More Stardock on Piracy, Iron Lore on Piracy, Sweeney on PCs

[philipofmacedon]

Here are three articles I found interesting. The second too occurred to me after I pasted the link from Stardock. They all seem to hit on the piracy issue from a pragmatic economic perspective rather than the usual moral debate centered on copyright law, constitutional intent, and free distribution of information.

Stardock on Piracy
http://forums.galciv2.com/?aid=303512

I think they're right that modern PC piracy is a bad thing and out of control but not the only reason that modern PC games fail.



Article by Michael Fitch, in which he singles out piracy as a major cause of Iron Lore's failure.

http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk ... hp?t=42663

I know that I downloaded the Titan Quest demo, it didn't work with my laptops graphic card, and that was when I decided to look for it in 5 years when it was in the bargain bin and I had a new PC. I was really excited about it too, I love dungeon crawls, but my hardware left me out in the cold.



Here's an article addressing the state of PC gaming by Tim Sweeney I found interesting. He blames the trouble PC gaming is having on the fact that our graphic cards are tripe.
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/36390/118/

Recently I've been thinking about the whole piracy issue. I really have a problem with downloading new games. Although I don't have a problem with not supporting developers. I feel like people spend too much money on luxury items and games are luxury item. I usually wait until there's always a gold edition of a game with all its expansion packs for 20-30 bucks or I can find it in a bargain bin or used. Sure it would be nice to support the industry but I feel that if I've waited 5 years for a game I should be able to get it at a cheap price.

I do feel like companies should stop trying to milk old franchises for money. Recently I downloaded the original Command and Conquer from EA's website. It's so old they decided to release it for free. That game is a blast - I love it! I don't know how I missed it all these years. I'm pretty tempted to buy the first decade collection now. Anyway, back to my non-tiberium fueled point.

All the programmers and artists and designers who worked on old games have been compensated and long since moved on. Now it just seems like some fat guy in a suit somewhere is trying to make a few more bucks by rereleasing Super Mario Bros for the umpteenth time. I thought the whole idea of copyright was to strike a balance between compensating people for innovation and allowing them to sit on their laurels forever collecting cash. Surely gimped virtual console games weren't what the founding fathers had in mind.

Anyway, recently I've felt in my conscience that downloading new things, despite whatever justifications I've heard, is just theft plain and simple. But, and I don't mean to draw an arbitrary moral line between myself and others, I have a hard time seeing my downloading a copy of an obscure Sega Saturn game that was never released in the US, as equal to my friend's who immediately download cracked versions of PC games on their release date.

Also, as a historian I'm glad to see that sites like Underground Gamer exist and are thriving. It seems much more likely that media and software won't be lost if people a large decentralized group of people are using it. I'd hate to see pieces of gaming history destroyed because one or a few individuals at a company decide it has no economic value or just unwittingly let it thrown out, (Panzer Dragoon Saga code anyone?)

That post was a lot longer than the link and few sentences I originally intended to post. Such is life.

[Mozgus]

Michael Fitch can fucking choke on the $20 he swindled from me. I pirated Titan Quest last month. I liked it, so I decided to buy it. When happens when I buy it? It's fucked up. You see Titan Quest Gold includes the expansion. The vast majority of online players are using the expansion of course....

So whats the issue? An issue that plagues most of the users, is well documented, and confirmed on THQ's support site (which has nothing but a link to IGN's forum, basically telling you to go FUCK yourself.) This issue is called "rubber-banding", and it was introduced with the expansion. For some reason the expansion completely rapes your performance the very second you play with another human online. The game constantly slows to 25% speed or even pauses entirely, and then zips into like 10x speed, almost always during a battle, which almost always means you get instakilled before you even see what hit you.

So yeah, I'm glad they went out of business. They deserved it.

To the rest of the piracy arguments, I don't care. I pirate everything, and then I buy the best of it. I'm always going to do that. If I didn't have piracy, I'd have long since gotten too frustrated over terrible purchases and stopped buying games altogether. If I did that, I'd be hurting the industry. My piracy as it is, is not hurting a fly.

[philipofmacedon]

I'm glad you brought up the issue of broken products. I heard a lot of the Titan's Quest Gold Editions had duplicated CD keys which made playing online impossible. I know that many complain the First Decade Command and Conquer doesn't work with XP and EA won't address it.

Seems like the glory days of shareware are long gone. No more getting a functional third of a program to try. Now you get misleading demos which don't accurately portray the full game. I remember as a kid playing a demo of a game called "Shattered Light" and then buying it. Never heard of it? Good. It's awful. Terribly awful. 3.8 awful.

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/shatteredlight/

But the demo was fun.


My strategy is just to avoid things if they are new. In a few years the crap sinks to the bottom and the sleeper hits reveal themselves.

I suppose that just downloading games to see if they work is morally permissible. At least until developers add packaging that disclaims game breaking flaws.

