You guys have to admit, this is often the case.

I also know that the majority of people who download it aren’t doing so to try before you buy.. the majority who download it would never have bought it in the first place. And yet others may try-before-you-buy and decide not to buy.

I’d like to know, though, how Bethesda can claim that the majority of PC support calls are for pirated versions when the pirated versions are exactly the same, sans a CD check. And for those that do have a no CD crack, you can’t know whether they use one because they don’t want to put up with keeping the CD in the drive (I know many people who do this), or because they genuinely lost their CD (having to get it out all the time to put into the drive, and put back just increases the risk of losing it..).

To be clear, though, I have no issues with Bethesda or anyone refusing support for anyone using a cracked version, for whatever reason. If you still have the CD, reinstall a clean version and make sure the trouble is still there.

Also don’t forget people that pirate the game *after* buying it, for a hassle-free cracked executable.. how else would you be able to play Half-Life 2 without Steam constantly running in the background and revalidating itself after every once in a while? How else would you be able to install Spore or the like without worrying if you’re over your install limit? If a game has hefty DRM, I’ll be more likely to buy it if I can pirate it and get a DRM-free copy. Though generally I just won’t buy games that have restrictive DRM, to not encourage them to use it.. though not buying inadvertantly *causes* them to use more DRM.. funny that. (PS. contrary to what some poeple like to state, Steam is not the answer to DRM.. Steam *is* ths DRM! I know plenty of people who will never ever install Steam because of it, myself included).

The “solution” to piracy is simple: don’t worry about people that wouldn’t buy the game in the first place, and make a game potential customers will want to buy. Make games that players will want to reward the creators for, and not worry about being accused of being a criminal (in the form of “activations”) because they bought it. This means actually making a good game (le gasp!) and not a cheap knock-off or a yearly roster update in new packaging. Bethesda did this with Oblivion (which, BTW, had no DRM at all besides a simple CD check, and become a top-selling game for the PC; there was another more recent game that also had little-to-no DRM and also became a top-seller on the PC). I was able to play Oblivion before I bought it, found it highly enjoyable, thus bought a copy. If I can’t try/demo a game (and I mean a good demo, that works to show what the full game is like, not a bone tossed out for us to shut up about), I’ll be much much less likely to want to buy it.

It’s also true that video games production values have sky rocketed in the last decade or so. Not every game will sell well. Not every game will recoup losses. It’s a simple fact of business. But I bet these large publisher houses, who are used to seeing good returns on investments, suddenly aren’t.. not because people are buying less, but because they’re spending more. I mean, hey.. Blizzard publishes good games and gets a return on their investment.. Activision publishes good games and gets returns on their investment.. surely Activision-Blizzard could publish games with double the development cost and get a return on their investment, right? ..right?

It’s not like they can say “you aren’t shoveling money into our pockets fast enough!”. They gotta blame something other than themselves for not getting full returns on investments.. so why not this invisible threat called “piracy”?

Seriously though an RTS mainly made for console will probably look (and probably play) like crud on the PC…

Now, I cannot say ”torrent sites aren’t a problem for game developers” sure they are. But it isn’t even near the problem they make it to be. Have you ever seen a piracy info file that doesn’t have the mention of supporting the developers? Buying the game if you like it? Other than a few, out of the hundreds that i open handedly can say that i’ve downloaded, i can mention a few, and those usually were nonsensical groups or even a single person releases, which usually were then ”done right” later by the bigger names in piracy.

Also, torrents and torrents. Bollocks. Torrents don’t even make the bulk of piracy. Peer-to-peer traffic does, and i’m still not talking about torrents, which… are pretty much peer-to-everyone and everyone-to-peer. I’m talking of DC++, which singlehandedly holds the ”crown” of piracy today. petabytes of data are exchanged every waking hour, 99% in the name of piracy. But… is it really such a bad thing?

Yes, and no. It’s not theft, it’s evaluating what you get if you were to purchase product. On a longer than norm scale. I often try to seek betas, but not to share the beta, this is the… legal way to play the game for… relatively free before it’s release, sometimes afterwards. But here’s a good comparison; Near where i live, there’s a car firm that takes test drive to a whole new level. They give you the keys to the car, and give you an entire week to drive it for pretty much rental price, they catch is that there is a GPS tracker in the car, that you cannot remove or the car stops working(well, in theory) and if you decide to buy it, the rental price is removed from the sum. This is kind of how piracy works in comparison to the demos. You get the full product, free of charge (well, internet, computers, electricity account for that rental price…) with the only difference of the week limit not being there.

If i like something, i will buy it. And for me, and i’d dare to say, most of the people who pirate games, that’s what it’s about. Quality control. It’s not because of money, per se. I have money, but i really do not want to spend money on something i do not like in the end. I do not have enough money to spend on something of ShopTV quality, for instance, this holds true for games.

PS. This ramble was written 2 in the morning. It has alot of rambling and inaccuracies. Try to avoid critizism on those.

First of all, mininova, for instance, is by far a greater place than piratebay, which is pretty much ”hey, we want to take the flak from you, look at us do publicity” piracy site, perhaps around 12th, 15th largest piracy source at the moment… and rapidshare isn’t even 50th. But there’s no mention of this, because due to media, the only place you appear to know of is piratebay. And their bandwith usage is mainly search engine and hosting simplest info files. In such way you really can’t do much bandwith-wise, can you?

And the true reason for delaying the game on PC is the INTIMIDATING LINEUP that’s awaiting there. Not anything else. WAR, WoTLK, Borderlands, Littlebigplanet, Diablo 3, Fallout 3, Fable 2 and other ‘’small and unnoticable titles” say hi.