Genuine call for emails from pirates

302 thoughts on Genuine call for emails from pirates

1. Oh, one game I wish I did pirate: BioShock. Getting kicking in the balls for doing legally is a big turn off.

2. Maybe you’ll be able to lower the amount of piracy by releasing demo versions of projects. Or make it so they need to ask you for a serial number to activate the disc.

3. 1) I can’t know if the game is really good before actually playing it. So, shareware is a good thing so that I can try if I like it and then buy it. Sometimes demos are just too crappy to get the actual feeling.

   2) Usually the price is too high. I don’t see he value for money for most of the games. And then again, some games are much more valuable to me as their price (example: Civilization IV). In euros I would say that a good price for game is below 40 euros (in Finland you pay average 70 euros for new games, which is just too much).

   3) For some games the copy protection really sucks. It’s not nice to carry on all the CDs and DVDs with you, if you for example play with laptop. That’s why I have used crack for games, which I have legally purchased.

4. I Haven’t pirated games nor bought them for few years now. Last one i bought was WoW, and i got bored with it before the 60-days or so was over (lvl 40). But, i have very clear image why i did pirate games before.

   1. Inflation. There are nowadays tens of thousands of bad and average games, thousands of great games, hundreds of very good games, and they just are not worth the bucks. Not even near. 50-60EUR for one game, that one might play few days are not worth it. Only a real hyped fanboy will march straight to store and buy a game, just because he/she thinks it is good. Same exact reason is why people doesn’t buy music anymore. It’s everywhere, constantly, it’s free. Why would anyone want to buy it? Unless, its something unique?

   Piracy 1 vs. legal 0.

   2. Delivery system. Awful. One finds a game that looks interesting, and what are the legitimate options? Next day, after work drive few hours to a store, stand in different lines for 20mins, buy a copy, drive home another hour, and wish really really hard that if just this once, this would be a good purchase or download 200MB-1GB of crappy demo, from server that speeds around 60kb/s. Or if one buys a dl copy from a net store, it costs just as much but you get less, or wait days for delivery of a real copy. Not too shabby.

   Piracy 2 vs. legal 0.

   3. Copy protection. No I do not want to keep the cd/dvd 1 in dvd-drive. No i do not. If i want to play, i do not want to install some root-kits nor i want anything that i have not ordered. The 200 pages of legal text, and small print that says that i have to agree on everything the company does to my computer is just lame.

   Piracy 3 vs. legal 0.

   Today we are here. Piracy is winning. Hands down.

   Now that i have made my point, why current system is faulty and will not work, ever, i will show how you can make it work.

   With other developers, create a world wide system, where you publish your games. 10 million WoW players say, that if content is good enough, they will pay 10EUR / month for it. Let’s say that you have 100 games, that you offer for 10EUR/month, and distribute earnings according to the played hours / game / player. It will create a environment where the games needs to be better, but it will give a constant stream of money, if the game is popular. It will give easy access to games, it will be risk free to test them, and for bonus It will create an instant community around the game. You even could get tv-series and movies (music industry needs to die, before it can change), to same system. Even applications. And finally, one could get a service that one is willing to pay. Every month. So long, as he/she thinks that the 10 / EUR / month is worth of the content you put up.

   1. With this system, player could trust that service is safe.

   Piracy 0 vs. legal 1.

   2. With this, it is risk free to test games.

   Piracy 0 vs. legal 2.

   3. With this, you get the games fast. (you could even split the games, so one doesn’t have to dl all of the 8GB of data before he/she can start)

   Piracy 0 vs. legal 3.

   4. With this, you get all the benefits of online games.

   Piracy 0 vs. legal 4.

   …(let stop here)…

   You probably have to give few constant “(good) free” games to play, so people can see the value of the service, and some kind of 1 month free test etc. BUT, if markets think that the value of your service is worth of the 10 bucks, they WILL pay up. If one online game can get 10 million user, how much, let’s say hundreds of different grade A games(on and off line) and other content, will get? 100 million? 200 million? Let’s say that 5 bucks you could get straight to developers, it would create a 500 million per month, constant revenue. Better the game, the longer it will make money. Advertising to active community would be quite easy, and cheap. It could even get the developers and gamers much closer to each other as this system would encourage constant development of games.

   But what it will need? It will need good and fresh content, all the time. It will need support and as said before, it will need constant development.

   This can be done, but this also can be f***ed up. Markets are the ultimate decider’s. If they don’t value the service / games enough for the price you are asking, only thing that can be done, is to make the service better or die. Evolution is brutal, but it is fair.

5. I don’t pirate indie games. Okay, maybe this is largely because it’s hard to find them cracked. I only pirated big games in college because they were two clicks and a ten minute download away (we had big pipes and a nice network). But I’ve BOUGHT several indie games in the past…

   I may change from buying to pirating in the future.

   Here’s why. You buy a big-budget game, it costs $50…and you can expect years of entertainment. (The Quake games. Diablo, god forbid. I keep digging old Sierra adventures things out. Worms: Armageddon. Any console RPG.) They have QUALITY. HUGE quality. Quality that you only get because they can afford an enormous budget, because TONS of people buy them… And they’re big enough that you get HONEST reviews, lots of them, you can judge your purchase. Indie games on the other hand sell less copies, and tend to have a lot less content…sorry. Positech isn’t an exception. I bought two Positech games and was very disappointed when I got one hour of entertainment from the demo, and 3 more hours of entertainment from the full version.

   Hey, 1+3 hours of entertainment for like 15-20 bucks doesn’t sound too bad…

   …until you compare it to hundreds of hours of entertainment for 50 bucks on a commercial game. Dude, seriously. Indie games: 1/100 the entertainment for 1/3 the price. You can’t even get good reviews. Oh yeah, and big budget games go to the discount bin after a couple years. That’s right, you can get a four year old big budget game for the SAME price as an indie game…and indie games don’t go down in price over time! Screw that! If I have to choose between the latest WW2 shooter game with a ten hour plotline and expansive multiplayer, versus a simulator that’s really very limited, doesn’t give much player choice, has no multiplayer, and no replay value because the whole GAME is more novelty value than actual fun… Well, I won’t be buying indie much anymore.

   Stardock gets a pass, because they’re not indie any more.

   You know what indie publishers DO get my money? True shareware and donationware ones. Dwarf Fortress, say. Developer puts an INSANE amount of work into that. Smallish fan base. Some people wouldn’t like the game, I’ve sunk over a hundred hours, easy… And I’ve donated fifty bucks out of my own free will. I’ll probably donate another fifty before too long. Dude brings in about 2k a month, which is really not nearly enough for a steady job, but I’m sorry…I pay what I think the game is worth.

