Some personal thoughts on piracy (warning - long post)

[Yuhaney]

But as soon as they do, you can usually buy it from somewhere.

And if / when they do, those games will be removed from abandonware websites since then they are no longer abandoned.

[Jazerix]

this post is amazing,
I (ashamefully) pirated Amnesia the first time i heard of it, played it for like one hour, and went to the steam store and bought the game . And just two days ago i bought the game for my friend, this game is so awesome, and it deserves every penny Sadly it doesnt work on my desktop :/

[Deu sex]

I think with time, people who wasn't sure about FG's games will buy their games eyes closed, because right now FG is seriously having a strong reputation into the heart of gamers.

Its only the beggining, I'm really confident.

I think this is a "bad time" before...

GLORY !

[monkuar]

this post is amazing,
I (ashamefully) pirated Amnesia the first time i heard of it, played it for like one hour, and went to the steam store and bought the game . And just two days ago i bought the game for my friend, this game is so awesome, and it deserves every penny Sadly it doesnt work on my desktop :/

Whats ur comp specs etc?

I bought the game to, but i did pirate a version just to see what it was like...

It's like a movie.. i want to see a trailer before seeing... but gameplay video's aren't a trailer to me, I need to experience the game...

[Akumasama]

I must admit that I also pirated the game...
This is because I heard it was really scary, and I wasn't sure if I would like that.

It was too scary xD
But I thought that they made it so well, that I bought it 2 days after I pirated it.
A small company like Frictional Games, deserves every penny that they sell it for.
Hell, I would even buy it if it were 50 euros!

But I think differently about big companies, most of they're stuff is really mainstream, with which I can't really be bothered with to buy it. Black Ops is a perfect example.
Black Ops is basicly just another CoD copy, if you know what I mean. They don't deserve so much fame and respect.
Frictional Games should have the fame and respect of the shitty company that is Treyarch.
Frictional Games's games have so much originality and have spent so much time in it, that big companies should take them as an example!

With the next game you guys bring us, Frictional Games, I will buy it without even thinking.

[hollowleviathan]

The last three people who pirated then bought it, did you know there was a demo, or just pirated it as soon as you heard of it? I know there's a mentality to just assume there's no day 1 demo, which is a problem for some studios. The push to release special editions and bonuses only for pre-ordering are generally a disservice to the industry. It rewards impulse buying instead of testing and reviewing something before buying it.

Unrelated second scenario: I want to try out eXperience 112, AKA The Experiment, but the demo refuses to work on my computer, compatibility mode or not. Do I just give up on the game, or pirate it to try it out? Or should I use the demo as intended - a preview of the full game - and assume it's a buggy mess that isn't worth it?

[BeefJerky]

The push to release special editions and bonuses only for pre-ordering are generally a disservice to the industry. It rewards impulse buying instead of testing and reviewing something before buying it.

Technically, that's only a disservice to the customer unless the product isn't a bug-filled mess. It's great for the industry. They get to make half-finished games and shove them out the door and get that money going 'round and 'round in the economy and you get to white knight on their forums attacking otherwise sensible consumers who actually think buying a PC game on release date might be a good idea. It's like a whole second game included right there in the box!

Or should I use the demo as intended - a preview of the full game - and assume it's a buggy mess that isn't worth it?

Using a demo to preview the full version of a PC game?



What is this, 1989? I'll have you know developers are working very hard on getting your game functioning properly 3 months after the sale date while you're playing that demo. You know, they'd have money to fix this stuff on time if it wasn't for those pirating scumbags.

[Mjarr]

You know, they'd have money to fix this stuff on time if it wasn't for those pirating scumbags.

Even if there would be no pirates at all they wouldn't do that since PC gaming has tons of variables. OS, soundcard display driver, your GPU, GPU drivers, your CPU, even harddrive or simply mouse can render a game nonfunctional as ridiculous as it sounds. There are always inevitable hardware issues but the ones that are truly 'weird' are also quite rare, unless you can name a company that is willing to spend tons of money for every imaginable variation of common PC configurations to see what's the problem. Sure they could just have few PCs and just change\replace some of the hardware and go for massive trial and error but average developers would simply dismiss it and allocate their resources to something more creative.

Frictional Games' support is quite unusual in the industry and they are probably doing it because they want to provide good service rather than just "oh lol shit happens" but even that's mostly touching the individual component, even though it can be helpful in certain cases.

[BeefJerky]

Even if there would be no pirates at all they wouldn't do that since PC gaming has tons of variables. OS, soundcard display driver, your GPU, GPU drivers, your CPU, even harddrive or simply mouse can render a game nonfunctional as ridiculous as it sounds.

Frictional Games' support is quite unusual in the industry and they are probably doing it because they want to provide good service rather than just "oh lol shit happens" but even that's mostly touching the individual component, even though it can be helpful in certain cases.

This is true, but the fact of the matter is that your typical release is also chock full of storyline logic errors, puzzle logic errors, weapon logic errors, enemy logic errors, etc. Most people are more forgiving, myself included, of hardware problems.

[Mjarr]

This is true, but the fact of the matter is that your typical release is also chock full of storyline logic errors, puzzle logic errors, weapon logic errors, enemy logic errors, etc.

Normally it's sort of natural phenomena that the more compex and advanced things become the more difficult they are to fix in terms of some bugs but poor quality assurance or lazy developement is also funny topic on its own because it's not just issue for PC games. There's plenty of console games with very interesting bugs and also close to gamebreakers, but then comes the question do they want to fix it at all. Just to name one example from Diablo 2 a skill called "Fend" has been broken since the game was released. Now Blizzard isn't running low on money (or I presume so), hasn't been running for years and surely not having issues with manpower resources yet they haven't really given a shit despite years of outcry about fixing it - and this was years, years before the Activision-Blizzard merge so you couldn't go with the common joke about Bobby Kotick
Curiously also Diablo 1 console port is as buggy as PC version, certain things are just more difficult to do the point don't bother unless you have way too much time at hand.

Nevertheless this might be interesting to watch regarding his point about quality of service\product: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLC_zZ5fqFk