A discussion of software piracy

[IronCladChicken]

I was just reading the The Inquirer that the release version of Vista is apparently already available to download illegally - I was just checking this out (to save me from doing any actual work - I've an MSDN account so I was just being curious - so ner :p )

At the same time, I noticed Culture Shock was also listed on a couple of sites (the download included the game with crack) and had apparently been available at least since last Wednesday.

I'd guess the copy protection is there to dissuade the more casual users piracy attempts - But then again I guess P2P software is used by a lot of casual users these days too? :confused:

[Johnny Walker]

I guess there's nothing they can do, there hasn't been a game that's not been pirated. The only thing you can do is to try and persuade people that it's worth the money!

[thebob]

Anyone who pirates this should be ashamed, its hardly expensive, I'm a student and can afford it!

[Guybrush_Threepwood]

Yes, it's a shame how people refuse to buy even a good game for 8 bucks..
I mean, this price's ridiculous, EVERYONE owning a pc can afford it!

[Emily]

The whole situation makes me very sad. :(

[0renji]

Not cool. Very very uncool. I admit to having a sort of criminal code of honour regarding this - I won't go into details but pirating from a small-ish and amazing company like Telltale or Double Fine is really terrible. Especially since Episode 1 is so cheap! Who are these pathetic individuals who can't afford £6?

[antom]

I'd be tempted to get S&M from a P2P site as I'm completely broke as we speak and NEED a Sam 'n' Max hit but I think that waiting for my first paycheck will be far more rewarding. Plus, I'll hopefully get a nice shiney CD in a lovely box to grin at in the new year... ;)

Plus, the demo showed the sheer quality of the product and it'll be worth every penny :D

[elsenator]

Obviously, i think it's pathetic and discouraging if people would want to pirate Culture Shock, or any of the coming episodes for that matter. But i don't think TellTale are loosing that much from it. We tend to equal each illegal download as one lost sale, but i don't believe that is the case. Actually, some of them might actually lead to purchases and word-of-mouth PR which, in turn, will lead to more sales.
I'm not trying to justify downloading Culture Shock illegally, because that is not my mentality. I'm just trying to put things in perspective, and perhaps soften the blow a bit. We all knew it would happen at some point, so i like to find the positive sides of it. :)

Also, Culture Shock is so darn cheap you would be a fool not to buy it and support Telltale.

[numble]

Maybe a well-timed joke about the problems with game piracy in a future episode could make the pirates feel guilty about stealing the game and pay the low-price it costs to support Telltale.

[Erwin]

I blame Monkey Island. That game romanticized pirating!

--Erwin

[thom_h]

I blame Monkey Island. That game romanticized pirating!

--Erwin

Hahaha! :D

[Alucard]

unfortunate but inevitable
I think most gamers do have a conscience though.

[Emily]

Maybe a well-timed joke about the problems with game piracy in a future episode could make the pirates feel guilty about stealing the game and pay the low-price it costs to support Telltale.

I like this idea. :D

[MeaningOfLife]

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.

[jannar85]

Can't you figure out which code has been used on that pirated copy? Then you can ban it and the guy or girl who pirated it?

It's sad though.

And I've seen people up to fifty years old, who downloads pirated material as well.. so there's no excuse that the downloaders are kids.

[Trixie]

I like this idea. :D

Make the episode and make the criminal end some somewhere all people are very scared, like a army camp with a sargent that treats all like they should kill themselfs! that will make a laugh!

[TheGreyMatter]

Make the episode and make the criminal end some somewhere all people are very scared, like a army camp with a sargent that treats all like they should kill themselfs! that will make a laugh!

hhmm.... Weird al's videoclip - Don't Download This Song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz-grdpKVqg)... hhmm...

[Sir Lemming]

Well, say goodbye to anymore generous giveaways.

[Alucard]

hmmm?
I don't see how the fact that the game has been pirated has anything to do with the give aways. I would think give aways would encourage those who are too poor to pay the paltry fee per episode to earn their game.

[Hero1]

The people that are downloading illegal copies and not buying the game are having a detrimental effect on the future of Sam & Max. If we want games like Sam & Max to exist we have to support a company like Telltale. It's really quite sad that people would put up a game like this for illegal download. :mad:

[Guybrush_Threepwood]

Maybe Telltale should start considering to make out of games 2 different files: a small sized one for the demo version, and the complete one to be given through a link just to the ones who have already bought the game.
Since everyone on this forum loves and supports Telltale, it'd be very hard that one of us lets the complete game available for P2P and, more generally, file sharing programs.
Doing this, piracy against their games can be at least slowed down, probably not defeated (that's just impossible).
If they don't have the whole game, they can't crack it up.
What do you think?

[Yohmi]

I think that rapidhsare provide free downloads for less than 100MB files. In fact, if you want something, you can have it. As I can have every Bone episode free, I can also have Sam&max free... I can donwload it from the mainsite, but also on P2P or many other locations. If you want something free, you can have it. Lots of people pirating won't buy anything. If they can't obtain it, they forget and donwload something else. I know this with music, sometime I let people hear songs on my iPod "sounds great, could you give it to me ?" "nop, it's under DRM, you must buy it, it's less than 1€" "Nonsense, I'll download it on ——— ". Then, he doesn't find the file... nevermind, he forget. Just 1€ (≈1$). Less than a subway ticket, less than 1/5 of a beer at the pub. Just because it costs something, it's too expansive, that's all... sad, yes it is...

In jokes would be great however :)

[Maratanos]

See, I'd like to emphasize something elsenator said...

We tend to equal each illegal download as one lost sale, but i don't believe that is the case.

This is very true. The book Free Culture, as I recall, lists at least three (maybe four, but I only remember three of them) reasons people illegally "pirate" software. In fact, only one of them is strictly detrimental.

1. People download a piece of software INSTEAD of buying it. This is bad, beacuse it deprives the developer of money.
2. People download a piece of software, but wouldn't have bought it if they couldn't have downloaded it. It is neutral, because downloading hasn't deprived the developer of anything, because they wouldn't have bought it if they couldn't have gotten it free.
3. People download a piece of software, to try it out. They like it, and then buy it. This is good, because they wouldn't have bought it unless they knew they'd like it, which they determined via downloading it.

However, it must be emphasized that ALL THREE are illegal. No ifs, ands, or buts. All three are always illegal.

[elsenator]

See, I'd like to emphasize something elsenator said...



This is very true. The book Free Culture, as I recall, lists at least three (maybe four, but I only remember three of them) reasons people illegally "pirate" software. In fact, only one of them is strictly detrimental.

1. People download a piece of software INSTEAD of buying it. This is bad, beacuse it deprives the developer of money.
2. People download a piece of software, but wouldn't have bought it if they couldn't have downloaded it. It is neutral, because downloading hasn't deprived the developer of anything, because they wouldn't have bought it if they couldn't have gotten it free.
3. People download a piece of software, to try it out. They like it, and then buy it. This is good, because they wouldn't have bought it unless they knew they'd like it, which they determined via downloading it.

However, it must be emphasized that ALL THREE are illegal. No ifs, ands, or buts. All three are always illegal.

This is exactly what i mean. :) And it is very true!

[Emily]

It's true that not every person who pirates the game would necessarily have bought it (even for the paltry price of $8.95). That said, in tracking down pirated copies, I have seen posts from people along the lines of "Thanks for the crack! I've been waiting 13 years for this!" That's what makes me sad... the fact that some people pirating the game have been looking forward to a Sam & Max sequel for all this time, yet supporting the developers doesn't even cross their minds.

We have a wonderful extended community, and the number of people who have bought the game far outweigh cases like this, so it's not exactly something that keeps me up at night. But it is a disappointing attitude.

This is nothing new. I remember Al Lowe saying that Sierra sold far more Leisure Suit Larry hint books than Leisure Suit Larry games. (Hell, my own introduction to adventure gaming was through a bootlegged copy of LSL that my dad brought home from work. :D) Some people will learn about Telltale and may even become paying customers *because* of the piracy, backwards as that sounds.

[elsenator]

It's true that not every person who pirates the game would necessarily have bought it (even for the paltry price of $8.95). That said, in tracking down pirated copies, I have seen posts from people along the lines of "Thanks for the crack! I've been waiting 13 years for this!" That's what makes me sad... the fact that some people pirating the game have been looking forward to a Sam & Max sequel for all this time, yet supporting the developers doesn't even cross their minds.

Yes, and this is indeed the sad truth of group number 1. The fact that they don't even consider buying it, and instead see piracy as the main way of obtaining it puzzles me quite a bit. It also goes to show that copy protection fails miserably.
For a copy protection to work, it would have to be something low level as the StarForce protection which, quite frankly, is so annoying that, to some degree, consumers would prefer a cracked version(which is possible, although harder). That's bad - very bad... :confused:

I hope future games will grasp the beauty of online distribution and keep copy protection at a minimum, thus keeping the average consumer from copying it to everyone else. The way it is with Sam & Max is perfect, and to me, another reason to buy the game. If it's as easy as grabbing the visa in your wallet, a lot more will be buying it. At least that is my belief.

Of course, reality is soooo much more complicated. :rolleyes:

[Udvarnoky]

Maybe Telltale should start considering to make out of games 2 different files: a small sized one for the demo version, and the complete one to be given through a link just to the ones who have already bought the game.
Since everyone on this forum loves and supports Telltale, it'd be very hard that one of us lets the complete game available for P2P and, more generally, file sharing programs.
Doing this, piracy against their games can be at least slowed down, probably not defeated (that's just impossible).
If they don't have the whole game, they can't crack it up.
What do you think?

I don't see the improvement of that method. Once that file gets leaked (and no, it would not be hard) you're in the same boat you are with the current method, except pirates have to go through no trouble instead of a little trouble.

[Pide]

I bought Sam&Max at this page. At my first visit Paypal did not work so i thought i would not be able to purchase it. Just checked again today and paypal was enabled :). The game is great and as soon as i have money i will buy the whole season (upgrade version when avalaible). I cannot say that i never pirated a game, but i always buy them if i like them. Because S&M was only 8€ and i liked the demo i got it.

I have to say that i prefer buying games from companies/developers like Telltale, which care for their community and are reading the forums to improve the next episodes or just talk about senseless things :D . *cough*EA*cough*:rolleyes:

[VastGirth]

ok i will be honest, i reguarly pirate software. However i always buy games which i think are worth it, such as gothic 3, oblivion, and of course sam and max! Afterall ive been waiting for years for this game of course im going to buy it. (or in this case, pre-order the entire series) You have to support the developers if you want to see more games!

Anyway the point of this post is that the game wasn't actually successfully cracked until the 10th of November, 9 days after the official release and many days after the gametap one. This is VERY late for a cracked release and i imagine will have helped sales of the game a lot.

Why this was, i don't know. maybe the copy protection is good, or perhaps sam and max holds such a special place in the hearts of gamers that the faster crackers didn't crack it...

Anyway i hope it sells loads and leaves a very bitter taste in lucasarts' mouth!

[Jokieman]

The really sad part is that because of the greed of the music industry, the pirating of software/music etc, has become more mainstream than ever before.

In fact I was reading in some audiophile forums I visit regularly that a whole host of people who would never have considered it before have vowed to only purchase used music cd's and or download mp3's illegally from now on because of how Microsoft caved in and signed a deal with Universal Music to pay them $1.00 for every Zune sold. Of course it could have had something to do with the fact that the CEO of Universal Music called everyone who owns a Digital Audio Player a thief who uses their players for the storage of illegally obtained music. heh.

It's sort of sad really. There are a lot of young people out there today that truly don't believe file sharing is illegal at all. heh. That's how bad it's gotten.

Note to Vastgirth: The reason why it took so long for S&M to be cracked is because adventure games aren't that popular, even among software pirates.

Note to Guybrush: There is nothing that a company like Telltale games can do to stop piracy. Microsoft has spent hundreds of millions of dollars developing anti-piracy techniques over the last decade and still hasn't been able to stop it. (Though I think it's crazy stupid for anyone to use a pirated copy of an OS, I guess there's some really crazy stupid people out there). The only thing that can be done to stop it is to account for it in the basic business model.

Though I tend to think that when you are selling boxed copies of games especially, including special stuff like concept art, or something like the little "manny" you got with Grim Fandango will help to limit it as well.

[taumel]

Most of the game goodies you find in the game packages (if there are some at all) are crap and you hope they would have saved the ressources for more meaningful stuff in the world but things like the codewheel in Monkey Island or the Newspaper in ZakMcKracken were great! Digital distribution also has it's pros but i sometimes miss such love to such details and it made some people buying an original who otherwise wouldn't have done it.


Regards,

taumel

[kendals]

Some people will learn about Telltale and may even become paying customers *because* of the piracy, backwards as that sounds.

I spose that worked for Microsoft. Shame there's a cracked version. I'm very disappointed with these people- it's $9 people! Isn't that what a movie costs these days? And you get about double the movie length, and at least it's not mind-numbing!

[Maize]

The people that are downloading illegal copies and not buying the game are having a detrimental effect on the future of Sam & Max. If we want games like Sam & Max to exist we have to support a company like Telltale.

I'm not sure that I think that the morality of pirating software is necessarily tied to the size of the company or the nature of the software in an absolute sense, but I agree that people who love adventure gaming should go the extra mile to support the companies who are still making the games. If the bigger companies saw that adventure games could really sell, there'd be a lot more of them out there.

Personally, I bought Bone 1 & 2 even though I have very little interest in the franchise just to support the company I knew was going to be putting out the Sam & Max games. (And obviously I subscribed to the Sam & Max season.)

The seasonal subscription rate is ridiculously inexpensive. I mean, you wind up paying something around six bucks per game. There are drinks at Starbucks that cost that much, and an episode of Sam & Max last a lot longer than a green tea latte with whipped cream.

(Mmmm.... green tea latte with whipped cream...)

[Emily]

an episode of Sam & Max last a lot longer than a green tea latte with whipped cream.

Heh. I want to use this quote in our marketing materials.

[RMJ1984]

Im pretty sure most people are buying sam & max because of the cheap price, but then again most people who pirate wouldn buy it anyways even if there wasnt a pirat version..

Most games released lately are so bad its a waste of time even to download them free, because they are so crappy. Also most companies dont release demo's after the fullversion or never at all. And that will only promote piratcy. Because i would openly admit i download most games than dont have a demo pirated to try em out. I dont wanna waste money on shitty games :P

Also no copy protection or warning, fines or messages will make anyone feel bad, guilty or anything. Its a waste of time and money for the company. Rather lower the price on the game and increase the quality :)

Personally i always support good games :) And Sax & max is one of them ( but i still dont like episodic games )

[IronCladChicken]

Rather lower the price on the game and increase the quality :)

How would you do that? - It would take more time to raise the quality, which would cost TellTale more money, which they would need to get back if they wanted to remain in business (& make more games), so the cost of the individual title would need to go up?

I'm guessing you’re still in School right?

[Maize]

Heh. I want to use this quote in our marketing materials.

Feel free! :) (Of course, even better if you fix my typo in it. ;) )

[Maize]

From an environmental perspective, I love the idea of downloadable games. Even for store-bought games, I think that less is more: I wish more PC/Mac games were available in just a jewel case with the instruction book as the insert. It always makes me feel a little evil when I buy a product that comes with huge wads of packaging seven ways from sunday and ultimately just has a CD inside the box.

On the other hand, I agree that the nifty trinkets you got in some old-skool games were pretty nice and enhanced the feel of immersion of the game. Here I'm mostly thinking about the old Infocom games. If anything was a good argument against piracy, it was having those physical objects that really became part of the game experience. When I was young and just starting out playing games on my Vic-20 and Apple II, I pirated pretty much everything. The first *bought* game that I had was an Infocom game, and I bought it because of all the neat stuff in the box and how much that enhanced the game. The next bought game I got was Ultima IV, which also came with a lot of cool game-enhancing stuff (that metal ankh, the cloth map, etc.).

It's a bit of an internal war within me on that point: Ultimately I want to add as little junk to the landfills as possible, but on the other hand, I love feeling that connection with the game I'm playing.

[Vesh]

*sniff* Infocom trinket-swag. I do miss it. I still have my peril-sensitive sunglasses and various marketing materials from our friends at Frobozz. But I do still have them (inside their boxes, too), they're not 10 meters under the shaky foundation of a parking garage.

[Sanitariumer]

I think it's crazy stupid for anyone to use a pirated copy...

I guess, all these unfortunate people living on a few cents per hour in 3rd world countries are criminals because they can't afford legit software. :rolleyes:

There is no DRM schema in this world, which will stop piracy, simply because the problem is not within the pirates, but with the software industry's fundamentally flawed business model (which, by the way, assumes zero-day piracy). ;)

DRM is not here to curb the piracy. It's here to maximize the paying potential from a small group of users, who are technically challenged and don't know how to obtain and install cracked software. Guess what, most gamers don't fall in this category by far, especially adventure gamers. So all this DRM effort is laughable at best.

The real breakthrough will come when the business geniuses pushing DRM realize that it does little to change the ratio between those who pay and those who pirate. Once they start researching the needs of this second group, they will realize that there is actually a virgin market, much larger than the existing one, waiting to be saturated. (Nobel prize anyone?) ;)

[numble]

DRM is not here to curb the piracy. It's here to maximize the paying potential from a small group of users, who are technically challenged and don't know how to obtain and install cracked software. Guess what, most gamers don't fall in this category by far, especially adventure gamers. So all this DRM effort is laughable at best.

I think that most gamers play games on consoles, and given the large sales figures from console games, the vast majority of them seem to accept the DRM measures employed in all consoles, modchippers notwithstanding.

[jannar85]

It's very sad.. But what's positive about this, is when TTG updates the games, they can't just download the updates. They have to wait for someone to crack it, which is likely not to happen.

This can force those pirates (downloaders) to buy the legal version, to be able to play those updated versions :)

[Sp0tted]

Somehow, Jannar, I don't see that happening either way.

[bigtopfrank]

did anyone ever read about the copy protection for the game XIII? at a certain point in the game, it prevented the player from obtaining an object and had a message saying 'if you want the object buy the game'. i thought that was the most inventive (and guilt creating) piracy preventive i'd heard of.

i'd agree that the best way to combat it would be to make a joke within an episode about it. if i was playing it without buying it, that would make me feel guilty!

but truth be told, i bought up the series purely for the reason that i love sam and max . . . i think a lot of people did, and with that, a lot of people like me would have been willing to pay more for it. (that doesn't mean that telltale should make it more expensive though! they should just make more and more really, really awesome games!)

people who play pirated games don't do it for game or company loyalty or the ethos of the game itself. it's my firm belief that the people who buy the game are more likely to become loyal telltale customers - i know i will - i bought both bone games the same time as culture shock, thus providing more resources to telltale to make further games.

and besides . . . karma comes to everyone . . .

