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You're just arguing semantics. The "license" doesn't cost the game company a dime. If I make a copy of the game on my hard drive, or 100 copies on my hard drive, I'm not costing the company any more money than they already spent to make the game/market it/put physical copies on the shelves. Your argument is ridiculous.

Here's where you make a more valid point, as you ARE using the company's bandwidth without paying for the service. A more accurate analogy of violating copyright without stealing would be making your OWN WoW server for your friends to connect with their pirated clients. Again, I refer you to my hard drive file copying analogy.

I hear this thrown around a lot but I've yet to see some real hard numbers supporting this. Furthermore, I'd be interested in knowing what % of the "PC gaming audience" would have purchased the game in the first place if the ability to pirate it didn't exist. I'll give you an example: I'm a web designer, and from the age of about 11 on I used pirated software (flash, fireworks, photoshop, all that good stuff). The thing is, if I didn't have the ability to pirate it, I would have never used it in the first place as I was a kid and those programs are expensive. Go a step further and I'm now working for a large company where I had a say in what software they purchased for me, and I chose the software I was forced to pirate as a young kid. My point is this: a lot of people who pirate do it simply because it's a free option (which for a young kid it might be their only option). However, you get someone into using your product, be it software, a game, or whatever, when they actually have money later on they just might be one of your biggest fans/customers. Again, I'm comparing games to another industry for an example, I know it's a bit different but my point still stands.

I admit that there are some people out there who are simply going to pirate games because they can, and if the option wasn't there then they'd end up paying for them instead. That's why companies need to beef up security to a certain extent. It might just be easier to spend $50 on a game you really like rather than going through the process of cracking it and trying to get it to work on multiplayer. But at a certain point (when it costs more than it makes the company), it's no longer worth it for them to make a game any harder to crack, but that's a whole other can of worms. Companies also need to focus more heavily on multiplayer if they want them to be successful in the PC gaming market. Multiplayer games are way harder to pirate, and also have the highest amount of replayability since you have this new dynamic element you've introduced (other people! yay!). For me, I've found that, with the exception of a few select titles (Fallout 1 and 2, Escape from Butcher Bay), single player games just aren't worth that kind of money for only a few hours of entertainment.

People need to accept the fact that not everyone pirating would have been a customer in the first place, and if you're just genuinely upset that some punk is playing your game for free even though it didn't cost you anything, all I really have to say is, well, get over it. Some day he might actually give a **** about you and your company and he might just pay for a game, or he might not. Either way, all you can do as a company is make quality products and give gamers the ability to really experience what you make, so you can prove to them that your product is worth $50 (or more, ex: monthly fees).

Every theater I've been to in my area (Ventura County, CA) lets you leave the movie part of theway into it and get a refund. Obviously you'll have a tough time convincing them to give you your money back if you sat through the whole thing (like our good friend previously in the thread who played all the way through Crysis before deciding he didn't like it).

You are full of it..

http://www.mininova.org/search/Call+of+Duty+4/3

Add all the numbers up on the two pages you can find.. Add them up ALL OF THEM.. Even couters in the bottom of the screen.. numbers for what ever .. if you see a number ANYWHERE on the page add it up EVEN the numbers telling you how large the files are.. and you still will not reach 180,000 times..

If you did any digging you would find that the number of people that DOWNLOADED the DEMO via the Torrents.. is the SAME exact number of people that Downloaded the Cracked Game VIA Torrents... 16,000


90% of those files are not even the GAME.. but hacks for the game.. maps.. etc..

Jesus ...debunked in 2 minutes...let me guess.. you are some industry insider too..

First of all, Rduke, your analogies are terrible and offensive, and I suggest you think a little harder about some of the comparisons you're making.

