Interesting viewpoint, and I'm guessing I'm one of those 'idiots' you're ranting at. Unfortunately, if you take a look back through my posts, I'm quite certain you'll find I never once said I support DRM. Mainly because I hate it. My sole point is on pirating games.

Yeah, books are pirated hardcore. Many times the full book is leaked before its released. But in my particular situation, that didn't even occur to me, and thank you for pointing out that there is a little bit more to do. Right now I'm about 2 hours drive away from the nearest book store, so thats not even really an option. Not at the rate that I read. I already own most of the forgotten realms collection, and dragonlance, bunch of books by terry brooks, the wheel of time, etc. I read a lot, and have already read almost everything that interests me(including every topic I can think of on wikipeda). Also, I live in a town of 250 people at the moment. I wouldn't call it a 'hick' town precisely, since that implies that we're in the US somewhere back in hillbilly country, and we're not. Not even close. High speed internet is available in the next town down the coast, but not here, coming soon(tm) though. D&D is maybe a once a week fix, at best. IF you can find enough people that are interested that can get together even that often.

Anywho, I realize that I'm in a small minority that most of what you said doesn't really apply to. But the point is the same. There really is very little to do, reading constantly and not socializing is not healthy, so I'm gonna ignore that option for pretty much everyone, the same way I ignore watching TV all day as an option. Reading is slightly more engaging than watching TV, depending on how imaginative a person you are, but not much more so, and for many, not at all. D&D type games always require a ton of time to play, and you have to get people willing to contribute that much time to it. Yes I have DMed several games in the past(when I was living elsewhere, can't here), but its an infrequent thing to do at best, and falls under the category of organized sports that I mentioned already.

As for the games taking place on the internet thing, technically thats a form of pirating in and of itself. If I cannot afford the $30+ dollar players handbook, or DM book etc, and I go online, and use online resources to get all my information for free, I am, in essence, pirating all of that material because I am using it without paying for it and therefore do not have the owners permission to do so. As such this argument is null and void, because it falls under the same piracy category, and if I can't afford a video game or some half decent hardware, whats the chances I'm going to be able to afford to spend literally hundreds of dollars on RPG books?

Note, I actually have a pile of DM books etc, and money isn't a large concern. Just making my point


Coelocanth: Thats for anyone that supports DRM in any form(excepting a string of letters inputted to register something - I don't even consider cd keys DRM, even though, technically, they are). Supporting anti-piracy requires that you support DRM in some form, as its the only way to eventually put a complete end to it(cdkeys aint gonna cut it). Guilt by association, as it were.

Wow, I got a dev to respond, yes there where now cvideo games to recently, but I didnt live back then now did I? Oh and I belive i was raised by one of the orignal computer programers, oh and I was given a pc at 10 and told to do what I want and learn because it was the future, you can look in the past if you want but i prefer to look into the future, plus learning all this stuff will give me a chance to get a job where i can afford to purchase everything i use....... is that not important?

Your running yourself in circles on that one. The only theoretical way to end that loop of yours is to make piracy legal, which then just nullifies the whole thing.

You > Pirates are the cause of DRM due to producers being anti piracy, and I agree with anti-piracy.

Me > So then you support DRM by proxy, due to supporting anti piracy (read: guilt by association)

You > No. Pirates are the cause of DRM due to producers being anti-piracy, and I agree with anti-piracy.

Me > So then you support DRM by proxy, due to supporting anti-piracy, and the only solution to 100% prevent piracy is crippling DRM(read: guilt by association) since there will ALWAYS(read: until we have star trek level technology, everyone gets most things for free through a replicator and creative things are done simply for creativeness sake) be people that just don't want to pay for anything ..........

You get the idea, broken record and whatnot. My statement is true, and is proven true by your own arguments whereas yours is rhetorical crap that you are spouting so that you can sleep easier at night while software corporations play who-has-the-biggest-margins with your money thats been wasted on horrible games.

Also, in ANY OTHER INDUSTRY IN THE WORLD, if the kind of crap products that get shoved at consumers all the time, with no hope of refund I might add, were produced in any other industry, the better business bureau etc would be all over them. This is why I have zero sympathy for the producers that actually attempt to use DRM to protect their terrible games and have their games pirated anyways, then blame everything on pirates. Those that don't, and produced a quality game,I'm 100% behind. Theres nothing that can be done about pirates without violating god only knows how many privacy laws(and actually, companies are already in danger of facing class action law suits because of this). As you can't stop them, its idiotic to be against them, and even more stupid to waste millions upon millions of dollars on useless encryptions and drm that do nothing to even slow the pace of piracy, and in some cases, even speed it up. The gaming industry breaks so many business laws in its dealing with the general consumer that its ludicrous that 80% of them haven't been shut down. At any rate, the quality issue will be helped along a lot once the new copyright review goes through and many of the existing code snippet copyrights are revoked. IE game company X no longer has to find a creative extended way to code around wanted feature/mechanic/module Z because company y has it copyrighted. Microsoft has segments of code copyrighted that are only 20 lines long. I mean WTF?