[Vesh]

Karma in this case coming in the form of a decade of mostly crappy games with big budgets and price stickers to match.

[bigtopfrank]

actually, i just had a bright and evil idea . . . us loving and slightly crazy users of sam and max could get together and poison torrents for the upcoming episodes a couple of days after they're released. all we'd need do is create a torrent with the following:
* the demo version of the episode
* an NFO file detailing a fake fancy hacker group
* an executable called 'cracker.exe' or similar

then post it on some torrent sites . . .

the executable could be written by anyone to look authentic, but instead of cracking the program, can link directly to the telltale site.

it's a method of fight fire with fire . . . but these are harsh times we live in!

[numble]

Well, for a simple measure... couldn't the demo just be separate from the main game?

I know that there are merits to the instantaneous-quality of paying and unlocking a demo that can be played right away, but could the demo be of a smaller file size, and the full version available to download when you pay?

It would force would-be pirates to pay for the game, and people that pay are less likely to go and pirate it off, I would think. Besides, that's at least a couple of sales instead of the zero sales that occur when the pirates download the demo and then start trying to crack that free download. If the full game content was separate from the free demo, the pirates would have to pay to get access to the full game, then start cracking.

Still not ideal, but that and an in-game pirating jab/joke are all I have for ideas...

[bigtopfrank]

oh that was your idea, numble? sorry, i didn't credit you, i'm at work and it's stinking hot and i was too lazy to check who said it way back on page one (take your pick for an excuse from me!). kudos for the idea, it rocks!

as for the demo/full game, agreed . . . i hadn't actually realised that they weren't different, myself. i just bought the game. demos be damned . . . if some poor bugger or buggers across the other side of the planet are going to trouble themselves to design a new sam and max game, well by jingoes, by crikey. . . i'll go to the trouble remember my credit card number for them.

unfortunately, the state of computing these days is that nearly anything that's released, and anything that has a fan base or market, will be cracked at somepoint.

i can't see the logic of the guy who said "I'd be tempted to get S&M from a P2P site as I'm completely broke as we speak and NEED a Sam 'n' Max hit" . . . this is the unfortunate world of instant gratification we live in.

need is a very strong word, best not to misuse it.

[numble]

Haha.. no I wasn't trying to point out the ownership of that joke idea... just saying that I was all out of ideas.

And I actually don't really know the mechanics of how buying from Telltale works, since I'm admittedly playing it via Gametap. So my ideas are not based on any experience I have with how the demos/downloads work.

[Emily]

Since the game is downloadable, and we need to provide easy access to it for our customers, separating the demo from the full game wouldn't make much of a difference.

As for poisoning torrents... some clever ideas, there. :D 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: Dunno who did that but we got a good laugh out of it.

[Alucard]

poison torrents on public torrent sites works but many people use private trackers now. Piracy is a neverending game of chess. I remember the old sam and max colouring book. Now there was top notch copy protection. :)
Well until I lost it and had to remember the answers by memory.
good times good times.
I think the price point for this game was a great step against people stealing this game. Now only if I could find my essay on piracy. It was a good essay too back in high school when the dmca was about to come out.
Piracy isn't going to destroy the world but I'd say it's about as hard to stop as say... global warming.

[spyrochaete]

I was really annoyed when I learned that S&M would be released first on Gametap which, at the time I heard it, was not available in Canada. When a friend told me about the availability of the pirated version I downloaded it immediately, but while it was downloading I checked the official site just in case. Lo and behold, direct download was on sale, and for a phenomenally fair price, so I bought it then and there.

There is nothing that can stop piracy, so I REALLY appreciate that Telltale didn't use any drastic forms of DRM/copy protection like Starforce to "protect" its game. Software like this only serves to frustrate legitimate users.

Thanks to the small file size and easy authentication process I had begun playing S&M a mere 5 minutes after paying for it. Considering my excellent experiences with Steam I was a little surprised and disappointed to see a simple EXE download link on their site instead of a unified download manager, but this is purely cosmetic and not a big deal.

I love this distribution model and I'm very hopeful for the future of episodic gaming. Kudos to Telltale and Steve Purcell for risking these uncharted waters and making the experience as convenient as possible for its customers! We really do appreciate your trust in us!

[Maize]

I checked the official site just in case. Lo and behold, direct download was on sale, and for a phenomenally fair price, so I bought it then and there.

There is nothing that can stop piracy, so I REALLY appreciate that Telltale didn't use any drastic forms of DRM/copy protection like Starforce to "protect" its game. Software like this only serves to frustrate legitimate users.

I have to agree that the best thing that one can do to stop piracy is to make it really quick and easy to buy and get playing. For a game that's under ten bucks (around six bucks if you subscribe to a season), even if I were into software piracy, that's cheap enough that it's worth just saving the effort.

I think that most users would be happy to pay for games if it were easy and they could afford it. There are still a number of hardcore "I won't pay for anything," people, but those are probably people you can't reach no matter what you do.

[Yohmi]

Yep, if it's easier to buy than to pirate it, it's really great ;) When there is a good stream, when it's quick (as telltale currently does), and cheap of course, why pirating... Why iTunes Music Store is so popular ? because it's the easiest and the fastest way to search, find and download music. And it's cheap.
I hate Starforce things... I bought a game that use a starforce authentication... I'd prefer to crack it, each time I want to launch it, it takes 1min to check security... pouah ^^

[patchit]

Well i wont be buying the game until its released on DVD/CD. And il be honest if that takes too long il be tempted by a pirate copy.

Before anyone says anything, fine $8 is cheap but for what iv heard is a 3 hour once through game, that works out probably more than a full game ($30-40 for anything upto 50 hours of play plus multiplayer).

Oh, and the reason why i dont pay for downloaded content? I dont trust computers.

P.S - Im here as the voice of the silent majority! Just release a damn full game, we dont mind waiting a few years inbetween its a good rest in between releases. Besides, builds up expectancy too..

[Alucard]

Do you really think your a majority anymore? Just look how many people pay for a MMO these days.....I too once thought as you did. I still won't pay per month a play a game but online content isn't a problem as long as it is quality. All we need to do now is step up the difficulty of the telltale games and we'll be set :)

[Yohmi]

Runaway just went out. It costs 60€ (more than 60$). Okay, it's a full game. I won't pirate it... but I won't buy it either. I never played a Runaway (except a demo) before. I liked it. I never played a new release of Sam&Max, in 3D, made by telltale... I bought it.

With 8€ I can drink two beers, with 60 bucks I can have a lunch every day of a week.

[Sp0tted]

Well i wont be buying the game until its released on DVD/CD. And il be honest if that takes too long il be tempted by a pirate copy.

Before anyone says anything, fine $8 is cheap but for what iv heard is a 3 hour once through game, that works out probably more than a full game ($30-40 for anything upto 50 hours of play plus multiplayer).

Oh, and the reason why i dont pay for downloaded content? I dont trust computers.

P.S - Im here as the voice of the silent majority! Just release a damn full game, we dont mind waiting a few years inbetween its a good rest in between releases. Besides, builds up expectancy too..

You don't trust computers, yet you'll go to a torrent site and download a game or a reg key?

You have any idea what kind of crap they put in those torrents just to freak out people like you?

If you do pirate this game because you're such a technophobe and won't download it legally as it comes out, I hope you do get a virus.

[Erwin]

Oh, and the reason why i dont pay for downloaded content? I dont trust computers.

I've never heard a more pathetic excuse than this. Be a man and admit that you're even too cheap to fork out a lousy 9 bucks. :rolleyes: Unbelievable.

--Erwin

[bigtopfrank]

Originally Posted by patchit
Oh, and the reason why i dont pay for downloaded content? I dont trust computers.

i know other people who don't trust computers . . . but they don't post on forums either . . .

Originally Posted by patchit
Im here as the voice of the silent majority! Just release a damn full game, we dont mind waiting a few years inbetween its a good rest in between releases. Besides, builds up expectancy too..

as for that quote, you have to remember in this case, with sam and max . . . we've been waiting years anyway. i think telltale realised the disappointment some of us had when lucasarts pulled the plug on freelance police and did their best to get a new game to us as soon as humanly possible. or as soon as rabbitly possible, if you prefer.

it's as much a sign of the times anyway, that some people just prefer to be entertained for a few hours, rather than walking aimlessly around for days on end in adventure games looking for the masking tape so we can put it on the shed door to make our moustache . . .

episodic releases via online purchase are most likely going to become a major part of adventure gaming in the years to come. i for one welcome it. i think a lot of other people here would agree.

[Maize]

Well i wont be buying the game until its released on DVD/CD. And il be honest if that takes too long il be tempted by a pirate copy.

Before anyone says anything, fine $8 is cheap but for what iv heard is a 3 hour once through game, that works out probably more than a full game ($30-40 for anything upto 50 hours of play plus multiplayer).

I'd say that it's probably closer to 4-6 hours, although for really skilled adventurers (which I'm not), it may be 3. If you buy the season instead of the single download, it costs $6, not $8, and you get a CD for the price of shipping at the end. $6 for 3-6 hours of entertainment is pretty good value, I think. Compare that to a movie theatre. (That's what I usually use as my entertainment metric.) It'll cost you $10 - $14 for two hours of entertainment.

Oh, and the reason why i dont pay for downloaded content? I dont trust computers.

Fair enough, but the season purchase gives you a CD as well as the downloads. You could also burn a CD of each download after you pull it down.

I had kind of an opposite experience last night. I much prefer to buy via instant download than via a shipped CD if I can, so I'm used to that being the case. I saw my Massive Assault disc lying around and realized that I hadn't installed it on my new computer. I tossed it in and ran the installer and it wanted the program key and the network key typed in. They're in the manual. Normally I'm very organized about this sort of thing, but for the life of me I can't find the manual anywhere! I find that way more tedious. With a download key, I can stick it several places and I always know where to look. I keep a copy in a folder in my e-mail, a copy on my file server at home, and a printed copy in my records. It's much easier for me to track down the registration information for a download than to hunt around the house for a manual which has some codes printed on the inside cover.

P.S - Im here as the voice of the silent majority! Just release a damn full game, we dont mind waiting a few years inbetween its a good rest in between releases. Besides, builds up expectancy too..

I think that a lot of these issues are practical. I wouldn't be surprised if it was simply not reasonable for a company like Telltale to get shelf space in Electronics Boutique in between Quake 47 and Ghost Recon 22.5. Offering by download is probably these days the only realistic option for small companies starting out or companies operating in niche markets. Splitting it into episodes allows them to get some cash flow while they're working on a large product and also allows them to keep the cost of each module low enough to overcome people's reticence about buying a game online.

[patchit]

Hmm interestin reply Maize, you make a good arguement. I guess il think about gettin the series, especially after reading that when the seasons out in full it'l be shipped to you on disk anyway.

I'd still say im definately opposed to the episodic idea, iv heard 3 hours max for this first episode (except perhaps for complete newcomers), that just aint enough time to really get absorbed in a game. Especially an adventure game, which is all about the journey..

In reply to an earlier post, id say anyone who really trusts PC's has never actually owned one. Anyway, heres waiting for the disks..

[numble]

In reply to an earlier post, id say anyone who really trusts PC's has never actually owned one. Anyway, heres waiting for the disks..

Nobody was saying that you should trust computers, just that using that as an argument against paying for downloadable games, but for downloading pirated games makes no sense whatsoever.

[AirbornePirate]

Well, I decided long ago that adventure games were the only games I would never EVER consider aquiring by other means. "Culture Shock" is no different. I have far too much respect for the writers, designers, and programmers to not compensate them for their hard work for my enjoyment. Honestly, short 3-4 hour bits is a good thing, keeps me from hermiting up for a few days at a time to play it, plus I have something to look forward to soon.

Besides, waiting is good for you.

[Maratanos]

I'd say that it's probably closer to 4-6 hours, although for really skilled adventurers (which I'm not), it may be 3. If you buy the season instead of the single download, it costs $6, not $8, and you get a CD for the price of shipping at the end. $6 for 3-6 hours of entertainment is pretty good value, I think. Compare that to a movie theatre. (That's what I usually use as my entertainment metric.) It'll cost you $10 - $14 for two hours of entertainment.


Ah, but see, if you read his post, you'll notice that he's expecting 50 hours of gameplay for 30 bucks (plus multiplayer). To which I say that he'll probably need to look elsewhere than adventure games, seeing as how the only ones that last 50 hours are the ones that, in fact, last infinitely more than that because they're so hard and stupid you never finish them. And by the way...

About the ONLY multiplayer adventure game happens to be coming out this December. It's called Myst Online: Uru Live. And it too comes only by download. Guess he's just expecting more than he's ever going to get... :rolleyes:

[jp-30]

About the ONLY multiplayer adventure game happens to be coming out this December. It's called Myst Online: Uru Live. And it too comes only by download. Guess he's just expecting more than he's ever going to get... :rolleyes:

What, no iJet?

[Maratanos]

What, no iJet?

Sorry, googling that isn't showing anything relevant up for me. Care to provide a link?

[bigtopfrank]

About the ONLY multiplayer adventure game happens to be coming out this December. It's called Myst Online: Uru Live. And it too comes only by download. Guess he's just expecting more than he's ever going to get... :rolleyes:

isn't 'the ship' a multiplayer adventure game as well?
http://www.theshiponline.com/

[Pvt._Public]

isn't 'the ship' a multiplayer adventure game as well?
http://www.theshiponline.com/

In a very roundabout way of speaking. I do see what you're getting at though. It's just that its more sneak-em-up than adventure really. Although tricking someone into thinking you're an NPC then following them around without their noticing for half an hour then beating them to death with an umbrella is very satisfying. Until you get blown up by some silly kid who's gotten hold of large gun and refuses to play the game properly. "LOl u r all teh sux!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111 why u not shot bak?????????????????////////lol"

[bigtopfrank]

...Although tricking someone into thinking you're an NPC then following them around without their noticing for half an hour then beating them to death with an umbrella is very satisfying. Until you get blown up by some silly kid who's gotten hold of large gun and refuses to play the game properly. "LOl u r all teh sux!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111 why u not shot bak?????????????????////////lol"
oh damn, that's makling me laugh so much . . .

i haven't played it . . . i'm a bit anti-multiplayer, myself.

[Pvt._Public]

I played it back when it was free mod on the original Half Life engine. I'm not certain if I can justify paying money for it now just because it's on the Source engine. Although it was quite a lot of fun. I heartily suggest finding out about it if anyone here doesn't know what it is. Just remember that although trying to kill someone in a 30's style cruise ship while finding out who's trying to kill you and not get caught by police is great fun right up 'til someone tries to play it like HL2 Deathmatch. You just can't enjoy it when people are flinding grenades around and typing words in Pygmy English about how they keep getting thrown into jail and how it, and everyone else "sux".

Although you have to use the dreaded "Steam". Which apparently some people here take offense at.

[bigtopfrank]

i can imagine . . . that's exactly why i don't play multiplayer games, because there's always someone that'll spoil it for everyone else.

[Pvt._Public]

Mostly I don't play 'em because I suck at 'em!

[bigtopfrank]

me too.

i think we've gone a bit off the topic though . . . it was on piracy, or something . . . i can't remember. will there be a test on this?

[Pvt._Public]

me too.

i think we've gone a bit off the topic though . . . it was on piracy, or something . . . i can't remember. will there be a test on this?

I sure hope not. I'm already in the middle of exams.

Just in reply to a few posts, just what is everyones beef with episodic games? I can understand stuff like SiN maybe (6 4-5 hour games which add up to an obscene amount of cash. Quite a good game series but bloody expensive) but I personally find most of these episodic games to be quite good. I have a huge stack of games I'm trying to play through. Many of them I probably won't get around to doing so for at least 3 months. But when I buy my HL2: Episode 1 and my Bone and my Sam and Max etc. I'm able to mess around for few hours, really get into the game, discover a whole bunch of secrets and enjoy the little moments and then happilly put it away for the next one which comes out in a few months (although I'm still waiting on Bone 3). And the Alone in the Dark formula (shipped as a full game but when you play it, it's split into multiple chapters or episodes) seems pretty interesting to me. I can play part of it 'til I get bored, play another game and then come back and enjoy a new chapter with a short reminder video from the last. Maybe it's just me but when I play most games I tend to get bored of the same backgrounds and gameplay after a while and I stop enjoying the game and find it a bit of a chore.

As for downloading games, I used to hate the idea too. Then I got a decent broadband connection :). I still prefer buying my games with a box and a lovely glossy manual but I don't mind downloading where necessary. Besides, it removes the cost of producing the box and CD/DVD plus shipping etc. and all that crap which seems to account for 2/3 of the price usually.

[spyrochaete]

You have any idea what kind of crap they put in those torrents just to freak out people like you?

I'm afraid I have to disagree with this. The pirate scene has always been about bragging rites, and this is achieved by releasing the newest games and making them as convenient to play as possible. Piracy isn't as big a competitor as rival software developers, but it's still important for game designers to release a product with more value than the pirated version.

I must admit my surprise and respect at how Telltale has achieved this without a physically tangible product. I happily purchased this game on its own merits, but also so that its business model can serve as a beacon to the rest of the industry.

[Maratanos]

I'm afraid I have to disagree with this. The pirate scene has always been about bragging rites, and this is achieved by releasing the newest games and making them as convenient to play as possible. Piracy isn't as big a competitor as rival software developers, but it's still important for game designers to release a product with more value than the pirated version.

I must admit my surprise and respect at how Telltale has achieved this without a physically tangible product. I happily purchased this game on its own merits, but also so that its business model can serve as a beacon to the rest of the industry.

On the other hand, the VIRUS scene is ALSO a lot about bragging rights. Virus makers want to get their viruses everywhere. And one way to do that, believe it or not, is to stick viruses on p2p networks under the guise of pirated games...

[Derwin]

Since the game is downloadable, and we need to provide easy access to it for our customers, separating the demo from the full game wouldn't make much of a difference.

As for poisoning torrents... some clever ideas, there. :D 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: Dunno who did that but we got a good laugh out of it.

So now I know what the torrent you said you found before the one I alerted you too (if they were different) was about. Haha, boy, am I extremely happy I didn't download a pirated S&M. Paying 35 bucks for the full season and no gay porn was definitely a great deal.

[Sp0tted]

On the other hand, the VIRUS scene is ALSO a lot about bragging rights. Virus makers want to get their viruses everywhere. And one way to do that, believe it or not, is to stick viruses on p2p networks under the guise of pirated games...

Right, just as it is important for the torrent people to get a clean file out quickly, it is important to the virus gang to add a tiny .dll that is hidden that will create havok on your machine.

