Widescreen Gaming Forum

If we keep this going much longer we are going to start going around in circles, we are already off topic anyway.

With regards to points 1, 2 they have there own terminology to separate them in terms of law not group them together.

That would be relevant if I were arguing that piracy was legally classified as a criminal offense. But I'm not. I'm arguing it's theft.

Common consensus in that matter is not as black and white as you think people believe it is.

Then try this. Ask, as a general question, "is theft of services theft?" See how many people try to seriously argue it isn't.

my argument is you should think of things as as black and white as you and Velvet is.

And my argument is that sometimes things really are as simple as they look.

To the last point, yes, computer, laptop, living, rent, textbooks and college are all free so I had a shit load of money floating around.

Doesn't mean you had no money. It means you valued those things more than games. Or it could also mean you preferred to spend money on things that aren't convenient to steal, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume the former. And that's fine. But what's not fine is acting as if games are something you are entitled to, whether you feel like spending your money on them or on other things.

I take greater exception for people who tell me I'm not allowed my point for view

Denying the simple reality of piracy is not a "point of view." Nor is it being open minded. It's rationalization, and a flimsy one. You might as well say that the flat earth society is a point of view.

Denying the simple reality of piracy is not a "point of view." Nor is it being open minded. It's rationalization, and a flimsy one. You might as well say that the flat earth society is a point of view.

Your not reading my posts in context anymore so I'm going to stop arguing back, that line had nothing to do with subject we are arguing.

Your not reading my posts in context anymore so I'm going to stop arguing back,

How does "context" change the meaning of what you said in a manner that invalidates my response? I don't see how it does - you are elevating a fallacy to the status of "point of view," as if attacking a fallacy somehow infringed on your rights.

The end point is that video games are not a NEED, there is no way to justify taking them without paying. NONE. You can try to justify pickpocketing for food or what-have-you but there is NO justification forn downloading media without paying for it because there is no need for media.

Period.

As cranky said on a computer stealing is so easy and so tempting that people come up with justifications for theft so they do not feel like a criminal, like they are a bad person. These excuses range from their low income, the supposed high income of developers (which is a joke), protesting against DRM (as if not buying OR playing it doesn't do the same), protesting the evil capitalist system (move to China) or whatever else.

It's all BS. It is all justification for bad behavior to avoid feeling like a selfish asshole, even though you are acting like a selfish asshole. I can say this with 100% clarity and confidance.

Know why?

Because games are not a need. They are a want. There is no justification for taking them without compensating the creators and owners. None. Not one.

It is a black and white issue. Some are, believe it or not. It is never acceptable to run over pedestrians to get to work faster, for instance. That's a black and white issue. So is this, because...

Again...

Games are a want. Not a need. Never ever are they a need. There is no justification on this planet for taking them without paying. None.

If we keep this going much longer we are going to start going around in circles, we are already off topic anyway.

agreed
let's stop here... please ... guys

I was too going to reply, but as always when the subject slide this far, it never goes anywhere anyway
so why not keep our different point of views & opinions to ourselves okay ? before a moderator or something comes here and unleash its wrath ;)

Yeah, heaven forbid we use a forum to discuss stuff.

We all have different opinions, let's never post anything and agree to disagree.

As long as everyone agrees to recognize JugoRthé, supreme god of arguments, I will allow this to continue.

No matter what the scenario, no one wins in the battle between piracy and Intellectual Property. Honest consumers lose because they have to jump through hoops to do what they want with the items they have purchased. Developers lose because they catch lots of flak when DRM systems balls up the program. Publishers lose because they either lose revenue or have people hate them for draconian restrictions placed upon their products.

About the only winner of this sorry state of affairs is Sony DADC.

...

I quite liked Assassin's Creed, so I was looking forward to Assassin's Creed 2. However, there is no way I'll buy or play it with all the nonsense they'll make me do just to stop pirates for... what, a couple of weeks?

The thing I find fascinating is this:

Remember all the furore over Mass Effect and Bioware stating that it would need to reactivate ever 10 days (10 plays, I forget which) and would lock you out if you CD Key had been Keygenned? This DRM is as bad or worse, so where is the internet outcry? I suspect that people have come to one of four conclusions:

1) We'll get fucked anyway, so there's no point in bothering.
2) 'Tis inevitable.
3) Oh well, I'll not buy it then.
4) Oh well, I'll wait for it to be cracked.

