Keygens and Distribution of pirated versions

It has come to my attention that there are some youtube videos that are distributing Keygens/illegal copy's

I reported them for fraud. If we as community could keep an eye on them and report them as well we can prevent this form of pirating.

here are links to some videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1W4cUZ0pyo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zRk7hTdfiY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdJBNkzNhV8

got this one down allready:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYG1aGMuX8M

Arent these "free downloads" pointless because of a "dirty" survey? Never thought these things would be real.....but I still wont try it out because its realy bad.

Kill them UBER!

There is no possible way to make keygen or illegal copy of PA.

These videos is just fraud, but it's make additional PR for the game.

yes pretty much, however those video's are just annoying and thus should be removed

yes pretty much, however those video's are just annoying and thus should be removed

It's really hard to remove all these videos because they doesn't really break YouTube policy. E.g:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q ... +generator :mrgreen:

So better just ignore it, might be few people even find PA because of these fake videos.

WE MUST EXTERMINATE THE FALSEHOODS. EXTERMINATE!

But seriously now, I have no respect for someone who doesn't want to pay for what is my favorite game since LL back in 2007. If they want spyware, they can have it.

The idea of there being keygens and cracks for PA is kinda funny since PA is DRM free. Its just asshats trying to get more PCs to join their botnets.

Goddamn pirates,Kill 'em all!

When someone doesn't pay for a product and uses it,it's stealing,they should get arrested by their police.

And if someone pirates a indie game,KILL IT WITH FIRE :twisted:

No, it isn't stealing; the producer loses nothing at all, if I wouldn't buy the game anyway. Which, for me, is in 99%+ cases true. I wouldn't buy it, no matter if I could get it for free or not. Luckily enough, I can get them for free.

Piracy (the downloading, not the uploading) is actually legal in quite some countries, including here.

errr what?

In this case its not stealing since they are fake, but piracy IS stealing, no matter whether you tell yourself you wouldnt have bought the game anyway if you didnt play it.

No, it's not. Stealing is taking something away, so that the original owner doesn't have it anymore. You aren't doing that here; you're merely 'cloning' it or somesuch.

I get what you are saying with the pedantic idea that it's not stealing. However, if you download and play the game without paying for it you are at best a freeloader who is coasting off of our hard work and most importantly off the support that we got from our kickstarter backers.

Why not preorder the game if you are planning on playing?

Excerpt from what is still the most comprehensive and best article I've ever read on the subject:

PC Game Piracy Examined - The Economics of Piracy

Yes it is.
It's more like taking a Fruit from your neighbour's Tree.
Even if he is using duplicating process to have an ifinity of them, you're taking something for you that someone didn't autorized you to => Stealing.

What is wrong however, is thinking that a Pirated game is a lost sale.
A good bunch of pirates would have never played a game if they weren't able to pirate it.

Guys why are you arguing with this troll?

I mean cmon, nobody would be so stupid as to announce that he is looking forward to pirate PA because he never intended to buy it anyway on the PA forums.

Anyway, those videos are obviously frauds and do two good things:
-They promote PA
-They infect those who want to pirate PA with botnets

Don't worry about them.

Interesting analogy. Except you use the copy machine, not taking away the original apple. Which apple didn't just grow on its own but cost millions of bucks to develop ^^
So if you use analogys, be prepared that they'll look really strange. Million Buck Apple, haha. How does this compare to pears or oranges? ^^

Spends 600-1000 dollars on a gaming PC. 40 bucks for a pre-order the best new title of the platform. nah dog can't afford it. Troll logic.

That is true of course. Actually, I think you guys are right in saying that piracy is stealing. I mean, typing out a book and putting that on the internet, for all to access, is stealing too, right? Although I'd argue the definition of 'stealing' needs to change then, because I see a clear divide between this and actually stealing - taking away, physically - the book. But, yeah, I suppose you've convinced me.

And don't get me wrong, I will pay for this game - which should really tell you how well you are doing, as in the last, mhm, six or seven years, I've paid for... Four games, I think, including a bargain for 1 Euro.

Yeah, you're right. On both points. Well, the analogy isn't 100% correct, but meh.

So I'm a troll for liking to debate? Ok...

Probably. I could see it happening though. I do get what you're implying, but as you could read, you're wrong. I do agree on your last point though.

First of all, my PC probably can't handle Planetary Annihilation. Secondly, I've never spend any money on a PC, except for a GPU. The joys of having a father that can take home PCs from his job.

Why are you two so insultive, all of sudden?

Gentlemen, the issue of piracy in video games is a complex one, and one that's done a disservice by the two age old chants of "it's theft, pure and simple" and "nothing was taken therefore no crime was committed".

The fundamental issue of piracy is more to do with the mechanisms of digital distribution. Once upon a time, in order to read a story, or listen to a song, one had to buy a physical copy which contained the desired information upon it. The manufacturer had substantial costs associated with making these copies, thus there was a limited supply of them related to how fast the printing press or recording device could churn out copies. There was a demand for these copies, thus as basic economics tells us, if there is a finite supply, and a demand for a product, then a price will stabilise at the point where demand meets supply. Cases of copyright theft did occur, but largely were between corporate entities rather than consumers.

Then along comes digital media, and suddenly, everyone who can view said media also has a device capable of copying it. For free. Supply has now gone to infinite, meaning, in the sense of classical economics, the product is now worthless. If I emptied one of my 2TB hard drives, then I could easily write a script to fill it up with identical copies of a 3MB track which I bought for £0.79. However, this clearly doesn't make the the hard drive worth a little more than half a million pounds.

Unfortunately, although the cost of producing copies is negligible, the cost of producing the initial version is not. In the case of games, we all know that employing a team of talented developers can easily cost multiple millions of pounds/dollars/euros/whatevers. This is due to the fact that, while software has a negligible replication cost, coffee, pizza and ramen do not. Thus companies do not sell software any more. They sell licences to use the software, which are backed up by the law. As they are the only entities which can create said licences, scarcity is restored, and a price can be established once more, even if it is by artificial means.

Thus we have an issue whereby although the pirate does no direct harm, particularly if they were never going to shell out for the product anyway, it is clear that software developers need support in order to create promising games such as Planetary Annihilation. Support is the key word here. I think it is particularly encouraging that many of the smaller developers are trying to engage with consumers, and demonstrate that the money they pay supports development efforts. It may just be changing the language of the transaction, but I would much rather support developers, than pay for software that is free elsewhere. Ultimately software copying is a problem for both sides, that we simply haven't found an acceptable answer yet. One possible answer is shifting the culture of video-game consumerism over to something more of a gift/donation based economy, although this is probably unrealistic utopian. Although my preferred solution is for someone to invent Star-Trek replicators (or even TA Nanolathes), thus removing the scarcity issue from the real-world side of the equation. I'd like to see piracy be considered a problem if anyone can torrent a car.

There are so many interesting aspects of this economy, that it's hard not to waffle on for far longer than I have. I do have one closing remark though. Although piracy is likely a harmful force in the industry, I would say that from my own observations, far more damage has been done to video games by overzealous DRM and draconian copyright enforcement measures than piracy has ever achieved.