[Derrick]

I purchased the 6-pack of episodes. Tried the first episode the day it came out, and found the copy protection loader conflicts with the front end I use to launch games.

So I went on-line and downloaded the crack the same day. There were a lot that were just virus, but it was still easy to find. And with the cracked version, it now works great with my front end.

So I probably will have to download new cracks as each episode comes out. Even though I paid for them.

I generally have to download cracks for all games I own, which really sucks. The cracks being needed so I don't have to get off my butt and put the CD in for validation. So as long as the cracks are easily available, I have no problem paying for programs that are reasonably priced.

I have also downloaded pirated games and then paid for them, such as "Chewy - Esc from F5."

D.

[bigtopfrank]

what exactly do you mean by this?
Tried the first episode the day it came out, and found the copy protection loader conflicts with the front end I use to launch games.

i don't get it . . . there's difference between a no cd 'patch' and a crack . . . anything you're using to patch sam and max is quite different from a no cd patch, in that the loader would most likely fill your registry with random product registration info, which would also be sent to telltale. if telltale ever pooled those registrations, and block them in, say, the version, you could well find that you're waiting for a crack to apply to that version so you can play it again. which, in actual fact, despite you owning the game, is still piracy of sorts.

it sounds, with this 'front-end', a lot like you're using some random and unnecessary software in an attempt to somehow make you're computer life easier or massively populated start bar less cluttered. the only acceptable 'front-ends' one should ever use, are interpreters, like scumm or dosbox or whatever.

[bigtopfrank]

i get it. looking at your other posts . . . i found out you use meedio. you should check out media portal (http://www.team-mediaportal.com/) . . . i never had a problem with it. especially considering meedio is no longer sold or supported.

viva la open source!

[Maize]

So now I know what the torrent you said you found before the one I alerted you too (if they were different) was about. Haha, boy, am I extremely happy I didn't download a pirated S&M. Paying 35 bucks for the full season and no gay porn was definitely a great deal.

Maybe they could make that an option when you download each episode! "Click here if you would like 800MB of gay porn with your download." Just, you know, in case anybody was interested. ;)

[Derrick]

i don't get it . . . there's difference between a no cd 'patch' and a crack . . . anything you're using to patch sam and max is quite different from a no cd patch, in that the loader would most likely fill your registry with random product registration info, which would also be sent to telltale. if telltale ever pooled those registrations, and block them in, say, the version, you could well find that you're waiting for a crack to apply to that version so you can play it again. which, in actual fact, despite you owning the game, is still piracy of sorts.

I suppose. But the companies force me to pirate what I officially own.

For example, I own TVtool, but because I tend to change my e-mail often, I never get the updated keys for new versions. It was easier for me to find a key generator and update versions that way, then waiting weeks for a response for a new key.

Or when I had to crack the floppy versions of Sam & Max and DOTT to get rid of the annoying copy protection, until I bought the 'Talkie' CDs that did not have protection. And so on, and so on....

As a paying customer, I should not be annoyed more then people who just pirate it without paying.

Hopefully Telltale will forgive me for using the cracked version of Sam & Max instead of the version I bought. Otherwise they can credit my Visa back. :D

i get it. looking at your other posts . . . i found out you use meedio. you should check out media portal (http://www.team-mediaportal.com/) . . . i never had a problem with it. especially considering meedio is no longer sold or supported.

Yeah I will have to try that out one day.

Meedio is another program I pirated for 6-8 months (30 day trial was way to short to properly evalute) before I had it working to a state that I thought it was worth paying cash for. Then 3 months later Yahoo bought them out, making it a waste of my money. Oh well...

D.

[Maize]

I suppose. But the companies force me to pirate what I officially own.

[...]

As a paying customer, I should not be annoyed more then people who just pirate it without paying.

Hopefully Telltale will forgive me for using the cracked version of Sam & Max instead of the version I bought.

As much as I'm pretty anti-piracy, I have to admit that it aggrivates me to no end when the copy protection shafts paying customers really badly. For example, I really hate it when I buy a game, devote multiple gigabytes of disk space to doing a full install and then have to have the first (or xth) CD inserted every time I want to play it. I have a laptop and it completely sucks to have to carry around the CDs for all my games just in case I feel like playing any of them. Even when I had a desktop, it was annoying to have to have a stack of discs sitting at the ready for every game I wanted to play regularly -- I like to put my CDs away safely in a folder once I've installed the app.

There have been several ocasions where I've been annoyed enough by it to download a no-CD crack for the game. I definitely downloaded cracks for several games that I legitimately purchased back in the days of code wheels and star charts and all those shenanigans. Similarly, I can't stand all the DRM on music from the iTunes Music Store, so I just don't purchase there in general. However, there was one time when I desperately wanted a song but didn't want to buy the whole album because I already had every other track on the disc on various other discs by the band. I ended up purchasing that one track on the iTMS and then, after buying it, going on the peer-to-peer networks and downloading a non-DRMed version of the song.

The other time that I've used pirated software has been for professional music applications that have no demo and nowhere near enough information to make a purchasing decision on their website. I don't mind taking a chance on a game, and most games do come with demos. However, when I'm spending several hundred dollars or in some cases over a thousand dollars and there's no trial or demo ... it's too much of a risk. On the few occasions it's come up, I've set myself a particular limit -- a time frame or a specific project, like, "I'll try it out for two months," or, "I'll use it for this particular track I'm working on." At the end of that, if the tool seems useful, I'll buy it. If it's not useful, I delete it completely. I've only felt the need to do that a few times, but I just find it ridiculous that some of these companies expect you to fork out the money they're asking without any more evidence than half a text page talking about how awesome the product is. I mean, some of them cost more than my bike did, and I certainly wouldn't have bought the bike if they'd told me I couldn't test-ride it first.

[ShaggE]

Piracy has good and bad to it. Sometimes you need to see if a game will even RUN on your system, especially if the game doesn't have a demo (and even when it does, it doesn't mean the full game will have the same requirements). I, for one, have a very finicky computer, and what SHOULD work doesn't always work. Hence, I tend to download a cracked copy first, and then purchase the legal copy. That way, I know I'm not being gypped, and the developers still get their well-deserved money.
BUT
I'm glad I didn't pirate Sam and Max though, for some reason, the transitions from one area to another can take up to 5 or 6 minutes on here, despite my exceeding the requirements. If I had illegally downloaded the game, the loading times would have put me off, (since I wouldn't have had the commitment to it that one has with purchased games) and I wouldn't have purchased the full game, thus I would have missed out on the first great point-and-click in years.

*disclaimer: There is no excuse for piracy, don't do it, etc.*

[JFresh]

Hey all =)

Ok here's my two cents on the whole pirating issue. Alas this has a rather sad tale to it:

Having always enjoyed BioWare games to that point (Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 + expansions) I had the impression that this was a very good company with a great team making, to that point awesome games. So when I saw Knights of the Old Republic in the store for $20 I pounced on the purchase =). Sure I could pirate it, but this was a Bioware game and the people responsible deserve their hard-earned cash for the title.

So I took it home, installed it and proceeded to play it. About a half-hour into the game it completely crashed on me. It quit, gave me some obscure error and dumped me back to Windows. Ok...So I tried playing it again and this time about 20 minutes in I decided to save. Saving went good but once done it crashed AGAIN! So I go onto their website and download a patch only to find it went up to 1.03. Well that's strange, because for a game like KOTOR to be $20 it has to have been out for quite some time, years in some cases and in also in this case. So I was rather surprised to see so little cleanup work done to this title. But no matter. Installed the patch and kept playing.

Still, even after the patch this problem did not disappear. And so I went back to the website and checked out the forums. It was there I found a sticky posted saying, in a nutshell, that if you have an ATI videocard then it's not our fault, it's ATI's fault. Uhm...it says on the box that my ATI card is supported. I have better than all the system specs listed but it mentions that my card is supported! What gives. So I follow their advice on fixing the issue and *downgrade* my graphics drivers! This worked considerably better as I now only saw maybe three crashes in a night of playing. But then, I hit the major twist in the game, if you've played it then you know what I'm talking about. Got through the cinematic, and then it crashed! Unlike the previous ones however I could not get by this one for anything! Mind you I'm a network admin and PC Tech support guy full time so believe me I tried just about everything. Finally, dejected and defeated I gave up. While I still kept the game installed I decided to put it on hold until, hopefully, a day would come when this issue would get resolved. About *2 YEARS* later, ATI released a patch for their videocard that got me past this point in the game and I was able to complete it.

Needless to say this left a very bad taste in my mouth. Why did I bother to pay $20 of my hard-earned cash for a game that was essentially broken for 2 years? Why didn't they have a little sticker on the box or put a little piece of paper explaining the problem? With piracy issues being much more mainstream once you open the game you can't return it for anything!

I honestly can't bring myself to buy another BioWare game again. Should I really have to check the game dev's tech-support forum's just to ensure that a game will work with my PC? That's a lot of work for just one game.

So that's my one point for piracy. If I can't return it once I open the package, and it doesn't work what do I do? Just eat the money and leave it at that?

However I do feel that game developers should get paid for their work. To that end, I feel there are a couple ways to go about the piracy issue. One is to completely forego all piracy counter-measures. Clearly people are going to crack the game whether you like to or not and so why pour money into something that is ultimately going be undone in a matter of days?

Second, the only other way I've thought of, and I"m sure it's flawed, is to have a program created that would be used for all game dev's to publish their games that wanted some form of copy protection. This program would have the game register with its server to ensure its legitimacy before the gamer is allowed to play. No server reg? No play. Steam I guess is an implementation of such a strategy but one that I ultimately feel is flawed. Besides the issues people have had with it I feel that its biggest flaw is that Steam is owned and operated by one company. Imagine if the biggest names in game publishing all decided to follow suit and release their own Steam clone offering their own games? I could see a future where we're running nearly a half-dozen if not more Steam clones in order to play all the games we want. This would bog down system resources and probably make for a bit more of an unstable computing environment. Having a neutral body to publish all games could be done with one client on the end user's system to handle this. Furhtermore it would free up maint. costs from those companies and allow them to focus more on creating games.

So that's my $5.

If you've read this far thanks for hearing me out! =)

JFresh

[jp-30]

Sorry, googling that isn't showing anything relevant up for me. Care to provide a link?

Sure thing (http://www.google.co.nz/search?ct=result&cd=1&q=bad+brain+ijet).

[Hero1]

Sure thing (http://www.google.co.nz/search?ct=result&cd=1&q=bad+brain+ijet).

haha please dont remind me :o

[The Butler]

I know this is my first post but I've just bought Sam and Max and the only reason I did was because I found a pirated copy of Sam and Max Hit the Road, one of the few adventure games I never played when I was a kid.

I think an easy way for game companies to reduce piracy a little would be if they weren't so precious over their back catalgoue, especially as it seems a vast majority of games these days are sequels. Take Gothic 3 for example... a month or two before its release I'd downloaded a copy of gothic 2 (a game that I had no interest in on its original release to buy OR download). On the back of that I ended up buying Gothic 2 of amazon AND buying Gothic 3 on its launch day. I'm sure that if maybe game companies released the previous game for download it would help a little to discouraged piracy (I'm thinking CivIII -> CIV or Rome TW -> Medieval 2 TW or UT2005 -> UT2006 etc.).

It might not irradicate piracy but it might help retreive some revenues for developers...

[apignarb]

II'm sure that if maybe game companies released the previous game for download it would help a little to discouraged piracy

Either that, or most rational people would just hold off purchases for a years time, so that they could download them for free instead. I know I wouldn't mind not playing the most recent games, if all others were readily available for free download.

[Legolas813]

Telltale doesn't own Hit the Road, so there is no option of a freeware release.

And LucasArts just plain doesn't care about adventures.

[Hero1]

It would make sense for LucasArts to put hit the road on gametap..but LucasArts don't make any sense :cool:

[JFresh]

Heck some companies have actually done it =). A good example or two would be the Grand Theft Auto series. Both GTA 1 and 2 are freely available to the masses and right off their own site no less =).

There are many other games that have also since gone freeware from the companies that produced them. Check out this site for a more complete list (as well as download links) the site does keep tabs on itself so if something they post turns out to be non-freeware they immediately take it down. Anyway, happy retro-gaming =)

www.liberatedgames.com

[CameronH1403]

I downloaded the demo, played it and then bought it right away..I am glad I did since I want Telltale to keep producing these games.

[Noone9]

I just found out exactly yesterday that this game existed, and my reaction was: "FUCK YEAH!". I have been a fan of graphic adventures ever since The Secret of Monkey Island, I own every single SCUMM engine based Lucasarts adventure games and many Sierra games too. Ever since the flop of Escape from Monkey Island, Lucasarts decided to kill their graphic adventures which is understandable based on the type of company that they are and their market strategies, so although I felt betrayed they decided to discontinue production of Sam & Max: Freelance Police and Full Throttle: Hell on Wheels, I somehow accepted the decision and resigned to the possible fact that graphic adventures were dead.

After I found that S&M2 and FT2 were canceled I didn't imagine either of them would be picked up by any company, so I didn't bother to do any research and since most gaming updates I get from sites like ebgames/gamestop I didn't even know this company existed. I have been aching to have a sequel to either Sam & Max, Day of the Tentacle, or/and Full Throttle. So the story goes like this... Yesterday out of nostalgia I was looking up on bittorrent to download the old Lucasarts games and replay them, since I no longer have the CD's, and to my surprise when I did a search for Sam & Max I saw this torrent "Episode I Culture Shock", I thought it may be some comic book or some TV episode, but when I read the reviews they were speaking about the new game, and I was like: NO FUCKING WAY?

So I looked it up and to my surprise, voila, it was true, an independent developer had made a 3D version of Sam & Max to honor the saga, I kept digging in and I read they were composed mostly of former Lucasarts employees who worked on the original project and Steve Purcell was working with them, so I cannot express the feelings of joy that just came over me.

So you see, piracy is not necessarily a 'bad thing', if it had not been because of the torrent, I wouldn't have found out about the existence of this company for a LONG time. So I downloaded the torrent with the crack and played the demo, and I must say it is pretty awesome and really funny, it truly captivates the essence of Sam & Max.

I liked it so much that as soon as I do a transfer to Paypal I'm gonna buy the whole season and I'm probably gonna get the Bone games too (which seem like they can be cool also), so I can support this company.

[In regards to the game, the developer, and game distribution]
I must say that the download approach is very good, the costs for distribution to a first/third party retailer will be considerably high for a small company like this one, so if they did that, they would have to increase the price for the product, besides the fact that most gamers nowadays don't care about graphic adventures so it would be a lot of waste in effort. Instead they offer us a direct download link for $9 or the full season for $35 (far less than any full new release), which focuses on the correct market which is us, graphic adventure gamers. I must say I totally LOVE the episodic approach, you guys give us a taste of the pie while you keep developing and releasing new episodes ASAP. I haven't played the full game yet (just the demo), but from user accounts it seems like the game can be finished by a seasoned gamer in about 3 hours, if that's so the game is still totally WORTH it, if you guys don't remember the original Sam & Max Hit the Road wasn't that long either, it could be finished in a couple of hours. Hell I remember I finished Full Throttle in like 3 - 4 hours. And Monkey Island 1 can be finished in 1 - 2 hours. Also a very cool game from Sierra, Gabriel Knight could be finished relatively fast, about 6 hours. I finished Curse of Monkey Island in a few hours also. Graphic Adventures are not great because of how long they are but because of their witty dialogue sequences, the sometimes hard puzzles, and the overall interactive experience that even RPG's lack.

In regards to the 2D artwork vs 3D CGI, I must say that even though I love the classics, its time to move on as technology evolves. We all loved those point & click 2D sprites with beautifully hand-drawn backgrounds that ran on the old SCUMM engines, but at this time with MK4 & Grim Fandango we have learned that graphic adventures can be fully 3D and be as much or even more fun. Oh and the voice acting is pretty cool. It is definitely a whole new generation for Sam & Max and graphic adventure gaming, so I am really looking forward to Telltale Games future projects.

Anyhow congratulations to Telltale Games, you guys did an excellent job, also its very cool that you guys read the posts in the forum and interact with us, it gives us confidence that the developer cares about its fans. And don't be discouraged by the fact that there are pirated versions running about, all the real fans will buy the games anyhow and the pirated copies just help make the game more famous and give it promotion, which is good.

[Emily]

Anyhow congratulations to Telltale Games, you guys did an excellent job, also its very cool that you guys read the posts in the forum and interact with us, it gives us confidence that the developer cares about its fans.

Thank you. I'm glad you found us! :D

FYI, PayPal isn't working with the season set right now, but it will hopefully be up and running later this week.

[ShiratoriNinjaBrat]

those bastards who decide to pirate tell tale games....
i shall hunt them down, every last one of them, the bastards.


at least pirate EA. they don't even pay who they employ overtime, and they make unoriginal crap on the perpetual state to make games more and more overly realistic each year with no hopes for creativity, art, just alot of things that look good blowing up.
hell who would even want to pirate ea, cause i know it'd be a waste of time, cds, and disk space. but you can't just rip off a company that makes it's games outta love. You can't cause, it's like Katamari Damacy, a game with alot of love.

if only everyone else saw things that way. *combine jesse jame's hand with mind control device* it didn't want to do it.

[tvcokecan]

I;m not going to lie, I do pirate games. However I pirate games from massive companys who I see as robots, I would never pirate this game, infact S&M has become the 3rd legal game I have downloaded! Heh. I am the same with music, I would never pirate from a small time band, infact someone I am listening to now gives me rights to share his music after I paid the dollar for the song.

[dloeke]

I don't play a lot of games, and therefore I'm not that involved with all this piracy-stuff that's going on. I am, however, quite interested in music, and I make it a principle to not download music. I always purchase the CDs, and that makes the purchase all the more worthwhile, considering that I've never heard most of the songs on the album. And even though a lack of funds somehow keeps me from buying too many CDs, I really appreciate those CDs that I do buy. Music, books, movies and games are all pieces of art, and I believe the creators should get paid for the hard work they have put into it. Okay, I do download some television shows, but only the ones I know I'm eventually going to buy on DVD when they are released. The reason is merely because several of the shows I love aren't even shown on TV in Norway, so it's my only option. :)

Anyway, I do pay for the Sam & Max-games, because I believe the work being done by Telltale Games is absolutely marvellous. You people deserve to get paid for what you do, because you obviously put a lot of hard work and effort into it. And... well... the games rock, and that's a pretty good reason to buy them instead of downloading them illegally. ;)

[Rowne]

I have a similar stance to Orenji except that I don't pirate things for two distinct reasons.

1. If I want something then I make the exchange for it, I do have socialistic leanings so I only tend to support small companies and make payments when I feel it's worth it.

