Confession...

[Mina Darsh]

Um, well, I dunno if this is wise to tell and such, but, I just felt like at least letting Frictional Games know this.

When I first read about Amnesia, I was a bit skeptic, new studio, screens were good but couldn't find a (p)review on Gamespot, only user made ones, so I feared wasting money and first downloaded the game the non legal way, and played for a bit. Then I started to read more and more about how good this game was, and meanwhile while playing I got to see for myself how good it is. Then later I read the 'A week after release' blog entry, reading how Frictional Games seems to suffer a bit too much from piracy.

So, I bought the full Steam version now, and threw the non legal aquired copy in the trash. Because this studio really needs to grow, as if their games stay this good, it could make some of the greater studios bite the dust. Now please don't hate me for almost having pirated this game, I admit it is very wrong, and probably no excuse is good enough, but in truth I do not want to pirate at all, as legal copies simply bring so many benefits. (Updates, no extra bugs due to the rip, et cetera.)

Only excuse I can come up with, even though it is still wrong, is if companies just make it too hard to buy the actual game, or in my example, content. I wanted the DLC for Fallout 3 for example, but no physical game copies are sold, so the only place when I wanted to buy them was in the Microsoft store, and there, you need Microsoft Points... And yup, you need to buy them with a Credit Card, no PayPal available... In that case, since I cannot even get a Credit Card in my country, I simply can't buy the points needed. I those cases I'm really like: "Okay, you don't want us to rip, then perhaps you should not only raise security, but also work on availability?"

Anyway, the game is downloading on Steam as I speak, and gonna enjoy playing the legal version finally. (Price is a bargain, really! )

[tacc]

I guess a lot of people started doing that after many games turned out to be sloppy console ports. Not to mention that almost every game had a demo released before the full game.

Doesn't apply to this game though.

[Mina Darsh]

Yeah, this annoys me greatly too, barely any game maker wishes to spend the effort to make a demo, pretty dumb as it is a reason me to get a rip instead, and since a rip is full, I can end up not deciding to bother buying the full game, which a demo can actually prevent, thus it wouldn't be a waste of time, but other studios are stupid like this.

[mrmOU]

Well at least you bought it, probably can't say the same for the majority of the other pirates.

[Mina Darsh]

Well, I have seen how bad the effects of piracy have gotten, I've worked at a entertainment store, where they sell music, movies and games. And shops like these suffer more than they wish to admit. In example, they have a target of selling 2000 euro's total of games, music, movies, game consoles, et cetera, but they only manage to sell half or less. And this happens almost always lately, a lot of these stores have been closing because they couldn't be afforded anymore. So that got to me as well.

Another thing, noticed the non legal version had some serious bugs compared to the Steam purchased one. In de pirated version, in the beginning when Daniel gets scared and stumbles to the ground, the view goes below the floor, causing a glitch, and in the Steam version the view stays nicely avobe the floor. Also the intro was missing from the pirated version. Glad I bought the legal version indeed.

[superluser]

When I first read about Amnesia, I was a bit skeptic, new studio, screens were good but couldn't find a (p)review on Gamespot, only user made ones, so I feared wasting money and first downloaded the game the non legal way, and played for a bit. Then I started to read more and more about how good this game was, and meanwhile while playing I got to see for myself how good it is. Then later I read the 'A week after release' blog entry, reading how Frictional Games seems to suffer a bit too much from piracy.

So, I bought the full Steam version now, and threw the non legal aquired copy in the trash. Because this studio really needs to grow, as if their games stay this good, it could make some of the greater studios bite the dust. Now please don't hate me for almost having pirated this game, I admit it is very wrong, and probably no excuse is good enough, but in truth I do not want to pirate at all, as legal copies simply bring so many benefits. (Updates, no extra bugs due to the rip, et cetera.)

Yeah. One point I've made before is that I can get whatever games/movies/music/whatever media I want for free. The only reason that I won't do that is because I want to support the people who made it.

This is sort of a paradigm shift in how we think about goods and services. It used to be that if I wanted a hammer, I'd mentally take how much I would pay for a hammer and compare it to how much more time, energy, and physical resources it would take and how much better it would work than tying a rock to a stick (or forging my own hammer).

Now, that part of the equation is completely gone for all sorts of digital media. The time and energy it takes to illegally download media makes it essentially free (dependent only on the capital investment on your computer, your internet connection speed, your energy bills and your spare time). We are now paying for the sole purpose of supporting the people who created it (and our self-interest in having them or others who watch their success provide more of the same sort of content to us in the future).

And that's a good motivator, for me. But it's radically different from the older model of physical property. It also suggests that the DRM model will fail, because people just don't think of digital media in the same way that they think about a hammer. Trying to impose physical unrealities onto digital media is something that doesn't pay attention to the strengths and weaknesses of digital media. Any successful model for this will have to play upon those strengths and minimize the weaknesses.

Here's a thought experiment: How could Frictional create a successful game without depending on a number of copies being sold? I don't know, but that's the sort of question that we will have to answer if we are going to develop a new model for digital media success.

[dvow]

Wait, you pirated? TIME TO CALL THE CYBERPOLICE!

[Twin]

i don't want to sound like an asshole but i wish i had pirated this game instead of outright buying it. If i had done that then i would have saved $20 since i still cannot play due to technical issues.

[Oblidor]

i don't want to sound like an asshole but i wish i had pirated this game instead of outright buying it. If i had done that then i would have saved $20 since i still cannot play due to technical issues.

I guess you have reported the issues. I also have problems, but I'm trying to help out so they are solved and the game is patched.

The problem with people that pirates is that they don't understand the ramifications. But ask you self next time you consider pirating: Do I want to work for free for others? Can I put pirated food on the table to eat?

[Crabski]

I don't understand how people can pirate games from indie companies and not feel really guilty...

Glad you made the right choice OP.