Timeframe on DX11 (Side Debate on the Effects of Piracy)

[JPelter]

Ok, sorry I spoke up. Piracy in general gets under my skin.

I will keep my ignorant nonsense to myself in the future.

It's just one of those things where stricter restrictions seem to make sense till you find out that nothing that anyone has ever come up will actually prevent it as far as I know. Except software that calls home every five seconds maybe, but even then most of that can be bypassed and it is completely infuriating for legitimate customers. Digital distribution is honestly doing more to combat PC piracy than any amount of copy protection attempts ever did since it's actually easier to buy and download a game on steam than it is to get it illegally. DRM on the steam level is just fine since it's almost completely unnoticeable to the end user, and at the same time prevents the 80s style just copy files and send to your friends type piracy. Anything more than that will start hindering buying customers and the people who really want to get their warez will always find a way anyway.

On a lighter note I finally figured out how to score well in pinbot and hammered out 88M. Woop!

 

[Zaphod77]

The only thing that really works to stop piracy is subscription with MMORPGs. sure you can play on an emulated, buggy, private server, but the real community is missing, the support is missing. You cannot get the actual product for free no matter what.

nothing else works, pure and simple. Where there's a will, there's a way.

 

[Jeff Strong]

The only thing that really works to stop piracy is subscription with MMORPGs. sure you can play on an emulated, buggy, private server, but the real community is missing, the support is missing. You cannot get the actual product for free no matter what.

nothing else works, pure and simple. Where there's a will, there's a way.

Well, it's the same deal with FPS multiplayer games and CD keys, except you only have to buy the game once.

 

[soundwave106]

It's just one of those things where stricter restrictions seem to make sense till you find out that nothing that anyone has ever come up will actually prevent it as far as I know. Except software that calls home every five seconds maybe, but even then most of that can be bypassed and it is completely infuriating for legitimate customers.

There is nothing that can 100% prevent piracy, no. There are mainly schemes one can use to deter. "Always on" is not a good scheme in my opinion. Steam's light DRM scheme is fine. If a software company wanted to combine this with anti-tampering mechanisms, that's probably even better. (Anti-tampering could also be effective at detecting cheats as a bonus.)

Combine that with the nature of piracy sites (the malware which is found heavily on pirated PCs has gotten a *lot* more professional in a bad way, far more rootkit style tools which are difficult to remove, far more ransomware-type schemes) and the ease of legit digital distribution, and really, I personally see no reason to pirate these days. I guess many people disagree for some reason.

Legally I do imagine that in the future, the bulk of attention is going to be paid to the distribution sites instead of the end users, eg torrent sites and file storage sites. There's a lot of money floating towards them, and many of them "look the other way" or even encourage massive piracy on them.

Targeting the users themselves is the wrong strategy, as detection is too difficult and subject to error (see Napster). Also in some forms of media the content creators sometimes "look the other way", as sharing is promotion (music and visual media forums have interesting debates in this regard). Host sites that have active copyright infringement detection policies probably are fine.

Some people just have an interesting perspective of the world. When Megaupload was shut down, many people did wail and gnash their teeth and make rants about how rich Evil Hollywood and Evil Game Companies are etc. I guess how rich these type of people were making Megaupload never crossed their minds.

 

[LiquidFreon]

PC gaming has always been bigger than console.

It's just that PC gaming has changed from AAA titles to indie games and facebook games like farmville, besides MMORPGS.

Maybe on the Klingon home world, but here on Earth such is not the case. Let's see, I had a Commodore 64, Atari 2600, Coleco Vision, Nintendo, SNES, Nintendo 64, Gamecube, Sega Genesis, Sega 32x, Dreamcast, XBox, Xbox 360, PS1, PS2, PS3, Xbox One, WiiU. Thats just the consoles ive owned over the years. Bought my first PC a from Gateway when i was around 20 years old to play Kingpin Life of Crime. Later bought an overpriced Alienware. Much later learned how to build my own computer. Right now i'm on my second built computer now i7 Haswell 4770K with a GTX 780 which eats anything i throw at it and demands seconds. Have bought 100's of titles from Doom, Quake, Sims, Spiderman titles, Batman titles, RPG titles (Not MMORPG), RIFT (MMORPG), Tomb Raider. Are there pirates? Sure there is in every thing. You have Somali pirates, you also have pirates who pirate PS3 with Duplex and XBox with some other firmware. You have emulators like Dolphin and other ones for the consoles of yesteryear. You have Pirates who Pirate games for the jail broken Iphones and Ipads, and Nexus as well. There is a slew of AAA titles coming out on PC from Tom Clancy to EA, to Square, to Konami, to Capcom, to Zen Studios, to TPA, to many more that elude me right now. Are their Indies also? Yes, because there is room and space for everyone just like there are Indies on consoles. Where ever there is money to be made, someone will be there.

