The question I have is why would anyone really care? There is no proof that says the lack of piracy would lower the prices you pay for a game, movie, or music. Lets be honest here..it wouldn't.
Do you really believe that you would get better quality from those things if there was no piracy? I could point to the MMORPG genre as proof that piracy has no effect on quality at all.
Do you think that piracy is some how limiting the amount and types of games, music and movies that are released? That indie developers are going bankrupt because their stuff may get pirated? Can you name any person or organization that has released a quality product that lost everything because that product was pirated?
What part of piracy is really bothering people? Is it that you are mad that you spend money for things that other people don't? Are you such a law abiding citizen that you never break a law..even a small one? I really do not understand peoples adverse reaction to this topic.
Well said. I think you hit the nail on the head with that last paragraph. Keep up the good fight!
Bartoni's Law definition: As an Internet discussion grows volatile, the probability of a comparison involving Donald Trump approaches 1.
I can agree with the banning peoples ip idea. Excellent idea actually but its hardly ever done. If they do ban, they ban that email address and name, and there's nothing stopping the person from just creating a new one. And its about more than modding. Its about griefing, harassment, and more. Its not that hard to prove, and there needs to be more moderating of things like live chat channels in online games.
The devs need to start doing whats needed instead of worrying about money.
ipconfig /release
ipconfig /renew
This doesn't work due to the majority of people not having static addresses, and banning in blocks would cause other users to be banned as well. That's why it's not done.
The question I have is why would anyone really care? There is no proof that says the lack of piracy would lower the prices you pay for a game, movie, or music. Lets be honest here..it wouldn't.
Do you really believe that you would get better quality from those things if there was no piracy? I could point to the MMORPG genre as proof that piracy has no effect on quality at all.
Do you think that piracy is some how limiting the amount and types of games, music and movies that are released? That indie developers are going bankrupt because their stuff may get pirated? Can you name any person or organization that has released a quality product that lost everything because that product was pirated?
What part of piracy is really bothering people? Is it that you are mad that you spend money for things that other people don't? Are you such a law abiding citizen that you never break a law..even a small one? I really do not understand peoples adverse reaction to this topic.
Well said. I think you hit the nail on the head with that last paragraph. Keep up the good fight!
"the good fight" What crap. Why is it about "how does this affect me?" Pretty on par with the entitlement we see on this site. Listen, I don't care if you do it or not, the point is, knowing that whatever you are doing, is wrong.
You want to fight back against the big company, so you take their shit without paying for it. I get it. That doesn't make it right though. Games cost money to make, and even if they make that money back 10 fold, it doesn't change the fact that taking it for free when it isn't offered that way is wrong.
Liken it to any number of other products.
Is this changing the industry as a whole? No, not necessarily, we do see companies vying for different protections that require online access and that are tougher to crack, and in the future, its likely we'll see much more of this, to the point an online connection to a server may be required with no offline counterpart to crack.
Either way, as I stated before, its not that I haven't done it, or wouldn't do it again under certain circumstances.. but I'm not fooling myself into thinking its okay to do it. Its not.
Pirating "costing" the industry is largely a fallacy. Most people that pirate wouldn't have bought most or any of the games in the first place, at least, not at the full $50-60 price that is being asked for so many terriblely linear 5-10 hour long games these days. Even if "pirates" bought games instead of pirating, most would only be able to afford a fraction of the games they download, so again most of this "lost" revenue was never actually there in the first place.
It could be argued that DRM is costing developers more than piracy is, between development costs, technical support for paying customers struggling with DRM issues, along with consumers plain just avoiding purchasing said DRM riddled games.
As per Diablo's cheating issues... considering that Blizzard pretty much gave in to RMT by cashing in with the RMAH, I doubt they'll put much effort into dealing with cheaters in Diablo 3. They're pretty much shown that they will choose the path that profits the most/costs the least, and sitting on their hands is that path when it comes to cheating.
To say piracy doesn't cost the companies any/much money isn't accurate at all. Are you saying that a person who takes the time and effort to pirate a game doesn't like to play games? And if pirating was made 100% impossible to do, they wouldn't buy the games they like? If they like video games, they will buy them if that was their only option to play them. I've known several people over the years that used illegal copies/downloads of games, and most of them could afford to buy them but were cheap-asses or just liked the thought of being sneaky and breaking the rules.
I'm not saying it's costing them as much as they claim, of course, but it does take money away that they would've made.
I remember having a HUGE argument with a user here on how f**ked up Diablo 1 and 2 online play was, but they would just not back down that "Blizzard never allowed hacking in D2, ever". Glad somebody effing *remembers* that s**t, finally.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4 Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
The question I have is why would anyone really care? There is no proof that says the lack of piracy would lower the prices you pay for a game, movie, or music. Lets be honest here..it wouldn't.
Do you really believe that you would get better quality from those things if there was no piracy? I could point to the MMORPG genre as proof that piracy has no effect on quality at all.
