So Mininova is Dead ?

[Cup_o_Joe]

@JohnKiller118

stopping scientific advancements because it’s “immoral!” (ie stem cell research)

Adult stem cell research has done a lot and I agree with it because it’s natural and very useful (and someone has cloned her own lung to heal herself from cancer using her own stem cells). it’s embryonic that has done nothing because as it kills the human embryo in the process, if you think murder of a human zygote is justifiable for scientific means then you’re discriminatory against the age of that human. What if one of those frozen zygotes could have been someone who would change the world for the better like an other Tesla, or an other Edison or a Thomas Aquinas? We’ll never know because some of those kinds of people might be created under IVF and are under the microscope not allowed to grow as a result of this so called “scientific research” called “embryonic stem cell research” which is essentially selective breeding.

Adult Stem cell research on the other hand is the best, it’s natural and has done very well. I mean with the proper nutrition given to the stem cells which are produced in the small intestine people can clone their own organs in a lab, it doesn’t get much better than that. Adult stem cells can turn into any one of the 200 types of cells your body needs.

[Shadi]

so from Politics to science ? that’s interesting

[Acristoff]

@danielsangeo

I don’t personally do it myself, but it doesn’t really matter if you care what I call it. I am using the LEGAL definition of the word and when you’re talking about legal versus illegal things, you MUST use the “silly paper” definition, not what you want it to mean.

I guess that makes sense. (HOLY SHIT A PERSON HAS CHANGED THEIR MIND BECAUSE SOMEONE ON THE INTERNET PROVED THEM WRONG)

So all you pirates are commiting copyright infringement every time you pirate, that’s a pretty big dick move towards devs IMO

[Repzik]

I don’t believe piracy is right; I believe it’s stealing.
It’s less comparable to (as someone stated earlier in the thread) borrowing a DVD from a friend and more comparable to taking a copied DVD from a friend. It is stealing, I don’t think it should be done.

However, it’s not really my business what others are doing. I show that I do not support piracy by not pirating games myself. There’s no need to shove what I believe is right down other people’s throats John is doing.

[Alcator]

@JohnKiller118

“Drones?” So thinking that developers should make more money so they can make more great games makes me a “drone”?

The critical point in your sentence is “more great games”.

People have no problem with paying for great games. If games are great, we will gladly pay for them.

What we have a BIG problem with is paying for shitty or malfunctioning games. Like SPORE, which, initially, refused to allow you to play it once you tried installing it the 4th time. So if you got a new computer just to play Spore, and had to reinstall it 3 times due to some stupid problems, you were out of luck.
And guess what – pirated version of Spore did not have any such problem. Ain’t it strange, that the only people suffering from technical problems are those who are legal customers?

[Acristoff]

@Alcator

People have no problem with paying for great games. If games are great, we will gladly pay for them.

See the thing is, you’re talking like this applies to all people, when some just say “heh this game is great, good thing I didn’t pay for it ololololol”. And like Daedalus admitted himself “I’ll buy the sequel if this one is good” so he obviously does have a problem with paying at all for games that are good, since money does not grow on trees.
If people did pay for all the good games they pirated this could turn into a much better system (where devs have to try much harder to make their product great) but it’s people who would abuse it by just getting the great game but not bothering to pay so that the developers would be X dollars more encouraged to make a sequel.

[Alcator]

@Acristoff

Then how come taking someone’s idea is usually described as “stealing his idea”.

It comes the same “how” as “How come sticking a penis in a vagina is called Making Love”

You are entitled to disagree with your Supreme Court, but believe me – if you want to be protected by your police and courts, their word has to be considered “canon”.

[Acristoff]

@Alcator

It comes the same “how” as “How come sticking a penis in a vagina is called Making Love”

You are entitled to disagree with your Supreme Court, but believe me – if you want to be protected by your police and courts, their word has to be considered “canon”.

We already got over that bridge and was burnt down, there’s really nothing left to do there buddy.

Lest I should edit that part of my post out so people like you who don’t bother reading the other posts after it before responding.
:facepalm:

[Alcator]

@Acristoff

If people did pay for all the good games they pirated this could turn into a much better system (where devs have to try much harder to make their product great) but it’s people who would abuse it by just getting the great game but not bothering to pay so that the developers would be X dollars more encouraged to make a sequel.

