7 years ago*

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I'm actually surprised t took this long to crack.

7 years ago
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7 years ago
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Yes but how many people had Blu-ray players in their pc's at the time?

Hell. I STILL don't have Blu-ray in my place.

7 years ago
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No reason really. I haven't had optical drive in years (originally got rid since new mobo didn't have IDE, but I took SATA dvd-burner from schools computer and never plugged it in) yes, i had permission to take it.

PS4 and X1 is still uncracked too.

7 years ago
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Dreamcast as well as the NAOMI engine is still not fully cracked either. Neither is PS2, PS3, Xbox, 360 nor #DS.

Which sucks because I LOVED the Dreamcast ad would LOVE to play Giga Wing 2 again.

7 years ago
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wait, dreamcast isn't cracked? have you tried nulldc?

7 years ago
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afaik Ps2, dreamcast and nintendo DS are cracked, and 3ds is on its way.

depends what you mean by "fully cracked" though :p

7 years ago
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Most Dreamcast consoles play backups out of the box. What more do you want? The PS2 was torn apart, the DS only needs a flash cart, the 360 had JTAG and more... I don't get your classification.

7 years ago
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I meant for emulation.

7 years ago
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Then you should say emulated, not cracked! :) The PS2 is very well emulated, by the way.

7 years ago
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But or that you need to crack the systems BIOS first.

7 years ago
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Not really. The BIOS is often loaded into the emulator as is.

7 years ago
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PS2 not cracked? WTF? I'm not proud to say this (although I'm not ashamed neither, since getting original games for my ps2 was almost an impossible task here) but I never played an original game in my ps2. All of them were pirate copies, and they worked flawlessly. Jesus, I still play Budokai Tenkaichi 3 with my friends!

7 years ago
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It hasn't been cracked though, only bypassed. I think this is an important distinction to make. It basically means the Denuvo (or for actual authentication in DOOM's case, Steam) servers are fooled into thinking you are running a legit copy (or a demo version), but the online checks are still in place. The games in question are still reliant on the Denuvo servers being up and running. If, in the future, the authentication servers for Denuvo should go offline without the server checks being removed from the game client, you won't be able to play at all - legitimate copy or not. (There are precedents for this scenario with older DRM schemes, like Darkspore).

This is what is so worrisome about Denuvo, and unless it is actually cracked or can be removed, the online connectivity issue still remains a concern. It wasn't enough of a worry for me personally to keep me from buying DOOM, ABZU and other Denuvo titles, but there are people out there are who are very passionate and vocal about this issue.

7 years ago*
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Right, and not mentioning that the potential problems that this protection may cause to a person's system are not removed aswell, so I won't be calling this a crack at all.

7 years ago
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Don't give "hackers" a challenge. That's what they want. If you want to minimize pirating of your game, be a good developer. People will feel bad about pirating the game and will eventually buy the game (maybe on a sale, but hey, it's still something).

7 years ago
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^^This!! Exactly this!!!

7 years ago
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That's why the piracy rate of Witcher 2 was at roughly 95% ;)
I wonder how high it is for Witcher 3.

7 years ago
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dind't stop them from it being a huge financial success so I don't see what's your point

7 years ago
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My point is that CD Project is one of those "good" companies that makes great games and doesn't force DRM on their customers, fully knowing that 9 out of 10 people will rather steal their games instead of buying it. So why don't don't people feel bad about pirating their games and buy them afterwards. In my opinion what jbondguy said is wishful thinking.

7 years ago
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But it's not like they lose sales because of that, most of those people wouldn't buy the game anyway and they get free advertisement. Some of them will buy it eventually on sales since they most likely can't afford release price, it's mostly ppl from poor countries pirating in the first place.
I and everyone I knew pirated games in age 12-18 or so because simply the prices here were so high there was no way anyone could afford it, there was no bundles, steam didn't have great sales, even having internet was rare. If I hadn't gotten into gaming back then, theres very high chance I wouldn't be into it now at all, and buy nothing.

7 years ago
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7 years ago
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So who cares? Pirates didn't do any harm. Cdpr is an example that if you make a good game it sells well and brings profit. Pirates barely do any harm to the industry. And i must say this - piracy is not theft. People should be free to decide pirate or not and this should be moral and financial decision.
I was a pirate until steam. And in childhood i didn't even know i buy pirated games because there was no pther choice, it was selling at supermarkets. Am i a thief? I despise thiefs and i am not one.

7 years ago
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If you don't think piracy is theft I hope you ever create something and it gets pirated the shit out of it. Then we can continue this discussion :D

7 years ago
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This very old image...

View attached image.
7 years ago
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Wow... this completly changes my outlook on the whole issue!
Do you really think I've never heard that BS before ?
Infringement of intellectual property then. I just prefer to call it theft because that's what it is in layman's terms plus if pisses of pirates to no end :D

7 years ago
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Oh, how about we change the name to something completely random and unrelated then?

How about... instead of piracy, we call it cupboard?