Do you think that piracy is some how limiting the amount and types of games, music and movies that are released? That indie developers are going bankrupt because their stuff may get pirated? Can you name any person or organization that has released a quality product that lost everything because that product was pirated?
What part of piracy is really bothering people? Is it that you are mad that you spend money for things that other people don't? Are you such a law abiding citizen that you never break a law..even a small one? I really do not understand peoples adverse reaction to this topic.
Well said. I think you hit the nail on the head with that last paragraph. Keep up the good fight!
"the good fight" What crap. Why is it about "how does this affect me?" Pretty on par with the entitlement we see on this site. Listen, I don't care if you do it or not, the point is, knowing that whatever you are doing, is wrong.
You want to fight back against the big company, so you take their shit without paying for it. I get it. That doesn't make it right though. Games cost money to make, and even if they make that money back 10 fold, it doesn't change the fact that taking it for free when it isn't offered that way is wrong.
Liken it to any number of other products.
Is this changing the industry as a whole? No, not necessarily, we do see companies vying for different protections that require online access and that are tougher to crack, and in the future, its likely we'll see much more of this, to the point an online connection to a server may be required with no offline counterpart to crack.
Either way, as I stated before, its not that I haven't done it, or wouldn't do it again under certain circumstances.. but I'm not fooling myself into thinking its okay to do it. Its not.
I think Razor1911 already cracked this in the VERY early '90's with proxy software running on your local machine that acted in place of the authenticating server that said "you can play today". It's nothing new to crack, it's just outdated and the younger generations don't remember the old days. I think one of the better scenarios for protection would be something akin to an RSA fob you plugin to a usb port. While not perfect (i.e. it CAN be cracked, but it's much harder to replicate than software), it offers one of the simplest ways to at least slow pirating. The only drawback is the 50 fobs you'll have lying around =P
Originally posted by ropenice To say piracy doesn't cost the companies any/much money isn't accurate at all. Are you saying that a person who takes the time and effort to pirate a game doesn't like to play games? And if pirating was made 100% impossible to do, they wouldn't buy the games they like? If they like video games, they will buy them if that was their only option to play them. I've known several people over the years that used illegal copies/downloads of games, and most of them could afford to buy them but were cheap-asses or just liked the thought of being sneaky and breaking the rules.I'm not saying it's costing them as much as they claim, of course, but it does take money away that they would've made.
Strangely enough, a recent study showed that people pirate music spend more money on average than people who don't. I would not be surprised if the same thing happens with people who pirate games.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Is this changing the industry as a whole? No, not necessarily, we do see companies vying for different protections that require online access and that are tougher to crack, and in the future, its likely we'll see much more of this, to the point an online connection to a server may be required with no offline counterpart to crack.
Either way, as I stated before, its not that I haven't done it, or wouldn't do it again under certain circumstances.. but I'm not fooling myself into thinking its okay to do it. Its not.
I think Razor1911 already cracked this in the VERY early '90's with proxy software running on your local machine that acted in place of the authenticating server that said "you can play today". It's nothing new to crack, it's just outdated and the younger generations don't remember the old days. I think one of the better scenarios for protection would be something akin to an RSA fob you plugin to a usb port. While not perfect (i.e. it CAN be cracked, but it's much harder to replicate than software), it offers one of the simplest ways to at least slow pirating. The only drawback is the 50 fobs you'll have lying around =P
Interesting to know. I was thinking more along the lines of, more of the actual games being housed on servers for content rather then just requiring server only access, but utilizing RSA would work too.
Pirating "costing" the industry is largely a fallacy. Most people that pirate wouldn't have bought most or any of the games in the first place, at least, not at the full $50-60 price that is being asked for so many terriblely linear 5-10 hour long games these days. Even if "pirates" bought games instead of pirating, most would only be able to afford a fraction of the games they download, so again most of this "lost" revenue was never actually there in the first place.
It could be argued that DRM is costing developers more than piracy is, between development costs, technical support for paying customers struggling with DRM issues, along with consumers plain just avoiding purchasing said DRM riddled games.
As per Diablo's cheating issues... considering that Blizzard pretty much gave in to RMT by cashing in with the RMAH, I doubt they'll put much effort into dealing with cheaters in Diablo 3. They're pretty much shown that they will choose the path that profits the most/costs the least, and sitting on their hands is that path when it comes to cheating.
To say piracy doesn't cost the companies any/much money isn't accurate at all. Are you saying that a person who takes the time and effort to pirate a game doesn't like to play games? And if pirating was made 100% impossible to do, they wouldn't buy the games they like? If they like video games, they will buy them if that was their only option to play them. I've known several people over the years that used illegal copies/downloads of games, and most of them could afford to buy them but were cheap-asses or just liked the thought of being sneaky and breaking the rules.
I'm not saying it's costing them as much as they claim, of course, but it does take money away that they would've made.