Second, you accuse us of throwing around numbers blindly. We quote the numbers Michael Fitch and THQ came up with. I actually said I didn't think it was that high, maybe 50 percent. That is based on my own experiences as well as talking with other developers and publishers. You may have a different opinion, which is fine. But the funny thing is, everyone who seems to be defending piracy always says the piracy percentage is always lower than what's being quoted. Why is that? If you're downloading games illegally, what concern is it of yours if the piracy rate is 30 percent, 50 percent or 90 percent? Furthermore, the feedback on this discussion thread and other recent threads on piracy is revealing, too; I'm guessing for every one reader that agrees piracy is hurting PC gaming, there are three readers who oppose that view.

Second, you say my claim of 50 percent is MADNESS yet you throw out numbers based on your own experiences. You write "I would say is that for the limited niche of people that download torrents," so what makes your opinion any more valid than mine? And as for Sins of a Solar Empire, are you simply looking at the Pirate Bay numbers or are you looking deeper? Also, the game sold 100,000 copies in its first 23 days on sale. But the game has NO copy protection software at all. And this is how Stardock is rewarded? How many pirated copies of the game do you really think are floating around out there?

Greetings!

Rduke, calm down, its not my fault you cant do a proper torrent search.

The numbers for the more popular CoD4-PC "releases" from Mininova (includes a Spanish one and no crack or map files):
35,049 + 20,871 + 28,739 + 77,633 + 10,271 + 20,483 + 9,746 + 23,349 = 226,141

Now imagine all the other torrent sites, other P2P technics, other "releases" and the traditional piracy.

Go http://www.mininova.org/search/COD4-PC/size

Search for CALL OF DUTY.. Take a look into each file that is 6-GB in size.. according to you.. There are even LESS seeders and games then what link I provided before..

Now go pound sand you. You don't know wtf you are talking about.. ALL TORRENT SITES??!!

TRACKERS ARE TRACKERS FOOL!.. It does not matter what site links them...

The tracker listed at mininova is the same that is a TPB, .. same at Torrentreactor.. same at ISOhunt..

FFS.. you are dumb...

It's not ridiculous, Ohhsnap. It's the way software is sold. You're buying a license that gives you the right to play the game. For someone who's accusing me of arguing semantics, you are truly hung up on establishing a difference between "copying" or "file-sharing" and "stealing" or "theft" (which is a common trait among the friends I have who pirate regularly). Why is that?

And yes, it is costing a developer more money. If you copy the game and put it on a torrent for thousands of people to download, they're losing money because you are enabling people to illegally obtain a product that they didn't pay for. You are depriving the developers of their money by ripping off their hard work without paying a dime. Why is this so hard for people to see? Think of it this way: I work at Tom's Hardware, and sadly, our articles are frequently poached (i.e. copy and pasted by other sites and forums) all the time. You may think to yourself, hey, what's the big deal, they're not stealing anything, plus THG doesn't charge anything to visit the sites. But instead of getting those page impressions and visitors to our sites, they're going to other sites to the read the content. So we lose traffic, and as a result, we potentially lose ad revenue and that adversely affects our business (this is one of many reason's I'm sensitive to copy protection, BTW).

Please understand, Ohhsnap, my approach here isn't to make you or any other person who downloads games out to be a immoral criminal. My intent is to show that piracy is hurting PC gaming. Under the pirate's way of doing business, games would be free unless the user decides the game is great enough to actually shell out money for it. But even the argument that pirates pay for the great games doesn't work because even great games are being downloaded illegally. Is Infinity Ward using piracy as a scapegoat? Why would they do that? CoD4 is a huge seller, even on the PC. So what's their motivation for claiming piracy has hurt sales on the PC?

The fact of the matter is, making PC games is incredibly expensive. In fact, budgets for major games can cost millions of dollars. The PC gaming industry cannot be supported if a siginificant portion of its audience is playing the games without paying for them.

Greetings!

Glad you replied so promptly, I still have the search tabs open, that way dont have to do another search.
All the number above are between 4,05GB and 6,46GB, with one 2,5GB exception.

