Rock, Paper, Shotgun

05/01/2012 at 20:40 Abundant_Suede says:

@vinraith

That would be silly. If you’re against Steam for some hopelessly futile reason from 2004, grow some stones, and don’t buy or play the game. If you buy it, then crack it, you’re reinforcing the behavior you want to discourage on both ends, first by financially rewarding them, secondly by swelling the ranks of piracy which justifies their delusions about DRM in the first place.

No game is worth playing if it endorses a practice you oppose strongly enough. Personally, I’ll be playing the hell out of this over Steam, which has worked for me on and offline, without significant issue for years. But if you feel it represents something you want to see change, have the fortitude to abstain, or all you’re doing is blowing hot air and ensuring the practice continues.

05/01/2012 at 21:08 Abundant_Suede says:

@Vinraith

*shrugs*

A sale is a sale. It’s positive reinforcement. If you oppose something and mean it, rather than blowing hot air, you say I will not support this on any level. There is never any justification for supporting piracy, and logically, it works counter to your supposed goal. From the developers perspective that is one more IP address on the torrent, justifying their need for DRM.

Remember, in digital distribution there is no such thing as “taking a loss” on an individual unit. There are no manufacturing costs, and distribution is not the same concern. A game can fail to make back its budget overall, but on an individual transaction level, on some level, each sale represents money they didn’t have before.

If you want to simply pay less for a game, you know that’s something I can appreciate ;) But your position as stated is not logical, if you want to actually discourage something or send a message. If I think a product is defective, I don’t use it all. The only message you’re sending is that you’re cheap, and that the publisher will see increased piracy even if they make their games easily available at reasonable prices.

Basically, you ARE the problem, and the reason you have DRM in the first place. Congrats!

05/01/2012 at 21:40 Abundant_Suede says:

@Emeraude

I’ve heard the arguments too, but never one by anyone who sounded like they were over 30, and dealing with realities rather than whimsical notions of things that are never going to happen. And never by anyone who ever offered a compelling reason why an artist should not be able to profit from their own labor the same as a ditch digger, or who offered a realistic alternative to the means we have in place to allow them to do so.

But it’s an old argument, a tired argument, an argument I feel is dominated by fairly transparent and clumsy rationalizations, and I won’t discuss it here.

Buy the game, don’t buy the game, buy it one place, and not another. Pirate it if you feel that’s helpful to society. It’s all one to me. Just don’t have any illusion that “buy it and crack it” accomplishes anything other than reinforcing the behavior you’re supposedly objecting to.

05/01/2012 at 22:03 Abundant_Suede says:

@Emeraude

Sorry. My comment was directed at the theoretical people whose “arguments” you’ve been listening to, not at you personally.

I don’t apologize for my tone, however. While most of these arguments are framed as being against some big evil game company, publisher, or media company they can be used against me as an artist, as well. Or a writer. Or a musician. The same rationalizations you make about being entitled to someone’s game for free, are also an attack on my livelihood. Give me a compelling reason why I should not be able to profit from my efforts the same as anyone else who makes a product, or provides a service, and maybe one day I’ll listen.

Until then, I’m not interested.

06/01/2012 at 03:40 Abundant_Suede says:

Vinraith:Just to be sure I’m understanding you, it’s your position that a $2 purchase and a $50 purchase have the same impact, and that downloading a crack and downloading a full-blown pirated copy have the same impact. Is that correct?

My position on those issues is not relevant (certainly not to you). The matter of degree, if there is one, is not relevant, unless it helps you sleep better, then great.

The relevant fact is that seller of the game will see a sale at their deliberately marketed price (you dont “get one over” on someone by buying their goods at a price they have hoped to sell it to you at) as a validation, and view a cracked game as a validation of their need for anti piracy measures. They have no way of making the connection between the two, and are unlikely to view the act positively even if they could.

They are unlikely to be sensitive to any matter of degree in the case of the latter, and even if they were, it is still a message in the opposite direction of the one you wanted to send. If you give a child a lollipop or an ice cream sundae in return for an action, you have still reinforced that action to some degree, and done the opposite of deterring it. The reverse is true is well, with your negative actions.

Of course, that’s only important if you really cared about sending a message. If you did, you simply would abstain from the game altogether. If you just want a cheap game, and don’t care if you contribute to a publisher’s impression that they need ever increasing amounts of DRM because no matter how reasonably they price their games, or how convenient they make them to buy, people will still engage in illegal cracks and piracy, you’re fine. But then, like I said…you’re part of the problem.