[Dark RevenantX]

Why deal with all the DRM if you can just use Steam, which basically replaces all of the DRM with its own system, which does not intrude more than a few cpu cycles (no performance impact) and has a breadth of benefits?  I only pirate things these days when it's full of DRM and is not available on Steam or an equivalent medium.  It's all about weighing the Pros and the Cons...

The important thing here is the relative expensiveness of games; Steam offers deals all of the time; I got Crysis: Warhead for $15 and Mass Effect for $10 - money well spent.  Warhead is probably worth that $15, but I would have gladly paid $30 or $35 for Mass Effect.  That's what it's worth to me.  But here we have games like CoD: Modern Warfare 2, which is $60!  They're trying to raise the default price to meet the console rate, even though just about everyone can agree that MW2's short storyline and limited multiplayer freedom is NOT worth $60.  It's barely worth $40, at the most.  People do not want to pay more than they think they should.  Piracy would go down dramatically if the prices came down to a more consumer-friendly rate.  We all know that won't happen unless Valve takes over the majority of the industry (virtually impossible task) or if we get extremely lucky, because the suits at EA and the other big title developers will not see the sense in lowering the prices of games that can barely pay for themselves as it stands.

I know almost none of us have pirated FreeSpace 2 since it was put on GOG for an extremely decent price.  Many of us would have pirated it, or at least have given piracy serious consideration, if it was available for $50.

[Spicious]

I believe the same could be concluded about the illegal (or illegally obtained prescription) drugs that were required to block out reality sufficiently to reach that state. Alternatively you might just have no idea what is required to make/crack games even only considering the coding parts.

On the topic of prices: Dragon Age Origins in Australia $90-110; imported from the UK <$50. Where is all the money going? On this scale MW2 is worth perhaps $5-10.

[CP5670]

Why deal with all the DRM if you can just use Steam, which basically replaces all of the DRM with its own system, which does not intrude more than a few cpu cycles (no performance impact) and has a breadth of benefits?  I only pirate things these days when it's full of DRM and is not available on Steam or an equivalent medium.  It's all about weighing the Pros and the Cons...

Steam is DRM too. It's better in some ways than Securom, Starforce or Tages, but worse in other ways. Moreover, a lot of Steam versions of games contain other DRM systems, in addition to Steam.

[Mongoose]

It's funny...the only game I've ever downloaded illegally was a Japanese-only XBox release that I can't even play due to lack of adequate emulators (lord, how I want to play you, Metal Wolf Chaos), yet I've downloaded a substantial amount of anime in my time.  I think most of that is strictly utilitarian: I have a significant backlog of games as-is, so I wouldn't gain anything by going out of my way to track down more.  And even when it comes to anime, I have a fairly strict policy of eventually buying anything I've downloaded (or at least the stuff I could see myself watching again) that's available domestically, which is why I have an ever-growing DVD collection.  Even if I were to download a few games, I feel like I'd make the effort to purchase them when I could do so, as I love having a physical collection to stack up and admire.

[blackhole]

Open source software doesn't pay the bills.

But providing technical support for it does.

Only if its a massive library used by commercial products. Otherwise people will just go on to the forums and get free help there. Good luck making money off anything other then an absolutely monolithic open-source project used by thousands of people.

Programmers really need to stop b!tching about piracy and learn how to deal with it in a timely manner that does not involve installing rootkits on clients machines. B!tching about something that will never change never helped anyone.

[Dark RevenantX]

Why deal with all the DRM if you can just use Steam, which basically replaces all of the DRM with its own system, which does not intrude more than a few cpu cycles (no performance impact) and has a breadth of benefits?  I only pirate things these days when it's full of DRM and is not available on Steam or an equivalent medium.  It's all about weighing the Pros and the Cons...

Steam is DRM too. It's better in some ways than Securom, Starforce or Tages, but worse in other ways. Moreover, a lot of Steam versions of games contain other DRM systems, in addition to Steam.

The steam version is often less expensive and more convenient to have (you can still use it offline, just so you know).  At least with the Steam version of the game, you almost never actually notice the DRM.  Though, I don't get the point of putting much DRM on the steam version; if you're playing it over steam, chances are it's not a pirated copy.

