righteous dude...
but seriously...i'm down for matches..

Proof? See the OP? Stardock's superior customer care gained respect and thus a customer. To elaborate on my earlier point with high speed internet changing things, casual "pirates" really do tend to start as disaffected customers. Over time though just like with many rational reasons, it turns into just an excuse because it's so easy to just keep doing what you are doing.

I have history as my proof with the music industry. Are there major pirates? Yes, but the bulk of piraters were customers who had a hard time finding old music or were tired of being raped for $15 for one decent song on and otherwise terrible album. When a viable pay alternative showed up masses moved to it. While certainly some of the disaffected decided to remain pirates, iTunes wouldn't be profitable if a critical mass of the disaffected didn't migrate to it. Serving your customer's needs and giving them what they want are the best ways to keep them from even thinking about stealing from you.

I'll be stepping away from this thread because I don't want this to turn into an off-topic flamewar. But without getting all anal about it, I don't agree that music - or gaming - piracy was primarily created or is being driven by disaffection in the customer base at all. It was created and continues to be a problem because it's convenient, fast, and free. Every track on an album sucking except for a single one that you wanted was true for most music well before Napster reared its head and made it possible to grab that music for nothing.
I strongly agree with this. But this still doesn't make it right to steal from companies that do not have that philosophy, nor does it justify that theft. And you can bet that a whole lot of people have still stolen Sins of a Solar Empire even if IronClad and StarDock are being extremely progressive AND there's a demo available that showcases the gameplay. And I see about a hundred people stealing it on a well known torrent site right now.

It's just less expensive to target the legitimate audience and avoid all the expense of ridiculous and ineffective copy protection schemes than it is to try and rein in piracy That says everything about business sense and nothing about piracy itself, which quite simply is pure theft and is wrong any way you slice it.

-- Retro

GoJoe, could you give us a brief rundown of all the games that you paid for that you thought were so terrible that you eventually turned to piracy?


Mad Cat

That's why I keep mentioning high speed internet. Before we had that, we had tapes and VCR's and we had bootleggers even then. The medium has changed but that doesn't mean customers weren't pissed, it's just that they couldn't do much about it, certainly not on the scale or at the cost they do now. As far as games go, one of the few major differences between what precipitated the 1983 crash and now is that now I can still play your stuff without paying you, back then people just stopped playing and buying.Movies followed a similar trend in the 70's before Star Wars hit. Customers have always been frustrated with sub-par product, it's just that now there are far more means than simply pulling out to show dissatisfaction. In the Western world, the whole Napster fiasco all but proves that when you legitimately serve customer needs, those that really would have been customers are more than willing to pay. Looking at it on a historical scale the real difference is the fact that now not only can I not buy your crap product and service, I can steal it on principle just because and a historical look shows this is nothing new; the only things that have really changed are the methods.

Piracy is wrong and that's not arguable but, it's equally wrong for the industry as a whole to continuously and knowingly abuse the customer base. Two wrongs may not make a right but it sure does feel good (scientifically proven!). Companies keep using track stats to see who's playing without paying but they also forget a key aspect of people of all shades-- when there is no cost you are willing to do a lot more. How many webcomics would you actually pay to read that you occasionally check on? How many games have you played with a friend but would never shell out the money yourself? Stupid movies the same? Just because they are stealing it doesn't mean they were ever going to pay and as it's not actual physical items being stolen, it's just not worth fretting about. The guy who's stealing Galactic Civ 2 is also stealing Crysis and Titan Quest and a myriad other games so he has no time to even play. These people aren't stealing to play, they are stealing just because it's there. There is no physical anything lost so all your loses are potential, not real. When you lose guys like me that like to pay, through stupid hoop jumping and total disrespect, that's a real loss that's entirely your own fault. Why keep racing to the bottom chasing virtual thieves at the cost of real customers?

Withdrawing as well.



I don't pirate and I spend a really impractical amount of time researching to ensure that when I do buy a product it won't piss me off and that goes for all media. That said, I felt burned pretty badly by the Pool of Radiance remake from a few years ago. Dark Messiah of Might and Magic was another one since I can't even get it to play well at all and I blow the min specs away. Bought a Mahjong game a few weeks ago and found it wouldn't work on my ATI card. Also come across too many games of late that list min specs that are total BS. Heroes 4 and 5 are other good ones along with all the post Shadow of Death Heroes 3 games that were really just a money grab. I'm not even touching consoles. The only reasons I never went pirate are part principle and part me not liking risk( and the work it takes to rebuild a corrupted comp) but I've certainly allowed some illicit copies to be made of software I've bought. The only pirated software I've ever used was a pirated copy of XP because I just didn't have the money on hand to buy it and the comp specs I wanted. Went back, bought a legit one and was an early adopter of Vista.

