A discussion of software piracy

[Major_Higgins]

Yeah that's right. Half-Life 2 was in fact one of the most easily cracked games in late memory.
In the current state, I don't think there's anything that could prevent piracy, except the fact that we have brains. Most of us (S&M enthusiasts :D) found Season 1 cheap and enjoyable, and were glad to support TellTale for making our dream come true! That kind of fandom is something that hasn't been seen in PC games for years, and it made Telltale's success (and bucks!).
Now more people are making episodic games because they see it as a good moneymaker. Ridiculous! The fact that S&M Season 1 is available now in the "free networks" proves it wrong : they're still as crackable as others. Do you really think Half-Life episodes will sell better because they're Steamed? Harr harr, think again!

What made S&M's success is the simple fact that it is GOOD. Take that, Valve.

[Katana]

Um...Half-Life's episodes ARE selling better...but regardlessly, I love Sam and Max, and I don't want to start an argument between them. They're both great companies catering to different arguments.
Valve's reasoning, though, was that Half-Life 3 would take them beyond retirement. Even as long as they have taken, the "Episodes" were a pretty good choice...considering the alternative.

[Major_Higgins]

Well, the Episodes might sell well, OK. But it is a well known fact that Episode 1 wasn't worth the cost. We'll see if Episode 2 proves, or not, that Valve is commiting extortion. Unlike the happy fellows at TellTale, who made big bucks by pleasing a solid fanbase AND many more new fans of Sam & Max at a reasonable price!

It IS possible to compare the two, if you think in percentage.

[Rasher]

Oblivion has no copyright protection at all (other than a simple DVD check). In fact, I made a copy of my Oblivion DVD just so I can play using the copy and keep the original nice and shiny. :D

I may be wrong, but the lack of DRM and copyright protection didn't seem to hurt sales of the PC version, did it? Consumers may not be a slimey as we are made out to be.

[Major_Higgins]

Copy protections don't have anything to do with the malaise that PC games are enduring nowadays. Games, have been cracked since the beginning of protections, since Atari ST for all I know, certainly earlier.
The problem is the massive distribution. Peer to peer, humongous bandwiths. That's the problem. Software editors lose money, but on the other side, internet providers and hardware companies are making loads of cash. Piracy was one of the main reasons behind the success of PS1 & PS2. I think it's a complicated battle between software & hardware people, with a bunch of laws thrown in for good measures. I mean, would making BitTorrent simply illegal deprive us of our rights? Does anyone think it's used for something else than piracy? OK, they're a few games sites that use it for the diffusion of demos and patches, but come on, it's nothing compared to the pure madness of it all! I wonder if it'll stop...

[Jake]

But it is a well known fact that Episode 1 wasn't worth the cost.

I thought HL2: Episode 1 was one of the best games of last year, hands down. It was well worth the cost to me. It's next to never that you can play a chunk of gaming that diverse, and that tightly packed with such polished extreme quality. I personally don't care that it was "only" 5 hours long, or something, and cost $20. I pay $10 to see a 90 minute movie quite frequently, and it's very rare that I'm as entertained as I was by Half Life 2: Episode 1. Also, for that $20, I can play it over and over as often as I like (and I have, played through it twice now). Valve didn't deliver on meeting a truly episodic schedule, but I think they did deliver in spades on moving away from sprawling hours and hours of doing the same thing in favor of a shorter, far more tightly packed and varying gaming experience.

Also, episode 2 sounds amazing (http://shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=333).

[marsan]

I mean, would making BitTorrent simply illegal deprive us of our rights? Does anyone think it's used for something else than piracy? OK, they're a few games sites that use it for the diffusion of demos and patches, but come on, it's nothing compared to the pure madness of it all! I wonder if it'll stop...

I have to arrest you there. There are several legal uses for BitTorrent, which would ease the load on several servers, if more used this technology for legal downloads. One of the most obvious cases where BitTorrent has helped a lot on the server load, is with several different linux distros(for example: http://www.debian.org/CD/torrent-cd/). Also, BitTorrent has been used by gaming companies like Funcom to ease the load on the server(http://torrent.funcom.com/torrents/Dreamfall_Trial_EN_25930.torrent), when people download their demos. Also, AutoPatcher uses torrent files to ease the load on their servers for people who want to download patches and fix up their PC.

Making BitTorrent illegal is like making cars illegal, because you can use the car to do something illegal. Or making knifes completly illegal, because you can use them to kill somebody. Like with every technology, it can be abused and misused, but there will always be several benefits to the technology if it is used in positive and good ways. Anyway, it wouldn't be a problem to share files in other ways if torrents disappeared. To make efficient laws that would prevent all piracy online, one have to make laws which practically made the entire Internet illegal.

[TrogLlama]

There's ups and downs about pirating softwares (Note: I am not saying I am for nor against pirating).

For example, to some people that Sam & Max Episode 1 demo seems too short even for a demo. I can say that some people may have played a pirated copy of the episode 1 all the way to the end and they like it so much that they're buying the full season.

At the same time, there's always way poor, poor little kids who doesn't have access to credit card or know anything about the hard working labor of programming, developing, designing a video game, no matter how long the game is, those people who work on the game deserve a share of the profit from the software, but yet, they just don't understand that concept. The only concept they know is INTERNET = EVERYTHING IS FREE.

I take umbrage at that. Believe it or not, I know plenty of kids who know more about what is going on than some adults I know.
Don't assume that just because someone's a minor, they lack values and morals. That's a mean-spirited stereotype propagated by media which needs some rightless group to scapegoat.

[DrakeFox]

re. PC gaming dieing? I could think of a few reasons why PC game sales are failing to the console counterparts.
Such as you don't need to upgrade constantly, just keep the right generation of console handy.
You don't get your consoles infected with spyware, malware, adware and other stuff which bogs it down which normal user won't have a clue they have or how to get rid of. I work as sysadm at a school here. The students have laptops from the school. I deal with people daily who complain that the computer is a piece of crap which never works. Quick inspection shows that the reason it's so bad is because unwanted processes eat up 50-60% of CPU and memory resources. Explaining how installing everything you see isn't a good idea is usually met with blank stares. Much easier with a console. You push the power button and you're ready to go. No maintenance.

For the PC I'd say though that I still prefer the mouse/keyboard combo. And I can't imagine going online with a console, though it's getting closer to something usable. And even though I know it's usually frowned upon, I like using no-CD patches for my games so I don't have to have the disc in drive constantly. Impulsive as I am it's a bother for me to get up to find the disc when I suddenly want to play something. Everything gets installed nowadays anyway.

Generally don't have a problem with people pirating stuff, but really think they ought to buy it if they actually like it and want to use it beyond a test. Demos can be misleading, but by buying the things you like, you support the people who make stuff to your taste. Problem with that is we live in a world where morale and ideology are good things to have, but the distance to action is very variable. Sad but true. There's no easy solution to this.

[chrisff1989]

I'm not ashamed to say I pirated Culture Shock because I didn't know what to expect from Telltale. I promptly bought the whole season after playing it.

[Frogacuda]

PC piracy is inescapable. Short of really invasive stuff like Starforce, you're not going to be able to do much to stop it entirely. I think in this case, it's not really piracy that took a big bite out of the series as much as it is confusion.

Everyone I talk to about these games says "Oh, I don't want to buy Gametap." or "Yeah, but I want to be able to keep the games after I cancel my subscription." They don't know about Telltale's deal, the bonus disc, any of that.

Gametap handled much of the marketing of these, but it's a double-edged sword. Gametap lied, repeatedly. They called the games "Gametap Exclusives" and when dealing with the press, they'd deny they were availible any other way.

