Ban hits Half-Life 2 pirates hard
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Re: Ban hits Half-Life 2 pirates hard
Posted by Andrei on Sat Nov 27th at 7:45pm 2004


Excellent! One of the reasons we don't get many good games today is because competent companies go bankrupt due to piracy (nobody would pirate a crap game, would they?). [addsig]



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Re: Ban hits Half-Life 2 pirates hard
Posted by Orpheus on Sat Nov 27th at 8:08pm 2004


? quoting Andrei
Excellent! One of the reasons we don't get many good games today is because competent companies go bankrupt due to piracy (nobody would pirate a crap game, would they?).

god i hope you do not truly believe that. sounds an awful lot like you believe the crap they feed you.

piracy doesn't hurt, it doesn't help, but it doesn't hurt.

lets say hypothetically now, 1 million copies are sold, and one million are pirated. they sold 1 million, there is no way to know if any of the other one million would ever consider buying, so we are stuck with "one million sold"

thats the number that counts toward profit and loss. not the pirated copies as no money ever exchanges hands.

as i keep saying, corporate bigwigs think differently, they are not realistic at all. how would you like to have to buy groceries on your projected income, and find out you only made half of it. would you feel cheated that you only made 1/2? or would you think that the 1/2 is all there is? in other word 100% of your total income?

if they could come up with a legal way to profit from piracy, they would. the crying would end there and then.

jeez people, use the brain you were born with, and if that fails, listen to someone with a few more cells than you seem capable of using. :/

bottom line, you CANNOT LOSE what you never had. its that simple.

[addsig]




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Re: Ban hits Half-Life 2 pirates hard
Posted by ReNo on Sat Nov 27th at 8:13pm 2004


I can see your point Jeff, but to be honest I do it so rarely I don't really see it as a problem. We've done it with three games I can recall - Age of Kings, Ground Control 2, and Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow. The first two, I admit, I don't really have an excuse for not buying. Age of Kings in particular we did play quite often and so I did cheat the company quite badly there. Ground Control 2 we played two games of, and two of my flatmates had bought copies of the game legally. The other two of us didn't enjoy the game particularly. Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, again, two of my flatmates have, and I own it on the Xbox already so buying a second copy to let me play it with my flatmates just wasn't a reasonable thing to do in my financial situation.

Other pirated games I own are some rare Dreamcast games, and Vib Ribbon on the Playstation. I scoured shops online and off to find these without success.

See these as unreasonable if you like, I don't.

I never meant that people who download games would otherwise buy them, I'm just saying people who download games don't DESERVE to have them. If you couldn't download games or copy them, then some of the people who pirate them WOULD buy them legally, and games sales would increase.
[addsig]




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Re: Ban hits Half-Life 2 pirates hard
Posted by Andrei on Sat Nov 27th at 8:22pm 2004


Didn't acclaim go bankrupt because for every 1 game sold legally, 50 were sold by pirates and countless others lost via file-sharing programs? They lost many POTENTIAL customers.

Don't get me wrong, tho, im not one of those anti-pirate fanatics. I live in the 3rd...erm, the 2nd world and software piracy is something common here. Besides, if it weren't for piracy, many of those who own a computer here would have never bought their computers in the first place (software here is very expensive relative to the average sallary). Whats the point of paying through the nose 36mil lei for a computer and then buy 10mil lei worth of software [windows=2mil, special software between 2 and 8 (!!!) mil]. Few mortals have that kind of cash ...

And a pirate disc is as much as 100,000 lei!

[addsig]




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Re: Ban hits Half-Life 2 pirates hard
Posted by Orpheus on Sat Nov 27th at 8:32pm 2004


well, let it be known upfront, i know its wrong, i never said piracy was right, but i have issues with people who only "do this much" as if a tiny bit of piracy is OK, but damn those who do it more often :/

as i said, i am not accusing anyone of anything, piracy is.. it just is.

will i ever see it as so wrong that i will stop? not likely. do i fault people who are totally honest? nope. i just abhor hypocrites. to me its far more wrong than piracy ever will be.

[addsig]




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Re: Ban hits Half-Life 2 pirates hard
Posted by Andrei on Sat Nov 27th at 8:38pm 2004


Local expression - "It's bad with the bad but it's worse without the bad.".

[addsig]



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Re: Ban hits Half-Life 2 pirates hard
Posted by ReNo on Sat Nov 27th at 8:41pm 2004


I still completely disagree. I spend the vast majority of my disposable money on games - on average probably around ?20 a week - so I do my part supporting the games industry. Even if I do a small amount of piracy, its far less damaging to the industry than the bastards who download or copy 100% of their games. If you still think what I am doing is as damaging as what those other people are doing (and trust me, there are 'gamers' who do this), then its you that is being naive.
[addsig]




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Re: Ban hits Half-Life 2 pirates hard
Posted by Orpheus on Sat Nov 27th at 8:48pm 2004


damn, the topic just ended

to bad.

