What's your opinion? Despite hacking the games mean no online play people still use hamachi and VPN the games.

But yer - post here

yes, but (theres always a but) I usually only do it to see if the game is worth spending money on. If the game ends up being good, I will almost always buy it.

However back in my poorer college days that wasn't always the case.

All in all, even after buying games I will usually crack them anyway because having to put the CD back in every time I switch what I am playing is just archaic and stupid. I hate DRM. Also some DRM software makes the game unplayable until cracked. Its just annoying to pay $40 - $50 for something and then have to do something technically illegal to just be able to make use of it.

Have I mentioned how much I hate DRM? ... Yeah.

ditto^^

the only games i wont buy are the ones using starforce(?), why buy a game with protection thats gonna screw your pc when you can just hack it and not hve any trouble at all...

pay = broke pc
dont pay = no hassles.

generally i will buy a game if i like it, i normally delete the ones i dont like after about 2days.

I absolutely download games, its and essential part of my quality control process. I am sick of buying crappy games, and rewarding developers for their neglegence with money. I paid for Black and White 2 and Doom 3, thinking they were going to be amazing... thats ~140 bucks i sure wish i had back. I will ALWAYS buy a game i think deserves it, especially from smaller companies, (ie not EA) or for franchises i really want to see succeed.

Plus, sometimes its hard to find cracked execuables without the whole game attached, and if I cant play it through my quicklaunch bar, then i aint gonna bother.

You guys know that demos exist? And also review sites?

Downloading games even to try it out for 1-2 days to see if its good or not is still illegal. At the same time you are encouraging others to download them especially if you use bittorrent because you are uploading the games to others.

I am aware that these are available, but I find I disagree with reviews more often than I agree with them and demos are often misleading.

One prime example is Evil Genius. The demo for that game was fun and interesting. I was excited about that game and bought it the day it came out. Then I found out that after the intro level that was in the demo, the game became unmanagable and frustrating. All fun was lost to the absurd level of micromanagement you were forced into. This is something that I would have been spared had I downloaded the full game and given it a test drive before buying.

There have been other games where demos were lackluster, but the game ended up being much better as well.

On top of that is the fact that I will probably get the crack or download the game even after buying it to avoid the DRM so doing so before buying the game isn't expending extra effort AND it gives me a better idea of how the game plays out before I invest any money in it.

If companies did not use DRM software that forces me to break the law to use the product, then I probably would never have started doing things this way, but they have made it so that there is less hassle with cracking the software than using it as intended.

Using a patch to prevent cd-check is legal. Downloading a game is not.

oh really.... So... praytell, what laws are at play?

Since you seem hell bent on playing lawyer how about backing up your statements.

Can you quote the part of the DMCA that allows you to bypass protection methods used in software? Can you provide instances where a court upheld the user's right to disregard the EULA that came with the software?

If so I would love to have that info but I have the distinct feeling that you are talking out of your butt.

I am not going to sit here and try to make excuses for breaking the law, but I am not going to condemn people for such things either.

If developers start making games with no DRM, then I will buy them without looking for cracks/full downloads first. In fact I have in the cases of Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War: Dark Crusade and Galactic Civilizations II. Any time I hear of a game that has no DRM or CD checks, if it sounds like I would even remotely enjoy it, I buy it straight away. Why? Because if nothing else I am investing in a trend that reduce my overall hassle in the future. Without the hassle I would probably never look at a warez site ever again.

What the hell are you talking about. One is no more legal than the other. In Canada (where I live) there is no law against downloading anything as far as I know. The only governing force that makes me pay for any software is my own sense of morality

I have also purchased both of these games, pretty much for the same reason. I also have about 50 other games in cases collecting dust.

Its not a money thing, I don't mind paying... I just dont want to support garbage. If I buy a crappy game that I thought was going to be good, the company fooled me with misleading information that lead me to believe their product was better then it actually was. In most areas of one's life, this is the accepted norm. Misinformation falsely represents products which the consumer has to analyze, or trust reviewers as their proxy. This is one area in my life where I have control, and in any country besides the US, land of lawsuits, there is nothing technically legally wrong with it.

What the hell are you talking about. One is no more legal than the other. In Canada (where I live) there is no law against downloading anything as far as I know. The only governing force that makes me pay for any software is my own sense of morality


There is a law about owning copywrited material. There is no law to download music or movies because it is just like watching them on tv. There is a law that you can't own them and share them though.

There is no law about patching the software you own legally.


Anyways, use your sense.. If you feel good playing games and not paying for them.. Then good for you. I think that even if you download a game and play it and don't end up buying it because you don't like, the developper should get some kind of money for it. Maybe you played it for an hour or two only but you played it. There is video store where you can rent games if you really want to try them out before. There is not a lot of them for computer games but there is some.

it is against the law to patch a game.. its in the EULA of every game out there, you kno that big bit of writing your meant to read before you install the game.
in there it states that you are not allowed to change the game exe file.

anyway im with the guy above, heres another demo that was misleading the FEAR demo, was set out completly different to the actual game.

Ouch, moral high ground.. that hurts.

I feel much worse being a sucker, which is what you are when you buy non-refundable software that is total garbage. I can't think of a software company out there that NEEDS my money, which to me mitigates some of the harm.

While I don't condone any of it, there are degrees of stealing and degrees of wrong. ie Robin Hood I like to think of it as more of a test drive.

Q: Who are you hurting when you download a game to see if it's any good?

