A discussion of software piracy
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 
)
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?
)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?
Sign in to comment in this discussion.
Comments
I mean, this price's ridiculous, EVERYONE owning a pc can afford it!
Plus, the demo showed the sheer quality of the product and it'll be worth every penny
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.
--Erwin
Hahaha!
I think most gamers do have a conscience though.
I like this idea.
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.
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.
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... hhmm...
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.
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?
In jokes would be great however
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.
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.
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...
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:
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.
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!
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.
Regards,
taumel
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!
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...)
Heh. I want to use this quote in our marketing materials.
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
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?
Feel free!
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.
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?)
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.