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Really? Have you seen VATS in action? I have, actually. But have you? Or seen ANY part of Fallout 3 other than a trailer? How can make such a definitive statement? How do you KNOW it's going to be bad?

Can we agree first off that piracy had nothing to do with the failure of Iron Lore...  
 
As now the 34 gamers in total I have talked to regarding this issue.. not a single person has even heard of it... and now all but 2 use Pirating for the exact reasons I said people pirate for.
 
Fact of the matter is .. Bad Games killed Iron Lore.

I'm just a guy with no affiliation to game review sites and the like, so no.  However, I've read enough about it from guys like you to know that it's taking fallout in the wrong direction (in the opinion of a hardcore fallout fan).
http://www.duckandcover.cx/forums/ [...] e6f40b82d8
 
I've read all the reviews, browsed duckandcover, nma, and the "official" fo3 forums for hours reading about game features, looking at screenshots, reading backstory, etc. From what I've read and seen thus far, I am not convinced it's going to be the Fallout 3 everyone was hoping for.  I really don't want to turn this into a massive rant about why I think Fallout 3 is going to be bad, but to sum it up the combat system is simultaneously FPS and essentially throwing a bone to the original fallout fans with "V.A.T.S." rather than true turn-based. The look of the models/textures doesn't follow the same original fallout feel (i.e. Power Armor and jumpsuits.  Just another "**** you, we're doing it our way!" from Bethesda).  They trivialize nuclear weapons by throwing in a "Fat Man" (also the name of the nuke dropped on Hiroshima, rather poor taste if you ask me, not the dark, cynical humor we found in Fallout 1 and 2 but just a ****, tasteless reference).  There's a flaming sword weapon.  A flaming sword.
 
It's obvious they're doing it their way, and I've seen the other games they've made their way, and I personally don't like them or find them fun at all.  Some people might end up loving Fallout 3, but I can pretty much guarantee I wont.

 
Those are stickies in the help section. I haven't seen an update of the posts that says it is corrected. No, the solution is to completely uninstall your AV. Great!
 
How is the problem with non-working universities resolved?
 

 
Aha...and when I want to install it and play it somewhere without an Internet connection or in a network that doesn't allow me to connect to Steam? What do I do then?

 
 
I have never had a problem with my AV program... ever.. AntiVir.. It is free, it is powerfull and it works no probs.. (except I need to change what time it auto-updates as it tends to do it while I am gaming)
 
The universities problem is resolved by the user talking to the IT department and explaining to them that they should allow STEAM as it is not a P2P network... which is why I would wager it is blocked to begin with and they do not want students and the school getting sued by the RIAA...so they just disable programs like that in a blanket setting.
 
 
-or pay for your own internet connection-
 
Run it in Offline mode.
 
There are settings with which you can do this.
 
http://support.steampowered.com/kb [...] -AGCB-2555
 
 

@Chetou
What do you have against Steam man?
 
I don't have any of those problems that were in those threads you posted, and I even use AVG.
 
Apparently you don't own any games from Steam and merely went to their site searching for reasons why it sucks so bad.  The fact of the matter is that millions use Steam everyday, and if it was a broken system that was going nowhere it would not be doing so well.
 
Do you have a better idea on how to combat piracy?  Or can you just point out what is wrong with Steam and Valve?

 
Yours isn't one of the mentioned. Some ppl have licenses for those. The post is half a year old and it seems it still hasn't been resolved. And those are not some obscure AVs.  
 
And this I don't like:
"As always, we suggest closing as many background applications as possible while you are using Steam. This includes Anti-Virus and Security related programs."
 
I'll be online and I should close all my security related programs?
 

 
Yes, you could do that...if they allow it, since they don't really know what u'll be using it for since they can only open ports, not applications. It's a hassle either way.
 

 
This is ok, but still requires Internet connection.
 

 
7.5? Anyway, some obviously have problems, and they can't resolve it for half a year now?
 

 
I just prefer to have my own CD/DVD that I can install wherever and whenever I want it without the need to search for an Internet connection or to call IT department and explain to them why I need this and that. Steam doesn't suck, far from it, but it's hardly ideal too.  
 
Something about running dedicated servers confuses me. You need to install seperate game files for a server and you can't play on the same computer the server is running on. Is this true?
 

