Basically the pirators are taking away from genuine sales and our chance to have a atlantic add on or whatever .:stare:

Piracy has gone on for years and will continue to do so
Whatever security systems are in place someone will always want to break it
Just because they can

Consoles arent immune from piracy either
Not quite sure how the latest ones stack up as not bought one since PS2

Not excusing or condoning it its just a fact of life

No substitute for having the proper disc and packaging though but to a lot of ppl that wont matter
A free game\program or album is just that

But it shouldnt take away from the fact games arent being released finished
I love the SH series and long may it continue

My computer specs stop me from moving onto SH4 at the moment but I will end up buying it soon

By the time I get round to being able to afford to upgrade SHV will be out :rotfl:

Fortunately the target market of sims are not the 15-20 age group, as they are most likely to download torrents. Most people older than 20 have a steady income and can spend 50$ without too much consternation, and are more worried about hardware upgrades, which obviously can't be downloaded.

Back in high school most of my friends used torrents as a rental system. They couldn't afford to plink down 50$ on every game that caught their interest so they'd just download it and try it for a week or so before either buying or uninstalling it. One of my friends did do nothing but download, but he got busted for music piracy a couple of years ago, so enjoy a good laugh at his expence.

I can understand using torrents as rentals, though I've never done it, if it's a kid who can't afford to buy more than two or three games a year. I think devs should be given an open season on pure pirates though. :up:

to kiwi 2005

im a aussie gamer i started my prepay order for sh4 3 weeks ago
then i payed the rest of it on the 15 of march supsed release date

then
eb told me 15th was pre release date
then they said 26 of march its relesed

THEY SHOULD MAKE THERE MINDS UP!!!

I disagree, while I am against pirating, to think that is the reason for PC sales declining in my opinion is not correct.

First off, the quality of games is not what it once was, and many games are released with so many bugs some are even unplayable.

Cost is another issue that ties in with the above comment, why spend 40-50 bucks on something that you cannot even play or is a terrible game?

The last is, many people that pirate a game would not have gone out and purchased it, they only get it because they can for free, so that throws statistics way off (Game Makers saying they lost so much money), if people that pirate games end up liking said game, many will go out and buy it, so they sort of use it like a demo. There is a very interesting article on cnn.com about this.

I am not condoning pirating games at all, I am very against it. But I disagree with it being a reason that PC sales are declining.

I think the best copy protection is to have a unique CD key for every copy and then require people to create an account at Ubisoft which checks that key. If you don't register the account you can't play.

Short of hacking into Ubi I can't see anyway someone could get around such a system.
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You may disagree, but it remains one of the reasons of declining PC sales. Moreover, there have been developers which have publicly stated that due to rampant PC pirating, they will focus future efforts on console platforms. Whether or not they are correct is irrelevant, all that matters in the end is that they perceive it to be true. That's not to say that console titles can't be pirated, because we all know they can--it's a different animal though.

I agree that them thinking its the reason for a major decline is the issue... not that it IS a huge issue.

What happens when they focus on Consoles? People will just hack those more.

And all copy protection seems to do is annoy people that have legally purchased their software, hackers get around it pretty easily.

Anything can be hacked into... hell, government computers get hacked into..

I agree wholeheartedly. Legit, loyal and paying customers deal with annoying copy protection schemes whilst thieves enjoy the titles devoid of any such nuisances. It seems publishers have a difficult time wrapping their collective heads around this concept.

C'est la vie.

Yes, we've all seen war games but I think this method would effectively stop it. The vast bulk of software pirates would lack the skills needed to do that. It would be easier to just go to the shop and buy it.
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Many do it for the challenge. One thing we are taught in networking classes.. in fact, any computer class is that the only sure way to keep a hacker out is a pair of wire cutters. Anything can be hacked/spoofed.

Oh I don't doubt some people would get through. Like you said, they'll get through anything anyway. Most of the people who can so easily pirate games ATM (by that I mean the people who use the cracks not those who make them) would not be able to do it and majority of piracy would be eliminated.
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Well, the main reason that games are migrating to consoles is that the general public is more likely to buy a $600.00 console in order to play today's hottest games, instead of having to buy a $1,500 computer.

Having said that, piracy does hurt developers.

I personally prefer computer games, mainly because:
a) the mouse and/or a touchscreen are unbeatable as input devices
b) computers screens have higher resolutions (TV's are just awfull at this)
c) Easily moddable games

Very true! :yep:

I have 2 points to add:

1) According to PC gamer there is no decline in PC gaming, in fact this will be the year of the PC. With dual core being favoured by MS and big game developers as being the breakthrough. Windows vista was made for the pc gamer. Doubt MS would throw away a lot of developing money if they thought the pc market was in decline. Although we dont see a lot of pc games on shelves, apparently the online market (legitamate one not the pirates) is booming. World of Warcraft have exceeded 8million subscribers which is bigger than many countries :p

Yes a lot of games are purely console, and tbh the type of games that they are probably deserve to be there. But there a many that never will, SH series probably one. However, as pointed out, piracy for these are also rife. Yet you dont see game developers saying not going to make any more console games due to piracy

2) As was posted previously, make the retail versions more excitable. Proper merchandise, instructions and maps etc. Make people want to buy the actual game for real. But don't spend out so much on material that the game just gets too expensive to buy. After all, piracy is here and it will stay. Don't put software protection on thats unreliable and can cause legitimate game owners PC's to crash uniformly.

btw, expecting mine after the 23rd:up:

An article to this topic:

"Can PC Gaming Survive in a Console World?"
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...2102189,00.asp

This issue has been common for too long to be a major reason for recent declining sales. As others have said, it's largely a decline in packaging and extras, increased console function, higher cost in production, increased personel requirements, and hardware issues. Hell, consoles are modded and the titles pirated as well, it's just a bit harder.

I find the fact you're complaining with the game not being released despite having gone gold 2 weeks ago, and then moaning about the difference release dates on the other hand - to be rather ironic. if I'm a publisher, I need a least a minimum of a month from gold to send it to the manufacturers to press it, and then distribute it worldwide. Meanwhile I'm not going to make it available online until it's a simoultaneous launch worldwide.

I agree they cocked up the different release dates, and the differences in availability of versions. But otherwise I don't see any problem. If pirates are going to get a hold of it and immediately stick it on the net, there's little you can do about it there.

All you can do is promote people to actually but it, as somebody stated this genre is not very popular. If you see or hear of anybody pirating this game, try and convince them to go out and buy it.

I have been promoting this game on all the forums I visit in hopes that it does well and more subsims follow.

I'm going to play devil's advocate here a bit, and say that the massive amount of copy protection on some games is exactly why people go for cracked or pirated ones. After playing BF1942, Battlefield 2 was horrible. The software was clunky, had to log into the server for anything and just too ages. Then with SH3 we had Starforce that caused endless headaches for certain people.

Whilst I agree copy protection has its rightful place, I get the impression some buy pirated stuff - or use cracks for legitimately purchased games - simply out of frustration with games that have heavy handed implementation.