Option four covers both the possibilities of copyright infringement and buying game and running it via crack.

Yeah, heaven forbid we use a forum to discuss stuff.

We all have different opinions, let's never post anything and agree to disagree.

Sure but I'm beginning to saw the very same arguments that were debated over & over and nearly locked a couple of threads not so long ago
but hey after all, I'm not a moderator either so feel free to ignore me ;)

Also some points a few people made lack a bit of content to back up their opinion,(however I'm not pointing to anyone in particular)
and let's face it, just saying : "it is like I say" (oversimplified for the purpose of example) ain't going to solve the matter at hand ...

Remember all the furore over Mass Effect and Bioware stating that it would need to reactivate ever 10 days (10 plays, I forget which) and would lock you out if you CD Key had been Keygenned? This DRM is as bad or worse, so where is the internet outcry?

There is internet outcry, though it is not as loud. There have been news articles about it, rockpapershotgun had a post with like 1,000 replies and so do most of my forums. If there is a difference though it is probably very simple: when Mass Effect was announced the standard DRM was a disc check, now the standard DRM is activations and other such things.

Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age aside almost every game I have bought in the last year had some sort of DRM on it. Given that I think people have largely given up on getting DRM-free games, at least full price AAA titles. So, the end result is "which DRM is acceptable to me? Which is best?"

Personally my priority is playing the game in 20 years if I choose to. I play a lot of old games, a lot of them ones that were never very popular, and so games I buy today working in 20 years is the important thing for me. Steam, internet activation and this new online all the time DRM unfortunately ALL mess with that, but the simple fact no one seems to talk about in these debates is this: I can crack SecuROM activation, it takes about 2 minutes of effort and I can burn the crack to a CD and put it in the game box and never worrry about it. Done, finito, no sweat off my back. Steam is a much more complicated beasty, so I tend to prefer SecuROM to Steamworks.

This Ubisoft thing should take care of itself if they keep their word to patch it out eventually, and I think we can trust them because they patched out Farcry 2 and Dawn of Discovery's DRM, as well as others I am sure. So I feel rather secure I can play it in 20 years, and that is what is important to me.

Being online all the time? Who cares, I am anyway. I literally couldn't care less about that.

My ubisoft account is banned for whinging about them not releasing the DLC for PoP i think....

Or maybe it was for complaining about DRM on Farcry 2...

Can't remember...

So yeah... can't join the outcry this time and can't be bothered using a proxy (which i already have setup as a single click proxy to get around the impending internet filter in australia... cause we suck)

Just won't buy it.

Being online all the time? Who cares, I am anyway. I literally couldn't care less about that.

my point of view on this:
-I don't care at all about internet activation periodic check (such as once per week, or once per game update as Mass Effect is)
-I care a little bit but nothing major if the internet check is "once every game startup" : my internet is a bit slow (1024/128kbit and shared)
so it might very well add a couple of seconds on the startup of the game...
-I am kind of annoyed if the internet check is permanent : my internet has its downtimes here and there and it's annoying as hell already without having a game throw you out of it while running ...
and of course the servers WILL have down times, never ever saw a server with more than 99% up time even google had its share of issues even though they have truly massive clusters of servers...

also don't know about other countries, but in France, ADSL coverage is NOT 100% so that means there's still people with limited pay-per-time internet connections out there, depending on where they live ...
(not going into security & privacy issues since these were discussed before already)


edit: thought of something else: imagine the following situation
someone is playing it, but having some difficulties getting through a specific stage, he gets killed & restart about 9 times
then on the 10th times he's about to finish when *poof* no internet connection... how annoying is that ?
Also how will cutscenes be handled ? will it cut you off in the middle of it ? will it allow you to resume where you were in the middle of it ? or will it allow you to restart the whole cutscene ? or will it save the game before exiting as if you had finished viewing it therefore preventing you from watching it again ?

I assume they have thought about most of that, and more importantly the game pauses if you lose connection, it doesn't quit. You can alt-tab and figure out the problem and then go back to the game.