   If I could get Democracy 2 or that rock band game for free, and had a donation pot, I’d probably pitch in five bucks for each. :/

   And seriously, I know this is a broken state of affairs. As a wannabe indie programmer, I know I’m shooting myself in the foot. I think the issue isn’t that indie games cost too much, but that big budget ones cost too little. But whatever. My expectations are high. Stardock’s GalCiv2 just BARELY was worth the money (and I think it was like…30-40 at the time?), and that’s because it was roughly ten times the game that a lot of indie stuff is.

   You can’t charge for little things any more.

   On the other hand, way back in the monochrome DOS days, I paid five or ten bucks for a game the quality of Positech ones. They were sitting in Radio Shack on 5 1/4″ floppies. And then things like King’s Quest were like… $20? That was tons of family fun and bragging to friends. Colossal Cave I think I got for 5-10, and that was a TON of hours.

   Democracy 2 is NOT THAT DEEP, and indie games need to be a lot deeper before it’s worth buying them again. Stuff that looks like that rock band game I don’t think I’m even touching anymore, pirated or not. I might pirate Democracy 3, and if it’s really awesome and I can get my friends to think it’s cool (as an indicator of quality) and argue about real geopolitics instead of “Huh, that’s neat, seeing what minimum wage could do”, then I might buy it.

6. Why I’m a pirate? Because of error in definition of “pirate”.
   Why do I download games? because some distributors haven’t found this thing called “Internet” and think we still live in medieval ages where it’s down to a monolithical distribution system and data can’t be distributed without clogging up the tubes.
   Thus we get different release dates different places of a so called “global” economy and “global” world.
   Then theres DRM, I do not want to pay for a product I can only use x amount of times or within a specific time period, laws of trade dictates that currency is exchanged in return for goods or services, when I buy a game I buy ‘goods’ and not a ‘service’, same thing as if I went to an electronics store and bought a cd or a stereo.

7. Main reason, money.

   I really don’t want to buy a game for 50-70€ just to see it bs. Before I got internet connection I bought many games because I had played the demo and I was thinking this game really rocks. But as soon as I had played about an hour or two I just got bored or saw that the game really wasn’t for me.

   Same reason also goes for non multiplayer games. If you get just an average game without multiplayer option, what’s the replay value of the game, absolutely zero!

   And what’s with the different release dates?! Why in the world would you want to wait a day, week, or even month for a game that other people are already playing and hyping in the forums. Usualy American gaming companyes fall for this one, but others do it too, alot.

   Also I do sometimes download games I already own, legaly. When I go to lan partys with my friend, I don’t expect everybody to own all the same games I would like to play, and legal copys won’t work with pirated ones in most cases.

8. I used to pirate a ton of stuff in high-school. Having no source of income meant that I either played no games or played pirated games. After I graduated from University and got a job I started to buy games. I have purchased a great many games especially since 3/4 of my jobs had strong gaming cultures amongst the programmers. I even purchased my first of many video cards to play Doom and Quake better.

   I have played computer games for more than 25 years now. I still buy them and I do not pirate them any longer. However half the games I buy I feel like I should have pirated them. Craptastic stuff like Black & White, the godawfull Master of Orion III and numerous other stinkers I have blocked from memory. They get glowing press reviews and then you get the game and it sucks total coconuts.

   Solutions:

   I suppose I should take the trouble of returning such turds to whence they came.

   Or perhaps if there was a way to rate these things so I can go and look and see that only 50 friends and family members of the developer gave a good rating to Master of Orion III. It should be Amazon like ratings so it guides me to stuff I like without necessarily penalizing say sport games which I don’t like no matter how good they are.

   If there was a reliable rating system that for instance correctly scored all released Blizzard games at 100% I would probably triple my gaming purchases, safe in the knowledge that I will not get screwed.

   Or perhaps once all games are online distributed / tracked, I can get a giant refund if I play like 3 hours of something before I cant stand it anymore and delete it. Or once I play through 60% of Mass Effect (in a non stop binge till 100%) I get charged full price. Maybe when I replay it 2 more times for no good reason it gets some kind of “This is really hot stuff” rating. Same thing with BioShock even though I got bored with its repetetiveness half way through the one and only time I played it.

   Maybe I should get some kind of medal for purchasing various bits of Starcraft, Warcraft, and Diablo multiple times (3+ each) because we needed more CD keys for a weekend group binge, or I did lord knows what with these many copies and had to repurchase to install on my new comp. Starcraft, which keeps score while you log in and play within the last 3 months, has seen me rack up 1000+ games on three seperate occasions over the years. The lesson here is, if its good, people will play the hell out of it and money will flow to you.

   As for the peniless pauper in high school: it really is immaterial that I pirated games. It theoretically sucks for the games I pirated and the money I did not pay their creators who under no circumstances would have gotten money from me anyways. If someone with no money pirates a game in the forest, will anyone hear the accountants wail about the money they could never pay?

   On the other hand, it has lead to a lifelong game playing habit, and I have litterally spent well in excess of $10k on games (yes, I am counting my $5-7k Magic the Gathering habit which is not fair perhaps but I don’t care). Much more money went to hardware which is the latest & greatest every 2-3 years. Some developers like those of Wizardry got nothing for me for Wizardry I – IV, but got 1st day release purchases for Wizardry V – VII. Rat bastards like Lord British only got pirated and never got a sale from me (although in this case it was personal and not about his game quality which was adequate – good, I simply ceased playing anything with his name on it after 1985).

   Now as for your games, I have no idea if they are good, are of the type that apeals to me, etc. If there was some ratings system that says because I like Starcraft and soon Starcraft II as well as Diablo I, II & cannot wait for III that I should therefore buy Democracy, then I would.

   As mentioned by others, the only harm in piracy is if it prevents a normal sale and makes it a money free transaction. Even then, if it leads to future sales its not a total loss.

9. I’ve never been much of a pirate myself. This is especially true when it comes to PC games because I’m concerned about things like viruses and PC hijacking. I also realize that for my favorite medium to continue I need to buy the games I play. Finally, I play MMOs and to the best of my knowledge you can’t pirate those (nor would I want to and risk my character being banned). That said, I actually understand why people pirate games and I thought I’d take a moment to share why I think it is.

   Primarily I think price versus reward comes into play a lot here. Almost all PC games released to retail start at $50. It is the standard whether they’re worthwhile or not and, frankly, a whole lot aren’t. In part developers are to blame for this. How many times have you or the readers here bought a PC game that claimed to have features X, Y and Z but when you bought it had X and a note that said, “Y and Z to be patched soon.” To me, it is getting extreme. Old examples are Heroes of Might and Magic IV. When you purchased this title at release it LACKED multiplayer. It simply wasn’t there. I literally took the game, threw it on a shelf and lamented being out a whole lot of money. When you purchased Heroes V it barely functioned on LAN multiplayer. Instability was the name of the game and again I felt upset that I had spent so much money for a game that did not function as advertised. This has changed my consumer behavior. Other than a game I’ve been really waiting on I simply will not purchase a game for $50 and most certainly not before it has been out for a few months. When I shop the PC game isle I always say “I’m probably going to get screwed here.” That is a terrible attitude but one that has been fostered by poor experience after poor experience.