Yes, and sometimes people drive on the red light, or don’t respect the speed limit. And often, they are not caught. So what, will we employe 1 billion police officers so that they can be stationed at every crossroad and intersection and every straight piece of road, so that no driving felony ever goes unpunished?

If companies produce high quality products, and if they actually look for ways to provide legal customers with some added value (such as online stuff that is only accessible with legitimate copy), not only will people have incentive to buy the product to get access to this stuff, but it will also create social pressure on those who pirate the stuff – people will tell pirates “You asshole, you’re ruining the game by pirating it!”

While right now, you have let’s say 50:50 chance that the product you’re going to buy will be crap, and in such situation, there’s a “Robin Hood” thingy goin on, people somehow feel entitled to take revenge on the industry as a whole for allowing something like that to go unpunished. (As I already illustrated with movie DVDs on page 14 of this thread)

People are angry at gaming magazines that give high reviews to shtity products, and they are angry at other companies which advertize in such lying magazines for further promoting such behavior. It’s like when people signal other cars that there’s a police patrol in their direction, because they don’t like cops (as a whole), because they had some shitty experience with some stupid cop who abused his or her powers and bullied them for 45 minutes to find some justification for a fine. It doesn’t matter (to them) that they are helping reckless drivers get away with it, what matters is that some stupid cop at the beginning started all this. And there are countries where nobody would ever help anyone avoid police check, simply because their police works OK and never bullies anyone.

[Acristoff]

Ok Alcator I seriously think you’re missing a peice of the puzzle here, abusing such a system is not like driving on a red light if anything it’s closer to: Let’s say we had a system where everything is free but if the product is good you pay for it. You go to a pizza place, the pizza tastes good, and you walk out without paying anything.

@Alcator

Wall of text too big that would annoy others.

About the DVD’s they are calling out all people who would pirate and distribute the movie, they aren’t calling out the honest people who would not. It’s not like the DVD only lets you see the movie on 3 DVD players before it can’t play on yet another DVD player.

But it’s harmful DRM that is offending pirates and customers.

Blegh, try some better analogies please. And I seriously want to stop this back and forth between 2 people I find myself in.

[JohnKiller118]

@Cup o Joe

What if one of those frozen zygotes could have been someone who would change the world for the better like an other Tesla, or an other Edison or a Thomas Aquinas?

Or change the world for the worse like another Hitler, or another Stalin, or another Bobby Kotick i[/i]?

But let’s discuss this in another topic.

@Alcator

The critical point in your sentence is “more great games”.

People have no problem with paying for great games. If games are great, we will gladly pay for them.

What we have a BIG problem with is paying for shitty or malfunctioning games. Like SPORE, which, initially, refused to allow you to play it once you tried installing it the 4th time. So if you got a new computer just to play Spore, and had to reinstall it 3 times due to some stupid problems, you were out of luck.
And guess what – pirated version of Spore did not have any such problem. Ain’t it strange, that the only people suffering from technical problems are those who are legal customers?

Didn’t EA remove that DRM policy?

I heard EA is trying to get rid of their DRM habits, which is why The Sims 3 and the soon to be released Mass Effect 2 will just have the classic letter/number code activation. So we’ll see if EA’s plan will work out.

I’ll be buying ME2 on PC to support EA’s decision.

[JohnKiller118]

Crap.
D-D-D-D-DOUBLE POST!

[danielsangeo]

@Acristoff

You go to a pizza place, the pizza tastes good, and you walk out without paying anything.

:facepalm:

And you were doing so well…

[gwgmer]

@RabidMonkey

This is true but they are not on even footing. Companies have already paid up-front to get boxed copies produced and in stores. By stealing these you are acting with the intent of causing harm because they are taking a loss; by pirating you are not necessarily doing so, because you probably wouldn’t have bought the game anyway and you’re not going into stores and stealing box copies - it’s probably such a small margin of potential revenue that I doubt it would make a difference, but I can’t say without looking at sales figures. I was trying to refute the arguments made by a couple posts that stealing physical products is somehow better than piracy because those people actually had balls to steal something instead of do it on the internet.

And here’s where we disagree - you think that most people who pirate do it with games they wouldn’t pay for, but from what I’ve seen, there’s a huge amount of piracy of new games that people WOULD pay for, were they forced to. While it may not be the best evidence, more if not most of the people I know who pirate have the means to purchase a game - they pirate because they don’t want to spend their $50-$60.

