So it's a matter of not getting your moneys worth, so you just take them for free? Hmm. . . personally I look at reviews and get friends input and decide myself how much a game is worth, if it's doesn't sound like it's going to be a full-price purchase, I wait until it goes on sale. Different thoughts.

Also, Vlad, it seems like you have impossibly high standards if SC2 isn't going to meet them and therefore be "okay" to be pirated. So the company that you profess is awesome at treating PC gamers and caters just to them can't even make your standards to be "worthy" of your money, makes it sound like you are just using this quality argument as an excuse to take whatever you want, since nothing is good enough.

CommonMan said: So it's a matter of not getting your moneys worth, so you just take them for free? Hmm. . . personally I look at reviews and get friends input and decide myself how much a game is worth, if it's doesn't sound like it's going to be a full-price purchase, I wait until it goes on sale. Different thoughts. Also, Vlad, it seems like you have impossibly high standards if SC2 isn't going to meet them and therefore be "okay" to be pirated. So the company that you profess is awesome at treating PC gamers and caters just to them can't even make your standards to be "worthy" of your money, makes it sound like you are just using this quality argument as an excuse to take whatever you want, since nothing is good enough.

So let me get this straight. LAN is now "high standards?" Gaming has really went down the shitter if that's the case.

vlad321 said: CommonMan said: So it's a matter of not getting your moneys worth, so you just take them for free? Hmm. . . personally I look at reviews and get friends input and decide myself how much a game is worth, if it's doesn't sound like it's going to be a full-price purchase, I wait until it goes on sale. Different thoughts. Also, Vlad, it seems like you have impossibly high standards if SC2 isn't going to meet them and therefore be "okay" to be pirated. So the company that you profess is awesome at treating PC gamers and caters just to them can't even make your standards to be "worthy" of your money, makes it sound like you are just using this quality argument as an excuse to take whatever you want, since nothing is good enough. So let me get this straight. LAN is now "high standards?" Gaming has really went down the shitter if that's the case.

No, but I would consider it a niche feature in this day and age, and you damn well know if you and enough people complained to Blizzard about it, they would add it. That's why we love them so much.

CommonMan said: vlad321 said: So let me get this straight. LAN is now "high standards?" Gaming has really went down the shitter if that's the case. No, but I would consider it a niche feature in this day and age, and you damn well know if you and enough people complained to Blizzard about it, they would add it. That's why we love them so much.

Are you kidding me? LAN is one of the most important features in a game, period. Also Blizzard would not add it, I am willing to bet anything LAN will be implemented by pirates before Blizzard adds it. They are only loved because they polish their games, not because they listen. I'd like for you to list one thing they have done that shows they are listening to cpmplaints.

I also guess the gaming really has become shit when LAN is considered niche. I guess I can blame consoles for this too right?

vlad321 said: CommonMan said: vlad321 said: So let me get this straight. LAN is now "high standards?" Gaming has really went down the shitter if that's the case. No, but I would consider it a niche feature in this day and age, and you damn well know if you and enough people complained to Blizzard about it, they would add it. That's why we love them so much. Are you kidding me? LAN is one of the most important features in a game, period. Also Blizzard would not add it, I am willing to bet anything LAN will be implemented by pirates before Blizzard adds it. They are only loved because they polish their games, not because they listen. I'd like for you to list one thing they have done that shows they are listening to cpmplaints. I also guess the gaming really has become shit when LAN is considered niche. I guess I can blame consoles for this too right?

I guess I can't give you an example of Blizzard listening, but my guess is they would add it if enough stink was made. And you can blame consoles (if you must "blame" somebody) for LAN becoming a niche feature, though it's more of the fact that consoles can have multiple users on the same system than the consoles trying to kill anything, and the ease of connecting over the internet through the services that the manufacturers supply, has replaced people's desires to bring multiple systems in the vicinity of one another. Don't get me wrong, I used to love my Unreal Tournament LAN parties and lugging my old 21" CRT monitor around with me , but the consoles really do make it so easy to not do this, it's hard for the average player to think of anything else.