Tired of hearing people say, I'm a gamer because i use Consoles or I use PC, or I use an Ipad or i use my windshield wipers to pass the dirt from one side to the other. Whatever medium you use makes you and everyone else a gamer. Neither PC is dead, nor Console's, nor handhelds, nor anything else electronic or otherwise. Those that try to elevate one medium over the other because they can't afford to play on anything else but their phone or console or PC are delusional, sound desperate and foolish. You even have the "Steam Machine" which is a glorified computer with a different OS coming out now. Tell me again how the PC is going the way of the Dodo. Gaming is here to stay in all mediums for all taste and all levels of affordability. Even game boards like Parcheesi i'm sure are being played in some Amish house right now. Stop fearing the PC or Consoles or handhelds or whatever you DON'T play on. Embrace technology and expansion. I'm sure EA or Capcom or Konami or other high rated companies wish their competition would believe such nonsense and stop making games so they could scoop that niche market and make millions. PC gaming hasn't changed it has evolved to include more mediums of entertainment. It's time that "Gamers" evolve as well.

Also tired of the "Handout" attitude. The people that feel everything should be free because they can't afford it. Like some guy on another thread who was attacking TPA for releasing a free table because he found out he had to pay for the others. I guess Porsche is going out of business because no one wants fancy cars. Jalopys are in! Seriously your statistics on Nvidia and AMD are so laughable they border on trolling. Also your un-backed statistics & percentages was not pulled out of a magic hat but somewhere much darker and foreboding. Reading your post again almost gives me the impression that you pirate games and think its a good thing for the industry as a whole. Never had a problem with DRM and if a company feels they need to impose it on their product, i'm all for it. I don't leave the doors of my house open when im there or going shopping, i don't expect game developers to leave their hard work either. I'm curious to see how good the sales of Witcher 3 will be.

 

[warh0g]

Piracy of software and music is a luxury problem. There are actual problems in the world that needs fixing rather than preventing people from downloading music. Jeez, I get so fed up with this BS. Copyright infringment and so called theft of luxury items for the western world is getting too much resources, fix real World problems instead of this bs.

That being said I purchase all my music, games and software. But I still find this totally ludicrous.
And 90% piracy on PC, where does this fact come from? And as allways 1 download does not equal 1 missed sale, just because some one downloaded a game, song or movie does not mean that they ever would buy it. You can argue the moral part about it, but you can never say it is stealing.

If companies want people to buy their product it is quite simple:
Create a good product that people want to purchase and do some god damn math. Is it probable that a game that cost 500 million dollars to produce will break even? If the answer is no, go back to tbe drawing board and figure out a new business model.



End of rant.

 

[foxystyle]

These days many large game companies struggle to make a good game. Most large PC games are not that fun anymore because they focus too much on graphics and marketing and don't listen to the fan base. In the end there's an over hyped game being released that gets insufficient support to satisfy the players. Patches don't solve much, people quit, cheaters come in, more people quit, mods get released by the community that improve the game but it's too late because the player base is small at this point. Isn't it strange that non professional programmers who make mods can solve the problems with the game? Unfortunately devs don't make decisions. It's a business model based on a strategy that is not going to make the project successful. Apparently people who make decisions fail.

Small companies and individuals can make fun games that people want to play over and over again. I used to think that more expensive games are better than free to play or cheap ones but lately I find it's often the other way around. I still buy large games but avoid pre orders and read negative feedback to see if many people have the same issues with the game.

