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[dEnamed]

True, there is a noticeable difference in magnitude. I'm more refering to mindsets though: Decades of no one seeming to mind have somehow manifested themselves in the minds of people as "no one cares about piracy" and as such piracy is a widespread illegal albeit 'normal' phenomena. The aggressive stance of the industry isn't helping either as it pushes legal customers into a "do not want" mindset.

[C.A. Sinner]

But I think the mindset of todays "pirates" is different from those of the offline age. There's a certain "everything should be free" attitude associated with internet culture, perhaps in part due to the fact that digital data isn't a tangible good and costs nothing to reproduce.

For instance, people listening to mixtapes back in the day didn't stop them from buying records or later CDs legitimately. I don't know anyone from that time whose music collection consists exclusively of pirated material, but I know a whole bunch of people who are younger than me who've never bought an album legally in their life.

But yeah, I do agree that the entertainment industries' mostly impotent efforts to "crack down" on piracy aren't really helping the situation. The game industry (who you'd expect to be the most "internet-savvy") is actually handling it the worst way IMO. They don't seem to get that all DRM ultimately does is make piracy even more attractive. The music industry realized that pretty quickly and got rid of DRM for both CDs and files by the mid-noughties.

[Dragonmaw]

It's worth it to note that, in regards to piracy, positive reinforcement works far more wonders than negative. For example, take Sins of a Solar Empire. It was DRM free, but only licensed copies came with a CD key. The key was required to verify online, which gave you patches and online play. You could play the game without the CD key easily. Hell, when it came out, me and my father pirated it ourselves and played a few LAN games. The incentive to purchase, however, was far greater than any DRM could have been. Stardock is generally on the ball with this sort of thing, which is nice.

Potential positive reinforcement schemes to combat piracy, besides no DRM:

1.) online play is only unlocked with a valid CD key, but LAN/SP is open to cracked copies
2.) content patches and expansions for those with valid CD keys, bugfixes for all copies
3.) additional content to those with valid keys, such as items or the official soundtrack (Sims 3 did this with a whole new town, IIRC)
4.) additional promo materials to those who purchase a retail box (posters, cloth maps, in-game diaries, feelies in general)

I own countless games (I think the number is around 600 or 700 now?) and I find that my favorite games are the ones that do positive reinforcement rather than negative. Despite being pirated all over the fucking place, games like World of Goo and Sins still do well because they adopt a consumer-friendly attitude. Pirates ARE potential customers, but not in the sense that if you lock it with DRM they will buy your game. They are potential customers in the sense that if you provide them with a pleasant experience and a reason to buy, they probably will.

[Core Xii]

Or, to return to the actual subject at hand, you don't play through a 30 hour game and then decide not to buy it because it wasn't good enough. I'm sorry but that's not "testing".

Well, that's your opinion. Wiktionary defines "testing" as "To place a product or piece of equipment under everyday and/or extreme conditions and examine it for its durability, etc.". Sounds about what I'm doing. Playing a feature-restricted 3% of a game in the form of a "demo" is not "testing" according to my definition.



The whole situation is like trying to enforce copyright on water as it rains from the sky. The morals and ethics are irrelevant - it's happening regardless. You can either fight it futilely or adapt to the new market. Evidence has shown that you can compete with free, crazy as it might sound. You just have to want to, but the corporate CEOs funding game development lack vision and understanding of our digital culture.

Like I said before, I want to give e.g. Nintendo my money for all the great games they make... but they don't accept my PC money. They only make games for closed consoles; I can't have that. I should be able to run any software on any device. That's what I want to buy; The first game developer to do that gets all of my money. In the mean time, I have to turn to the only existing solution: ROMs. There's just simply no other way for me to play console games on my PC, period.

[thatshelby]

Now it's all about semantics.

[Soulliard]

Sinclair's point, I believe, was that you should have a pretty good idea of what the game is like a few hours in. You don't spend 30 hours playing a game unless you've already decided that you like it.

[Core Xii]

You don't spend 30 hours playing a game unless you've already decided that you like it.

Now you're accusing me of lying, then? Well if you already labeled me a criminal for trying products before buying them then that would be a relatively minor offense, I suppose.

I don't like leaving something unfinished unless it's a complete waste of my time. A bad game can still be worth finishing, if only to see how not to make games, even if it isn't worth buying. Also, some games start off boring but get good later (e.g. SpaceChem); Some start interesting but get stale (e.g. Spore). That's why you need to play the whole thing before you can judge its overall value. Very few are awesome from start to finish where a fraction of a demo would actually represent the product accurately (e.g. Portal).

[Soulliard]

...you already labeled me a criminal for trying products before buying them...

I didn't, and I have no idea where you got this idea.

Anyways, it looks like you've already made your mind up, so any further discussion will only entrench your opinions. I'll let you get back to all the terrible games you're playing.

[Richard Kain]

It's easy to take a hard-line stance on an issue like this, and just say that all ROMS are bad.

But the truth of the matter is that ROMs themselves, and the emulators that run them, are not inherently negative. Being able to store archival copies of games easily, and divorcing software from specific hardware restrictions are both very positive developments. They have obvious benefits for video games in general.