   Another issue along these lines is misleading product packaging. As little information as possible is placed on these boxes. The only way to get it is to go online and read between two and five reviews to try to find out what is there. Another example from my life is very recent. My roommate and I wanted to play a fun little game together. We chose The Settlers. On the box it says join your friendS in cooperative multiplayer. We purchased the game for $30 only to find out you can’t play against an AI, only other players online. On top of that, four players is the max. So if you play with two friendS it is three on one. This, to me, was almost deliberately misleading. The box should have said “team player” not cooperative multiplayer.

   This also highlights one major problem that isn’t the developers issue but must be considered. Once you crack a PC game’s security sticker it is pretty much yours. By contrast I can buy a used console game from Gamestop, try it for DAYS and if I hate it, return it for a full refund. There needs to be recourse for consumers who buy games that don’t meet expectations or are blatantly unfinished. In a way, PC games need to be treated more like their console cousins. Demos are the theoretical answer but we all know they’re frequently not a good representation of the live game.

   That also brings me too another point I’d like to make. What happened to spawning? Blizzard used to allow you to take one CD key and install it on multiple LAN PCs as a spawn. The spawn could play multiplayer with the main user. Now we’re expected to purchase one copy per player to find out if we even like the multiplayer. To me, that is outrageous. It almost forces honest players to use CD swapping or cracks. One copy of the game should cover a household. If I want to play a four player console game at home I don’t buy four copies. This practice needs to return to PC especially for the hefty price tag and the risk of getting a poor game.

   I know that might not relate specifically to your games Cliff but hopefully you’ll find the information useful. The industry as a whole needs to start making some changes for the better. More games need to come out at the price point their worth, they need to be more than 40% complete and there needs to be a way to return lemons. Ultimately that’s the deal, even if a PC game is terrible, if you bought it they already have your money and their shoddy work is validated.

10. So after about a million replies would I be right in say that only 1 person admitted to pirating a Positech game and 4 or 5 said they wished they had done instead of paying for one. I’m not sure this was SUCH a good PR exercise.

    As people have said, statistically nobody is pirating your games, Cliffski. If you check the piratebay there’s less than a hundred people sharing your games. Compared to the 700000 estimated downloads of Crysis I don’t think you have much to worry about.

    If you genuinely feel you’re suffering from piracy then I feel sorry for you because it just isn’t so. I would almost guarantee that you’d sell more game if you DIDN’T offer a demo. People try the demos and run for the hills. Whatever tiny demographic you’re catering to is going to buy your games regardless but your games are so far off what’s considered mainstream these days that piracy isn’t going to be a problem.

    Look at system requirements – your games run on low spec computers with built-in grafix cards. The people who have these sort of rigs are overwhelmingly going to be non-technical and probably don’t know HOW to pirate a game. They also see your games as appealing to them whereas mainstream games available in a shop or elsewhere on the internet probably don’t appeal or have too high a system requirement. By appeal to them I mean that they’re non-games – you pick a decision, fill in a check box, adjust a slider and hit the end of turn button. There’s no frantic gamepad mashing or mouse flicking.

    If you want to make a low spec game that will get ripped off then make an RPG. Spiderweb has been using more or less the same engine forever and sells loads of his RPGs and probably suffers far more from piracy.

    Ask someone who pirates a Spiderweb game why they do it and they’ll tell you – because they can and they had no intention of ever paying for it.

11. I was reading about this on Ars Technica, and I started thinking back some 20, 25 years. Why did I pirate the games then?

    1. The games were WAY cool. I think this is the main point. The games are WORTH the effort of getting them.

    2. More way cool games available than budget.

    3. Availability. Frankly, some games distribution sucked. Internet is hopefully changing that.

    I have been buying all my games for a long time now. The exceptions are games I just can’t find to buy. In that respect, bittorrent is way ahead, as it knows no borders and don’t much care for stocks either.

12. Hi,

    I stumbled across this from some news website and it got me thinking, and I realised that I don’t actually know why I pirate computer games.

    I pirate music and movies for political reasons – I actually think music and film *should* be free and would be happy to pay a monthly blanket license fee in order to use P2P, which is apparently on its way within a year in the UK.

    After reading your website, I’ve realised that without even thinking I just downloaded all the games I wanted to play because they were listed on torrent sites, the actual political aspect never even occurred to me.

    You’ll probably be pleased to know that I’ve realised this is wrong – there are some games (Crysis, COD4, FEAR, Half Life 2 etc) that I absolutely LOVE and I can appreciate the time, effort and expense that went into them. I can afford to buy these games, I just never did because it was too easy to torrent them but I am going to change my approach. It would be a real tragedy if game developers had to move to consoles, as I detest consoles and love PC gaming.

    To all PC gamers reading this – it’s in your interest to support developers. If you love games like Crysis, Half Life, COD4 etc then they deserve to get paid for what they do.

    As soon as I get paid, I am going to buy all my favourite games. From now on, I will continue to download games but only to test them out to see if they are worth the money, and the ones that are will get bought.

    As for your games, I’ve never even heard of them… so either way I’m not hurting you. My thing is FPS’s, but be glad that you influenced at least one pirate into changing his ways.

    Peace

13. Hi Cliff,

    I’ll start off by letting you know right off the bat that as far as I can remember i haven’t pirated any of your games, which is great as you’ve never lost, but also sucks because I have never even heard of any of your games so I wouldn’t have found them to buy anyways. Here’s a few seperate reasons why I myself may have downloaded pirate copies of games in the past:

    1. never would have bought it, but I’m bored: Sometimes people get a lil bored, and are happy to do “whatever” to pass a few hours, or a day. Sometimes if I’m bored, I might go download a game to kill some time. Sometimes it’s a demo, sometimes a free game, sometimes pirated. If I couldn’t download pirated games, I wouldn’t go out and buy it, I’d be playing one of the other two, either demo or free.

    2. Want to try it out: This applies to me mainly to games with an online aspect I’m interested in, I might download a copy to give the single player aspect a run and decide whether I really want the full game or not. usually when there is no adequate demo

    3. Can’t find it any other way: Maybe it’s an old game that I just can’t find at the shops anymore in my country, or to buy digitally. Why would I pay $20+ shipping for a game I probably won’t see for weeks, when I could download it right now

    4. Release leak: So I’ve been waiting for xy game for 3 years, as alot of gamers will do for some games. All of a sudden there’s a leak and there’s a copy of the game, close enough to finished, sitting there rip for the picking.. yoink!!

