Tim Schafer was a pirate

[DeadlyYellow]

Meh. Pirating within the industry is more common than you think, even today.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

OK, so my general feeling is that people are defending Schafer, fair enough, I do myself.
But an interesting point of contention, and possibly a chance to examine your own morals or ethics -
If it was Bobby Kotick, who, instead of having made fanboys out of nearly everyone Has done almost completely the opposite (I don't have a problem with him myself, because geting angry at a CEO of a corporation is kinda pointless, but the general consensus seems to be KOTICK SHOULD BURN IN HELL overreaction rarr rarr off topic brackets once again) admitting to copying dat floppy once in the past, would you be all defending it and saying "everyone did it back then" or would you be all "Kotick should lose his job filthy pirates!"
well, probably the answer is that the reasonable people who were all "everyone pirated back then" would still say that, but they would be drowned out by a flood of retards calling for Kotick's blood, but hey, fuck it, I view the internet as a blob of conflicting perspectives and shouting dickheads, not as a collection of individuals, so whatever, if any, point I was trying to make stands; or rather, I lost my train of thought, and have maybe made a compelling argument or maybe just sounded like an idiot. Well, since everybody knows backspacing doesnt work on the internet, I'll let it stand and go to sleep.
oh and I feel the need to reiterate that my intent wasn't to either condemn Schafer or defend Kotick, lest I wake to an inbox full of hate mail.
seeya... wouldn't wanna... be ya.
yeah, yeah, yeah. (?)

Depends, is Tim Schafer a known anti-piracy/used game money grubber? Because Bobby Kotick is, and would be a hypocrite if it turned out he had pirated games in the past. I've never heard of Tim Schafer actively going after pirates before, so if anything his history of piracy makes him more human -- as others have pointed out, everyone did it back then.

OT: I can't say I'm surprised. The industry tries to sell piracy as this big horrible thing that is going to kill them before everything is said and done, but it's seriously overblown, and I don't think there's a single gamer in the world who has not at some point and in some way violated copyright, whether it was with a torrent, or by copying that floppy. The real reason for all these DRM schemes is to kill the used market anyway, piracy is just used as an excuse because it's illegal and it's the publishers' right to try to stop it, whereas the used market is a legally protected consumer right.

 

[4fromK]

Depends, is Tim Schafer a known anti-piracy/used game money grubber? Because Bobby Kotick is, and would be a hypocrite if it turned out he had pirated games in the past. I've never heard of Tim Schafer actively going after pirates before, so if anything his history of piracy makes him more human -- as others have pointed out, everyone did it back then.

OT: I can't say I'm surprised. The industry tries to sell piracy as this big horrible thing that is going to kill them before everything is said and done, but it's seriously overblown, and I don't think there's a single gamer in the world who has not at some point and in some way violated copyright, whether it was with a torrent, or by copying that floppy. The real reason for all these DRM schemes is to kill the used market anyway, piracy is just used as an excuse because it's illegal and it's the publishers' right to try to stop it, whereas the used market is a legally protected consumer right.

I'm not gonna completely discount you argument, because I actually agree with you; largely playing the devil's advocate here; but Kotick isn't a used game money grubber, your thinking of retail stores like gamespot, Kotick is presumably against used games sales as they cost his company money. And also I'm not sure if he is vehemently anti piracy - I can't remember any quotes or interviews done by him with anything to that effect, and Activision products are pretty light on DRM as far as I know (don't actually play a lot of there games, but the outcry I remember was more usually focused on EA and Ubi, so they would appear to be more generally anti piracy in their corporate philosophy than activision) but thats beside the point I was making - it was a tangent, I'll grant you, but I was addressing more the fact that just because Schafer is a more likeable and respectable guy than Kotick, maybe people would let him get away with more, especially since its a more morally grey area than some. Kind of like how that one president (not American, so I can't name them off the top of my head) admitted to smoking pot but "not inhaling" or some bullshit, and got by because he was a more charming and likeable political leader, but if someone less popular like Nixon or Bush admitted to a similar thing they would probably get lampooned just because the public already dislikes them, so they are reacting to the persona more than the crime.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Depends, is Tim Schafer a known anti-piracy/used game money grubber? Because Bobby Kotick is, and would be a hypocrite if it turned out he had pirated games in the past. I've never heard of Tim Schafer actively going after pirates before, so if anything his history of piracy makes him more human -- as others have pointed out, everyone did it back then.