One of the most common (and best) arguments in favor of ROMs is game preservation. The physical media that most games were originally stored on can, and usually do, degrade over time. I own several classic PC games that originally came on 3.5 floppy disks. These games may not even run anymore due to magnetic damage over the years. As sturdy as classic cartridges can be, they are susceptible to damage as well. And then there's the issue of hardware. It becomes increasingly difficult to play a specific title if you don't possess the original hardware it was designed to run on. There are many classic game systems that are no longer readily available. And yet, the digital nature of games means that effective software emulation can replicate these hardware platforms for us. It's no longer necessary to search through garage sales and flea markets in order to experience most classic games.

The real legal issue comes up when a company is still attempting to maintain control over an ageing back-catalog. For some companies this isn't considered a big deal, and there are numerous instances of them "opening" up older games. Activision has been relatively open in regards to the classic Sierra adventure games that they own the IPs for. It is currently possible to play several of those games on-line right now at Sarien.net. After investigating the site and its purpose, Activision gave them the go-ahead to allow users to play these games for free. ID software is known for open-sourcing older versions of their game engines. And I believe Rockstar made its older Grand Theft Auto titles (the 2D ones) free to download and play.

The usual suspect in vigorous defense of legacy software is Nintendo. They are known for sicking the lawyers on almost anyone who takes advantage of their older games. Of course, they also have a reputation for exploiting their old software, over and over again.

If you are getting all of your playtime from ROMs, that's probably not good. Game developers need money too, and the time you spend on ROMs could be spent on current games that monetarily contribute to the industry. If you are just wanting a taste of a hard-to-find title, I don't think anyone is going to bust your chops over it. (except maybe Nintendo)

For me, one of the real advantages of ROMs and emulators is actually in documentation. There is no easier way to take screenshots or record audio from classic games than emulators. Most emulators have such features built right into them.

[Ben_Hurr]

If you are getting all of your playtime from ROMs, that's probably not good. Game developers need money too, and the time you spend on ROMs could be spent on current games that monetarily contribute to the industry. If you are just wanting a taste of a hard-to-find title, I don't think anyone is going to bust your chops over it. (except maybe Nintendo)

Why should I buy new games if I don't want to, regardless of the source of the old games I play? 

[Richard Kain]

Why should I buy new games if I don't want to, regardless of the source of the old games I play? 

Well the overall back-catalog of the video game industry has reached a point where it would theoretically be possible to spend years playing nothing but older games, and be perfectly happy. If we consider the numerous legacy consoles, as well as the PC and its extensive catalog of titles, you could spend close to a decade playing nothing but classic games, and still not even come close to playing "all" classic games.

I could probably spend three years playing through the back catalog of PC games that I own legitimate copies of. If you had access to play games you download off the internet for free? Forget about it.

And the experience of playing games is not only a monetary investment. It is also an investment of time. If you spend all of your time playing old legacy titles, that means that you wouldn't have any need to purchase new games. And if you never purchase any new games, that makes it less likely that more new games will be produced. As much fun as classic gaming is, all of those titles were originally new games, and commanded retail prices in their day and age. We still need to support fresh game development.

[Ben_Hurr]

Regardless of piracy and old games, why would you suggest setting up a welfare system for the game industry?     Just as all music doesn't spring from the music industry, all games don't come from the likes of Nintendo, EA, UBIsoft, etc.

If they cannot make games that convince me to play them over older titles I already own, that's really only their own problem.

[Drum]

Or, to return to the actual subject at hand, you don't play through a 30 hour game and then decide not to buy it because it wasn't good enough. I'm sorry but that's not "testing".

Well, that's your opinion. Wiktionary defines "testing" as "To place a product or piece of equipment under everyday and/or extreme conditions and examine it for its durability, etc.". Sounds about what I'm doing. Playing a feature-restricted 3% of a game in the form of a "demo" is not "testing" according to my definition.



The whole situation is like trying to enforce copyright on water as it rains from the sky. The morals and ethics are irrelevant - it's happening regardless. You can either fight it futilely or adapt to the new market. Evidence has shown that you can compete with free, crazy as it might sound. You just have to want to, but the corporate CEOs funding game development lack vision and understanding of our digital culture.

Like I said before, I want to give e.g. Nintendo my money for all the great games they make... but they don't accept my PC money. They only make games for closed consoles; I can't have that. I should be able to run any software on any device. That's what I want to buy; The first game developer to do that gets all of my money. In the mean time, I have to turn to the only existing solution: ROMs. There's just simply no other way for me to play console games on my PC, period.

You can still buy the games.  Now that you've come out and said you actually want to, why wouldn't you?

[Richard Kain]

If they cannot make games that convince me to play them over older titles I already own, that's really only their own problem.

Yes, that is their problem. No one is forcing you to purchase new games. You are at liberty to play the classics that you already own to your heart's content.

I do have a little bit of trouble believing that there are NO new games that you are interested in. Especially with the recent trend for companies to revive classic series with classic 2D mechanics. I personally spent the full $60 for a copy of Marvel Vs. Capcom 3. I loved the classic titles in that particular series, and I was very pleased to hear that Capcom was going to be using similar gameplay.

No one is forcing you to purchase every game that comes out, and especially not games you loath or object to. But the best way that you can show support for games that you DO like is to pay for them. I am a big fan of text-based and point-and-click adventure games. Every time that a new Ace Attorney game comes out, I buy it at full price. When Ghost Trick came out, I laid down the full $30 for it as soon as I could find it in a store. These are games I like, and I try to encourage developers to make more by purchasing copies. It is one of the most direct ways in which I can show my support for the games I like.

[C.A. Sinner]

I do have a little bit of trouble believing that there are NO new games that you are interested in.

It's called "nostalgia".