[raztat]

I pirate also, not as much as I used to but If a pc game catches my eye I will pirate it. If it has multiplayer and it seems to be fun Ill go out and buy it so i can play online. I hardly ever play single player games on pc.

[Flak Beard]

I honestly think a lot of the whining from PC developers, is them not being able to deal with the fact that more and more gamers are moving over to consoles. Sometimes it's just unreasonable when it comes to upgrades for PC gaming, and the ease of a console just has more appeal causing the PC gamer user base to decline. This is also the first generation that consoles (Wii excluded) have been pretty comparable in specs to a modern gaming PC. Of course the gap in visual fidelity will widen eventually, but it's happening a lot slower this time around. Aside from a couple games like Crysis, not much on PC looks better than what's being cooked up on 360/PS3. Combine that with the fact that people can play in HD on a redonkulous sized TV, it makes sense for gamers to jump the fence these days.

Of course, piracy will always be an issue. Not just in PC gaming, but all forms of gaming. The PC guys are just blowing it out on proportion, and need to grab a box of tissues and move on.

[Mozgus]

This is also the first generation that consoles (Wii excluded) have been pretty comparable in specs to a modern gaming PC.

You really think so? I think every console launch has shown us visuals and audio capabilities just slightly under par with PC each time, and then the PC always pulls far ahead within 2-4 years, right before the next generation starts. I'm an active PC gamer, and I remember being wowed and envious of some Xbox clips I saw, and Dreamcast as well. I mean I was loving my Voodoo3, which was respectable in 1999 still, but damn Soul Calibur and NFL2K looked photo realistic at the time. Compare Super Mario World to other PC 2D games in 1991. Compare SMB1 even, to 1984 games on whatever PC platforms there were. The physics and music in Mario were surely amazing back then. What did they have, really?

Anyways, I keep an upgraded rig, and let me tell you, it's not worth the money. I really don't know why I do it. It's an addiction. When new games start running slow, I get annoyed and feel obligated to upgrade, rather than just stick with the older stuff permanently.

[Flak Beard]

This is also the first generation that consoles (Wii excluded) have been pretty comparable in specs to a modern gaming PC.

You really think so? I think every console launch has shown us visuals and audio capabilities just slightly under par with PC each time, and then the PC always pulls far ahead within 2-4 years, right before the next generation starts. I'm an active PC gamer, and I remember being wowed and envious of some Xbox clips I saw, and Dreamcast as well. I mean I was loving my Voodoo3, which was respectable in 1999 still, but damn Soul Calibur and NFL2K looked photo realistic at the time. Compare Super Mario World to other PC 2D games in 1991. Compare SMB1 even, to 1984 games on whatever PC platforms there were. The physics and music in Mario were surely amazing back then. What did they have, really?

Anyways, I keep an upgraded rig, and let me tell you, it's not worth the money. I really don't know why I do it. It's an addiction. When new games start running slow, I get annoyed and feel obligated to upgrade, rather than just stick with the older stuff permanently.

I guess I was just thinking more along the lines or raw specs. I remember plenty of times when PC gamers would scoff at the announced specs for an upcoming console, claiming it would be weak. This time however, I saw plenty of PC gamers I know have their jaws drop when they saw what was inside the PS3/360. That's not say their weren't any PCs with higher specs at the time, but it was pretty damn impressive in their eyes.

You make a good point about console games coming out and looking better than a lot of current PC games. Hell, Soul Calibur still looks awesome to me. Unfortunately this won't even phase some of the PC gamers I know. A console game could look downright amazing and they'd rather jerk off to benchmark scores. It's pretty sad.

[Mozgus]

I think recent consoles are compared to PC in terms of specs because they CAN be compared. 32bit generation and prior didn't really have spec sheets that anyone could effectively compare to a PC's specs at the time, or even really gauge alone. Modern consoles are starting to become close to dedicated gaming PCs, on the inside.

[cloudrat7]

This is definitely a tough issue towards pc gaming, yes, people do pirate games and the majority don't even bother to buy an original, As far as pc gaming goes, i believe it's a number of issues as to why companies are not making money or folding altogether, piracy is definitely an issue but how many times do you have to upgrade your pc just to play a game? it's so consuming on one's wallet that it's a turn off, it really makes you want to stick to a console. I bought an original copy of lost planet and i couldn't even play it on my pc, i had to buy a new graphics card ($140.00) just to play the damn thing. It's a horrible experience, And then i purchased crysis..lol, i had to run it bare bones with every graphic effect off just to play it through. and mind you i have a dual core p4 7800invidia.
I know the feeling of buying full pc games and feeling ripped off, There are reasons why people download games for free because it might not even work on their pc. Even if it works i doubt that anyone would actually spend 40 or so dollars on a pc game they just downloaded and completed for the price of nothing. I can't wait for assassin's creed to arrive for pc, lol, i know i'll have to upgrade something. which means more money for everyone. Companies can always blame everything on piracy, but there's always more to it.

[racketboy]

Anybody see this?:
http://www.dsfanboy.com/2008/03/11/squa ... ying-ffcc/