How 2K Games And Bioshock Took Back The West

[FeelTheRads]

Apropos to the opening quote of that article
Anyone who minds about piracy is full of sh*t. Anyone who pirates your game wasn’t going to buy it anyway! - Warren Spector

Wanna bet they googled "quotes about piracy" and choose the one with swearing, because everyone knows it's cool to have swearing in your writing?
Really, what kind of an dimwit would start the article with such a quote and then write what he did?
He probably didn't even understand it.

I decided torrent Football Manager 2007 and loved it so much that i just pre- ordered Football Manager 2008 a week ago

Eh, I don't know if a real study can be done on this, but I'd guess that piracy actually help more than it breaks. Many people actually buy the game after they play a pirated version, whereas they might have never bought it in the first place if they didn't know if they'd like it or not. Especially since many developers don't make demos of their games anymore.

But then again, having their games targeted at the "ZOMG! It's a game so I buy it" crowd (or in a particular case, change that to "It's named Fallout so I buy it"), they probably imagine everyone is like that.

 

[Nova]

I remember back when Unreal Tournament had first come out, I had gotten a pirated version from a friend, but I played it so much that once I had formatted I just had to have it again, so I went and bought it.

Anyway, that game could be spawned, I remember, meaning you could install it again and again, without keys or cracks or anything, as it didn't require the cd (The 436 patch anyway). So everytime a lan came up, you'd just need one cd basicly, but everyone ended up buying their own version anyway after playing it at lans.

 

[Kukident]

Anyone who minds about piracy is full of sh*t. Anyone who pirates your game wasn’t going to buy it anyway! - Warren Spector

I fear that's not true... many people dont buy games at all because they download them, and i think without this possibility they would at least buy a few games..

i bought all games i played, except those you don't get in shops anymore

 

[Dembol]

Jesus Christ. This is really a dumb move.
A bit of history:
The DVDs had world regions to prevent cheap pirate copies from China.
The result = me (the customer) being pissed off because whenever I buy stuff from the US I have to tinker a bit with my DVD player/computer whenever I want to use it (or buy a second player - regionless/permamently switched to R1).
The MP3s/CDs have DRMs and other weird stuff which usually prevents/makes it harder to rip my own fucking CD for my own mp3 player. Even if I buy MP3s on-line I usually can't freely move/copy them because of the protection = me (the customer) being really pissed off.

I always think twice before a purchase of some goods which limit my usage and thus enjoyment because of over the top protections and often I just don't buy stuff. People who pirate most of the times don't have such dilemma and pirate straight away. Why people who actually want to pay their hard earned money to get stuff have to be limited? The producers have to be more trustful towards us. As it was mentioned - most of the people who pirate stuff are so used to getting free stuff that in 95% of the cases they won't buy legitimate versions no matter how good or cheap it is. 'Casual pirates' (like myself) are more of a 50/50 situation - if the product is good, not overpriced, they'll rather spend their money. Making it troublesome to use the final product definetely doesn't win their money.

Luckily the music companies in Poland finally start to understand that unprotected MP3s and cheaper CDs are better

PS. Bioshock looks fabulous. Too bad my computer can't cope with it

 

[Dougly]

I think they have said they'll eventually release a patch that'll remove the activation entirely (probably in a few years) but it's unlikey that in 10-15 years old games will work on future systems at all. Unless you are planning to keep an old machine around for nostalgia's sake.

Emulators, man! I admit that perhaps it will be a bit more complicated to create emulators capable of running the games that are being released today, but, given enough time, I have little doubt that someone, somewhere, will figure out how to do it.

I thought I'd never get to play Privateer again. Then, back in mid-2006, I downloaded DOSBox, and found that it runs Privateer (and MANY other games from the 1980s through early 1990s) without problem on my "modern" system.

Also, I actually did have an old 486 machine up and running back in the late 1990s, early 2000s, so I could play games like Privateer. That particular computer eventually stopped working for me... But, if I have enough games that I like, and which need it to run, I'm not above keeping an "older" system around.

Though I can see a future where games are released with nothing on the dvd (or cheap memory stick) but some sort of autoplay file and security check. When loaded the autoplay file will contact online servers which will contain the game content (even for single player) and nothing will be actually installed on your machine.

There's a good chance that would kill gaming for me.

I prefer to "own" games, especially when I shell out my hard earned cash for them.

 

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

I prefer to "own" games, especially when I shell out my hard earned cash for them.

There was a discussion on the news last year about HD-DVD and Blueray, about how in the future we wouldn't be buying dvds at all but downloading films, tv and music as and when we want to watch them.

Hmm it's going from an age of renting to ownership and back to renting.

 

[Sorrow]

There's a good chance that would kill gaming for me.

I prefer to "own" games, especially when I shell out my hard earned cash for them.

That moronic policy of adding DRM filth to games already killed mainstream gaming for me.
But hey, it's their loss - more money for EC Comics Archives and indie games for me.

 

[fedaykin]

By the way, a working crack was just released, apparently. Didn't take that long after all...

 

[Tails]

I doesn't matters what protections they do, pirates always will win. Devoplers by such protections loose only customers.