[CP5670]

The steam version is often less expensive and more convenient to have (you can still use it offline, just so you know).  At least with the Steam version of the game, you almost never actually notice the DRM.  Though, I don't get the point of putting much DRM on the steam version; if you're playing it over steam, chances are it's not a pirated copy.

You often won't notice the other DRM systems either, but that is not necessarily a good thing. In Steam's case though, the problems center around the inability to resell games, and the fact that retail versions of Steam-only games still have to be downloaded. There was one guy on another forum I go to who got a used game off ebay and Valve banned his entire Steam account, so he lost all of his games on it.

[Ziame]

You know, pirating is bad, mostly cos of the fact, that the honest users get screwed with DRMs and pirates just laugh.

[Sushi]

DRM-Free download (GoG and D2D) > Steam > everything else.

[Ziame]

Well, not everything is available on Steam and/or sites for downloading

[Thaeris]

This is true. This again brings me back to the old LA games subject I hit on earlier when contemplating abandonware.

- I can't rationally buy it...

- I can't just download it, despite it being OVER 10 YEARS OLD...

What else are you supposed to do? With software I'm quite convinced there needs to be a point when you just release it to the public, at least for non-technical/unsupported software. For example, releasing an archaic version of AutoCAD would be sort of foolish as the developer is still producing the software, though it has evolved substantially from what the example in question might have been.

[Uchuujinsan]

Such a point exists, it's iirc currently 70 - 90 years after the first release, I think it got extended recently.

[Nuke]

pirating software is a lesser evil than stealing but its still evil. but since i pride myself for being evil, almost anything is fair game. i tend to avoid pirating of games though, because i respect the talent. there are always exceptions though.

1. the game is old and unsupported. no support no profit!
2. even if i buy it i have to crack it anyway to make it run on my hardware (all 3 carmageddons, windows, games i bought but on bad media)
3. revenge against anti-consumerism
4. software has ridiculous copy protection (windows)
5. software is ridiculously expensive (max, photoshop)
6. im broke and really want to play it

that said its amazing i buy software at all. if i add up all the cash i spent on software this year, it would probably be most of my income went into the software industry. then i think without pirates i probably wouldn't be able to play as many of my older games (that i spent money on) that i can now.

[Thaeris]

pirating software is a lesser evil than stealing but its still evil. but since i pride myself for being evil, almost anything is fair game.

Nuke, you might just be the most amazing combination of fail and epic win from Alaska, ever. 

[Nuke]

pirating software is a lesser evil than stealing but its still evil. but since i pride myself for being evil, almost anything is fair game.

Nuke, you might just be the most amazing combination of fail and epic win from Alaska, ever.  

rest assured if i could break into their studio and steal their source code and then wipe out all their off site backups, then i would do that.

[TrashMan]

Total wanton destruction is your trademark, no?

[Nuke]

aye

[mxlm]

Programmers really need to stop b!tching about piracy and learn how to deal with it in a timely manner that does not involve installing rootkits on clients machines. B!tching about something that will never change never helped anyone.

It's a distinction Stardock is fond of; stopping piracy doesn't make money. Selling copies makes money.

[Pyro MX]

Open source software doesn't pay the bills.

But providing technical support for it does.

Only if its a massive library used by commercial products. Otherwise people will just go on to the forums and get free help there. Good luck making money off anything other then an absolutely monolithic open-source project used by thousands of people.

Programmers really need to stop b!tching about piracy and learn how to deal with it in a timely manner that does not involve installing rootkits on clients machines. B!tching about something that will never change never helped anyone.

The best software ain't necessarily the one that makes the most money. Especially in a society driven by Excel files.

And indifference never really got people moving either.

[Nuke]

i frankly dont understand why any developer would cripple their own projects with copy protection without the higher ups telling them to. its the upper management that got sold on copy protection that was marketed to them. so the problem really has nothing to do with programmers, it has more to do with ceos getting sold on an idea, and in the cases where the ceo is also a programmer, contracts with publishers requiring some in house drm schema.