Software Piracy Discussion

[TarJak]

<Edit By NeonSamurai>
I have decided to allow the discussion to continue for now on this subject, but have stripped it from the poll where these posts came from as I feel the poll is inappropriate (and useless anyhow). Feel free to continue debating the topic as you like but be sure to abide by Subsim policy. If you pirate software or use cracks we do not want to know. Admission of such can result in your being put in the brig or possibly even banned from the site. This also includes links to pirate material etc.
<End Edit>


Well not having any idea about the inclinations of more than a very small sample of Subsimmers that I have either met, or had dealings with, over the last few years, I'd have to say I have no idea as to what percentage are playing with pirated copies of the game.

I can say that at least the ones I've met and discussed the matter with all own legitimate copies so 100% of my sample have legitimate copies. But that would be less than 1% of everyone active here.

[Reece]

I agree with TarJak, and I would say that all of the regulars here would usually buy with a pre order, I always do, SH5 I will not buy because of the DRM/OSP, but if a crack/patch comes out I will use it but again on a legal purchased copy!

I have a Legal copy of SH3, SH4 (And U-boat missions)

Thank you very much.

SH5 is not getting bought though since screw that DRM, I'd rather play a some stupid linear storyline game like "Mass effect" then deal with that.

[martes86]

I don't have official figures, so I can't tell for sure on a global level, but I don't think piracy is high around here. What sensible subsimmer would pirate his sims? It'd be madness knowing how hard is to get decent subsims.
Maybe there's some casuals pirating it, but the important audience, isn't.

[danlisa]

http://w3.bsa.org/globalstudy/

Probably more now thanks to invasive and damaging DRM methods.

Didn't vote as I don't agree with aspersions being cast on this community.

[kiwi_2005]

Own all original copies of SH2,3 4 and pre-ordered collectors edition of SH5.

[Onkel Neal]

I don't know what the percentages here are, but you can bet there are people here who play, yes, even Silent Hunter games without buying. When SH4 came out with its secret bootleg ID system, where illegal copies would have a crew with no eyes and crew chanting mysterious numbers, we had a LOT of people posting about it.

You want to know the best info about PC games an piracy, here is an article by noted tech author Koroush Ghazi, PC Game Piracy Examined

It covers Steam, Starforce, the disparity between PC and console sales, and more. You can learn a lot from it.

[danlisa]

An interesting read....which I shall finish later.

I stopped reading when the author started posting details about pirated PS3 games. It can't happen, It doesn't happen. There is no way run a pirated PS3 game on the console, the author was duped by fake torrents. Clever boy!

Reading continues.....

[TarJak]

Originally Posted by danlisa

An interesting read....which I shall finish later.

I stopped reading when the author started posting details about pirated PS3 games. It can't happen, It doesn't happen. There is no way run a pirated PS3 game on the console, the author was duped by fake torrents. Clever boy!

Reading continues.....

Interestingly the reasons for this are also largelhy economic and related to the current cost of the hardware and not due to any effective copy protection/DRM schemes.

http://www.gamegrep.com/news/5847-re...playstation_3/

[danlisa]

That's certainly a part of it. Who want's to pay out for a BR Read/Write Drive and then contend with up to 100GBs of data in one burn, not to mention the bandwidth usage torrenting this stuff.

However, that's not the real problem. There is no DRM on any PS3 disc. It's built into the console in the form of a 6 level encryption key. The decoder of which is on the disc, encrypted, and can only be read by the first 3 levels of decryption on the console, which in turn then re-encrypts it, through the last 3 levels, to the key set that the disc is expecting.

This only came to light recently after a patent filed by Sony in 2008 was published. I read it and it fried my mind.

Bottom line is, you can copy & burn any PS3 game but your can never play it as the cyphers will never match. Sony got burned by the PS2 and PSP hacks, they made this console as attractive to the developers as possible.

[Schroeder]

I don't see much sense in this poll. No matter what the result will be it's not representative.

I have bought all Silent Hunter games so far starting from SH1 Commander's edition over SH2 and SH3 up to SH4 and then once again SH4 with the UBM add on. But I won't buy SHV until the DRM BS has been removed (and the modders have had a year or so to finish the game.).

[TarJak]

Originally Posted by danlisa

That's certainly a part of it. Who want's to pay out for a BR Read/Write Drive and then contend with up to 100GBs of data in one burn, not to mention the bandwidth usage torrenting this stuff.

However, that's not the real problem. There is no DRM on any PS3 disc. It's built into the console in the form of a 6 level encryption key. The decoder of which is on the disc, encrypted, and can only be read by the first 3 levels of decryption on the console, which in turn then re-encrypts it, through the last 3 levels, to the key set that the disc is expecting.

This only came to light recently after a patent filed by Sony in 2008 was published. I read it and it fried my mind.

Bottom line is, you can copy & burn any PS3 game but your can never play it as the cyphers will never match. Sony got burned by the PS2 and PSP hacks, they made this console as attractive to the developers as possible.

Cool. Gotta link to something on the patent? Sounds like a cool way of keeping everything kosher.

Until last Xmas I've not had a console in the house only PC's so I've not boned up on any of them. The kids and missus though bugged me to get a Wii so now they have one of those with a bunch of games. Gotta say I'm loving PC games even more after seeing some of the abysmal crap they are passing off over at Nintendo.

[TarJak]

An excellent article Neal which puts forward a reasonably well balanced overview of the situation. One aspect I noticed appeared to be missing and that was the relationship between publishers, wholesalers and retailers.

What is clear though is that consoles will continue to rise in popularity further marginallising the PC simulation market. Unfortunately this will mean the end will come some time for this genre of gaming, unless it is supported.

Economically there is clearly a mismatch between the price large sections of the market will pay (the value placed on the product), and the cost of production. Where this happens, the market must collapse. The speed at which it does is the prime variable.

[Nisgeis]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

I don't know what the percentages here are, but you can bet there are people here who play, yes, even Silent Hunter games without buying. When SH4 came out with its secret bootleg ID system, where illegal copies would have a crew with no eyes and crew chanting mysterious numbers, we had a LOT of people posting about it.

Actually, that's really annoyed me. I had the crew with no eyes problem and I had a legitimate copy of SH4, I'll post you the receipt from Feb 2007 if you don't believe me . I'll tell you another thing - that particular bit of misinformation caused a lot of GENUINE PURCHASERS to be told to F off and stop being a pirate. Obviously they didn't like that very much, so how many new members did the community lose from that?

OK, now if having no eyes WAS a copy protection system, then what an amazingly stupid bug to let through as well. Or perhaps it was a buggy protection system? Or, perhaps having no eyes at all was the protection system and intermittently not having the eyes was a bug? You can't have a pirate version intermittently can you?