2. There's just too much risk involved, I feel that anyone who chooses to pirate anything of their own volition is frankly not the brightest of spherical glass illumination devices. I have respect for my property, I believe that downloading anything from a source that isn't 100 per cent trustworthy or where I can read and compile the source for myself just isn't worth it. A suitable metaphor would be to say that piracy is rather like playing ping-pong with the fine china, which is great if one could afford to do that.

In other words, more well-off people are likely to pirate than poor people, it just goes to show that the more money you have, the more depraved you are but I won't prattle on about that at the moment.

I'm not well off, in fact I fall into the 'poor' bracket, I'm definitely worker class, I'm the kind of person who supports a World where wage-slavery and heirarchy really wouldn't be nessscary so I feel that exploitation and just taking advantage of people is wrong.

I accept the World I live in so I'm willing to bridge my beliefs over a bit in an effort of open understanding and acceptance and therein I will freely buy certain things but there are items which I believe are "just for laughs".

An OS that costs £200? A piece of software that costs £600? No thanks, that's just taking the piss. Even games which decide to price themselves up around the £50-£60 price mark are crossing the line in my opinion because I feel that it's never justified and it's simply pulling on a genrés fans to line some fat-cat's pocket.

However, when it comes to a piece of quality entertainment that only costs £6 (be it Sam & Max or Gibbage, to toss the frothingly desperate Dan Marshall a bone), which is the same price as a PC games magazine these days, I'll happily pay for both my own entertainment (which is a luxury, not a necessity) and to support the company in question.

Not only that but GameTap doesn't cost much more on a per month basis, what it provides is a better deal than similarly priced services which charge the same (such as MMOs) but more, it's cheaper than almost every MMO out there and it has its own MMO as part of the bargain which makes it a great deal for people who don't have a lot of money to splash around.

I wouldn't say that it's just or desperate for anyone to nick £6 from a company like Telltale because it is a luxury, not a necessity and that's a point I'll keep making. It really is quite simply depraved and to be honest, I don't think the people who'd steal like that are any better than the thieves who'd charge £600 for a piece of software.

Therefore I doubt any jokes within the game could reach or even shame them because there'd be nothing left to reach.

Just my two pence.

I hope Telltale doesn't let these piracy efforts go to heart and that they continue to develop, thanks to GameTap funding that shouldn't be a worry for a bit but both if the climate for releasing games were better (less exploitive publishers) and the people were more trustworthy, GameTap wouldn't even be needed.

(Edit: Cleaned up ambiguity ... and I'm VERY not used to this forum software.)

[Rowne]

Oops, double post.

[Codmate]

I felt good about handing over my cash for this game.
It's hardly as though it's expensive - and the entertainment value is all there IMO!

If you can afford a net connection, you can afford this game - no excuses!

[Kunkku-Antti]

Well, if people can afford a computer they can afford any game. So, being poor is not an excuse because poor people don´t play.

I don´t pirate games that much, the reason though is that most of the games released today are shit and I rather read Dostojevsky than waste my time on some stupid FPS. Oh, but sometimes I am "forced" to download some games. The reason for this behaviour is that I can´t find those games anywhere or that I couldn´t bother to search for a game, give money to some random guy who happens to own a game and just waste time on a searching process when there´s absolutely no sensible reason to do that.

However, I am totally in support of supporting smaller companies that make stuff that bigger companies don´t want to. And if you absolutely have to pirate some games to save money, don´t save it on these ones. Actually you probably should show a support if you enjoy the game, perhaps we will get more of them.

[Orrah]

The 'I can't afford it' excuse for pirating is an incredibly poor excuse! As has already been said in this thread, if you can afford a computer - and the electricity to run the thing - I'm sure you can afford to pay for your games. It's not as if Sam & Max was even expensive either. I've paid £30-£40 (or more for a 360 game :( ) to play some terrible games, so I was more than happy to subscribe for the whole season of Sam & Max when I had the chance.

And sure, Culture Shock isn't a 30 hour game but I enjoyed playing it much more than most games I've bought over the past few years. I'll agree that there are plenty of games out there that really aren't worth buying, but Sam & Max is (and hopefully always will be) worth every penny. :D

[Orusaka]

I'm not going to take any stance on piracy here, as convincing those who don't find it to be wrong, is fruitless labour. What I will do, however, is outline how a game is cracked, and why some of the measures that have been suggested won't work.

First off, to crack a game, you have to buy it. No way around it. A game is cracked by comparing the opcodes between the functioning product and the non-functioning product. Then the neccessary opcodes are changed in the non-functioning product, in order to make it act like the original product. Usually, a single jump command will need to be changed per call, but it really varies between the various copy protection schemes.

Anyway, my point here wasn't to tell people how to crack games, but to tell them that having seperate demo and full versions are pointless, because whoever wishes to crack it will have to buy the full version at any rate.

[ShaggE]

I disagree with the "if you can afford a computer" arguement. Some recieve computers as gifts, some win computers via contests, some may make less money since buying the computer.... you get the idea. Being near-homeless myself, and having a computer I recieved as a gift, I can honestly say that some truly cannot afford games.

[Kunkku-Antti]

I disagree with the "if you can afford a computer" arguement. Some recieve computers as gifts, some win computers via contests, some may make less money since buying the computer.... you get the idea. Being near-homeless myself, and having a computer I recieved as a gift, I can honestly say that some truly cannot afford games.

As long as you aren´t homeless, you can afford a game. And if you are nearly homeless, why don´t you sell your computer?

I am sorry, but I disagree.

[taumel]

Well, the episode format should make a game more affordable for those who can't/wan't to invest the amount of a full price game in one step - like Charles Dickens once did.

I also disagree with Kunkku's statement as i easily can imagine that there are people around who have to take care of each dollar/euro they have and who aren't able to just buy a game whilst they do own a computer.

But beside of downloading a pirated game there do exist also legal alternatives for gaming as a) you can play one of the games which are available for free, b) loan a game from a library (if available), c) exchanging your game with others, d) get a game for cheap as a budget/compilation title, e) buy a game on the second hand market, f) write your own game and so on.

So i think it should be possible to get into some gaming also without investing too much money or money at all...

[Erwin]

Many people loan games from friends, or buy them second hand. In either case, the developer doesn't get any money from this potential customer, so if (s)he pirated the game instead, it'd make no difference. Except in court, perhaps ;)

--Erwin

[brunner]

Here are my thoughts:

People that won't pay for things will always crack DRM. Always. DRM doesn't stop anyone that wants to break it. The only thing DRM does is hinder people like me.

For example, I buy DVDs. I want to put them on my iPod, but doing so is not only a rigmarole, but also illegal. It is a shame that the studios and the MPAA do everything in their power to cripple piracy, but only end up killing fair use.

Luckily, the copy protection on Culture Shock was transparent. I understand why it sounds like such a good idea on paper, but it only hurts legitimate users like myself. Pirates will always find away around it. Locked doors don't stop thieves; they just keep honest people "honest." DRM, on the whole, is turning honest users into "crackers" just so they can utilize fair use. I think that is a crying shame.

[numble]

Here are my thoughts:

People that won't pay for things will always crack DRM. Always. DRM doesn't stop anyone that wants to break it. The only thing DRM does is hinder people like me.

Luckily, the copy protection on Culture Shock was transparent. I understand why it sounds like such a good idea on paper, but it only hurts legitimate users like myself. Pirates will always find away around it. Locked doors don't stop thieves; they just keep honest people "honest." DRM, on the whole, is turning honest users into "crackers" just so they can utilize fair use. I think that is a crying shame.

Brunner: Well I think it does prevent what many of us did do as kids, just letting your friends "borrow" a copy (meaning copying it to their hard drive and/or making copies of the floppies).

Back then, we would just wait for one kid in school to get the game, and then seemingly everybody would eventually have it installed on their computer if they wanted to. Nowadays, I imagine kids would say "come to my house to check out this cool game" or "this game is cool, you should ask your mom to get it for you." But DRM makes it so that a lot of the "borrowing" of the past doesn't work--you'll always need the original CD to replay it and/or digital distribution limits where the game can go.

Yes, there are probably some kids that know how to visit pirate sites, but my only point was that DRM does counter some of the piracy that occurred in the past.

[ShaggE]

As long as you aren´t homeless, you can afford a game. And if you are nearly homeless, why don´t you sell your computer?

I am sorry, but I disagree.

Why don't I sell my computer? Hmm, let's see. I need my computer to work, for one. Also, it's deemed bad taste to sell a gift, and seeing as how this was built by a family member from parts it took him quite a long time to accumulate, I wouldn't sell it for anything. And I didn't mean "I'm on the verge of becoming homeless", I meant "I have a very small income". Games usually cost around $60. Thus, I only buy games when I can spare the cash. Other times, I'm stuck with freeware and abandonware titles.

Until you've picked yourself up from the gutter after realizing you can't spend another night paying crackheads so you can sleep in their apartments, and you are making your way back up the social ladder, don't tell me what I can and cannot afford, please.

[Kunkku-Antti]

Okey-dokey!

[Rowne]

Just to note, I agree with brunner as far as DRM is concerned.

Eventually, companies will wean themselves off it plain and simple because to paraphrase Cory Doctorow; "If you have to alienate your userbase in order to sell a product, then it's not an internet ready business model." Some companies are already realising this and either removing DRM from their peddled wares (certain labels are doing this on Yahoo, right now) or scaling it back and making it as transparent as possible.

Now the systems I have the least problems with are, to be honest, Steam and GameTap. With Steam I can (with people I do 100 per cent trust) share the account details around and we can all play and have fun. GameTap allows unlimited subaccounts, two people to play on one account simultaneously (yay, free Uru Live!) and the sharing of the master account, like Steam. In fact, if Steam and GameTap were combined, taking Steam's open file-structure and GameTap's subaccounts and liberal dual-user usage, then one would likely have one of the friendliest DRM systems out there and it'd be future-proofed well until the inevitable point where DRM is abolished for good.

From what I've seen, the Telltale system is transparent on one computer but if it's limited beyond that then I agree they do need to rework their base system to allow for fair-use and make it more friendly to the average person, it only makes the company providing the entertainment more popular in the end.

I think that Telltale definitely have it right as far as their pricing system goes, I find that to be very reasonable and I congratulate them for it. It's a bloody good system. However, if their DRM system is less friendly then they might have to rework it a bit eventually. Though seeing that the Telltale folks do tend to have open eyes, ears and minds I wouldn't count them out entirely even if the DRM does prove to be unfriendly to too many people.

I can't say for myself yet though because I have only tried it on one PC. Still, I'd trust Telltale to do the right thing in this area.

[Screaming Gamer]

I'm more than happy to pay for games! I can't see why others arent?
The quality and playability is so superb with TTG and my few pounds I pay are quite deserving! I get a great game, they get finance for the next. Theres always going to be a few idiots out there who don't think like that! 'All for one' is their motto!

[MarkoH01]

I really think that some PC games are much too expensive - so I do understand some people downloading stuff - but THIS is cheap, quality and definately worth the money. I cannot wait to afford Episode 2. It's a good product and every adventure fan should spend the money for it. To save Sam + Max and to save good adventures.

Thank you Telltale for these great games!

[sokuni]

Well, piracy cannot be avoided. Although it's kind of an evil compliment to get one's software pirated, since the game has to be good to get pirated this fast. But I really do not like the fact that a game with this quality, subject and price is being pirated.

The average gamer lacks real morale. That's what I'd say.

[bashar]

Well, I really feel a shame. When I was young I didn't know what pirated copy mean and what harm it does. Now I fully understand. And some how, friends of mine who keep complaining why Lucas unplugged the adventure games never actually bought any original adventure game from them. And even now, I keep telling them to look for new telltale episodes and others, eventually they download it for FREE!

The complain about the dying adventure games, they think about doing their own gaming business, and when someone listens to the cries, they want it for FREE!

But cheer up telltale, we are right behind you :)

[doom saber]

See, I'd like to emphasize something elsenator said...



This is very true. The book Free Culture, as I recall, lists at least three (maybe four, but I only remember three of them) reasons people illegally "pirate" software. In fact, only one of them is strictly detrimental.

1. People download a piece of software INSTEAD of buying it. This is bad, beacuse it deprives the developer of money.
2. People download a piece of software, but wouldn't have bought it if they couldn't have downloaded it. It is neutral, because downloading hasn't deprived the developer of anything, because they wouldn't have bought it if they couldn't have gotten it free.
3. People download a piece of software, to try it out. They like it, and then buy it. This is good, because they wouldn't have bought it unless they knew they'd like it, which they determined via downloading it.

However, it must be emphasized that ALL THREE are illegal. No ifs, ands, or buts. All three are always illegal.


Personally, if there is something I can obtained easily by purchasing, like Telltale's Sam and Max game, I would buy it in an instant. However, like some of you guys here, I too was introduced to adventure games through a bootleg copy. But once I got older( my teens), I started buying my adventure games thanks to a local computer show at the time, which had all the sierra adventure games made.
I buy my games since my older brother and I like to have a legit copy, with all the paperwork and such. Heck, other than adventure games (including Sam and Max,) World of Warcraft, Sims 2, and maybe the Castlevania games, I rarely play games. Guess I have lost interest in games. However, I still buy the o rest just to collect like Final Fantasy XII collector's edition.


How do I feel about pirating Sam and Max? It hurts the company. What l learn from a beta tester who beta tested Prey that sales of the game via retail doesn't hurt game developers since they have already sold their stock to a store for them to sell. In other words, Walmart, for example, buys x amount of stock from a publisher and then sells it to retail. However, I am not sure if this is correct since I am a toy collector and this doesn't work for toys. For toys, whenever something goes on clearance, the toy developer has to buy back their stock so that a store like Toys R us can sel it via clearance. This is why a lot of toy companies are going goin out of business.

As for the case of online games, I am sure it hurts the company since Telltale is sellin their game online, where they get the money from the consumers and not some big corperation. True, gametap gave them money, but i think the money used is primary for the development of the game

[Erwin]

Well, piracy cannot be avoided. Although it's kind of an evil compliment to get one's software pirated, since the game has to be good to get pirated this fast. But I really do not like the fact that a game with this quality, subject and price is being pirated.

The average gamer lacks real morale. That's what I'd say.

I can't wait to see my game appear on BitTorrent! I might even put it there myself! :o

--Erwin

[t800]

well apart from the whole debate about piracy i must say that im happy to add a crack to the cd when im gonna put it into storage. who knows if the activation servers will be online when im gonna show it to my kids in 30 years or so.

people who buy it buy it, who dont dont, but any non major publication will propably just gain from being spread because it might lead to purchases in the end.

[RMJ1984]

Actully most people are wrong. Most people who download illigal is to try and then buy.. I myself offen do this.. Offcourse telltale is pretty good a releasing demos of the episodes...

But from my (local sources) i have not yet seen Episode 2 on the net, also most groups doesnt even touch games from small companies. Offcourse someone allways will release in the end. So i doubt telltale needs to be worried.

I cant wait to get my cd when season 1 is complete :D

[Silkut]

As an amateur reverse code engineer I can tell it is a shame to pirate's such products. As said before almost all the ingredients are here to avoid piracy. Our heroes Sam & Max, some protections, and a low price.
But be careful, the protection used in the second EP is very easy to attack, that's a classical protection target for confirmed crackers.
I also understand that the game protection could be a big charge, that's actually the problem of little applications imho.
I wonder if there is a special part of the development team wrking on security sheme, or is it something else ?

At last but not least, I'd like to thank you ppl from Telltale for the job done, that's pretty wonderful. You make fan's dream a reality.

[imi]

I like this idea. :D

Please be very carefull about jokes regarding "those bad software pirates". From a software producers point of view, cracking a game's protection is always a bad thing and joking about the bad guys may seem tempting.

But to many people, software companies are less sympathic and attacking them sounds not so bad. So you can end up quickly beeing just the boring teacher with the waving forefinger.

(Before anyone starts to attack me: I am a software developer too. I just want prevent yet another lame ingame joke referencing "bad pirates" that kills atmosphere ;-)

Imi.

[fhqwhgads]

I do fondly remember "Elmo Pug and the software pirates of pestulon" in Space Quest III ;)

[matan]

Hmmm... I think the pirates of pestulon were not really "software pirates" but rather a big software company making software games. The whole scenario was meant as a parody of Sierra itself and not of software pirates.

[Silkut]

Please be very carefull about jokes regarding "those bad software pirates". From a software producers point of view, cracking a game's protection is always a bad thing and joking about the bad guys may seem tempting.


I second that opinion, usually crackers only need some motivation to attack a video game. A famous protection, a famous title or simply a company reputed for hate against pirates. This is only a matter of challenge.

[DjNDB]

I was wondering, will the CD Version still require online activation or will inserting the CD be sufficient?
I think it's a serious archiving issue because, as mentioned earlier, no activation service can be guaranteed to last forever.
That's why i don't buy DRMed stuff - You don't actually own it and depend on the good-will (and existence) of a company.
But i could not resist to buy Sam&Max Series 1, especially because i want to support telltale in resurrecting the game genre i spent my childhood with.

Furthermore, will i have to pay bazillions of dollars to get the CD shipped to Germany, because i bought S1 in the telltale store, or will there be a way to get the CD for less shipping costs from a German distributor, once there is one?

[numble]

This is Sam and Max folks, they've gone and made fun of Scientology (which has a record of getting episodes of shows making fun of it banned), sitcoms, game shows, cooking shows, Oprah, the O'Reilly Factor, and the Weekly World News in one episode alone, along with one-off snide jokes about Tom Hanks, the Cosby Show/Small Wonder, and assorted other American entertainment culture elements. As always, it's done in a tongue-in-cheek vein. Surely you don't think that some sarcastic remark about how X video game company went bankrupt because people refused to buy its $6 games (or some other tongue in cheek comment) can be taken that seriously can you?

[doom saber]

This is Sam and Max folks, they've gone and made fun of Scientology (which has a record of getting episodes of shows making fun of it banned), sitcoms, game shows, cooking shows, Oprah, the O'Reilly Factor, and the Weekly World News in one episode alone, along with one-off snide jokes about Tom Hanks, the Cosby Show/Small Wonder, and assorted other American entertainment culture elements. As always, it's done in a tongue-in-cheek vein/ Surely you don't think that some sarcastic remark about how X video game company went bankrupt because people refused to buy his $6 games (or some other tongue in cheek comment) can be taken that seriously can you?


