even if they still aren't preferable or even very forgiveable.
Demigod becomes available in stores across the UK this May, where it will be published by Atari. Expect our review closer to that time. Until then let us know your thoughts on PC piracy in the forums.
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Oh... and ban anyone using a dodgy copy, or send them a nasty virus as a 'game patch' LOL
perhaps a demo will help thwart the thieving sons of bitc*** who claim they need to 'try' before they 'steal' !
Freeloaders screwing legitimate players?
What else is new?
What forces anyone to have to play a game the minute it is available?
A game is not air, food, water or shelter, its not something essential to life.
Lousy self-control, thats all.
This is important "Build your policies around your customers" and it applies to all people who want to sell things. Unfortunately the entertainment industry seems to have forgotten that for the most part (though the record industry is trying).
If there is no demo then tbh i'd be inclined to side on the what do you expect line (sorry stardock)
Impulse isnt really comparable to Steam. This is why I regret buying Sins of a Solar Empire. I hate using Impulse.
Yeah, we could use a bit more customers with infected PC these days! :D
The fact is that most of the PCs gets infected via warez...serves 'em right.
Playable demo is always a good idea...
Bottom line, there are a load of freeloading thieves out there who think they can get games for free with no consequences. They think that because they want to "try it out" it entitles them to steal it. If they like it, they do not pay for it anyway, they just keep playing for free. If they do not like it, then they wipe their brow and claim their piracy just saved them £30 on a game they do not like. Pah. Total rubbish. They wouldn't buy it anyway. Or maybe they can't afford it, so somehow this allows them to justify the theft. It does not. It just means they need to get a job like the rest of us, or save up their dole money for things before purchase instead of nicking them, or wait till the price drops to what they can afford.
Legitimate buyers won't really care what the industry does to stop piracy - so long as it works reasonably painlessly. They pay for it so why do they care about extra checks or what have you? I don't.
I don't see what the problem is with games on steam for example. Maybe that is because I have no problem paying for them? It works every time with zero hassle. I have only ever played one game through Windows Live, which is Dawn of War 2. Guess what? That worked and still works, no problems whatsoever as well.
The usual arguments I see against Steam go something like this :-
"But you have to connect to it to get a game to work!!!"
So what? You have the internet, your probably on it for hours every day. What exactly is the big deal? You have to wait an extra 30 seconds before you can see a loading screen or something? Are you serious? :|
"I have the game in my hands but I can't use it until it goes live on Steam!!! That might be 2 weeks away!!! I simply cannot wait that long it is the end of my world!!"
Yeah right. Grow up and wait like everyone else.
Every argument I have ever read about Steam being bad is just useless whine. We all need to accept that piracy is a huge problem, and that until we all accept some measures to cut it back, we all suffer for it.
The place where i get most games at first is LAN parties. It's a fast, fun and convenient way to try out games, exactly like it's supposed to be. I don't mind at all paying for a game i keep playing after that particular LAN though, and i really don't see how my personal consumer model would be harming the industry.
I regret the fact that what i do is not legal, and as soon as legal alternatives that are just as user-friendly arrive, i'll jump on that bandwagon. However, i cannot see how i would have bought Left4Dead if i would not have been able to enjoy the full glory on a LAN party (using an illegal copy) first. Yeah indeed, try before i buy.
Aside from my personal use-case, i think the gaming industry should be trying to compete with and embrace the methods of the pirating community. As soon as their product becomes genuinly better then that of the pirates, people will switch.
You sir, have expressed my exact thoughts on the issue. I agree with everything you say. There is zero excuse for piracy.
That is all.
This possibility isn't unique to Steam - any online activation system could make the same change - but systems that tie large amounts of software to a single account have a far greater lever over their users.
OH! So that makes it OK does it?
I dare say murder has been around for quite a long time too, but that doesn't mean its OK for me to stab you in the face.
There is no excuse for piracy. It doesn't matter what you CAN do or how you try to rationalise it... if you didn't pay for a game then you don't get to play it. End of.
So who *is* grown up and waiting? Who are the 'everyone else' ? Surely isn't me, cos if said game is restricted or held back from my country and released 2 weeks in advance somewhere else, why would I want to wait when it's available on the newsgroups the same day?
You're speaking as though people are actually patient and can place the fiscal realities of game development above personal desire. That just doesn't happen, generally (hence piracy).
