Second Take: Console Piracy On The Rise?

[bennyblanx]

With the pirated leak of Fallout 3 three weeks before its release date, Rob and Ben talk console piracy this time and how it how it affects the gaming industry as a whole.

Watch Video: http://www.tomsgames.com/us/videos/second_take_console_piracy_on_the_rise_.html

Do you think there was a PC gamer conspiracy to the recent slew of console pirating? Will a shift in PC gaming business models make consoles the pirating platform du jour?

-Ben

 

[cliffro]

I don't know about all that....i was trying to read the forums and listen at the same time, and was failing miserably.

I did however catch Rob's Marky Mark Talks to Animals impression and LMAO at how dead on it was. Good Impression Rob.

If they start pirating console games instead...maybe we wont see any more sloppy ports on the PC.

I don't know, I don't think it will swing the other way anytime soon....unless all of the newer games in development are going to be MMO and they move completely away from SinglePlayer offline games....In which case I think it would be time to call it quits.....Sell my computer and buy a Generic Dell etc...for email and surfing. Because I'll be damned if I play on a console.

 

[Herra]

I don't think console piracy is on the rise, this is nothing new. The only reason it's only now making the news is that these are huge holiday titles in a relatively short time.

I mean, no one cared when Rapala Fishing Frenzy, new Hellboy game, or Mummy game hit the scene (or torrent sites), because these are not major league titles.

Console piracy has been extremely easy since the PlayStation days, I mean you could boot burned games with a help of an action replay, doesn't get much easier than that.

As for the conspiracy, that's pretty much the most ridicilous thing I've heard in a while. PC gamers =/= PC pirates =/= scene =/= p2p. Since all of these major titles came from scene, and scene is all about competition, suggesting that there is some kind of joint effort to hurt the xbox360 is about as ridiculous as it gets.

 

[Grandizer]

I don't know why the makers don't do bonded warehouses.
I know it will slow things down, people will have to wait until it is in the stores to steal them, but it would work...
It takes a large amount of effort to steal anything from a bonded warehouse.
I think they also need to look at the Disc manufacturers as well...
I know I have read of discs being stolen / copied from there as well...

 

[willg21]

I am not saying that Piracy is right... but if it helps more games come to PC im not going to complain

 

[Ryun]

I think developers and publishers are being really lazy when it comes to piracy. You hear time and time again solid ideas for thwarting piracy and what happens? Publishers fall back on controversial, old means of anti-pirating methods that only really hurt the legitimate buyer.

Or the developers say "Yeah, the PC sales just aren't there because of piracy so we'll concentrate on consoles now." Well guess what? Console game pirating isn't going to get better and what will happen when console pirating becomes just as "bad" as PC pirating? What's the next excuse?

 

[squiZZ]

as much as I appreciate karma biting Epic in the arse. I believe ultimately they are going to be unphased by this. As Rob stated even crappy/average console shooters are managing to sell around 2 million copies.

This is in a way a double edged sword for pc gaming. with console pirating creating a buzz in the pc gaming world. If GoW 2 releases with near GTA4/Cod4 sales numbers. This will only reinforce their decision to cater to the console market. This could very well backfire in the faces of everyone's who's laughing at Epic.

I really would hate to have to read more pointless garbage on how "pc gaming is dying" because the console games can still set sales records despite having games released weeks ahead of schedule over torrent.

 

[allenpan]

sometimes i think they (the presenters) should do more reasearch about it b4 go on and on, piracy in console is there since Original Nintando, piracy is been there for long freaking time in asia...is it hard? NO, it is so easy, once they got it mod u never heard from them again, why? b/c there is no patch, no fix...no crack needed for console games, while PC has keep update so on...

serious, please do ur freaking research b4 posting falsle infomation, we have like 100 in 1 catrages sold everywhere (pirated of course in the 1991, we have super nintando that reads pirated games using floppy drive (basicly is just a floppy drive that goes into the cartrage slot and u can jsut copy games to floppy disks and read it....geeze)

Gameboy has a piratcy too, u can buy a cheap flasher and a empty huge cartrage and jsut transfer games into it...