I think Myra is also based on Rosie O' Donnell because of he accent and Rosie also had her own talk show

[danny8709]

to be honest i downloaded episode one from a p2p network. but shortly after i ended up prepaying for the entire season. as long as people realize that tell tale games (aka independent publisher) is the company making sam n max and not crappy lucasarts, i think most fans will pay for the episodes.

the file thats floating around is the demo with a crack to unlock it. but the funny thing is the crack doesnt work very well and most people on the p2p site have posted complaints that they cant get it to work or that it's broken. lol.

[Keir]

I don't have much money so whether it's music or games or whatever I do rip off some stuff. But I also support the stuff I really like, especially if it's not a big money maker. I was happy to buy season 1 because I want to play season ten, and if not enough people buy season 1 there won't be a season 10! Also the games are great value now, imagine how great they could make them if they sell twice as much as they expected and can spend more on development!

[ShaggE]

to be honest i downloaded episode one from a p2p network. but shortly after i ended up prepaying for the entire season. as long as people realize that tell tale games (aka independent publisher) is the company making sam n max and not crappy lucasarts, i think most fans will pay for the episodes.

the file thats floating around is the demo with a crack to unlock it. but the funny thing is the crack doesnt work very well and most people on the p2p site have posted complaints that they cant get it to work or that it's broken. lol.

I did the same thing, but I too am going to buy the season package, I cannot in all good conscience rip Telltale off, and I wouldn't want to anyway. Only reason I downloaded episode 1 from a torrent site was to see how it would run on my machine. (I wasn't aware that there was a demo version at the time)

EDIT: And yes, I deleted it after testing it :P

[B-Real]

I'm also one of those who downloaded the first episode from P2P and guess what - I liked it so much I bought all 6 episodes!

[Grey]

1. People download a piece of software INSTEAD of buying it. This is bad, because it deprives the developer of money.
2. People download a piece of software, but wouldn't have bought it if they couldn't have downloaded it. It is neutral, because downloading hasn't deprived the developer of anything, because they wouldn't have bought it if they couldn't have gotten it free.
3. People download a piece of software, to try it out. They like it, and then buy it. This is good, because they wouldn't have bought it unless they knew they'd like it, which they determined via downloading it.

Another reason, as others have pointed out, is to bypass DRM. Many people have pirated Windows XP simply because they don't want the hassle of Product Activation every time they modify their PC's hardware. Other apps and games get pirated only because the user doesn't want harmful Starforce drivers or rootkits on their computer, or because they don't want software that stealthily connects to remote servers to gather system info.

There's also the issue of availability. A few years ago, Empire released an expansion pack that worked only on the UK version of their game. How many Americans have the money or resources to place an online order for a foreign copy of a game they already own? And even if they did, would they be willing to if it could be easily downloaded? Not me.

This applies to music as well. New songs are played on radio well in advance of the CD's release date. You won't find the CD in the stores but you can always find an advance promo copy illegally available on the internet.

[ShaggE]

Good point, I for one avoided StarForce-protected software at all costs, that was a true travesty.

On another note, abandonware is, in my opinion, a perfectly acceptable form of piracy. It's a hot debate, but why make it illegal to download software that is nigh-impossible to get otherwise, and usually developed by companies that have long since gone under, or have simply stopped supporting the software?

[Wilyam]

I am simply happy, that Sam&Max have revived from dead! ;)

For the sake of it I have issued a credit card (usually it here is absolutely not necessary - we pay cash) and have bought 1 season.

I live in Russia.
You know, that Russia - the country of computer pirates (it is the truth! Any DVD (films, games, music) costs at us $3 for disk), but I have (certainly) got game here.
If want, I can tell to you motives of the people buying piracy production.


P.S. Sorry for my... hm... English. :)

[Jake]

This applies to music as well. New songs are played on radio well in advance of the CD's release date. You won't find the CD in the stores but you can always find an advance promo copy illegally available on the internet.

Wait, because a radio station gets to debut a song, you have the right to pirate it immediately?

[Grey]

Wait, because a radio station gets to debut a song, you have the right to pirate it immediately?

No. I wasn't speaking for myself. I was just commenting on the advance copies that seem to spread rather quickly, and am wondering if people might more willing to purchase music if it was actually available in stores at the time they wanted it.

[ShaggE]

Wait, because a radio station gets to debut a song, you have the right to pirate it immediately?

I was wondering, what's the general concensus about abandonware around Telltale? I've always wanted to get an opinion straight from the horse's mouth (sorry for the unflattering catchphrase lol), but I've never convinced any developers to give an interview.

[Jake]

Given that the term "Abandonware" can to one person mean "A 25 year old game that only runs on some embedded circuit that hasn't been manufactured in a decade and would actually crumble to dust if left out in polluted 21st century air," and to another can mean "An old game I want to play so I'll just use a term other than 'pirating it' so I can feel slightly better about myself," I'm sure opinions are mixed.

[tabacco]

A good example are the old Apogee games, like Commander Keen, and so forth. They're a staple of abandonware sites, and yet they're all still available in demo form for sale from 3d realms:
http://www.3drealms.com/downloads.html

[ShaggE]

By "abandonware", I mean a game that can no longer be purchased through legit means, unless some store just happens to have a copy in a bargain bin underneath all the copies of Superman 64 and Celebrity Deathmatch, and is no longer supported or profitable to the company.

3D Realms, of course, rarely stops sales of their titles, since us Apogee fans are rabid collectors :P

Anyway, to the meat of my post: I'm pro-abandonware, IF the game or app falls under the above definition. But as tabacco says, most abandonware sites, whether unknowingly or purposefully, tend to have a few warez titles mixed in.

I find that a good solution is to contact the companies in question (if they still exist), and just plain ask if they mind. I've found that more often than not, they're fine with it, since even if the person was lucky enough to find a legit copy, the company themselves wouldn't see a cent.


Anyhoo, that's just my two cents, most forums get violent with rage at the very hint of the word "abandonware", so I just decided to speak my piece on it at a more civil one :P

[matan]

I think I can actually explain pretty well why piracy is so popular, at least here in Israel (I don't know how popular it is in other parts of the globe)

1) There isn't ANY regulation, meaning you can copy as many games/software as you want and never get any punishment (unless you're a big company).

2) Buying games is considered VERY UNPOPULAR and is actually quite DEGRADING (meaning - you are actually made to feel ashamed of paying for games). This is, of course, absurd, because it's supposed to be the other way around - society is supposed to condemn the immoral acts. I think this is best clarified by another situation which is exactly the other way around:

automatic tipping, which is actually a pretty illogical way of getting the customers to pay for the service (which the restaurant is supposed to supply anyway) succeeds because society condemns not-tipping. (meaning - if I sit at a restaurant with friends, and I don't pay a tip, I will be made to feel ashamed of it). When you eat at a fancy restaurant, the cost of the tip can sometime reach the cost of a Sam&Max episode, and EVERYONE WILL PAY IT, even though it's neither very logical or enforced by law.

Right now, by paying for games, I turn out a sucker on both aspects - I both have to pay much more for the same experience as anyone who downloaded the game, and I also lose my friends' respect.

I think if we really want piracy to stop, we should get to a point where a person will be BANNED FROM SOCIETY for pirating games. Meaning - we should treat a game pirate the same way we would treat someone we just saw shoplifting. As it stands now, the few people who actually buy games can not afford to actually ban pirates, since they compose 99% of society. That's why I think it's more reasonable to solve point 1 first (actually regulting the laws against copying games - meaning if stolen games would be found on people's hard-drive they will be put in jail) and then when the rate of pirates in society will lower, we could begin actually banning pirates.

[Myrk]

*cough* I must admit i first illegaly downloaded Sam & Max EP1 to see what the fuss was about, but i think that anyone in their right mind would so as me and buy it afterwards. I mean, with a solid game at a low price like that even broke guys like me are willing to spend some moolah.
Now, when the CD comes out, thats a different story... theres pretty much defenetly gonna be a pirating issue there. Myself, i'll stick to buying it.

[Jake]

Why will there be a piracy issue when the CD currently costs users less money than buying episodes individually, which is already, as you said, a price so low even broke guys like you can afford it?

[Maratanos]

Why will there be a piracy issue when the CD currently costs users less money than buying episodes individually, which is already, as you said, a price so low even broke guys like you can afford it?

Well, not necessarily. International shipping can be quite a lot of money... ;)

[doom saber]

Given that the term "Abandonware" can to one person mean "A 25 year old game that only runs on some embedded circuit that hasn't been manufactured in a decade and would actually crumble to dust if left out in polluted 21st century air," and to another can mean "An old game I want to play so I'll just use a term other than 'pirating it' so I can feel slightly better about myself," I'm sure opinions are mixed.


True. I think there is another term of "Abandonware" since this applies to me when hearing the word. I think of "abandonware" as old games I cannot buy at all because of inflated ebay prices and rarity. For example, the 1993? Pc engine castlevania game, Dracula X, is both rare and expensive whereas it cost around 100 bucks. This especially applies to adventure games since most of them tend to reach the 100 mark like the Leisure suit Larry collection released by Sierra of old and rare games like Sam and Max Hit the road for the pc(I am kicking myself for not buying a brand new one [to replace my non functioning one] for 2 bucks at the computer show years ago. However, I might end up getting that one Lucas Arts demo that came out two? years ago since it comes with the full version of Sam and Max)

If I can find the game for a fair price, I would buy it. I have three Quest for Glory 4 copies simply because whenever I want to play it, I can't find my copy, so I end up buying one and finding the other copy later. LOL

[Legolas813]

and rare games like Sam and Max Hit the road for the pc

I bought my copy of Sam and Max Hit the Road on Ebay last year for $10 shipped. If you're patient (and you don't care about original boxes and manuals in mint condition), you can get pretty decent deals.

[doom saber]

I bought my copy of Sam and Max Hit the Road on Ebay last year for $10 shipped. If you're patient (and you don't care about original boxes and manuals in mint condition), you can get pretty decent deals.


Ah, Cool. I was just looking for it on ebay and the search (like always) comes up with the mac version. Guess I will be patient

[Mattb]

The really sad part is that because of the greed of the music industry, the pirating of software/music etc, has become more mainstream than ever before.

In fact I was reading in some audiophile forums I visit regularly that a whole host of people who would never have considered it before have vowed to only purchase used music cd's and or download mp3's illegally from now on because of how Microsoft caved in and signed a deal with Universal Music to pay them $1.00 for every Zune sold. Of course it could have had something to do with the fact that the CEO of Universal Music called everyone who owns a Digital Audio Player a thief who uses their players for the storage of illegally obtained music. heh.

It's sort of sad really. There are a lot of young people out there today that truly don't believe file sharing is illegal at all. heh. That's how bad it's gotten.

Note to Vastgirth: The reason why it took so long for S&M to be cracked is because adventure games aren't that popular, even among software pirates.

Note to Guybrush: There is nothing that a company like Telltale games can do to stop piracy. Microsoft has spent hundreds of millions of dollars developing anti-piracy techniques over the last decade and still hasn't been able to stop it. (Though I think it's crazy stupid for anyone to use a pirated copy of an OS, I guess there's some really crazy stupid people out there). The only thing that can be done to stop it is to account for it in the basic business model.

Though I tend to think that when you are selling boxed copies of games especially, including special stuff like concept art, or something like the little "manny" you got with Grim Fandango will help to limit it as well.

ok i will be honest, i reguarly pirate software. However i always buy games which i think are worth it, such as gothic 3, oblivion, and of course sam and max! Afterall ive been waiting for years for this game of course im going to buy it. (or in this case, pre-order the entire series) You have to support the developers if you want to see more games!

Anyway the point of this post is that the game wasn't actually successfully cracked until the 10th of November, 9 days after the official release and many days after the gametap one. This is VERY late for a cracked release and i imagine will have helped sales of the game a lot.

Why this was, i don't know. maybe the copy protection is good, or perhaps sam and max holds such a special place in the hearts of gamers that the faster crackers didn't crack it...

Anyway i hope it sells loads and leaves a very bitter taste in lucasarts' mouth!

I guess, all these unfortunate people living on a few cents per hour in 3rd world countries are criminals because they can't afford legit software. :rolleyes:

There is no DRM schema in this world, which will stop piracy, simply because the problem is not within the pirates, but with the software industry's fundamentally flawed business model (which, by the way, assumes zero-day piracy). ;)

DRM is not here to curb the piracy. It's here to maximize the paying potential from a small group of users, who are technically challenged and don't know how to obtain and install cracked software. Guess what, most gamers don't fall in this category by far, especially adventure gamers. So all this DRM effort is laughable at best.

The real breakthrough will come when the business geniuses pushing DRM realize that it does little to change the ratio between those who pay and those who pirate. Once they start researching the needs of this second group, they will realize that there is actually a virgin market, much larger than the existing one, waiting to be saturated. (Nobel prize anyone?) ;)

Maybe Telltale should start considering to make out of games 2 different files: a small sized one for the demo version, and the complete one to be given through a link just to the ones who have already bought the game.
Since everyone on this forum loves and supports Telltale, it'd be very hard that one of us lets the complete game available for P2P and, more generally, file sharing programs.
Doing this, piracy against their games can be at least slowed down, probably not defeated (that's just impossible).
If they don't have the whole game, they can't crack it up.
What do you think?

I think that rapidhsare provide free downloads for less than 100MB files. In fact, if you want something, you can have it. As I can have every Bone episode free, I can also have Sam&max free... I can donwload it from the mainsite, but also on P2P or many other locations. If you want something free, you can have it. Lots of people pirating won't buy anything. If they can't obtain it, they forget and donwload something else. I know this with music, sometime I let people hear songs on my iPod "sounds great, could you give it to me ?" "nop, it's under DRM, you must buy it, it's less than 1€" "Nonsense, I'll download it on ——— ". Then, he doesn't find the file... nevermind, he forget. Just 1€ (≈1$). Less than a subway ticket, less than 1/5 of a beer at the pub. Just because it costs something, it's too expansive, that's all... sad, yes it is...

In jokes would be great however :)

Ok, I think until somebody figures out how to stop pirates permanently; it will continue to happen on any big games. It does matter how popular the games are to the pirates all they care about it getting it out so they can steal your ip, personal information or give you a virus. Others might actually give you a full copy of something with no strings attached, and they just make money on ads or on visits to the site etc. But I bet you, anywhere anybody goes to get anything illegally, IP info will be stored, and Google supposedly stores your search records and lets not forget the amazing data restoring powers of the FBI....

[Myrk]

Why will there be a piracy issue when the CD currently costs users less money than buying episodes individually, which is already, as you said, a price so low even broke guys like you can afford it?

Because some people with more times on their hands then whats good for them will allways go ahead and rip it and crack it once it hits cd format. And for those with little moolah, particularly to young to have a job yet, springing for a full game isnt allways an option (as opposed to buying one episode as it comes out, then waiting a month or two for the next) even though it would be cheaper in the long run.

[Emily]

2) Buying games is considered VERY UNPOPULAR and is actually quite DEGRADING (meaning - you are actually made to feel ashamed of paying for games). This is, of course, absurd, because it's supposed to be the other way around - society is supposed to condemn the immoral acts. I think this is best clarified by another situation which is exactly the other way around:

automatic tipping, which is actually a pretty illogical way of getting the customers to pay for the service (which the restaurant is supposed to supply anyway) succeeds because society condemns not-tipping. (meaning - if I sit at a restaurant with friends, and I don't pay a tip, I will be made to feel ashamed of it). When you eat at a fancy restaurant, the cost of the tip can sometime reach the cost of a Sam&Max episode, and EVERYONE WILL PAY IT, even though it's neither very logical or enforced by law.

This is a really interesting point. I never really thought about it this way, but you're right, a lot of what people will/won't pay for has to do with what society accepts or doesn't accept. The fact is that right now, software piracy is generally considered okay, even though it's no different than walking out of a store with something you didn't pay for in your pocket. It makes me wonder how we got to this point.

[Legolas813]

2) Buying games is considered VERY UNPOPULAR and is actually quite DEGRADING (meaning - you are actually made to feel ashamed of paying for games).

I find this to be the case with a lot of things, especially music CDs and games. Sad, but true.

It makes doing the right thing even harder.

[marsan]

The fact is that right now, software piracy is generally considered okay, even though it's no different than walking out of a store with something you didn't pay for in your pocket. It makes me wonder how we got to this point.

Software piracy is a victimless crime. Like punching somebody in the dark :D

Anyway. From joke to serious. Will the disc version of Sam & Max need to be activated towards a server? I really think it would be wise to rather use a copy protection on the disc rather than have some sort of activating there.

I am a die hard classic gamer. I love classics, and I think: what if the activation server is shut down for some mysterious reason(it has happend before with other projects) such reasons as not enough money to support the project, or the producer no longer see the potential in giving support to "that old game". If that happens, we who bought it will suddenly be stuck with an expensive table coaster/beerrag. I gladly pay for this game, but I want to be able to play the game even 10 years from now.

So here's my question. Have you guys decided yet if you will use activation towards a server when this season of sam & max is released on dvd/cd? Or will there be a "normal" copy protection making sure people use a original cd/dvd - which can protect my right to play this game in 10 years(even if gametap goes bankrupt)? Because if the dvd/cd version will be using an activation server, then people will have to crack their games to play them 10 years from now... which kind of sucks, when we have played fair and square to get the game.

Outside of that. I think there are certain situations when piracy can be argued for ethically. Personally I think software piracy is ok if one just wants to try before one buys, and it's ok too if one does it to protect ones own right to take backups of ones own software. Another case is with software it's impossible to get anymore. When the company no longer exist, and nobody really knows who owns the right for the software or game anymore, then I don't really see the big problem in copying it. I know the problem of piracy has been big ever since the PC saw the face of the earth, and that it annoys the hell out of publishers who try to protect their investments. But I just think there are solutions where everybody can be happy and getting what they want. These days the hunt for software piracy has turned into something of a witch hunt. I don't think sueing and threatening people who copies stuff is the way to go. That's instead the best way to get them to do it even more. Then it's easy to make up excuses to do it, and even turn it into a political battle.

Best regards!

[Jake]

The Bone CD versions use a serial number instead of order number / activation key / auto-activate on purchase and that sort of thing, and they are not at all a hassle to use.

The Bone CDs do check your serial number against a master server to make sure that the serial you entered is valid, and isn't just a number you got from a known cracklist online, but its a far less extreme or involved process than the one that's used with the downloadable games, and is a method used by games dating back to things like Quake 3 in 1999. I imagine we'll be doing something similar for the Sam & Max CDs, though what we'll be doing for sure hasn't been decided yet.

[Maratanos]

So what happens if the master server vanishes? :eek:

[Jake]

So what happens if the master server vanishes?

I couldn't tell you? You won't be able to play Quake 3 if id software's goes down, or activate your copy of Windows XP if Microsoft stops supporting Windows Genuine Advantage. Or, if you lose your Day of the Tentacle instruction manual you'll never be able to build the superbattery, unless you wait 15 years for someone to write an emulator that bypasses the copy protection.