I mean, you do realise you're speaking to a bunch of gamers who generally want the latest and greatest right away :D
And in a world of broadband, the entire notion that one country gets a release before another is ridiculous -- to help stem *some* of the piracy, stop such ridiculous practices and release the game online at the same time. Otherwise, they will suffer the consequences.
Sucks, but that's how it is when publishers don't anticipate the desires of the consumers.
Most people pirate because:
1) They want to try the game but not be restricted to one level
2) Want to play but cant pay for it
3) Just want to have it, because they want to have everything to fill their 8TB disk array. (aka a collector)
4) Why pay if they let you get it for free.
Its very simple:
I want a Ferrari F40, i really do. But the only way I can get it is to steal it because it is going to take me 20 years to get one the honest way. But to steal a Ferrari you need to know and do a lot of stuff. It is very hard to steal a Ferrari and once I have stolen it, its very hard to get away with it unseen. Everybody in my street knows I cant afford a Ferrari. I can not drive onto the street because off insurance and registrations. If a cop checks the plates he will immediately know its stolen.
Basically its impossible to think about stealing because it is very hard to steal a Ferrari and get away with it. A game you just download, start it up and play its very easy and anyone can do it with ease. Its purely a moral "blockade" not to do it.
Another new approach to do it is to pay for development cost before or during the game development, this way people get involved with the process and in the end play their own funded game.
Another new approach is a so called 'group-buy' How more people sign up for a group-buy how higher the discount of the item.
Well, if some companies would allow PayPal donations, I'd happily donate the cost of the game I downloaded off usenet which had no DRM in it. Or when it's released in a region weeks ahead of mine.
- Unable to buy (game not released in their region, no access to a credit card, unable to afford);
- Objection to DRM (why pay for a product that adds inconvenience?);
- Faster access (where downloading is quicker than visiting a local store);
- Preview before purchase.
One key factor that most seem to be missing is the age of those making copies. Many young (<18 years) users don't have the money to match their interest in games and also don't appreciate fully the consequences of their actions. When they reach maturity and start earning an income, this behaviour will very likely change.So in many cases, today's "pirate" will become tomorrow's consumer.
I haven't yet, (I would, if I'd know how to) but would me pirating the US version mean that I steal them?
so in screwing around with today's "pirates" you will be screwing around with tomorrow's consumers....
Maybe not, but you'd be importing goods illegally, circumventing rating laws, etc.
GOG is awesome, it's just a shame they don't have some more/better games.
EDIT: Well, I guess, I'll have to put up with it. Or move. :D
There is a Cons in P2p Game : you can't play online in 90% of the case Because the DRM For Online Server Require a Real Cd-key thus Prevent you to play on there Server that cost nothing more then pay 49.99$/59.99$ for there cd-key But for single play it Like a movie ? how many people copy movie ? about 50% of the population Burn DVD movie Rent at Video club
why pay 20$ when you can have it for 5$ that what all say my cousin / friend and some are even more cheap why Rent the movie ? when Torrent + 1$ For A DVD and Burn it They even Would Give me a Copy of that DVD if i asked them for no cost but i don't ask them such i'm plainy okay with rent movie / console game / buy my game :
I just say some company really have a huge issue with piracy when it only solo Gameplay Because any single play DRM can be Hacked (The sims 2 ect.) All people i know who posses the Sims 2 + All is expansion haven't even bough the first the sims 2
So they ende dup having over 250$ OF the sims 2 Product (If you count all Expansion at Retail cost + STuFF PACK)
But Try to get a FAKE CD-key on BAttle.net ? FOR DIABLO 2 ? For Warcraft 3 ? On Battle.net Try to Log in !? You won't ! ERROR invalid ! the chance you get one that work is 1 of 10 Billion Key Even with Generator for Online gameplay : It why my Friend said Screw Wc3 it not FREE ! : I
if The game DemiGod Want Hacker-free Experiance (increase the CD-KEY Protection LEVEL) Without DRM that damage ur System By add Example an Activation Code After CD-key = Two Key Activation (Sacred II who use IT As a Deactivation key)
But if you don't use The Online Activation key + The Retail CD-KEY on the Book You won't be able to play online
The same Should be For Demigod it simple isn't it ? : If you make the online Exclusive to you'r buyer you make money in all scenario because people will envy to play together in group with there Friend so they will buy it
In Germany, different laws will apply and my German isn't up to providing any useful advice other than to check for yourself.