 

[SteWieH]

well Ill go ahead and start dodging some stones now, but, Ill go ahead and admit, I did pirate the Pinball Arcade a few days ago. However I only did so to make sure that it was playable on my pc, i suffered no other problems, and that it didnt have any issues. Once i did confirm that it worked and i didnt have any other unlayable issues and/or flipper lag, i did delete and dropped the money onto TPA. as much as piracy sucks. instead of me just buying a single table to try out. i went ahead and just dropped money for the pro tables. even thou i found out that medeval madness is what i call a "hard censor" meaning Ill never get to hear the full thing. piracy is a problem and honestly there is no way around it. look at every game that they placed "massive" antipiracy stuff that prevents you from basically playing the game, such as GTA IV, AC 3 and (one of the) serious Sam (games). tbh the ONLY consoles that havent been cracked, are the "next gen" ones, such as the ps4 and the Xbones. hell the 3ds even has flash carts. and piracy is painfully easy on the 360. and well not nearly as much as the ps3 but still piracy is still there. hackers will hack just to show they can do something. piracy is one less thing to worry about

 

[Gozer]

well Ill go ahead and start dodging some stones now, but, Ill go ahead and admit, I did pirate the Pinball Arcade a few days ago. However I only did so to make sure that it was playable on my pc, i suffered no other problems, and that it didnt have any issues. Once i did confirm that it worked and i didnt have any other unlayable issues and/or flipper lag, i did delete and dropped the money onto TPA. as much as piracy sucks. instead of me just buying a single table to try out. i went ahead and just dropped money for the pro tables. even thou i found out that medeval madness is what i call a "hard censor" meaning Ill never get to hear the full thing. piracy is a problem and honestly there is no way around it. look at every game that they placed "massive" antipiracy stuff that prevents you from basically playing the game, such as GTA IV, AC 3 and (one of the) serious Sam (games). tbh the ONLY consoles that havent been cracked, are the "next gen" ones, such as the ps4 and the Xbones. hell the 3ds even has flash carts. and piracy is painfully easy on the 360. and well not nearly as much as the ps3 but still piracy is still there. hackers will hack just to show they can do something. piracy is one less thing to worry about

Or you could of downloaded TPA on steam and played a full pro version of TOTAN for free or demo all other tables for free.

 

[superballs]

well Ill go ahead and start dodging some stones now, but, Ill go ahead and admit, I did pirate the Pinball Arcade a few days ago. However I only did so to make sure that it was playable on my pc, i suffered no other problems, and that it didnt have any issues. Once i did confirm that it worked and i didnt have any other unlayable issues and/or flipper lag, i did delete and dropped the money onto TPA. as much as piracy sucks. instead of me just buying a single table to try out. i went ahead and just dropped money for the pro tables. even thou i found out that medeval madness is what i call a "hard censor" meaning Ill never get to hear the full thing. piracy is a problem and honestly there is no way around it. look at every game that they placed "massive" antipiracy stuff that prevents you from basically playing the game, such as GTA IV, AC 3 and (one of the) serious Sam (games). tbh the ONLY consoles that havent been cracked, are the "next gen" ones, such as the ps4 and the Xbones. hell the 3ds even has flash carts. and piracy is painfully easy on the 360. and well not nearly as much as the ps3 but still piracy is still there. hackers will hack just to show they can do something. piracy is one less thing to worry about

That and MM is in fact censored. The uncensored version is an unofficial rom, it will not be available ever in TPA.

 

[AshleyAshes]

well Ill go ahead and start dodging some stones now, but, Ill go ahead and admit, I did pirate the Pinball Arcade a few days ago. However I only did so to make sure that it was playable on my pc, i suffered no other problems, and that it didnt have any issues. Once i did confirm that it worked and i didnt have any other unlayable issues and/or flipper lag, i did delete and dropped the money onto TPA. as much as piracy sucks. instead of me just buying a single table to try out. i went ahead and just dropped money for the pro tables. even thou i found out that medeval madness is what i call a "hard censor" meaning Ill never get to hear the full thing. piracy is a problem and honestly there is no way around it. look at every game that they placed "massive" antipiracy stuff that prevents you from basically playing the game, such as GTA IV, AC 3 and (one of the) serious Sam (games). tbh the ONLY consoles that havent been cracked, are the "next gen" ones, such as the ps4 and the Xbones. hell the 3ds even has flash carts. and piracy is painfully easy on the 360. and well not nearly as much as the ps3 but still piracy is still there. hackers will hack just to show they can do something. piracy is one less thing to worry about

But Steam gives you one table ENTIRELY for free and all the rest are available in demo mode to get a taste of them and their performance. What you did there is just... Dumb.

