Pirates provide a better service

[thespyisdead]

to be honest, i don't see why people are up in arms against anything that is not steam >.<

i have a game on uplay and it works like a charm, no questions asked(though on first time start i did have problems, because the bloody installer did not install uplay).

as for origin... yeah i am boycotting anything EA(or at least trying to(the next ME game is going to test that botcott))

OT: it's true that DRM is a bit anti-consumer, but pirates are also "consumers" who do not pay for the good

 

[sonofliber]

Better service, ok, I can't argue with that, but that doesn't justify doing it in the slightest.

Ok, so, let's say someone hits my sister with a car. If I call the police, they'll say "well, this is a crime, we'll put him in jail for a year", one year later, he gets out of jail, buys a new car, and hits my sister with it again! What an arsehole! Alternatively, instead of calling the police, I could have called in a favour with big Tony, and had him have a little "accident". Therefore, the Mafia provide a better service than the justice system.

Just because something's convenient doesn't make it right.

no, but it shows that your system if fundamentaly flawed when going outside the law is more usefull

 

[Fdzzaigl]

Pretty much. One additional thing, is that if you live in Europe or some other territory outside of the US, you're often confronted with companies who make you wait X days before your product activates after launch. Or the online service gets outsourced to some crappy company with horrendous support and performance, for which you also have to make accounts on their site etc.

 

[Colt47]

Just get all your PC games on steam. it's great. Till the day you move house and you can't play your games because you don't have internet and the steam client needs you to be online to switch to offline mode.

In other news GoG.com > all

Actually, I just tested your scenario using my home PC and it gives the option to play in offline mode due to not finding a connection. Where exactly are you getting your information from?

 

[N3squ1ck]

I don't have problems usually when I've been buying stuff on Steam, but the thing that annoys me the most about 'pirates do it better' is that for movies, they damn well do. Put disc in > watch film.

I got numerous blu-rays as Christmas gifts, was looking forward to watching a few but instead of putting the disc in and watching the odd warning screen, I got:

WARNING WARNING WARNING TRAILER TRAILER TRAILER...MEN- NOPE TRAILER TRAILER.

Hey here's the menu.

DVD's are the same.

This is infuriating to me too, I mean why put piracy-harms-clips there, when I obviously already bought the DVD/ BluRay, it boggles my mind that anyone could believe that those clips help preventing piracy :S

 

[Squilookle]

There's a pretty funny image floating around that sums up this kind of thing...

Spoiler: oh look- here it is:

 

[Ingjald]

Developers are the guys that are most affected by piracy. Not the publishers, not the people. Game studios close down because of poor sales. And preowned game sales, but that's another story. Buy ya games ya basterds.

Just like Mojang did, amirite? Oh, wait...

I'm all for the buying of games(and movies), but the DRM attached to some properties are just ridicilous, not to mention completely impotent. What the industry as a whole seems to have trouble grasping is that the people who make games available for piracy are just as skilled in removing and circumventing DRM as the developers and publishers are at putting it there. This means that you only hassle your legitimate buyers with your attempt to get at pirates. This is bad.

Movies have a similar problem; all those silly anti-piracy ads (I would so download a car!)get cut from pirated movies to reduce file size. Thus it's a win-win situation, only the pirates have both wins. Pair that up with the faster and wider availability that piracy also offers, and summa summarum, they do provide a better service.

As for the "controversy" regarding used games; if I buy a used Toyota, Toyota gets no money from me directly, but indirectly in that the previous owner might regard it as regaining some of the money put towards the car when new, thus I could be said to have paid that portion. If I buy used IKEA furniture, IKEA gets no money from that transaction. This is how second-hand works. Why should the games industry be excempt?

 

[Lenny Magic]

I don't know, I find that they don't tend to support multi-player servers very well, as such you are forced to download extra programs (hamachi etc.) just to play with other people. Additionally their stripping out of steamworks and other such features can be very heavy handed and leave games completely without co-op or multipayer. All the while the sites hosting links to these files make money off the advertisement, or ask you to pay to join an exclusive forum for the latest torrents.

All I'm saying is that the service they provide is only marginally better than the one that actually supports the developers. The only major difference is that one is largely free, and the other is not.

 

[Zeckt]

Just get all your PC games on steam. it's great. Till the day you move house and you can't play your games because you don't have internet and the steam client needs you to be online to switch to offline mode.

In other news GoG.com > all

Actually, I just tested your scenario using my home PC and it gives the option to play in offline mode due to not finding a connection. Where exactly are you getting your information from?

No clue. I never logged on to steam on my laptop in over a year and I can still play the steam games fine. Also, my internet crashed and steam gave the option to switch to offline mode despite no internet and I played my games just fine. His point is proven moot.

 

[thesilentman]

Isn't this a fact of PC gaming at this point? These days, I'll only get my games off of Steam/retail/GoG.com. I personally prefer physical copies, and Steam and GoG.com are ridiculously convenient services that I don't mind paying for.

The legit way:

1) Buy a game from steam
2) Download it at 250KB/s average speed,
3) Run it and it crashes at launch (Ubisoft error 1),
4) Install more DRM from Ubisoft,
5) Wait for launcher to update itself,
6) Register an account on Ubisoft DRM.
7) Then wait for launcher to update the game,
8) Then if I want to play LAN, everyone has to have bought a copy of the game and be connected to the internet!