to me its just like saying, i only screw 17 year old girls, cause its more damaging to screw 15 year olds

both are wrong (assuming you are over 18 in the USA of course, its an illustration)

i couldn't give a rats ass about the gaming industry, they make enough off 1/2 the sales they do achieve. i am ONLY talking about personal morals. if you feel that you only pirate one game out of 100 and someone else steals all 100 are not the same, you might rethink right and wrong

Duncan, you are taking this to personal, BECAUSE my definition of wrong, puts you on a far worse level than you are willing to admit. you steal even one game, and its wrong, don't attempt to rationalize it by saying "i do my part"

[addsig]




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Re: Ban hits Half-Life 2 pirates hard
Posted by ReNo on Sat Nov 27th at 8:55pm 2004


As I said before, you obviously see any wrong as equal, I don't at all. You say "to me its just like saying, i only screw 17 year old girls, cause its more damaging to screw 15 year olds", well to be honest, 17 is my current lower limit for girls (legal age is 16 in the UK) so that holds water with me I don't think somebody who copies 1% of their games is as bad as one who copies 50% (nor is that person as bad as one who copies 100%) while you do. I think there are varying degrees of wrong, you don't, simple as that really.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that the games industry isn't as profitable as you seem to believe, and the number of developers that shut down due to poor sales of a title they were banking on (which piracy DOES contribute to, whether you think so or not) would amaze you. Perhaps some companies can get by on half the sales they currently achieve, but the majority have enough trouble breaking even.
[addsig]




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Re: Ban hits Half-Life 2 pirates hard
Posted by Orpheus on Sat Nov 27th at 9:02pm 2004


OK, forget about games then, would you consider death by gunshot better or worse than by knife point?

would you consider rape by males worse than rape by females (yeah it occurs)

would you consider steal one car instead of 10 less wrong?

my point isn't how it looks on paper, or under the law (cause laws vary from place to place) i am thinking morals.

i know its wrong to steal, i am not saying otherwise, but i am not saying "Take him, he stole one more game than i did"

i know you are prolly thinking that this is apples and oranges comparing rape and piracy, but i do not.

what we need 1st, is to establish some common ground.

what you need to do is, tell me what in your opinion is a wrong without any shades of grey.. what can you do as Duncan, that would be just as wrong if i were to do it too.

if nothing else, by now you should realize that i do not sanction so many shades of grey, i think almost entirely in black/white.. i have always been so ever since i came here. give me a definitive case where a wrong is a wrong to you with no shades, and we can work up from there.

[addsig]




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Re: Ban hits Half-Life 2 pirates hard
Posted by ReNo on Sat Nov 27th at 9:53pm 2004


I can't think of many things that are equally wrong regardless of circumstance. For example, all rape is wrong, but I don't see it as bad for a drunken guy to rape a girl after being led on, as for a sober person to go out and find random women on the streets to rape. In this case both are wrong, but one is far more abhorent than the other. Likewise with murder - killing a person in a fight isn't as bad as killing some random person you haven't met before "just because" you felt like it. You ask which is worse, killing with a gun or a knife? Well if you shoot them in the head or slice their throat then neither is worse as their intention in both is to kill quickly, but if you slowly torture them to death, I see this as far more wrong.

See what I mean? Most things, even if they are almost exclusively wrong, can be done in ways I see as more or less wrong.
[addsig]




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Re: Ban hits Half-Life 2 pirates hard
Posted by Orpheus on Sat Nov 27th at 10:08pm 2004


i suppose there is no common ground then Duncan. i do believe torture killing is worse than say accidental killing, but after you die, will you really care how you got that way?

we may find torture killing more abhorrent, but is it truly worse? after all, the poor victim is dead, how much worse can it be for them?

rape is rape, be it premeditated, or spontaneous, one cannot be worse than another, both end up the same in the end.

i dunno, maybe its just this generation.. i would hope that if you are raped, or murdered someday, that you get the lessor of the choices of action

[addsig]




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Re: Ban hits Half-Life 2 pirates hard
Posted by Andrei on Sat Nov 27th at 10:10pm 2004


? posted by Orpheus

rape is rape, be it premeditated

It would be fun to see a person rape someone by mistake . "Whooop, sorry, thought you wuzz mah grandma'!". Sorry, couldn't help myself (although i tried to ).

[addsig]



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Re: Ban hits Half-Life 2 pirates hard
Posted by scary_jeff on Sat Nov 27th at 11:14pm 2004


"some of the people who pirate them WOULD buy them legally"

Yes, some of them would. That leaves the rest of the people, for whom pirating the game did not mean the games company lost anything.




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Re: Ban hits Half-Life 2 pirates hard
Posted by wil5on on Sun Nov 28th at 1:04am 2004


? quoting Orpheus
would you consider rape by males worse than rape by females (yeah it occurs)

...erm, yes.

[addsig]




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Re: Ban hits Half-Life 2 pirates hard
Posted by Nickelplate on Sun Nov 28th at 4:53am 2004


? quoting Vash
? quoting Wildcard
You bring up a very good point Nickelplate.