I asked a Gametap rep to his face "Is there going to be any other way to get these games at any point?" and he told me straight to my face "No."

I expect the retail release to do well because a lot of casual gamers not up on all the details of how you can buy this to stumble on it and say "Oh, I didn't even know this was out."I don't think it was piracy so much as a lack in demand - PC's only became big for gaming during the early-mid ninties as soon as the Playstation was released companies moved to developing for consoles in droves - the difference in sales numbers between console and PC games is huge (Piracy or not)?lol. There was so much good stuff for the PC during the PSX's life it's ridiculous. That was actually the time in my life when I did the least console gaming.

In Europe computer gaming was huge all through the 80s on through the 90s as well. More kids had their commodores, amigas, and spectrums than Nintendos.

I think PC gaming lost a lot of people in the late 90s/early 2000s when games (not to mention Windows 98/ME) were so sloppily programmed that a new purchase had a 50/50 shot of actually working, even if you met the requirements. It chased people away and they never came back, even though the situation is better now.

[ShaggE]

lol. There was so much good stuff for the PC during the PSX's life it's ridiculous. That was actually the time in my life when I did the least console gaming.

In Europe computer gaming was huge all through the 80s on through the 90s as well. More kids had their commodores, amigas, and spectrums than Nintendos.

I think PC gaming lost a lot of people in the late 90s/early 2000s when games (not to mention Windows 98/ME) were so sloppily programmed that a new purchase had a 50/50 shot of actually working, even if you met the requirements. It chased people away and they never came back, even though the situation is better now.

Amen. I get painfully nostalgic for mid-nineties PC games quite often. Not the big-name titles mostly, but the underdogs and indies (which at the time were often found on HUGE compilation shareware discs... remember the first 3 Galaxy Of Games CDs from Softkey? I'd kill to have those again.)

I also feel your pain on the 98/ME era of PC games... I think that was when MS started really hitting the games market, wasn't it? Definitely no coincidences there. (Not that they haven't redeemed themselves with the XBox and the 360)

[DrakeFox]

Lots of good dos era games around. Lots of bad games as well. The difference I guess is that back in the day you _could_ actually make a game out of a basement or a garage. Today what's required for you to have a "proper" game would be insane graphics, lots of soundwork, brilliant level design and a good engine.

Way too complex for one or two people to usually pull off, and with the rising complexity comes time it takes to make and with time to make comes cost. With a higher cost the willingness to bet on something which might not be mainstream goes a long way down. And so there are few good unique games around today.

There are some, but not the abundance there were earlier, and unique != good. Personally I've got a couple of ideas for games which I could imagine being fun and different, but not being that good a coder, especially when it comes to 3D. And being horrible with graphics and AI I'm not about to start up trying to make them come true.

[ShaggE]

Personally I've got a couple of ideas for games which I could imagine being fun and different, but not being that good a coder, especially when it comes to 3D. And being horrible with graphics and AI I'm not about to start up trying to make them come true.

Why not? Start simple. Look how far one-man efforts have gone in the past. For example, Llamasoft. Jeff Minter started with no coding skill whatsoever, and now he's known worldwide for coding the 360's Neon engine. (not to mention all of his great lightsynths and games)

It's hard work (I know, I'm spearheading a two-man game project with no experience at all), but there's few things more rewarding than seeing your ideas come to fruition.

Just a thought. :)

[Xenephobe]

Incientally, the first day Culture Shock went on sale at our site it also showed up on a torrent, but it was actually 800MB of gay porn. :eek:
Literally made me rofl. :p

On-topic,
Software piracy is unstoppable.
Even if you use Themida, or any other software "protector" to pack your software;
there's going to be a reverse-engineer that can unpack it.

However I don't see why people don't go the extra mile and support Telltale Games for their hard work.
[ I can't imagine how long it took them to make their games in C++, C#, or whatever language they used. ]

It's a pity some people can't afford 9 dollars.

[AdamG]

Software piracy is one of those things that is impossible to get rid of, and shouldn't be tried too hard to elimate, but must still have some preventive measure.

[LuigiHann]

Literally made me rofl. :p

You literally rolled on the floor? I didn't know people still did that

[Xenephobe]

Even though there are people out there that can unpack most to all publicly available packers...

Using Themida will prevent ALOT of crackers/software reverse-engineers.
But if one person cracks it, and releases it... the remaining people that can't crack it won't matter anymore.

Edit: I didn't really roll on the floor, but it still gave me a good chuckle. :p

[AdamG]

You literally rolled on the floor? I didn't know people still did that

Ouch, that sounds painful. :(

[Frogacuda]

Lots of good dos era games around. Lots of bad games as well. The difference I guess is that back in the day you _could_ actually make a game out of a basement or a garage. Today what's required for you to have a "proper" game would be insane graphics, lots of soundwork, brilliant level design and a good engine.It's true that the days of the the garage blockbuster are over. We'll never see a team of 5 or 6 friends make a game that sells like Doom does again. I don't think we'll ever see a 1-man game make waves the way Out of this World did, either.

But Telltale's a perfect example of how a fairly small company can make a profitable game on a pretty small budget. Digital distribution has opened a lot of doors for the little guys out there.

Any indie developer will tell you the hardest part is getting a publisher to sign off on an unproven idea. With digital distribution there isn't really much, if any, overhead beyond the time you put into development, so that kind of skepticism isn't as relevant. And if a million people download your game, it's easier to break into the retail sector too. Just look at Kenta Cho and the new Wii port of Tumiki Fighters.Why not? Start simple. Look how far one-man efforts have gone in the past. For example, Llamasoft. Jeff Minter started with no coding skill whatsoever, and now he's known worldwide for coding the 360's Neon engine. (not to mention all of his great lightsynths and games)

It's hard work (I know, I'm spearheading a two-man game project with no experience at all), but there's few things more rewarding than seeing your ideas come to fruition.

Just a thought. :)
Yeah, I've learned this, too. I have no ambitions of game development, but there were a lot of times when I shelved good ideas because "I don't know how to do that" only to discover later that I was pretty good at it when I just took the initiative to learn. No one starts out good.

[marsan]

It's a pity some people can't afford 9 dollars.

I always feel a little insecure when buying something online, from a company located in another country. Even though I actually ended up buying the whole season, I don't think I would do it again. I mean, if I order from a online store located in my country, I got a lot of rights. But what happens to those rights if the company is located in another country? If the company doesn't deliver the goods, and still charge me, suddenly I can be out of luck. Fortunately, this has never happened to me, but I am sure it could happen. That's why I was very happy to hear it will be released retail too, because then I at least won't have to send my credit numbers over the sea again :D

Anyway. So what was my point again? Oh yes, for me, I can afford buying the whole season(or single episodes for that sake), but I rather buy it if I can get it from a local store - so I know my rights as a consumer is protected. Actually, when I decided to order sam & max : season 1, I only dared to do it because it was not very expensive at all, so I figured: if I loose that money, it's no risk. For the next season, buying the entire season on DVD, in the store, after that season is finished, is a less risky solution for me. But then again, here you get a lot more rights if you buy something retail compared to if you buy it online(as digital downloads).

So yeah, it could be that others like me can afford it, but are afraid for their rights if something should happen to TTG or if something goes wrong with the transaction. Thus they rather make illegal copies instead, because when you haven't paid for anything, you have no rights that can be violated :) Thus I have a feeling the retail sale will top even the sales of whole-season-passes(download style) because some people will be unsure what they are actually getting when they buy the season as a whole online(like, can they keep playing the game if the server goes down? such things...)