Time taken: ~ 1 day

The pirate way:

1) Find game on torrent site
2) Download it at 500KB/s average speed,
3) Unpack it and run it
4) Copy files to other computers and play LAN

Time taken: ~ 4 hours

I was under the impression that paying customers should get a better service, apparently not.

Huh, for Steam it goes like this:

1) Buy Steam game
2) Download at 350 KB/s
3) Verify game integrity when finished to avoid issues
4) Allow redists/patches/etc to install
5) ??????
6) Profit.

Under Piracy, it goes like this:

1) Add torrent to client
2) Download torrent at 200 MB/s[footnote]Yes, I have gotten speeds like that while downloading Linux ISOs. Ubuntu 12.04 32 bit Live CD ISO on my machine in under 10 seconds. No joke.[/footnote]
3) Install game as if it's retail
4) Crack it
5) ??????
6) Profit.

I don't support piracy, but I can see how piracy is more convenient. That's my only problem with Steam; download speeds are rather slow. I just wish they'd use a BitTorrent protocol for downloading games, then I'd quit buying retail altogether (no way in hell I'm going to give up GoG.com; DRM-free games are a godsend)

 

[renegade7]

Not to mention when it's free you don't lose any money if you dislike it or it turns out to be incompatible. Steam makes no provisions for refunds.

It is a much, much better service that pirates provide, and this is something devs will need to learn to compete with.

It's not that I don't want to spend money. I want to support developers who make good games and provide a superior service. What I don't want is to spend money on a demonstrably inferior service. Not to mention that the complete lack of a refund program means simply buying a game is a risk in and of itself. I can deal with a virus very easily (and by the way torrents are quite safe-before you download one read the reviews posted). But if I'm out $60 for a game that won't run there is nothing I can do.

And it's not stealing. It's sharing.
/raises flame shield

 

[jetriot]

I haven't had any problems an Ubisoft game since the early days of their DRM system. Their new games don't even require you to be online to play. I constantly download from steam much faster than I could ever torrent and the vast majority of the time, the games work right after install. You would be hard pressed to factually argue that it is easier to pirate games than it is to buy them 99% of the time.

Honestly this sounds like more bullshit excuses to calm your guilt for stealing the work of others. T.V. shows on the other hand- it is absolutely easier to stream a new tv show than it is to watch it on tv and they are typically impossible to buy near their release. That is a model that has to change if it wants to compete with piracy.

 

[jetriot]

Just get all your PC games on steam. it's great. Till the day you move house and you can't play your games because you don't have internet and the steam client needs you to be online to switch to offline mode.

In other news GoG.com > all

Actually, I just tested your scenario using my home PC and it gives the option to play in offline mode due to not finding a connection. Where exactly are you getting your information from?

personal experience. test it all you want, i know what happend to me. Try your test again but this time actually click the offline mode button. see what happens.

Just get all your PC games on steam. it's great. Till the day you move house and you can't play your games because you don't have internet and the steam client needs you to be online to switch to offline mode.

In other news GoG.com > all

Actually, I just tested your scenario using my home PC and it gives the option to play in offline mode due to not finding a connection. Where exactly are you getting your information from?

No clue. I never logged on to steam on my laptop in over a year and I can still play the steam games fine. Also, my internet crashed and steam gave the option to switch to offline mode despite no internet and I played my games just fine. His point is proven moot.

sorry, i got confused and forgot what universe i was in. Thanks for making me realise this is the universe where my personal experiences are a lie.

Out of curiosity, did you buy WarZ?

Your personal experience is wrong. It is like saying your car won't start so it is broken and someone else goes to your car and starts it just fine. Turns out you forgot to put the key in the ignition. Either it was a one time fluke or you did something wrong. Doesn't mean the car is broken.

 

[CAPTCHA]

The major difference between piracy and commercial service is that piracy has no, or very little overhead. But that means that it also provides no support. I think that digital media is at a point now where payments should be used to gain/reward service rather than goods. The OP is only considering the instant gratification of piracy for the user and not the societal implications. At the end of the day piracy builds nothing but the wealth of the individual. That could easily be considered morally wrong in our present social economy.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Pirates do provide a better service, but the problem is that their service defeats the expected economic aspects of producing and purchasing a game. I might be getting a game I was interested in with close to zero effort, but the developer won't see a single cent from me if I do that. Considering this, if you're adamant about keeping pirate habits as part of your gaming lifestyle, I think it's easier to set yourself a precedent.

If it's from a trusted developer or an indie I'm familiar with, both deserve my support. I'll purchase a copy.

If it's from a money-grubbing publisher and an exhausted developer that's more or less been put to irons to work on a franchise day in and day out - I'll pirate.

Sometimes, Option B still puts out a good game. I then quite willingly go back and pay for the thing legitimately.

That's how it goes if you're part of the lucky few who do have legal access to games. In some countries, piracy is the one and only option - especially if you're in a corner of the world where publishers can't reach you, or if your country has restrictive laws on content censorship. The only way Australians can have access to the true Left 4 Dead experience is if they find a way to import a North American copy of the game. Past that, they have to pirate their way to unrestrained versions of the titles they're interested in.

 

[N3squ1ck]

Ubisoft don't have intrusive DRM any more. Bad example.

Yeah, thy mostly stopped, but they still use the horrendous 3-machine activation limit (at least the steam description of anno 2070 says so. That is why I haven't bought it yet, despite absolutely loving the series)

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Yep, I think Jim had a video on this very thing. Publishers fail to understand that if they offer a worse service than pirates do then they're just inviting piracy.

*Not endorsing piracy