You wouldn't cupboard a car, would you?

7 years ago
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That would be great. Then we could also call pirates reasonable people.
Pirates will always find a way to justify what they are doing and if it's only some semantic BS like "Piracy is not theft. Piracy is piracy"

I'm done here guys. Have fun :D

7 years ago
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Just out of curiosity... Why do you think that it makes sense to blacklist somebody if you don't make GAs? But sure go ahead. I've returned the favor ;)

7 years ago
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¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Don't be an elitist because you make lots of giveaways. I make very few, but in case I make some in the future there simply are no-go people. And there are always topics that people are sensitive to, and for me this is one of them. Like that topic about homosexualty.

Everyone has a certain topic on which someone has a VERY STRONG opinion. And you said that you like pissing pirates off. A blacklist may indicate my disapproval of it.

EDIT: Following your line of thought, I could ask you why you blacklisted someone who apparently very rarely enters giveaways. I have 1 more gift sent than won. And the second number equals 3.

7 years ago*
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7 years ago
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Thanks for blacklisting me buddy. I've returned the favor :D

7 years ago
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Well, I pirate A LOT of games, but I even preordered The Witcher 3 (and bought the previous ones).

7 years ago
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I'd like to know how that number was measured

7 years ago
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It was measured "roughly". :D

7 years ago
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Nah, it's easier to just make overpriced crap and put denuvo on it.

7 years ago
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The very philosophy behind hacking is all about trying to find that one obscure flaw, to figure out how to take apart and reassemble anything. The challenge is pretty much the entire purpose of hacking, for a lot of people. Not to say there aren't OTHER reasons for trying to beat security measures(since, if something is secured, there must be something worth securing)!

7 years ago
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Exactly. I used to almost exclusively pirate games and eventually I realized how shitty I was being and I couldn't enjoy the games anymore without feeling really guilty.

The only time I'd ever pirate a game now is to try it before I buy it, just in case the game is terrible or badly optimized. Good games deserve our money

7 years ago
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Be a good developer, and stop with the greed.
They steal us selling another half of games ripped in DLCs

7 years ago
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Who is Madman, someone from 3dm? I heard they were working on it

7 years ago
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7 years ago
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Do you know a link or something that explains the common tactics that denuvo uses? Because it's so damn interesting (on a technical level) that a software like this exist.

7 years ago
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7 years ago
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Thank you!!

7 years ago
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As far as I know, they've yet to reverse engineer Denuvo. This just exploits a Steam bug to bypass DRM.

7 years ago
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Good, I no longer pirate games but I'm still annoyed by intrusive DRM.

7 years ago
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Agreed.

7 years ago
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Apparently it exploits just bug in steam/denuvo and is very likely fixable server side, so RIP pirates next week (and that's why they released just before weekend, so they have more time to play before it's fixed)

7 years ago
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the funny thing, there was cracked version of doom on a pirating site that i litterly saw like 3 weeks ago, its fully working + there are over 200 games there that also work ( tested few but deleted when bored )
and this one here was litterly just cracked 2 days ago, GG late hackers lol

7 years ago
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waste money and time in protecting a game instead of polishing and making it great, publisher/dev logic.

7 years ago
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+1

It's all because they believe they "lose" money which they wouldn't get in the first place... GOG.com ftw!

7 years ago
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This. I don't think there has been any big boost of sales since the use of denuvo for any games, and I hope it stops one day. It hurts the legit consumer with the pirates.

7 years ago
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Just like DVD's where if you pirate it you just get the movie, but if you buy it legally you get all the text saying not to pirate the movie and all the trailers which sometimes allow you to skip them, but other times they don't offer that freedom.

It's as Gabe Newell said "Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem"

7 years ago
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And yet I never heard pirate saying "I stopped pirating and started paying $60 because Steam gives me easy patches", all I heard it "I stopped pirating and started buying games because they finally got cheap, like $20 for Deus Ex Mankind Divided preorder"...

7 years ago
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Yep. Cheap Yes.

7 years ago
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Pricing is part of the service though. Service is not just easy patches or customer service, it's everything surrounding the product (pricing, how easy/hard it is to actually buy, the support the devs offer etc).

7 years ago
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Funny, because one of the main reasons I started to get my games legit and digitally was to get the patches in a convenient matter. And this is the only reason I don't really like Humble's DRM-free games, because they are portables, so patching is like what I used to do in the 90s (which I hoped I finally got rid of, but apparently not).

7 years ago
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well, they don't miss my money when i pirate, I wasn't going to pay anyway.

but yes, gog is awesome

7 years ago
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but it's not that expensive or time-consuming. Nowhere near as much as polishing a game

7 years ago
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it's expensive when they think they fight piracy with these stupid protections, they only make me want to pirate everything again.

7 years ago
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they know they probably can't stop piracy. The goal is to reduce and delay. The thought-process is twofold:
1) some people who would otherwise pirate the game will buy it... more revenue
2) don't allow someone who hasn't paid to play the game. "I worked hard for this, fuck you for trying to rip me off"

7 years ago
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Don't believe the lies these companies are telling you, drm's true purpose is to track and monitor people.
I'm tried of being treated like a criminal when I buy digital goods. Target the pirates, not your paying customers.