On the topic of renting: Back when I could still rent, I did this all the time with computer games. but that was almost 10 years ago. Of course even then some titles were not available and I had to pirate them to try them out anyways, or play craps with $40 and a possible new coaster. I tried to do the 'right' thing at first, and buy games based on detailed reviews and research etc... but found that the only thing I could really count on for a good review, was me. Its the same for most everyone, nobody knows what you like except you.

Its the same with the movie/music industry etc as it is in the video game industry, sales in all venues are at record highs, almost every year setting a new record, yet somehow piracy is stealing 80% of their possible sales. Does anyone else smell that? Why, I think it might actually be a new kind of bullshit, a kind of bullshit that puts the government to SHAME. There has been a MASSIVE explosion of popularity for movies/music/games etc since the advent of P2P, which, funnily enough, started around the same time P2P did. Yet still somehow, when someone makes a terrible product, and it doesn't sell, they get to blame the consumer for pirating it. For example: I love the movie 300, hell I went to see it in theaters twice, and downloaded like 4 or 5 different pirate copies of it at home before it came out and THEN went and bought the damn DVD as soon as it was released. So yes, I am a pirate, and will remain a pirate, until the f***ed up business model related to media in all forms is fixed.

To SD: Thank you for taking that first big step forward. Every quality product you release from now on will have my support and cash delivered to it upon release as long as it remains DRM free. For taking the first big step, I'll even omit the quality part for most things, as long as its not too terrible haha.

Dammit: No edit button


The SRD has everything in it. You have to specifically know the game inside and out to avoid simply having it broken by a kensai, hulking hurler, etc etc etc, and have about 50 bans in place before starting the game so that it lasts past level 5 or 6.

Of course, we had a good game going like that, and then killed tiamat via suprise attack round and using 2 scrolls to drop a elder earth elemental on her(final damage was somewhere around 3k in one smack). With level 7/8 characters. 5 levels + in one fight + 15 million ish gold worth of items = gg. For the last year or so I've been unable to get a decent game going, even on the interwebs. Worst thing is that theres new brokenness cropping up all the time, after they leveld that game had a mage in it that was immune to everything except normal hits(don't remember specific classes). With a quick Fly spell he was pretty much impossible to corner, and was theoretically simply immune to everything. We got lucky on that one of course, the DM rolled a 1 for tiamats initiative check

Equivocating pirating with stealing? Then saying that you are against pirating, as "no rationalization is good enough to justify piracy" therefore, you are, in effect, anti-piracy, even if somehow in your confused mind you can't figure out which side of the fence you are on. Yes, there are areas of gray near the fence on both sides, and extremes far away from the fence, also on both sides. However, thanks to the zero tolerance crap that the MafiAA/RIAA lobbyists etc preach all the time there is a very solid fence in place that has eliminated any middle ground.

Piracy of a game is perfectly legitimate, because I can't return it. If you make a terrible product, you should go out of business. If a, say, TV company starts up, and makes absolutely horrible TVs, they aren't going to last long. One or two people are going to get the TVs, find out they are absolute shit ***BRING THEM BACK FOR A REFUND*** and warn their friends. Put simply, they got to try the product, didn't like it, and brought it back. They have spent zero dollars for this experience, because it was terrible. I can do the same thing with a bag of potato chips, even after they are opened. So explain to me, exactly, why its illegal for me to want to do the same thing with another product, such as a video game? and then explain why its legal for a company to specifically PREVENT me from doing so? Since my ONLY option is then to illegally pirate the game if I actually want my investment to be a safe one, theres your justification. Right there. This is NOT a point of view, or an opinion, this is simply a statement of FACTS.


If I could return a video game/move/cd because it was crap, I would never pirate again. Since I can't do that, and since all media companys are making far too much money swallowing and regurgitating utter crap, I will likely remain a pirate for many many years to come.

Frog: I hope you prove me wrong on that last statement and take over everything. All we need is you guys to team up with google and take over the world, it would be a much better place IMO.

I know exactly where I stand. I don't know why it's so hard for you to understand it: I don't like piracy and I don't like DRM. Publishers figure they have to use DRM to combat piracy. If piracy didn't exist, no DRM. Not that hard to figure is it?