Fortunately, as I've said a ton of times, Telltale is not staffed by a team faceless robots that will all suddenly switch off if for some reason the company does go out of business someday in the future. It's actually staffed by a large group of independently-minded human beings who really like these games. Even if the main activation server were ever to go offline, there are other ways, built into the software, that those same human beings could use to communicate a new activation/unlock method to users.

[fhqwhgads]

I think we should just make sure Telltale never goes bankrupt! Problem solved!

To ensure this, a valid world domination plan should be devised. First we need to devise our initial goals:

How about replacing that redundant search engine everybody uses with Telltale Toogle? A step up from this would be the TTool OS and the TTphone.

The world would be our... I mean your oyster!

[Derrick]

Or, if you lose your Day of the Tentacle instruction manual you'll never be able to build the superbattery, unless you wait 15 years for someone to write an emulator that bypasses the copy protection.


Ummmmm.... The CD version of Day of the Tentacle and Sam & Max did not have copy protection. Only the floppies did. I bought the floppies first, then found out about the Talkie CD versions a couple of weeks later. Sold the floppies and bought the CDs.

Anyways, the emulator in question does not promote bypassing the copy protection. You will not be able to buy the floppy versions, and the CD versions you can still buy, have no copy protection.

I own every Lucas Arts, Adventuresoft (except Simon 3) and Infocom (yeah, I'm an antique) adventure. I am quite happy that I can now play them again without hassles with emulators.

D.

[ShaggE]

The superbattery copy protection in DOTT doesn't have a very large amount of variables, so a persistent person could fairly easily get past it, even w/o the manual or help from the web.

[Jake]

I think that picking apart the miniscule details of my example is missing the point.

And yes, ScummVM does in fact bypass copy protection. You can, for instance, enter any series of numbers into the Mix'n'Mojo segment of Monkey Island 2 and it will register as valid.

[DjNDB]

And yes, ScummVM does in fact bypass copy protection. You can, for instance, enter any series of numbers into the Mix'n'Mojo segment of Monkey Island 2 and it will register as valid.

According to the readme there's a reason for this behaviour:

The ScummVM team does not condone piracy. However, there are cases when
LucasArts themselves bundled cracked interpreters with their own games --
the data files still contain the copy protection scripts, but the interpreter
bypasses them. There is no way for us to tell the difference between legitimate
and pirated data files, so for the games where we know the original interpreter
may have been cracked ScummVM will always have to bypass the copy protection.

[Phoonzang]

Hi there,

I browsed through this discussion just a little, and I'd like to give my $0.02 as well.

In my opinion, copy protections do not affect the overall sales of a game. A very good example of this has been the game "Syndicate" by Bullfrog. It did not have any copy protection, and this was the time of code-wheels, colored foils necessary to read some VISA-Codes, but it was one of the most-sold games in that time.
Copy protections annoy the people how bought the software, think about crap like Starforce, which is essentialy a root-kit and thus more a virus like anything else. Actually there are even programs that won't run from the original due to such a copy protection and you actually _have_ to crack it in order to play it.
And as mentioned above a couple of times, people playing pirated games would not necessarily have bought the software if they did not have access to a "free" version.

On the other hand, software companies should make the purchase worth the money, to make a difference between having just the software or a box with lots of goodies in it.
These days you get one of the DVD-Cases (in Europe) with a leaflet of two pages and the Disc which contains the Manual as PDF. And that's quite disappointing. Think of Ultima V and VI, with cloth maps, manuals printed on some precious paper and the goodies. Or the old Lucasfilm games, actually I just found my old, 20 Year-old ZakMcKracken box, with the Newspaper and everything, just amazing!

So, for Sam n Max, maybe something is possible for a boxed version later on :)? (I already purchased the season 1, but I would most certainly buy another boxed version, if it had any value besides the software).

One thing I'm a little annoyed about is, however, that people using gametap can already play episode 3, and people who already purchased the whole Season still have to wait a week or so. I don't exactly get what gametap is for, but it sure feels a little odd that having paid for the game I'm not one of the first to play it.


Having said this, I hope Sam n Max is selling that well that TellTale will consider doing more like that. There's so much potential in for sequels, I think we'd all like to know what Bernard, Zak or Bobbin have been up to lately :=.

If someone of importance reads this PLEASE contract David Fox to do a sequel of Zak McKracken! I promise I'll buy at least ten copies! Pleeeease :)



Phoo

[Maya]

I admit I illegally downloaded the first episode; I had never bought any software online, and I wanted to take a look at the game first.

It was so wonderful, I bought all 6 episodes after that!

[Anon]

(DISCLAIMER: regular poster - posting anonymously for reasons of cowardance. :( )

I've played all three episodes so far, all of them pirated. I suppose the problem is that it was so easy; even more enticing was the fact that unlike a typical new release game which would be several gigs worth to download, the S&M episodes were roughly 70MB a pop, making things rather trivial and impulsive.

I am... uncertain about what I'll be doing for the future. The past three episodes were nice but have no real replayability value, so I don't gain anything by buying the already-played eps to compensate for past actions. More so, when ep 3 was finally released to the public a crack was made available in a matter of hours. Too easy, and I don't see the future episodes being any more difficult to acquire illegitimately.

I'm up to my armpits in pirated software, but occasionally I will buy the odd piece of software fully legit. Mainly it will be because the legit copy is less of a hassle to deal with then the legal copy, but here with the S&M episodes, having to worry about activations and compatabilities and such, I can't see myself taking the legit path anytime. That and the fact I'm lazy, and know what I'm doing to avoid being bitten by spyware/viruses/etc.

Oh, and the argument that people with money will be more willing to go legit is a load of crock. If it's easy enough, piracy always wins out. I'm still thinking about what I'll do in the future. You can try to convince me, but keep in mind that arguments about Telltale games and how one should fell bad about cheating out the indy developers doesn't work to those who have... flexable morals.

/logs out, logs in

[Jake]

I've played all three episodes so far, all of them pirated. I suppose the problem is that it was so easy; even more enticing was the fact that unlike a typical new release game which would be several gigs worth to download, the S&M episodes were roughly 70MB a pop, making things rather trivial and impulsive.

They're dirt cheap, too, you know.

[Hero1]

That's great that you have no morals.. but if we don't see a season 2 because people like you couldn't be bothered to support the company that spent hours making these games..and revived a game that was cancelled by LucasArts (because they didn't think anyone would buy a new Sam and Max game) thats a disgrace :mad:

[ShaggE]

They may be easy to pirate (well, not "may", I know they are, I already admitted that Episode 1 was not a legal acquisition for me - until I replaced it with the legit copy), but if any title is worth the money, it's Sam and Max. Not only is it cheap, but it's made by a company who truly loves the franchise, and truly wants to give the best experience to their customers. (You can tell, because they could have easily tracked the IPs of people who admitted to piracy, and taken legal action)
Besides, if you buy the season, you'll get the nifty CD afterwards :D

Telltale is one of the last good software developers, don't screw 'em over. :)

[Legolas813]

I used to download a lot of different things, but now I buy everything (for example, my new music CD collection is quickly growing). I guess recently I've just begun to understand what it is to work for a living, and that downloading really is stealing from many hard-working people. If there is a game, movie, or music CD I feel strongly about, I will go out of my way to buy a legit copy and to encourage others to buy one, knowing that I did my part to show my support. Not only that, but having the real thing just feels better. Having an actual physical case or box is much more gratifying (though, this does not apply to Sam and Max, obviously).

People who pirate just aren't in the same frame of mind. And that's alright. Because I really do believe that the majority of these people wouldn't pay for the game anyway. So the loss of sales is really exaggerated, IMO.

I'm also one of those people that believe copy protection is bad. All games will be cracked anyway. Copy protection just slows down the process a bit, but at the same time hassles and scares away legitimate buyers. I, for example, want to play Black Mirror, but refuse to touch or support any game that uses StarForce.

[Anon]

That's great that you have no morals.. but if we don't see a season 2 because people like you couldn't be bothered to support the company that spent hours making these games..and revived a game that was cancelled by LucasArts (because they didn't think anyone would buy a new Sam and Max game) thats a disgrace :mad:
Ah, but I never said I had no morals, I said I had flexible morals. There is a different. I can be very passionate against piracy in certain situations, and yet become incredibly blasé about the issue in others. I suppose I'm a Valve fan in that case; I hate people playing pirated stuff that's on the Steam catalogue. Might have something to do with my Half-Life addiction.

In any case, I don't think Telltale games have anything to worry about. I was never a S&M fan from long ago, so the episodes were my first foray into the S&M universe. Ultimately, if I wasn't going to buy them either way, TT games was NEVER going to be worse off, cos they were never going to have received my money. At least that's the logic.

Also, keep in mind that being a LOYAL, paying fan of a developer means nothing these days. I was a fan of Ritual and bought their Sin Episodes: Emergence. Now, they've been acquired by a casual gaming company and the odds of a second episode are virtually gone. How exactly did my money go towards a second episode? It didn't in the end, which is why such arguments about season 2 of S&M going to hell because I don't pay don't ring with me. My financial loyalty to Ritual meant jack. I'm not convinced.

[numble]

They're dirt cheap, too, you know.

This probably can't be emphasized enough--it rounds out to under $6 a pop for the season pass, and the low price is probably intended to attract new subscribers more than being a true reflection of the costs of production--Telltale was initially charging $20 for the first Bone episode if I recall correctly, with Dan Connors saying in a recent interview that the second Bone episode would've probably been done sooner if not due to issues with fundraising.

A Sam and Max episode is still cheaper than Samorost 2, a simple flash game, and Al Emmo and Ankh, which cost $20 each. Even Telltale Texas Hold'em is more expensive. Having played the 3 episodes already, you already know the amount of quality work that goes into them--from voice actors to professional sound, how many $6 games give you nearly 2000 lines of voice acting (even at 50 cents per line, that costs at least $1000, and I'm inclined to believe it costs $1-$5 per line) and incredibly composed soundtracks? Popcap makes $20 off each copy of Bejeweled!

As a sidenote, I'm happy that Telltale appears to be exploring the realm of consoles--not only will a possibly wider audience get introduced to these funny games, but they really won't have to deal with pirates as much--I'd even entertain the thought of them going exclusively console, and I don't own any console at the moment.

It's just disheartening when I search for Sam and Max info at Google Blog Search and end up with all these hits for Sam and Max torrents with 100+ seeds.

[numble]

Also, keep in mind that being a LOYAL, paying fan of a developer means nothing these days. I was a fan of Ritual and bought their Sin Episodes: Emergence. Now, they've been acquired by a casual gaming company and the odds of a second episode are virtually gone. How exactly did my money go towards a second episode? It didn't in the end, which is why such arguments about season 2 of S&M going to hell because I don't pay don't ring with me. My financial loyalty to Ritual meant jack. I'm not convinced.

Well, I don't know about Sin, but--if there were 10000 or so people that pirated it, wouldn't that have influenced their cost recovery somewhat? In turn affecting their ability to produce another episode?

[matan]

Ah, but I never said I had no morals, I said I had flexible morals. There is a different. I can be very passionate against piracy in certain situations, and yet become incredibly blasé about the issue in others. I suppose I'm a Valve fan in that case; I hate people playing pirated stuff that's on the Steam catalogue. Might have something to do with my Half-Life addiction.

In any case, I don't think Telltale games have anything to worry about. I was never a S&M fan from long ago, so the episodes were my first foray into the S&M universe. Ultimately, if I wasn't going to buy them either way, TT games was NEVER going to be worse off, cos they were never going to have received my money. At least that's the logic.

Also, keep in mind that being a LOYAL, paying fan of a developer means nothing these days. I was a fan of Ritual and bought their Sin Episodes: Emergence. Now, they've been acquired by a casual gaming company and the odds of a second episode are virtually gone. How exactly did my money go towards a second episode? It didn't in the end, which is why such arguments about season 2 of S&M going to hell because I don't pay don't ring with me. My financial loyalty to Ritual meant jack. I'm not convinced.

First, I'll mention that I believe you should be put in jail. This is because you are screwing over people working on this game, by basically stealing their work. You are also screwing other people (like me) who acquired a legitimate copy of the game.

I also think the constant pirates claim of "it doesn't matter, because if I didn't download it I wouldn't have played it either way" doesn't really work - if there was an ENFORCED LAW keeping you from downloading any games, you'd probably get bored enough and have to buy SOME games. In that situation, there's a chance you'd be buying some games which otherwise you'd be pirating.

Regarding the Sin episodes, I guess the reason no more episodes will be made is that you were screwed over by other pirates, who downloaded the game and didn't pay for it.

I think the issue of how cheap the games are may make it a bit more absurd that you haven't payed for them, but it doesn't really matter because stealing a car isn't better than stealing a candy, just because the car is more expensive.

[Hero1]

I'm not going to try to convince you to buy the game. I know that Telltale has taken a huge risk.. They've started a new game company. They've made adventure games. Which are very expensive to produce, very time consuming. They are a very small team. They are competing against huge companies with budgets in the 10s of millions. I feel very comfortable supporting them. I've been offered free products from Telltale but I still purchase the games, because I wan't them to survive and succeed. I support all my independant music artists just the same. The environmment of entertainment at the moment is that everything is the same.. If we don't support people who go against the grain, and do something different, creative and fun.. Then it just won't be out there for people anymore.

[matan]

I wanted to say one more thing regarding the "flexible morals" thingy - of course I (and I believe most people) also have flexible morals. For example, I eat meat.

I don't believe in an absolute all-true moral code. I see the moral code for what it is - a code invented and enforced by society to make as get along with each other. For example, of course everyone would want to be as immoral as they can so they'd be as happy as possible (because without any rules you can do whatever it takes to be happy, like paying for nothing etc.)

However, since everyone in society would want to be immoral, and people would get screwed by other people being immoral, we are basically agreeing to enforce a moral code on each other so that we could reach some kind of global maxima (everyone is a bit sadder than they were if they could be immoral while the rest are moral, but a lot happier than they were if everyone were immoral)

But - you are basically coming here and telling us: "I have flexible morals, so I decided to screw you", which is a very stupid thing to do. I also don't understand why you'd like to "discuss" your flexible morals since convincing other people is actually bad for you - optimally, you should just continue pirating but convince everyone else to buy games legitimately and condemn anyone who doesn't.

[Anon]

I also don't understand why you'd like to "discuss" your flexible morals since convincing other people is actually bad for you - optimally, you should just continue pirating but convince everyone else to buy games legitimately and condemn anyone who doesn't.
ENOUGH! I'm getting annoyed with people putting things into my mouth already! Where the hell did I say that I was encouraging others to pirate? I did not. I was merely noting how easy it was, and the thought processes involved.

I know piracy is wrong. I have absolutely no desire to see others do it. But, I live by my own code. You did say something interesting though:

I think if we really want piracy to stop, we should get to a point where a person will be BANNED FROM SOCIETY for pirating games.
Oh man, you might as well lock up the greater Asian population who use computers, as well as your Israeli countryfolk. That's a lot of people you're suggesting would be put in PRISON of all places, just for illegally downloading a game. You OK with that?

EDIT: How much is the full Sam & Max season? I admit to having never checked.

[Jake]

$34.95 (that's < $6 per episode)

[Anon]

$34.95 (that's < $6 per episode)
Oh... I thought it'd be more.

Now I'm torn... :o

[ShaggE]

That's a lot of people you're suggesting would be put in PRISON of all places, just for illegally downloading a game. You OK with that?

Errr... when someone does something illegal, depending on severity of offense, they often get fined, or put in prison. That would be the legal system. Granted, companies tend to go after illegal distributors, and not downloaders, since arresting every pirate isn't feasable, but piracy is still illegal. You may not suffer any consequences unless you distribute, but the fact remains that they have every right to sue you, and at the going rate for stolen multimedia, you'd have to be mighty wealthy to avoid jail time. So, what exactly is so mind boggling about piracy=prison?

[matan]

ENOUGH! I'm getting annoyed with people putting things into my mouth already! Where the hell did I say that I was encouraging others to pirate? I did not. I was merely noting how easy it was, and the thought processes involved.

I know piracy is wrong. I have absolutely no desire to see others do it. But, I live by my own code.

Yeah, I know you did not actively encourage anyone to pirate, but you are indirectly doing so, by discussing about it freely and telling us why you do it. If someone killed a person on the street, I don't think I'd see him going around on forums saying stuff like:

"Yeah, I have flexible morals. Why, just the other day I killed someone I saw on the street, because he had a nice coat and I wanted it."

But for some reason you have the urge to come here and share your crimes with us. By speaking about it openly and explaining why you do it, you: (a) ARE encouraging others to do it because they see how you're doing it and it's not so bad, and also understand your reasons for doing it and think maybe they apply to them as well, and - (b) encourage the notion of piracy accepted by society, because if it wasn't accepted - you wouldn't feel you could talk about it freely.

I'd say both these issues are working against you.

You did say something interesting though:


Oh man, you might as well lock up the greater Asian population who use computers, as well as your Israeli countryfolk. That's a lot of people you're suggesting would be put in PRISON of all places, just for illegally downloading a game. You OK with that?

I don't think that's what would happen. Why do you think all these people are pirating? It's mostly because they KNOW nothing would happen to them. A lot of my friends are leading very full lives - studying in the university, working for software companies, designing clothes - and they are also stealing software products. Do you think they'd continue to steal if they'd knew there is a chance they'd get busted and put in jail for it?

The minute pirating would start to be enforced, all those asian, israeli and the rest of the pirates would just stop.

[numble]

$34.95 (that's < $6 per episode)

Here's a fun thing I thought of--a lot of political sites like to go this way with "Bad government policy costs X money. For the same amount of money we would have 2000 new hospitals, or 400 new schools, or 1000000 new police officers, etc."

So what about something akin to that--

An episode of Sam and Max:
Cheaper than 2 gallons of gasoline.
Cheaper than 10 minutes in a NYC taxi.
Cheaper than a movie ticket.
Cheaper than a McDonald's Happy Meal.

etc.
(and I kind of made those figures up, but I wouldn't be surprised if I was correct about them)

[tabacco]

I wish it was cheaper than more gallons of gasoline than that :(

[Anon]

The problem that you (ShaggE and matan) are ignoring is that killing someone is definitely gonna get you put in jail. Piracy, at long as it's kept at home and not at a business where audits can occur, is one of the few crimes that a heck of a lot of people involve themselves with because they will get away with it. It's rather difficult to enforce. I'm still not encouraging piracy. Telling you why I do it is not encouragement. I'm merely representing the other side of the table.

(EDIT: Well no you're not exactly ignoring it, but I suppose under appreciating the importance of this fact).