I really really really wish these "online only" games, that the companies would release their server side software WHEN they fucking close their servers. (technically, they are breaking/disabling your product, which I swear we all should be entitled to a refund).

Also, relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Qkyt1wXNlI ~Neil Gaiman

7 years ago
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It a shit that we are mere subscribers to the usage of their games instead of real buyers of a good.

7 years ago
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That is true only for steam games. Not sure about EA/Ubi/Blizz versions.

7 years ago
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I became a fan of Neil Gaiman through a lent book. I then bought all of the Sandman series and bought man of his shows that are on DVD.

7 years ago
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Yet another instance proving that the best way to get your customers to pay you is to simply be a good developer. All DRM is crackable in the end.

7 years ago
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The complete list of games with a working crack (bypass):

DOOM
RISE OF THE TOMB RAIDER
JUST CAUSE 3
INSIDE
ABZU
TOTAL WAR WARHAMMER

And remember, never buy a game with this kind of abusive protection. This is the worst DRM ever created and is bad for legit customers because you need to be always online in order to play. You can check the updated list of games in this wikipedia entry:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denuvo#List_of_Denuvo_games

7 years ago
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You don't have to be always online, it's not much different than Steam about that (maybe shorter time)..

Yes, Denuvo does kick customer rights right in the balls, but let's not lie about it.

7 years ago
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After Windows / Driver / Game update. No real offline timer.

7 years ago
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Heard Denuvo has timer too, but that's Internet, so hard to say if he didn't forget about some other change that happened when his Internet was down.

7 years ago
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worst DRM?

I guess you don't remember Securom versions, Tages, Solidshield and Starforce that installed rootkits on your PC.

7 years ago
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Securom and Starforce were so damn hardcore.

7 years ago
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Starforce was the worst, can't even play most games that use it on Win 7 :(

7 years ago
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I remember them and I used no-cd cracks even with legit copies of the games. Denuvo uses hardware checks and all kind of questionable methods to allow legit customers to run the game, so is a no-no for anyone who know the basics about privacy and consumer rights.

7 years ago
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lol, I remember doing this too. You needed the damn CD even with the game fully installed on your hard drive.
Btw, thanks to that I got infected by a huge virus and gradually switched to linux... no DRMs XD

7 years ago
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Yep, pirates didn't need the CD to play so I was jealous and I felt ripped off.

7 years ago
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Why does Abzu and Inside need DRM???

7 years ago
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To secure their maximum profit in the beginning weeks release.

7 years ago
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I know but...the logic to put DRM on those 2 games that isn't Triple or Double A standard x.x

7 years ago
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It has been proven that denuvo is one of the best security and also they has variative price depends to big developer or indie developer.
If AAA games is hard to crack, mostly people and cracker team will shift their target to small and indie games which is will be hurt a lot to their profit.
So with that, small or indie developer probably are forcing to use denuvo to ensure they still gain profit.

The Witcher 3 has been release without drm, but CD Projekt still gain a huge big profit.
So another reason is maybe big publishers are not confident with their games whether it's good or not, but they only care about profit and even the game is bad or broken, they still gain profit by putting denuvo inside.

7 years ago*
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all the more reason i guess for me not to buy the game. Sure there is now the refund option but meh. I prefer total freedom before fully purchasing and supporting.

7 years ago
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I would say that people need a trial version, a demo version.
There are still people who download and later regret it and buy it ASAP.
It feels different between watching people play and play it by yourself.
Well, I agree with you.

7 years ago
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Because they want to be blacklisted by smart customers.

7 years ago
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also after 30+ h into my legit JC3 , I discovered today my save file was mysteriously deleted- and others have had issues too https://steamcommunity.com/app/225540/discussions/0/485624149162865981/?ctp=2

maybe not related to denuvo but still stupid of them!

also had issues where when i started the game it tried to connect online but wouldn't..

7 years ago
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So finally I'll play Unravel.

7 years ago
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It's just bypass that exploits Steam bug. It won't work on uPlay or Origin games.

7 years ago
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Damn. The reasons why I don't want to buy it because it's only in Origin and because I'm russian. We usually pirate stuff than buy it.

7 years ago
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Not just you, most of this region. :) But to the Federation's credit, the piracy rates shrunk considerably there in the past years.

7 years ago
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There are bypasses for Origin games too, like Fifa 16. Unravel uses Denuvo v2 so it's a matter of time.

7 years ago
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but you could always use free 7 day trial of Origin Access to pla Unravel.

7 years ago
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Never heard about it. Thanks for info.

7 years ago
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Seems like they have removed it now :(

Shame. I was planning to use it for Unravel myself too.

