the developers of stalker may change their mind about making games for pc.

games are just as easily pirated on consoles.....believe meacidBURN1942

[QUOTE="acidBURN1942"]games are just as easily pirated on consoles.....believe mecajunXLVII

Can't pirate an mmo huh? I beg to differ. ALthough it is harder to do and the risk is a bit higher. ESpecially for games like Wow. Private WoW servers exist and they get shot down all the time. From waht i hear some EMU projects claim to be legal like the star wars galaxies one that is currently being developed by some gorup somewhere. However mmo's are pirated less often as it takes so much more effort.
Orlandun

depends on were you are in the world im sure. i hear in china korea and a number of other countrys thay sell pirated games on the side of the road. I my self have NEVER seen a unligite console gtame. pirateing games is just wrong. think about it the price of games has changed very little in the last what 15,20 years. of course some spend so much on hardwear thay feel thay need to make up for it with free softwear lolWild_Card

[QUOTE="cajunXLVII"][QUOTE="acidBURN1942"]games are just as easily pirated on consoles.....believe meMiguel16

i don't know why my topic got locked (not advocating piracy - in fact i'm trying to shed some light to the pirates in denial), but i'll be following stalker closely in the next few months.

a look at the available torrent trackers show at least 35 trackers for stalker, and a combined total of 139,862 copies downloaded so far for those 35 trackers.  that's $5,594,480 USD.  that absolutely sucks for the stalker devs to potentially lose out on that much earnings.  (and no, it didn't take any more than 3 minutes to add the numbers.)

it's not very scientific, and it does NOT take into account other methods of piracy, but it should give people an idea.

...btw is stalker out yet? thinking about giving it a downloadMiguel16

[QUOTE="Miguel16"]...btw is stalker out yet? thinking about giving it a download-tears-run-red-

its sad when such a unique game is pirated on a massive scale like this. it doesn't matter wtf i or any of us think about piracy on the pc. what matters is wtf the developers thinks about it: "Across two separate lectures at this week's Game Developers Conference, id Software CEO Todd Hollenshead and Epic Games president Michael Capps both admitted that piracy of PC games caused their companies to pursue developing beyond the PC platform. "Piracy has pushed id as being multiplatform," stated Hollenshead, whose company contracted Z-Axis to handle the PlayStation 3 version and Nerve Software the Xbox 360 edition of Splash Damage's forthcoming Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (PC). Comments made by Epic's Capps carried a similar tone. "PC gaming is really falling apart," he revealed. "It killed us to make Unreal Tournament 3 cross-platform, but Epic had to do it," adding "the market that would buy a $600 video card knows how Bittorrent works." Epic is currently developing Unreal Tournament 3 for the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in-house. Meanwhile, Firaxis designer and programmer Soren Johnson remained confident in PC development. He suggested that "game design on the PC is going to bend toward persistence," noting Blizzard's World of Warcraft is "successful because you can't pirate WoW. You cannot pirate an MMO. Period." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/46079 if this keeps up it may lead to developers not even bothering with pc versions or just mmorpgs on pc. it doesn't matter if wizzy pirated WoW for a bit with a few friends. it doesn't matter if the hardcore pirates can steal some old console games. fact is developers see consoles as less of a pirate's platform. much less. how many times was WoW pirated? how many copies they sold? how many times was gears of war pirated on 360? how many copies sold?cajunXLVII

Can anyone say COPOUT!?!?!

Developers see the money in console, yet they are a teeny tiny bit hesitant to depart from PC gamers.

But alas!  Piracy is here, and now developers have a guilt-free way to "break up" with their loyal, trustworthy (yet small fanbase) PC gamers.

Its OK, though, iD hasnt made a great game in years, and Wolfenstein 2 is gonna be to Wolfenstein what Doom 3 was to Doom....meh.  And the void they create with their departure will be filled with ambitious, independent developers who focus on gameplay instead of purdy lights and shadows.

I cant wait for the big companies to leave.

[QUOTE="acidBURN1942"]games are just as easily pirated on consoles.....believe mecajunXLVII

games are just as easily pirated on consoles.....believe meacidBURN1942

[QUOTE="acidBURN1942"]games are just as easily pirated on consoles.....believe mecajunXLVII

Heh, believe it.  Its called a mod chip, you have to solder it into your console, a dangerous job for someone unskilled.  You can even buy consoles pre-modded.  Once its in, you can download and burn console games as long as they use a standard type of media, which they all do with the exception of the PS3.  I love games, have since I was a kid, its a shame that people are too lazy to go out and work a few hours to pay for somthing that provides so much entertainment.