It wouldn't change the amount pirates, but pirates aren't customers and wouldn't have bought it anyway, so no lost sales there.
What is there to think about? If Valve decide to charge for the service, either I will pay for it, depending on the price, or I will stop using it, and use someone else. No one else around to offer a similar service? Then I keep my money and use it on something else entirley. I certainly won't be pirating games NOW for something that might happen in the future.
Personally I would probably pay it.
Could, maybe, might. A lot of assumptions in there. If Valve charge, someone else will do it cheaper or free, then people will stop using Steam. I doubt they will charge anything, they will probably end up more like Apple and the music industry instead.
Piracy has always been a problem, ever since the days of the ZX Spectrum and tape to tape copying. The change now is instead of it being a couple of kids in the schoolyard swapping tapes, it is now a global problem involving millions. Devs measure it easier now, but also they are close to finding ways - should they have the willpower to utilise it - of making life much more difficult to pirate. Steam is just the beginning.
The only reason the gaming industry still grows is because of people like me willing to pay for the games, and in fact paying more than we should be in order to compensate for all the theiving pirates out there.
I for sure have noticed in the PC market a huge downturn in the PC games sections in stores over the last few years, where there was a whole wall of games just for the PC now your lucky to see a top 20 section and a rack of budget titles. The amount of good titles being released is also down. Piracy is certainly a contributing factor to this sad state of affairs.
It is mostly consoles now. Why bother spending a ton of money on a PC game when you can do the same on a console and get far less piracy - it is not so easy to do.
The PC games market is much more about online games now, in particular the MMO, where you generally have to pay a monthly fee. The devs know that even if you pirate the game your still going to be paying monthly for it, so the monthly cost goes up as well to get that loss back.
Very sad to see.
So bring on Steam, Steam2, or any other incarnation of it, if it helps cut down on piracy, and the ease with which Noddy Nobrain and his pal BigEars, with vapour in between them, can continue to steal with ease at the click of a button.
The quicker it happens the better. Those who pay for games and support the industry instead of stealing from it have nothing to be concerned about.
Just wanted to point out that monthly fees for MMO's have nothing to do with piracy, its for maintenence and ongoing content upgrades. Yeah piracy is bad but you're seriously overstating it.
get a decent login system...sheesh
If five times the people log in as you've created keys, your system's flawed.
Hmmm, have you found a way to get Bioshock back to it's "normal" gameplay? I have an original wrapped german copy on my desk, but if it's crippled i'll get it from the .net instead.
I'm over 30, I don't mind getting scared:D
I didn't even buy Fallout (or pirate it, I don't pirate), the censoring, WLFG etc, it's just not worth the hassle.
It would be interesting if ou could get some comment from them about whats gone wrong here and how its affected thier opinions.
The "commercial pirates" likely made a bigger difference since they dealt with adults more, but they've also been the hardest hit by P2P recently too.
What such systems do accomplish is to:
Now people buying through Steam certainly are paying through the nose with Valve charging full retail prices (especially since they don't incur the manufacturing, transport, warehousing and other costs that physical retailers do), but that is their responsibility for not shopping around (see Digital distribution rip-off suspected for some comparisons).
I would disagree about the number of releases though - compared to 5-10 years ago, we seem to have 2-3 times the number of titles. Indeed I would argue that many of the industry's problems are due to too many releases, leading to retailers discounting anything older than 1-2 months in order to make room for new stock.
And while piracy is not such a problem for MMOs (ignoring the possibility of pirate servers), they do have other issues (spam, gold farming, account hacking) increasing the cost of supporting them, compared to standalone games.
A better strategy is to maximise sales by eliminating any inconvenience to users and encouraging "non-legitimate" users to purchase via extra content and services (as the old saying goes, "You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar"). When developers and publishers take piracy personally (suggestion to developers: pirates are at least showing some interest in your software, so look on them as "potential customers" and "free publicity"), it is legitimate purchasers that get caught in the crossfire.
And piracy is not theft. This isn't just an opinion, it is based on the legal definition of theft as laid out in the Theft Act 1968, to quote:
(1) A person is guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it; and “thief” and “steal” shall be construed accordingly.
When someone makes a copy of software, no appropriation of property occurs. "Unauthorised duplication" would be a more accurate description of software piracy.