7 years ago
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Well, if you're interested in more games then just one, you can just 5 bucks (I think) for it once, play the hell out of the games you're interested in and stop being subscribed to it. You might not be able to keep the games, but being able to play all those pretty expensive games for just 5 bucks is a pretty good deal to me (it's kind of like renting a game).

7 years ago
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The fact that none of the developers of a game protected by Denuvo made a comment on how much money Denuvo made them thanks to piracy dropping is interesting.

In my opinion, the amount of people who "buy a game because they can't pirate it" and those who "don't buy it because they can't try it out now, and don't know if they'll like it" even out, and so DRM is a wasted effort. All the money and resources could have been simply used to make the game better instead. You know what? More people would buy it then. Because it's better.

7 years ago
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Yes, good games always sell well. Top-5 sales from Steam in 2015:

Grand Theft Auto 5
Fallout 4
Metal Gear Solid 5
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

As almost anyone knows, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is DRM-free, anyone can download a copy and play without any crack at all. MGS V has Denuvo but I think it would be in that top-5 even if it was DRM-free.

7 years ago
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Funny thing is, if I recall correctly when The Witcher 3 came out, some of the devs were helping people out in the comments section of the game's torrents: https://www.reddit.com/r/witcher/comments/35pch1/cd_projekt_red_developer_helping_out_pirates_on/ .

7 years ago
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CD Projekt Red respect their customers, that's why they are the best. Respect if you want to be respected :)

7 years ago*
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I agree it's funny fact.

I just wonder if the fact "I can't pirate Tomb Raider, but there's hundred other games I can pirate" affect that. Would be interesting to see, one month when nobody can pirate anything.

7 years ago
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Ah, piracy: for mediocre people, by smart people.

7 years ago
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And i just paid 30 bucks for DOOM

View attached image.
7 years ago
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Nothing wrong with buying games you want to play.

7 years ago
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Unless you're supporting a shitty DRM,which i did because i was an idiot and had given up hope it was going to be cracked anytime soon.

7 years ago
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it wasn't cracked. DRM is fully intact. They use Steam exploit to fool Denuvo servers thinking you own game.

7 years ago
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Still,i could have avoided spending money if i just waited a couple days.

7 years ago
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7 years ago
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Past two hours,support wouldn't approve,most likely.

7 years ago
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Surely they'll make an exception for people who want to pirate games :>

7 years ago
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Yeah man,they'll hand me the golden key to the steam vault.

7 years ago
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i'm also buy'd it, just a hour ago) and i knewed about hack some days ago. but it not forever. and when hackers do real crack, its no be with online multiplayer (despite the fact that many scolds mp)
sorry my english)

7 years ago
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Don't worry about your english,what matters is that you tried.

7 years ago
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great game, totally worth those money if you had them imo. Dont feel bad for supporting good Devs that make amazing games like DOOM.

7 years ago
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The problem with this bypass is that you need to login to steam with an account (fake or yours). I wont risk my account for some games.

7 years ago
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i bought the game myself but cant play it because of this DRM crap they used makes the game force closes at checkpoints...

7 years ago
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I think DRM is going to get worse if games keep getting cracked because devs and/or publisher will want a better DRM technique. We celebrate now, but the worst thing has yet to come. Someone has to give in and neither the game producers nor the players are going to do that in the near future.

7 years ago
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That's a strike for Steam, and is more likely to make companies who really care about DRM look for alternatives, unless Steam patches the vulnerability soon.

7 years ago
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It can cost them money, so they will avert their entire coding department (since it's summer, it is probably just two interns instead of three) to fix it. (For free of course, since they are interns and have the privilege to work for Valve.)

7 years ago
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7 years ago
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It still can be a good way to check a game, since demos are a rare art nowadays. This is what made me reconsider buying Bulletstorm.

7 years ago
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i find youtube videos / twitch streams are a decent replacement for demos. i never understood the "it's different if you play it yourself" argument. no, it's not. at least not in a way that you go from "i absolutely want that" to "this game sucks, i hate it". if i watch some footage of a game, i have a pretty good idea whether i will like it or not. i can't remember a single case where i was completely wrong aber a game after watching a video about it.

also, demos cost money and time to develop. i prefer if devs spend that time fixing a few more bugs instead.

7 years ago
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It can be different with action games. Sometimes it is obvious they are good (case in point: Doom 4), but for Bulletstorm, it really looked fun until I tried it.

7 years ago
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well, i didn't play bulletstorm and can't say anything about it. but my personal experience is that a video (plus commentary) is usually enough to judge a game. and i guess for you it also has been 99% of the time and bulletstorm was more of an exception, right? :)

7 years ago
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More or less, yes. The last game I downloaded as a pirated copy was Stick of Truth. Replayed my legit copy fairly recently, this is why I remember it. (Funny enough, the one before it was Remember Me…)

7 years ago
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I played new Doom demo, found it not fun :(

7 years ago
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I thought it had an MP only demo. Nobody cares about the MP part of Doom 4 though, it is considered to be an SP game (like Doom 3 was… nowadays most people don't even remember that it has a multiplayer mode).