[Xenephobe]

I always feel a little insecure when buying something online, from a company located in another country. Even though I actually ended up buying the whole season, I don't think I would do it again. I mean, if I order from a online store located in my country, I got a lot of rights. But what happens to those rights if the company is located in another country? If the company doesn't deliver the goods, and still charge me, suddenly I can be out of luck. Fortunately, this has never happened to me, but I am sure it could happen. That's why I was very happy to hear it will be released retail too, because then I at least won't have to send my credit numbers over the sea again :D

Anyway. So what was my point again? Oh yes, for me, I can afford buying the whole season(or single episodes for that sake), but I rather buy it if I can get it from a local store - so I know my rights as a consumer is protected. Actually, when I decided to order sam & max : season 1, I only dared to do it because it was not very expensive at all, so I figured: if I loose that money, it's no risk. For the next season, buying the entire season on DVD, in the store, after that season is finished, is a less risky solution for me. But then again, here you get a lot more rights if you buy something retail compared to if you buy it online(as digital downloads).

So yeah, it could be that others like me can afford it, but are afraid for their rights if something should happen to TTG or if something goes wrong with the transaction. Thus they rather make illegal copies instead, because when you haven't paid for anything, you have no rights that can be violated :) Thus I have a feeling the retail sale will top even the sales of whole-season-passes(download style) because some people will be unsure what they are actually getting when they buy the season as a whole online(like, can they keep playing the game if the server goes down? such things...)
Good point.
I only buy online from sites I've had good experiences with or is trusted; and haven't had any problems. :cool:

[Morden]

Well good luck to anyone trying to crack sam and max episode 4. (Which I bought) I was curious so I, shall we say, had a poke around. The game is protected by 'SoftwarePassport - a greatly enhanced version of the Armadillo Software Protection.

Riiiight. Just look at what's floating around the net. Steam, StarForce, Armadillo and Themida protected games and apps, all cracked and working fine. Armadillo is good, but as the authors themselves say, it's not perfect.

You can only do so much to protect your game without overdoing it. Just look at StarForce. A few SF protected games did withstand the hacker attacks for an impressive amout of time, but the protection was eventually cracked, and when the documents on how to reverse it were published, that was it.

Armadillo is REALLY well documented by reverse engineers. You have tutorials on how to defeat ALL of the Armadillo tricks including the Nanomites and Copy Mem. You even have specialized tools to help you with the cracking.

Anyways, my CD with season one is in the mail and I can only hope that Telltale didn't use any DRM functions. Telltale Build Configuration names SecuROM, which is good, since you don't have to be connected to activate the title. I hate Valve for their Steam, even though I love their games.

P.S. - Sorry for digging up an old quote. Telltale Team should know that I buy their products and I will continue to do so.

[glenfx]

I had a similar argument with another developer who was sad about piracy and that he was loosing sales because of it.
But what people don’t realize is that those people using P2P might have never made any purchase, so you can’t count something as a loss if there wasn’t a guarantee that they wanted to buy it in the first place.
People are curious beings and usually don’t like to be constrained, so they use the pirated versions instead of the demos since they can feel the real deal and not some croped version or with annoyances everywhere that makes you puke, if they like it and have the money they will certainly buy it but not if the crippled versions leave a bad taste.
True story: I tried Maya's Personal Edition (the first one they released) and the "watermarks" multiplied a billion times on the screen made me dizzy and made me think the program sucked, I simply couldn’t work in that program. A year later I was trained to use Maya since I was the lead character modeller and the pipeline with the software I used (lightwave) was a bit troublesome and slow for riggers and texture artists, though at first I thought I would have the same bad impression I had with the PE version, but I was hooked with the "clean" application.

So, If people don’t like the product, more often than not they just delete the data and move on and without loosing money on something that didn’t interested or appealed to them.
And believe it or not, piracy might lead to real purchases.

BTW, don’t be a fool thinking that if you have a computer you are entitled to have money to purchase stuff, and also don’t think that if you have money then it means anyone else has.

PS: its funny how those "security" features "like securom and the others" annoy much more the real customers than what they suppose to do with the pirates O_o'. I hate the fact I have to look for "no cd" patches to avoid the annoyance of "put the cd/dvd in drive" every time I want to play something, like accusing you of stealing every time you want to play >_< (same happens with the movies and the two hour long FBI warning saying you might be stealing and you just cant skip it. "I don’t mind the warning... but for god's sake just let me skip it" oh, and if they are from other regions than 1 then you have the warning in English and then in other languages..so it takes twice as much >_<)(sorry for the rant ^^)

PS2: I think I read a few replies about "before people where able to create stuff in their basements....etc" well, if you look for the right information you can still do stuff in your own home. For instance, there are a couple of programs that let you create adventure games like Monkey Island 3 (with better graphic quality) and you don’t need to know a bit of programming (look for a program called Visionaire 2D. or another one called Adventure maker or AGS.. though Visionaire is really great.)

[Lucien21]

But what people don’t realize is that those people using P2P might have never made any purchase, so you can’t count something as a loss if there wasn’t a guarantee that they wanted to buy it in the first place.

I hate that stupid justification it is bollocks.

If a product is worth downloading and worth your time playing then it is worth paying for.

I do agree that every download might not have been a sale so it is difficult to say exactly what the sales impact on a developer was. However my view is..if it's not something worth my money then it's not worth playing in the first place so why download it.

I've just seen too many pirates use the "I wouldn't have bought it anyway so nobody is losing money" excuse to justify what they are doing.

BTW, don’t be a fool thinking that if you have a computer you are entitled to have money to purchase stuff, and also don’t think that if you have money then it means anyone else has.

Lack of money isn't an excuse for stealing something. Video games are a luxury not an entitlement. I'm sorry if some people can't afford them or lack the willpower and judgement to decide which ones to buy with what little money they have and not play the rest. Just because I can't afford to play EVERY video game that is ever released doesn't give me the right to download them all for free.

[evilguy12]

There's ups and downs about pirating softwares (Note: I am not saying I am for nor against pirating).

For example, to some people that Sam & Max Episode 1 demo seems too short even for a demo. I can say that some people may have played a pirated copy of the episode 1 all the way to the end and they like it so much that they're buying the full season.

At the same time, there's always way poor, poor little kids who doesn't have access to credit card or know anything about the hard working labor of programming, developing, designing a video game, no matter how long the game is, those people who work on the game deserve a share of the profit from the software, but yet, they just don't understand that concept. The only concept they know is INTERNET = EVERYTHING IS FREE.

Yeah that really annoys me. This guy at school asked me if I knew where he could download PSP games illegal and if I knew how to get them working on PSP! He also asks me the same questions about games that I say are great (like Sam & Max) and that he should buy.

[marsan]

It's funny to see that this thread got woken up again

[glenfx]

If a product is worth downloading and worth your time playing then it is worth paying for.
Not exactly true. Your saying that even if you download a demo version then its worth paying for it because it took you time to download and playing it?? that was pretty lame.
If you meant it as, if people who download a pirate copy and likes it then they should be paying for it, then yes I agree and many people do buy the product as a result.
BUT, if people don’t like it then they will simply delete the data and you cant force them to buy something they didn’t like, its unfortunate that not all games have demo versions and people is not willing to spend the money on the wrong game, so the only option for them is to download it from a P2P source.

However my view is..if it's not something worth my money then it's not worth playing in the first place so why download it.
Ok, But how do you know something is not worth it?
How do you know you like.. let’s say chocolate? you had to "try" it at some point before you knew you liked it.. Right?, well, this applies to almost everything.