This being said, perhaps I am wrong, and you are right. Since you actually work in the industry, there’s a very good chance of that. However, even if the actual revenue lost is small, shouldn’t we still oppose that loss on principle? We don’t say, “don’t take someone else’s money, unless you’re taking ten dollars or less,” we say, “don’t take someone else’s money, period.”

Further, I still stand by what I said earlier, regarding piracy on the rise. I don’t think either of us could disagree that it’ll eat into more and more revenue if left unchecked, no?

@RabidMonkey

I think some of the issues associated with piracy would be avoided if publishers were more up-front about their products and held a high commitment to quality as opposed to rush-producing mediocre games for holiday sales or something. If I’m buying a car I can test drive it and get a good feel for the experience of owning the product; I can’t really do the same for games unless they offer a demo, and even in that case it might not be representative of the full product. You can never get a full appreciation for a product like a car until you own it and operate it regularly; you can’t get the full appreciation for a game until you finish it, but consumers could be given better options to make a purchasing decision.

I think a LOT of problems would be solved if people were more up-front and had a high committment to quality.
Out of curiosity, though, since you’re so supportive of demos and the like for video games, does this mean you’ll release a demo for BM?

[Acristoff]

@danielsangeo

:facepalm:

And you were doing so well…

I was just trying to show what some people do when they pirate their games and just happen to do nothing if it’s a great game that deserves the money, and yesterday I was doing a bad job of wording my thoughts properly so excuse me if it sounds slightly retarded (even though that’s not a good excuse).

And once again gwgamer happens to be so much better than me at this.

[MaxTheLimit]

There seems to be a real problem in here of people not accepting the concept that piracy IS NOT stealing. By the very definition of the word, it simply ISN’T STEALING. When nothing is lost it’s not stealing. The main issue with piracy is that there is potential profit, and the rights of the owners to protect against people using their product without abiding by the use policy of the product.
This is a VERY IMPORTANT thing to understand. Why? Because the companies rights, and options are different when it comes to theft versus use policy protection.

[Acristoff]

Ok so pirates commit copyright infringement every time they download games for free. Doesn’t make it any better.

Honestly guys this is kindergarten shit. I don’t mind if you do piracy yourself since that’s your own thing, but trying to defend it is a lost cause. And saying shit like “loosen up dude” is stuff I’d hear when someone is offering me drugs. I am dissapoint at some of you.

[Doom]

@MaxTheLimit

There seems to be a real problem in here of people not accepting the concept that piracy IS NOT stealing. By the very definition of the word, it simply ISN’T STEALING. When nothing is lost it’s not stealing. The main issue with piracy is that there is potential profit, and the rights of the owners to protect against people using their product without abiding by the use policy of the product.
This is a VERY IMPORTANT thing to understand. Why? Because the companies rights, and options are different when it comes to theft versus use policy protection.

I don’t think anyone is talking about this at this point.

[MaxTheLimit]

@doom: What are you talking about. Did you even read this page?

I don’t defend piracy. I don’t partake, and don’t feel it’s a good thing for the gaming industry. I’ve not seen ANY evidence of piracy ‘being on the rise’. However, there is a terrible side effect to customers because of ethically questionable tactics used by game companies to combat piracy. By all definitions the securom software is illegal spyware. While I do support ethical methods of securing software, utilizing underhanded techniques like slipping unadvertised and hidden software is a terrible way to treat your paying customers. Willfully admitting that you are going to screw over the legal use of paying customers of your product, is simply astounding. Is this worse than piracy? YES. Because we aren’t talking potential loss, we are talking admitted removal of service to people who HAVE taken loss to use to product. Potential ( an unprovable ) loss, pales in comparison to real world proven loss.

It would be more forgivable if there was no other recourse. But there is.
It would be understandable if it actually prevented piracy. It doesn’t.

Using these tactics is not only unethical. It’s DUMB!

The easiest, and most effective way to prevent piracy is to make purchasing the product a more appealing option. Restricting use and decreasing the appeal of buying your product to have no ill effect on piracy is just dumb. My friends copy of Crysis Warhead is pirated. Works perfectly no matter where or when he installs it.
Mine has required an email and 2 days wait for both installs. So I pay so that I can be inconvenienced, while pirates enjoy their game with no ill effects? This isn’t rocket science.

[Acristoff]

Ok, DRM doesn’t justify piracy, and piracy doesn’t justify DRM. Could we just leave that topic at that?

Edit: Shitty DRM that is.