N64, there is CD-rom add-on, allows u to play like 10 N64 games from one CD...

saying console game piracy is on the rise? no, it has been there even b4 u are born, (Even Atari has piracy in asia) please do mroe research b4 making a stupid ass video

last example DreamCast, u just need to burn a game and off u go, no modding need it, or a simple loader where u can dl off net

jsut b/c u guys dont know about it does not mean it does not exist..

 

[njalterio]

sometimes i think they (the presenters) should do more reasearch about it b4 go on and on, piracy in console is there since Original Nintando, piracy is been there for long freaking time in asia...is it hard? NO, it is so easy, once they got it mod u never heard from them again, why? b/c there is no patch, no fix...no crack needed for console games, while PC has keep update so on...

serious, please do ur freaking research b4 posting falsle infomation, we have like 100 in 1 catrages sold everywhere (pirated of course in the 1991, we have super nintando that reads pirated games using floppy drive (basicly is just a floppy drive that goes into the cartrage slot and u can jsut copy games to floppy disks and read it....geeze)

Gameboy has a piratcy too, u can buy a cheap flasher and a empty huge cartrage and jsut transfer games into it...

N64, there is CD-rom add-on, allows u to play like 10 N64 games from one CD...

saying console game piracy is on the rise? no, it has been there even b4 u are born, (Even Atari has piracy in asia) please do mroe research b4 making a stupid ass video

last example DreamCast, u just need to burn a game and off u go, no modding need it, or a simple loader where u can dl off net

jsut b/c u guys dont know about it does not mean it does not exist..

OK.....there may have been piracy existing for a while, and even for the older systems, but I doubt that it was anywhere near as prevalent as it is today. Even from your cursory description of pirating the cartridge games, it sounds like it is quite a bit more involved then just downloading a torrent. Plus, people then were obviously a lot less tech savvy then they are today.

Sure I'll agree game pirating existed a while ago, but it was nothing like game pirating today.

I don't think there was a PC gamer conspiracy to leak Fallout 3 way in advance of it's release. As cool as that would be, I find it hard to believe that someone or some organization would take on that much risk just to prove a point. Remember: the people who crack these games do not do this for profit. An opportunity to pirate Fallout 3 must have come up like any other game that is pirated.

 

[robwright]

sometimes i think they (the presenters) should do more reasearch about it b4 go on and on, piracy in console is there since Original Nintando, piracy is been there for long freaking time in asia...is it hard? NO, it is so easy, once they got it mod u never heard from them again, why? b/c there is no patch, no fix...no crack needed for console games, while PC has keep update so on...

serious, please do ur freaking research b4 posting falsle infomation, we have like 100 in 1 catrages sold everywhere (pirated of course in the 1991, we have super nintando that reads pirated games using floppy drive (basicly is just a floppy drive that goes into the cartrage slot and u can jsut copy games to floppy disks and read it....geeze)

Gameboy has a piratcy too, u can buy a cheap flasher and a empty huge cartrage and jsut transfer games into it...

N64, there is CD-rom add-on, allows u to play like 10 N64 games from one CD...

saying console game piracy is on the rise? no, it has been there even b4 u are born, (Even Atari has piracy in asia) please do mroe research b4 making a stupid ass video

last example DreamCast, u just need to burn a game and off u go, no modding need it, or a simple loader where u can dl off net

jsut b/c u guys dont know about it does not mean it does not exist..

Uh, did you watch the video, Allenpan? I don't think we ever said console piracy was new. In fact, I specifically stated the following: "Console piracy, like we said, is nothing new." I also said during the video that it was a big issue and that there are tons of console titles on the torrent sites.

Yes, we ASKED the question if console piracy is on the rise. We did not definitively state that it was. Ben said that it seems to be getting worse in the sense -- not in the absolute number of titles being pirates, but in the sense that console versions of titles like Fallout 3 and Far Cry 2 are leaking before the PC versions and well ahead of the street date, which hurts sales more.