Game purchasing should be a simple process, yet we have an industry that seems to go out of its way to make things difficult. When I have to check GameCopyWorld for a no-cd patch prior to purchase, fiddle around with Daemon Tools or double check a game description for any mention of online activation (yes, my gaming PC is not Internet-connected since it allows me to minimise the security software installed), I keep wondering why I shouldn't just fire up BitTorrent instead.
Being a legitimate customer of the games industry is increasingly like being in a relationship with an abusive spouse.
Your example of eBay is rather ironic too, given that they did just this by increasing listing and final sale fees (sellers are locked into their system more than buyers are).
Now, the roughly 120,000 users that werent running legitimate copies of the game werent online playing multiplayer or anything. The issue with those users was as benign as a handful of HTTP calls that did things like check for updates and general server keep alive. Pretty trivial on its own until you have 120,000 of them. Then you have what amounts to a DDOS attack on yourself.
IMO, there's the pirates who would never buy the game anyway (so not in fact lost sales) and the pirates who have one or more reasons to pirate who could and probably would be paying customers if incentivised by the publishers.
Making things hard for paying customers is driving them to piracy more than its affecting the existing pirates. So SecureROM et al are in fact boosting piracy IMO.
Steam, even though it is in effect a DRM platform, does benefit the paying customer and as such makes a killing. I personally buy games on Steam, even though they're cheaper elsewhere sometimes cos I like to be able to install Steam on any machine and download and play games through my account.
Impulse seems to be very similar to Steam, I used it again recently to play Sins. Had no problem installing it, logging in and downloading and playing Sins. Worked just how I expected. Only issue was the piss-poor internet speeds on the hotel's 'high speed' internet. :D
indeed, that was my first reaction to this news.
But Demigod has NO DRM. Still people pirated it. And those numbers of piracy are just insane. Nobody can tell me that those pirates are "potential customers, just trying out". Most of them are just thieves. F*cking over the ones that payed for the game.
[rant]
I am starting to take offence in all those little excuses as why to pirate. It's thieving, period. I don't care why you pirate, you are f*cking over me as a legal customer. I have to put up with some DRM crap, because you have stolen other games. Then you whine about it "Meh, DRM is forcing me to pirate." Rather wonder why it's there in the first place.
It's just like Titan Quest all over again. That game didn't have invasive DRM either. You just couldn't play the game correctly. Pirates even called the support asking for help and - guess what - costing money. Because of pirates there won't be a sequel of that game. Numbers where even bigger there iirc.
So please, pirates, stfu, mind the doors and take your little wannabe-excuses with you.
[/rant]
/End of pirating discussion. :)
TitanQuest in my view should be seen as a massive own goal by Iron Lore. By all means, include anti-piracy checks - but if they fail, you make damn sure the player knows its a licensing issue. Why? Because no code is perfect, you will always have boundary cases and therefore always the chance of a legitimate copy being mistaken for warez. Had TitanQuest thrown up a message like:
"This game has failed a licensing check and is believed to be an illegitimate copy. If you did purchase this, please accept our apologies and contact <support details> to help us determine the cause of the problem.
If you copied this illegally, we hope you enjoyed the game so far. However please understand that we require your support to continue producing products like this - as such, please uninstall this copy and purchase a valid one from <favoured retailer>. Thanks for your time!"
then IronLore would likely not have encountered the problems it had and TitanQuest would probably sold better. As it was, I was able to purchase a copy of the Deluxe Edition for just £7 seven months after release. Games with a buggy reputation depreciate fast.
Personally, I love Steam and think it's a damn good solution to a difficult problem. I just wish it saved my savegames too, so my laptop and desktop(s) would be matched...
Seriously though, While I believe Stardock is going the right way about their DRM (ie, hardly noticable to paying customers like myself) nothing is gonna stop people thinking they can play for free.
In fact, Stardock support you playing a 2-player LAN with a single serial (which I plan to do this week with a colleague while travelling with work) and I suspect if he likes the game, he'll buy it.
I agree that its unfortunate that the legit players got screwed by the pirates unwittingly but effectively DDOSing the Demigod servers but the latest patch, released within 24-hours, put legit copies that are patched up onto a diff group of servers and apparently the mulitplayer experience has improved massively.
