I'd help out with PS3 reviews, but I'd probably be quite bias against them tbh.. that and I've found myself using my PC for games more and more recently.
Quote: "No, that's a myth. You'd be wise to not bring that kind of thing up at this forum or expect a ban.
The fact that you admit to pirating games that are still available on shelves, on a *game programming forum* shows your level of thoughtlessness."
Unless it's officially counted as abandonware, or released as freeware then legally it's a no-go. Even if it is no longer sold, for example Elite 2 : Frontier hasn't been sold for a good 10years now, but it's still not abandonware.
Games not sold, but not counted as abandonware are dubbed ESA; forget what it stands for but basically means "tough the publisher don't want you to play it"
Almost the entire EA back-catalog is covered by ESA.
In my opinion if a game becomes unavailable, then piracy doesn't bother me too much.
It's when retards not only pirate a game, but then contact technical support because it's broken.. gah that just gets on my nerves. Especially if it's in it's first sale year.
I mean a game generally speaking will sell well for the first 12-18months, after that they tend to only sell here and there.
I don't mind hackers who produce no-cd or circumvent irritating protection systems that tend to fail despite having the damn disc in the drive. Yet I do dislike people who will download the full-game ripped from disc then use those products.
I also wouldn't mind hackers who released cracked versions for people to do the "try before you buy", if they actually also put in a timer for the game to close after an hour of total play.
Ya know alright so not an official demo, but atleast it'd force people to buy it if they did like it.
Dunno... I mean I can see a bit of merit from piracy side of things, but on the other hand. Development companies (like Ritual for example) close down, or are bought out because they can't afford to keep going because of Piracy.
Sin Episodes for example sold 150,000 copies. Not to shabby, eh? If it was just that team then they could've afforded to make the entire series if it kept selling that well; unfortunately they had another 30-odd peeps to support.
What is disheartening though, is a further estimated 400,000 people were playing the game. As there is no demo, there is only one way they could possibly have done that.
If everyone one of those 400,000 people had bought their copy rather than pirate. Right now Ritual would still be going strong, and Sin Episodes would've been seen as a success with two more episodes out and a third on the way.
So ya know the old addage of "well I wouldn't have bought it anyway" or "I was just trying it before I bought it" ... doesn't sodding fly. For one this is an episodic game, with limited gameplay. You complete it once, sure you want more of the story but what point is they to buy it?
Just all sodding retarded, if piracy wasn't so sodding rife right now we wouldn't be paying ridiculous money for games because publishers wouldn't need to cover potencial losses from it. Further more developers like myself, Jeku and Entomophobatic wouldn't be being paid half or even quarter what database programmers do.
I mean fgs, you think game programming is any easier than other forms of software programming? You know what's even more sodding irritated about it...
Game prices are more because of piracy.
Pay is less, sometimes leading to job losses because of piracy.
We get charged more by the tool software companies because of piracy.
You think piracy harms no one?
Just think about where you are, a game developer forum.
If the professionals are getting hit so hard they fail by piracy despite using professional anti-piracy measures... what the hell chance do you think you have?