In some ways I think developers ae going the wrong way with all this copy protection though.  I understand why they do it, I just think in some ways that its counter productive.  For instance, I will not ever buy a game with starforce on it, it installs junk onto your PC and makes you restart, lameness.  If you have ever played a game called Galactic Civilizations 2 you will have the pleasure to play a game that has 0 protection, you can install numerous ways, you never need the CD and you dont need a serial to play.  I heard about this, tried out the game, loved it, bought it and pre-ordered their next game.  Its called Sins Of A Solar Nation. This company has quickly turned into my golden gaming company, where I buy pretty much whatever they make.  Sort of like how I used to feel about Lucas Arts back in the day.

Its sad to hear pc gaming developers are thinking about not making games for pcs.  Thats where people who pirate games dont think about.  Developers and Publishers need to make money to recoup the loss of development.  If they find that sellings games on the pc isnt worth because they know they will loss money, they wont develop games.  Development companies could go under because of pirating.  I wish people who download these games for free think about what they are doing.  They are hurting themselves and everyone else.

Game developers and publishers really need together and find a way to prevent pirating.  Force registering every single game might help.  Making anyone who buy a game registering it on line for the publisher to keep track of the games are out there.  After the game have been registered, a key program of some kind is downloaded to unlock the game to be played.  If there is a massive amount of registering in a short period, like a five a month, it will lock the key program.  Uninstalling and reinstalling a game five times a month is excessive and impractical for one person.  If that same person were to reinstall the game like twice a year because of various reasons the server will allow it.

There are ways of stopping piracy.  Its really how far and how hard the publishers are willing to stop it.

i don't know why my topic got locked (not advocating piracy - in fact i'm trying to shed some light to the pirates in denial), but i'll be following stalker closely in the next few months.

a look at the available torrent trackers show at least 35 trackers for stalker, and a combined total of 139,862 copies downloaded so far for those 35 trackers.  that's $5,594,480 USD.  that absolutely sucks for the stalker devs to potentially lose out on that much earnings.  (and no, it didn't take any more than 3 minutes to add the numbers.)

it's not very scientific, and it does NOT take into account other methods of piracy, but it should give people an idea.

sj420

While I admire your thought process on this, there are two variables that have to be brought into play.  One is how many of those people download it and then have no clue what an ISO or MDS file is.  Secondly is while there are a ton of trackers out there, how many of them are actual working copies.  Many a time, people download a torrent only to find out it is not the game that was titled or it is a non-working copy.

Piracy does affect us all, but I do believe that developers buffer the cost a bit more to make up for the lost revenue.  Also, a lot of people end up downloading software, because developers shoot themselves in the foot by making the game more difficult to use as a legitimate owner.  Starforce anyone?

I have bought hundreds if not thousands of games over the years.  I know when a product is good and when I want to spend my hard earned dollars.  Sometimes I get burned, but I support my hobby.  More people do so.  The problem is not piracy as much as people getting tired of messing with games that are distributed half working.  How many times have you bought a game only to have to download a 50-200MB patch to get all the features working as advertised?  If you want me to drop $50, make sure the game works out of the box.  And make sure that it is not a stupid intrusive form of copy protection onboard.  A lot of times, I will use No CD patches when a game includes Starforce.  I may lose out on a multiplayer portion of a game, but I will not miss out, because I do not want that horrible CD protection software anywhere on my system.

[QUOTE="acidBURN1942"]games are just as easily pirated on consoles.....believe mecajunXLVII

Man, believe him, I don't own a console but if the developers think that games aren't pirated in console versions they couldn't be more wrong.

[QUOTE="cajunXLVII"][QUOTE="acidBURN1942"]games are just as easily pirated on consoles.....believe meMachetazoZ

Man, believe him, I don't own a console but if the developers think that games aren't pirated in console versions they couldn't be more wrong.

[QUOTE="MachetazoZ"]

[QUOTE="cajunXLVII"][QUOTE="acidBURN1942"]games are just as easily pirated on consoles.....believe meUncle_Tbag

Man, believe him, I don't own a console but if the developers think that games aren't pirated in console versions they couldn't be more wrong.

Id haven't made a game worth pirating in years im not sure what they're worried about.

i find it funny that you named UT3 and Quake Wars in your argument. Both are mutliplayer games and are only playable on lan parties when pirated.

Singleplayer + NO or Weak multiplayer = Pirate

Singleplayer + great multiplayer = Lots of sales

Great multiplayer = Lots of sales

It's really that easy

i dont pirate at all. but yea i agree the price of keeping up to date rigs is stupid. not so bad for people who live in large citys that can make lots of cash. 2k might not seem like so much but in smaller towns ect were the pay scale is alot lower high priced items are haredr to get. Wild_Card

Dont pirate games, suport the industry that makes games FOR YOUR ENJOYMENT.
if the developers get more money, we get better games. Samulies

Singleplayer + NO or Weak multiplayer = Pirate

Singleplayer + great multiplayer = Lots of sales

Great multiplayer = Lots of sales

It's really that easy _Pedro_

oh well developers just hand their games out for free anyways, they have no protection.

oh well developers just hand their games out for free anyways, they have no protection.