Its this kind of forward-thinking developer I'm happy to support and I suspect others are likely to agree. :)
observation:
DRM costs money to implement and licence
DRM does not prevent piracy
You just burned money, in a useless peace of technology that will be bypassed before the game is released, money that could have gone to the designers and coders to reduce the number of bugs, bugs that killed Titan Quest, not piracy.
The fact that the pirates had a hard time playing the game means that you get bad publicity from a rather large community, a large percentage of them are avid consumers.
Another observation is that pirates are also clients, they are considered avid consumers of media, if you don't want me as your client please state that wish and i will make sure that no one i know buys your stuff (if you state that wish please indicate the company that you work for, thank you), contrary to what you may think, a pirate has a lot of leverage these days, and you better start investing your money in making the game as good and accessible as possible and not as inaccessible as possible.
One last observation about Demigod is that this game was unknown to me before this news post and would continue to be until i would some day stumble on it, low amount of publicity usually gives low sales during the first days of your product, if your product is good it will grow in sales because of the word of mouth phenomenon, if your product is an over hipped POS, it will sell amazingly during the first days, and fail in sales during the rest of its life, look at spore for a nice example.
The "I'm too poor to buy this/try before you buy" crowd have no valid argument for piracy. you don't get to buy a mars bar and try that before you buy it.
Theft is theft.
me: "Hey friend, can you give me a little bit of your mars bar? (its completely different from the last mars bar i got and quality depends on the maker) So i can try it before i buy it."
Mister_X: "NO! You cant try it before you buy it, it would be considered theft!"
i ask: "then how do i know its what i like?"
Mister_X states: "Go to a chocolate review website, or order the demo chocolate."
me : "You mean those websites that told me that l'Chiocolatera chocolates were awesome, set me back 50€ and then i stated that they tasted like suppositories? As for the demo, why should i base my view on a peace of chocolate that is smaller than half a peanut? Why cant you share with me a little bit of your mars bar?"
Mister_X: "Theft is theft. Go away, or i am calling the police"
You can not compare an object, like a mars bar, with a peace of intellectual property, like a DVD with a film.
You consume the mars bar and its gone, you see a DVD and its still there, you lend the mars bar to a friend and its gone, you lend a DVD to a friend and you can still recover it, you want to buy another mars bar and you know that your previous mars bar was awesome, you can not do the same judgement on a game based on a previous game from the same company, if that was the truth then deus ex would have been a major flop. If you want to consume 10 mars bars you have to buy 10 mars bars, if you want to see a DVD 10 times you only have to buy it once, as of now there is no universal chocolate copy machine, there are several methods to copy every type of media, replicate it infinitely and transmit it to an infinite number of people.
etc...
This debate remembers me of the views of those guys that wanted Gutenberg and his invention dead, they said that it was the work of the devil, it was against the laws, that writers were being starved because people were not buying their books, thousands of scribes were unemployed.
Eventually they made a police system to hunt down people that used Gutenberg's invention. You know what was his invention and what it made possible?
Those who pay for games, go in to a shop try them on and decide to buy or not.
Pirates want to go in to the shop, try them on, take them home, wear them for a weekend out, then lend them to several friends who also wear them before deciding to buy or not. So they nick them in order to do it.
They decide NOT to buy and throw them in the back of the cupboard.
Should they decide to BUY, they can't face going back into the shop they nicked them from in the first place, so keep them for free anyway instead of going back and paying out the £35 for the trainers.
All this crap about being an important market blah blah blah. Your not. Because you don't pay anyway.
There are two points I will say pirates have a point with - every game should have a decent demo to evaluate it properly ,and there are so many of you robbing theiving people out there, if they find a way to make you pay instead of stealing they (publishers) can make a lot more money.
Your blatantly avoiding the point I'm making.
People who create pirate software or download pirated software want something for nothing. It's the creation of the pseudo justification thats almost laughable. Let me instead of creating an analogy say this, Just because you CAN do it doesn't mean you SHOULD do it.
If you want to try before you by, wait for the demo. If your "friend" has it, sure take a look at it, or even borrow it, nowt wrong with that.
But copying it in the name of "trying" it when the VAST majority will not and never had the intention of buying it... You can't take the moral high ground, Its illegal!
I'm not crusading for justice here. Infact if I'm honest I first played Gal Civ II ( another stardock game) on a " liberally licensed" copy. I liked it so much and after reading how Stardock don't DRM their games, i bought it. Didn't mean it was right of me to do it in the first place.
