Interesting article I found a link to:

http://www.joeuser.com/index.asp?c=1&AID=21895&u=0

An indie developer suggesting it's the publishers putting studios out of business rather than pirates.

I certainly agree with his point about dongles and the like - copy protection at the moment puts more obstacles in the way of legitimate users trying to play the game than people who are going to pirate anyway. I will freely admit to getting no-CD cracks for some games that I own, simply because I don't want to have to be getting the CD out every time I play. I certainly object when it's merely for a check, rather than loading data off the CD.

I totally agree. I've pirated some games, and bought others. When it comes to pirating games, this so called "copy protection" is child's play to bipass. Need a CD key? Need a no-CD crack? There's tons online. If someone really wants to pirate a game, not much can stop them. But I can definately tell you that by far, the most trouble I've had with CD keys and such were with games that I've bought legally. There's nothing more frustrating than buying an 80$ game only to find out the CD key on the box is invalid, so you need to get one from a crack site if you want to play, then installing the game but having it freeze up because it keeps checking your CD, so you have to get a no-CD crack for that too... And then you have to update the game constantly because they come up with a new patch every two weeks, and because you cracked it before, you have to reinstall it from scratch... Those things don't protect against piracy, they just annoy consumers.

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WAITER: Here’s your green salad, sir.
ANAKIN: What? You fool, I told you NO CROUTONS! Aaaaaaargh!

all of what flexor said.

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America, home of the free gift with purchase.

Fully agree 100%.

There are somethings that I will not pirate. Those are addons for flightsim. However even some of these which are way overpriced I will turn a blind eye too.

These addons that I dont pirate however, they work. You download them, the anti piracy features are un-intrusive, and it all works.
You install them, you read the manaul, it works.
On the rare occasion it doesnt work, which has never happened to me I think, you can go to the forums and ask the indivudual developers "why isnt this working?" and they will answer you. Personally.

The guys are fantastic. The patches that come out are useful patches, and most only need 1 patch. Better yet, they usually get intergrated with the original download later on.. so future people odnt need the patch.
AND IT ALL WORKS!

Not to mention I get a lot of fun out of them.

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Founder of the Massassi Brute Squad (MBS)

B'tduz: A popular dwarfish game which consists of standing a few feet apart and throwing large rocks at one another's head.

"Yes, it's a bloody flying alligator setting fire to my city!" - His Grace His Excellency the Duke of Ankh, Commander Sir Samuel Vimes.

Morituri Nolumus Mori

I don't mind so much the cd-keys , or needing the Cd to start a game..

the things that do bother me are things like installing hidden programs/drivers(I.E. that starforce thing)

and Needing to Keep the CD in when I'm trying to play multi player over LAN!!

Do they Really think I'm going to BUY a 2nd copy of the game to play a few rounds on a computer less then 5 feet from this one?

Hey cool I have Galactic Civilisations (yes I paid for it! )

I have no real issue with CD keys for installation. Having to leave the CD in the drive to play is annoying though.

To be honest my main issue with computer games are that they are hideously overpriced. As much as I loved both Call of Duty and Max Payne 2 in hindsight I truly regret paying full price for them. It's just obscence. You can get big ass DVD boxsets for cheaper.

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Cantina Cloud | BCF | The Massassian 1, 2 & 3 | Gonkmeg
Corrupting the kiddies since '97

Yeah does anyone know why prices on PC games have skyrocketed? Sales have only gone up for video games. A new release used to be 59.99, they are now 69.99. I used to get my games from a small store in Toronto that sold new releases for 49.99, and if you bought 2 games you got them at 39.99 (selected games, but usually popular ones anyways). That store has since disappeared unfortunately.

*Prices in Canadian dollars

Because it's the company's fault people pirate software in the first place.

JediKirby

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jEDIkIRBY - Putting the Romance back into Necromancer.
Proud Leader of the Minnessassian Council

Live on, Adam.

I know, Jaiph. Max Payne 2, while great, wasn't worth 40 bucks, and Call of Duty, while fun and engagin...once again just not worth it. Prices on games need to drop, and fast. I think Doom III is RIDICULOUSLY expensive, but I'm still going to pay for it, of course, just to help Carmack out a little bit

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There is no signature

On the contrary. In the USA, atleast where I am, all the new released have gone from $50 - $40. I love it. CoD was worth the price tag for the multiplayer alone. Max Payne 2 I play over and over and over. There are so many cool things you can do, although I can see why some might not want to pay full price.

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(>º_º)> ±h³ ѳv³®-£ⁿd¡תּ9 §±ºr¥ <(º_º<) | (>º_º)> תּℓζ ШǿѓЖ§|-Юρ <(º_º<)

[edit: ]

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(>º_º)> ±h³ ѳv³®-£ⁿd¡תּ9 §±ºr¥ <(º_º< ) | (>º_º)> תּℓζ ШǿѓЖ§|-Юρ <(º_º< )

[This message has been edited by SAJN_Master (edited July 23, 2004).]

60 bucks canadian and you're complaining? I often see games tagged at 90+$ not counting taxes. *cough*diablo2*cough*

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WAITER: Here’s your green salad, sir.
ANAKIN: What? You fool, I told you NO CROUTONS! Aaaaaaargh!

