Keygens and Distribution of pirated versions

Piracy happens, and it's been happening as long as there have been computers. There are nominal measures that devs can take to protect their product, but it will not prevent anyone who can not or will not pay. Nothing will. Going overboard on software defense often does more harm than good, unless you have a monopoly in which case you can do ANYTHING and win.

PA is a game that demands large hefty servers to show off its best bits, and it's the FIRST game in a LONG time where this is true. It is obvious that good servers and big network pipes are out of the average person's league. So you can buy the game and get access to a pile of Uber's best servers, or pirate and deal with homebrew servers(or the expense of building your own.) The economics are pretty simple!

You guys care claim to be legit till your blue in the face. If you choose to be a bum, that's your choice. Just don't be surprised when civilized society looks down on you, and spits on you for being a bum. You have it coming.

If your typing this post online you have a monthly ISP bill that is at a minimum 30 dollars a month. You have hardware that if capable of playing this game is worth at least 500 dollars. You probably upgrade at the worst every 5 years. The idea that you can't come up with 40 dollars is ****ing stupid. If you not willing to say thank you to the devs for this game. Your a loser plain and simple, and deserve to be treated like one.

Who are 'you guys'? And who decides what is a 'bum', who decides what is 'civilised society'? Especially because 'civilised society' has apparently decided that piracy (downloading, not uploading) is legal in quite some countries.

Nope, my parents pay that, and nope, look at my previous post. Although I think five years fits, indeed. I earn no money. Could I spend 40 Euros? Sure. But if I did that for every game I ever played, I'd be in a huge debt now. I earn exactly zero money, too, excluding birthday money. Look...

This game is awesome. Everything about it is. This forum, how the developers interact with the userbase, how the product is promoted, the lack of DRM, the openness of the whole thing... And then I haven't started talking about the game. It's my dream game. Remember that 'awesome' head? Well, it fits. This game is awesome.

Now take another game. Say, Command & Conquer Red Alert 2. I played it first at a friend's house. It looked fun. I bought The First Decade. Yep, great fun, what a brilliant game. Same goes for the Generals Zero Hour (LAN was - is? - fun!), and actually, most of the games. Based on that experience, I bought Tiberium Wars and Kane's Wrath too. Mhm, still fun. I got beta access to Red Alert 3, even! Alas, my PC couldn't handle it, and then I lost interest.

Then I got a new PC. Let's see if it can run Red Alert 3 now! So, I downloaded the game. And yep, it worked fine. And, mhm, the campaign is nice enough. But after completing half of the campaign, I lost interest, and deinstalled it. I'm glad I didn't buy it.

Random other example (because I'm bored ); Deus Ex Human Revolution. Absolutely a brilliant game. But, shortly before the end, I lost interest. And eventually deinstalled it, and never looked back. Once again, I'm glad I didn't buy it.

Will I have fun with Planetary Annihilation? Continued fun, that is. Will I maybe stop playing it someday, but eventually come back to it (like I did with, oh, Civilization IV Beyond the Sword, Supreme Commander / Forged Alliance...)? I'd hope so! And it seems so, at any rate. I feel pretty confident in saying that I will, gauging from what I have seen.

Heh, come to think of it; the openness and the way this whole game is handled has effectively caused me to buy the game (although I deeply suspect I would have done so anyway).

But once again, you seem to operate under the assumption that I'll pirate Planetary Annihilation.

If everyone had your attitude, the games development industry would collapse.

This is why people are perceiving your posts in a negative light. Yes, some publishers could handle DRM better (far, far better in some cases). Yes, some publishers/developers could do with putting out game demos.

However, the absence of such does not mean you should play almost the entire game without paying for it (case in point, DE:HR).

You may consider yourself justified, however if such a justified viewpoint becomes widespread, everybody would be negatively affected by the downturn in games development. Hence the negative perception (redundant logical loop, I know).

