Piracy/Cracked Games - Page 3

Macca · 20 April 2006, 21:10

I think the main reason for me (apart from money and I can really only claim that when I was younger) is convenience.

It's so easy to go around a mates house and ask if he / she has anything new and then copy it.

Saying that though I had approximately 500 original C64 games last I checked so I did buy what I enjoyed and thats the case now.

Djay · 21 April 2006, 23:38

heres my 2 pence worth...

when i first got an Amiga, i bought about 10 games at the same time... i didnt know much about the copy-scene but after a week or so i got chatting to some people at school and i went back to this new mates house and he had boxes and boxes of disks, he sold me some blanks and i went thru his collection...

...thats how it all started for me, later... i met a guy who was a trader for scoopex and thats when it went silly... i still bought some games, the ones i thought were great and played a lot.. even thou i had them on copy already

as for killing the Amiga... well...

one week i bought an Amiga game, the next week i bought a Playstation, lets just say that i didnt buy another Amiga game.

during the early years the Amiga *was* the games machine to have, the PC was nowhere near as good.... but the PC caught up and got better - Doom for example was release before AlienBreed FP, Fear and the others.. but Doom was much better, ok so you had to have a good PC to run it... but money doesnt matter.. look at the console industry now... a console is updated within five years and was originally sold for £400...

... commodore didnt properly update the computer....

... i know lots of people who bought Amigas because they could copy games!

DDNI · 22 April 2006, 00:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Djay

... commodore didnt properly update the computer....

Exactly, they got lazy and cheap...

mr_a500 · 22 April 2006, 01:08

Quote:

bippym wrote:
Now my kids have a DS and PSP and GBA and they have loads of original games which they paid for themselves (and they currently only get £3 p/w each but can earn more cash by helping out around the house)..

I wish my parents were as generous (can you adopt me?

). I got no allowance and any money I had came from jobs (I had a paper route when I was 8). When I had a CoCo 2, I got 1 game for my birthday and that was it. This is why I originally got into programming - to make my own games.

When I got an Amiga (paid for by working), I only bought 5 games plus Deluxe Paint and I got copies of about 10 games. I have no guilt over those 10 copied games and would have gotten more copies if I could. Since upgrading my Amiga in 2002, I have paid for another 38 games and 19 applications but I have also gotten about 200 games, 50 applications and thousands of useful other things for free. Thank god I didn't have to pay for all of it. (especially these days)

I think piracy was great for the computer companies, not so great for the software companies. Computers with tons of cracked games were the most popular and had the best sales. Compare Atari 800 sales with C64. Atari 800 had cartridges which were impossible to copy and the C64 had rampant piracy. Atari 800 disappeared while the C64 went on to be the best selling computer of all time. (and besides the SID chip, the Atari 800 was the superior computer)

As for pirating Microsoft software, if I owned a PC I wouldn't hesitate for a second. First of all, I hate Microsoft and would love it if they died because of bankruptcy due to piracy. I think the bigger and more evil the corporation, the more I'd feel like ripping it off (they wouldn't hesitate ripping me off). I'd only feel bad ripping off a small friendly company or single developer making great software.

Djay · 22 April 2006, 01:20

the arguement is however... great for the hardware, bad for the software... is the software makes the hardware...

if software companies get no money they dont support the hardware!

mr_a500 · 22 April 2006, 01:40

Quote:

the arguement is however... great for the hardware, bad for the software... is the software makes the hardware...

if software companies get no money they dont support the hardware!

Exactly. But there may be some offset. It depends on the percentage of piracy and the percentage of increase in available consumers. If there are more computers sold, there may be more potential customers (talking about the '80s here). Even with the relative lack of piracy, the Atari 800 died. Most of the Atari 800 software developers moved to the C64 where they knew there was a piracy problem. This is because even with lost sales due to piracy, there were still greater profits due to the increasing numbers of C64s.