OT: I can't say I'm surprised. The industry tries to sell piracy as this big horrible thing that is going to kill them before everything is said and done, but it's seriously overblown, and I don't think there's a single gamer in the world who has not at some point and in some way violated copyright, whether it was with a torrent, or by copying that floppy. The real reason for all these DRM schemes is to kill the used market anyway, piracy is just used as an excuse because it's illegal and it's the publishers' right to try to stop it, whereas the used market is a legally protected consumer right.

I'm not gonna completely discount you argument, because I actually agree with you; largely playing the devil's advocate here; but Kotick isn't a used game money grubber, your thinking of retail stores like gamespot, Kotick is presumably against used games sales as they cost his company money. And also I'm not sure if he is vehemently anti piracy - I can't remember any quotes or interviews done by him with anything to that effect, and Activision products are pretty light on DRM as far as I know (don't actually play a lot of there games, but the outcry I remember was more usually focused on EA and Ubi, so they would appear to be more generally anti piracy in their corporate philosophy than activision) but thats beside the point I was making - it was a tangent, I'll grant you, but I was addressing more the fact that just because Schafer is a more likeable and respectable guy than Kotick, maybe people would let him get away with more, especially since its a more morally grey area than some. Kind of like how that one president (not American, so I can't name them off the top of my head) admitted to smoking pot but "not inhaling" or some bullshit, and got by because he was a more charming and likeable political leader, but if someone less popular like Nixon or Bush admitted to a similar thing they would probably get lampooned just because the public already dislikes them, so they are reacting to the persona more than the crime.

Just a clarification here, since you're playing devil's advocate and not trying to start an argument: I meant he was an anti-used game money grubber, as in, he wants to get rid of used games so he can double dip on sales that have already been made. But you're right that Bobby Kotick isn't as bad on those points as the heads of EA and Ubisoft are; EA in particular is pretty slimy about used games, and Ubisoft had some of the worst DRM in history for a while there.

Also, just so you know, the president who admitted to smoking pot in college, but claimed he didn't inhale was Bill Clinton. However, I'm not so sure that people would really care if a less popular present had done the same thing; George W. Bush, for example, was a major alcoholic and frat boy party-er in college, and it's one of the few things that didn't hurt his popularity. I'd be shocked if he hadn't done drugs at some point during all that, but it doesn't really affect my view of him one way or another.

Other than that, I can see where you're coming from; I'm just not sure if Tim Schafer is the right one to compare here, since he's a developer, not a publisher. From what I've seen, only a few devs really get upset about piracy, whereas the publishers generally do out of principle.

 

[purf]

snip

Ahhh, nostalgia! Nice

OT: the two games that were installed on my computer in the office (Quake, C&C) back in the days when I was working for a PS1 developer... well, they surely did not require the insertion of a disc...

 

[random_bars]

I read about this before, what actually happened is that he played a friend's copy of the game that he didn't realize was the pirated version.

 

[Pearwood]

yeah, but you aren't exactly one of the foremost videogame developers today. I just think its wierd that nobody has pointed this out before - the story is obviously in the public domain, and I wonder why some vehement anti pirate DRM toting publishing giant hasn't called it out.

I think you exaggerate how prominant he is in the industry, he's made some very good games with a pretty decent cult following but he's only done like six or seven games in total so he's hardly in the same league as say Activision from a journalistic point of view. And to repeat what everyone else has already said - it was a much different time there, games stores are everywhere now and digital downloads are quite common, neither was true twenty years ago.