 
Make a good game. Piracy is so overrated and a great scapegoat.

That is true about the dedicated servers.  I think it is mostly for performance boost that you cannot play on the same machine.
 
Sorry I kind of tore into you.  It just seemed like you wanted to pick apart Steam because you were not a fan of it.  I guess for me, I like the idea of not having discs since I like to make images of mine anyway to play with.  I don't want them getting stolen or broken at school, so that is just the way I have done things for awhile.  Getting the image of a protected disc to work can be a huge pain, and Steam solves that problem completely.
 
I also agree that piracy can be used as an excuse for poor sales.  But until the game developers realize it is not as bad as they think, it becomes a problem for us when copy protection gets out of control (Bioshock).  If it gets bad enough in their eyes, the honest ones are going to suffer for it.

Here in the USA we are a Democracy.  If games are pirated 70-80%, then the definition of Democracy would say pirating is legal.   As long as 51% keep pirating games, it will be legal
 
 

Actually we are a Republic...(If we can keep it)  
 
And a well trained and conditioned one at that...  
 
I hear what you are saying.. but as the writing on the wall says..
 
"If voting changed anything, they would make it illegal"
 
But that is a subject for another thread.

 
Oh dear God...I hope you're not serious. Because if you are, the above statement will rank up there with software pirates being similar to Jesus, i.e. his "feeding the multitude" miracle that took a handful of fish and loaves and tranformed them into enough food for thousands.

I actually decided to read through the other posts in this thread to get a better understanding of where everyone is coming from, and I have finally come up with a good explanation of the state of piracy right now.
 
First of all, I have been using torrents extensively for the past 4 years, so I know what I am talking about.  I also know about cracking games as well, like for getting them to work at lan parties for people who do not own the game.  That being said, I buy all my games legally.  I just know and understand the process of how to get games illegally off the internet.
 
Now, to say that just because some torrents do not have a lot of seeders or leechers that piracy is not a problem is complete bull.  Before I continue, check out these searches from Mininova, ThePirateBay, and Isohunt:
 
http://www.mininova.org/search/bioshock/seeds
The best seeded torrent has been downloaded 63,412 times.
 
http://thepiratebay.org/search/bioshock/0/7/0
 
http://isohunt.com/torrents/?ihq=b [...] lla-search
For those of you who don't know, Isohunt is like a Google search for torrents.  So, it searches many trackers, including Mininova and ThePirateBay, and therefore gives a great reflection of the availability of something on most of the bittorrent sites.
 
Towards the top of the list of the Mininova search, there is another torrent with 42,673 downloads, and a few others with about 11,000 - 12,000 downloads.  And that is just for Mininova.  There are countless other torrent sites and trackers that I have not mentioned, including private torrent sites that have their own private trackers.  Their torrent will never show up in any searches, but I assure you that many of them offer game downloads as well.
 
For anyone trying to discredit this evidence by saying that the numbers are not that bad, think about this.  Who's to say that the people who download these files don't give them to their friends?  It is not like it is hard to give the files to someone else.
 
And as for the small files that are merely the cracks so the game can be played without a disc, those count too.  Why?  Because all someone needs is a copy of the game disc, an image of it, or just to borrow a friend's disc that they paid for.  It is very simple.  There are also other avenues for downloading game files too, such as Usenet, DC++ and many others.  DC++ basically turns a network into a p2p haven, where files are shared by people like over a network and download speeds are whatever the network connection speed is.
 
Piracy is a problem, and for anyone who does not think so, you just aren't looking hard enough and are not aware of all the different sources for it.
 
And just to reiterate one more time before I finish, I DO NOT PIRATE GAMES.  I buy my games because the developers deserve the support for their awesome accomplishments.  My knowledge of torrenting and cracking games mostly stems from my interest in playing my games using cd images to protect the disc.
 
Hopefully this was helpful in understanding the potential of how widespread game piracy (and all piracy for that matter) really is.

 
Not every download equals revenue lost for the developer, as stated countless times before.
 
More on Steam: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam [...] m_of_Steam - ugly! Especially this:
"According to the Steam Subscriber Agreement, Steam's availability is not guaranteed and Valve is under no legal obligation to release an update disabling the authentication system in the event that Steam becomes permanently unavailable."

