You’re talking out of your ass because you’re making blanket statements, and then you fail to provide any sort of actual evidence that supports your claim. You also fail to realize that there are a very large number of PC games that have taken precautions to greatly reduce cheating and that there are many ways to prevent cheating almost entirely (though it still happens, just like with consoles). Instead you decide to attack the platform, instead of the incompetent publishers and people running the platforms, who by the way also happen to leave the shitty security holes and exploits in the console versions.
So yes, go take your ignorant bullshit somewhere and and don’t sign the “stupid petition”.
PS3, though the DS hacking is worse in 360 from what I’ve read.
You must be on some serious cocaine, my friend. PC games have taken precautions to greatly reduce cheating? Oh that’s all fine and dandy, but who gives a shit when I can just pirate the game, right? Since you want to talk about actual evidence, I would ask you to show me some of these so called hacks for Dark Souls you’ve been talking about but at this point, I really don’t care. I could go on arguing with you about this for a long time because I’m a stubborn fuck, but I’ll let you keep your hopes of there being a PC version.
Ah yes, now we are just going to move the topic of conversation to something else completely irrelevant to the original topic. Which one is this, moving the goalpost?
I’ll bite anyway and explain this shit for the 100th time and this goes from everyone that doesn’t understand piracy. I’m just gonna go ahead and post the same thing I posted on Kotaku because everyone seems to scream PIRACY, PIRACY and doesn’t understand WHY it happens or what the numbers mean (or how to avoid this shit in the first place).
Numbers for piracy are just that, numbers. By itself, the data is worthless because it is missing a lot of specific and important information.
It is missing :
Does the game have a demo?
-This is important because PC games are not considered video games by law (they are considered software) and as such their user agreement (as well as the addition of CD Keys and other things they add that do not reduce piracy but just limit legit buyers) prevents the game from being returned and re-sold as used. There are also laws in place that prevent the selling of used PC-games in B&M stores due to issues with CD Keys and the like (buy game, install, use CD key, return game and claim it didn’t work). Paying $40-60 on a game that you are on the fence about and then finding out that you can’t even return the damn thing (though Walmart seems to accept them anyway from what I’ve heard) even though you didn’t like the game is a dick move. At least this is US law, I am pretty sure this isn’t the case for Europe.
How many people pre-ordered the game and are playing it early via a download (something that is also super common on consoles, actually games are normally leaked for consoles before they are leaked on PCs)?
Since one copy downloaded DOES NOT equate 1 copy not sold (as much as developers would like to believe this shit) this affects nothing. You already got your cash for the game. This group of people is irrelevant, they are just itching to play that shit early.
How many of those people are downloading the game to install so when their legit copy arrives it’s available to play by simply entering the key, or can’t install it from the provided disc?
Sometimes shit doesn’t work, rarely, but it happens. A downloaded copy might work just fine. See #8 for example.
How many of those people had the intention of buying the game but didn’t because they got it for free?
This is the problematic group. These guys are the thieves but there is no way to separate these guys from the rest.
How many of those people had no intention in buying the game to begin with regardless of price?
This group is irrelevant. They had no intention in giving you their cash to begin with so you wouldn’t have seen a penny even if the game was 1 cent. Ignore these guys, move on. Just how you have to accept that despite used game sales are a multi-billion dollar industry, the guys making and publishing the games will never see a penny of that. Not yet anyway (consoles are already starting to move towards this and will once digital distribution catches up to consoles).
How many people did not buy the game because the price is too high initially but will buy it when there is a price cut?
Games on PC were normally $10-20 cheaper than on consoles. Now they are the same price and a lot of the time they don’t even have all the features expected of PC games that were standard. As such, if you buy the game after a price cut (where single player games are 25%-33% off after a month or 2 for PC games, leaving them in the $30-$45) this normally tends to increase the sales a lot (Steam sales are a good indicator that giving new games small price cuts normally makes them skyrocket to top position) this sends the message that your games aren’t being priced accordingly to the market. Skyrim is an odd exception to the trend, which has sold so much on PC at full price that it is quite impressive really.
Is the game available in all regions with proper language support for said countries?
You can’t get mad if people pirate your game because they are from a region that you didn’t bother to release the game in, much less if it doesn’t even have language support. Valve went through this, and now they’re racking in that cash like nobody’s business. They don’t even put out many games, ever and Valve was estimated to be worth from $2-4 million at the beginning of 2011by Forbes and they double their sales this year. This is a company that has developed and published a handful of games but is good at catering to their target audience.
Is there a way to test that the game runs properly on my setup (Demo might work, retail game might not, and vice versa)?