Lack of money isn't an excuse for stealing something
As far as I know that is the main influence for robbery in the world since ancient times.

It's funny to see that this thread got woken up again
LOL, sorry about that ^^

[Badwolf]

I think the main problem is that most games tend to be a complete and total rip off (£50 for a 6 hour game, like Halo 3, is just ridiculous, especially when it's just £20 for 5 episodes of Sam and Max lasting presumably about 20 hours, the way I play them), there's too much rubbish floating about so it's hard to pick out any real gems without splashing out money all over the place, and then reviews won't always match your opinion (I think Halo's terrible, but it gets 9 and 10 out of 10 all over the board).

I'm extremely short on money as it is, without throwing money all over the place at games I'll end up not liking, but I do try and find the best deals before buying anything (I got Mario Galaxy for £15 which was nice).
Ideally, all games would be downloadable rather than boxed, so it's cheaper for everyone, and cuts out the greedy middle men (the publishers and the games shops) and more money goes to the people who deserve it, the developers. Steam and Telltale's methods of distribution are great, seeing as I'm getting the games for much less than I would if I was paying for the packaging and shipping and whatnot as well.

I can see why people turn to games piracy, just like music piracy, because they're being robbed blind by the industry. I don't condone it, especially if it's against smaller companies or upstart developers seeing as they need the money much more than bigger businesses, and their games tend to be cheaper, but I can see why people do it.

Right, I think I'm starting to ramble now, late nights and headaches don't make for great coherency, so I'll stop there.

[Kaldire]

There are universities doing studies on the EFFECTIVE INCREASE of purchases in people who download more illegal stuff. Dont believe me google it

Findings!
http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/epic/site/ippd-dppi.nsf/en/ip01462e.html
Article stating its ok to pirate.. i half agree.. Buy what you like and whats worth it people!

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/11/06/p2p_music_increases_cd_sales_study/1

Yep go figure.. now whats their excuse?
Its a new result but its found that if a person dls say 2000 songs that person is usually more apt to buying more music than the person say who has no clue what p2p is and never dled a song. Bad hit the nail on the head.. its about the rich staying rich.. some games really arent worth it(and wtf no manuals now! I love trinkets and manuals!) Cheap and cheesy. So sadly yes I have pirated kick me now if you will.. but I think you would have to ban 90% of every forum if you want to go there.

I buy.. ALOT lets just say that I believe in the findings

[marsan]

Its a new result but its found that if a person dls say 2000 songs that person is usually more apt to buying more music than the person say who has no clue what p2p is and never dled a song.

That is so true. I practically never bought anything before I started downloading stuff off the Internet(at that time, it was legal, because of old and outdated laws). I would buy perhaps one music cd a year, and that was if it was a good year with a lot of recommendations. I would never buy movies either(and I really mean never, I had no dvds, and the few vhses I had were recorded off TV.) I bought a few games, but usually I bought a few games at random(which was possible back then, but practically impossible now.)

Then when I started downloading different stuff, I discovered a lot of music and games I wasn't even aware of existed, and movies too. Suddenly I started buying more regularly, and I have been working on getting my collection complete since then. Now it's pretty much complete, but that's because I have decided to become more legal and stop downloading stuff at random. Thus I rarely get exposed to new music or movies which I didn't know about.

Also, I have decided to cut down on the amount I buy because of all the suing lately. I don't want to support people who just wants to sue me and my friends for stuff I personally know gives them more sales. Also, I don't want to support an industry who tries to change the laws in ways which restricts and removes my rights to do things I could do freely just a few years ago.

[Lucien21]

Not exactly true. Your saying that even if you download a demo version then its worth paying for it because it took you time to download and playing it?? that was pretty lame.
If you meant it as, if people who download a pirate copy and likes it then they should be paying for it, then yes I agree and many people do buy the product as a result.
BUT, if people don’t like it then they will simply delete the data and you cant force them to buy something they didn’t like, its unfortunate that not all games have demo versions and people is not willing to spend the money on the wrong game, so the only option for them is to download it from a P2P source.

Demos are always the place to start.

Unfortunatly when people download the whole game most people don't buy the game as a result of liking it. That's the problem.

Pirating the whole game as a "demo" doesn't make it right. People should use judgement on what games they will or won't like. I.e read reviews, recommendations from friends, knowing what type of games you like etc etc. This judgement will be the basis of what games to buy or not.

What you are suggesting is that people lack judgement and need to steal to make any kind of rational choice.

Ok, But how do you know something is not worth it?
How do you know you like.. let’s say chocolate? you had to "try" it at some point before you knew you liked it.. Right?, well, this applies to almost everything.

Yes but if you have tried chocolate in the past you don't need to steal the latest Cadbury bar to know you might like it. The first time you tried chocolate you bought it or someone bought it for you.

As far as I know that is the main influence for robbery in the world since ancient times.

Doesn't make it right. Hence the reason it's a crime that gets you locked up.

[Rasher]

Personaly, I have never downloaded a pirated or cracked version of a game. I belive that companies are entiled to the money, even if they are money grubbing conglomerates. If I feel like the asking price is a ripp-off or unfair then I won't buy it.

I love all sorts of entertainment from music to movies to games, but I hate the big entertainment companies with a passion. I am talking about the big business who treat their legitemate customers like robbers and thieves. All this DRM and copyright protection is nonsense is getting out of hand.

I understand the need to protect your product, but don't treat your customer like a theif. All companies are doing with this DRM nonsese is making the pirates look good.

EA is now using SecuROM to 'protect' the Sims 2 games. All they'e done is piss-off legitimate customers and lose their trust. The pirates had a DRM free version of the game on the net within 24 hours.

If all that money used on that DRM crap was used to reward faithful customers instead of punish them then they would get a lot more customers.

[marsan]

Demos are always the place to start.


In general demos are not a good way to learn if a game is good or not. Usually they select only a small piece of the game which they are especially happy with, so that people will play it and think "Wow, what an awesome game, I'm going to buy it". I have been disappointed in the past when I decided to buy games after I had played the demo, just to realize that the game sucks, and that there is only one cool place in the entire game. These days many game producers doesn't even give out demos(or they give out demos which are so insanely big that it's easier to download a bootlegged version).

But that doesn't mean copying it illegally is correct either, saying that would be like saying "The free mp3 samples the artist put out himself on his webpage were great, but I decided to download the entire album to find out if the rest of the album was great too" is fine too, which it really isn't.



Doesn't make it right. Hence the reason it's a crime that gets you locked up.

In messed up place like the USA, sure, but in most countries you just get a (usually smaller) fine or will be asked to delete the stuff you have illegally gotten your hands on. It has to be a pretty serious case for a person to get locked up, and usually it has to involve the person earning a lot of money on it too.

After all, there are more serious crimes than breaking copyright laws. It's pretty insane when running a torrent tracker gets punished so hard that you sit and think "Who did he kill?". I mean, 10 years for running a torrent tracker(EliteTorrents)? that's just insane! What good is that going to do? I mean, you're supposed to put him in jail for 10 years, and suddenly when he comes out he will be all nice and never download anything illegal again. If it was me, I never would have bought anything from those who put me in jail ever again. There are many ways to get their money, and suing to get them is in very poor taste.

Instead of suing those people, they should team up with them and learn how to make good and legal alternatives that all parts can be happy with. Suing people only causes people to hate them even more and refuse even hard to ever buy anything from them or anybody afflicted with them again.
I want the artist to get their money, of course, but the way it is done these days is under any form of critic.

I realize there are serious issues to be taken care of, but the current way of dealing with them just doesn't cut it.


If all that money used on that DRM crap was used to reward faithful customers instead of punish them then they would get a lot more customers.