I didn't mean to imply that piracy doesn't "cost" companies any money, rather that the amount of money they "lose" is vastly blown out of proportion. If someone has the disposable income to purchase a single $60 game, but instead downloads 10, then the industry has only lost out on $60, not $600 because they couldn't even afford more than a single purchase in the first place. Even so, said person may not have even spent that $60 on a single $60 game, they might have saved it to spend on something else or waited for several games to drop in price or go on sale so they could purchase multiple titles, again, only having spent $60.
Consider that the real "cost" of piracy for developers is the money they pour into trying to combat it. The gaming industry spends millions of dollars on DRM that is largely ineffective. They put ridiculous requirements such are forced online connectivity for single players games, limited activations, and DRM that just plain prevents a game from working properly for paying customers or even harming their systems. And for what? DRM has largely proven to be ineffective at stopping piracy. I anyone is guilty of developers losing money to piracy, it's developers pissing away tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars developing and licensing DRM that just inconveniences legitimate customers, to the point where it's starting to drive they away from purchasing games from over restrictive developers.
In other words, piracy's effect on the industry is minimal at worst, and at best it's actually helping the industry through free marketing. I'm not trying to rationalize piracy, simply putting it into perspective.
This debate is at least better than the music industry debate I heard.
They actually have real problems with piracy. But the question is whos fault it is?
I remember the LPs, still got a bunch lying around. A LP cost a lot more to make than a CD, still when CD took over a LP here costed 80 SKR and the CDs 129 SKR. Now they cost around 160-180 SKR but most people download them from Itunes instead. For almost the same friggin price.
A CD goes from the record company to a distributer and then to a reccord store, all who wants to earn money. Add prices of making the CD, the box and the cover + shipping costs.
Now the company sends it digitally to Itunes who want to split the earnings. That is a lot more earning for the company, a digital download should cost a third of a CD but they decided to pocket the rest of the money.
And people know this. Digitally download music is a total ripoff. And the record companies whine and say that the artist must get money, and yet they get very little of the earnings.
Support good bands, go to a live concert and buy a friggin T-shirt there as well. That will give the band more than 20 times the money than if you buy every album they ever made.
Computer games are a little different, they don't really rip off their customers in the same way and a computer game now actually cost the same as a C-64 game did in 1984 so buy your computer games, piracy there only hurts the genre.
Still, while piracy is wrong, I don't agree that it is stealing. When someone steals something it is gone, here you copy the stuff.
Is this changing the industry as a whole? No, not necessarily, we do see companies vying for different protections that require online access and that are tougher to crack, and in the future, its likely we'll see much more of this, to the point an online connection to a server may be required with no offline counterpart to crack.
Either way, as I stated before, its not that I haven't done it, or wouldn't do it again under certain circumstances.. but I'm not fooling myself into thinking its okay to do it. Its not.
I think Razor1911 already cracked this in the VERY early '90's with proxy software running on your local machine that acted in place of the authenticating server that said "you can play today". It's nothing new to crack, it's just outdated and the younger generations don't remember the old days. I think one of the better scenarios for protection would be something akin to an RSA fob you plugin to a usb port. While not perfect (i.e. it CAN be cracked, but it's much harder to replicate than software), it offers one of the simplest ways to at least slow pirating. The only drawback is the 50 fobs you'll have lying around =P
Interesting to know. I was thinking more along the lines of, more of the actual games being housed on servers for content rather then just requiring server only access, but utilizing RSA would work too.
I actually thought about that before my post, but with the current horrid state of bandwidth and the costs to get any, plus the people still using 10 year old tech, there'd be more money lost due to people just not being able to play. Could always scale the graphics back to something like the old SSI gold box games, that would work. No flashy sparkles and more real actual gameplay would be nice lol =D
Ah well, I have two sides within me. Who am I letting out today? *tosses coin*
Side A: Stealing (intellectual) property is evil! Don't do it.
Side B: Property is a lie. The amount of property you can have is merely defined by what you can.
You decide where the coin falls. When the poor of London had enough of being poor, they started to just take TV sets. Was it evil? Or is getting rich with evil speculation just legalized robbery at the expense of the poor? Are laws not just vehicles of rich and powerful to get their ways?
The native Americans believed, "earth" can not be owned as property and belongs to all, just as air. Today we are selling nature as genetic patents. That is the law. But is that RIGHT? For thousands of years story telling never had intellectual rights. See the Term "Transmedia Storytelling":
Ah, it must be so wonderful to have a clear good VS evil compass, innit? Sometimes in my advanced age I start to think that laws and governments are just a more refined way of bullying people. But maybe I just say that because I am again trying to quit smoking.
Maybe what you are taught is right and good in the end... is a sharade, a lie, a tool to exploit you, a vehicle to coerce conformity? What IS real? What IS right? But I suppose easy good/evil answers always win. So back into the barrel, Diogenes!
Sadly, most people these days think that law is morality.
The intent of law was to enforce morality, but sadly laws fail to keep up with the changes of time, or are twisted to facilitate the narrow "morality" of the few. There are still many things that are legal that are morally corrupt, just as there are things that are illegal even though it has little basis on morality.
People need to start thinking for themselves rather than allowing opinions and beliefs to be force fed to them.