I do not agree with pirating, except where developers do not mind for it (rare cases, for example Autodesk and 3DS Max as they've stated students can do what they want, given that their income comes from professional licensing and company-wide contracts). Hence I am opposed to your viewpoint. I hope you can agree with where I'm coming from, as I've been very careful to not give you any ammunition to declare that I am being insulting!

Oh don't worry, you're very polite! I merely objected to the two unneeded 'troll' comments.

Anyway, you're right. Prisoner's dilemma, sort of. But the reverse isn't that great either; if everyone would always pay the full price for any game or such, there would a lot less 'gamers', because they just don't have the money for it. As I sort of demonstrated.

I'm not sure how you think you've demonstrated that at all.

Anyway, now you guys know why so many games have gone free to play. It somewhat reverses the equation and tries to monetize the non-paying players. Personally I don't want to design games around monetization strategies.

Three cheers for you sir. I hate f2p, or more accurately micro-ed to death. So much so I am willing to pay extra even for the "people" that won't. I loved Minecraft so much I bought three accounts to keep the spice flowing to the devs.

Wow, the game is so popular people are making keygens for it before Uber has even implemented a serial number install system.

Clearly, these pirates have reimplemented the server side component of the game already and are hosting pirated servers.

That's modern pirates for you, always one step ahead. :roll:

Well, if everyone had to pay for games, a relatively large (I'd be interested in the actual percentage or number) part of all 'gamers' wouldn't fit in that group anymore. Less people interested in games (out of monetary need), will result in a smaller market and less sales. Because it isn't 'buy everything' or 'buy nothing'. More like cherrypicking.

Or perhaps those are the exception, and it generally really is 'buy everything' or 'buy nothing'. I don't have proof or such.

And, mhm, is that so? Because I really dislike F2P games. Perhaps games should go back to releasing a demo or something? I suppose that'd be useful for me.

My two cents on the whole pirating thing.


Songs: Over 80% of profits from music are earned by live concert, if its a popular band go ahead if its a small band think because they might be getting their living off that dollar your stealing.

Movies/TV Shows: Same thing, most profits are made from theater and television. Still if there is a convenient service you can afford then get it, usually you will be getting higher quality anyways. Paying if you can almost always yields better results.

Games: This is touchy, 100% of profits come from sales. You steal ONE copy and you've just taking money out of the pocket of the developer, publisher or not. If its IMPOSSIBLE to otherwise purchase the game in your region, OK. Still if you CAN purchase it, do it.

LOGIN System = WIN!

Most people who pirate a game probably wouldn't have bought it anyway so the opportunity cost of DRM generally makes it a bad investment if you consider the sales that it actually prevents by being annoying to normal users.

However pirating a game, especially an indie game funded through Kickstarter, is pretty darn low. And while doing so is technically copyright infringement and not stealing it is not legal in most developed countries. Even places like Sweden, which has traditionally been something of a haven for pirates, are cracking down on piracy these days due to pressure from the US and the EU.

Regardless of what the laws in your part of the world might say about it piracy is not ok because it hurts the game industry. If you don't like a game or the way that a particular publisher does business then don't buy that game or that publisher's products. Simple as that. Go find a game that you like and buy it instead. If you can't afford a $60 AAA title then there are tons of great cheap indy games on Steam, such as the Penny Arcade series.

So how do you know if a game is worth buying? Read about it. There are tons of review sites out there. Go to YouTube and watch a "lets play X" video. Check Reddit or Something Awful, or even 4chan. Or ask someone you know that has the game. Steam has an excellent recommendation system for exactly this purpose.

Just because you have an internet connection does not mean that you are entitled to free access to stuff other people worked hard to create without their permission. I agree that the copyright system has an awful lot wrong with it. But piracy is not the way to correct the problem because it only gives the other side more justification for their DRM schemes and draconian laws. Anyone who really cares about addressing the real issues in the copyright system should be getting involved in the political process and not downloading torrents.