You said it far more concisely than i did!
can i correct your analogy?
you don't agree with the corrected analogy? why not?
Any analogy about piracy has to consider the fact that the original object never left the shelf of the store.
One thing is a real finite object, the other is an object that can become infinite with current everyday technology, when this happens you get an effect similar to what happened when the fist printers appeared, suddenly something (books) that was limited becomes unlimited and becomes fuel for what we are today, with this event lots of jobs disappeared and lots of people lost money, especially those that did not want the printer to become widespread.
I am not an important market? then i want a refund for all the media that i was influenced to buy and i influenced other people to buy due to piracy.
Just because you CAN sue your potential clients doesn't mean you SHOULD do it.
Question: Mister_X, what is similar in the next scenarios?
* downloading an album from a torrent site
* your friend lends you an album for you to listen
* album exchange with your friends
* going to a second hand shop to get the album
* listening to loud music with your CD walkman with a real album on the streets with people passing by.
As for the demo.... in certain cases the demo will come out when the universe ends, in other cases the demo makes the game look so bad that it prevents you from buying it and on a lot of occasions the demo is the best part of the game, you want to have fun with the game? play the demo and save your self some money to buy a game that is worth your money.
edit: i am not pro-piracy, i am in favour of the media giants taking their huge heads out of their asses and start thinking of ways to commercially compete with piracy... maybe start a torrent tracker seeing that pirate bay is getting such huge profits.... or so does the media companies say.
Because SOMEONE had to go in there and nick the orignal pair in the first place, before your magic machine copies it for the world. There is no photo, they nick the product itself. Someone got the the original, copied it, and made it available for everyone else.
They don't go and take a photo of it and leave it on the shelf. They nick it, copy it and distribute it.
Try doing that in any other cirumstance, such as buying trainers, and you can see how ridiculous it is trying to justify what your doing.
Just stop trying to justify it, because you can't. Just say "yeah I nick all this software, I know it is wrong to do it, I know it is illegal to do it, but I can get away with it so I do."
No your not. You seem to have some sort of egotistical issue, that because you go and steal your important. Your not. You don't encourage people to buy, you encourage them to steal.
You want a refund on every item you actually did go and buy because someone on your warez site told you it was great? ? Hahahaha. That one really made me laugh. maybe everyone who ever read a mag review on a game or bought soemthing because there mate down the pub told them it was awsome gets a refund as well? Hahahaha.
Whatever you bought, welcome to the real world. You bought a product and got it. You don't get a refund for buying something, because guess what? Your not important.
You don't influence anyone to buy anything, just the opposite, you influence and encourage them them to steal it, not buy it. All this rubbish about how you steal god knows how many copies of different games and then without fail go and buy the ones you like, and not only that, so does everyone else you advise to do so, is, bull.
Or..
Just because you CAN steal items doesn't mean you SHOULD steal.
So if they don't get a good demo out, don't buy it until they do. Don't nick it. Don't justify stealing because "in certain cases" so you blanket steal every game out there. It's childish and laughable to do so.
Nah your not pro-piracy, same as every other pirate out there, you just steal as it suits you and then come up with bull to justify doing it, while blaming everyone else for it.
"Demo is not out on time, so I steal"
"Demo is out on time, but not good enough or long enough or whatever other reason I decide at the time, so I steal"
"I hate DRM"
"There is no DRM on this game, but it was out 2 weeks ago in the US, so I'm stealing it"
"It's too expensive and I am not waiting 2 whole months for the price to drop, so I am stealing it"
"This one is not too expensive, but the cover is blue and I wanted it red, so I'm stealing it"
"It's a Saturday and this game was released on a day with the letter "y" in it, and even more important the moon was only half full at that time, which is against my personal beliefs, so I am stealing it"
Same as every other pirate over the years. Bull all the way.
you know that for a fact? wasn't the original bought? i think it is kind of stupid for you and your release group to attract unwanted attention by stealing from a shop full of cameras and security equipment... but that's you and your MO, if you have a source to back that information please supply that information. as for the photo + universal copier, look at this:
h05KrEjHW6g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h05KrEjHW6g
you talk as if you personally know my conversation with people, its amazing... by the way, please state what media company you work for so i can see if i already infringed its intellectual property and so i can boycott it in terms of future infringements and purchases, if you wish you can PM me and i will keep it a secret from everyone in this forum.