7 years ago
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Later they gave first-SP-level-demo.

Apparently that demo is the reason how they made whole "crack".

7 years ago
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You can't see in videos how it performs on your PC or can you tolerate bad controls or other issues if you liked the rest of the game, i don't bother with pirated games, but there were a number of cases where after seeing videos and reading reviews i liked the game, but after i played it myself it turned out that i absolutely hate to play it.

7 years ago
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if i watch a first impressions or review video, the guy who makes the video of course tells me about performance issues and especially about bad controls. see the total biscuit videos, for instance. if the controls are bad, he says that. that's enough for me.

i never had such a case, as i said. can't remember a game i liked in a video and then hated it when playing. which games are you talking about, and what is it that you hate and couldn't see in videos? ^^

7 years ago
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Some games didn't go well with specifically my PC, a known problem, but a only a tiny fraction of players affected, don't remember which games though.
Games that i liked in videos but disliked when played, let's see...
Binary Domain, i like cyberpunk stuff a lot and i thought aesthetics and story will be enough, but i didn't last long.
Deadly Premonition, horror story with some cheesy elements, the gameplay turned out to be so boring i couldn't handle it.
Jagged Alliance 2, someone will say it's a masterpiece, i love tactical games, but for me controls and unintuitive UI just killed the game.
Orcs Must Die 1+2, Sanctum 1+2, co-op td/fps like Dungeon Defenders? Woah, i want to play it with my friend! We dropped each after a couple of hours, looks fun, but boring to actually play.
Just a few examples.

7 years ago
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Some games didn't go well with specifically my PC, a known problem, but a only a tiny fraction of players affected, don't remember which games though.

yeah, but these cases are not really a good argument for demos, i feel. if it's only a tiny fraction of people affected, why should a demo for everyone be developed. the resources could be used better to serve the majority of players (=> bugfixes). also, a demo is always very limited. imagine a demo of rise of the tomb raider. your performance is fine, so you buy the game. and then you come to the first open world area, and suddenly you lose half your fps. stuff like this has happened before. and i would argue that videos of the full game might even be better here (in some cases) than a demo that contains the first 2 levels of a game.

i am not saying videos are perfect, and demos are a bad thing or whatever. i just think we don't need demos as much as we did in the past. back then we had pictures and text, and the only way to see a game running was to run the demo. now we also have videos. and i still think in most cases those represent the game very well. yes, you listed a few examples². but i am still sure in the vast majority of cases the videos will absolutely suffice. and on the other hand, in some cases a demo will not suffice.

² one of those games is nearly 20 years old and had a demo. and i know binary domain has a demo, too. if you are in favor of trying demos first, why didn't you play the binary domain demo then? ^^ i loved binary domain, btw. :)

7 years ago
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Most of developers do just that, ignore that tiny fraction of player base and allocate resources somewhere else, that's why you can sometimes encounter years old bugs while updates are still being released.
I wasn't planning on buying BD, i just won it :P. JA2 is a timeless classic, what can go wrong?
Tbh i don't even check if there's a demo, 99% there isn't. Are demos needed? Not too much. Is it a good thing to have a demo? Absolutely. Honestly having a demo of a latest AAA game would be great, cause they are the most expensive on both money and hardware usage, other games can live without them.

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I wasn't planning on buying BD, i just won it :P. JA2 is a timeless classic, what can go wrong?
Tbh i don't even check if there's a demo, 99% there isn't

but then you are talking about games you got free or in bundles. games you didn't even want to buy. i think this is an important difference. if you are trying to decide whether to buy a game for a lot of money, you are probably willing to invest some time on youtube and watch a few let's plays and reviews. did you really do that with binary domain or jagged alliance? or was it maybe more like a 5 minute thing? ;) i hope you know what i am aiming for, and of course i am making an assumption here. but what i want to say is that playing a 2-hour demo can't be compared to watching a 10-minute video. i make that assumption partially because of jagged alliance. if you watched enough video footage before playing it, you would have seen the UI, right? and also how someone controls it. i guess you didn't really do that. and then it's not really a valid example.

Are demos needed? Not too much. Is it a good thing to have a demo? Absolutely. Honestly having a demo of a latest AAA game would be great, cause they are the most expensive on both money and hardware usage, other games can live without them.

i agree, it would be great. absolutely. i just think the following could happen:

  • less bugfixing, because development time is put into demo shortly before release.
  • or: the demo is developed after release (current example: Doom). but then it's not really a help for people to decide at release date.
  • demo only shows very little of the game, is not necessarily representitive of the whole experience. information about bad performance or gamebreaking bugs in later stages is missing. so it can't be the only source for information about the game anyway.
  • demo might even get optimized to show good performance, while the actual game has performance problems (i believe this has already happened, but can't remember a specific case).
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In case of BD i considered buying it, watched some gameplay, i just couldn't decide yes or no so it hanged in my wishlist and then i got lucky and won it and got disappointed in the game. In case of JA2 i knew its an old game with an old game problems, but thought i can get over them and enjoy the game, tried and couldn't, for example i got over the terrible UI in dwarf fortress and enjoyed the game a lot, well JA2 is a cheap game anyway, so i don't mind much.
Demos have their own flaws, but it's still a better pre-buy experience than videos and reviews. TBH i don't even expect a fully functional release of an AAA title nowadays, it's a matter of how gamebreaking the bugs are.