I agree completly. I can't stand the DRM movement, especially when they blame those who download ilegall for it. Why should the rest of us suffer, just because some people have to copy everything they get their hands on? Beside, it's not like it usually prevents piracy either. Usually it just ends up annoying those who bought it legally, without preventing illegal copying.

The focus of the industry has been completly wrong. Instead of focusing on how to prevent copying, they should focus on why people decide to buy their products and what they can do to make sure more people want to buy their products. Instead of attacking their users with restrictive DRM, they should ally up with their users, and ask them what they want and expect from the product they bought.

[Badwolf]

People should use judgement on what games they will or won't like. I.e read reviews, recommendations from friends, knowing what type of games you like etc etc. This judgement will be the basis of what games to buy or not.

I'm just going to say Halo.

I've read reviews, 10 out of 10 across the board.
I've heard from friends, it's apparently a great game.
I've enjoyed other FPSs like Half Life and Timesplitters.

Finally played Halo. Hated it. Terrible. Bland. Boring. Mind-numbingly so.
I'm lucky I only borrowed it from a friend rather than paid the silly money they're asking for it, but if I had bought it, I'd be feeling pretty ticked off about it.

Seeing as I borrowed it from a friend, I suppose that makes me as bad as the people who download it illegally?
I didn't pay for the game, Bungie and Microsoft aren't getting any money from me, and I had a full working game which I decided I didn't like.

Conversely, I borrowed CMI from a friend a few years ago, and loved every second of it. A year or so later, I saw all three games in a bundle and bought them immediately.
If I hadn't played CMI before I saw it in the shop, I probably wouldn't have known about Monkey Island, nor got into Sam and Max or any of the other point and click games I love now.

[Maratanos]

We need to call this "the thread that would not die."

Because seriously, it's been necro'd probably a dozen times now...

[fhqwhgads]

I find it very interesting that this thread exists at all. On the forums of a games publisher. Unedited. I don't know if I should read more into that, but it certainly says a lot about Telltale's attitude to the customer. I somehow think a thread like this would not exist on any 'big' games publisher's forums. Not for long anyway.

My opinion? Well, it changes. I have pirated in the past, due to many reasons, ignorance being the main one.I do get angry when I have to jump through hoops to enjoy a product I legally purchased. While I do understand the use of DRM, I don't think it is the right way to deter piracy. What the right way is, I do not know.

Maybe someone will come up with a way to solve this problem in the future. For now, however, it's doing more bad than good. Just look at the music industry and what NiN and Radiohead is doing at the moment.

[TrogLlama]

Just look at the music industry and what NiN and Radiohead is doing at the moment.
Or Amazon, with the legal DRM-less MP3s. I usually buy it from there unless they don't have it, so that's something. Then again I'm not the general populace.
Nor am I a goldfish. For real. Not a goldfish.

[VoodooKing]

Anyway real S&M fans will buy this game. I'm one of them.

If you're a fan of something, you will spend good money on it no matter what.

[wisp]

unfortunately there are also people out there, who will get anything they can for free, regardless if they are great fans or don't even like it..

[Jake]

That is so true. I practically never bought anything before I started downloading stuff off the Internet(at that time, it was legal, because of old and outdated laws). I would buy perhaps one music cd a year, and that was if it was a good year with a lot of recommendations. I would never buy movies either(and I really mean never, I had no dvds, and the few vhses I had were recorded off TV.) I bought a few games, but usually I bought a few games at random(which was possible back then, but practically impossible now.)

Then when I started downloading different stuff, I discovered a lot of music and games I wasn't even aware of existed, and movies too. Suddenly I started buying more regularly, and I have been working on getting my collection complete since then. Now it's pretty much complete, but that's because I have decided to become more legal and stop downloading stuff at random. Thus I rarely get exposed to new music or movies which I didn't know about.

That's nearly my story as well. I listened to next to no music and rarely bought movies for myself all the way through high school. A few months into my freshman year at college, when living in the dorms, Napster came out. I found myself on a faster Internet connection than I knew possible (in 1999 it even cable and DSL were rare, so landing on a well-supplied university network was mind-blowing) with a piece of software that allowed me to get any song in the world guilt free. By the end of that year, I'd bought more new music CDs than I'd accumulated in the rest of my entire lifetime.

I've never really been like that with games though. "Back in the day" I downloaded a couple games, but deleted them almost immediately. If I wasn't sure if I wanted a game or not, I almost always either just tried the demo, or asked around to see what the word of mouth was among some trusted friends, and that holds true today.

[Emily]

EA is now using SecuROM to 'protect' the Sims 2 games. All they'e done is piss-off legitimate customers and lose their trust. The pirates had a DRM free version of the game on the net within 24 hours.

Funny, as an avid Sims 2 player, I have never found myself irrationally pissed off at the little message that pops up asking me to put my disc in the drive when I launch the game.

[marsan]

I've never really been like that with games though. "Back in the day" I downloaded a couple games, but deleted them almost immediately. If I wasn't sure if I wanted a game or not, I almost always either just tried the demo, or asked around to see what the word of mouth was among some trusted friends, and that holds true today.

Oh yes, I always were a lot more careful with buying games. I mean, the game companies never were a bitch about it, even though they have suffered greatly because of piracy. Those are the ones who has suffered the longest from this problem. They were "always" very creative about how to protect their products, and I really wanted to buy the games to have them on the shelf too. I loved those large old boxes, even though they took up too much space. Oh well, I'm such a sucker for hard goods, and games has usually provided more (extra) hard goods than music or movies has.

Perhaps I am just a tad odd, but I feel there is something special about buying retail software that downloading stuff just can't capture. Thay's why it's so cool that one get something to put on the shelf when one buy sam & max - season's. It's the only download solution I think is worth the cash(since I'm such a sucker for hard goods to put on the shelf).

The first years of when I had a broadband connection, it was cool to just download all stuff I hadn't heard/seen/played before. But after a while, I still prefer buying retail, and as much as I still think there are cases where illegal downloading can be justified, I don't understand the joy of just sucking down everything on the Internet until the disk is full.

[tabacco]

Funny, as an avid Sims 2 player, I have never found myself irrationally pissed off at the little message that pops up asking me to put my disc in the drive when I launch the game.

Yeah... every CD-based game I've ever played in my life required that the disc 1 be in the drive. No big deal, personally.

[Soup]

Funny, as an avid Sims 2 player, I have never found myself irrationally pissed off at the little message that pops up asking me to put my disc in the drive when I launch the game.
to be fair, there was also a big hubbub regarding SecuROM at the BioShock launch. The SecuROM protocols (or whatever) required users to authenticate over the Internet before allowing people to play. The problem was that for whatever reason, those authentication servers were down.

Additionally, there was a "licensing" clause that only allowed you to install the game on two computers. If you wanted to install on additional machines, you had to not only uninstall off one of the existing machines, but also "authenticate" the uninstall to get your credit back.

This led to several scenarios:
1) People install for the first time could not authenticate and thus could not play.
2) People who tried to remedy the problem by attempting an uninstall/reinstall couldn't get "install credits" back and thus couldn't even install the game on the third try.
3) One install license only counted for one PC profile. Meaning that if Whizzer, Specs & Peepers all shared a PC with different logins, and Specs installed BioShock, Whizzer and Peepers could not play the game unless they were logged in as Specs. Their argument? "If one person buys the game, it makes no sense to let everybody play, right?"

I'm not sure how SecuROM handles The Sims security, but my own experience with BioShock was quite souring and insulting to me as a consumer.