A valid point, but there is still no way to even find out how many of those people would have bought the game if there was not a method for obtaining it for free.  The numbers speak louder than simply saying that those people would have never bought the game to begin with.
 
Do you have any hard evidence that states one pirated copy does not equal one lost sale?  I can say a lot of things, but does that make it fact just because I post it in a forum.  No.
 
As for the constant Steam bashing, have you ever used Steam?  I bet you that every game you buy has a statement in the user agreement stating something similar regarding the functionality of the game.  It is there to protect them from massive lawsuits if something does go wrong that is out of their control.  That is just common sense from a lawyer's perspective when writing one of those agreements.  Is that going to stop you from playing it?  I hope not.  It is a small price to pay to use the Steam system, and I will continue to do so until it dies...if it dies.
 
I like Steam, so I use it.  You don't, so never use it.  That kind of solves both of our problems doesn't it?

Long friggin posts in this thread.
 
Piracy is hurting the PC gaming industry, but it is NOT what killed Iron Lore.  Titan Quest was a fun but uninspired diablo clone with little to no effective marketing.  You only need look at the posts in this thread to see that many obsessive gamers never even heard of it.  
 
Probably the worst damage that the pirates did was assume the game was buggy due to ill conceived and poorly implemented copy protection which in turn influenced reviews and excitement levels over what little advertising there might have been.  
 
If the pirates had bought the game instead the company might have managed to release one more poorly thought out uninspired clone of some other successful game before their apparently poor marketing and business decisions killed them off anyway.  

 
 
I'm sure if 70%-80% was a legitimate number, it would not take much time before there would be no games to pirate.  I'm also sure that 51% is no where close, so pirating games is still illegal.   I on the other hand, I believe in the try before you buy.  The Crysis demo showed me enough that I didn't buy it.  COD4 demo was awesome and play ok on my current game systems (no upgrade needed). That was an easy purchase.  Being a UT fan I tried the UT3 demo and only one of my system could even play it over 30fps.  I still bought the game with the hopes that in the next year I will be able to get all my game machines playing it much better.  It will cost me $800.00 today to upgrade two of my game machines.  In the months to come I hope hardware will keep dropping and I will get an even better deal.  I'm sure if I could afford the upgrades today, I would have probably bought Crysis.  I did try the 10 day free WOW trial with my son.  We spent 9 of the 10 day running back to our dead bodies and only made it to level 12.  I don't have $30.00 a month to blow just so I can run back to my dead body.  Got old fast  MMO sound good on paper, but if you work a full time job, you shouldn't have time for MMOs.  I guess that is why I like UT, I come home from work and I can sit down for 15min and play two or three maps on UT and be satisfied.  RPG on the other hand are real hard to stop after only 15min.  If there is no Demo, I will not buy it period!  I've been burned once too many times, IT WILL NOT HAPPEN AGAIN.  Curiosity does get the better of me at times,  when Manhunt 2 was rejected for it content I did look for a DL to see what the hype was about.  No luck though.   BioShocks DRM issues got me to DL the Demo and the cracked game.  I never made it past the demo and I deleted the cracked game before I even installed it.  The game demo was "same **** different day" and none of my game computer could play it very good, flushed that one.  One last thing, I will not buy a game that requires a CD/DVD to play.  So unless there is a NO-CD crack or a system like Steam I will not buy a game.  Orange Box was my first Steam purchase and I love it.  I installed Orange Box on 5 computer in my house and I can play on any one of them without the DVDs.  At my last lan party I was able to play TF2 on 15 computer with no problem.  Just don't let it log on to Steam and only play LAN.  

Actually no matter what is debated I would also have to agree that piracy is a problem for the pc gaming industry.  Let me clarify this though:  I say this because whether piracy really hampers sales (or lose sales), the mere supposition of it scares a lot of companies away.  Therefore even if the facts were half assed, it still makes companies wary.
 
Now I have been thinking (and i would like to pose the scenario to others in this discussion), If these cases are true, what would be scenario of pc gaming today:
 
1) No piracy
2) Companies release a demo of the product that reflects the worth of the product
3) Review sites dont just give a nicey nicey review, they burn when necessary.
4) Prices of the games are same as we have today
 
Would we:
1) Still have IronLore?
2) Sell more than consoles?
3) Have many little companies surviving?
etc
 
Curious..