 

[Alex Atkin UK]

Well, some of the tables do take some getting into, demo mode often cuts off too quickly. But if you like pinball and can afford to just buy it outright like that, I agree that it sounded unnecessary.

 

[Zaphod77]

Personally i think the demos should have more cleverly written cut off routines. FOr example, you can get your first million plus in funhouse playign it in demo mode. that's agodo one. but you can't score a single super jackpot in t2 playing in demonstration mode.

Also keep in mind that you always have TWO free tables available. TOTAN, as well as the table of the month. And the table of the month ads are very tasteful (come on, it's pinball ads! how reasonable is that? )

 

[SilverBalls]

I actually think the demos allow way too much gameplay and I am sure that a lot of people (not people on this forum) make do with the relatively generous demos and don't buy. I have a couple of friends who are like that. They play PA demos only. Because they don' t care about high scores or completing missions they just start again. There are many people like this.

Now if you set the demo to 30 seconds or 60 seconds this would be frustrating and people might buy more tables. I remember Pro Pinball The Web in the 90s dished out a 20 or 30 second demo. It was enough to blow peoples mind and make them buy. I think FS should try something similar.

As for dealing with pirates. With a bit of luck someone will create a pirated copy which formats the users hard drive after 10 or so free games. Theft needs to be punished

 

[Biff]

In fact, it is quite easy to get accidentally in contact with malicious webcode, trojans & viruses when you surf on the dark side.

 

[Mike Reitmeyer]

I actually think the demos allow way too much gameplay and I am sure that a lot of people (not people on this forum) make do with the relatively generous demos and don't buy. I have a couple of friends who are like that. They play PA demos only. Because they don' t care about high scores or completing missions they just start again. There are many people like this.

Now if you set the demo to 30 seconds or 60 seconds this would be frustrating and people might buy more tables. I remember Pro Pinball The Web in the 90s dished out a 20 or 30 second demo. It was enough to blow peoples mind and make them buy. I think FS should try something similar.

As for dealing with pirates. With a bit of luck someone will create a pirated copy which formats the users hard drive after 10 or so free games. Theft needs to be punished

I thought this was kinda genius

http://www.greenheartgames.com/2013...lator-and-then-go-bankrupt-because-of-piracy/

 

[SilverBalls]

I thought this was kinda genius

http://www.greenheartgames.com/2013...lator-and-then-go-bankrupt-because-of-piracy/

Very interesting experiment. Those stats are horrifying - only 6% of players paid for the game! I am gutted for the devs.

 

[JPelter]

Very interesting experiment. Those stats are horrifying - only 6% of players paid for the game! I am gutted for the devs.

It's interesting, but you have to again consider how many of those playing the cracked copies would have actually bought the game if that wasn't possible. Some would have I'm sure, but it almost certainly would have been a tiny fraction. Companies report lost profits to piracy in media a lot in the same way, but if no one would have bought that copy in the first place it's not actually lost profit. I'm not really trying to condone pirating software at all, but figuring out how much it hurts the developers is a lot more complicated than looking at the number of games played vs. number of games bought.

 

[soundwave106]

It's interesting, but you have to again consider how many of those playing the cracked copies would have actually bought the game if that wasn't possible. Some would have I'm sure, but it almost certainly would have been a tiny fraction.

It's difficult to determine whether someone would buy a game or not. But in many cases, there *is* some money flowing, either to the companies that run file hosting services and torrent sites (whether its ad hosted or you pay a fee)... in addition to some of the malware scams out there. That's really one of the deals... even if you wouldn't have bought the game, you are probably sending money to some questionable business.

 

[Zaphod77]

Pay? a filehosting company? never!

Seriously. i have never given any of them a single penny, and never will.

Sure ads may be paying someone, but it's not out of my pocketbook.