You know, for all that's made of these oh-so-scandilous incidents, I've still gotten plenty of good information from reviews in all my years of reading. Yes, some sites have their occasional issues and yes, those games that appeal to everyone else in the free world just might not be your cup of tea (I have no interest whatsoever in the Grand Theft Auto series, for example) but by and large, I've learned that if the entire pantheon of reviewers calls a game a crapshoot or says that it's definitely worth playing, then there's probably something to it. Refusing to read reviews out of some manufactured moral objection to the company that the reviewers work for (especially when the information is free and available to anyone) is also no excuse for piracy.

It's interesting to me that you feel this way about reviews considering that nearly all of those games you list as being burned by got unanimously mediocre scores or worse.

GoJoe2400 I think this may be much easier than it first appears. Most restaurants are willing to offer you another entree if you are dissatisfied with the one you purchased. It is the restaurant's decision and not yours as the patron. You do not have a legal right to an additional meal. This is not stealing. You do not have the right to enter the restaurant's kitchen and take someone else's entree.

When you steal software you have not been given permission from the software manufacturer or vendor that you are stealing from. The law is very clear.

Getting an additional entree from a restaurant is legal when agreed upon by the restaurant. Pirating software is illegal since you do not have the owner's express permission to take their property.

You may believe you have the right to steal for your own reasons, but so does anyone else who steals,or commits most any crime.

Let's agree that pirating software is illegal and stealing is unethical.

There is a lot of decent info in a full review no doubt and I still use them, I just don't trust them exclusively anymore. If I can't find good customer reviews that are detailed with what the customer liked and didn't like, chances are I won't buy it if I don't trust the dev. I still take my gambles but nowhere near what I used to. Reading all those reviews and such take time though. There very fact I'm posting on the forums says I spend more time than the average customer. If I go to the store and impulse buy like many customers do, I should have a greater than 50% chance of those games being at least decent. And yeah they got those scores after launch but before? They were getting full features about how great some aspect or other would be. It wasn't a full list I gave, just the most egregious offenders I could remember at the time.I've bought so many over the years that I've coastered I can't even remember all of them, I also omitted console games with would make a post take up a page. Pretty much every first gen set on consoles is pure garbage that just looks good.

I'm not asking every game be a masterpiece just like I don't expect it from any other media. What I do expect though is not to run into game breaking bugs so much that people repeat the mantra "wait for the patch" as though it were business as usual. I also expect the game to feel playtested. I can't even begin to mention how many games have absurd features that break the game more than help it and awkward controls(mostly because I can't remember most games I coastered). I don't even want innovation in every release, just the ability to pop it in, say, "it was ok", because it used existing features of the genre respectably. Mediocre should be all I'm worrying about,not "how did this make it past paper".



I've been saying that just about every post. What's I've also been saying though is putting out a product you know is garbage is equally unethical, just not illegal.It should not be okay for the me to be cheated just because it's legal and almost every piracy argument ignores that aspect of it.When it does get brought up, the staunch defenders of the "law" and those not paying attention keep coming back to how wrong piracy is, how much it supposedly costs(even though real thieves aren't customers), and every other aspect that ignores just how much the industry itself is responsible for the problem. Even pirates admit they are doing something wrong, the problem is they don't care because they've been cheated too much. Look at the OP.

Fair enough, but this is no reason to defend piracy. Most of the games you listed, as pointed out, got mediocre or poor reviews on big name gaming sites. Also, you often have to go beyond the ratings and actually read the review to get a good deal of information on whether the game is worthwhile. I know you do so, but so should others. Falling back on piracy and claiming, "Well, the game was crap anyway" is not an excuse. If the game was really that bad, don't buy it, but don't even pirate it, because then the developers think that they made a great game that everyone stole and will just try to release a shittier version with annoying DRM on it next time instead of spending time making an actually decent game.


Mad Cat

So true. I consider it a downward spiral that both sides are contributing to. While I don't foresee myself pirating software as a habit, I do wonder how much longer I'll be willing to put up with the BS before I just leave the market altogether. That should scare devs far more than imagined losses.

Can I ask people..

those that are singleplayer peeps who want to go online , but are too scared to go online for fear of being humiliated in battle , or fear that they will let down teammates because they lack the skills etc.

Do you guys want me to write a "noob-guide". I have planned it , with most of the guide focusing on Strategy/Risk/Positional concepts and Teamwork. These are the two areas that I observe newbies lack and most likely areas that they will let down teammates on which can be discoraging for both the newbie and the entire team. Even those who claim TsunZu levels of Strategy in the Singleplayer environment , will benefit because the Strategy in online multiplayer environment is different to that of Singleplayer.

I did the exact same thing in Homeworld 2 , as I was pretty much one of the top players there , and got a good response from newbies who rather then using the same old habits from singleplayer over and over again with slow improvement , changed to the principles I taught and gave themselves a foundation where they would naturally improve rapidly in the game.

Just need to see some interest first as this guide is pictorial and will take me 15-20 hours to complete.

p5yy, I have a feeling you meant to post that in a different thread?