Djay · 22 April 2006, 02:12

indeed...

other (better) formats and lack of sales (due to piracy) makes developers move on..

..developers are in the business of making money, no matter how much they *like* a format they are making games for!

dlfrsilver · 22 April 2006, 02:50

Well i have 10 games in original and the rest as copies, but not in big quantities....

Just because many of my friends used rubbish disk, and then games were corrupted.

I love to play the games right to the end, so well not much. like 40 or 50 copied.

Actually of course, i own 700 games (107 of them are factory sealed) hehe with some of the best ^^.

Jope · 25 April 2006, 19:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by astuermer

/offtopic/

Thought of buying an OQO too, but I never thought it's a real - looks like a fake for me *grin*

Here's a couple shots of mine. ;-)

http://jope.fi/OQO_Emu/

I really should get around to installing 3.9 with a P96 screen of 800x640 16bit.. :-D

musashi5150 · 25 April 2006, 20:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jope

Here's a couple shots of mine. ;-)

Man, if that device was just a bit faster (enough to run everything flawlessly) I'd throw all the money in the world at it

Critter · 01 May 2006, 14:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Slayer

just to note... last week I paid $300 for a collection of 38 original games...

I still collect the software when I get the urge but I've put a hold on any more hardware purchases...

hence to say, my bank balance is going back up... heh...

the xbox media center plays a mean ddf video...

ddf eh

Mick_AKA · 01 May 2006, 17:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jope

Here's a couple shots of mine. ;-)

http://jope.fi/OQO_Emu/

I really should get around to installing 3.9 with a P96 screen of 800x640 16bit.. :-D

*drools like a sick puppy*

01 May 2006, 21:58

I've seen that OQO tiny PC before. Naturally my first thought was "handheld Amiga." It is a pity that it can't handle games and demos properly. I suppose some dreams may have to wait.

By the way, how does VICE run on it? Have you tried Steem or any other Atari ST emulators on it?

To the subject. Once I had my modem, I pirated constantly. Even when I was running a pitiful 1200 baud, and a single disk could take two hours to upload or download, I pirated in my sleep. I was also interested in demos, diskmags, and other forms of PD, but I certainly never hesitated to copy what I could find.

In my defense, there were few other options. For the brief time when the shops around me carried Amiga software, I bought all that I could afford. Once that option was gone, I still bought import copies of Amiga Format and Amiga Power, as the coverdisks were quite literally the only software for Amiga that I could find for sale by early 1991. Granted, there was always the option of mail order, if I took the time to look for it.

I didn't.

I guess the only up-side to Amigas being so very rare were those times when I met a fellow Amiga owner, usually through the BBSes. Every single one became an instant friend. As a PC owning friend once said upon introducing two of us, and listening to our critique of the intro to Epic, "You amiga people.. you're *different*."

musashi5150 · 02 May 2006, 00:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gordon Bennett

"You amiga people.. you're *different*."

That's EXACTLY it! And most 'normal' people don't understand. Certainly all the PC-worshipping idiots I work with don't anyway. To be honest, even I don't completely understand why I love Amiga so much... To me the Amiga just has... <something> PCs and other machines don't have:

Maybe it's the creative and loyal userbase, maybe the beauty of the architecture or maybe the Amiga has a 'soul'...

Or maybe, we're just ... 'different'

bird · 01 June 2006, 00:21

not exactly amiga piracy but i found the following, from the recently busted owner of a torrentsite, brings it to the point:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rickard Falkvinge

When society sends its police at the young generation for their listening to music and watching movies, it's not the young that are in error. It's society that needs to get a grip."

copying is not theft, denying someone the right to copy cause he doesnt have the money is just greedy imo.

url for the article: http://wiredfire.org/index.php?q=node/63

Ray Norrish · 01 June 2006, 01:17

Hmm.. there's a cut and dried answer to any piracy.. but you have to be on both sides at some point to fully understand it.