I have noticed that younger kids these days are showing an aversion to piracy, more so than when I was young(er). Maybe those anti-piracy ads are working?

Ah screw it, I'll buy the damn game. It's within my "morality factor". Cheers for the banter. :D

/permanently logs off, scrubs password

EDIT: Done.

[Hero1]

Score one for the good guys :rolleyes:

[matan]

It's rather difficult to enforce.

I think it's a lot easier then you might think, at least here in Israel. If you pick a random person, and scan their computer for illegal software, you would find tons of those. I'm all for doing those surprise "house visits" where people's computer will be scanned. Of course it would be better if they would announce in advance that they are going to start doing those so everyone would have enough time to delete their illegal software (I don't really want everyone to be put in jail, but it'd be great to scare them bit)

I'm glad you bought the game though :)

[numble]

Cheers Anon.

Not directed particularly to Anon:
On reflection, I think emphasizing the price is the way to go--it's just so cheap on 2 levels--first, compared to the prices of every day goods--and second, compared to the large prices that games command in general (Bejeweled for $20?).

[ShaggE]

That's great, Anon. I would have been a hypocrite to get angry, so I hope I didn't come off that way. I'm just glad that you've made the right choice :D

[Harald B]

If you pick a random person, and scan their computer for illegal software, you would find tons of those. I'm all for doing those surprise "house visits" where people's computer will be scanned.Excuse me? You ever heard of things like "privacy" and "innocent until proven guilty"? Even with the most heinous of crimes authorities in any free country need a reasonable suspicion and a warrant before pulling stuff like that, and for good reason.
Piracy is bad, but please don't start pretending it's anywhere near as bad to deserve a witch-hunt like that. I'll assume you were joking, but all the same please show some perspective here people.

[matan]

Excuse me? You ever heard of things like "privacy" and "innocent until proven guilty"? Even with the most heinous of crimes authorities in any free country need a reasonable suspicion and a warrant before pulling stuff like that, and for good reason.
Piracy is bad, but please don't start pretending it's anywhere near as bad to deserve a witch-hunt like that. I'll assume you were joking, but all the same please show some perspective here people.

I never said privacy would be broken nor that people would not be concidered innocent. Right now, you agree to get your bags inspected when you enter an airplane, or (at least in Israel) enter a shopping mall. A cop stopping you by the road can test your breath for alcohol even if he has no reason to suspect you might have been drinking. Remember - "innocent until proven guilty" still needs to give the law enforcement the ability to try to prove that you are guilty.

If privacy is the matter, this could have many solutions. For instance, the randomly chosen computers could be picked up, brought to the "lab" where they would have anonymous tags. There would be strict restrictions on what the person scanning the computer could look through (for example, he will not be allowed to read your e-mails etc.) Even better, a program could scan the computer for illegal software and could be entirely automated, and not allowed to keep any personal information on the scanned files.

These are just a few simple solutions I thought of in a few seconds. I'm sure if people seriously gave it thought they'd find much better solutions which allow people to keep their privacy, while also easily allowing the law to be enforced.

I don't know what's the deal in the US or anywhere else, but at least in Israel it's a real plague. Most people I know have many gigas of illegal software on their computer. I'm sure the value of all this software can sum up to a lot of money. Actually, most people have a principal not to buy any software. Even when you buy a new computer, it is usually delivered already with a pirated copy of windows, Office, some cd burning program, some games etc. I think the way it's going right now, it DOES deserve such a "witch hunt".

[Dangerzone]

sadly theft is one of the earmarks of all life on earth......... from packs of wolves, to highend designer clothing stores, all the way to electronic theft..............which in its own spans from idenity theft to to game piracy

the only problem is............there is no way to stop it (other than extinguishing all life on planet earth, but that is another topic) and where there is a will there is a way, and no ammount of security or anti theft measures will keep a determined perp from getting a free pass..............because everything has a weak spot, and after a while you are just wasting time and money trying to secure something. and after a while you will actually have wasted more money on extra useless security measues than what the thieves would have made away with

it is a paradox, and everyone has their side.............and neither side is actually right, just like the chicken and the egg story

[Jasirus]

No, I personally believe this thinking to be a little bit insane. There are far more sinister and henous crimes that resources should be put towards. I'd rather stop a nut bringing a gun into a convenience store trying to rob it then a software pirate propagating unauthorized copies of software. I'd rather use those resources to stop the drug dealer that sold the wacko the dug which he needs money for so he in turn robs a convenience store, in the process shooting the daughter of a software developer, who's daughter works at the convenience store because he is loosing so much money due to the software pirate propagating unauthorized copies of software...

All jokes and tangents aside. The last thing that I want to see is this line of morality allowing the immoral free reign on the masses, innocent or guilty.

Lets say in these scans they happen to take liberties, and find a dvd player that you bought at a local flea market. This dvd player matches the serial number of a shipment/or unit that was actually stolen. Would you like the hassles and invasions of your privacy or the possibility of fines or imprisonment for purchasing a dvd player second hand as opposed to one of the corporations sponsoring the searches?

In those of us who are lucky enough to live free countries we should not ever blindly give up the freedoms and rights we hold dear. What may seem like an innocent invasion of our privacy for the greater good will always eventually be manipulated by people who will use it for their own gain and greater control over the individual.

Maybe I'm crazy but I DO NOT think a witch hunt is in order. Is piracy a problem... absolutely! But does it warrant me giving up my freedoms. No I'm sorry but my freedom is worth far more then partial loss of revenue.

We need to focus more on solutions and alternatives then police state solutions.

But I digress. Piracy is morally questionable but is unfortunately here to stay. I will always support those worthy of supporting. I break my back for every dollar I earn and I want it to go towards those who do the same. If telltale games is going to bring me genuine quality product and great escape from my daily grind then they have done what is needed to earn my patronage. At least there seems to be a future in the anti-piracy field.

[Harald B]

I never said privacy would be broken nor that people would not be concidered innocent. Right now, you agree to get your bags inspected when you enter an airplane, or (at least in Israel) enter a shopping mall. A cop stopping you by the road can test your breath for alcohol even if he has no reason to suspect you might have been drinking. Remember - "innocent until proven guilty" still needs to give the law enforcement the ability to try to prove that you are guilty.As you may have suspected I'm no particular fan of airline bagage checks; I consider them at best a necessary evil. And again with the perspective, these checkups are to ensure passenger safety, not to check if you may have committed petty theft. The shopping bag example I also consider a necessary evil, and such checks ought to be done only if cameras or personnel already notice enough cause for suspicion. If a particular shop just started grabbing people's bags arbitrarily I'd seriously consider never shopping there again.
And note that in both these cases there's at least a certain amount of choice from my side. It's not like someone can come into my house and confiscate my possessions to check if I might be guilty of something, without having any prior reason to think so; that'd be plain outrageous.
About the cop example: maybe. I'd start to think I was living in a police state if they just pulled people over without any particular reason, though.
About that last line, there is an order in which things are supposed to go you know. The first step is for the authorities to suspect your guilty of something. The second step is to investigate, possibly intruding on your privacy insofar as that is balanced against the weight of the suspicions and the weight of the crime you are suspected of, as determined by a judge and/or preset policy. I realize that in the modern world there is an increasing tendency to reverse these steps, first violating everyone's privacy and then using that information to determine who is suspected of something. IMO this tendency is greatly alarming, threatens to undermine our rights, and should definitely be halted.

If privacy is the matter, this could have many solutions. For instance, the randomly chosen computers could be picked up, brought to the "lab" where they would have anonymous tags. There would be strict restrictions on what the person scanning the computer could look through (for example, he will not be allowed to read your e-mails etc.) Even better, a program could scan the computer for illegal software and could be entirely automated, and not allowed to keep any personal information on the scanned files.And would you trust your government to abide by such restrictions? I wouldn't trust mine to, and nobody should have to trust theirs. The authorities shouldn't be able to arbitrarily take your computer away, not unless there is enough suspicion of a sufficiently bad crime that any violation of privacy which may result (and any risk thereof which may be incurred) is justified.

I don't know what's the deal in the US or anywhere else, but at least in Israel it's a real plague. Most people I know have many gigas of illegal software on their computer. I'm sure the value of all this software can sum up to a lot of money. Actually, most people have a principal not to buy any software. Even when you buy a new computer, it is usually delivered already with a pirated copy of windows, Office, some cd burning program, some games etc. I think the way it's going right now, it DOES deserve such a "witch hunt".The part where shops package illegal software does sound quite bad, but also quite easily dealt with. Surely the police can simply buy such a computer, inspect it, then arrest the shopkeeper for distributing pirated software? From what you're writing I get the impression that the real problem your having in Israel is that no-one takes piracy seriously enough to be inclined to do anything about it. But then what you need is not new investigation methods (which'll go just as unused) but merely a wake-up call. If people reported these most flagrant distributors of pirate software to the police and they properly used the methods available to them now you could make the problem diminish drastically without resorting to any invasive investigation techniques.
And I don't believe that "the way it's going right now" can be a valid justification, not unless society is being threatened. Most crimes would threaten society if widespread like that (which is typically why they're illegal in the first place), but here I would doubt that. In any case, any new invasive means you choose to implement must be balanced against the threat to society that your avoiding, and existing means must always be brought to bear first. In my opinion, the kind of massive confiscation of computers you're talking about would be much more threatening, costly, and disruptive to society than software piracy.

[matan]

Whoa, don't take me so literally :D

I didn't actually mean random confuscation of computers by the police is the best / a valid solution. I understand there are tons of problems with this solution, and you raise legitimate questions, the answer to which should be thought out. I still think saying "nothing can be done to enforce pirating" is giving up too fast, and I just wanted to point out that it IS possible to enforce pirating.

[ShaggE]

I tried to control myself, but the temptation is just too great in this thread... So, I gotta do it....

Yarr! Avast ye, mateys! Ye landlubbers shall walk the plank for that! A pirate's life for me, yo ho ho, Davey Jones' locker, etc. etc.!

[Harald B]

Whoa, don't take me so literally :D

I didn't actually mean random confuscation of computers by the police is the best / a valid solution.Well you had me fooled for a moment then :) Sorry if I came across a bit overbearing; I seem to be having that tendency the last couple of weeks, not sure why.
Well then, about enforcement: History shows us (at least) two things about software piracy. The first is that copy-protection accomplishes next to nothing. The second is that P2P networks (and, indeed, popular underground sites) are here to stay, there being always multiple replacements at the ready when one gets shot down.
I'll consider withdrawing one or both of these statements if someone can come up with even a single success in these that wasn't short-lived. But, given that they are both true, I think you can't stop people from using pirated software if they want to, not without resorting to measures that are far out of proportion to the issue at hand.
What you can and should do is take it out of the public area. Shops carrying illegal software as you describe sounds absurd and obviously shouldn't be acceptable. While I believe that in most cases downloading pirated software is not much more morally reprehensible than a vice, even vices are things you keep to yourself, not things you proudly do "out of principle" (:eek:).
Sorry for going into rant mode again, I think I'll just drop out of this thread now :)

[IronCladChicken]

A discussion of software piracy? - That's not a fun title for this thread! :(
... How about, 'How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Software Piracy'? or 'Blane's a pretty cool guy. Andie's pretty in pink. And Ducky's just pirated Sam and Max episode 4'?

[Certifiable]

did anyone ever read about the copy protection for the game XIII? at a certain point in the game, it prevented the player from obtaining an object and had a message saying 'if you want the object buy the game'. i thought that was the most inventive (and guilt creating) piracy preventive i'd heard of.
<snip>

That's brilliant! Talk about incentive to buy the game! Get cozy, play a while, then BAM!
"Oh look, you pirated this - be a sport and buy the real one? Or you'll have wasted ten hours you'll never get back, and have followed a plot you'll never finish hearing about."

[Certifiable]

Since the game is downloadable, and we need to provide easy access to it for our customers, separating the demo from the full game wouldn't make much of a difference.

As for poisoning torrents... some clever ideas, there. :D 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: Dunno who did that but we got a good laugh out of it.

Awesome! I'd say there are supporters already dunking the cyanide in the well!
(Maybe further attacks could be with Britney Spears music videos, Nsync ones, Jessica Simpson's music or TV show, Paris - not THAT video - just some brain destroying episode of "The simple life"?)

[ShaggE]

Awesome! I'd say there are supporters already dunking the cyanide in the well!
(Maybe further attacks could be with Britney Spears music videos, Nsync ones, Jessica Simpson's music or TV show, Paris - not THAT video - just some brain destroying episode of "The simple life"?)

There might be laws against that kind of brutality...

[Certifiable]

<snip>
I have noticed that younger kids these days are showing an aversion to piracy, more so than when I was young(er). Maybe those anti-piracy ads are working?
<snip>

WORKING?

Hell, with movies, the F.A.C.T(ed up) campaign has piracy of movies equated to the same as stealing handbags, cars and the like, and beats us over the head with all-caps "PIRACY - IS - STEALING - STEALING - IS - AGAINST - THE - LAW" like we're all retarded children, and then proceeded to leave these adverts on copies of DVD we PAY for!

http://www.tuxick.net/pics/piracy2.jpg

Hell, TV has finally broken the camel's back with adverts IN/ON a show! Screw that, I'm watching bittorrented shows. But I will buy the DVD/Box Set of either TV or Film entertainment that I enjoy.

Of course, if gaming is reasonable with both pricing and anti-piracy(preferably the lovely system of purchasing keys - it does nicely), I'll happily pay for it, like I already have for Sam and Max : Culture Shock.

[Certifiable]

There might be laws against that kind of brutality...

How about using the brutally annoying, unskippable adverts on DVDs then? :D

[Jake]

I was very sad watching Lost last night and about every 10 minutes seeing a dancing couple go spinning across the bottom of the screen and fading into the ABC logo. I don't even know what show they were promoting (because I TiVo'd passed the commercials ¬ ¬), but it was extremely lame ... and occasionally confusing, because I kept thinking they were in the show and my eye kept trying to fit them into the shot even though they were tiny and in the foreground.

We will be doing this in the next Sam & Max episode.

[numble]

I was very sad watching Lost last night and about every 10 minutes seeing a dancing couple go spinning across the bottom of the screen and fading into the ABC logo. I don't even know what show they were promoting (because I TiVo'd passed the commercials ¬ ¬), but it was extremely lame ... and occasionally confusing, because I kept thinking they were in the show and my eye kept trying to fit them into the shot even though they were tiny and in the foreground.

We will be doing this in the next Sam & Max episode.

I can seriously see this being integrated into a WARP broadcast with the Bones running across the screen being chased by those monster guys. And it would work. (Which is why networks do this sort of thing now...)

[ShaggE]

I was very sad watching Lost last night and about every 10 minutes seeing a dancing couple go spinning across the bottom of the screen and fading into the ABC logo. I don't even know what show they were promoting (because I TiVo'd passed the commercials ¬ ¬), but it was extremely lame ... and occasionally confusing, because I kept thinking they were in the show and my eye kept trying to fit them into the shot even though they were tiny and in the foreground.

We will be doing this in the next Sam & Max episode.

TBS is infamous for that. They now have in-show ads that take up almost half of the screen... 4 or 5 times a show. Thank gods all I watch on TV regularly is Frasier and The Simpsons, or I'd start strangling TV execs.

(You really should do that in the next episode, that would be hilarious...)

[AdamG]

We will be doing this in the next Sam & Max episode.

I think this is a joke? :confused:

[Maize]

I think that the most stylish copy protection was actually in an old (but excellent) game called Starflight II. The basic protection was pretty typical: It would show you some star charts and you had to identify something or other by referring to matching star charts in the manual. That part is kind of vague in my memory now.

The neat things were that first of all, it did this only when you tried to leave the starport. That meant you could spend a long time picking out crew and configuring your ship and so on before you ran into it. At a time when every other copy protection scheme happened as soon as you launched the game, that was pretty inventive. But the part that made it really fun was that no matter what you answered, it opened the starport doors and let you go. The problem was that there was a "police" ship. If you entered the wrong code, you'd leave and fly around thinking that you defeated the copy protection (or that it didn't work) but soon enough the police would track you down. You could try to fight them or run away and it gave you just enough leeway to think maybe it was possible but you could never really manage it. And they'd state something about not having the proper clearance codes and haul you back to starport.

In theory, you could lounge around starport as long as you wanted on a pirated copy, but there wasn't THAT much to do there, and every time you left you'd get hauled back again by the cops.

In some ways it served a dual purpose because it was not only a means of preventing pirates (who didn't also copy the manual) from playing, but it allowed pirated copies to double as a demo. You got enough of a sense of what the gameplay was like by just fiddling around starport and then flying around and communicating / fighting / running from the cops that you'd probably want to buy it once you realized what was going on.

[Hector]

@Mazie: Hehe, would be quite funny if THIS happened to our beloved Freelance Police in the pirated copies...

[Udvarnoky]

Maize, the Starflight II story reminds me very much of the copy protection in Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders, where you would be sent to jail if you repeatedly failed to input the correct international visa code at the airport (which also enabled you to play a good bit of the game since you don't immediately need to travel overseas.) If all copy-protections were that fun and wacky, who could complain about intrusiveness?

[marsan]

@Maize

A pretty similar protection, but still different, was the one they used on Sam & Max : Hit the road and on some of the Larry games. Like, it will ask you to "What is the color of this or that on this or that page?" and you got this manual with all these pictures. A lot to scan just to copy the game. Combining this with what you mentioned from that other game would be pretty good. Because if it is the same code everybody shall input(not random), people can just write down the code when they publish it on the net. Also, using colors or shapes people must select between, can also be more efficient than numbers.

In Hit the road it asked for the cloths of sam & max on different pages in the code book or manual or whatever...

[S3BR4]

did anyone ever read about the copy protection for the game XIII? at a certain point in the game, it prevented the player from obtaining an object and had a message saying 'if you want the object buy the game'. i thought that was the most inventive (and guilt creating) piracy preventive i'd heard of.


Actually VERY BAD example. XIII had insane amounts of problems with the stupid copy protection because it also prevented huge amounts of legal customers from playing the game. It ended with them removing the entire copy protection in the last patch, to help people run the game without any problems. Of course this lead to abyssimal sales because a lot of people returned their copies and word of mouth did the rest, with the result being the cancelation of the sequel of this great game. Very sad indeed, as the game was really good (own it myself) and the ending of the game had a bad cliffhanger.

All I can suggest to telltale is keep going like now and you will see quality and good customer support will prevail in the end. Yes it sucks seeing people pirating your game, but what people forget is that piracy can also benefit developers. I know sounds crazy but just think about it. Someone might actually have downloaded a previous Sam&Max episode that he really liked, and then decided to buy the whole season. It's not as unlikely as it may sound.