CommonMan said: vlad321 said: CommonMan said: vlad321 said: So let me get this straight. LAN is now "high standards?" Gaming has really went down the shitter if that's the case. No, but I would consider it a niche feature in this day and age, and you damn well know if you and enough people complained to Blizzard about it, they would add it. That's why we love them so much. Are you kidding me? LAN is one of the most important features in a game, period. Also Blizzard would not add it, I am willing to bet anything LAN will be implemented by pirates before Blizzard adds it. They are only loved because they polish their games, not because they listen. I'd like for you to list one thing they have done that shows they are listening to cpmplaints. I also guess the gaming really has become shit when LAN is considered niche. I guess I can blame consoles for this too right? I guess I can't give you an example of Blizzard listening, but my guess is they would add it if enough stink was made. And you can blame consoles (if you must "blame" somebody) for LAN becoming a niche feature, though it's more of the fact that consoles can have multiple users on the same system than the consoles trying to kill anything, and the ease of connecting over the internet through the services that the manufacturers supply, has replaced people's desires to bring multiple systems in the vicinity of one another. Don't get me wrong, I used to love my Unreal Tournament LAN parties and lugging my old 21" CRT monitor around with me , but the consoles really do make it so easy to not do this, it's hard for the average player to think of anything else.

Speaking of the consoles and local multiplayer, how many games can you think of that have split screen nowadays? I am also sorry, but just because most people who play consoles don't know jack shit about what a good ping is, doesn't mean that connecting over the internet is a good thing. It's actually a last resort thing. I mean hell, they think 150 ping is awesome. Kind of pathetic since I have gotten down to 8 ping on dedicated servers before.

Maybe for consoles LAN is obsolete, not so for the PC.

vlad321 said: CommonMan said: vlad321 said: CommonMan said: vlad321 said: So let me get this straight. LAN is now "high standards?" Gaming has really went down the shitter if that's the case. No, but I would consider it a niche feature in this day and age, and you damn well know if you and enough people complained to Blizzard about it, they would add it. That's why we love them so much. Are you kidding me? LAN is one of the most important features in a game, period. Also Blizzard would not add it, I am willing to bet anything LAN will be implemented by pirates before Blizzard adds it. They are only loved because they polish their games, not because they listen. I'd like for you to list one thing they have done that shows they are listening to cpmplaints. I also guess the gaming really has become shit when LAN is considered niche. I guess I can blame consoles for this too right? I guess I can't give you an example of Blizzard listening, but my guess is they would add it if enough stink was made. And you can blame consoles (if you must "blame" somebody) for LAN becoming a niche feature, though it's more of the fact that consoles can have multiple users on the same system than the consoles trying to kill anything, and the ease of connecting over the internet through the services that the manufacturers supply, has replaced people's desires to bring multiple systems in the vicinity of one another. Don't get me wrong, I used to love my Unreal Tournament LAN parties and lugging my old 21" CRT monitor around with me , but the consoles really do make it so easy to not do this, it's hard for the average player to think of anything else. Speaking of the consoles and local multiplayer, how many games can you think of that have split screen nowadays? I am also sorry, but just because most people who play consoles don't know jack shit about what a good ping is, doesn't mean that connecting over the internet is a good thing. It's actually a last resort thing. I mean hell, they think 150 ping is awesome. Kind of pathetic since I have gotten down to 8 ping on dedicated servers before. Maybe for consoles LAN is obsolete, not so for the PC.

Ahh, you've run into one of the reasons I like my 360. Halo and Gears are both high quality games that support splitscreen AND online multi. I also don't disagree with you on the ping issue. Also the Wii does a great job with offline multi as well, me and the wife have some pretty heated Mario Kart battles, but good luck trying to get her to play a match of Starcraft with me. I'm just saying that the consoles aren't just doom and gloom, I understand that it has affected the PC development community but who knows, without consoles it may have happened anyway as "The Search For More Money" (the sequel to Spaceballs if you remember) heated up.

The issue that this thread is trying to address is not the morality, but whether or not the financial effects are anywhere near what the industry would have people believe.