No, laws are not in place to enforce morality. Morality comes from religion, family, society, instincts, etc. Laws are here to create order (whether laws is just or not, in your view). Without laws, anyone stronger, better armed or in larger numbers,could come into your house and harm you and take your things you've worked hard for, without any consequences. I do believe many laws are archaic or not well thought out, or impemented well, but the alternative is much worse. As a society, it's up to us to obey laws, even those we don't agree with, but use legal means to try and get laws/policies changed. (of course, tht brings a whole new level to argument, as lobbyists and large, funded groups have much more say than the individual today, so tough to influence our decision-makers in Washington)
I do have to say this might be the most constructive, least bitter, and intelligent forum discussion I've seen om MMORPG.com-well done Coyote-for starting it. Even though it wasn't as funny as usual.
Hacking Diablo 2 was awesome Item Grabber anyone ? lol.
Anyways the writer of this article is a fool any avg user can find a torrent for any single player game and install it. (they come with instructions comeon now). Even if the game requires steam theres hacked versions of steams dll file that allows you to do this. This entire article is one fool who is as dumb as the people he thinks hes writing about.
"the good fight" What crap. Why is it about "how does this affect me?" Pretty on par with the entitlement we see on this site. Listen, I don't care if you do it or not, the point is, knowing that whatever you are doing, is wrong.
You want to fight back against the big company, so you take their shit without paying for it. I get it. That doesn't make it right though. Games cost money to make, and even if they make that money back 10 fold, it doesn't change the fact that taking it for free when it isn't offered that way is wrong.
Liken it to any number of other products.
Is this changing the industry as a whole? No, not necessarily, we do see companies vying for different protections that require online access and that are tougher to crack, and in the future, its likely we'll see much more of this, to the point an online connection to a server may be required with no offline counterpart to crack.
Either way, as I stated before, its not that I haven't done it, or wouldn't do it again under certain circumstances.. but I'm not fooling myself into thinking its okay to do it. Its not.
In what way is it not ok? Is it not ok because it is illegal? Is it not ok because the Bible says not to steal and you consider this stealing? Is it not ok because in some way you think it creates a problem for you? I think the myth that developers are losing tons of money because of this has been proven just that..a myth. So what makes it so wrong?
Could it be that it's wrong just because you were told it was wrong?
I can agree with the banning peoples ip idea. Excellent idea actually but its hardly ever done. If they do ban, they ban that email address and name, and there's nothing stopping the person from just creating a new one. And its about more than modding. Its about griefing, harassment, and more. Its not that hard to prove, and there needs to be more moderating of things like live chat channels in online games.
The devs need to start doing whats needed instead of worrying about money.
ipconfig /release
ipconfig /renew
This doesn't work due to the majority of people not having static addresses, and banning in blocks would cause other users to be banned as well. That's why it's not done.
Wrong. And why is it wrong?
Yes, you can force an address change. It is not easy and you need to know what you're doing. /release /renew will NOT change your ip address. Why? Because your ip address is assigned by your internet provider, NOT by your computer system. Yes, its dynamic. That means your PROVIDER has a rotating system. Comcasts WAS set 3 months rotation when I worked for them. That means that once you /release /renew, you will most likely get the same address back.
How do I know that particular tidbit? Because it happened to me. Someone with the same ip address as me (it just changed to a new one) tried to hack into the EQ2 network when I played EQ2 and I suddenly lost access when my ip address switched. I had to call my ip and SOE to get it reactivated so I could play. I was incredibly aggravated when that happened and quite ticked when I talked to them on the phone because I had done nothing wrong.
BUT... I am a full supporter of ip banning. Once I found out what happened, I totally understood why they did it. Only a child wouldn't.
Nice article. Piracy is definately overblown....and protecting against it is often used a smoke-screen to cover other agendas that have nothing to do with illegal copying.
Piracy does have a small cost for publishers in lost revenue...but nothing that significant.... in fact it's doubtfull if in many cases it costs more then implimenting and maintaining the measures used to protect against it. As pointed out most of the people who commit piracy would not have purchased the origional copy in the first place....and those who do purchase pirated copies not only risk inferior copies but other hazards such as viruses, rootkits & malware.
Many publishers reaction to this situation is completely brain-dead by putting DRM with such onerous restrictions on use and so many other downsides (technical glitches) that they actualy make the pirated copies (which are free of these) superior to the origionals even when taking financial considerations out of the equiation.
Much of the agenda behind the anti-piracy rhetoric, particularly by the muisic industry, of big publishers has nothing to do with piracy but with trying to curtail legitimate consumer and business practices.
Firstly publishers are hoping to force users into paying multiple times for the same product. For example, if a consumer is prevented from making a backup copy of a product and they lose the origional or it's media becomes damaged and they need to reinstal then they will have to purchase the product again....same thing with products that allow only a limited number of installs if the consumer upgrades hardware or needs to reformat thier devices.