[This message has been edited by Flexor (edited July 23, 2004).]

I don't know how much HD space you people have, but if you hate having to insert CDs all the time, you can get Alcohol 120% from Download.com. The program makes an image of the CD on your hard drive, and you can create up to 7 virtual drives and mount a game on each one.

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<ubuu> does hitler have a last name?
<jipe> .. yes, Ubuu, we're racist commy nazi jews, and we hate male pattern baldness
<Professor`K> Sorry, but half-way through your logic, my head exploded

Or you could get a cd crack and probably save a few kb

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WARNING: THIS POST MAY CONTAIN TRACES OF PEANUT!
----@%

I agree w/ the article and flex.


You've seen my desktop. Guess how much stuff on there could possibly be legit on a college student budget?




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I have found that you can transform your character solely by the power of belief: as you believe yourself to be, so you shall become over time.

CD cracks are nice, but when a new patch comes out usually you've gotta find the new version of the crack. Not so when using virtual drives.

/me hugs 160 and 80gb hard drives

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http://www.sporkaudio.com

Just for clarification, the reason some of you are stealing games is because game manufacturers try to implement ways to keep people from stealing them? Ways that make it worse to play a legal copy than an illegal one? And then you complain about the cost? Odd.

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Have you forgotten ...

stealing is such a harsh word. I prefer the term "Permanent loan." .




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I have found that you can transform your character solely by the power of belief: as you believe yourself to be, so you shall become over time.

Actually, it all has to do with basic economic demand curves. Demand goes up, price per unit goes up, and the curve shifts outward.

Therefor, Wookie06, the price isn't going up due to piracy, it's going up due to an increase in sales (demand). If more people want a product, people will be more willing to pay more to be able to get the product. Simple economics.

Alot of the people that use cracks, use cracks for the games they've already gone out and baught...not ones they downloaded off the internet. Reason? The majority of gamers are still on dial-up. Why download a game for a week when you can just go out and buy it. Hell, I'm on DSL and there's no way I'd spend 12 hours downloading a game I want when I can take a 5 min trip to Wal-mart and pick the game up.

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Try not, do; or do not.

Wookie is the perfect example of "don't know what the f*** he's talking about" or as we call it, ignorance.

People 'steal' games because they can't play them any other way. Literally. There are some games that you canNOT play if you bought it and have certain software (alcohol/clonecd) installed. It just will not play at all.

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There is no signature

Computer games, cds, dvds, software, etc., aren't really subject to the whole "supply and demand" thing. They are so cheap to manufacture! It literally costs a few cents to make them, so if the demand goes up, they just stamp out more of them. Plus, they could make the games downloadable and only pay for bandwidth. So that argument doesn't really hold any weight.

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Brian's Web Log is CLOSED.

You're right. It's not the cost of publishing the game that makes games cost so much. But the publishers are the ones artificially inflating the price. Why? Union dues, cost of labor, employment quotas. The same thing that makes a $400 thousand dollar reel of film and a few hundred people on a movie set budget a hollywood production into the 50 millions. Every little prick who works in the industry must join a labor union. That union forces pay hikes and artificially inflated price hikes to keep both the company and it's employees happy.

All at your cost, unfortunately.

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A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops.
On my desk I have a workstation...

Not everyone complaining about prices in this thread pirates games. I don't, I just wait for the price to go down. Case in point, JA, which I finally got last week when it hit the bargain bin Not too bad, but again I'd be kicking myself right now if I had paid full price.

Only full price game I've bought recently was Far Cry which was a bit cheaper than most new releases (at least at the EB I got it at) and was good enough and long enough to hold off buyer's remorse

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Cantina Cloud | BCF | The Massassian 1, 2 & 3 | Gonkmeg
Corrupting the kiddies since '97

I've had a lot of problems with programs that make CD images, in that they don't copy the CD protection. Does this thing do it better than other things?

Tack on Ubisoft's latest anti-pirate system: You may not install the full version of Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow if you have an emulated optical drive on your computer. Good thing I didn't waste my money on my last run and get SC2 as I have emulated drives. Makes the backup process much faster.

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"Iraqniphobia - The fear of non-existant weapons of mass-destruction."

This is why I stopped buying software at home long ago (I live in the burbs just outside of Toronto), as apart from the few deals that Staples has on games released by Microsoft (I got Dungeon Siege for $39.99 last year, while it was still $69.99 in most places). I get most of my stuff on my anual trips to the UK now (the 2-games-for-30-pounds deal coincides with my trip, and I also found a place that sells most stuff cheaper than even the big retailers,)

What was the name of the place you used to go to Connection Problem?

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"Iraqniphobia - The fear of non-existant weapons of mass-destruction."

Oh i love my SOF platinum. Its all installed on my comp and Ive never copied it once so he does have a point. I dont exactly agree 100% but i agree with most of it.

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Its peanut butter jelly time!
My Personal Site | Remnant Temple Part A | A work in progress

It was called Media Wonder, up at Finch. Haven't found anything else like it to this day.