-- Retro

you guys got waaaaay to into this

Yes lol

Well, for all you pirates out there, I have some bad news for you: The company I work for, does some serious stuff during their interview process. And one of the parts of the interview is a LIE DETERCTOR TEST. And one of the questions they ask me is if I have pirated in the past. Luckily, I have never, but, if I had, I would not have the incredible job I do now.

There was also some theft going around the building several years ago, and we all had to take LDT, and I did not pass. Why, cause when I was 17, I took home an "opened" game of D&D home (like 20 years ago), but the LDT machine does not care about any of my/your excueses. You can write the most elequant exuse you want why you pirate, but those LDT machines don't care one bit about that, and the guys the give them, even less.

Seriously, if not just for the morals of the situation, you'll screw yourself out of a possible job of a lifetime just because you want to steal what you say may be crap? That's a really high price to pay for a possible career of a lifetime. And they are doing the LDT more and more (unless you work at McDonalds).

You dont happen to work for Starforce ?

you do realize polygraphs aren't accurate or scientifically validated at all

he must have a crazy ass job to have to go through a lie detector test, i figured now days they could just google you and figure everything out

96% accurate is the current stats; the company said they would retest you (99.7% accurate), IF you contested the test, after 1 fail. But the point of the post was, odds are high you'll be taking a LDT in the future, and theft/piracy is the main questions they ask about. And if you fail, they will "LOL" while they escourt you to the door if you try to tell them all the reasons you pirated. . .

no, the stats are "only slightly more effective than a coin flip"

If I'm taking a lie detector test for a job that's not ultra high national security that's my cue to write my congressman and join a militia because America just won't be America anymore.

That question isn't even relevant to anything except building anti-piracy software. Just like anti-piracy software, it catches stupid people and people who feel guilty from some incident that's largely insignificant. Professional and pathological lairs along with people capable of believing the lie get higher scores than people just nervous about taking the test.

Okay, this thread is all over the place so I'm going to step back in for a second.Holy hoppin' hippos NO NO NO.

The huge majority of private companies in Canada don't go anywhere near lie detector tests. I'm a consultant that has worked with lots of them, including some that are producing assets for the military, and not one of them has ever indicated a lie detector test is a requirement to work there.

Telling people not to pirate because "your company will probably find out and you'll pay later" might apply to a very few people, but it absolutely does NOT apply to the majority, which makes it an empty threat that probably weakens the case for avoiding piracy more than it helps.

-- Retro

Holy sh... where the heck are you from? LDTs in job interviews is just so unthinkable over here (Germany) no HR manager would even get this idea. Not even personal questions that actually might affect the job ("Do you plan to get pregnant", "Do you have any severe disease" ...) may be asked during interviews.

Anyway I don't even see the sense in asking about piracy because in that answer is no information relevant for any job.

Many of those questions are illegal under US hiring and anti-discrimination laws, anyway.

If a company made such a unscientific and inaccurate trash-TVesque policy mandatory to be hired, I'd walk out. If that company is so paranoid about evil pirates, they probably don't produce any software of value anyway.

I just wanted to say that I used the word "reward" for lack of a better word.

I dont want to get into a whole piracy debate (although that seems to have already taken shape) but there are a few things worth mentioning...

Let's look at Mass Effect for a second... Arguably one of my favorite games. I have already played it through 2 times to FULL completion (XBox 360) and am going to start a 3rd when new DLC comes out. My main gripe about it was the inventory system and the simplistic "mini-game" of opening stuff. Both of these things have been corrected in the PC release. Therefore I was going to purchase it (getting a new computer and putting it in the main living room where I can play it in a social setting like the 360 was also a major factor). Then I read about their crazy 10 day authenitcation limit and was pretty annoyed, but not enough to stop me from buying it. Then I read this thread (https://forums.galciv2.com/303512) and I couldnt agree more with it. Why not just have a BioWare employee come to my house and watch me play to make sure I am following the EULA?

Treating customers like criminals (try and defend how the 10 day authication process inst just a form of glorified parole) is not how this should be approached.

Now look back to any other industry. In industries that dont have nearly a tenth of the competition (and therefore also not even close to the amouint of alternatives to turn to by a scorned customer), they still respect the customer. Or at least the money in his pocket enough to pretend to respect the customer (which is suitable in my opinion). You know the old racist joke of a storekeeper following around a black guy in a store to make sure he doesnt steal anything? Well, what if that store did that to ALL customers? You couldnt get away with that in any other industry.

I am not, I REPEAT NOT, in favor of pirating, but I cant say that it is all bad. Exactly like that thread says, games like SoaSE deserve to be bought. There are PLENTY of games out there that simply dont deserve to be bought. A person that buys a game legit and never plays it becasue it sucks, might trade it in or sell it and make some of his money back, but the developers of said shitty game were only further encouraged to make similar crap.

It is sort of a chicken or the egg thing. Do games need to get better to justify supporting the companies that made them? Or should we support them and expect them to repay us wuth quality? Honestly I could make strong arguments for both sides, so I really cant say.