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This only gave grief

3 (6.1%)

Grakelin is not stupid

6 (12.2%)

Are you happier now?

1 (2%)

------ Haiku, the encore -----

17 (34.7%)

Disagreeing, Fine

0 (0%)

Why you make a fuzz 'bout it?

3 (6.1%)

Lets just be happy

19 (38.8%)

Total Members Voted: 48

[thobal]

Also, I have a question for anyone that might be knowledgeable in the topic: What purpose does region coding serve?

Region coding exists so a product sold in one market(North America), cannot be exported to a second market (Europe). This is to allow companies to stagger releases. I'm not sure why they would do such a thing, but I'm fairly certain its so they can eventually go back to openly owning slaves like they have for 99.9% of world history.

[Soulwynd]

No you can't have unhackable anything. Anything can be hacked.

And region codes are meaningless. It's easy to unblock any dvd player.

[Micro102]

I got it! Release a demo of the game and ransom it for however much money you want and then once you reach that amount release it for free!

[Jreengus]

No matter what I do, someone's going to rob my inner-city quickie-mart.  I should just leave the money on the counter and get rid of the cameras.

That's a ridiculous analogy. A better one would be along the lines of:
No matter what I do, someone's going to break into my shop when its closed. I should stop paying half my profit to hire men who stand around whilst I'm open glaring over peoples shoulder as they shop, checking any time they take something off a shelf and giving them a full cavity search when they try to leave.

[Schilcote]

Wait a second... we have 50% of a page on the original topic and then 13.5 pages about the ethical implications of software piracy...


Anyway, I would have to say that the answer to ALL of the complaints in the OP is...

*drumroll*

Text Adventure Games! They're free, they technically don't HAVE graphics (though they use the most powerful graphics hardware known to man, the human imagination), they very rarely insult your intelligence (most of them will have you pulling out your hair and checking the solutions), and, best of all, they're all free!

And Frotz is highly portable too, meaning that there's an implementation for almost every computing appliance with enough brainpower and a text screen.

[Soulwynd]

It's also unfeasible to think someone playing a game equals to a loss to the developer.

Of course, people like microsoft aren't happy only making 8 billion a year with game sales. Course, people like EA only make half a billion a year and they put almost as much on stake.

That's another problem. They deal with figures this big and are afraid to fumble. As much as it would be wise to drop DRM, I doubt any big comp will, mostly due to fear nobody will buy their game. They really think DRM is responsible for the sales they get.


Oh Schilcote, I wasn't complaining about lack of games to play, I was pointing out modern games are going towards a very sucky direction.

[Micro102]

Piracy goes hand-in-hand with modern games, this thread is still well on topic.


And you would think they would learn that DRM does nothing after the SPORE incident.

[Draco18s]

And you would think they would learn that DRM does nothing after the SPORE incident.

Hey now, be fair.  They should have learned from World of Goo.

"I'm not releasing my game with DRM of any kind."  Even turned down a major publisher (forgot which one) because the publisher would have put DRM on it.  Stated this up front, months in advance of release.

How long before pirated copies surfaced?

A full week after launch.

Ratio of legal to pirated?

1:10

Compare to Spore:

3 days prior to official launch and, IIRC, 1:300.

[Micro102]

Lol Spore was also the most pirated game of the year (or was it EVER?)


But to be fair world of goo is like a mini-game compared to mainstream games.

[JoshuaFH]

Like, with people now forced to buy games, that videogames would then decrease in price since more people are buying them?

What?  No!  If you find yourself with unstealable goods you're not going to drop the price on them, you'll leave it the same: "more" people will pay that price now that they can't get it any other way.

Well, I was just thinking that since they didn't have to worry about people stealing the game anymore, regular market forces would apply. Since in this case demand is going up, supply would as well, and thus prices would go down.

That is, unless I've forgotten everything my highschool econ class has taught me.*

* very likely.

[Draco18s]

Well, I was just thinking that since they didn't have to worry about people stealing the game anymore, regular market forces would apply. Since in this case demand is going up, supply would as well, and thus prices would go down.

Digital content has infinite supply, but the general means of supply and demand don't apply to digital content, otherwise all digital content would be free (any non-infinite number divided by infinity is 0).

[JoshuaFH]

Well, what I meant was that since more people would be buying it, retailers could be inclined to lower prices to attract more people to buy, and profits would stay roughly the same.

But then again, I don't know much.

[Draco18s]

I know what you mean, but they won't do it.  Ever.

[Nilocy]

Steam saaales.

[Micro102]

I would love to sign up for steam but i don't feel good giving my credit card number to anyone...even paypal.