• 1

    posted a message on Your thoughts on piracy/illegal downloading
    Quote from Eskanasi

    Quote from Turmobil

    Piracy is fine.
    I support freeware developers.
    Blizzard is being a total douche for removing LAN from their games just because Kotick is being a greedy fuck.

    Indie games I have no problem with.
    Just that most of them suck balls and don't deserve my money.
    Especially the ones that call themselves 'art.'
    That's just a bunch of bull.

    As Equinox said, they have to adjust to the new market.
    This is no longer their territory.

    Blizzard took LAN out simply because there are lots of people out there with that attitude. It's an obvious anti-piracy maneuver. And how do you mean "This is no longer their territory"? They are creating the games that you play, and they want to make a living out of it, they have families and in any case themselves to feed, something I think you'll find they definitely don't steal (food). Anyways, why I respect your opinion, I wished you'd kept it to yourself.

    The thing about piracy is that without it many people just wouldn't be able to afford the products their pirating anyway. I mean think about it, I have maybe 50-60 games in my library right now, that's... $6000 if you count it all at $99.99 a game (though some are cheaper I realise), and that's a whole lot of money that most people just can't spend due to them having more pressing needs like food.

    Now, with the above in mind, many companies adjust their prices against piracy, and some pirates use the fact that companies overprice their products to insure against the pirates somehow justifies their piracy, because by adjusting their prices the companies are legitimising piracy. They're saying "We know you exist, but we can't do much more than adjust the prices against your activities."

    That's one aspect, but I would say that most people can afford to buy the games they play, and quite a few don't. And this is mostly what the problem of piracy is, that game companies, which are a BUSINESS, the entire point of which is to make MONEY, don't get the funds to make MORE games. Think of it like shoplifting from your supermarket. You wouldn't do it, it requires luck, skill and balls. Plus you wouldn't dream of not paying for simple things like food that you need to survive. However piracy is just so easy, and your not stealing physical things, and your pirating things that you can do without, and so few people are punished for doing it (and when they are they're handed ridiculous sums of millions that they'll spend the rest of their lives trying to pay off) that people believe in what they're doing.

    The cost of a game company going to court and enforcing their copyrighted material is pretty exorbitant, and that's why they feel they can't take action against individuals, because they have to make back the court cost and money off the person. And that's what makes piracy stick, lack of action due to a failure in the justice system. Though this shifts the blame once again off the shoulders of the pirates themselves.

    I think maybe steam has it right, release a small game for $5 a pop, promote, get people to give it to their friends (it's $5), sell a few thousand copies (it's $5), and then a few months down the road no one is playing it anyway, but the company got their capital.

    Now, removing LAN, I would argue that while understandable, it's not a good idea. Because you are giving pirates an opportunity to provide the LAN service with their pirated product. Meaning that they are providing essentially a superior product to Blizzard. This is also the case with DRMs, the pirate takes away the DRMs of say Assassins Creed 2 and it's a better game for it. I like Blizzards approach of loading your CD-Key into the Battle.net site. And I like how they've not gone DRM mad (removing LAN is definitely not DRM mad, at least you can play offline). Though I hope they provide a LAN service to SC2 very soon.

    /Arguments for and against


    :starwars:
    Your white text is blistering my eyes...
    Posted in: General Discussion (non-Diablo)
  • To post a comment, please or register a new account.