Gametap Account

I am currently enrolled in college for a Game Design Bachelor's degree. Early in the year, students were given a free Gametap account that lasted for 3 years.

Skip to today, I no longer have need of it, as I acquire games in other ways. While I do not intend to completely give the account away, the account does let me make subaccounts which have roughly the same privileges as the parent account.

There are obviously restrictions to the amount and time, but that can be dealt with. Just say something and I'll see what can be done. I think there's a limit to the accounts I can make, and possibly something at them playing at the same time. Definitely something about serial codes. Shouldn't be a problem, but Murphy's law.

Notice: Gametap is a below average at best service. The monthly fee is 10$ and I'd say that it's perfect, because while it does have a relatively decent library of games, they are all mostly outdated, or modern C-list games. Me charging a penny for a subpar gaming service would be madness, so don't worry about paying for anything.


TLR- Free crap that is potentially not worth the time.

Also, if this thread doesn't belong here, even in off topic... feel free to delete it.

For being a future game designer, I hope those are legit ways.

As much as I'd like to say differently, they're not. I even did an essay on the weight of theft of non physical things.

I suppose if you'd like to discuss these things, this place will do.

nah. for most people it's simply a personal choice of which no one will ever find out.

I would happily get into a discussion sometime about the real impact of theft of non physical goods, with 15 years of experience in the industry to back it up if you like. Though if your essay is posted somewhere, I'd be curious to read it. I came from a hacking background in the mid 80s/early 90s, and while some of those "information should be free" views remain strong, a lot of them were squished when I realized what horrible strawmen most of my justifications were.

Anyway, off topic for your thread, if not the forum, but it is an interesting topic, and one I've argued on both sides of for years.

I have no deeply philosophical views. I just put myself in their shoes and wouldn't want that to happen to me.

I've never liked showing anyone my work except for those grading it, hence the essay for class. While I find writing relatively easy, it's not something I tend to brag about or show in general. Honestly, I can't think to the last time I've let my parents read anything of* mine.

Onto piracy. I am in the same boat. The idea mainly being, when you make a digital copy of something, the basic idea is it's not the "same" as a physical copy. In the case of a physical copy, the work is always the same. Building a copy of the first bike will take roughly the same amount of effort when you build it the second time, of course subtracting perfecting the process. In retrospect, making a digital item for 10 people is usually as simply as copying the item.

So therefor, by that logic, the artist did not do extra work, and therefor does not deserve extra compensation, but this is a flawed view. I see it as a scale. Physical items tend to have a higher amount of labor and a lesser amount of thinking, while digital items are the opposite. Should a man who's worked 30 years in a factory making dry wall be payed more than the college graduate who has started his first week at a multi-billion dollar company? Yes, in the idea of amount, if you will, kinetic work put in, but no in the idea of amount of potential work put in.

Also, this is a fine area to discuss this. It might track more attention to the free account.

I like to think back to why copyright was originally created

That's actually a funny thing. I'm sure you've heard of Fair Use.

Anyway, copyright isn't completely fool proof, because if me and you are scientists working on the same thing and I get to the patent office first, it was my idea.

Edit: Speaking of copyright, did you know aspirin used to be a brand name? They neglected to file for the right and now just about every generic pain reliever has aspirin in the title.

Yup, and the other part of just the simple analysis is that: bike's wear out, books wear out, cars wear out. So while the secondary market (whether re-sales, rentals or theft) does "harm" those physical goods industries, it's impact is limited, as there will always be demand for more of it (well books are a weird one, but that gets tangential). One copy of a game, copied digitally, will never wear out, never be any worse 10 years from now as it was from the day it was first copied. Taking that argument to the ludicrous, in theory, ONE person could buy a copy of a game, post it to TPB, and no one else would ever have to buy it again. Quickly, you'd find no one would ever make content like that again. I worked on one game that had over 30 million attempted registrations on our servers, but only ever sold about a million copies. And it was a highly rated, 90 ish point game. That was one of the first events that really got me thinking about this in detail.

It's things like that which lead to knee jerk DRM and overly draconian copy protection schemes by publishers, such as always on DRM, machine activation limits, and numerous other really bad ideas that mostly punish legitimate users, not thieves.