You obviously misinterpreted what you were supposed to look for.
Its not the seeders or the leechers numbers, its the ".torrent" downloads. You know, the little file that starts the all process?
It shows that starting only from Mininova, counting several CoD4-PC "releases", more than 200.000 copies of CoD-4 were P2P freeloaded.
Not all torrent sites shows that statistic but Mininova happens to be one that does show it.

Nope, completely and totally wrong in every sense of the word, and I'm going to have to shut you down.

Do you seriously not understand the difference between COPYING and TAKING? Here's an example:

You have two objects in your possession: a ball and a piece of paper with the numbers "010101" written on it. I take your ball, and I also have my own piece of paper where I copy your string of numbers "010101" on it. Now, you're left without a ball, but you still have your piece of paper with numbers on it. Do you honestly not see the difference? Is it really that difficult to understand? Now, I go outside and let 1000 people copy the phrase "010101" onto their own pieces of paper. No doubt you spent a lot of time writing down that string of numbers in the first place, and you also run a service where you sell your own pieces of paper with it pre-written on them. In your eyes, I've STOLEN from you? No. It's presumptuous (and quite a hilarious indication of how a lot of game companies think so highly of their own products) that you would assume that EVERY SINGLE ONE of those people who copied that string of numbers would have purchased one of your own printed pieces of paper had it not been available. Even if this was so, your argument holds no water, no matter how large you make the tank. You're stating that the distribution of copyrighted material is stealing because it's going to a LOT of people, but you still don't understand the difference between a single person STEALING property and DUPLICATING it.

You also don't seem to understand the difference between a failing investment and stolen revenue. If I start my own business and invest a large amount of my own money, and then I don't have enough customers to make back enough to cover my initial investment, I don't get to claim that someone STOLE that initial investment. They chose not to support it, and I took a risk and lost. If a company invests $2,000,000 in a game and only makes $1,500,000 back because no one bought their game (because they simply chose not to buy it, or decided to play a pirated version), it doesn't mean that they STOLE that initial investment. The company put it forward, it didn't turn out how they wanted, and they lost.

Your analogy is also poor because you still don't understand the difference between preventing someone from purchasing the game vs. allowing someone to copy the game. If I steal a game off the shelf, not only did I not pay for it, but I also have prevented someone from buying that same copy of the game. I care so much about the correct wording because I hate seeing the industry assume that they're somehow entitled to making back their investment. They're not. Every business takes chances, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but you can't just claim that someone STOLE your investment because they choose not to pay you for something.

However, you bring up the example of you posting articles on your site, and someone copying that article and posting it on their own. This isn't a great example, but essentially I could read the article on either site for "free". Say, however, that they DON'T have ads on their site and you DO. I've chosen to not deal with your ads in favor of reading the same article, ad free. However, I haven't STOLEN the article from you, I simply chose not to support your initial investment of time (spent writing the article, working on your site, getting advertisers) and money (paying for the server, designers, maintenance, etc.). If anything, by reading your copied article on ANOTHER website I've actually done you a service compared to say, using Adblock for Firefox (which I do use), because at least I'm not using your bandwidth. You're still in full possession of your own article which you worked on, and on your own website and server which you made an investment on. It didn't work out for you, tough break. However, say that person that copied your article is actually making money off of their own advertisements on their site. In that case, you are entitled to whatever they earn as a result of using your copyrighted material. That's all it means -- you're entitled to any earnings associated with your work. You aren't entitled to making back your initial investment from people who simply may not have ever considered paying for it in the first place.

Now if I went to, say, Blizzard HQ and physically copied over the game files AND THEN DELETED THEM from their system so they no longer had the game, that would be STEALING. The company paid their programmers for their work, they paid for the distribution and marking of the game to get it on the shelves, but in reality, they are still in full possession of everything they paid for, they just didn't make the profit they feel they're entitled to.