This one is tricky and gray area IMO. The demo probably worked, but sometimes you get unpleasant surprises such as Gears of War for PC. Gears of War on PC ran great, IF it ran. Upon release date, there were a looooooooot of very angry people on the forums with proof that their copy of the game wasn’t working. Clicking the executable file gave you an error. Epic’s solution? They called PC gamers ungrateful saying that the problem wasn’t the game but their machines. Then they patched the game… but by then everyone was tired and pirated the hell out of the game. Epic retaliated by claiming that they wouldn’t release Gears of War 2 and 3 on PC, despite the fact that the only reason they even got to where they were to begin with is because PC gamers bought their unreal tournament games like hotcakes… Then the forum mods and admins took down all the threads that have to do with the whining and everyone went silent. Epic is now trying to get back into the PC gaming market because they saw Valve’s success and now everyone wants a piece of that pie. Oh yeah and they also had to release a patch for the game in 2009 because that shit expired prematurely. Whoops
Does the game have proper PC support (keyboard, mouse, setting configurations, FPS not capped at 30, etc)?
You released a shitty game, with shitty everything. Deal with it. You don’t really expect people to stay watching a bad movie, or eat bad food at a restaurant, right? Since PC games are essentially sold AS-IS in the US and you can’t actually get a refund, you can’t really complain about this if you a) didn’t release a demo b) used intrusive DRM that hurts your legit customers and can be bypassed by cracking the game so suddenly the pirates are playing the better version of your game…
Shitty DRM?
If your game has shitty DRM (aka DRM that is problematic such as always online DRM, a DRM that Capcom seems to like…) people aren’t going to buy it. Why should they? The pirated version is guaranteed to work and has no DRM, since the guys that put out the cracks for these games actually test their shit before releasing them. Though I understand this point, I do not agree with it. Some people don’t like Steam because it is DRM. They are right not to like it, digital download games are basically glorified rentals where you normally pay full price for a game you don’t own and can be taken from you at any time. My solution is this, buy the game, support the developer (though unfortunately most of the money goes to the publishers, this shit needs to change) for putting out a game then crack it then backup the game files. The game is now yours to keep and install. The crack will remove the DRM and will allow you to play the game. Though if the game has multiplayer and you’re interested in it, you’re fucked. You gonna have to either not buy the game or suck that shit up real hard until you can’t feel it’s existence.
The answer is NO, piracy numbers are just that, numbers that don’t really have any meaning behind them. As a result, the only good info that comes out of piracy numbers is that a file was downloaded X number of times. Nothing else, nothing more.
With that out of the way, let’s get to online multiplayer on pirated games. Is it possible? Yes. Is it worth it? Not really. Is it worth cheating? No, Then there’s Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst for PC :D.
And no, I don’t really condone piracy and buy my games. Purchased 250+ items on steam adding up to ~160 games and the rest DLC/expansions and such for games. I even purchased some games twice (retail box on release, digital GOTY edition). You know, just in case someone tries to call me a dirty pirate. Yarr.
Oh how nice, when the burden of evidence is on you, you can’t bother. Then you want me to provide evidence. sigh People these days.
The hacking is only reported to be really obvious and known on the 360, where you can hack the XML files to edit your stats. This apparently doesn’t work on PS3 so I have NO idea how they would be doing it, nor do I really know where to look for the rare hacks. So for 360, the XML hacks and for PS3 I have no idea. There’s half my evidence.
Now I need some fucking food, I am sick with a fever and I am starving. Should really just be in bed but whatever.
Oh look, you seem to have posted on SRK instead of /v/. Oops!
Piracy is illegal and is the reproduction and distribution of someone’s intellectual property. It doesn’t matter, not even a tiny bit if it affects sales or not. Trying to justify it is just pathetic.
That being said, piracy is no reason for their to not be PC games. That is also fucking retarded. The whole pro piracy argument just sounds like a baby doesn’t want to come to the grips that sometimes in life you don’t get to try before you buy. I wonder just how many people pirate games with the intention to buy the game if they like it, and they realize “oh hey I already have it what’s the point of shelling out cash for it” and then become the thieves category. Just because a few scumbags choose to blatantly break the law, doesn’t mean there’s not people who would buy and enjoy this game on that platform. The fact that the person you’re arguing with didn’t really say piracy is why there should be no dark souls PC, and is just being an idiot leads me to believe you’re a bit crazy for still typing out that essay of unrelated facts.