Secondly and more importantly legitimate Digital Distribution is a direct threat to Publishers traditional business models which depend on near monopoly control over mass distriburtion of goods due to high costs and barriers to entry. If Artists are able to dustribute thier goods to a mass audience without significant expense, expertiese or special contacts to maintain distribution channels then self-publishing becomes a very real possibility and the need to sign with (and pay) Publishers is decreased. Additionaly it opens up a wider market to smaller independants who would never even have the opportunity to sign with a big publisher. With Digital Distributions those independents are now able to place thier goods/work in front of consumers in the marketplace where they can compete directly with the goods provided by the Publishers own Artists.
Imposing limitations on Digitial Distribution and trying to push requirements for expensive DRM to be included on media if it is to work reliably has been a major agenda for Publishers.... not to combat piracy, but to eliminate legitimate competition by smaller companies and independants. The major Publishers (particularly in the music industry) seek to artificial raise the cost and expertiese that serve as barriers to entry over mass distribution channels. The business models have traditionaly dependent on high barriers to entry in order to maintain near monoploy control over mass distribution. With those barriers eroded, they suddenly find themselves having to compete (often unfavorably) with a whole host of new entrents into thier marketplaces...and they are deathly afraid of such competition and will seek whatever measures they can to stifle it...all under the guise of combating illegal piracy.
I can agree with the banning peoples ip idea. Excellent idea actually but its hardly ever done. If they do ban, they ban that email address and name, and there's nothing stopping the person from just creating a new one. And its about more than modding. Its about griefing, harassment, and more. Its not that hard to prove, and there needs to be more moderating of things like live chat channels in online games.
The devs need to start doing whats needed instead of worrying about money.
ipconfig /release
ipconfig /renew
This doesn't work due to the majority of people not having static addresses, and banning in blocks would cause other users to be banned as well. That's why it's not done.
Wrong. And why is it wrong?
Yes, you can force an address change. It is not easy and you need to know what you're doing. /release /renew will NOT change your ip address. Why? Because your ip address is assigned by your internet provider, NOT by your computer system. Yes, its dynamic. That means your PROVIDER has a rotating system. Comcasts WAS set 3 months rotation when I worked for them. That means that once you /release /renew, you will most likely get the same address back.
How do I know that particular tidbit? Because it happened to me. Someone with the ip address I just changed to tried to hack into the EQ2 network when I played and I suddenly lost access when my ip address switched. I had to call my ip and SOE to get it reactivated so I could play. I was incredibly aggravated when that happened and quite ticked when I talked to them on the phone because I had done nothing wrong.
BUT... I am a full supporter of ip banning. Once I found out what happened, I totally understood why they did it. Only a child wouldn't.
Sorry to hear that. My DSL doesn't share your issue or your neighborhood's bandwidth though =D
I can agree with the banning peoples ip idea. Excellent idea actually but its hardly ever done. If they do ban, they ban that email address and name, and there's nothing stopping the person from just creating a new one. And its about more than modding. Its about griefing, harassment, and more. Its not that hard to prove, and there needs to be more moderating of things like live chat channels in online games.
The devs need to start doing whats needed instead of worrying about money.
ipconfig /release
ipconfig /renew
This doesn't work due to the majority of people not having static addresses, and banning in blocks would cause other users to be banned as well. That's why it's not done.
Wrong. And why is it wrong?
Yes, you can force an address change. It is not easy and you need to know what you're doing. /release /renew will NOT change your ip address. Why? Because your ip address is assigned by your internet provider, NOT by your computer system. Yes, its dynamic. That means your PROVIDER has a rotating system. Comcasts WAS set 3 months rotation when I worked for them. That means that once you /release /renew, you will most likely get the same address back.
How do I know that particular tidbit? Because it happened to me. Someone with the ip address I just changed to tried to hack into the EQ2 network when I played and I suddenly lost access when my ip address switched. I had to call my ip and SOE to get it reactivated so I could play. I was incredibly aggravated when that happened and quite ticked when I talked to them on the phone because I had done nothing wrong.
BUT... I am a full supporter of ip banning. Once I found out what happened, I totally understood why they did it. Only a child wouldn't.
Sorry to hear that. My DSL doesn't share your issue or your neighborhood's bandwidth though =D
That was a few years back. Still remains though... your provider sets your ip address, NOT your computer system.
"the good fight" What crap. Why is it about "how does this affect me?" Pretty on par with the entitlement we see on this site. Listen, I don't care if you do it or not, the point is, knowing that whatever you are doing, is wrong.
You want to fight back against the big company, so you take their shit without paying for it. I get it. That doesn't make it right though. Games cost money to make, and even if they make that money back 10 fold, it doesn't change the fact that taking it for free when it isn't offered that way is wrong.
Liken it to any number of other products.
Is this changing the industry as a whole? No, not necessarily, we do see companies vying for different protections that require online access and that are tougher to crack, and in the future, its likely we'll see much more of this, to the point an online connection to a server may be required with no offline counterpart to crack.
Either way, as I stated before, its not that I haven't done it, or wouldn't do it again under certain circumstances.. but I'm not fooling myself into thinking its okay to do it. Its not.