[Badwolf]

I think online activation should always be avoided as the sole way to authenticate a product, seeing how many things could go wrong or that the consumer may not have access to (ie, internet).
In conjunction with something else as a failsafe, I don't see any problem with it though.

About games needing the disc in to play: I don't really see any problem with that. It's only like playing a console game, and I've never heard anyone complain ever about having to keep the disc handy for them.
I know it's different for people with laptops, but unless you're going away on hoilday (in which case, you'll have enough room for all the discs you want in your luggage anyway), you're not going to need to lug every game you own around with you, just the one or two you'd need for the day.
Apart from the discs being bigger, there's no real difference from bringing along DS or PSP games for the day.

Also, on the point about limited licensing, I think it's pretty daft. Just a quick disc check is more than enough. Even if the game is installed on 10+ computers, only the one with the disc will be able to play it at any one time.
The licensing system does nothing to change this except make it more awkward for everyone. I want to lend a game out to a friend, I can just backup my saves and uninstall the game from my PC in the meantime.
All it does is cause more hassle.


I can see why DRM is needed, but at the most, I think a choice between disc checks and online activation for a game is the most it should really require.

[NickTTG]

I hate that stupid justification it is bollocks.

If a product is worth downloading and worth your time playing then it is worth paying for.

I do agree that every download might not have been a sale so it is difficult to say exactly what the sales impact on a developer was. However my view is..if it's not something worth my money then it's not worth playing in the first place so why download it.

I've just seen too many pirates use the "I wouldn't have bought it anyway so nobody is losing money" excuse to justify what they are doing.



Lack of money isn't an excuse for stealing something. Video games are a luxury not an entitlement. I'm sorry if some people can't afford them or lack the willpower and judgement to decide which ones to buy with what little money they have and not play the rest. Just because I can't afford to play EVERY video game that is ever released doesn't give me the right to download them all for free.

i agree with everything stated here. you kinda sounded like my dad though lol

wait... dad?!?

[Maratanos]

There's other issues.

Suppose you want to play an older game? Suppose you can't buy it easily anymore? Suppose that to play the game legally you'd have to not only buy it, but also a console and a TV?

Those could all very easily become reasons that YES INDEED, I wouldn't have bought it anyway.

But never did anyone say that it's not worth playing.


...suppose even that buying it wouldn't have gotten the developer a cent of that money anyway?

[Rasher]

Funny, as an avid Sims 2 player, I have never found myself irrationally pissed off at the little message that pops up asking me to put my disc in the drive when I launch the game.

That's not the problem. Some players had their DVD drives stop working others said that their anti-virus stopped working. Some people simply couldn't launch the game. They were asked to put in an original CD and not a back-up. Some people were just ticked off that they had software installed without agreeing to have it on their PC.

All that is what ticked people off. EA must have been using a strong version of SecuROM with BV. My friend had her new DVD drive on her Vista laptop stop burning, and all she had was software that came with her Dell. Her Dell came with Nero. Maybe that's what ticked SecuROM off.

This is why I don't trust SecuROM and really wish EA had stayed with safedisk.

[BarfHappy]

That s a true story for Sims 2 Emily, my little sister (no not talking about biososhock) had to use cracks for her games (i think it was from nightlife through businesses iirc) because the game would ask her for the original disk (and she obviously use originals, i buy her all the games for the special occasions -birthdays, easters, xmas, etc-).

Whenever i like a game/movie and feel the authors deserve to be rewarded, then i buy the thing. I am sure a lot of people think the same, those who don't wouldn't spare a dime for a game anyway, no loss.

Anyway, Sam And Max purchase was a no brainer for me, i am a fan, not even needed a demo. That was a gamble move (well to be honest i tried Bones, and i saw you guys were competent to handle the job)

When i remember the original Sam and Max, it reminds me how the games were ... 50 to 300 pages manuals/game related stuff (aaah Doctor Jones diary in Last Crusade), with stories or other things worth reading/doing (let s cut clothes for my Sam cardboard, yeah for Hawaiian style). Now all you get most of the time is a PDF manual and a 2 pages monochromatic printed leaflet telling the basic menus.

[marsan]

This is why I don't trust SecuROM and really wish EA had stayed with safedisk.

Just curious, what's good about safedisk?

[Rasher]

I never heard of safedisk disableing anything. Problems like DVD drives or Anti-Virus software not working were never reported. Safedisk also doesn't have a bunch of progames it blacklists.

SecuROM has a bunch of programs that i doesn't want to see running. I think Nero is on that list.

[Jake]

SecuROM is incredibly scalable. As a developer you can choose what pisses it off and what doesn't. As people who actually play a large number of games, including some of the copy protection horror story titles, we'd like to think that we're smart enough to manage the copy protection stuff in a realistic way that actual humans can enjoy. We tried to set it up in a way that would encourage ownership but wouldn't slap you on the wrist left and right for trying to use your game (for instance, we're providing permanent download links for our games, we're not requiring iTunes- or Bioshock-style de/re-authorization whenever you want to move the game to a new PC, and we're not installing weird things on your computer external to the actual protected game files. Also, as I've probably said more than once in this thread, the way all this stuff works is pretty important to us - especially us web guys who end up tasked with the job of building and supporting a lot of it - and we're always evaluating, always talking with each other at Telltale about how to make it suck less. Anyone who's been with us for a while hopefully knows that the way things are set up right now is better by leaps and bounds from where we were even a year ago, and we're not stopping.

[Rasher]

I trust you guys :) That's why I'm OK with any copy proctection you choose (even if it comes from Sony). As you said, SecuROM is very scalable and I know Telltale will be fair. You guys always put the customer first and have gone above and beyond any other company. Seriously, I sort of feel like part of the Telltale family.

[tabacco]

Seriously, I sort of feel like part of the Telltale family.

Awesome! I think there are some dirty dishes in the sink that need cleaning, then.

[marsan]

Awesome! I think there are some dirty dishes in the sink that need cleaning, then.

that's funny :D

[TrogLlama]

Funny, as an avid Sims 2 player, I have never found myself irrationally pissed off at the little message that pops up asking me to put my disc in the drive when I launch the game.
I think the problem is that most PC games nowadays just plop all the data on your hard drive so you don't need the disc anymore after installation. I kind of wish that more stuff was just kept on the disc, to be honest.

[Kaldire]

its the main reason I think gametap and such started(that and to ruin people from driving to the store to get games, now we are all fat and just get people to drop the mail off "A NEW GAME!" sigh
. So as to dl the games vs using them off discs.. personally I will again say if I own something im making a copy of it and using that only. I wont ruin my original unless I have like 8.. which Ill never have 8 of anything... I hope.
I think it would be awesome if you shot back to like ankh did.. make a turn wheel decoder just for kicks.. or a manual that suggests looking on page 3 paragraph 1 sentance 2 word 3 :P HAHA
Those were fun !! and just as pointless as todays copy protections :P
Next game Ill expect a full oddball copywheel or something XD but I doubt it will happens

PS im going to start a game to door delivery service that gives you groceries.. checks bed pans and kisses you goodnight for a lil extra cash.. no sex just a mom's kiss to the forehead... NIGHT DEAR here is your beer and new games! and pizza!
DINGDONG
Mama mia's pizzas n games is here! SWEEET!

[Zachspyfox033]

What did you mean by this?
a manual that suggests looking on page 3 paragraph 1 sentance 2 word 3 :P HAHA

[Mel]

In old games (from the early to mid 1990's), the copy protection would be in the form of having to type in something from the manual that came with the game. It would tell you to look in a specific place for the word or phrase. The idea being, that people who had copied the game (and didn't buy it) wouldn't have the manual.