HymnsomniaK · 01 June 2006, 04:53

Piracy eh? That's got to be the oldest topic everyone still discusses (everyone who has gaming machines anyway).
The most used argument against it is , of course , "You're killing software houses/ artists " - I don't agree.

If piracy was such a threat there would be no such thing as 'Best Selling Games' and whatnot. If a game is good it sells well regardless of piracy. ie. Sierra has been around for 20 or more years , does this mean that their games were never pirated??

Of course not! Everyone here knows who Sierra is and can name almost all of their games from memory. Why? Because of piracy? No! It's because they made such great games. Not only Sierra but many other software houses as well.

How many of them are still alive today? How many have developed for C64 & Atari ST & Amiga & Spectrum all at the same time and still exist? Piracy plagued all of these systems , did they suffer from it? Perhaps , at least to some extension. Did it 'kill' them? No.

Software houses don't die. They fade away into oblivion along with their latest crappy releases. It's just easier to say it was because of piracy.

I can't think of a software house that went bankrupt directly because of piracy.

Just my 2 cents worth.

blade2565 · 01 June 2006, 16:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ultron

Problem with all the people that pirated then, and don't today:

All the Amiga game producers are already bankrupt and the Amiga is dead.

EH Electronic Arts is still alive, and more from those times... the problem only is EA bought most of those....

04 June 2006, 09:57

I remember when i bought my Amiga 500, that store wasn't even selling original games. I asked that guy where i could buy games and he just told me, get them from your friends. That is what i did, i got them from my friends and we even had our little network for circulating cracked games.

Then i tried to buy one game "Shadow of the Beast II" which i did, but i had to do it from the UK because i couldn't find it anywhere in Belgium, not to mention that it costed me a lot more then the price of an original game.

It wasn't it worth it to pay a lot more for an original game that i had to get from the UK when my friends had new games every week. And that way it was totally free, we just swapped games and we always had the best games.

27 July 2006, 12:58

Well they sell to the general public and make lots of money so to charge anything more than £5 they are stealing from the consumer and just asking for people to pirate their software

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20 April 2006, 21:10	#41
Macca Zone Friend Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Gloucester Posts: 697	I think the main reason for me (apart from money and I can really only claim that when I was younger) is convenience. It's so easy to go around a mates house and ask if he / she has anything new and then copy it. Saying that though I had approximately 500 original C64 games last I checked so I did buy what I enjoyed and thats the case now.

21 April 2006, 23:38	#42
Djay 95th User Join Date: May 2001 Location: Brighton/UK Age: 48 Posts: 3,120	heres my 2 pence worth... when i first got an Amiga, i bought about 10 games at the same time... i didnt know much about the copy-scene but after a week or so i got chatting to some people at school and i went back to this new mates house and he had boxes and boxes of disks, he sold me some blanks and i went thru his collection... ...thats how it all started for me, later... i met a guy who was a trader for scoopex and thats when it went silly... i still bought some games, the ones i thought were great and played a lot.. even thou i had them on copy already as for killing the Amiga... well... one week i bought an Amiga game, the next week i bought a Playstation, lets just say that i didnt buy another Amiga game. during the early years the Amiga was the games machine to have, the PC was nowhere near as good.... but the PC caught up and got better - Doom for example was release before AlienBreed FP, Fear and the others.. but Doom was much better, ok so you had to have a good PC to run it... but money doesnt matter.. look at the console industry now... a console is updated within five years and was originally sold for £400... ... commodore didnt properly update the computer.... ... i know lots of people who bought Amigas because they could copy games!

22 April 2006, 01:20	#45
Djay 95th User Join Date: May 2001 Location: Brighton/UK Age: 48 Posts: 3,120	the arguement is however... great for the hardware, bad for the software... is the software makes the hardware... if software companies get no money they dont support the hardware!

22 April 2006, 02:12	#47
Djay 95th User Join Date: May 2001 Location: Brighton/UK Age: 48 Posts: 3,120	indeed... other (better) formats and lack of sales (due to piracy) makes developers move on.. ..developers are in the business of making money, no matter how much they like a format they are making games for!

