Comments on: Avast!

By: Ryker XL

Ryker XL — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 19:42:50 +0000

Feeling a lot of love in the room today.

By: John

John — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 01:15:06 +0000

Whoa, whoa, big guy. Tone it down about ten notches. I don’t necessarily agree with what the writer is saying here, but being a complete dickhead about it really isn’t necessary. You’re free to express your opinion in a well-stated, civil manner. But take this confrontational shit to IGN or GameFAQs.

By: GamerChef

GamerChef — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 05:58:12 +0000

Give me a break. “A great deal of piracy occurs beyond the content being free.” Bull fucking shit. Your incredibly specific one off exceptions to why you pirated a game isn’t a drop in the bucket of the incredible flood of free content grab that goes on. But honestly, if it makes you feel better to waste our time with that fucking lame argument justifying theft, then have fun with your magic pants replicator. Christ.

By: awesomo316

awesomo316 — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 21:46:30 +0000

Great article.
I haven’t pirated any PC games recently or at all if I think about it. I did have a chipped PSOne console about 2 years after it came out but I did find myself buying the legitimate copies of burned games I liked. I’ve done the same for the Wii and DS these days – I normally buy my games from the US or Asia because it’s half the price they’re asking in Australia but Wii games are region locked. So I download those and then buy the legit copy if I’m a big fan or the file size is too big (Metroid Trilogy). DS are region free so I’ll only buy the game if it’s something I want to own like Hotel Dusk.
I think when it comes to piracy its like the age old question of stealing the bread to feed your family – while some of us might pirate games but still buy the game eventually – the fact is we’ve still done something illegal and it is still frowned upon.

By: ELewis17

ELewis17 — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 21:23:31 +0000

I don’t pirate/torrent anything anymore, but you bring up a very valid reason to do so. You’ve already purchased your invisible license to the IP. Morally you should be unscathed, but unfortunately the law would likely determine otherwise.
Torrenting has its place, as you say, and it’ll be quite interesting where all the media companies will go in the future given that nearly anything can be torrented. Will we see stronger and more “apt” DRM on our media? God I hope not. Will the consumer cost come down to meet pirate’s budget? Really doubtful. But Cliff Harris’ research shows that is precisely what the biggest reason for pirating is. (Article here: http://tinyurl.com/y8o6uyb )
I’m not sure what exactly made me quit pirating things. I’d say it was a combination of an increase of income, realization that I was aiding in killing industries I really cared about, started to care about quality of audio tracks, was sick of cleaning virus after virus off my PC and convenience. It is just easier to buy something off iTunes or Steam than it is to dig out a quality torrent from Isohunt.
With regards to oMonarca’s comment about Steam- It worries me as well that one company has control over my entire PC gaming catalog; I feel the same about iTunes. I’ll shit a brick if either ever disappeared. Plus I’d be out thousands of dollars. But that brings me back to convenience. I’m lazy and it is just so damn easy to click the purchase button.

By: Ryker XL

Ryker XL — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 18:47:23 +0000

Arrrrrrr great artical matey!!!

By: Delerat

Delerat — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:21:24 +0000

I’ll admit I used to be a harsh pirate. I used to download everything. It wasn’t some moral epiphany or anything that made me start paying for games though.

When I was in highschool it was sort of the norm to pirate. Almost everyone pirated their music, but still bought the CDs of their favorite artists. Sometimes when you said you were going out to buy a game or music CD you’d get a “You’re going to buy it? Why don’t you just download it for free?” reaction. It’s definitely an issue of generation.

The main thing that got me to stop pirating was personalization. I started listening to podcasts. Listening to critics and developers talk about games. How they’re voting with their dollar and hearing about studios closing down. Now I still buy a used version of a current gen game now and then, but I’m a consumer with only so much money. Sometimes I have to save money at the expense of the companies.

By: oMonarca

oMonarca — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 14:16:51 +0000

Totally agree, yet there is something that concerns me: Steam, Steam, Steam. While the service is great, and the company behind it is awesome, all good things come to an end. Either Steam fails in the future (hardly, too much money going around), or, more likely, we move towards a monopoly in digital distribution.

I just wish that the store got separated from the community suite, and the same community suite had better integration with other digital vendors. Granted, you can launch almost all games from within Steam (and have the overlay working), but most often than not, it’s more convenient to just open the store tab and spend some cash with Valve and let Steam manage all the crappy stuff, instead of firing up the browser and navigating all the way towards GamersGate or D2D, download from there, then setup the shortcut inside Steam and then do the updates outside Steam and yada yada yada.