POLL: Cracked games or Paid games?

[kaltsasa]

Cracked games or Paid games?

How about Cracked Paid Games?

You must thing, wtf am I talking about?

I cracked the cd check on most if not all games I paid.

So I am going to put a vote for both.

Same here, most of my games have a No CD crack applied, I have limited space in my office and storing a ton of CDs is not my idea of a good time. In the same regard as long as retail copies of games are as much or more than digital versions I'll continue to buy retail copies.

Like the witcher, Amazon had the EE version with all the swanky extras for 35 dollars, the digital download was 40. Hmmm 5 bucks more for less stuff. Yea that makes sense guys. Also I need my digital download services to let me redownload the games if I need to.

Case in point, any Digital Download game from Mac Game Store I can redownload to this day (even big games like X3), I bought spore from GameTreeOnline as a trial (for the same price as retail) and my download link is no longer valid. Now you can email them for a new download link but its a pointless hassle, you know I bought it leave the link active in my account.

Now given that maintaining your download availability indefinitely bears some minor cost I'm willing to grant companies the right to charge retail prices for downloadable games in the case that I retain indefinite download rights. Which is not the case with many of these services. Steam, MacGameStore, and Impulse seem to be the only ones I've noticed so far.

 

[Signal-11]

BUT (this is a huge one): Since I am a mac gamer and i absolutely refuse to give any money to Microsoft in any way shape or form. I frequently download windows games that have been cracked to run on OSX. I have 43 to date.

No.

You are the worst kind of pirate. You use a thin veil of principle to take something for which you have not paid.

Here's why I think you're full of *****.

Based on your statement, you have enough money for games.

If you actually thought about the principles in which you state you believe, you would realize that the only people you're hurting is not Microsoft, but the game studios and publishers. These are the game studios that produce the games which you claim to enjoy so much, you spend thousands of dollars a year.

If you claimed that you had a pirated copy of Windows on which you ran games for which you have paid, at least your argument would be consistent and logical.

If you claimed that you pirated ONLY games that were made by Microsoft owned game studios, I might believe that you had (warped) principles.

If you claimed that you bought copies of games which have been Ciderized or otherwise hacked to run on OS X, I would believe you because I do that. I've got two copies of Oblivion because I forgot I already bought a copy years ago.

Instead, you give this cock and bull story about hating Microsoft as an excuse to pirate games.

I think you're basically a dishonest individual who is hiding behind a thin veneer of ideals. What you are is an intellectual thief. You're a part of the problem. In fact, you're worse than a 'normal' pirate because you like to pretend that what you're doing isn't wrong, thereby getting guys like me painted with the piracy brush.

In fact, the more I think about it, the more I don't like you and the more think you're just plain scum. The application of your moral code disgusts me because you have the money to pay for what you take, but don't. At least a 13 year old kid has the excuse that he doesn't have any money.

I'm going to stop posting in this thread because I don't want to be associated with you and people like you.

 

[wywern209]

I've fancied downloading games cuz i have no cash( im only 16 w/ no job due to economy) but i've never actually done it. i've downloaded some music but thats it. i pay for my games cuz i play on the PS3 but in all seriousness, it wouldn't hurt the studios to drop the prices on games like 10-15 bucks in the US. 60 dollars for one game! paying 45-50 bucks more reasonable. I've heard about the horrible over pricing in AU and europe. i try to get my games off Amazon most of the time because its cheaper there than going to say Bestbuy and getting it for 60 bucks.
BTW: add me on PSN! ID is wywern209 of course.

 

[0098386]

So you expect studios to lower their RRP yet not get closed down like so many studios have been doing?
That said Modern Warfare 2 is going to be released at £55 here. But rather than pirating it I'm just not going to buy it.

 

[SwiftLives]

But the thing is that you're not taking anything -- you're copying it. The content owner hasn't lost any physical goods from you making a copy. Furthermore, it may, but may not, deprive the owner of income.

You're obtaining something offered for sale without paying for it and without permission. That's stealing. That's illegal.

Here's another analogy. You've worked for 6 months researching and writing a paper. I copy this paper. I turn the paper in at another school. I get an A without doing any work and without compensating you for your research and without giving you any credit whatsoever. You haven't lost any physical goods. You haven't lost any income because if you'd offered this paper for sale, I sure as hell wouldn't have bought it.

And suddenly, I have no idea what point I'm trying to make. Other than I think you'd be really annoyed.

So...um...yeah.

 

[Zortrium]

You're obtaining something offered for sale without paying for it and without permission. That's stealing. That's illegal.

I'm not saying that piracy isn't illegal, nor am I saying that piracy isn't wrong. I'm saying that it's infringement, not theft. It's (illegally) making a copy, not taking someone else's property, which would be theft. It does take someone's intellectual property (as per your paper analogy), but that's the key distinction between infringement and theft. We both agree that piracy is wrong -- I'd just like people to be clear on what piracy actually is, and what it is not is theft.

You may think of them in the same way, but that's not the way the world works. Piracy is rampant in Asia largely because there's almost no enforcement of intellectual property protection -- the governments are happy to let their citizens get huge amounts of largely US-produced software for free, and there isn't too much of an international backlash because the US corporations can't easily point to their product and say that it's been stolen from them. If a US car manufacturer suddenly discovered thousands of their cars disappearing and turning up in China while the government turned a blind eye, you can bet there would be more pressure to do something about it.