i think you missed the point entirely, your magazine tells me its an amazing game, the warez group tells me its an amazing game, the mate down the pub told me it was awesome, i go home, go to google, and download the game, try it for my self and observe that it is a complete amount of horse s***, i then decide to permanently delete it from my hard drive and don't seed it to at least 1, i trust no ones opinion on games and films, i see them for my self and then, if i like them, i purchase or go to the cinema, there are some things that are better being the original and thanks to the money i did not spend on lula 3D i can purchase call of duty 4.
you mean that if i purchase your media at full price i am not important? i am not a client? didnt i help pay your efforts? Again, i urge you to state your company so i can completely avoid such amount of idiocy.
the worse kind of business is when you call the people, that helped you pay your bills, names.
btw, i do have the right for a refund, it requires that i don't open the game and has a time limit.
you must be some kind of mind reader, that or you are like God, omni-present and all-knowing, you state without a shadow of a doubt that i never buy the things i like and you state that i encourage people to commit copyright infringement, congratulations, you just won a you-were-right-on-nothing award.
Just because you CAN X doesn't mean you SHOULD X.
this formula applies to about anything, example:
Just because you CAN procreate doesn't mean you SHOULD procreate.
Just because you CAN live doesn't mean you SHOULD live.
Just because you CAN call me a thief doesn't mean you SHOULD call me a thief.
etc....
IF i was to do exactly like you say, i would have much less original games than i have now, the game companies would not get my money and piracy would still be the scape goat, what the change positive?
AMAZING, somehow you somehow know what every single pirate does, and they all do the same thing! You must be God or something.
And with this last part you entered the realm of silliness, the realm from where flame baiting trolls come from, the same ones that appear all over message boards and forums to annoy and bait people into a completely pointless debate.
The similarities between intellectual property infraction and theft is that they are both crimes, the similarities end there, each has its own rules of approach and conduct in case of trial, each has its own different penalties, you do not put infractions in the same bag, even if they are similar.
I urge you to call things by their names, unless you like being called Salazar instead of your real name. (António de Oliveira Salazar was human, you are human, hence you are Salazar).
And to end my post: Piracy AKA intellectual property infraction is a crime, it is a crime that is punished by your local authority according to your laws.
if you want to put everything in the same bag please do like the Chinese do, put piracy in the same law group as murder and put a bullet in the head of every pirate you can find.
While Stardock's system may at first glance seem more forgiving (no fixed install limits) in practice it has all the same perils and pitfalls as, say, SecuROM online: number of installs subject to Stardock's discretion; sig.bin keyfile locked to unspecified hardware/system details; users subject to changes in terms and conditions like re-activation fees (see section 3 of this thread), etc
And while Stardock does provide an email activation option, you'll likely regret using it. In my case, it took 3 weeks (and four attempts by Stardock Support) to get a working key and that doesn't seem to be a unique case (another example here).
DRM has the possibility of making more money from legitimate purchasers. I've commented previously about online activation being used to kill off the second-hand market and the possibility of it being used to levy monthly fees. Another option (which is starting to happen) is the bundling (and required installation) of publishers' e-store software, which is then used to market further games directly to users.
Now if users install such software voluntarily and purchase through it, then that's not a problem. Enforced installation however results in users having multiple copies of similar programs running (EAStore, UbiStore, etc) wasting resources. It allows publishers to claim exaggerated audience sizes (which in turn can be used to negotiate higher royalty fees from developers). It encourages publishers to ignore user preferences (why bother providing an option to disable marketing popups if people have no choice but to run their software?) and can create a distribution monopoly ("No, you can't buy through Impulse or Steam or via a heavily discounted online store - you have to pay us full price instead").
This can certainly make publishers more money - but it will be the (unwary) legimate customer that bears the cost.
There is one way a truly customer-focused publisher can protect their content - look at the shareware market (GetRight, WinZip, WinRAR, Outpost Firewall, Total Uninstall, etc) as the ideal example. You register once to get a key which can then be used on any subsequent installations. Many programs display their registration details (giving legitimate users a greater sense of ownership and encouraging the less legitimate to register for themselves) and known "warez" keys can be disabled via a local blocklist, updated along with program upgrades.
It's not a perfect anti-piracy technique (warez users will be denied the latest versions only) but it has genuinely no impact for purchasers and avoids the expense (and significant additional support costs, which have to be paid for by higher prices) of third party or online activation systems.