Now this was in the age before the internet was a big place and it was not easy finding a copy of the manual. That sort of copy protection would never work in this day and age. :)

[wisp]

right, unless you knew the person you copied from. furthermore the "typing a word from the manual"-method lacks a lot of the style other stuff had. it felt way to mechanical. the best methods where the ones that included the copy protection into the story of the game, like the ultima series or indy did. asking you questions you would need the manual to answer. of course nowadays providing a pdf with the manual would be no problem.
at the moment i prefer the disc check. everything else bears a possibility that might not be able to play the game in a few years. what would happen if, let's say, steam would no longer work? even though i have all the games on disc they would be useless.
if telltale on the other hand went out of business, what hopefully will never happen, i still have my season one disc. makes me feel o lot more comfortable when buying.
by the way, does anyone know how the legal situation is on that?
if i own a game, with box and disc and everything, and yet it also requires online activation, which is no longer possible because the necessary server are no longer working, permanently, do i have the right then to crack my game?
in germany, for example, making backup copies is legal, but cracking any method of copy protection for the same reason isn't. so what if this would be the only possibility? is my property lost then?

[Kaldire]

Yes this is the era I mean :P And personally I find it way more fun and effective than the current protection.. although redundant its kind of a poke at how protection really doesnt protect.
But when I said the page 1 paragraph 2... that was just the start of it.. it got fancy later with wheels and game input from the docs
A few games asked riddles that the answers were found only in the manual too. I was just making a point though (whoosh)
Shocked someone here didnt know about it.. am I that old already?

[Harald B]

I remember that age fondly as well. Sometimes the riddles had answers that you might also find in the real world (Conquests of Camelot), that related to the game world (Covert Action), or both. This made copy protection circumvention a fun intellectual passtime. Eternam made fun of it by allowing your character to obtain a cheat sheet and thereby circumvent the questionnaire in-game!

[darth_borehd]

I trust you guys :) That's why I'm OK with any copy proctection you choose (even if it comes from Sony).

I wouldn't trust anything that came from Sony.

[ShaggE]

I remember that age fondly as well. Sometimes the riddles had answers that you might also find in the real world

Heh, reminds me of the age verification quiz in LSL. I bet many people who were honestly over 18 at the time were pissed if they truly didn't know the answer.

*Guy asks his friend the question from the quiz*

Friend: "Why do you want to know?"

Guy: "I heard that there's a slyly placed brown pixel in this game I bought, and I need to verify my age."

Friend: "I'm... uh... going to go now."

Guy: "Nooo! Do it for the jubblies! THE JUBBLIES!!!"




(Apologies to Squinky, Mel, Emily, and any other females on the forum :o :p)

[Kaldire]

Haha Al lowe even says there has been a way to bypass that age check since the game was made. check his site out for details and infos.

I think this really all started with the SSL games and the maps and logs you find on dead people. It would MAKE you open the journal aka manual and read journal entry 6 of the dead guy you found. That might tell you what to do next :P
Good stuff ya

And im sure all of the "females" know about larry

[ShaggE]

And im sure all of the "females" know about larry

I know, I was joking, due to me talking about slyly placed brown pixels and "jubblies" on a borderline-family friendly site :P

[wisp]

Haha Al lowe even says there has been a way to bypass that age check since the game was made. check his site out for details and infos.

on one of those games you could simply press <alt>+<whatever> to skip it. but i think it didn't change anything in the game. imagine how disappointed i was to find that out after finding all the correct answers. :rolleyes:

btw, one of the lsl games had the nice copy-protection of having the manual as some kind of magazine. on some pages you could find several coupons and one of them was needed in the game to gain entry to some area. this was also a quite abstract puzzle, since you had to use a real item ingame.

[darth_borehd]

All copy protection does is annoy legitimate consumers. I recommend just doing away with copy protection completely.

[Maratanos]

All copy protection does is annoy legitimate consumers. I recommend just doing away with copy protection completely.

Well, actually, no.

It also prevents the casual customer from effectively lending his games to all his friends. By requiring a disk, it makes it more complicated to do this (cracks, ISOs, etc) and your average consumer who's mostly legal and definately doesn't want to be considered a pirate won't bother. In addition, the economically significant portion of the buying public doesn't care about this "annoyance", in moderation. From the perspective of your suggestion to abolish protection completely, It's mostly the vocal but economically insignificant minority made up of people like you that cares.


Let's call that the nice answer to your statement.

Don't make me bring out the mean one.

[Jake]

Well, actually, no.

It also prevents the casual customer from effectively lending his games to all his friends. By requiring a disk, it makes it more complicated to do this (cracks, ISOs, etc) and your average consumer who's mostly legal and definately doesn't want to be considered a pirate won't bother. In addition, the economically significant portion of the buying public doesn't care about this "annoyance", in moderation. From the perspective of your suggestion to abolish protection completely, It's mostly the vocal but economically insignificant minority made up of people like you that cares.

Except that you're not describing lending the game to your friend, you're describing giving your friend a copy of the game. If all lending your friend entailed was loaning them the disc (that's what lending actually is), they would have no problem playing Season One.

[DrakeFox]

Copy protection is really a thing in which everyone seem to lose in some way...except the pirates.
The company implementing it really needs to because otherwise it'd be too easy to copy the game. They spend money and ressources to achieve this, I don't know, but I'm sure it can't be cheap.
The people buying the game has the risk of being one of the bad cases of copy protection problems, this can be especially aggravating if support is horrible (I've stopped buying Konami PC games because their support consists of "Tough luck")
The people cracking games will have a challenge. Some really do it for the fun challenge.
The people pirating the game need to find it online rather than finding a buddy to lend it from, and need to wait for the people cracking it to get done. They of course run the risk of malware.

Personally I'm halfway a pirate. Mainly out of laziness. I don't pirate games anymore. Got a shelf with 300+ games standing on it, still much of a casual gamer and hop from game to game rather a lot. So most of my installed games, I've gotten a crack for because I'm too lazy to turn around, and find the CD on my shelf, even if it's alphabetical it's still a bit of a chore, and then hope nothing could go wrong with the CD while using it (had a friend who's diablo expansion CD somehow got superspeed in the drive, then ejected while still spinning, sending it flying across the room and exploding against the wall after having made a 1 inch deep mark in the wall)

I would've bought Galactic civilization 2 if I played that kind of game for the sole reason that there was no copy protection, the incentive was your online account, which was the only way to download patches and upgrades...and that's only good as long as you trust the server to be there when you want the game.

[Harald B]

Here's a fun fact. I recently had to resort to downloading a crack to make a game I own run on Windows XP. The company's support defaulted on "just buy the new gold edition!", and actually took down a patch they had up earlier that should've worked.
Here's another. In the old days when cd-roms were up-and-coming, you could choose between a partial install where some things would be left to read from the cd and a full install. The only reason to pick a full install was so that you wouldn't need to have the cd in the drive while playing. I miss those days. Seriously, the point of having hundreds of GBs of hard disk space seems a lot less when you have to dig up far less efficient mediums every time you want to play a different game.

[DrakeFox]

I miss the days too when you could make a partial install and at least have a reason for keeping the disc in drive other than to validate. I have too many of my games installed because when the fancy for a particular game hits me I don't want to bother with installing and patching the game, especially if the patch becomes near impossible to find because it's old. And games like Marvel Ultimate alliance and Supreme Commander take 8+gb each. That's just over the top I think.