Terrorantula

games are just as easily pirated on consoles.....believe meacidBURN1942

i don't know why my topic got locked (not advocating piracy - in fact i'm trying to shed some light to the pirates in denial), but i'll be following stalker closely in the next few months.

a look at the available torrent trackers show at least 35 trackers for stalker, and a combined total of 139,862 copies downloaded so far for those 35 trackers. that's $5,594,480 USD. that absolutely sucks for the stalker devs to potentially lose out on that much earnings. (and no, it didn't take any more than 3 minutes to add the numbers.)

it's not very scientific, and it does NOT take into account other methods of piracy, but it should give people an idea.

sj420

[QUOTE="acidBURN1942"]games are just as easily pirated on consoles.....believe melol_waffles

Edit: or use loader disks like someone before said

While I admire your thought process on this, there are two variables that have to be brought into play.  One is how many of those people download it and then have no clue what an ISO or MDS file is.  Secondly is while there are a ton of trackers out there, how many of them are actual working copies.  Many a time, people download a torrent only to find out it is not the game that was titled or it is a non-working copy.

mclazyj

the trackers i mentioned were working public and private trackers - working copies.  even if they don't know what to do w/ the files, they're only one baby step away from figuring out an extremely simple puzzle (google).  or, if someone downloads a torrent for a game and it turns out to be a non-working copy, did he still not commit piracy?  the variables you mention don't change the fact that the copies were obtained illegally.

Piracy does affect us all, but I do believe that developers buffer the cost a bit more to make up for the lost revenue.  Also, a lot of people end up downloading software, because developers shoot themselves in the foot by making the game more difficult to use as a legitimate owner.  Starforce anyone?

I have bought hundreds if not thousands of games over the years.  I know when a product is good and when I want to spend my hard earned dollars.  Sometimes I get burned, but I support my hobby.  More people do so.  The problem is not piracy as much as people getting tired of messing with games that are distributed half working.  How many times have you bought a game only to have to download a 50-200MB patch to get all the features working as advertised?  If you want me to drop $50, make sure the game works out of the box.  And make sure that it is not a stupid intrusive form of copy protection onboard.  A lot of times, I will use No CD patches when a game includes Starforce.  I may lose out on a multiplayer portion of a game, but I will not miss out, because I do not want that horrible CD protection software anywhere on my system.

mclazyj

while i seriously doubt that you've bought thousands or even hundreds of games, i understand where you're coming from and applaud you for supporting your hobby if/when you can.  nobody wants to pay good money for a broken (not inferior - there's a difference) product.  however, everything you wrote are your own justifications for piracy - nothing more.  "the game needs a patch" is not a valid reason for stealing.  "i hate starforce" is a reason to avoid purchasing a game, not a reason for downloading the torrent.  they don't OWE you because they created an inferior product.  should ford sit by and watch you take one of their new trucks if you simply claim its quality is nowhere near a toyota truck?

when epic and id say they're being hurt from pc piracy, it's not 100% a copout.  when they make a half-baked game without lasting power, and the sales figures are so-so, they lose twice.  obviously, a big portion is entirely their responsibility because they created such a game.  but it's ridiculous to deny that their so-so figures aren't affected even further because many copies were obtained through illegitimate methods.

console piracy isn't rocket surgery, but it's not nearly as easy as pc piracy.

[QUOTE="sj420"]

i don't know why my topic got locked (not advocating piracy - in fact i'm trying to shed some light to the pirates in denial), but i'll be following stalker closely in the next few months.

a look at the available torrent trackers show at least 35 trackers for stalker, and a combined total of 139,862 copies downloaded so far for those 35 trackers. that's $5,594,480 USD. that absolutely sucks for the stalker devs to potentially lose out on that much earnings. (and no, it didn't take any more than 3 minutes to add the numbers.)

it's not very scientific, and it does NOT take into account other methods of piracy, but it should give people an idea.

WARxSnake

yeah, i should have specified, but i ass.u.me.d that people would have some understanding of how sales work.

obviously the devs and publishers make their money not through retail sales, but wholesale.  but you can't deny the number of copies that did NOT go thru legit channels and that the wholesale and retail figures are affected.   you can apply whatever percentages you think is appropriate to that (unscientific) $5.6 mil figure, and we're still talking a lot of money.

Funny thing is, what will happen when games reach become 10 to 20gb each to download? Piracy may be something that just goes away _Pedro_