And to address the two comments you guys just made, don't get me started on how much I hate software or other "thought process" patents.
Anyway, back to work I go.

I'm not saying I have any idea whatsoever of what cut game devs should get from selling their games, but it's definitely more than zero. But people will adapt, find new ways to make money, etc. It's no wonder F2P games are gaining more and more ground. and I actually don't mind that.

You'll keep looking.

Also, physical copies are noticeably missed and require effort to steal. Because of how internet pirating works, it's not so much "theft" as it is "distribution of a stolen good". Having 10,000 bikes stolen from a warehouse is not something that is easily waved off, but 10,000 copies of a game that haven't been payed for a something that is pretty easy to not notice.

Honestly, the idea of piracy at heart is good, but like most things good, they're exploitable. Pirating is like on Halloween when a house owner puts out the entire bowl of candy for people to pick from, chances are 98% of that bowls content, and even perhaps the bowl, are going into one party's bag. But of course this is comparing real to unreal.

And as you stated, antipiracy is the almost the same. Those recent bills, SOPA and PIPA I believed, seemed good, but there effects were quite dire. And they often hurt the person who didn't do anything most. Hopefully it doesn't derail this thread even more, but this is like gun control. Restricting gun control will have no effect on the common criminal, because the last thing they care about is legally acquiring a weapon, it'll have an adverse affect on the law abiding citizen.

And on J's point, I've always found it curious. Making a movie can take millions, even billions of dollars to make, yet a ticket to the movie theater is roughly ten bucks and the dvd is 20. Making a game roughly almost never breaks the billion sign, but they charge 60 dollars right out of the gate.

Edit: I almost forgot, I agree on most idea patents. I can guarantee just about every item that has been created and/or patented has been thought of by 100 other people who did not believe in their idea or did not have the funding. The "First Come, First Claim" idea is terrible. Instead of making great ideas you have to worry about not getting paid for them. But you shouldn't worry about getting paid for them because it's the idea that counts, but ideas don't pay bills.

They say money can't buy happiness but damned if it don't help.

I don't quite get what you mean by that. To me, at the heart of piracy, it's just trying to get something you don't want to pay for.

Also as another thought, what about when 3D-printing becomes commonplace?

Well, I don't mean piracy exactly, I mean what Garat stated early of "free information". Piracy is the byproduct of that. I mean the idea that a person can work on, share and publish an idea without fear of compensation or the idea being taken from you and ceasing all work. Free information is government funding. Piracy is the man using welfare to buy new speakers.

Forgive my lack of a better word for it. I suppose the "source" of piracy would be a better term... that doesn't sound good either.

Edit: And what do you mean "3D-printing"?

If by that you mean you don't know what it is, you should look it up, it's very interesting. But it essentially boils down to "once you have the digital schematic you can make a physical copy of ______" pretty much the same way you'd print out on a piece of paper. Like precise copy of Nike shoes for instance (not a crappy knock off).

Judging from Wikipedia * because, let's face it, everyone checks wiki, it looks interesting, but it seems like another phase of production, and not one of concept.

But* I am still confused by what you mean about when it becomes commonplace. Pirating the digital blueprint of said Nike shoe would be unaffected, can't really make a copy of a printer, though. It doesn't seem too different as 2D printing in the idea of theft.

i mean commonplace as in everyone has a 3d printer like everyone has a normal printer nowadays and people will eventually not have to pay for physical products either

I very much doubt that. I'd imagine there'd be a fee involved. I mean, ****, printer ink nowadays is expensive as sin. Could you imagine how much it'd cost for one that printed in 3 dimensions?

I don't doubt it. I mean, crappy computers used to cost thousands of dollars and take up an entire room.

The price will drop, yes, but not be eliminated.

My instructor in a Cisco class I had told me something, it was along the lines of, "Every 10 years, technology doubles and the price is cut in half". He showed us an old camera he had payed a large sum for, then showed us the information on his smart phone, saying the phone now took better pictures than the camera, and it wasn't even it's main purpose. He also had a stack of floppy disks and set them next to a single 4gb memory card. The floppy disks outweighed the card, out-valued the card, and out-occupied the card, but didn't outperform.

We almost had free wireless energy until they defamed Tesla.