No, he has a tumor and I possibly have one too after reading his barley legable post. Steam is not spyware, it is a great way for Valve to punch money-greedy publishers like VU and EA in the balls and then jump up and down on their livers. Steam can transfer games, patches, security fixes, and client updates instantly therefore keeping people from hacking games easier.

Steam uses up Resources, yes, but not so much that you can't play. It won't have spyware because they are Valves servers running Steam, and besides, why the f**k would they have spyware...Its a mass-transit system for game updates, not a f**king website.

Vash, Spyware, doesnt have to be a website. Spyware is classified as any software that tracks files, registry entries or any other data and changes thereof on a personal computer. Anyway, I want to be able to modify my files and all that without getting booted.

[addsig]




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Re: Ban hits Half-Life 2 pirates hard
Posted by Nickelplate on Sun Nov 28th at 4:57am 2004


? quoting Vash
I gained a lot of respect for Steam after I heard Newell say this in one of his speech's:

? quoting Gabe Newell
With Steam, game developers will make thirty dollars a game rather than making six dollars for every sold copy, and having the publisher take the rest.


This'll mean companies will start taking risks because their other, more popular games, will have given them more funding to take risks rather than most developers who just stick to the old formula. This will also open up a new genre and usher in games that you wouldn't ever see because publishers think they 'wont sell too good'.

People laughed at Valve when they brought the idea for Half-Life to publishers...Who's laugh'n now bitch?

I don't mind the content-delivery part of it, I DO mind the Constant checking up part of it.

[addsig]




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Re: Ban hits Half-Life 2 pirates hard
Posted by scary_jeff on Sun Nov 28th at 11:34am 2004


But it doesn't constantly check your PC, it constantly checks their servers for updates. Surely there is a big difference there?



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Re: Ban hits Half-Life 2 pirates hard
Posted by Orpheus on Sun Nov 28th at 11:48am 2004


maybe its because my gaming pc is exactly that "a gaming pc" that i never seem concerned with this fixation of SPYING.

i have nothing on it but games, so even if steam wanted to look, which i doubt, they would find nothing but.... games.

perhaps i should be upset, but i cannot even seem to work up a decent "sigh" over it.

my only complaint has nothing to do with me at all. why does the initial download have to be so freaking large? it must drive 56k users nuts. surely they could have shipped everything on the cd, with only a few cursory downloads for a patch or so.

anywho's, i felt it really slapped 56k users, after all, i am betting they still out number broadband users but we see so few of them because they give up in frustration sooner.

i think steam, or steam look alikes are here to stay people, get used to them.

[addsig]




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Re: Ban hits Half-Life 2 pirates hard
Posted by Naklajat on Sun Nov 28th at 3:04pm 2004


i, personally, have never had one problem with steam. i love steam and think that more game developers should distribute via steam or a steam-like program. it doesnt use up much in the way of resources, in fact, as of right now it is using 6,456MB. i can understand this being a lot for those with little memory, but the way i see it, if you are running a pentium III 800 with 64MB of ram and a 32MB geforce2, how can you expect not to begin losing computing ground with advancing technology?

as for steam being spyware... proof?

quoted from Halflife2.net forums:
nw909:

Yes, Steam is a massive spyware application created by VALVe the evil hellspawn of microsoft. First steam had only very small trojans that would allow people at the VALVe Steam department to record what you we're doing and save it in video files, they would then be sent back to VALVe and this was all in good taste and in the way of what a gamer does with his days.

Then Bill Gates, gabe newells good friend from back in the ghetto dayz called down opon him and told him to add massive trojans along with hl2 media to keep the users from suspecting anything. These new trojans would save files in the 400 mb gcache file and it would record literally EVERYTHING! it would record websites you visited, e-mails you checked, files you opened and would take up a massive 2 gigs of space now.

Gabe newell was not happy in the least but bill gates still had much power over him, being the richest man in the world and all. Shortly after Steam employes thought this was too wrong ethicly and quit or went on strike, they we're either replaced or sacked and relplaced. These new employes had no ethic views or knoledge of what is right or wrong. Steam still does record this information while Gabe and Doug lombardi are tied up in the back room. But hey! we're getting free movies out of it!


(that caused a great deal of roffling on my part)

http://www.steampowered.com/index.php?area=faq&id=1050915505,27362300,1063758432,02298800

as for the piracy, i downloaded a few popular games and thought they were nothing special. i uninstalled most of them, i dont think that that is as wrong as downloading something for free that you play all the time. in any case i tend to agree more with reno on the subject. there are definitely moral shades of gray. it is far easier for the law to say this is wrong no matter what and should be punished like this no matter what, than for a person to do the same. most of the time circumstances vary quite a bit. the truth is that piracy is not going to go away no matter what, those companies who go bankrupt do for many reasons, not just piracy. what the news reports is meant to scare the general population into obediance. most of the time bankruptcy is due to underwhelming sales caused by inferior quality. sink or swim, simple as that.

for those that downloaded halflife 2 illegally and got banned, tough s**t, have fun sans-HL2.
[addsig]





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