    5. Overpriced: I actually believe I’m quite resonable on this front. Where I live, most new games are at least $80, some are as expensive as $160. I will fork that out for console games as I’m not comfortable with modding my system, and I’m happy to fork out $60 tops for a maintream PC game, and aorund $40 for a less known one – anything more and I’ll feel like someone’s trying to rip me off, which I’ll avoid where possible.

    6. Nostalgia: an old game I played years ago, and I’m looking to remind myself of the joy

    7. Dev likes cruel/unreasonable DRM software: I don’t like buying things that attempt to rape my computer in the background. I can live with having to have an original CD in the drive, I really don’t mind needing a serial number to play, or even online verification! but anything beyong that is the eskimo’s iceblock. Pirates will crack the DRM, doesn’t matter how many voodoo curses it has on it – these Devs needed to stop wasting thier time and money on pissing off thier other legitimate customers, until then I won’t be buying thier games.

    8. Never heard of the game, and it’s there: sometimes I’m surfing the net and I come along a download for a game I’ve never heard of.. I figure maybe it’s alright, so I’ll download it to check it out, and mya or may not purchase it after depending on it’s wuality

    9. No Money: When I was younger I just couldn’t afford luxury items such as games and movies – Luckily I did have access to the internet, and a decent computer thanks to my family, so I downloaded pirate copies. I wouldn’t have been able to purchase these games at the time even if I wanted to, and now they’re so out-dated that I wouldnt even rememver most the ones I have lpayed now

    10. Collection: This kinda ties in to “no money” and “overpriced”. While I’m now financially more comfortable, I do enjoy my games and movies alot – Sometimes I can’t afford all the games I’d liketo purchase, so some of thme may get downloaded instead. Unfortunately, I’ll usually buy the console games and download some of the PC – I don’t do the other way round as before

    11. Convenience: as most people probably mentioned, pirated games are the same product at a more competitve price with more convenient access. There’s a piracy ad in australia that comes on our DVDs it goes something like “You wouldn’t steal a purse, you wouldn’t steal a handbag, you wouldn’t steal a car, piracy is stealing”. The funny thing is, if we could all download purses with money in them, and cars and houses and such, ones that weren’t already someone’s PHYSICAL property (instead of intellectual property) then I’m pretty sure most of us would, myself included.

    Remember – Video games are entertainment, and entertainment is an art – sometimes People will record movies, photograph artworks, and copy games.

14. I usually buy the games that I like, however, I have pirated some of them for various reasons:

    – A lot of games are completely overpriced, at least in Spain. I rarely bought games before finding about play.com where prices are a lot cheaper. 50 or 60€ for a game is simply excessive.

    – When the developer uses some type of unreasonable DRM. For example the games that require online activation and are not guaranteed to work in the future (all Steam games, Bioshock, etc…)

    – When it’s simply not possible to find it at any shop: this usually happens with some old games.

    – To try it: sometimes the demos are too short, or don’t reflect the real game… I have “pirated” some games this way. I usually end up buying the ones I like and erasing the ones I don’t.

    – Not enough money: I don’t do this anymore since nowadays I have a job, but when I was studying I had little money and as a consequence I was unable to buy them.

15. I haven’t pirated anything in years, when I first did it was mostly due to not being able to afford things, then it evolved into an OCD where I would just try to collect everything for a certain system, or genre never actually playing any of it.

    These days I don’t pirate but I also don’t buy any PC games, nor do I buy any downloadable games… if I did still pirate I would probably pirate them though and here’s why. … it’s all about re-sale-ability.

    if I buy a car or a house, I think to myself “if I have to sell this tomorrow, will I get my money back? If I have to sell it a year from now, will I get most of it back?”

    You can’t resell PC games, and you can’t resell downloadable games. They’re no longer goods, they’re services. If I buy a DVD that is a good, I can sell it on ebay or amazon when I’m done. If I buy that same movie as a download it’s no longer a good but a service that allows me to view the movie.

    I see services as being inherently and significantly less valuable than goods. I only pay 50 cents for the service of playing a game for a few minutes, and maybe $5-$10 to play at the arcade for a couple of hours. …and that is a grand experience with a big screen thumping sound and unique controls.

    Now, if I buy all of the equipment myself and then pay for the service of playing a game, even if I can play it for much longer than an arcade the experience is worth much much less than what I paid to play at the arcade for an afternoon, the experience isn’t as grand, I’ve already paid a boatload for the equipment myself, and the game costs MORE than the arguably better experience at the arcade.

    In short: If you’re going to treat games as a service then they need to be priced like a service, if you’re going to sell games as goods then they need to be marketed as goods…

    I played the Braid demo, I really liked the game, but I wont buy it because if I decide I don’t like it or I don’t want it, I can’t get that $15 back… if it was sold on a disc for $20 I would probably have bought it already. If I still pirated things I probably would have pirated it.

    These days I buy the collector’s editions of games whenever possible, even if I only have mild interest in it I’ll probably buy it just for bonus content. I’ll buy a collector’s edition game I’m only mildly interested in over a regular edition game that I have a stronger interest in… because I know that in 3 months I can get that regular edition at half the price, while the collectors edition will vanish from shelves in due time.

    There’s a lot of complexities as to why people do what they do in terms of piracy, I think a lot of people don’t even completely understand themselves in this regard…. hopefully I’ve given you a little more insight.

16. i do not pirate games anymore, but i will tell you it is all about price. i honestly believe that selling 10 million copies of a game at 20 dollars is more important than selling 1 million copies of a game at 60 dollars. i am living proof. i still don’t own gta4 or metal gear solid 4. but i will tell you i just picked up company of heros gold edition for 7 dollars marked down at target. my last purchase was a ps3 version of clive barkers jericho for 10 dollars marked down.

    in summary, when games are 20 or cheaper, people rarely even ask, THEY JUST BUY!!!!! i haven’t paid over 30 dollars on a game since half life 2 came out. it is all about money. i honestly believe that if microsoft would have made halo 3 20 dollars at launch, just about the entire population of the usa and the world would have ran out and bought an xbox…..:)

    but what do i know…..:)

    sincerely and you are welcome to publish and or improve this point of view!

17. I’ve only pirated a few games, and honestly, it’s because I can’t find them in stores on the internet or on Steam. (Anybody remember ‘Outlaws’ or ‘Grim Fandango’? They were games made before LucasArts axed the creativity department.)

18. Hi,
    I am from India.

    Why I started playing pirated games?
    I started playing PC games when I was in school. Of course I didn’t have any income that time and my monthly allowance wasn’t sufficient for me to buy games (prices varied from $30 to $60).