A: The companies that make rubbish games that you cant take back for a refund when you find out there goods are substandard.

Laws are meant to be bent aren’t they, since when was anything black and white?

Oh check out this site too:

http://www.megagames.com/read.htm

People, people, people.

This could be such a more interesting topic if you just put your heart into it. Let's first start of with basics then: we all know that hacking games, or downloading them, is illegal. You are infringing on copyright.

Everybody understands that when they want to get in to the movie theatre to see a movie, that they have to pay for it, and that they will not get their money back if the movie sucks beyond imagination. So why do people insist that they feel they have the right to try out a game? "If I like it, I'll buy it" sure... statistics show otherwise and that's very understandable. How to compete when you can get it for free elsewhere with a virtual chance of nil to ever get caught for it?

If everybody was so well behaved, DRM would not exist, it would certainly not be applied to games. I agree with those who hate DRM, that it is not the answer to the problem, but as noone yet has the real answer, other than switching over to the MMO business model, or a model like Steam, you cannot blame the industry for trying. Either that, or you should first blame all those people that are not that well behaved as you, as you always buy the games you like... newsflash: even if a company made a game that seriously sucks, they still deserve to get paid for it because you played it. It may have been the last time you ever got a game from them but that is just capiltalism at work.

There's all kinds of things that might work instead of DRM, but in my mind the best will be if it is something that will invoke social control, not just through law enforcement by authorities.

Just remember, if normal market mechanisms would function, this would much faster weed out the crap games coming out than what is going on now with out of control piracy of software, and to be fair, it is not just consumers that are to blame. The industry should be willing to find price points that do justice to the amounf of effort they put into creating a game, and if current prices reflect what they can do at the moment, then they should just put equal effort into becoming more efficient instead of only investing in DRM, just like with any normal industry.

The difference is if I go to the cinema it costs me £5 plus who is ever with me, if I buy a game it costs me up to £40 and becomes un-returnable as soon as I open the seal. The UK is meant to have a statutory seven-day cooling off period but places like GAME seem to think this is not the case with PC games (this is a recent thing). All products in the UK if purchased and found not to be up to expectations should be able to be returned if in the condition it was purchased in within seven-days. A security seal should not affect this statutory right but game will argue till blue in the face that it is there policy not to take PC game returns.

Buying online also has the same effect with it becoming more expensive than it’s worth to return the game than it’s worth and leaves you in a catch twenty-two situation. Thing is I would not have a problem if games did not cost so much, and just treat them like DVD’s that you spend £10 watch them once then just chuck them in a cupboard till you either give it to someone or throw it out a few years down the line.

You can’t even rent PC games to see what there like, at least consoles have this luxury. All you can do with a PC game is trust that the review sites have not been paid off to give a stupidly good review or that the demo (if there is one) is true to the actual game.

PC gamers are in a bind, and while the techniques for testing out games is seen as illegal by the eyes of the all being and always correct and perfectly just law. We are left with little choice, cant help that people abuse this system. Although I would place money that the people who do abuse this system are teenagers of thirteen or not even who cannot buy such games as they don’t get enough pocket money to buy them or cant buy them in the first place as they are not old enough. Would they be loosing the developers money in the first place?

You don't have to pay £40, you can always find cheaper places than that, at least in my experience, or else wait till the hype wears off. It is perfectly understandable/reasonable, to charge early adaptors premium.

That whole returning thing with games is, obviously, because it is so easy to copy them and then return it and still play it. Indeed a catch 22.

I don't think games cost that much if you really play them from start to finish, if you plot that say enjoyable time spent vs costs, compared to movies. Books are definitely cheaper on the average (or maybe I'm just a slow reader).

Just look at the revenues they make of WoW, it is a safe bet that quite a lot of money is lost, regardless whether 13 year olds buy the game themselves or whether someone else buys it for them. I think it is safe to say that the average game player is older than 13 nowadays...

Im not too sure the money argument you are using flies. Would you be prepared to buy all games, if you get limited refund when you return it after a week? In effect you will only be charged up to £10 if you return it before that time?

If you see what people are prepared to pay for food, it is staggering and also there you will not get a refund if it was a bad experience.

Once again though, food is cheaper per plate. SOME people will pay over $15 for a meal (which I consider on the high end of pricey as it is) but that is generally for restaurants that are considered to be truly great.

Meals costing upwards of $50-$60 (video game prices in the States) are pretty much the best of the best.

Even crappy video games tend to bottom out in starting price at around $30 and the vast majority are $50.

That is quite a bit of money to piss away on a game that fails utterly to live up to expectations. Generally when I decide I don't like a game I have played it no more than 2 hours. $50 for 2 hours is a terrible ratio.

Also returning games is a hassle. Generally to return anything involves standing in a line for at least 20 minutes, sometimes up to 2 hours depending on the day, then another minimum of 10 minutes of jumping through hoops and waiting for managers and such. Then there is the transit time to and from the store.

Again I am not making excuses why I think it should be legal, just giving the reasons why I do it the way I do it.

Also, the more effort it takes to crack a game, the less likely I am to buy it. And if it has Starforce... forget it.

My meal comment probably had too much of a european perspective on it. I'm sure you also have places like that in the states but in Europe the high end of dining is hundreds of dollars/euros. I have to admit that on the occasions where I shelved out more than a 100 euro per person I've seldomly been disappointed, but that is what capitalism brings, value for money. A restaurant c