I don't think there's any question. Most of the people by far who download or otherwise obtain unauthorized copies of games, music, video games, and software and then don't buy them never would have bought them anyway. The people who go out and buy bootleg CD's, movies, video games, etc usually live in poor countries where they barely have enough income to buy a bag of rice for their family to eat every night. People who obtain it through P2P(Bittorent and the like) are mostly teenagers and poor college students who couldn't afford it either.

There are also other factors to take into account, such as people who download just for the sake of it. There are tons of people who download movies and tv shows that they aren't going to watch, games that they'll never play, and music they'll never listen to just to add to their collection or just to say that they have the whole set. There's also stuff that's out of print/discontinued or otherwise not available for purchase. There's also stuff that's available, but very cost-prohibitive. I live in Philadelphia and i listen to a lot of electronic music and J-pop, a great deal of which a) isn't available here, b) is available here, but I'd have to pay ridiculous import prices(I'm talking $30-$40 per CD). As far singles go, a lot of trance/techno/house etc is only released on vinyl, and vinyl can cost $9-$15 a piece just to get 2 or 3 songs, and only a fraction of the stuff is available via iTunes or other download services.

So you see, every download does not equal a lost sale, and if the industry were suffering anywhere near the damage they claim, then the record labels would have long ago gone out of business considering that it's been possible for years to download an artist's entire discography in less than an hour.

Lord N said: The issue that this thread is trying to address is not the morality, but whether or not the financial effects are anywhere near what the industry would have people believe. I don't think there's any question. Most of the people by far who download or otherwise obtain unauthorized copies of games, music, video games, and software and then don't buy them never would have bought them anyway. The people who go out and buy bootleg CD's, movies, video games, etc usually live in poor countries where they barely have enough income to buy a bag of rice for their family to eat every night. People who obtain it through P2P(Bittorent and the like) are mostly teenagers and poor college students who couldn't afford it either. There are also other factors to take into account, such as people who download just for the sake of it. There are tons of people who download movies and tv shows that they aren't going to watch, games that they'll never play, and music they'll never listen to just to add to their collection or just to say that they have the whole set. There's also stuff that's out of print/discontinued or otherwise not available for purchase. There's also stuff that's available, but very cost-prohibitive. I live in Philadelphia and i listen to a lot of electronic music and J-pop, a great deal of which a) isn't available here, b) is available here, but I'd have to pay ridiculous import prices(I'm talking $30-$40 per CD). As far singles go, a lot of trance/techno/house etc is only released on vinyl, and vinyl can cost $9-$15 a piece just to get 2 or 3 songs, and only a fraction of the stuff is available via iTunes or other download services. So you see, every download does not equal a lost sale, and if the industry were suffering anywhere near the damage they claim, then the record labels would have long ago gone out of business considering that it's been possible for years to download an artist's entire discography in less than an hour.

 

Then how the heck you explain the fact that DS software sales started to go down the shitter in Europe this year, at the same time as it became easier to pirate DS games ?
 
It's not like the quality of the DS games released this year was any worse than the quality of the games released the previous years...

 

 

vlad321 said: CommonMan said: So it's a matter of not getting your moneys worth, so you just take them for free? Hmm. . . personally I look at reviews and get friends input and decide myself how much a game is worth, if it's doesn't sound like it's going to be a full-price purchase, I wait until it goes on sale. Different thoughts. Also, Vlad, it seems like you have impossibly high standards if SC2 isn't going to meet them and therefore be "okay" to be pirated. So the company that you profess is awesome at treating PC gamers and caters just to them can't even make your standards to be "worthy" of your money, makes it sound like you are just using this quality argument as an excuse to take whatever you want, since nothing is good enough. So let me get this straight. LAN is now "high standards?" Gaming has really went down the shitter if that's the case.

The battlenet features that will come with SC2 are way beyond anything SC1 had, but you obviously are not going to go point that out as that would invalidates your argument that SC2 is inferior to SC1....

 

LAN is a thing of the past...

Only a few hardcore still cling to it. The majority of us would rather not have to carry our PC around to play a multiplayer game...