As for your point about being able to return games: yeah, I agree. Ideally, you should be able to return it if it doesn't work or if there's something wrong with it. Bit of a dilemma for the store/publisher though. Are they supposed to accept it at face value when someone brings in their game and says "It doesn't work for me" or "There's something wrong with it - I didn't copy it, honest, and I don't have it loaded on my computer either"? (Although it would be interesting to see how many returns would occur if there were no DRM and you were allowed to return the game opened).

Potato chips/tv: the problem with the analogy is if you take the chips (or the tv) back, you no longer have the product, so you can't continue to eat the chips or watch the tv. So, even if you lie about the chips being stale or the tv not working for you, you no longer have it. With a game, you could easily leave it installed and take the disc back and say it doesn't work. Get your money back and go back home and play the game.

But what's the solution? I don't know, but I can imagine a lot of returns wouldn't be all that legitimate.

But what's your definition of a terrible game product? Issues getting the game running? Storyline you don't like? Controls you don't like? Graphics that don't appeal to you? I'd postulate that only the first is a reason why you should wish the company out of business. The rest is just personal taste. And do you honestly think that, DRM or no DRM, a company that makes crappy games (i.e. games that don't run) is going to stay in business? I don't. Word of mouth (or internet) is pretty powerful and I can't see a company that makes crappy games staying in business for very long.

Edit button: I've noticed it too. Must be a time limit on editing a post.

And Terraziel: that doesn't wash. Just because I don't like piracy doesn't mean I like measures to combat it. How many times do I have to say I don't like DRM. If piracy didn't exist, do you think it's likely we'd have to put up with the stupid bloody DRM in the first place?

Crap, I don't know if I've expressed myself the way I wanted to, but I'm running out of time.

Yeah, I know. But a guy can dream, right?



You know, that's a great idea. Still doesn't stop someone from keeping the game and playing a non-updated game (although it would toss a wrench in any on-line playing), but a good idea nonetheless. Make it so, Number One!

Hmm, thats strange, I just found a crack for Earth 2160 within about 5 mins, appears to work, don't have the game so can't check to be sure.

The online server authentication I don't like either. If I wanted to install malware on my computer I'd go to www.freexxxpron.com with 0 AV/fwall/etc, not buy a game. IIRC the phoning home thing was why I didn't buy the game in the first place. Never even bothered to download it, didn't want to risk actually liking it and wanting to buy it from a company who would actually have its game phone home for you to even be able to play. Not to mention that they usually write specific code in it to completely bypass any security software you have on your computer. Even having something like that on your computer opens new security holes. Not to mention that the guys finding a way around that software... well... now knows a way around that software. I'm sure most of them wouldn't do anything with it, but some might. Even if none of them did, they might tell someone about it who was smart enough to figure it out and would. :/

Thanks for the support of the idea I've had that idea sitting around forever. It wouldn't be overly difficult to implement either, and I have no idea whatsoever why companies don't do it. You'd really only have to set up an automated system that exchanges cd keys etc. Employees of the retailer wouldn't be able to abuse it really because the old cd key is disabled, and if they sell a copy with a cd key thats already disabled then that person can simply bring it back to them and they'll fix it. The only real cost would be server upkeep to handle the cd key swap proggy back end.

bah, no edit button again, no more than 10 seconds, come on!!!


I forgot to add the development/updating cost of the software for doing the cd key swappage. Really tho, for a lot of software companies this would be an almost inconsequential addition at best in comparison to what they are currently paying for licensing fees on their DRM.

Aye, or if you change part of your pc's guts (like a new hard drive or dvd drive) and uninstall and reinstall you have to reactivate it.

I remember photoshop had this irritating habit of having to reactive it online if you changed your pc's components at all.

That reminds me of another rationalization behind piracy I've heard from more than a few people. Programs like photoshop or Poser 7 costing well over $500-$700. If I'm just using it for my own private amusement and not marketing my results in anyway then why should I have to pay hundreds of $ for a corporate license I don't even need? (or want)

Companies that deliberately inflate the cost of their product to a level where the private user has no hope of affording it just to they can milk the corporate users really does encourage people to pirate their products. (I didn't even pay $500 for my current dual core pc that's barely 2 months old, paying that much for a program really doesn't make much sense)And after pirating a $500 software program it's not much of a step for some to justify pirating pc games)

On a side note, It's really neat Stardock is letting us have this ongoing thread about piracy on their forums. In every other video game forum I've ever been on the second you mention the word "crack" or "torrent" let alone attempt to have meaningful discussion on piracy you wind up banned. (usually for life.)

yeah, a good photo editor if you don't wanna use photoshop is Gimp, little tiny bit harder to use, but it can do pretty much everything that photoshop can anyways.

It is extremely nice of SD to let us argue away. Though I think secretly they let us do it simply for frogboys amusement

Of course sometimes frogboys amusement is not so secret