    I saw cheap pirated games ($1 or 2) in the streets and bought them at regular basis. Now I have a income but I still play games in my spare times (though I’m not regular player anymore).

    My opinion about piracy:
    I don’t want to go into detail but price is really a big problem in India. A $45 game is too costly for a student. Even for a regular guys like me. Just for information, in India 512kbps Unlimited DSL internet is priced at $40 per month and 1MBPS unlimited connection will cost $70. So I can download many pirated games from torrent in this one month.

    Another problem is : I don’t need sleek and shinny packages. After all those boxes are no use for me as time passes by. If a game can be released in well made plastic covers in cheap prices, I would rather consider to buy it.

    I still buy games once in few months (since I am not regular gamer anymore), but I admit I also download from torrent many times.

    What will make me stop piracy:
    I am saying this with 100% honesty – make games cheaper. Price level should vary from country to country and company should conduct survey to determine the price level.

    Company can release games in good protective cases but not in those shinny huge boxes. Many people just throw away the boxes after few weeks. In case of manuals, put them as PDF document format in the CD itself. These will help to cut some cost.

    Also, services like, “direct2drive” and “steam” are very good. But those games should cost much less as except bandwidth they need no extra medium for their games.

    Thanks for giving me the opportunity to express my views.

19. I think for me it started with a simple fact i cant pay for all the games out there most people cant buy them all. now of course there are lots of pirates that can or just wont ever buy anygames. how ever we now have such large publishers that push out games so fucking piss ass bugged that you feel totaly like a peice of shit buying it. so for me i realy like to only pay for a game if for one it has a good replay value. also i think if every game had online co-op in it it help a lot. we live in an oline age. and games that are single player only will never get a penny form me ever. simple you play it once and its over. games like oblivion do have the replayableity but they geet to big and you offten cant play it due to bad testing and end up having to wait a year more after release befor its realy playable. then you get online mmo’s and they give what they want then go fix it and take it away. then 2 years down they road they give it back to you. simple put if you make an awsome game with great online ablity and playablity and it is not bugged to hell on relase i will buy it. but if not you can expet that i might never buy your software for years or unitll i get a pirated copy again that is actualy worth my money i might consider buying your software in the futer again.

20. I couldn’t find your email, so I’ll post it here.

    I pirate for a few reasons:

    1. To test games out. I purchase the vast majority of games I pirate. If I don’t finish the game because I do not like it, I won’t buy it. If I love the game, I will buy it with a 100% guarantee.

    2. Budgetary reasons. I spent almost all of my discretionary funds on video games, easily thousands of dollars every year. If there is a game I would like to try, but can’t afford, I will pirate now and pay later. Why? I don’t see a moral issue with this.

    3. DRM: If a game has dangerous DRM on it (Starforce), I will pirate it instead of buy it. I’m not against buying games with any DRM at all, but if I believe the DRM will cause significant hassle or make the game totally useless, I will pirate it instead.

    I do legitimately want to support developers of all sizes, so I spend lots of money on games. I, however, don’t believe piracy is inherently wrong in and of itself, so I am willing to pirate to test games out, or to get them slightly earlier than budgets might allow.

21. Why… because 90% games are total garbage. I dont like pay 50e/ game with out knowing what i get ( few screenshot and 1min. demo aint enough). I buy game if there is a decent multiplayer game but first i want to try game.

22. Look pirating in simple terms for me is the money back guarantee!!
    Ease of use causes me to DL the game, then if I like it and play it I buy it to help support the people who created it and hope it will help them create new versions. If I don’t like it, or it ran slow, or had some other form of technical issue I don’t have the hassle of dealing with a refund (which is damn hard where I live)
    It should be noted that of the last 3 games I played the authors made available full trial versions, therefore there was no need for any piracy at all.
    I think people(creators and users) need to stop focusing on piracy and start focusing on marketing. So if it a game with levels give the first few levels away for free then charge for the higher levels. If a game has features then charge for the features (skins, characters, strength etc). You can be very creative with your programming so why not be as creative with your marketing and sales.

23. I’m a brazilian boy, 15 yrs old, and I like to have original games in my house, but in my country, they are very expensive! It’s like a well known game would cost almost 60 dollars. For you it may not be that expensive, but here, it’s a lot of money. And the non-original ones cost less than 12 dollars. So it’s impossible for me to buy only original games. A PS3 game for example, costs 145 dollars here. And thats why I don’t have a PS3.

24. Well.
    First of all, there are too many games out there, much more than I could ever afford. So I only buy a game if I believe it’s worth the money. At this point it is very helpful if there is a demo of the game, because if not, I could decide to use the warez version instead, and if I alerady pirated the game, then it has to be goddamn good to make me buy it (Demos are also helpful to find out if the game will run on my PC. Game Developers, make more demos!!! :D ).
    Then, it also depends on how much of a copyright nazi the game company is. The honest buyer is often the idiot here, since the pirate does not need to care about internet activation (or worse: activation via the phone). Also, effective copy protection does not exist. There is no such thing as “Un-Crackable copy protection”. If the game is out, then it will be cracked. Always. No exceptions. So in my optinion game developers should leave that part out and focus on game content. It’s a game, after all, and I want to play it to have fun.
    Also, the guy who’s comment is at the bottom suggests to do stuff like pay-for-features. Well, this might be OK for a multiplayer game (MMOs etc) what are generally free, but if I paid for a game, and then discover I have to pay even more to be able to actually play it, I will bring it back to the shop, then spam all boards full about how much this sucks, and then start µtorrent. maybe.

25. First I play, if the game is worth it I buy it.

    Most games are not worth the money/do not run with acceptable performance on my box which no matter the year is moderately powerful.

    Last game I bought was Supreme Commander, I had the thing boxed on the shelf for a year. Not likely to shell £60 again for a game the first week.

    If I wait a year or two I can buy the game for £15-£20 and it runs fine.

    For absolutely all the games I own I downloaded the crack and removed the protection. I do not remember when it was the last time I had to play a game with the CD on the drive.

    I do not buy anything with DRM on it. Normally I download whatever is on the market and quite often I end removing the game within the first two hours.

    In the past I used to play games on a PS2 where I had a few games, won’t be buying a PS3 because of the price, one has to feed the kids, not Sony or MS.

    Never played any of your games, sorry.

26. continued: i haven’t ever heard of any of the games you make, nor of your company. Therefore I haven’t ever pirated any of your games. Even if your games are available as torrents, they don’t look like too many care.
    Please don’t believe that if you earn not enough money that it’s the pirates fault. It’s more because hardly anyone knows you exist. If you blame everything on pirates, you will lose sympathy and therefore willing buyers, and I doubt you can afford to do that. This “question to the pirates” might be a good idea, though: people hear about you, become curious, DL some demos, and maybe even buy something. Though, to be honest, your games do not appeal to me. Except Wonderful End of The World, it’s quite fun. I wonder who got the idea first? You or the katamari guys?^^

27. Hi, I’m from Brazil and I do not pirate nor know your games, but I still download lots of games and play them without paying. The last game i bought was Age of Conan…and jesus, what the hell was that? they released the game @ BETA…it was the shittiest crap ever…and it took me like 40US$….played for 15 ands and left the game.