22 April 2006, 02:50	#48
dlfrsilver CaptainM68K-SPS France Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Melun nearby Paris/France Age: 46 Posts: 10,412	Well i have 10 games in original and the rest as copies, but not in big quantities.... Just because many of my friends used rubbish disk, and then games were corrupted. I love to play the games right to the end, so well not much. like 40 or 50 copied. Actually of course, i own 700 games (107 of them are factory sealed) hehe with some of the best ^^.

01 May 2006, 21:58	#53
Gordon Bennett Posts: n/a	I've seen that OQO tiny PC before. Naturally my first thought was "handheld Amiga." It is a pity that it can't handle games and demos properly. I suppose some dreams may have to wait. By the way, how does VICE run on it? Have you tried Steem or any other Atari ST emulators on it? To the subject. Once I had my modem, I pirated constantly. Even when I was running a pitiful 1200 baud, and a single disk could take two hours to upload or download, I pirated in my sleep. I was also interested in demos, diskmags, and other forms of PD, but I certainly never hesitated to copy what I could find. In my defense, there were few other options. For the brief time when the shops around me carried Amiga software, I bought all that I could afford. Once that option was gone, I still bought import copies of Amiga Format and Amiga Power, as the coverdisks were quite literally the only software for Amiga that I could find for sale by early 1991. Granted, there was always the option of mail order, if I took the time to look for it. I didn't. I guess the only up-side to Amigas being so very rare were those times when I met a fellow Amiga owner, usually through the BBSes. Every single one became an instant friend. As a PC owning friend once said upon introducing two of us, and listening to our critique of the intro to Epic, "You amiga people.. you're different."

01 June 2006, 01:17	#56
Ray Norrish Registered User Join Date: May 2005 Location: Cheshire, UK Age: 56 Posts: 322	Hmm.. there's a cut and dried answer to any piracy.. but you have to be on both sides at some point to fully understand it.

01 June 2006, 04:53	#57
HymnsomniaK Onezay Riendfay Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Portugal Age: 45 Posts: 119	Piracy eh? That's got to be the oldest topic everyone still discusses (everyone who has gaming machines anyway). The most used argument against it is , of course , "You're killing software houses/ artists " - I don't agree. If piracy was such a threat there would be no such thing as 'Best Selling Games' and whatnot. If a game is good it sells well regardless of piracy. ie. Sierra has been around for 20 or more years , does this mean that their games were never pirated?? Of course not! Everyone here knows who Sierra is and can name almost all of their games from memory. Why? Because of piracy? No! It's because they made such great games. Not only Sierra but many other software houses as well. How many of them are still alive today? How many have developed for C64 & Atari ST & Amiga & Spectrum all at the same time and still exist? Piracy plagued all of these systems , did they suffer from it? Perhaps , at least to some extension. Did it 'kill' them? No. Software houses don't die. They fade away into oblivion along with their latest crappy releases. It's just easier to say it was because of piracy. I can't think of a software house that went bankrupt directly because of piracy. Just my 2 cents worth.

04 June 2006, 09:57	#59
Korgy Posts: n/a	I remember when i bought my Amiga 500, that store wasn't even selling original games. I asked that guy where i could buy games and he just told me, get them from your friends. That is what i did, i got them from my friends and we even had our little network for circulating cracked games. Then i tried to buy one game "Shadow of the Beast II" which i did, but i had to do it from the UK because i couldn't find it anywhere in Belgium, not to mention that it costed me a lot more then the price of an original game. It wasn't it worth it to pay a lot more for an original game that i had to get from the UK when my friends had new games every week. And that way it was totally free, we just swapped games and we always had the best games.

27 July 2006, 12:58	#60
Alienbeing Posts: n/a	Well they sell to the general public and make lots of money so to charge anything more than £5 they are stealing from the consumer and just asking for people to pirate their software

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