Interesting discussion....

I work for a Dev (see my sig).

What I find to be especially strange when it comes to piracy is that the court of public opinion seems more focused on blaming Publishers (and Devs) than it does on blaming thieves. Thieves pretty much get a free ride and are absolved of blame. I suggested on these forums a long time ago that changing this widely held opinion to make stealing uncool would certainly have an effect. Instead, it is kind of bizarre that the people who do this think that pressing a download button makes them John Dillinger or Al Capone.

I know all the justifications for stealing. I've heard them all before. I think anyone can justify pretty much anything so justifying thievery is not so hard.

But I thought I would share my idea for curbing piracy as this answers the question posed by the OP. :)

As for Devs, I don't see them blaming piracy for their shortcomings. But I do see them well aware of the fact that piracy takes money away that should be used to invest in future games. As producing quality games gets to be more expensive, more money is a necessity. If you are seeing games include advertising revenue streams, you are seeing a game that needs more cash to fund its development. If you see a game with lots of bugs etc. you are looking at a game which lacks a big enough budget to extend the development time to fix them. I don't think you'll be seeing games with no money, you'll just be seeing games with not enough money.

As for Stardock, they did really well with marketting the no protection thing and it paid off. But that trick won't work for every game that tries the same thing. I think it is great that they saw this opportunity and took it. But the novelty of it has worn off now and they are really the only ones who can capitalize on it still. Again, I think they hit a great tone with this, but it would not work industry wide if everyone did it. Because as many of the pro thief faction will tell you, stealing will never go away.

I'm pretty sure of what kind of comments will follow this post. It is pretty much par for the course. I just want it to be clear that whether you are honest or not, your gaming experience will suffer thanks to the people who steal. So, you can keep on thanking the Publishers and Devs for all of this but don't forget to thank the thieves too.

A common comment is that legitimate users suffer and thieves do not. Well, start considering that legitimate users and Pubs/Devs suffer while thieves do not.

I shut it off.

Standby wastes a stupid amount of electricity. Bad for the climate and global warming.

I am a little surprised no one has mentioned this before. If you are reading this, I would be careful with "Priest199". I certainly do not want to disespect him/her but a lot of services do what he/she is doing to fool you into using their lvling service.

It typically works like this:

Someone comes, complains about lvling and is considering the lvling sevice solution (or buying gold/gear).

They come back later, announce that they decided it is worth the risk and are going to do it.

Then they come back after that and announce how wonderfully well it went...

So to Priest199, I do hope you get what you are looking for. To everyone else, do not use this thread as a testimonial that this will work well for you. Do not believe (because you read this thread) that buying gear/gold/characters or using a lvling service will be safe for you. :)

We all have a game idea.

savvon

As I work for a Developer, I can tell you that what you said above is precisely your problem. Everyone has a game idea, even the people that work for a Developer. Ideas are one of the few things in Game Development that don't require outsourcing or hiring of new people.

Hah.

If I know about anything, I know about this. If you look at my sig, you will see I work for Stormregion. We made two series of games (Panzers and Rush) which are RTS games that take place in WWII. I am American but I live in Hungary and Stormregion is a Hungarian company. And here is the kicker:

The publishers for our games have been German plus the best market for our games is Germany. Our games are a little different than others because most of them just have you play as the Americans. In our games, you play as the Russians and as the Germans as well as the Americans.

So I have of course asked them (our German publishers) why Germans really like our games when they based on a war they lost? Here is what they say:

Although Germany lost the war and the Nazis commited atrocities, the German war machine was one of the best the world has seen. So there is great pride in the achievements of the German army, navy etc. Some bad decisions made on the part of an insane megalomaniac did contribute to the losses they incurred.

Not sure if I understand. I know you can save any compatible PS2 games save data to the hard drive after you download the PS2 data from the PSN. I have not found any games that youc ant save to the hard drive.budboarder

Hmm...

What is this you speak of?

What "PS2 data" can you download from the PSN?

I have PS2 games that I would like to save the saved game data to the hard drive. But I must always save it to the slot 1/2 memory card thing on the PS3.

Well then there you go. That's all I care about. When Unreal Tournament 3 comes out that's basically all I'm going to need for about 2 years.Skullheart

;) 

[QUOTE="SR_Caveman"]

[QUOTE="Precyse"]Another point is do u wanna pay a monthly fee to play online like the 360 has u (hell i don't), with the pc only monthly subscriptions are for mmo games. Skullheart

The PS3 has no online fees.

I think the subject line of this thread should have been: Do PC gamers need an XBox?

I do recognize that different consoles have different strengths and weaknesses. But it is a little strange to see weaknesses listed that are Xbox-specific rather than console-specific.

I'm fairly nuetral on all this except for one thing: nothing beats sitting on your sofa with or without your pals. So I think both (PCs and Consoles) serve their purpose.

If you're an online first person shooter crazed fanatic, the PS3 and the Xbox 360 are pointless, though.

Lucky for me, I am not. :D