    That’s just one of the reasons that I won’t stop downloading pirated games, cuz this way, if I DO like the game, i’ll buy, otherwise, i’ll just delete the game from my Hard drive. Today, one of the reason to buy a game is the xperience or new things that you’ll have in the original version, like world of warcraft, that every private server has too many bugs, no support and stuff.

    Another reason is ofc, the PRICE. MAkes me sad to see that a new game here in Brazil can reach 100US$…who the hell is going to pay for that? a box with a dvd inside? No thanks.

28. Sorry for some english erros on my text.

29. Why I pirate stuff:

    –When someone can do something bad with almost no risk of getting caught, they often do.

    –The more stuff I pirate, the more money I save. I’d rather spend it on something that doesn’t get boring in a few days, and isn’t a bunch of bytes than can be copied at almost no cost.

30. I can’t find an email, so i guess we’re just leaving comments.

    WHY:

    1. Game reviews are terrible. They are all more influenced by advertising dollars than by game content. Most games now don’t offer demos and those offered are often lacking at best. What may seem fun in the demo ends up being the only fun part of the game. I download the game, play it, and if it’s good go buy it (like Bioshock). There’s been too many games I’ve bought and gotten burned by just by reading reviews (like Universe at War). Still other games I was interested by positive media, but spoke with others before I bought and decided not to. (Kane & Lynch or Assassin’s Creed)

    2. Some games I don’t want to buy because I don’t like the companies politics. Such as, I bought Bioshock after I had pirated it, but was pissed off because the cracked version worked WAY BETTER than the retail version (same story with Dawn of War). Copy protections ruin games. I never bought Mass Effect for this exact reason.

    3. There are some games I just would not buy, but wouldn’t mind playing. If I bought every game I played I’d have a $500+ per month expense that my wife and I would have words about. Therefore, when I buy a game, I make sure it’s worth buying. I bought Serious Sam on the day of release JUST BECAUSE it was a $10 game that was ALMOST on par with the $50 games. Haven’t played any of your games, (legally or otherwise) so I can’t comment on them. I would definitely pirate them first if one caught my eye.

    Please feel free to email me if you have further questions.

31. I have not pirated any of your games. (To be honest, I have never even heard of your games.) I have actually purchased many games in my time, though none recently because of lack of time (and interest in recent offerings).

    Back in my college days, I did pirate some games. And my reasons were simple. Cost and availability. It was easier for me to get a copy of a game from a friend than it was for me to go get it myself. I also didn’t have much money at the time either. If there was electronic distribution of decent games back then for a fair price, I probably would have taken advantage of it.

    I think the model that MMOs and other online games are offering – a subscription model – is a good thing. Games like Runescape are FREE, with the option to subscribe for additional features, also an excellent model.

    I’ve also played a couple of advertising funded games. I actually paid to remove the advertising from two that I really liked.

    I agree with the guy who posted above me. I don’t like paying $50 for a game because of the hype, only to be disappointed in the game play or to lose interest in it after a couple weeks. Most games these days fall in this category. I would happily pay $30 for a well done game. I think the try-before-you-buy model works for this. If I really like something, I will buy it.

32. Why I pirate games:

    1. Coming from Australia, a lot of games either made it there months after other countries, or never made it at all. If I don’t pirate them I can’t get them. And I don’t see why I should wait.

    2. Ease. It’s a pain in the ass to go to a store that may not stock the game I want, or gets it months after. Also, sometimes I’ve had a game not work, and had the store refuse to refund me for various reasons (One time I was told “We never give game refunds because you probably already copied the disk”). Note it’s actually ILLEGAL to refuse to refund a non-working game but stores are doing it anyway.

    3. I used to buy games — HUNDREDS of them, for the amiga, pc, C64 etc. But the prices seem to be a rip off. How can a game be $99 for six months and then a few years later be available for $19.99? Don’t you see that that just punishes early adopters; it’s an incentive NOT to buy?

    4. Because game makers rip US off. But noone talks about that. Remember Heroes IV? On the side of the box it mentioned multiplayer ability. But inside there was no manual (Just a pdf one on the disk) and the promise that “multiplayer would be available later after a patch”. This is just plain illegal; beats me why noone ever sued them. This isn’t the only time I’ve bought a game that promised something and then didn’t deliver. BTW from memory that was the last or nearly last game I bought; I was so pissed off and felt so ripped off that I decided to rip game makers off in turn.

    5. Because game makers rip us off. NOONE talks about this, but games have been “phoning home” for at least a decade. I first noticed this when I had a dial out modem – every time I tried to play a certain game it tried to connect!! How many other people had auto connect and lost $$$ this way ?? Luckily for me I put a firewall in place. How many MILLIONS of dollars were stolen from consumers in this way and why did NO game magazine ever talk about it? Notice nowadays that most of us have always-on broadband the impact is a lot smaller but when dial-up was ubiquitous this must have cost millions, maybe even tens of millions.

    5. Performance. Pirated games are actually BETTER than retail ones. They often have crappy CD protection schemes removed. Some of those schemes spin your CD constantly and help your drive to fail sooner rather than later. It also means you use more electricity, and there’s more background noise as the drives aren’t perfectly silent. Also, if you just use images, you never have to worry about having a disk get scratched and ruined.

    6. Serial numbers. Once or twice I lost the box with the serial number for a retail game. So there I was, with a legally purchased game, but unable to play it – meanwhile pirates were playing happily. So why should I not pirate?

33. I have pirated games for quite awhile… actually ever since I got a PC. Why? Well I was a student for the past 8+ years so most of the time I wasn’t working. Sure I’d buy one or two games but most of the time the money came from my parents. They work hard for the money so pirating was an easy choice. I have never pirated your games though they look interesting, but after seeing the price tag for Democracy 2 ($23… seriously?), yea there’s noway I’m buying that. I rarely pirate Indie games. Most of the PC games that I have pirated are from big corps. like EA, etc. I am working and have a PS3 now. I buy most of my games now, but I only purchase when it’s a guaranteed good game, or a kool indie game on the Playstation Network (less than 20 bucks, most under 10). Also since I don’t have a top of the line PC, most of the games were glitchy or slow. As a programmer, I understand where you’re coming from. Gotta make a living right?