7 years ago
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bulletstorm is so repetitive I considered refunding my pirated copy :3

7 years ago
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lol

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7 years ago
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If they include a DRM I don't like, I don't pirate the game, I just don't buy it (and I might let them know on their forums).

Let's not confuse video games with food, shelter, medical care, etc.
Games are a want, not a need.

No one on this planet needs to play Doom, Tomb Raider, or Abzu -- they'll live without those games.

7 years ago
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since when is life only about what one needs? would be a sad thing if we would only do what we need to. our hobbies are part of of our life, and they are not unimportant at all. i don't live just so i can eat and sleep, until i'm dead. ;)

7 years ago
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I never said they were unimportant, but people also aren't always entitled to what they want or to do as they wish.

I want a new Les Paul and a new Marshall Head, because guitar playing is one of my important hobbies.
Should I just go take one?
No ... I'll live without it, or I'll purchase one more within my price range that I'll enjoy (which is what I do with games as well). ;)

7 years ago
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but you have to admit, this is a very different case. if you can't afford a les paul and steal one, you do some actual damage. if you can't afford a game (or publishers prevent you from getting it legally in your country) and then pirate it, there isn't.

i buy all my games. i buy cheap software, like virus scan, backup etc. i buy software that is a little more expensive, like audio software. but i am simply not able to buy expensive professional software like adobe premiere. i just don't have the money. i would not ever buy it. so instead of using worse video software (and i tried a few, which was a complete waste of time and money) i just pirate premiere. i just don't see any real argument against it. i am not a potential customer anyway, so i consider it a victimless crime. :)

7 years ago
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so instead of using worse video software (and i tried a few, which was a complete waste of time and money) i just pirate premiere. i just don't see any real argument against it

I do. You don't need it. You want it. You could certainly live without it, though your life might be "diminished" some by not having it. ;)

7 years ago
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in order for that to be an argument against pirating, it would have to have any downside. and i just don't see that. it doesn't have a downside for me (in fact it is positive for me) or the publisher (no lost revenue).

"you don't need it" is no argument in my opinion. you don't need to play games, but you still do it. you don't need to go to that nice party on the weekend, but you still do it. i don't think we should live our lifes thinking about what we don't need. i think we should instead get as much out of it as possible, without affecting anyone else in a negative way. that is why i don't steal physical goods, but don't see the problem with pirating stuff i would not buy anyway.

but i guess we just have different opinions and won't change the other one's mind. ;)

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and i just don't see that

That's a perspective, an opinion. Mine obviously differs. As I originally stated, games are a want and not a need, a luxury item to which we're not entitled. If anything cannot be debated here, I think it's that. ;)

"you don't need it" is no argument in my opinion. you don't need to play games, but you still do it. you don't need to go to that nice party on the weekend, but you still do it.

Not if I can't afford it, I don't, and that's the point I am making.

but i guess we just have different opinions and won't change the other one's mind. ;)

Yep. ;)

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That's a perspective, an opinion. Mine obviously differs. As I originally stated, games are a want and not a need, a luxury item to which we're not entitled. If anything cannot be debated here, I think it's that. ;)

but you still have to make any valid argument against pirating in those cases. i don't think it's a matter of opinion - at least not completely. we can list positives and negatives. now, the positives are clear, i think. you get to use the software you pirate. the negatives are not so clear. in your les paul example, they are. the big negative point is, that someone loses the value you take for yourself. but in the adobe premiere example, this point doesn't exist. there is no value loss for anyone.

the argument i had to accept would be that pirating is against the law. now this is a matter of opinion (whether we obey the law no matter what).

Not if I can't afford it, I don't, and that's the point I am making.

yeah, and i am asking why. seems to me you're answering the question "why don't you do it" with "i can't afford it". but my question is rather "why don't you pirate, if you can't afford it". :)

7 years ago
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ok, let's try this. You work hard all week/month, and you're getting lots of compliments for a job well done. But when you go to get your paycheck it's 10% less than you were expecting. How would you feel?
You ask for a raise and your boss says "sorry, we're not making enough money to give you a raise, because people are harmlessly pirating from our company."

For the people who make games, (with very few exceptions), it's their job, it's how they make money, how they put food on their table. For an indie developer, it's literally every game sold puts X money in their pocket. At larger publishers, people have jobs, but sales affect not only whether they get a bonus, but whether the company will hire them again.

