Stardock has proven that making something easy to steal doesn't equate to an incredible increase in piracy. They have proven in my case that making it more convenient to buy than steal means a gained sale, even if stealing was easy and far cheaper.

I believe Valve is proving the same thing with Steam. It has an internet component, but that can be disabled once you "activate" the product once.

Amazon's DRM-free MP3s are proving that music that has no security isn't destroying the music industry.

Companies aren't going to get on board quickly, but it is something they're seeing. The majority of copy protected software is copy-protected for one main reason - the vendors of copy protection have amazing ways of "proving" that (a) piracy is at 90% worldwide, and (b) their protection will slow down that piracy greatly. Both assertions are flat-out lies.

So the real question you should ask about ethics is quite simply, how wrong is it for a company to lie so much that they increase their client's customer's costs while providing no benefit to the client? Your apple stand shouldn't be paying 10% of its income to hire long-term security guards who are only able to protect your apples for a day.

Wow. That thread was started less then a week ago and it already has 20+ pages of text? Reminds me of that quote, "never discuss religion or politics in polite company". I guess piracy would also fit the bill nicely . Everyone seems to have such a deadset opinion on it. Those who disagree get decapitated and burned at the stake, or at the very least, drawn into 500+ post arguments.

Well, in case anyone cares, hes my opinion on it. I'll try and keep it short . People need more responsibility. Piracy is a very good way to reward good games. Companies have to maintain a level of quality since they can no longer rely on flashy graphics and a marketing campaign to boost sales since the full game is right there. If its bad, everyone who played it won't buy it.

The problem is people are lazy. Once you have it, even if you really liked it, its very hard to convince yourself to actually go out and get it. Why should you spend money on someone you already enjoyed? Many people fool themselves into thinking "well if they added this or had that, then i would have bought it" when its just because they can't bother. If your going to pirate something to test it, then you really have to be truthful with yourself.

Simply put, support the things you really do enjoy. If everyone did this, piracy would not be a problem.

I think that's a really good point, the fact is for someone earning a steady income who isn't tied down with a family, 40-50 bucks isn't all that much to spend - it's a couple of rounds of drinks really and if you're sitting at the comp bored and you happen to read about this great game the fact that you can just pay and download it and play within like half an hour is a really great thing.

If you're going to pirate it might take up to a day to download via torrents, you might not be able to get the patches, there's always added risk (albeit fairly small) that it might be fake or contain a Trojan.

I mean for me I'd like to try the game first so I'd be more likely to put up waiting for the torrent, even though I would buy the game anyway if it's good (like I've done with GC2 and Soase) but I definitely think the convenience factor of direct download has gotten them as many sales if not more than the lack of copy protection.





yeah I agree, Steam as well has the direct purchase and download, I used it to buy the orange box - I doubt I would have paid the price the stores were asking. Where I live it's literally half the price if you download it.

Damn pirates. Don't want to pay $50 for a game? Its too much? Christ, how do they feed themselves? $50 is what? 2 trips to a resturaunt? Your monthly cell phone bill? Don't even get me started on how far $50 gets you when your car breaks down. Hell, I drive a POS Pontiac vibe with excellent gas mileage AND PAY $30 EVERY TIME I NEED GAS.

Good point - and for those of us who want to support game developers who do the rare deed of building a really good game, we'd rather see our money going to the company anyway, not wasted on physical costs like transportation, cardboard, CD printing, and the cut the stores take.

Maybe it makes a big difference, maybe not, but the convenience factor seems like it's a two-way street. I don't pirate the game, and Stardock (or Valve) keeps a little more money in their pocket.