The whole needing the protection to play the game is a bit silly, a bother to the legitimate consumers. But without it, there really would be a lot more people who'd copy the game and not consider buying it because now they don't even need to venture on the weird intarwebs to find cracks. Most people are aware when they copy a game and patch it to fool the CD check that they're doing something wrong. But once the protection is completely gone they won't feel like it. Many would even argue "Well if you didn't want me to copy it, why didn't you bother to do anything to prevent me from doing it?"

Sad but true.

[MrSneeze]

17 pages... call me lazy but I would rather not read through all of them just to find out if I may install the game on my brother's laptop and use my serial number to unlock it so he can play it through himself as well. So... erm.. may I?

I remember Emily saying (maybe I'm wrong) somewhere that we can unlock the games on a maximum of two different computers. Is that still valid? Will I get a slap on the wrist if I do use my serial number on another's computer?

Edit: ooh, this is the wrong thread altogether :( Sorry.

[marsan]

I remember Emily saying (maybe I'm wrong) somewhere that we can unlock the games on a maximum of two different computers. Is that still valid? Will I get a slap on the wrist if I do use my serial number on another's computer?


When I bought this season, it said that one can activate it on multiple computers, but I don't remember where. Anyway, I was able to activate season two on both my windows 98 computer and my xp computer. I even had to activate it twice on windows 98, so I think the new activation system is more flexible towards multi-activation.


Edit: ooh, this is the wrong thread altogether :( Sorry.

That's fine. I don't even remember what this thread started with:confused:(and I'm too lazy to read it again :p Nah, I'll be heading off to play Grand Theft Auto 1 on my new fancy Voodoo3 3000 3dfx card instead.)

And yes, I agree with you guys. Back in the days, when two cd's where the size of a harddrive, the copy protections really made sense. But being prevented from running a game without a cd, when you got the whole cd installed on your PC already, feels a bit... wacky wheels... part duex.

[Jake]

17 pages... call me lazy but I would rather not read through all of them just to find out if I may install the game on my brother's laptop and use my serial number to unlock it so he can play it through himself as well. So... erm.. may I?

You can do that just fine. :)

[MrSneeze]

Thanks marsan and Jake for clarifying! :D

[wisp]

Back in the days, when two cd's where the size of a harddrive, the copy protections really made sense.

Back in those days there usually was no copy protection, since only a few people owned a cd-r drive and the media where still hellish expensive. Okay, after some time there where those ripped versions, but i always despised those. What sense does it make to play through a game when the ending video is missing?

Anyway, what bothers most customers about the cd-check stuff is, like marsan said, that you really need the disc for the copy protection only. On a console the game is loaded from the CD/DVD so it makes sense, but on a computer it doesn't. I guess copy protection is like mousetraps, everybody wants something working better, but there aren't really new ideas.

[marsan]

Back when I was on the Internet, we weren't surfing the web with graphical user interfaces and pretty pictures. NO! It was all text, and we liked it that way!

[DrakeFox]

Think of how much faster your webpages would load if you didn't have images or markup. Just text. Lynx does it still though I believe, though of course it still needs to fetch the markup data.

I must say the way TTG has done copy protection on Season 1 is good. I get the download versions which I can play while I have a net connection, and while the activation server exists. And when it does go down, or I go away to a place without internet, I've got the disc which also handily contains extra material. So basically got the best of both worlds, and haven't had trouble with any of the protection methods.

Only better method I can think of at the moment would be Unreal Tournament 2004 which had disc based copy protection until a couple of months after release, whereafter copy protection was removed in an official patch.
And rumors of Trackmania United Forever seems to indicate they might remove copy protection as well, which means I don't need to fear the day I need to contact Metaboli to get 3 new activations and hope they reply.
Idea being that while the game is new there's copy protection, but once it's a bit older and the majority of sales of the "new game" has died down, they remove the purchaser annoyment features. Of course this works well because both games use an online key.

[tabacco]

You only need to be connected to the internet for the initial activation of 201. You can disconnect after that and it'll work fine.

[Maratanos]

Wheeeee! SecuROM works better than Digital River.

In your face, DRM zealots!

;)

[DrakeFox]

Nice one Tabacco. At one point had what was released of season 1 on my laptop while visiting my mother who's without wireless. I had made sure to activate it on the lappy before leaving, but alas I could only play the demo when I got there.

Really wasn't bothered by it since after I got the disc I could do it anyway. Just a bit surprised

[Morden]

I get the download versions which I can play while I have a net connection, and while the activation server exists. And when it does go down, or I go away to a place without internet, I've got the disc (...)

There are always those who bought one or two episodes and don't own the disc. If the DRM funtions weren't online anymore in 2010, they wouldn't be able to play their episodes on a new computer. That's what bothers most people when it comes to DRM.

Valve's Steam takes it to a whole new level. After Steam runs an update, every game on your list must be played at least once while you're online so that the game information can be updated. If you go offline without running the game at least once, you won't be able to play it, even if you could before, and there's no information on screen that this is how it has to be done. That's not cool at all.

As for other protections, I've recently bought two games. Another World: 15th Anniversary Edition and Simon The Sorcerer 4. They both want the CD present in my drive. Another World uses SecuROM 4.X and that's fine. Simon however uses StarForce, which is not fine. StarForce is just one of those protections that annoy because it affects so many aspects of the game, including the performance. Heavily encrypted files [the encryption is not limited to executables] are being decoded while various defensive routines are running. Nice.

The Bioshock protection that so many found to be a problem was cracked in eleven days. So was it worth the bother in the first place? Those who bought the game got pissed off [I got the 360 version, so I'm cool] and pirates got their game anyways.

I guess the golden rule would be: Don't overdo it. No DRM, no heavy stuff. Protect it so that it won't be possible to burn a copy onto another disc and that's enough. "The scene" will crack it anyway.

I'm a strong supporter of "no protection" patches for the titles after a year or two from the release date. Those who got it will be able to play it without any problems in the future and those who didn't buy it, well, after a year or two there probably is a cracked release anyway.

[Chris23]

Hi everyone,

I am new to the Sam & Max series and have not played the game that was released in 1993 unfortunately, but since I buyed and tried Sam & Max Season 1 DVD package
I love these game-episodes and the charaters a lot. If I can get a hold of the very first adventure game with Sam & Max I would gladly invest that to my collection also. :)

Lookin forward to support the Telltale Game Company in their hard work with new adventure games like Sam & Max. ;)

Unfortunately I live in Sweden and can there for not buy any of the Season 2 episodes but when the Season 2 DVD package get's released in Sweden I am the one who reserve my copy on my local website. TellTale deserves my money for believeing in the future for the adventure genre.

Thank you TellTale Games! :)

/Chris

[Harald B]

Huh? You can't buy any of the Season 2 episodes because you live in Sweden??? The Telltale store (http://www.telltalegames.com/store/) has download versions, you know. What's the problem?

[Chris23]

Huh? You can't buy any of the Season 2 episodes because you live in Sweden??? The Telltale store (http://www.telltalegames.com/store/) has download versions, you know. What's the problem?

Well the problem for me is that I don't have a credit card....:(

But if I could pay in another way that would be great. So I have
to wait for the release to store of Season 2.

[Harald B]

Oh. That does make things more complicated, but they accept Wire Transfer and Paypal (which in some countries in turn accepts bank accounts).

[Chris23]

Oh. That does make things more complicated, but they accept Wire Transfer and Paypal (which in some countries in turn accepts bank accounts).

Okey...well I prefer a invoice..but hey I can wait for the release of Season 2 here in Sweden. :)

To bad I can't pay via SMS but I guess it couldn't be done that way...

I enjoy Telltale Games adventure episodes of Sam & Max. ;)

Keep e'm coming Telltale Games!