More importantly, it also affects the ability for the developer/team to make another game. "it's the most pirated game in history" doesn't put food on the table, doesn't buy game assets or pay development time, and doesn't greenlight the next sequel. Only sales does that.
I'm not gonna say don't pirate, because some games really are steaming piles of crap (although, with steam's refund policy, it is possible to try before you buy, so that's no longer an excuse). But if you like a game, you should buy a legal copy, even if it's on sale or through a bundle. Because that does help feed the developer or justify a publisher to bankroll the next game.

edit: I've worked in the music industry and have had friends work in the film industry, which are two other forms of entertainment that are heavily pirated. I can tell you from first hand and second hand experience that it's not harmless... and the people who are most harmed are the ones at the bottom, those who are making a living wage, not the superstars and executives

7 years ago*
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sorry, but i don't get the feeling you really read my posts. ^^ i am talking about the cases where there is no lost revenue. may i quote myself?

i buy all my games. i buy cheap software, like virus scan, backup etc. i buy software that is a little more expensive, like audio software. but i am simply not able to buy expensive professional software like adobe premiere. i just don't have the money. i would not ever buy it. so instead of using worse video software (and i tried a few, which was a complete waste of time and money) i just pirate premiere.

i am not talking about saving a few bucks instead of buying indie game xy. what i mean is, that if there are only the options pirate the software or don't use at all, then pirating doesn't really have a downside. as another example, i will never buy Nuendo for 1.500€, so i might aswell pirate it. they do not lose anything when i do that. i wouldn't have bought in the first place.

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I understand your logic. But I find it a false narrative. You're still enjoying the fruits of their labor, without paying them for it. That's incredibly unfair no matter how you try to justify it.
I've seen the same arguments for music and for movies. As much as you think it's harmless, or victimless, it's not. I've had friends lose jobs because sales were just below target. I've seen people get emotionally bothered about people stealing their works. I've seen people get depressed because they don't think they're getting their fair share.

This letter from Gary Larson sums it up best:

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

I’m walking a fine line here. On the one hand, I confess to finding it quite flattering that some of my fans have created web sites displaying and / or distributing my work on the Internet. And, on the other, I’m struggling to find the words that convincingly but sensitively persuade these Far Side enthusiasts to "cease and desist" before they have to read these words from some lawyer. What impact this unauthorized use has had (and is having) in tangible terms is, naturally, of great concern to my publishers and therefore to me — but it’s not the focus of this letter. My effort here is to try and speak to the intangible impact, the emotional cost to me, personally, of seeing my work collected, digitized, and offered up in cyberspace beyond my control. Years ago I was having lunch one day with the cartoonist Richard Guindon, and the subject came up how neither one of us ever solicited or accepted ideas from others. But, until Richard summed it up quite neatly, I never really understood my own aversions to doing this: "It’s like having someone else write in your diary," he said. And how true that statement rang with me. In effect, we drew cartoons that we hoped would be entertaining or, at the very least, not boring; but regardless, they would always come from an intensely personal, and therefore original perspective. To attempt to be "funny" is a very scary, risk-laden proposition. (Ask any stand-up comic who has ever "bombed "on stage.) But if there was ever an axiom to follow in this business, it would be this: be honest to yourself and — most important — respect your audience. So, in a nutshell (probably an unfortunate choice of words for me), I only ask that this respect be returned, and the way for anyone to do that is to please, please refrain from putting The Far Side out on the Internet. These cartoons are my "children," of sorts, and like a parent, I’m concerned about where they go at night without telling me. And, seeing them at someone’s web site is like getting the call at 2:00 a.m. that goes, "Uh, Dad, you’re not going to like this much, but guess where I am. " I hope my explanation helps you to understand the importance this has for me, personally, and why I’m making this request. Please send my "kids" home. I’ll be eternally grateful.

Most respectfully,

Gary Larson

7 years ago*
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I've seen the same arguments for music and for movies. As much as you think it's harmless, or victimless, it's not. I've had friends lose jobs because sales were just below target.

you're again talking about lost sales, while i try to tell you that this is not what we were talking about here. there is no lost sale, just because i have adobe premiere on my harddrive. not a single cent less revenue.

I've seen people get emotionally bothered about people stealing their works.

this is something i have no data on, so it's hard to say anything about it. and honestly, i don't know how relevant this really is. people get emotional about all kinds of things. but ok, i will admit this is probably a negative aspect of pirating.

I've seen people get depressed because they don't think they're getting their fair share.

are we talking about money again? ^^ i will be honest, it's hard to believe that this is the case for the software i am talking about. a small indie dev who doesn't make enough money and brings that into relation to his game being pirated (whether that is actually the cause or not is at least debatable) - i won't say that's impossible to happen. but i don't think someone sits in the software development department of Adobe and is seriously depressed because the software he is a small part of gets pirated by people who couldn't afford it anyway. :)

since you want to talk about the financial aspect of pirated copies (although i tried to make clear that i am talking about the cases where there definitely is no financial impact whatsoever), are we even sure that pirating hurts sales in any significant way? are there any actual studies that prove this somehow? all i remember reading is the megaupload study. and that one actually proved the opposite