I don't know where you guys live but where I live, games usually cost no more than 50 bucks. Usually only new release are 50 bucks. Games that have been out for a while usually drop to 40 bucks and some budget games or games that are over a year or so are about 30 or 20 bucks.

Anyway, back on topic, I think CD-Key system that Steam came up with seems pretty fool-proof right now. Because of the fact that only one CD-Key can be turned in for a Steam ID, it's not possible to pass those CD-Keys around on crack sites because once a key is turned in, it can't be used again. Of course, usually only games with MP would require a CD-key for use when playing online. Most SP games still think that forcing you to have the CD is a fool-proof method. WRONG. Obviously that is flawed because people can simply just burn a copy of the game and pass that off to friends, making too easy to pirate. I'm surprised that Raven software didn't include a CD-Key registration with JO and JA, even though they did with Elite Force. Apparently LEC are morons and thought CD-Keys weren't important so they told Raven not to include it. Pretty stupid if you ask me.

-- SavageX

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"...and if you don't like that, then you need to be slugged in the face repeatedly, until my hands are soaked in blood. Have a nice day!"
http://geocities.com/savagex378

Maybe they just thought "to hell with the CD-Key idea.. this isnt working"?

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Founder of the Massassi Brute Squad (MBS)

B'tduz: A popular dwarfish game which consists of standing a few feet apart and throwing large rocks at one another's head.

"Yes, it's a bloody flying alligator setting fire to my city!" - His Grace His Excellency the Duke of Ankh, Commander Sir Samuel Vimes.

Morituri Nolumus Mori

How do they plan to enforce that? with something that scans your drive and makes sure you have none installed?

Give me a good ISO ripper like winiso and a burning program and I'll install it on as many machines as I damn well please. I'll bury myself in copies.


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I have found that you can transform your character solely by the power of belief: as you believe yourself to be, so you shall become over time.

[This message has been edited by Pagewizard_YKS (edited July 24, 2004).]

[This message has been edited by Pagewizard_YKS (edited July 24, 2004).]

In theory, all you need is a good keygen. You could keep generating serials until you find one that steam accepts, and you're in.




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I have found that you can transform your character solely by the power of belief: as you believe yourself to be, so you shall become over time.

Yeah, but that is a mind-numbing process (not to mention you screw someone over if you succeed). I tried doing that on Steam but it was taking too long to do (I do own a legal copy of Half-Life, BTW. Sadly, I lost the paper that had my CD-Key and I'm using a friend's CD-Key for now). Because of that, it seems more fool-proof that way since you REALLY have to be dedicated to finally find a key that works.

-- SavageX

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"...and if you don't like that, then you need to be slugged in the face repeatedly, until my hands are soaked in blood. Have a nice day!"
http://geocities.com/savagex378

A good combo I've found is CloneCD for ripping the image and DAEMON Tools for mounting them. Both of them are aware of the major CD-Copy protection schemes, and CloneCD can rip with them intact and DAEMON Tools can emulate it if you forget.

I thought he was talking about ripping iso images-- that's why i recommended winiso in my last post.

for virtual drives, i like alcohol 120%, although i nearly always have burned copies of frequently used cds floating around.



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I have found that you can transform your character solely by the power of belief: as you believe yourself to be, so you shall become over time.

it needn't be mind-numbing if someone wrote a special keygen that kept checking with steam for a valid serial and run the process on infinite loop until a valid key is found.


generate key -----> check with steam.

if invalid, generate new key and try again. repeat if necessary.

if valid, register, and stop.

Such a thing would not be hard to write, (not my area of knowledge-- I'm an artist, not a script kiddie.) the hardest part would be figuring out how to communicate with the steam server.

If such a program was written, it would be suspicious to the folks over at steam if they noticed that their authentication server kept getting hammered by the same ip constantly. They check IP, report to isp, = busted.

Anyone that would try something like this would hopefully be smart enough to reroute through a proxy instead of through their real IP.

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I have found that you can transform your character solely by the power of belief: as you believe yourself to be, so you shall become over time.


[This message has been edited by Pagewizard_YKS (edited July 24, 2004).]

http://www.reality-syndicate.com/syndicatepress/hlcdkey.htm



They are talking about 25 char keys

Mine is 13 characters long ~> still 171 sextillion possibilities (10^21)

A year has roughly 31,557,600 seconds

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"Music is the universal language and the
dialect we speak in is Hip Hop!" - King Solomon

[This message has been edited by Molgrew (edited July 24, 2004).]

[This message has been edited by Molgrew (edited July 24, 2004).]

That would work if there was only one valid CD key out of 831,375,028,249,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 possibilities. But that's not how it works.

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WAITER: Here’s your green salad, sir.
ANAKIN: What? You fool, I told you NO CROUTONS! Aaaaaaargh!

Good luck then, you would be the first to come up with a keygen that works with steam

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"Music is the universal language and the
dialect we speak in is Hip Hop!" - King Solomon

We live in Canada, and because of the currency conversion, the prices seem higher to you than they really are...

So when I was getting new releases for 49.99, that's the equivalent of 38 bucks US. Not a bad deal.