In what way is it not ok? Is it not ok because it is illegal? Is it not ok because the Bible says not to steal and you consider this stealing? Is it not ok because in some way you think it creates a problem for you? I think the myth that developers are losing tons of money because of this has been proven just that..a myth. So what makes it so wrong?
Could it be that it's wrong just because you were told it was wrong?
It's very cut and dried.
Company creates something and offers it for a price. If you don't want to pay the price don't pay for it. If you do then pay for it.
You have no leg to stand on just because you feel something should be other than what it is. You are not entitled to it.
As far as I'm concerned game companies can charge thousands for a game that takes pennies to make and that is their right.
It's your right to say no and that's the end of it. It's not food or medicine.
oh, and it's not ok because it's illegal, because our society generally operates under the idea that acquiring something that is not yours and that you are not entitled to is "wrong".
And it doesn't matter whether the whole game companies are losing money thing is correct or not. They can ask whatever they want and you can say no.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
I can agree with the banning peoples ip idea. Excellent idea actually but its hardly ever done. If they do ban, they ban that email address and name, and there's nothing stopping the person from just creating a new one. And its about more than modding. Its about griefing, harassment, and more. Its not that hard to prove, and there needs to be more moderating of things like live chat channels in online games.
The devs need to start doing whats needed instead of worrying about money.
ipconfig /release
ipconfig /renew
This doesn't work due to the majority of people not having static addresses, and banning in blocks would cause other users to be banned as well. That's why it's not done.
Wrong. And why is it wrong?
Yes, you can force an address change. It is not easy and you need to know what you're doing. /release /renew will NOT change your ip address. Why? Because your ip address is assigned by your internet provider, NOT by your computer system. Yes, its dynamic. That means your PROVIDER has a rotating system. Comcasts WAS set 3 months rotation when I worked for them. That means that once you /release /renew, you will most likely get the same address back.
How do I know that particular tidbit? Because it happened to me. Someone with the ip address I just changed to tried to hack into the EQ2 network when I played and I suddenly lost access when my ip address switched. I had to call my ip and SOE to get it reactivated so I could play. I was incredibly aggravated when that happened and quite ticked when I talked to them on the phone because I had done nothing wrong.
BUT... I am a full supporter of ip banning. Once I found out what happened, I totally understood why they did it. Only a child wouldn't.
Sorry to hear that. My DSL doesn't share your issue or your neighborhood's bandwidth though =D
That was a few years back. Still remains though... your provider sets your ip address, NOT your computer system.
Not entirely true. Some ISP's (mine included) have multiple gateways AND allow force assigns, So pick a gateway and your IP on that block. If it's not currently being used it's yours. Just a manual version of release/renew. Even some cable providers such as mediacom are like this. Though Comcast tried to be the first with the fastest speeds and failed at that, I've never heard much good from them.
Comments
Well said. I think you hit the nail on the head with that last paragraph. Keep up the good fight!
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Modders destroying games?
You sir are a moron.
ipconfig /release
ipconfig /renew
This doesn't work due to the majority of people not having static addresses, and banning in blocks would cause other users to be banned as well. That's why it's not done.
He said modders when he really meant cheaters. it was just a poor choice in wording.
"the good fight" What crap. Why is it about "how does this affect me?" Pretty on par with the entitlement we see on this site. Listen, I don't care if you do it or not, the point is, knowing that whatever you are doing, is wrong.
You want to fight back against the big company, so you take their shit without paying for it. I get it. That doesn't make it right though. Games cost money to make, and even if they make that money back 10 fold, it doesn't change the fact that taking it for free when it isn't offered that way is wrong.
Liken it to any number of other products.
Is this changing the industry as a whole? No, not necessarily, we do see companies vying for different protections that require online access and that are tougher to crack, and in the future, its likely we'll see much more of this, to the point an online connection to a server may be required with no offline counterpart to crack.
Either way, as I stated before, its not that I haven't done it, or wouldn't do it again under certain circumstances.. but I'm not fooling myself into thinking its okay to do it. Its not.
To say piracy doesn't cost the companies any/much money isn't accurate at all. Are you saying that a person who takes the time and effort to pirate a game doesn't like to play games? And if pirating was made 100% impossible to do, they wouldn't buy the games they like? If they like video games, they will buy them if that was their only option to play them. I've known several people over the years that used illegal copies/downloads of games, and most of them could afford to buy them but were cheap-asses or just liked the thought of being sneaky and breaking the rules.
I'm not saying it's costing them as much as they claim, of course, but it does take money away that they would've made.
HA!
I remember having a HUGE argument with a user here on how f**ked up Diablo 1 and 2 online play was, but they would just not back down that "Blizzard never allowed hacking in D2, ever". Glad somebody effing *remembers* that s**t, finally.