“We find that box office revenues of a majority of movies did not increase,” said the paper. “While for a mid-range of movies the effect of the shutdown is even negative, only large blockbusters could benefit from the absence of Megaupload.”

http://variety.com/2013/digital/news/megaupload-closing-piracy-hurt-film-revenues-1200590076/

the actual paper: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2176246

big movies didn't get more sales, and it was even less sales for smaller indie movies, because ironically, exposure on illegal download sites seems to be a form of advertisement.

i don't think you can force people to buy software or movies. if they are not willing to invest money, then that's just how it is. i mean, it's not like sales will suddenly explode, if we shut down all pirate sites at once. won't happen. my impression is, that many people who pirate just don't have the money to buy that stuff anyway. and i think it's absolutely fine that they pirate what they wouldn't buy anyway.

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would you be ok with people stealing steak that they couldn't afford? when they can afford hamburger

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of course not, because they would take away actual value, which is not the case for digital goods, if they can't afford it.

also, this is a disappointingly short answer to everything i wrote. would love to read what you think about pirate sites acting as free advertisement and actually boosting sales for smaller indie movies.

7 years ago
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instead of using worse video software (and i tried a few, which was a complete waste of time and money) i just pirate premiere

Well, there's lost revenue right there. Not to adobe, but to the "worse" software you otherwise would have purchased

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in my case that's actually not true. ^^ i bought the worse software first and tried it. it was horrible and didn't work correctly. a lot of money wasted. then i went back to premiere.

also, this argument just doesn't make too much sense. you try really hard to find the lost revenue. ;) but this is really not it. think about it, do you also argue against free software, because they destroy the revenue of paid software? is VLC a bad thing and responsible for less profit for paid video players?

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but my question is rather "why don't you pirate, if you can't afford it". :)

Because I can live without it, and pirating is stealing. It really is that simple.

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yeah, and i think it's absolutely not the same. the important difference is that if you steal something, you take value away. someone else has less of something after you did it. copying is really not the same.

did you know that there are countries where pirating for personal use is actually legal? i know it is in Switzerland, and i believe there are others aswell. but i don't know any country that allows theft. ;)

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did you know that there are countries where pirating for personal use is actually legal?

Yes, of course, but it's illegal here, and more importantly I don't approve of it and I can live without it

Piracy being legal elsewhere has no bearing whatsoever on my opinion, I wouldn't pirate in those countries, either.

the important difference is that if you steal something, you take value away

That's your definition of stealing, not mine. ;)

7 years ago
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Piracy being legal elsewhere has no bearing whatsoever on my opinion, I wouldn't pirate in those countries, either.

i just wanted to point out that it's not as clear to everyone as it is to you, that piracy equals theft. the fact that some countries allow it, shows it's at least debatable how bad it really is.

i guess we go in circles. for a while now. i don't think we will get anywhere, if we continue. (unless you want to say some more, then feel free to do so) but it was a nice talk. :)

7 years ago
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I want a new Les Paul and a new Marshall Head, because guitar playing is one of my important hobbies.

Only for that I wanted to whitelist you, unfortunatly I was not able to do so since you were already on it :p

But I totally agree with you. Some people seem to think they're entitled to pirate video games, because they want them. Piracy is never a good thing, no matter how hard you try to justify it (and no, bad DRM is no reason either). If you are not willing to pay for a game, don't go and pirate it either. If you want to show the developers you don't agree with them, don't play the game. If you pirate it, you just show them that you do want to play the product and that they did a good job with it.

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If you pirate it, you just show them that you do want to play the product and that they did a good job with it.

Hmm, that's a unique perspective I hadn't considered, but a very valid point.
That's a nice Warlock, by the way. ;)

7 years ago
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Thanks. It's just a clone though (but very nice one, it sounds pretty good for the price I got it for) :D

7 years ago
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so much this...i heard so many times "but i pirate because i cant afford so much money for a single game". Neither do I, i never buy 60$ games, I just wait..games are not food.People could learn the meaning of the word PATIENCE and wait for their most wanted games to get cheaper.

7 years ago
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Or you can get it for really cheap (Free) and not damage anyone + do what you want to do originally,piracy is not a bad thing overall( that being said it's still illegal), you still don't get the full game out of it anyway (can't play multiplayer,just singleplayer). And for singleplayer only game we see how quick they get into humblebundles,so you can just buy it there to give the developer some credit.

7 years ago
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I hope it is being cracked, not bypassed. I want to pirate games not available in my country, Cencorship sucks.

7 years ago
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Until now, Metal Gear Revengeance and the 2nd Castlevania Lords of Shadows is region-locked for some inane reason.

7 years ago
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Another two bite the dust:

Homefront: The Revolution
Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter

Coming soon: HITMAN

7 years ago
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It's not cracked. I wonder how long will it take for valve to notice.

7 years ago
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Aaaaaaaaaaaaand....

https://i.redd.it/zow84kpu95ex.png

It's dead.

7 years ago
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Closed 7 years ago by Deleted-8888821.