The “hacking” and shit, I can see as a more valid point. In the console versions if the worst you can do is alter your stats, that’s hardly worth mentioning. Especially so since it’s only on XBOX apparently. I also imagine it takes quite a bit of effort, and the people you’re going to run into doing it are few and far between. The only problem I can see with PC is if there are hacks and cheats, dark souls is the kinda of game where a cheater can really ruin the enjoyment of your game as they can actually intrude your game. Yes you can play offline but that’s fucking stupid. Is there some way of stopping cheating on a PC game? I don’t know, I’m not a PC gamer, but if there is there’s no problem. Even if there isn’t, there probably won’t be any more cheaters than glitchers in console versions before they’re patched.
Long story short this is probably the stupidest conversation I’ve ever had the displeasure of injecting myself into. You should both be ashamed of yourselves.
Woah buddy. I just woke up and I refuse to read all that bullshit. You need a CLAM down a little bit. Yes CLAM. Go shove your face in Gwynevere’s tits or something. People these days… Get all worked up over something so trivial.
I don’t have a problem with not being able to try before I buy, but other than underwear, and items that have to be directly applied to the skin (deodorants and such?) I can’t really think of anything else that is “can’t try before you buy” AND “no refunds allowed”. This is really what creates a problem and is the result of companies attempting to take control away from the consumer (no reselling, no legal reproduction for your own consumption, etc). They can mask piracy as copyright infringement and try to reinforce that angle, but even that angle applies mainly to selling and making profit from copyrighted works.
But he did? The first point was “HACKING!” then since that went out the window it became “OH WAIT BUT PIRACY!”. Besides, this is mainly something that I wrote over time and just kept adding to it as it went and felt the need to add, I did create a monster though. No denying that. It wasn’t meant to be a reply to just the guy who was obviously not going to bother reading it anyway but something in general. I know you and a lot of people see what I wrote as trying to justify piracy, but it isn’t (Hell I don’t even support buying used games). If you look at the list, a lot of the problems stem from how things are implemented. Changing the implementation and the handling of a lot of the things on that list is huge and it’s something that companies aren’t taking advantage of (when they REALLY should, but apparently screwing paying customers over is better than making hassle-free money). Gabe Newell (co-founder of Valve) went ahead and took many steps to deal with many of the problems that I have on that list. The result was that people started buying Valve games in regions where piracy was originally a huge issue as well as Steam blooming and becoming the largest video game digital distribution service. There are 40 million steam accounts, which only account for a portion of the PC gaming community and there are normally 4 million active users on (peak of 5M), and 14.5M games sold in 2011 (this obviously doesn’t include B&M sales which is still a huge market in Europe at around 50%+ and they have the biggest PC gaming market, they really like their boxes and manuals ). This is also taking into account that some games aren’t on Steam and are specific to EA’s Origin (SW:TOR, Crysis 2, Battlefield 3, possibly ME3), and Microsoft’s GFWL, as well as MMOs like WoW, which are multi-million sellers. So the market is clearly there, it’s just that most console-centric gaming companies are still going about it the wrong way. The worst part of the whole thing is, that the shitty aspects of PC gaming are slowly creeping their way into console gaming.
There is no way to stop it 100%, but VAC (Valve Anti-Cheat System) works pretty well. This requires the game being hosted on a VAC enabled server (Dark Souls on a dedicated server? Yes please). What it does it checks the game files for illegal programs and modifications running and issues an automated permanent ban. Other games that host their own servers use other tools as well (Dungeon Defenders offers 2 server types, a legit type and an open server where people who make mods for the game can play, similar to how it was with the user created stages/weapons in the Unreal Tournament games), but implementing stat checks based on soul level and class should be simple enough. Like I said, it’s not perfect but the cheating is only rampant when there are no steps taken to prevent it.
And somehow, still more tame than PSO on Dreamcast, the cheating and hacking going on in that game was beyond brutal. Fucking people turning your character into other characters and causing your games to become corrupt and/or deleted and shit . Fortunately even that was easy to avoid as well.
I blame myself for being sick and still not being able to sleep despite taking medicine. Shit won’t knock me out and I’ve been up for almost 24 hours o_O. Now back to trying to go to bed, for the 10th time.
I’m another one of those people who hates DLC too, but Dark Souls is such a fucking good game that you actually get hype to hear about DLC coming out for it.
I’m questioning if level 82 is too low to start invading. Just died to a blue shimmering great sword in three hits. The person had enough poise that two hits from my great axe didn’t cause a stagger.
I feel like I need to have at least enough space for one attunement slot. People dance waiting for the other to swing so they can back stab. Only other person that didn’t would knock me down with a sword swing then heavy slash on wake up. I was like okay I can just side step it and on the way down it tracks and kills me. Also, I like how I get back stabbed while face to face with someone.
There is some pyro spell that says it breaks armor. I wonder if that would help with people being defensive.