I am not saying it won't have quirks, it very well might, but it seems a minor issue to me because I always have internet anyway and mine is very stable. If there are brief periods where I cannot play similar to an MMO then I will accept that as an anti-piracy measure... IF it works. As I said before if it doesn't work and the game is pirated anyway then what a hassle for no reason, etc. etc..

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=235290

http://kotaku.com/5474209/assassins-creed-ii-pcs-drm-sounds-as-pleasant-as-a-stab-in-the-neck

Read these - the CVG bit in particular has a "paint/screenshot" (as Ubisoft "asked" CVG not to post them) of what happens when your connection dies. So even better, you lose the connection, it boots you back to the last checkpoint.

edit: If they can't stop the game being leaked to crackers before launch, I reckon AC2 will be cracked and available to pirates anything from 3-14 days before the official release. If they manage to stop that, and the crackers have to wait until release day, I give it about 4 days before there is a working crack.

edit: If they can't stop the game being leaked to crackers before launch, I reckon AC2 will be cracked and available to pirates anything from 3-14 days before the official release. If they manage to stop that, and the crackers have to wait until release day, I give it about 4 days before there is a working crack.

Such pessimism! A simple activation boggled pirates for quite a while on Mass Effect, I think a constant server connection could have them working for quite a while.

A lot of people seem so defeatist on this stuff, telling Ubisoft there is no point in trying. I don't think a company their size will ever have that attitude, honestly, for better or worse. Personally I want piracy stopped so the PC platform can continue on better than it is now, so I hope it works. Demanding DRM-free gaming and acting like piracy just has to be ignored is like having your head in the sand if you ask me.

Such pessimism! A simple activation boggled pirates for quite a while on Mass Effect, I think a constant server connection could have them working for quite a while.

A lot of people seem so defeatist on this stuff, telling Ubisoft there is no point in trying. I don't think a company their size will ever have that attitude, honestly, for better or worse. Personally I want piracy stopped so the PC platform can continue on better than it is now, so I hope it works. Demanding DRM-free gaming and acting like piracy just has to be ignored is like having your head in the sand if you ask me.

well I have the total opposite opinion, there will always be criminality but whatever I don't want to restart the debate on this front ...
maybe you could consider I'm pessimistic but realistic is more to my liking, I would like to be proven wrong but I have yet to see it..

about mass effect : err what are you talking about ??? just looked it up and :
the game was out on 28/05/2008 (format dd/mm/yyyy) in the US, and on 05/06/2008 in France
the first crack was out on 30/05/2008, that is two days later than the US launch...

thanks for the links, I thought I would quote some of that article here :

Ubisoft: The system is made by guys who love PC games. They play PC games, they are your friends.


PCG: So you can commit to saying that those systems will be patched out?


Ubisoft: That's the plan.


PCG: It's the plan, or it's definitely going to happen?


Ubisoft: That's written into the goal of the overall plan of the thing. But we don't plan on shutting down the servers, we really don't."

I put in bold the thing that made me laugh :doh
Anyway, it's a good thing that they announce their intent however for me they should go further than just promises, after all it will still be up to ubisoft to hold the promise or not while nothing legal binds them to anything, so it means it's a question of trust...
I think they should go further and put this in their EULA or something...

about mass effect : err what are you talking about ??? just looked it up and :
the game was out on 28/05/2008 (format dd/mm/yyyy) in the US, and on 05/06/2008 in France
the first crack was out on 30/05/2008, that is two days later than the US launch...

Just because the game was on torrents or a crack was said to be out does not mean it was functional and working. At the time the pirates were frustrated as hell and could not get a fully working game, I assure you.

Chronicles of Riddick Assault on Dark Athena was another, it has a new version of TAGES and took quite a while to crack.

Something else people with your arguement say, no offense intended, is that these games were cracked easier and quicker than they were. It's easy to do a google search and see cracked versions, but them actually working is another story.

i personally don't mind drm or steady internet-connection to play, as i have one. StingingVelvets argumentation has its points and i support any way to fight piracy. what i don't support is the way it's implemented, just think of all the problems the industry had with any copy protection so far - not recognizing discs, failure to connect to auth-servers, and on and on and on. if it works, then i say yes, do it, but if it doesn't go screw yourself gaming-industry