And it would seem that we agree about playing pirated console games being easy, because I also said: "Modding your console, flashing your Xbox 360 is easy. It's not hard at all."

And finally, console piracy has been around before I was born? I must look younger on video, because I believe I pre-date the Atari 2600 by a year or two.

 

[Maxor127]

I don't think console piracy is on the rise either. It's just getting more attention, which is good because I was getting mad at the ridiculous comments game company reps were making, and even more mad at "Cliffy B" because he should at least know better.

The console piracy thing just sounds like poetic justice to me. And you need to think about what really is the percentage of sales lost on both PC and console due to piracy. I really doubt it's that high. People throw all kinds of figures around, but I think they're all inflated. You need to take into consideration that a pirated game doesn't guarantee a lost sale. There are lots of other factors that are involved.

 

[allenpan]

OK.....there may have been piracy existing for a while, and even for the older systems, but I doubt that it was anywhere near as prevalent as it is today. Even from your cursory description of pirating the cartridge games, it sounds like it is quite a bit more involved then just downloading a torrent. Plus, people then were obviously a lot less tech savvy then they are today.

is just north america are never that technical advance back in the 90s, as i said b4 just u guys dont know about it does not means it was not all over the place some place else, such as Taiwan so on

 

[allenpan]

and u say complicated? it is jsut a freaking external plug and play, u dont even neeed to do anything, like there is also external ps1 modchip, u say hard to get games? back in begining of 90s u can get games every street coners, u can transfer over BBS, u can get off null conneection, how is it different then now?

 

[allenpan]

NES Floppy disk system:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famicom_Disk_System

SNES Floppy Disk System:
http://n-gamers.blogspot.com/2005/12/game-doctor-for-snes-this-nifty-gadget.html

N64 CD Drive:
http://www.robwebb.clara.co.uk/backup/ufo/ufocd64.html

PSX External Modchip:
http://www.tprthai.net/psxg.htm

...so on, is it not easier than now? in fact it was much easier back in the day where buying copy games everywhere and share it without any restrictions

 

[njalterio]

Allenpan: Pirating games is definitely easier now then it was for the older gaming consoles. To pirate a game now the only thing you need is a computer with an internet connection, which is very standard today. You would be hard pressed to walk into a store and find the equipment you listed as necessary for pirating.

Also, the internet in the early 90s was not nearly as developed as it is now. The information on how to go about pirating was hard to find. Nowadays there are tons of forums on the internet that cover the very topic of pirating. Just think about it, if pirating is just as common now as it was back then, why are companies just starting to get concerned about it now?

I never said pirating the older consoles was hard, just finding out about it was. What is this nonsense about North America not being as technologically advanced as Taiwan? There is a country in North America called the United States, maybe you heard of it! In the United States, companies such as Intel, AMD, Microsoft, Apple, IBM, ATI (from Canada which is still North America), Nvidia, the vast majority of game developers, and even the open source project Linux all came from the United States! What are you talking about!!?? Please, if it wasn't for North America (not being technologically advanced as you put it), Taiwan would be a part of China!

Anyways, it is so clear that pirating is much bigger now then it was before. We all knew it existed a while ago, but no where near what it is today.

 

[allenpan]

no... piracy is much easier back in the day, u can go to a store, it will sell both legal and pirate stuff, have u been to pacific mall? or any hong-kong like shop? maybe North Americans should get out of country more and have mroe global view, back in the day u want a game they can make the floppy in 2 min, u want Gameboy games with 50 of ur favorates? no probelm 3 min,

Taiwan was once known as piracy island, and 90s alot of reverse engineering, ever heard of clone "Intel" cpu? and reverse engineering? (BTW NVIDIA is Taiwanese, ATI is found by Hongkong-ese

i live half of my life in CAnada, i been around the world too much, people in NA is really lack of global view

 

[wildwestgoh]

Back in those days, there were no such things as encryption, no serial key, no Internet activation, no secureROM, no... DRM?! NO Bulls**t, that's why it's very easy to *copy*, and Allenpan just make ASIA seems like a pirating countries.
As Internet grows, pirated software are much easier to distribute, faster connection allow them to transfer much faster than last time "go to a store"?? No, I just sit at home, put it to download and *wam* I get to play it tomorrow.
That's why many company now are concern about piracy, it's not how hard it's cracked/hacked, it's the distribution speed, 3 weeks before the release is much worst than it seems.
And, piracy has been there since the introduce of trades and currencies, it just depends on how you intepret it.