34. Pingback: blog.zerus.org » Blog Archive » Arr, me hearties! Piracy!

35. My bets are to jump on the steam bandwagon. I dont think you go wrong. Its convenient for consumer.

    Oh noes Windows got a root kit! *sigh* reinstalls, downloads steam, download 20 or so games (with shared libs :D) and done! A refresh reinstall with games ready to play.

    Unlimited downloads, 1-time fee, support, etc,etc. Its not the old steam anymore. Its just the way to go.Plus paypal makes it so much easier to buy games.

36. Hi,

    i tjink games should be buyed… the persons doing a game are working ALOT for a game… and they should be payed…. i can understand that u download a game (not the demos) to test it… but please… if you like it… PAY FOR IT! :)

37. Hi,

    i tjink games should be buyed… the persons doing a game are working ALOT for a game… and they should be payed…. i can understand that u download a game (not the demos) to test it… but please… if you like it… PAY FOR IT! :)

    everyone who does things for someone other so they have a good time and can forget the world outside a bit should get payed for! :)

    the latest game i downloaded was a ps2 gamr.. a rpg.. i loved it.. and the next day i was going to the store and buyed it!…

    the ppl at the riaa, mpaa, bsa, oh and logistep… are needed i think.. but for the big piracy problem…. not the little ones (us) trying not to give out too much money because they cant test something! :)

    ok.. please forgive my bad english… and take care…. :) *sends energy to cliff*

    Mike

38. Hi
    Cliff i have never heard of you, or the games you made. Im sorry. Instead of asking you why the pirate your games, you should copy the “process” of games like Drakesang ( 1,2, and 3rd saleplaces in germany).

    1) the game is good
    2) the copy protection was something like: it was easy cracked but you could not play for too long, it killed your save games,…–>pirated game was a demo only
    3)designed for the pc, and not a shitty port from xyz console

39. Hi
    unfortunatly i havnt heard of your games so havnt used them or tryed them but anyway onto your question.

    i do some pirating but purely as a try before i buy or in the case of the cinema before i go and pay as im a student living in the uk where the cinema is £8 a new game is £30-£50 and dvds/bluerays are £15-£40+. so being a student i cant afford to go out and spend my money for the chance that i might not like it etc so therefore i genuinely will download movies, music, the odd game and if i really like it and can justify its price i will buy it. i do aim to when older be in a job where i will not need to pirate as i would have all the money i would need to buy what i like with not needing to worry about if i was to buy game x would i be able to afford food for the week after and would i be able to have petrol in my car (£5.15/gallon or £1.12/litre).

    i hope you can see why i pirate now and that i dont like to do it but its the only way i could truly afford to keep up my love for movies and games and support the ones i can afford to but that when im older this would hopefully stop in favour of buying them wether im unsure or not as to how good they are.

40. Pingback: Game Developer Asks To Hear From Pirates - The Liberty Lounge Political Forums

41. Hi,
    i’ve never heared of you, your games or your company before.

    Therfore i can only tell you the reasons why i get all games from reliable trustworth online sources for free in general, before i even consider buying maybe 1 out of 50.

    You can already see,

    a) i really do not like being called ‘pirate’. Pirates are those hardcore criminals kidnapping, robbing and/or killing people on all the oceans without governments caring about it. Not some kid downloading.

    b) i trust software much more when it has been properly cracked, rather than installing god knows what from a bought version. You get all sorts of trojans, malware and drivers from those ‘copy protections’. They do not prevent copying at all, they are simply annoying as hell.

    c) i want to get my games online, i have neither time nor the patience to go to some store and choose between several boxes with ‘games’ in it, while my only help are the misleading pictures on the box. I’ve been burnt too many times before.

    d) todays ‘games’ have a very hard time of keeping me interested more than 5 minutes. And i am NOT interested in being an unpaid BETA tester, buggy games get deleted faster than it took me to install them.

    So, here is what i want:
    Download a game, install it without having to reformat my hard drive afterwards, then try it thoroughly.

    If it keeps me interested and busy and isn’t some buggy ALPHA version, then i start thinking about investing some money.

    I look at games as a long term investment, NOT SNACK FOOD.

42. This comment was immature insults from a pirate who gives the rest of them a bad name.
    I (cliffski) edited it. I bet he thinks that’s censorship or fascism. *sigh*

43. i’ve never heared of you , your games or your company before either ;)
    some reasons completly out of order

    1.) modern games are way to short
    2.) modern games come out unfished .. pay me and i´ll beta test your game
    3.) modern games are not innovative enough, i´ve played that all in 1997 already .. don´t give a crap about leet graphics
    4.) i´m not willing to upgrade my pc every 2 month so i download console games
    5.) games aren´t funny anmore (simon 1/simon 2 -> simon 3 sux .. monkey island 1+2 = cool 3+ = suck etc)
    6.) they are to expensive
    7.) they install to much shit (steam wtf)
    8.) i don´t want to install a patch every 2 days
    9.) buy game -> find out it sux -> money wasted ..
    10.) i don´t want to go to a store (time = money) (steam still sux)
    11.) i don´t download demos anymore .. mirror 1 down mirror 2 down mirror 3 slow as fuck mirror 4 even slower -> torrent link ? are you fucking kidding me ? i just download the full version instead if i already torrent stuff
    12.) i simply don´t want to pay for a game that entertains me like 30 minutes

44. Hi,
    Good luck with reading all those comments. Personally I don’t own any of your games, pirated or otherwise so I can’t comment on why in particular YOUR games are being pirated but I can comment on the general piracy thing.
    I used to think (well I WAS once a noob) that people downloaded pirated software because maybe it was a money issue or even that some might download a “free” copy to evaluate and then buy the real thing if they liked it. I still believe partially in the evaluation thing but just a wee bit because its still breaching copyright and probably a hundred other laws. Its a bittersweet feeling you might have that people like your games enough to pirate and re distribute them all over torrent sites and such.
    Through the years I have came to the conclusion that money isn’t the issue, in fact, its far from it. People will download games/music/software/movies and even e-books that would otherwise cost a mere £1 just for the reason that they don’t have to pay. I believe people will download a pirate version of a 50 pence piece of software rather than fork out their so obviously blood/sweat and tear stained money.
    As long as torrent sites are allowed to function using their legal loopholes of not actually storing any content then piracy will thrive for years to come. I will admit to you now that I used a pirate version of Vista for a few months as I was reluctant to spend a load on something everyone was complaining didn’t work. I now have a legitimate copy installed after through my “evaluation” I found not a single problem that was big enough to stop me from purchasing the real thing and I’m now extremely happy that I have my genuine copy. I did break laws no matter how you look at it but you can see my reasons why.
    As for games and software, there isn’t really an excuse is there? Most software companies, as you know, allow an evaluation version for you to try and in some cases its a fully functioning trial, the same goes for game demo’s so why would anyone need to download a pirated version? Is it because they are a sponging, greedy, selfish twat? or is it because they don’t have the readies to hand over in the shop? Its not a hard one is it?
    People will argue that the demo of a game is the best bit of the whole retail version and I have noticed by some comments that the full game is not much bigger than the demo. Some also say (not on here but word of mouth) that they feel they have been ripped off for years and I’ll explain. You see a TV ad for a new game, a CD or a movie and find that the best bit is in the ad and the rest absolutely sucks. A bit like buying a sticky bun and licking the icing to find a bit of stale dough at the bottom, presentation is everything isn’t it…or is it? Now some are saying they are getting their own back on the various industries by downloading illegally. I wonder how many of these people would admit that the majority of what they have purchased they are happy with. One answer to the two good songs on a 15 track CD you just purchased is itunes, get the tracks you want and no more crap. Not a chance they are STILL not happy and would rather download a 79 pence track illegally and the irony here is they won’t spend time seeking the individual tracks but will get the whole album as a one-click affair on a torrent site.
    Have I answered some of your questions or did I go on a bit? Feel free to reply to my email address as I’m interested in YOUR views as a developer.