If I have a for sale sign on my car and some guy walks up to it, takes a look at it, pulls out a wand and *DING!* he's duplicated my car, gets in it and drives off, he COPIED it, he didn't STEAL it, regardless of how many hours or how much money I may have spent fixing the car up in order to sell it. When I steal something from you, I'm making something of yours mine and making it no longer yours. It's no longer in your possession. When I copy something, I'm making something of yours mine, but you still have yours too. Can you really even argue this any further? I'm simply amazed my initial point obviously didn't make it clear enough for you, especially for someone who's supposed to be so adept at reading comprehension.

And on another note, I find it quite funny that you're trying to defend the term "stealing" by justifying it with the idea of licenses. It's rather audacious to state you're selling the right to use a given product, and then turn around and say everyone using it without your permission is stealing. I'm selling the right to drive my used Ford Taurus, so that guy who used his magic wand to duplicate has surely stolen it! Wrong, he simply isn't paying me for something that didn't cost me any additional money beyond my original investment

I'm not arguing that the ability to pirate games isn't detrimental to the success of the PC gaming industry. Under their current business model and the huge investments they're making in order to produce these games, combined with how easily one can pirate a game, there's no doubt that a lot of the smaller companies are destined to fail, although the exact extent of the piracy's effect isn't known, it's only estimated. Companies have had it there way for a long time, and it's upsetting when things change and they're no longer in complete control of "licenses." Before, they could guarantee that the sale of said licenses would make up for their investments, and as time grew, so did the initial investments, assuming that the number of sales would also follow. Then, file-sharing came into the picture, and now in order to survive, they either have to fight file-sharing with more sophisticated copy prevention, or change their model in order to succeed in this new environment. What model is that? I really don't know, I'm not an expert, all I know is that the water's getting thicker so they're going to either have to swim a lot harder or find another way to keep afloat.

I buy a lot of games on the PC and I never pirate them. It's been sad watching the PC platform become MMO only. I think Ben and Rob are right that the two biggest threats to the PC games industry are piracy and crappy hardware.

That said a fair number of games I buy simply don't work because their DRM causes them to crash (Spell Force 2). I actually liked Bio Shock's scheme of requiring a small download to play, to me the limiting of the installs was the problem. I think if games would let you install them 4 times right away and then twice within any given 30 period that would be a good compromise, because it would guarantee that I could install it on a new computer 10 years from now.

Also if a company goes out of business they should release a patch that removes the activation.

The piracy and crappy hardware come down to the same thing: people are cheap.

Your assumptions and lack of information regarding this issue is terrible and offensive.. I suggest you do some actual research into what we are talking about .. other then going by idiots like Micheal Fitch..

THE ANALOGY I USED REGARDING RAPE, BLACKS, WHITE WOMAN AND CANNABIS IS FRACKING TRUE...

Those exact words were said on the floor of the senate, as well as "A black man smoking the vile plant marihuana would cause him to look at a white woman.. TWICE!" and my personal favorite "A black man under the influence of the pychosis enducing plant with roots in hell marihuana would actually step... on a WHITE MANS SHADOW!!"

That and many other LIES IS A MAJOR REASON WHY THE SENATE MADE CANNABIS ILLEGAL IN 1937!

Ever heard of that???

Think if the same arguments were made today we would arrest 1 million people a year for possession of a plant??

(which is more then we arrest for all other crimes combined..btw)

Actually yeah.. and you did .. By quoting that tards vague and stupid information of 70-80%.. you are throwing even more then numbers..

You are throwing percentages.. 70-80% of WHAT number???

Of the Population of people who play video games in the US?.. So how much is that exactly???

How many households own PC's?? Macs?

200,000,000 ?... 150,000,000??? 50,000,000?? 20,000,000??. 10,000,000?? 5,000,000?? So 70-80% of that are people pirating?>!?!?!

LMAO.. comon now..

Yes you did.. I gave you credit for that.. However once again.. 50% of what?.. And 50% is way too high.. Think about how many people that is.. and go look at the amount of trackers... No where near .2-4% maximum world wide..

And most torrents are used for TV shows.. and movies.. but mostly TV shows.

