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Forums - PC Discussion - Pirate copy PC games or buy from Steam?

I pirate quite a bit. I'm not particularly proud of it but it is what it is. I've played a ton of awesome games thanks to it and I admit that those companies deserve to have gotten my money for the awesome time I spend playing then.

...But I'm a gamer on a budget.

OT: I don't see a downside to torrenting games other than the lose of Multiplayer. I'm not much for multiplayer (except for MMOs) so it doesn't bother me.



"Trick shot? The trick is NOT to get shot." - Lucian

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I wander what Steam has meant to PC game sales. I would think with all those frequently occuring cheap deals it has meant a lot of impulse buys, plus the service itself might mean that people are willing to pay for legit copies rather than bother with torrents.

Is there any official numbers of Steam game sales revenue so one could estimate its impact?



The sales are so amazing...why would you pirate them.



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       Buy from Steam. There is no point in pirating.



                
       ---Member of the official Squeezol Fanclub---

honestly steam has a sale like every second month there is no need for piracy unless you can't find a copy of a game.



 

 

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Slimebeast said:

I'm a PC guy at heart and have owned gaming PCs since 1995 but I've been stuck with the PS3 in the past 3 years out of convenience since I think PC gaming honestly is very complex and it takes tons of time and energy to maintain your computer to be up to date and make the games work properly, you are constantly in battle against patches, drivers, viruses, bugs and crashes to desktop etc.

Anyway, I plan to get heavily into PC gaming again very soon (mostly because next gen graphics aka PS4Bone are a dissappointment and because CGI Quality and Zarx and others have promoted PC gaming so well on these forums). In the past I torrented (stole) nearly all my games. But now since I have missed several years of PC gaming I feel a li'l left behind and obsolete, so I don't know the current state of what's "the thing to do" in PC gaming, if the torrent thing still is the way to go or if Steam has replaced it somehow.

So simply asking, what downside is there to torrent/pirate my PC games compared to buying from Steam? What I am mostly after is, how is the Steam service made up nowadays, is there any authenticity checks and stuff that will reveal if my installed copy of a game is pirated or legit, and in turn will that affect me in any way when I am online on Steam - say, will my friends not even recognize that I own a certain title if its pirated, and do I risk being shut out from online multiplayer servers, will I not be registered for Steam Trophies etc? Stuff like that.

You can PM me if you want.

Note: forget the "you will get caught by FBI or the NSA" or "it's immoral and your a thief who steals from the poor developers" arguments. Those are important and interesting arguments but beyond the scope of this thread since I live in Sweden where getting caught for piracy is minimal and since the moral issue is subjective and a topic for another time and another thread).

 


I no longer support pirating anything, I used to pirate everything under the sun, but as I got older and more money I pirate nothing anymore. I will tell you this, no matter what you do, you can never be 100% sure there is not something wrong with the game, or some virus that snuck into your computer, that is the biggest drawback. Now saying that I don't go buying new PC games all the time, alot of times I wait for sales on Steam, which nickle and dime me here and here (I've bought atleast 10 games in the last 5 days for under 100 dollars).



I dont think any game that is not physical and with DRM is worth more than $20.......usually $10. I dont care for Steam DRM so if your only option is Steam I say pirate away. Buy classics from GOG.com and humble bundle without DRM.



Getting an XBOX One for me is like being in a bad relationship but staying together because we have kids. XBone we have 20000+ achievement points, 2+ years of XBL Gold and 20000+ MS points. I think its best we stay together if only for the MS points.

Nintendo Treehouse is what happens when a publisher is confident and proud of its games and doesn't need to show CGI lies for five minutes.

-Jim Sterling

Lol at this thread. Thanks to Steam Im buying pc games again, its exactly what stopped me from pirating. The price+convenience of having a library and auto download/install through the platform is what made pc gaming popular again.