Anyway, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for telltale, because the episodes keep getting better and I can't wait for the rest of the season and for the start of season 2 :D

[AdamG]

If they're going to go through the hassle of pirating software, there's a high probably they never would've payed for it anyway. You might lose potential sales if said pirate gives copies to friends, but you do gain marketing, which means they may possibly buy future products. Sometimes you lose some with pirating, and sometimes you gain.

[Armakuni]

I have around four hundred cracked games.

These are all original games I have that I have downloaded cracks for (or made images of) so I can keep the CDs/DVDs in their boxes at all times. I hate having to be a discjockey just to play games.

So I don't pirate games but I do crack the ones I buy.

[Yandros]

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'.

Basically it goes something like this. You open the original, it unpacks the real exe into memory and runs it as a separate thread, then shares memory across the thread (I think) using some fruity variety of API calls. You can’t get an unpacker for the armadillo packer, I didn’t bother trying any generic ones.

Anyway once you have the application running it generates a fingerprint of your hardware and sends it off to the activation server at drh.digitalriver.com with your account information. If the registration is successful the server will reply with a valid serial key and also tell you how many registrations you have left, you start with 10. I believe that means you can install your copy of the game on 10 separate computers, or 10 times on the same computer after 10 sets of hardware changes.

If the key is valid then something magical happens. I haven’t managed to work this part out. I’m not sure if the game writes into the registry, or into a file, or into itself or maybe even into some hidden file in some hidden folder deep in the recesses of the windows directory structure. But once its written there’s no getting rid of it.

And then you can launch and play the game. Which I enjoyed, very much :), and was glad that it was a good deal harder than the first three.

Anyway I was curious to know why no cracks had appeared for the new game, and now I do, because it has *really* good anti-crack protection. The unfortunate part of having really good anti-crack protection is that crackers only crack for the challenge of cracking. So naturally they look for the most challenging and naturally they will hit armadillo’s system eventually.

For the meantime at least it looks as though the telltale engineers have found a sufficiently good means of protecting their games. Which means future piracy will be nil.

A cautionary note however: Remove the phone activation. This is a major weak spot. I’m no professional cracker, I only play around for fun and education, but a professional cracker could probably extract the generation algorithm which turns a fingerprint into a serial key for comparison using a low level debugger like softice. Once the algorithm is known they could simply write a generator which generates keys given fingerprints. (I know you think no one would bother for such a cheap game, but I’m betting you want to use this system on more expensive games in the future.)

[tabacco]

We definitely can't get rid of the manual activation system, since that's how we unlock people who can't unlock automatically or who aren't connected to the internet. For what it's worth, though, it's really really hard to write a key generator, although obviously I'm not going to go into detail :)

[ShaggE]

I completely agree with removing phone activation. That would at least eliminate potential keygens. The only problem is, that would alienate those who activate by phone.

EDIT: Damn your faster posting! :P

[tabacco]

I completely agree with removing phone activation. That would at least eliminate potential keygens. The only problem is, that would alienate those who activate by phone.

EDIT: Damn your faster posting! :P

Faster like a fox ;)

[Yandros]

That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. If they downloaded their copy of the game they must have an internet connection.

Perhaps ship the hardcopies with phone activation and don't put it on the downloadable copies?

[numble]

Yandros: Since you seem to be knowledgeable about this stuff, how often are these protection systems upgraded? Is it basically an arms race between crackers/protectors? (Just curious)

[tabacco]

It's not that hard to move a ~80MB file around between an internet-connected computer and another machine, you know ;)

[Yandros]

Yandros: Since you seem to be knowledgeable about this stuff, how often are these protection systems upgraded? Is it basically an arms race between crackers/protectors? (Just curious)

It is an arms race of sorts. New systems of protection come out steadily as the old systems become unworkable and thoroughly cracked. I believe, from the software developers point of view, its about getting the best protection for the smallest cost, both financially and performance wise. Generally when there’s money to be thrown around anti-crack system developers spring up with new ideas and innovations and the cycle continues.

I suppose the best way to answer you would be to say that new systems come out with new games. A new system might come out at some given point in time, but until that system is protecting a popular game (or piece of software) it won’t be actively attacked.

[Armakuni]

I really despise fingerprinting copy protection methods but I understand it's necessary for Telltale to use it so I don't blame them.

However, how about removing the protection say five years or so after the game was released? If there was any guarantee that something like that would eventually happen then I wouldn't really mind much at all.

[AdamG]

Well, I can't speak for Telltale's policies regarding copyright protection, but many companies often bundle old classics with new games or in collections. I can imagine Season 1 being bundled like that someday in the future. Like, 6-12 years from now of course.

[Dangerzone]

i am on the side that i do not mind copy protection as long as it is not intrusive, only affects the game itself, and is active only while the game is running, unlike the corrupt russian copy protection system that shall otherwise remain nameless

i just hope that the copy protection on the disc copy of the season does not require the disc or an internet connection to play it, maybe they can figure out some way for the installer to detect if it is on an original pressed disc, then have a serial number encoded and hidden on the disc that ties into some complex activation key system, and that is tied into both the installer and the game launcher itself. so even the installer will not run or unpack if it is not being run from the original pressed disc.............. these 3 protection methods if successfully combined and integrated around the installer and game itself should protect the game from ending up on the internet for quite a while

[ChazFox]

unlike the corrupt russian copy protection system that shall otherwise remain nameless

Said copy protection system has already been mentioned a few times in this thread. Let's hear it everybody - Staaaarfooorce! :D Starforce sucks x3

[Harald B]

For those worried about copy protection on the retail cd, here's an "optimistic" line of reasoning: since episode 6 hits the internet as early as may, there is a good chance that all six episodes will have been cracked by the time it's august. If this occurs, then Telltale and The Adventure Company will have little incentive to equip the cd with strong copy protection (or, indeed, any at all). Add to this the fact that in a few cases TAC has in fact released games without copy proctection on them.

[Derwin]

I sadly have to say that there is still incentive for some sort of copy protection. Although I would love for there to be none, even the slightest bit of CP prevents casual users from falling into the bad habit of downloading and copying games for their friends... so it will still prevent some illegal copies, even if cracked copies are floating around the net.
On a side note, I was wondering what Telltale thinks of second hand games... one person buys it, plays it, then sells or trades it to another gamer... wherein the second sale nets no profit for the game publisher and developer. The only difference between this and "piracy" is that there is only one, non-replicating copy circulating.

[AdamG]

As long as you delete your copy on your hard drive, selling or giving away your original copy is legal.

[Armakuni]

I wonder how much more piracy there would be if there was no copy protection at all? Are really that any people prevented from pirating games because of copy protection? I mean if someone wants to pirate a game it's really no problem even with copy protection.. the worst case scenario for pirates is having to wait a week or two.

I know I would feel much better about supporting game companies if they did not use copy protection. Of course I don't pirate games, I'm doing pretty well and can afford more games than I have time to play (I have over 500 now! Scares me to think of how much I've wasted on that).. but copy protection really gets to me. It's such a hassle and all this activation crap that's around these days is what I like the least.. you have to trust the companies to remove the protection should the worst happen and the company went bankrupt and I don't really trust companies that much.

[dm1]

Stardock, one of my other favourite developers, released Galactic Civilizations II (and expansion pack) with no copy protection at all. Once installed, you don't need the disk anymore. You can throw it away if you like. You can re-download the game for free if you've kept your serial number (and even if you haven't, they can e-mail it to you if you have an account with them). The serial number is also required for patches (a big issue, as the support Stardock give the game is fantastic; forever tweaking the AI, improving and adding new features, etc). Their sales don't seem to have been affected by increased piracy.

My view is that any anti-piracy feature that harms the quality of the product in any way is not worth it. Unskipable ant-piracy propaganda on DVDs; music CDs that don't play on my PC; security software that acts as spyware and countless other things actively encourage piracy by making the illegal copies better than the real thing.

[marsan]

I wonder how much more piracy there would be if there was no copy protection at all? Are really that any people prevented from pirating games because of copy protection? I mean if someone wants to pirate a game it's really no problem even with copy protection.. the worst case scenario for pirates is having to wait a week or two.

I know I would feel much better about supporting game companies if they did not use copy protection. Of course I don't pirate games, I'm doing pretty well and can afford more games than I have time to play (I have over 500 now! Scares me to think of how much I've wasted on that).. but copy protection really gets to me. It's such a hassle and all this activation crap that's around these days is what I like the least.. you have to trust the companies to remove the protection should the worst happen and the company went bankrupt and I don't really trust companies that much.

Ahmen, brother!

I agree with you completly. Copy protection gets to me too, because I know sooner or later I will have some problems with it. Either when I try to take a backup of my game or when I have some new hardware or operating system the copy protection apparently has problems with. Also, I feel copy protections are a sign of mistrust. "We don't trust you enough to let you do what you want with your product, so we will control you and make decisions for you".

I am like you. I have bought a lot of games in the recent years, and I've bought a lot of the classics I never thought I would even consider buying just 3 years ago. Still, it really annoys me that I am getting punished because of somebody elses "crime"(and I of course use the term loosely, because it's not about crime. It's about responsibility and expressing the ability to make proper judgements). In fact, if I find out there is a strong copy protection that is likely to cause me problems, on a game, there's a bigger chance that I will avoid buying that game compared to if there were none. The Elder Scrolls : Oblivion was released without a copy protection(just a dvd check). That game has sold over 3 million copies, and still growing. Duke Nukem 3D, 3DRealms big success was released without even a cd check. I am not sure exactly how much it sold, but it must have been pretty well.

Have nobody in the game industry heared of McGregors theory X and theory Y? These theories can be transfered and used for getting people to buy instead of copying games. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_theory_Y (in case people are unsure. Most of the game industry are currently playing by the X theory. Try Y and feel the success :)

Of course, X-Y theories are about management, but exactly the same rules goes for customer - producer relationship.

EDIT: Sorry about the angry tone near the end, I was a bit upset. I also want to add that I have nothing against copy protections when they don't harm me or my computer(in other words: only prevent piracy, but still keeps my right to make backups and all that which I could usually have done with an unprotected cd/dvd, without making the process more complicated or complex than it would be for an unprotected cd/dvd) ;) The sam & max protection seems to work pretty well for me. I am excited to see how the final cd/dvd will be protected - if at all.

[Maratanos]

I never said privacy would be broken nor that people would not be concidered innocent. Right now, you agree to get your bags inspected when you enter an airplane, or (at least in Israel) enter a shopping mall. A cop stopping you by the road can test your breath for alcohol even if he has no reason to suspect you might have been drinking. Remember - "innocent until proven guilty" still needs to give the law enforcement the ability to try to prove that you are guilty.

If privacy is the matter, this could have many solutions. For instance, the randomly chosen computers could be picked up, brought to the "lab" where they would have anonymous tags. There would be strict restrictions on what the person scanning the computer could look through (for example, he will not be allowed to read your e-mails etc.) Even better, a program could scan the computer for illegal software and could be entirely automated, and not allowed to keep any personal information on the scanned files.

These are just a few simple solutions I thought of in a few seconds. I'm sure if people seriously gave it thought they'd find much better solutions which allow people to keep their privacy, while also easily allowing the law to be enforced.

I don't know what's the deal in the US or anywhere else, but at least in Israel it's a real plague. Most people I know have many gigas of illegal software on their computer. I'm sure the value of all this software can sum up to a lot of money. Actually, most people have a principal not to buy any software. Even when you buy a new computer, it is usually delivered already with a pirated copy of windows, Office, some cd burning program, some games etc. I think the way it's going right now, it DOES deserve such a "witch hunt".

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Unfortunately, even if such a "witch-hunt" is a good idea, it's unconstitutional in the U.S. See the 4th Amendment above.

[marsan]

Unfortunately, even if such a "witch-hunt" is a good idea, it's unconstitutional in the U.S. See the 4th Amendment above.

I bet we would see a great increase in the amount of encrypted harddrives in peoples homes too if they knew the cops had the right to just knock on your door and come in and search through your computer, without even suspecting you of anything. Also, who are going to pay for this? I am sure the cops can't afford such a big operation and would the tax payers really be willing to accept having to pay for this kind of invasion?

[Derwin]

As long as you delete your copy on your hard drive, selling or giving away your original copy is legal.

I know it is absolutely legal, but I still feel a bit odd doing it, seeing as game/music industries make no profit on such resales.

[AdamG]

I say for once don't feel guilty Derwin, you bought that copy fair and square and if you don't keep any copies of it, then you can sell it or give it away if you want. :)

[Legolas813]

Ever heard of Ebay? You can't possibly tell me you buy all your games at retail and brand new.

Feeling bad about selling or trading games is just ridiculous.

[Dreamkin]

Here is a fun fact:

I live in a place where finding an original game is almost impossible. (even if you manage to find them you basic run off the mill PS2 game costs around $100-$150... keep in mind the average salary of a working person is a 1/3 of the average in the US)

So...

Pirated games are sold in stores and given freely from person to person.

In my whole life. From the good old C64 to the brand new Wii. I have never seen ANY video game which cannot be obtained easily, BECAUSE it has copy protection.

I have never seen copy protection stopping piracy. More importantly...

I have never seen a person who changes his mind and buy the original because there is copy protection on a game.

In short. I do think that money spent on copy protection is money spent for nothing at all. Developers better spend it for development of the game.

After all... we all know good games usually sell good too.

[some nerdy guy]

I believe that if you can afford the monthly cost for internet, you can afford the lower cost of sam and max.

[AdamG]

Season 1 is so cheap that a bum should be able to afford it. :p Gee, this must be like the most popular thread in the history of the TellTale message boards. 15,500+ views?!?

[Kaldire]

Bottom line is.. piracy and lack of general pc knowledge killed the pc games industry. I remember a time when it was wall to wall pc games now its a little rack. Sigh. Im 100% against any and all copy protection for one reason, there are ways around every protection, trust me I know I bypass them all daily making copies of my legally owned games. The ONLY time I will dl a game I dont have is if its not found on ebay or in stores due to rareness or lack of availability. I eventually buy it. But its a sad thing that most people dont buy the games that are good. I dont mind not buying the ones that stink ;p
Sam & Max is soo worth the small price asked for.
Also I host tons of old games that are now considered abandonware or to old for corps to care. its a 1999-pre thing. LOL I love the oldies and most times they are super hard to find.
Thats my piece... now go buy a good pc game.. when one comes out that microsoft hasnt demanded requires vista...(which they dont BTW) :P well not unless its a dx10 game which the two in mind are not.
Anyway thats my dime

[IronCladChicken]

Bottom line is.. piracy and lack of general pc knowledge killed the pc games industry.

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)?

[AdamG]

PC Gaming died? I had no idea. : /

[tobar]

Piracy has good and bad to it. Sometimes you need to see if a game will even RUN on your system, especially if the game doesn't have a demo (and even when it does, it doesn't mean the full game will have the same requirements). I, for one, have a very finicky computer, and what SHOULD work doesn't always work. Hence, I tend to download a cracked copy first, and then purchase the legal copy. That way, I know I'm not being gypped, and the developers still get their well-deserved money.
BUT
I'm glad I didn't pirate Sam and Max though, for some reason, the transitions from one area to another can take up to 5 or 6 minutes on here, despite my exceeding the requirements. If I had illegally downloaded the game, the loading times would have put me off, (since I wouldn't have had the commitment to it that one has with purchased games) and I wouldn't have purchased the full game, thus I would have missed out on the first great point-and-click in years.

*disclaimer: There is no excuse for piracy, don't do it, etc.*

Erm uh.......do you ever say.....defrag your computer?

[ShaggE]

When I posted that, I was using an SiS 760 onboard video card... defragging had nothing to do with the transition times being so long, it was the card, and the fact that the memory on this system was crippled down to only 300-something megs of RAM. After I got a new card and unlocked the rest of the RAM, the problem was solved.

[Kaldire]

Firstly.. pc has never died in the crude terms. Actually as it has been stated ..world of warcraft has one of the largest bases in history. To me its the lack of people wanting to just deal with a pc. Most would rather turn the tv on and press one button, anything past that is to difficult... this is also al lowes reason puzzles in adventure games are easy now IE sam and max. So companies moved with this shift saying lets keep making games for pc but lets port them frommmm a console. At the time of psX.. nintendo 64 was already kickin butt and pc wasnt even phased, nor when psx came out.. the real killer was ps2 and xbox... but again its not dead by any means. Just not getting much attention.
Look to the skys robin I see directx10 running on Xp pro playing crysis or cellfactor or bioshock in insane resolutions on my 8800GTX with physx.. oh yea... pcs are dead LOL.

[marsan]

numberwise, more games are still released for PC(a year) than for any other game playing unit, so PC gaming for sure ain't dead.

[Katana]

If only you people would all use Steam exclusively...I mean, I'm not saying it's impossible to crack something like Half-Life 2, but definitely a lot harder.

It does suck that pirates are ruining the experience for all PC gamers. I'm thinking the only way to even it out would be...to make console games equally piratable?
Meh, sort of a cruel way of doing it, but I do love the PC gaming platform, and wish the playing field were a bit more level. I'm just glad it's really impossible for PC gaming to die out entirely.

[The Duckmeister]

First of all, you read The Inquirer? Uh, lol. "Yeah I saw that story about the Air Force Pilots capturing the alien dudes from Jupiter 7! That was so real!"

Second of all, yes, piracy is very bad. I think that there is no excuse for pirating, no matter what the intention. Frankly, my dear, you should buy your own darn copy, and if you don't like it, you can use a little thing called E-B-A-Y.

Third of all, the main reason why PC Gaming has never died is because we have more Triple-A big shot titles than our console friends.
For example, console gaming was starting. Halo comes out. Console starts making money. PC Gaming loses money. Half-Life comes out. PC Gaming gains money.

There are many more examples. Even sequels help. The same exact thing happened with Half-Life 2.

Also, a PS3 may beat a PC in terms of hardware, but only during the first two or three weeks. A new PC always beats any new console after a couple weeks, so anybody trying to tell you, "my PS3 t0t4lly pwnz ur PC n00b!oneone111one1111one1" is dead wrong (besides being brain-dead).

There is my two cents. I hope I was somewhat relevant to the discussion taking place.

[Stoney]

If only you people would all use Steam exclusively...I mean, I'm not saying it's impossible to crack something like Half-Life 2, but definitely a lot harder.


Not harder at all. What´s the difference? It only does online checks which can be bypassed, not harder then all the rest of it. Besides that, better dont wish all people will use Steam, because they wont. Noone needs Middleware installed on his/her pc.

Piracy is a bad thing no doubt, but there are also buyers who wouldnt have bought the game if they would have been limited to testing the demo.