mmk - so who cares, actually?

I never intend on buying a smart car, doen't mean I go around stealing them. Since when did it start mattering if a person intended to buy the item or not anyways?

To the right 100,000 copies of Demigod trying to log on a site to play a game they didn't pay for.

To the left 14,000 legally registered and PURCHASED valid copies.

That's from two weeks ago, only. It's tilting, as we speak. Guess to which side.

In three months... in theory... 500,000 to the right & 20,000 left.

Who's losing money? Com'on, dare say it. (Smartass response such as "Nobody's" excluded)

What should be done to balance the next financially feasible (Mecher3k's;Easy, don't make a sucky game) title for predictable sales?

1) Invalidate (as in self-destruct the pirated programs installed) each and every 100,000 illegal copies above (and anything afterwards). Trace the PCs (It's VERY easy, btw) where these are located, send the police, storm the place, arrest & put them in jails for theft. It's armed robbery and the weapon is a MODEM connected to the web.

2) Or, stop making games.

They have a decision to take. But, if i'd be one of the 14,000... i'd still need a server to play what i paid for. (Refer to Fuzzy Logic's solution above, in fact)

a--) and accessibility to servers, and jobs.

b--) Myopic enough to keep this train on tracks? Or sufficient to defend common sense and personal honesty?

Are these two statements close enough from one another to be comparable within your own microscopic vision over contradictions?

You want to help stop piracy?  Here's what each ONE of you can do seperately.  I did this about 7 years ago:  Had a good friend who's son, age 13 then, pirated games.  I refused to play ANY of the games his son pirated (even with his dad, my friend), and I ended up termenating my friendship with him because he kept excuseing his son's stealing (he's just a kid; it's just a game; it does not hurt anyone, ect).  I finally just called his son a theif, and I never heard from him again (although his wife did call me, trying to get us to "make up", but even she said "he's just a kid")  Most everyone may know a pirate; maybe even a good friend or family member.  You've got to make a stand; you've got to call them on their stealing; you can't just ignore it.  If someone you know pirated this game, DON'T play it with them no matter what, anymore than you would watch a show on a stolen TV, or be a passenger in a stolen car.

Oh, and I saw my ex-friends wife at a grocery store last year; seems the "kid" got in trouble for shop lifting when he was 17. Also got in trouble at school for cheating a lot.  She told me she wished she had not taken her son's "just pirating games" so lightly back then.  Boy, did I want to yell "I TOLD YOU SO", but I just nodded. . .

So to all the fools saying pirating software and data is stealing, prove it.

I know you can't because it's NOT, it's breaking COPYRIGHT laws. It's impossible to steal a bunch of 0s and 1s in digital format.

Oh ^^^^, you think that will stop piracy? LOL. Really you people are pathetic, nothing will STOP it. Nothing.

Piracy does none of that. Fallout 3 anyone? SoSE, and on and on. And I will say no one loses money, why? Because once again a pirated copy is NOT A lost sale. How many times must it be said?

Lots of the work people do in this day and age is "stored" in 0s &1s. All your personal info is just 0s and 1s; Your credit cards too; schools records; credit rating; criminal records; medical records; menatal health reports; medicines you take. I'm guessing you'd feel differently is someone made copies of all your 0s &1s. I'm sure if someone started spreading copies of all of the above info about you on torrents you would'nt mind, cause it's no lost sales for you, right?  Oh wait, it's YOUR 0s & 1s, so NOW you'd care

Yep, that's the end result of piracy that these fucktards can't see coming. Games where part of the program is kept server side so the game literally cannot function without a validated connection live at all times, even for single player games.

Mecher3k

A pirated copy is not *necessarily* a lost sale, but enough of them are to be a major problem. You continuing to parrot idiocy does not make it true. One wonders how true this would be for the admitted pirates in the topic: how many of the pirated-but-not-bought games would they actually have purchased had piracy not been an option? They say none, but we can't test that in any meaningful manner, and the word of a thief (sorry, "copyright violator") is oh-so-trustworthy.

tommyth3cat

Sorry for the oversight, allow me to add that to the list of things I've called you.

It's not your disagreement with me or anyone else here making you a criminal (or civil law violator, depending on where you are and exactly how you got your pirated copies), it's your admission of pirating games that is doing that. Assuming your current country of residence is a signatory to the Berne Convention, your laws contain funtionally similar versions of US copyright laws. Those laws, however they are listed in your country, do indeed make piracy of software illegal. Opinions don't really come into play.

hey, at least Frogboy didn't sound like a douche, which is the way I imagine most devs to sound like. Sorry.

also, when talking about server side games. aren't MMO's pretty much server side games? what kind of experience do you have booting up WoW or EVE? you don't play those "single player" do you?

I know pirates have craked WoW and have it on Hamachi and have like 500K people on it, but really, if you have played an MMO, it wasn't so intrusive was it? unless I am totally off base.

wait, aren't all those browser based games they are making now, server side games also?

hmm, tricky bastards

What do I need to prove?

It's fairly obvious: Stealing is getting something without paying for it. That's like asking a store to prove that computer somebody smuggled out of a store woithout paying for is really stolen. You're defying the basic definition of theft. How can I answer such an absurdity??

Have you heard of OnLive? It is the future of gaming if we can't bring piracy down to minimal levels.

To be blunt: In OnLive, the game is 100% server side so there is nothing on your computer to copy. Your computer sends the server the actions, and the server sends back video. That's it.

That could be the future of gaming if idiots like you continue to support piracy. Whether you think it's theft or not is irrelevant.

In civilised countries, you're innocent until proven guilty. The burden of proof is on the accuser. It's the same as with god - saying "prove god doesn't exist" proves nothing. You can't prove that Invisible Pink Unicorn doesn't exist, either. And there are two proofs that Invisible Pink Unicorn exist. By logic - since we can't see her, she must be invisible. By heart - in our hearts we all know Invisible Pink Unicorn exists.

About "getting for free = stealing". Ask a child at kindergarten and he/she will point out holes in your reasoning. I'm overqualified to respond to this.

About OnLive - this is just silly. Let's assume for a moment you're right, and all client-side games magically disappear. What do we have now ? A vacuum. Demand for client-sided games. If demand is high enough, someone would pay for it. This is how freeware games are made today - someone pays for development of a game that's released for free.

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In a way, Stardock had it coming because they made the game in such way that playing is only possible on official servers. If servers were decentralized quake1-3 style, players (including pirates) would set up their own servers and wouldn't overload official servers. But that's an inconvenient truth.

Hmm, blaming the victim. Quite a popular theory. (mainly in countries that spit on human rights)