45. Price and longevity.
    throwing down $60 for every game that comes out is too much. A really good game should be $35. A decent game should be $20 to $25 (All american dollars)

    And having an expansion be just as much as a game is full bore retarded.
    What’s worse is having a played a demo that highlights the game but the game, when you get it, is boring as hell.

    Lets also go with the crap a lot of developers are putting on and have been for a long time. CD has to be in the system, why? The company puts its little anti-piracy program on my system without my permission or hides the fact somewhere in the EULA.

    Piracy is cheap and easier to use than some games. Safer in some regards (coughcoughSONYcoughcough)
    And the BS that Steam has where I can’t play a game without jumping through hoops if I don’t have an internet connection. I love the delivery of Steam, hate that I have to be online to play HL2 that I bought before it came out. you know?

    I do buy games. But I don’t see the reason to pay $60 for a game I will play for maybe two or three hours.

    summory:
    cost
    longevity vs cost
    no added little programs (with a good AV)
    easier than driving to the store

46. Ok, so I thought I was finished but I just had to go Google piracy and the reasons for it. Right don’t eat that custard cream because you will laugh at this excuse and I don’t want you to choke. “I’m never going to buy the games I download for free anyway so the developers won’t lose money because of me”.
    Well that puts him in the clear then….next!
    Someone mentioned you should ask why people upload and not ask why some download as we seem to know the anser to that anyway. Uploaders in their delusional minds believe they are providing a service and some even crave recognition for it, you only have to look at the top uploaders on certain sites.
    The question you ask is for answers from the pirates who copy your games only but it can’t really be answered in the way you want because I don’t believe the pirates care what game or who’s game it is. There must be a lot of ‘copying your friends game’ going on as well as the multi-scale pirates who upload everything to the net. There’s no specific answer to give concerning only your games as all games are pirated for the same reasons with the exception of a few who might just bear a grudge against certain companies but that must be a drop in the ocean. I think you might be wondering if someone has a grudge on you or a problem with some of your games but believe me, it’s nothing personal…I think!
    Game developers these days are putting everything into how it looks and are shirking on how it plays and the general content itself. I’d much rather have a semi-decent looking amazingly playable and feature packed well thought out game that one that just looks good. All the money is going into looks and with advanced graphics the games are harder and take longer to develop. There’s no bigger rip off than the games that are written above the spec of your month old graphics card. Remember the Prince of Persia issue where the game developers deliberately made the game non-compatible with the biggest selling graphics gard of the time, the Geforce MX440. This was a devious marketing ploy to get the biggest majority to buy a new card. I remember my heart sank when it refused to install on my system but would install on a system with a lesser spec rival graphics card. I think maybe the developers had a thing going with Nvidia to force more sales of their newer cards. Chances if you had a Nvidia MX440 you would upgrade to another Nvidia card. Sometimes the developers are shady too but will deny it of course.
    Good luck for the future with your games. To tell you the truth, I never heard of you or your games until now……
    Any publicity is good even if its bad…right? Now because I have spoke to the man, I will look at his work but not on the torrent sites, lol

47. Personally I only pirate old games because it is almost impossible to get them and I want to play them on my computer.

48. Hi Cliff, … I can talk (well try talk… my english is bad) about piracy here on Brazil…

    First I have a PS3… and 13 games… not using X360 or PC Games… so many cheaters and pirates… yes the prices here are the problem .. a original game for PS2, PS3, Wii X360 costs about 130 USD, and a game for PC 50USD … a pirated copy off course not for PS3… costs about 2USD… the people (not all) not have enough money to expend with a PC to buy cheap PC games… .. there are so many PS2 consoles all with pirates.. no one uses original games… a PS2 console have low prices … about 250USD here…

    Many guys… not want to pay to play or cant pay … but if you game is cool .. yes all “cant pay” guys wants to copy it and uses without pay…

    I think the best way do end it .. is do online only games (unique code checked on server side)… or PS3 only game…

49. This is not directly about your games, but I think I represent many people who think the same way.

    I got a game for Christmas. The copy protection stopped me from playing it, so it was returned.
    I downloaded a demo of a game. The copy protection demanded that I stop using my task manager. Of course I did not buy the game.

    I guess there is no way to make me buy games, sorry. If I can get them for free, I will. If not, I will not play them at all. If games were CHEAP, would work and had good ideas, I might change my opinion. But paying 50EUR (outrageous price IMO) for something that maybe is intentionally made non-working – no thanks.

    Focus on selling more, not on stopping piracy. See piracy as a fact of life. Especially with less-well-known games, you might slightly reduce piracy, but that won’t help sales. See piracy as cheap advertisment. Respect your paying customers, make sure your customers know that you respect them. What you are doing here is a great first step. And the most important thing: Make sure your games are REALL great.

50. There are many reasons I pirate games. First I like to try before I buy, nothing like slamming down 60-80 bucks on a crap game. Second it’s much more convenient to download games then bus to the store and get a bunch of useless packaging. Third I like games a lot, but I don’t make enough money to actually pay for all the games I do play. So if your game just isnt as good as the other ones I play. I wouldn’t buy it anyways. At least this way I am playing your work and can tell other people about it. Fifth is replay value. A game like Starcraft has major replay value (I bought that one), a game that lasts 8 hours, just isn’t worth that amount of money.

    An example of a game I bought is Team Fortress 2. Valve was kind enough to have a weekend free trial and I could download it with steam in under an hour. I liked the game enough to want to continue playing it and it was only 20$. Paying for it was as easy as typing in my credit card information. Plus it was already downloaded so I could continue playing it with no problems. That is a purchase I don’t regret.

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