| Deleted User | Lets try and thrash this issue out once and for all. And, Starforce, I dare you to sue me, I would just love that!
In the past, before I got clever, I would sometimes buy a game which I then wouldn't be able to play, because it would keep giving me a little message to the effect that I did not have the correct CD/DVD in the drive. Which I did have. Promise. I would then return this software to the store, and I would be very sad, because now I would have missed out on a great game.
Then, one day, I started to make friends with a specific shop assistant, who said to me: "You know that there is a way to get around this protection issue that keeps you bringing good games back to the store. You go to certain "insert name" places, and you get certain "insert name" software, that removes the copy protection from your games. I followed up, studied and investigated this, and discovered the world of hacking! What really infuriated me, was that because the games that the pirates were selling didn't have copy protection on it, it was actually easier to buy and play a pirated game than it was to buy the legal game.
Why this especially infuriates me, is that in principle I am totally against pirating. It (in principle) harms both the customer and the industry. The pirated games (yes, through my hacking friends I also discovered some pirate game sellers) would sell at an average of about 1/3 of the price of a brand new mainstream popular game.
The problem is, you can actually buy legal copies of some of the older games for cheaper than the pirated copy costs you! So the customer is still paying for these games, only now the revenue is going to some scummy pirate, instead of going back into the industry.
Why haven't I reported the pirate? Because unfortunately, before thinking it through, I bought a very old game from him that I couldn't find anywhere anymore, not even on e-bay. It's an ancient game that's been discontinued, and I now deeply regret this action.
My overall point is , that if the copy protection hadn't made it impossible for me to play my LEGAL games in the first place, I would never have found out where to find cracks for copy protection to start with. Now I am equipped to exchange copy protected games with anyone I know, make copies, and crack the protection.
But besides that i prefer to support the industry, i also prefer to have the original legal copy in my collection, as i am somewhat of a collector. Gaming is my hobby, therefore I like to have legal games in my cupboard.
Shouldn't the industry rather than spend millions of dollars/euros on ridiculous, over the top copy protection, rather spend that time and effort on educating the gaming public into a culture of: "I care about the industry and the future of gaming. If I support piracy there will be no future for gaming."
As a last note: In the article mentioned in the other thread about Starforce sueing people, the Starforce representative states: "Our product keeps games secure for at least 6 months". This person is either in denial or living in a total dream world. By the time we "legal" gamers rush to the local store to buy our copy of a much-anticipated game, the pirates have already "wink, nudge, shhh' finished playing said game. GGRRR!
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