 

[wywern209]

Whether or not prices change, piracy will always be there. there is nothing that we can do about that. However, it is true that copyright laws need to be changed for the 21st century, due to the widespread sue of the internet and P2P. proper laws need to be defined or amended and that doesn't seem to be happening just yet. give it a few years and we shall see some movement with the pirate party that was formed in the EU.

 

[danyol]

I pay for games if they are mac games or Ukrainian games or games that are published in ukrainian. I BUY cracked games: in ukraine most games, save for PS3 and PSP games, are cracked and pirated, sold at cheap prices (5 total war games and mods for 4$). I very rarely download a cracked game.

 

[Zortrium]

I pay for games if they are mac games or Ukrainian games or games that are published in ukrainian. I BUY cracked games: in ukraine most games, save for PS3 and PSP games, are cracked and pirated, sold at cheap prices (5 total war games and mods for 4$). I very rarely download a cracked game.

Please don't do this. Buying a pirated game is even worse than downloading a pirated game for free because it creates an economic incentive for large-scale piracy. This ultimately has negative effects on everyone legally buying the game.

 

[TJRiver]

Stealing Is Stealing, Rationalize All You Want

It's not stealing, though -- theft is the taking of another's property, and while pirating a piece of software is certainly illegal, it doesn't actually deprive the owner of anything. It's a little like going to a clothing store and examining a shirt down to the fine stitching details, then using a machine to instantly create an exact copy of the shirt that you then walk off with. The store owners may initiate litigation against you, but it's not going to be for stealing.
Piracy arguably deprives the content owner of potential money, though how much is dependent on what percentage of pirates would otherwise buy the game if they couldn't download it. If a pirate ultimately does buy the software, though, the potential money is realized and the content holder has lost effectively nothing from the initial download.



I don't understand this -- if Microsoft makes nothing but crap then you shouldn't want to buy or use anything that they make. I'm as much of a Mac gamer as anyone and strongly dislike Windows, yet I went and shelled out something like $100 to Microsoft for a copy of Vista. Why? Because I think buying a copy of Windows is worth $100 so that I can play whatever Windows games I want. The fact that I dislike Microsoft is immaterial -- they offer a piece of software that allows me access to other pieces of software I'm actually interested in (which sounds like the whole point of an operating system in the first place), so I gave them my money. As soon as a legal alternative comes alone (e.g., a Mac port), I'll always opt for that, but many times that never happens.

Let me know when you are going to raise that brilliant defense in a court of law, counselor. It has not worked terribly well to date.........

 

[aznguyen316]

Let me know when you are going to raise that brilliant defense in a court of law, counselor. It has not worked terribly well to date.........

more like let me know when you DO get called to court for this.. considering we've heard of only a small amount of cases that went through trial (music sharing -not downloading mostly) and there are millions out pirating haha anyway...

 

[Signal-11]

more like let me know when you DO get called to court for this.. considering we've heard of only a small amount of cases that went through trial (music sharing -not downloading mostly) and there are millions out pirating haha anyway...

How do you separate downloading and sharing? The nature of P2P is such that when you download, you also share.

You're not on the hook for stealing. You're on the hook for distributing, which is a much more serious matter.

As for the music only a few have gone to trial because most of those tens of thousands choose to settle.

 

[gekko]

I have only bought apps and games.

 

[jpenguin]

Every one of my games has been paid for. Just counting the ones I have immediate access to, that's over a 100 games between just my Steam account, PSP, DS and Mac.

Except for the games on my Steam account, every PC/Mac game is cracked. Copy protection and media checks are completely asinine. You mean if I left the CD/DVD at home back in the states, I can't play this game at all? WTF? I bought your game, why are you punishing me with this crap?

Cracking and hacking is not pirating.

+1

I hate having to carry around the CD/DVD when the game doesn't even get it's data from it. As long as you don't use a NO-DVD patch to run the game without paying for it, it's fine

 

[Zortrium]

Let me know when you are going to raise that brilliant defense in a court of law, counselor. It has not worked terribly well to date.........

As previous posters have noted, it hasn't really ever been tried in court because the downloaders aren't on trial for theft.

I encourage anyone following this discussion to read this post, which is pretty brief and, I think, accurate.

 

[rj-300zx]

I always pay for things I like. I will occasionally "try" something before I buy, but if its worth buying I will. As far as no-cd's, it doesn't really bother me. I make backups and bring a sleeve of them with me if I go anywhere.

 

[Winni]

I pay for my stuff. And here's the simple reason why: I once worked for a software company that went bankrupt, but while that company could no longer pay my salary, you were able to download illegal copies of our products from the edonkey network. I believe that people are entitled to get paid for their work.

With music and videos, I must admit that my perspective is a bit different: When it is okay to record music from the radio or a movie from TV, why should it all of a sudden be not okay to share that very same file through a file sharing network? I mean, they broadcast that stuff over the air, free for everyone to copy - and there is no law nowhere that forbids recording a movie or a song. Quite the opposite: In many countries it has been made explicitly LEGAL to do this (for private use). So, from a regular citizen's perspective, how can the downloaded song be illegal when they give it away for free on the radio? This only makes sense for the music industry, but certainly not for billions of consumers. And it is a logic - or a lack of logic - that simply cannot be explained to a citizen.

 

[McShizzel]

I used to have cracked games while I was in high school but since then I pay for all of my software.