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I think Razor1911 already cracked this in the VERY early '90's with proxy software running on your local machine that acted in place of the authenticating server that said "you can play today". It's nothing new to crack, it's just outdated and the younger generations don't remember the old days. I think one of the better scenarios for protection would be something akin to an RSA fob you plugin to a usb port. While not perfect (i.e. it CAN be cracked, but it's much harder to replicate than software), it offers one of the simplest ways to at least slow pirating. The only drawback is the 50 fobs you'll have lying around =P
About the hackers and cheaters all I can say is this..
Its pretty much what online gaming has become. Nothing but hacking and cheating goes on now a days, its totally ruined it.
Being a pessimist is a win-win pattern of thinking. If you're a pessimist (I'll admit that I am!) you're either:
A. Proven right (if something bad happens)
or
B. Pleasantly surprised (if something good happens)
Either way, you can't lose! Try it out sometime!
Strangely enough, a recent study showed that people pirate music spend more money on average than people who don't. I would not be surprised if the same thing happens with people who pirate games.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Interesting to know. I was thinking more along the lines of, more of the actual games being housed on servers for content rather then just requiring server only access, but utilizing RSA would work too.
I didn't mean to imply that piracy doesn't "cost" companies any money, rather that the amount of money they "lose" is vastly blown out of proportion. If someone has the disposable income to purchase a single $60 game, but instead downloads 10, then the industry has only lost out on $60, not $600 because they couldn't even afford more than a single purchase in the first place. Even so, said person may not have even spent that $60 on a single $60 game, they might have saved it to spend on something else or waited for several games to drop in price or go on sale so they could purchase multiple titles, again, only having spent $60.
Consider that the real "cost" of piracy for developers is the money they pour into trying to combat it. The gaming industry spends millions of dollars on DRM that is largely ineffective. They put ridiculous requirements such are forced online connectivity for single players games, limited activations, and DRM that just plain prevents a game from working properly for paying customers or even harming their systems. And for what? DRM has largely proven to be ineffective at stopping piracy. I anyone is guilty of developers losing money to piracy, it's developers pissing away tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars developing and licensing DRM that just inconveniences legitimate customers, to the point where it's starting to drive they away from purchasing games from over restrictive developers.
In other words, piracy's effect on the industry is minimal at worst, and at best it's actually helping the industry through free marketing. I'm not trying to rationalize piracy, simply putting it into perspective.
This debate is at least better than the music industry debate I heard.
They actually have real problems with piracy. But the question is whos fault it is?
I remember the LPs, still got a bunch lying around. A LP cost a lot more to make than a CD, still when CD took over a LP here costed 80 SKR and the CDs 129 SKR. Now they cost around 160-180 SKR but most people download them from Itunes instead. For almost the same friggin price.
A CD goes from the record company to a distributer and then to a reccord store, all who wants to earn money. Add prices of making the CD, the box and the cover + shipping costs.
Now the company sends it digitally to Itunes who want to split the earnings. That is a lot more earning for the company, a digital download should cost a third of a CD but they decided to pocket the rest of the money.
And people know this. Digitally download music is a total ripoff. And the record companies whine and say that the artist must get money, and yet they get very little of the earnings.
Support good bands, go to a live concert and buy a friggin T-shirt there as well. That will give the band more than 20 times the money than if you buy every album they ever made.
Computer games are a little different, they don't really rip off their customers in the same way and a computer game now actually cost the same as a C-64 game did in 1984 so buy your computer games, piracy there only hurts the genre.
Still, while piracy is wrong, I don't agree that it is stealing. When someone steals something it is gone, here you copy the stuff.
I actually thought about that before my post, but with the current horrid state of bandwidth and the costs to get any, plus the people still using 10 year old tech, there'd be more money lost due to people just not being able to play. Could always scale the graphics back to something like the old SSI gold box games, that would work. No flashy sparkles and more real actual gameplay would be nice lol =D
No, laws are not in place to enforce morality. Morality comes from religion, family, society, instincts, etc. Laws are here to create order (whether laws is just or not, in your view). Without laws, anyone stronger, better armed or in larger numbers,could come into your house and harm you and take your things you've worked hard for, without any consequences. I do believe many laws are archaic or not well thought out, or impemented well, but the alternative is much worse. As a society, it's up to us to obey laws, even those we don't agree with, but use legal means to try and get laws/policies changed. (of course, tht brings a whole new level to argument, as lobbyists and large, funded groups have much more say than the individual today, so tough to influence our decision-makers in Washington)
I do have to say this might be the most constructive, least bitter, and intelligent forum discussion I've seen om MMORPG.com-well done Coyote-for starting it. Even though it wasn't as funny as usual.
Hacking Diablo 2 was awesome
Item Grabber anyone ? lol.
Anyways the writer of this article is a fool any avg user can find a torrent for any single player game and install it. (they come with instructions comeon now). Even if the game requires steam theres hacked versions of steams dll file that allows you to do this. This entire article is one fool who is as dumb as the people he thinks hes writing about.
In what way is it not ok? Is it not ok because it is illegal? Is it not ok because the Bible says not to steal and you consider this stealing? Is it not ok because in some way you think it creates a problem for you? I think the myth that developers are losing tons of money because of this has been proven just that..a myth. So what makes it so wrong?