Because the situation is blown out of proportion and being made a scapegoat.. when it is not responsible or anywhere near as large as you claim...

There are NOT that many people using Torrents.. It is a very small minority.. and yet.. "industry insiders" are so whacked out of their brains .. they are blowing it to immense proportions.. 30% 50% 60% 80% 90% .. Why not just say 140%.. it is just as wrong as the rest of your information...

It is madness.. you can share my experiances as well.. go LOOK at the numbers that are LIVE right now..

Thats what makes my opinion more valid..

When looking at Pirate Bay numbers.. and you saying what you said regarding looking deeper..

That seriously exposes your ignorance on this subject..

The Pirate Bay numbers .. ARE the numbers.. The numbers are Universal.. The Pirate Bay happens to be one of the largest.. most well known and best of all the torrent tracker sites.. however going to any of the others will simply yield lower numbers if any...

So TPB numbers there are also most accurate.. They are not hyper inflated.. the Trackers are real and the numbers once again are accurate.

Go look..

LMAO

You are so wrong its unbelievable...

First of all ..

The amount of people downloading the 4.2kb torrent file.. is not the same as downloading the 6 or 4 Gig version of the game..!!!..

That is why you are so wrong.. this is why you have no idea what you are talking about.. That is why your numbers are so off..

Talk about digging deeply.. ffs..

The SEEDERS and LEECHERS are directly proportional to how many LIVE activities are taking place right now.--- People who are successful Leechers.. turn into SEEDS.. They want to SEED because if they don't they will get a BAD share ratio.. and they will get BAD download rates..

When you download torrents .. You want to have a very high share ratio... 1 to 1 does not cut it.-- Thats why that number is REAL.. and valid..

I have said and will continue to state that .. OF COURSE there are people that will download the game and keep it for FREE.. however they will only have a **** version of the game...they have no updates .. and they SHOULD NOT have any access to any of the servers ... if they do.. that is the fault of the developer for not having stricter GUID settings...

It should be simple.. 1 good purchased unique CD KEY get = 1 good 128bit encrypted GUID that remains the same forever = access to the online community.. (which is NOT paid for by the company.. players PAY for having their servers.. AN virtually NO server owners will tolerate having someone with a stolen copy on their servers.... EVEN SAYING that in a FPS MP game will get you banned in like 5 seconds..)

1 cracked Key = 1 good 128bit encrypted GUID.. that will be used by more then one person = immediate ban of that GUID forever.. rendering the key useless..

Its not rocket science.

People will download a torrent that fails to work.. go check the comments and listen to more then half of them not even understand how to get the damn game to work...

People will download the torrent and not complete it because the tracker goes down..

People will download the torrent to test the game.. and for a myriad of other reasons.

However once again.. the number of people who download a torrent file .. is not the number of people who download the entire torrent..

It is most likely that at the highest roughly 20,000 people have downloaded COD4.. in TOTAL... check the numbers.. and check my posts.. I said 12-16,000 people did it..

Some of them will not buy the game..

However I wager that they will be a VERY small minority of players.. because in order to get the most out of the game.. they need a VALID KEY.. so I wager MAJORITY of that 20,000 will go buy a box with a key.. take the key.. put it in, and leave the disks in the box and they will play.

Another aspect of people who download games is those who's computers do not meet the minimum requirements .. but they want to try it out anyway.. so they do... and get perhaps 1/1,000 th the experiance they would if they upgraded their PC and got a valid copy..

Also if you read the comments you will often see if the game is good or crap!!..When the game is good many people will tell you to BUY the game and support the developers.. and in fact there are cracker groups out there that WANT you to also BUY the games they crack.. so they insert code into the keys that render the game useless after a time.

Go check that out..

Bottom Line.. Pirates are NOT the cause of the industry failing..

And they are CERTAINLY not the reason Titan Quest and IronClad failed .. So much were they not the reason .. that to say so is a friggen LIE..