 

[njalterio]

no... piracy is much easier back in the day, u can go to a store, it will sell both legal and pirate stuff, have u been to pacific mall? or any hong-kong like shop? maybe North Americans should get out of country more and have mroe global view, back in the day u want a game they can make the floppy in 2 min, u want Gameboy games with 50 of ur favorates? no probelm 3 min,

Taiwan was once known as piracy island, and 90s alot of reverse engineering, ever heard of clone "Intel" cpu? and reverse engineering? (BTW NVIDIA is Taiwanese, ATI is found by Hongkong-ese

i live half of my life in CAnada, i been around the world too much, people in NA is really lack of global view

For someone who claims to have such a "global view" of things, you sure act a lot like the condescending, backwards hick you consider most Americans.

That's great if you can find pirate equipment at your local store in Hong Kong....in the rest of the world that is not available! Most developed nations have strict guidelines about selling that kind of equipment....if you were really so well traveled you would have known that. By the way, Nvidia has it's head quarters in the U.S. in California. ATI has it's head quarters in Canada. Please....you are embarrassing yourself.

Before you go about criticizing others about their lack of global view, you might want to step back and make sure you aren't saying something completely prejudiced and incorrect!

 

[JeanLuc]

I don't think console piracy is on the rise, this is nothing new. The only reason it's only now making the news is that these are huge holiday titles in a relatively short time.

I mean, no one cared when Rapala Fishing Frenzy, new Hellboy game, or Mummy game hit the scene (or torrent sites), because these are not major league titles.

Console piracy has been extremely easy since the PlayStation days, I mean you could boot burned games with a help of an action replay, doesn't get much easier than that.

As for the conspiracy, that's pretty much the most ridicilous thing I've heard in a while. PC gamers =/= PC pirates =/= scene =/= p2p. Since all of these major titles came from scene, and scene is all about competition, suggesting that there is some kind of joint effort to hurt the xbox360 is about as ridiculous as it gets.

Fair point but during the Playstation 1 era there was no such thing as 'Pirate Bay', and things such as the internet were not in everyone's home as it is today let alone cheap broadband connections.

 

[allenpan]

ATI was "FOUND" by Hongkong-ese, i dont care where the company was base off, Creative is off Singaport

ATI:
The company was founded as Array Technologies Incorporated in 1985 by immigrants Kwok Yuen Ho[1] of Guangzhou, and Benny Lau and Lee Ka Lau of Hong Kong

Nvidia:
Jen-Hsun Huang (Taiwanese) geeeze

pirate stuff is everywhere in asia, back in the day

it is easier to buy than figure it out and get it working, there are more people who knows where to get/buy pirate game than where dl and get it working, people prefer easier way

 

[allenpan]

let me get back to the topic, "Console Piracy on the RISE"? no, it was always there or worst b4, do a proper research

 

[njalterio]

If that was true, then why are companies just starting to care about piracy now? Why not implement some kind of DRM earlier if piracy was just as bad if not worse as you suggest?

It is so obvious that the internet has a huge factor in gaming piracy. The internet was not a factor in the earlier consoles. Everyone knows that there was piracy back in the day, but how could it be anywhere near as big as piracy today without the internet helping things along?

 

[allenpan]

no, is just that there is more publicity about piracy that is all

 

[njalterio]

no, is just that there is more publicity about piracy that is all

EXACTLY!!!!

More people know about it and are pirating games!

 

[allenpan]

that proves my point that the Console piracy are not on the rise, ist just lack of knowing, and it has been there as bad as the PC