Could it be that it's wrong just because you were told it was wrong?
Wrong. And why is it wrong?
Yes, you can force an address change. It is not easy and you need to know what you're doing. /release /renew will NOT change your ip address. Why? Because your ip address is assigned by your internet provider, NOT by your computer system. Yes, its dynamic. That means your PROVIDER has a rotating system. Comcasts WAS set 3 months rotation when I worked for them. That means that once you /release /renew, you will most likely get the same address back.
How do I know that particular tidbit? Because it happened to me. Someone with the same ip address as me (it just changed to a new one) tried to hack into the EQ2 network when I played EQ2 and I suddenly lost access when my ip address switched. I had to call my ip and SOE to get it reactivated so I could play. I was incredibly aggravated when that happened and quite ticked when I talked to them on the phone because I had done nothing wrong.
BUT... I am a full supporter of ip banning. Once I found out what happened, I totally understood why they did it. Only a child wouldn't.
Nice article. Piracy is definately overblown....and protecting against it is often used a smoke-screen to cover other agendas that have nothing to do with illegal copying.
Piracy does have a small cost for publishers in lost revenue...but nothing that significant.... in fact it's doubtfull if in many cases it costs more then implimenting and maintaining the measures used to protect against it. As pointed out most of the people who commit piracy would not have purchased the origional copy in the first place....and those who do purchase pirated copies not only risk inferior copies but other hazards such as viruses, rootkits & malware.
Many publishers reaction to this situation is completely brain-dead by putting DRM with such onerous restrictions on use and so many other downsides (technical glitches) that they actualy make the pirated copies (which are free of these) superior to the origionals even when taking financial considerations out of the equiation.
Much of the agenda behind the anti-piracy rhetoric, particularly by the muisic industry, of big publishers has nothing to do with piracy but with trying to curtail legitimate consumer and business practices.
Firstly publishers are hoping to force users into paying multiple times for the same product. For example, if a consumer is prevented from making a backup copy of a product and they lose the origional or it's media becomes damaged and they need to reinstal then they will have to purchase the product again....same thing with products that allow only a limited number of installs if the consumer upgrades hardware or needs to reformat thier devices.
Secondly and more importantly legitimate Digital Distribution is a direct threat to Publishers traditional business models which depend on near monopoly control over mass distriburtion of goods due to high costs and barriers to entry. If Artists are able to dustribute thier goods to a mass audience without significant expense, expertiese or special contacts to maintain distribution channels then self-publishing becomes a very real possibility and the need to sign with (and pay) Publishers is decreased. Additionaly it opens up a wider market to smaller independants who would never even have the opportunity to sign with a big publisher. With Digital Distributions those independents are now able to place thier goods/work in front of consumers in the marketplace where they can compete directly with the goods provided by the Publishers own Artists.
Imposing limitations on Digitial Distribution and trying to push requirements for expensive DRM to be included on media if it is to work reliably has been a major agenda for Publishers.... not to combat piracy, but to eliminate legitimate competition by smaller companies and independants. The major Publishers (particularly in the music industry) seek to artificial raise the cost and expertiese that serve as barriers to entry over mass distribution channels. The business models have traditionaly dependent on high barriers to entry in order to maintain near monoploy control over mass distribution. With those barriers eroded, they suddenly find themselves having to compete (often unfavorably) with a whole host of new entrents into thier marketplaces...and they are deathly afraid of such competition and will seek whatever measures they can to stifle it...all under the guise of combating illegal piracy.
"and if it were a physical creature it would look like a vampire Darth Vader with an eyepatch, covered in spiders."
fix'd
Can't be a pirate without at least an eyepatch or a hook-hand prosthetic.
All die, so die well.
Sorry to hear that. My DSL doesn't share your issue or your neighborhood's bandwidth though =D
This is exactly why I stopped playing Black Ops online. I'm actually kinda pissed that I spent the money to buy it. Aim bots ruined that game for me.
That was a few years back.
Still remains though... your provider sets your ip address, NOT your computer system.
It's very cut and dried.
Company creates something and offers it for a price. If you don't want to pay the price don't pay for it. If you do then pay for it.
You have no leg to stand on just because you feel something should be other than what it is. You are not entitled to it.
As far as I'm concerned game companies can charge thousands for a game that takes pennies to make and that is their right.
It's your right to say no and that's the end of it. It's not food or medicine.
oh, and it's not ok because it's illegal, because our society generally operates under the idea that acquiring something that is not yours and that you are not entitled to is "wrong".
And it doesn't matter whether the whole game companies are losing money thing is correct or not. They can ask whatever they want and you can say no.
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Not entirely true. Some ISP's (mine included) have multiple gateways AND allow force assigns, So pick a gateway and your IP on that block. If it's not currently being used it's yours. Just a manual version of release/renew. Even some cable providers such as mediacom are like this. Though Comcast tried to be the first with the fastest speeds and failed at that, I've never heard much good from them.