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Jagdgeschwader wrote:Your entire complaint is about customer service. And none of it justifies pirating. No matter how "confusing" something is to you.

Here's an idea, FIGURE OUT HOW TO MAKE IT WORK.

I can't "make it work" if Steam won't allow me to play Counter Strike locally. I paid the full price for the game, got the disk, and can't play it, even after going through all the horseshit and making both a Steam account, and a Steam support account, because having a separate account just to submit questions totally makes sense. It's not a huge waste of time and designed to make it difficult to talk to something other than a FAQ. If it was that, then they wouldn't send confirmation e-mails to people who register support accounts, even when they click the "I didn't receive the fucking confirmation email, resend it" button over and over again.

If they make what is supposed to be a simple product that much of a hassle through their bullshittery, and I can get the product I rightfully should have right now through pirating it, than I have the right to pirate it. You can't even call that pirating, seeing as I actually paid for, received, and have the fucking game but it won't let me play it.

And I still say the most god-awful products and customer service justify piracy. Steam's shitty service has cost me my rightfully owned copy of Counter Strike: Source. So I have all the right to just take a pirated version. If anything, that's not enough, seeing as a pirated version doesn't come with multiplayer.

And for the record, it's not on me to figure out how to make it work. I didn't pay money to wade through horseshit, I paid for Counter Strike: Source. Instead, I got wading through horseshit. That's their shitty service's fault.

Meatshield718 wrote:Eaustinn, I thought you respected Porsche.

Why then, are you stealing pictures of their designs and vehicles? That's ILLEGAL.

Enough.

It's not about a picture of Ferdinand Porsche that's for public use.
It's not about a picture of a damn car.

He is, and everybody on this site is far from stealing any pictures, if that's even possible. (IT'S A PICTURE)

This is about material, constructed by a business for their profit, being distributed without being purchased and with no profit going towards the business which made the product.

If I didn't know any better, I'd say you, Tophat, Super and everyone criticizing Austin actually approve of piracy.

Desert Sleepy wrote:

Jagdgeschwader wrote:Your entire complaint is about customer service. And none of it justifies pirating. No matter how "confusing" something is to you.

Here's an idea, FIGURE OUT HOW TO MAKE IT WORK.

I can't "make it work" if Steam won't allow me to play Counter Strike locally. I paid the full price for the game, got the disk, and can't play it, even after going through all the horseshit and making both a Steam account, and a Steam support account, because having a separate account just to submit questions totally makes sense. It's not a huge waste of time and designed to make it difficult to talk to something other than a FAQ. If it was that, then they wouldn't send confirmation e-mails to people who register support accounts, even when they click the "I didn't receive the fucking confirmation email, resend it" button over and over again.

If they make what is supposed to be a simple product that much of a hassle through their bullshittery, and I can get the product I rightfully should have right now through pirating it, than I have the right to pirate it. You can't even call that pirating, seeing as I actually paid for, received, and have the fucking game but it won't let me play it.

And I still say the most god-awful products and customer service justify piracy. Steam's shitty service has cost me my rightfully owned copy of Counter Strike: Source. So I have all the right to just take a pirated version. If anything, that's not enough, seeing as a pirated version doesn't come with multiplayer.

And for the record, it's not on me to figure out how to make it work. I didn't pay money to wade through horseshit, I paid for Counter Strike: Source. Instead, I got wading through horseshit. That's their shitty service's fault.

Yeah, I have Steam too, yeah, I don't like it either, in fact I agree with you on everything. How much bullshit I had to go through just to play Fallout.

Don't even understand why Steam is there in the first place.

Bottom line:
Piracy isn't justifiable. Period.

Jagdgeschwader wrote:Bottom line:
Piracy isn't justifiable. Period.

I'd have to cite that video Dil linked on the previous page. The guy has to download a game he bought and has the disk for. I have the same situation here, in that I can't play a game I own the disk for. I wouldn't even call it piracy if you're just downloading a game you own so that it works correctly.

But I would say piracy is the same as stealing. I just wouldn't call those in that situation (like myself and apparently many others judging by the likes and definitions found on UrbanDictionary) pirates.

Desert Sleepy wrote:

Jagdgeschwader wrote:Bottom line:
Piracy isn't justifiable. Period.

I'd have to cite that video Dil linked on the previous page. The guy has to download a game he bought and has the disk for. I have the same situation here, in that I can't play a game I own the disk for. I wouldn't even call it piracy if you're just downloading a game you own so that it works correctly.

But I would say piracy is the same as stealing. I just wouldn't call those in that situation (like myself and apparently many others judging by the likes and definitions found on UrbanDictionary) pirates.

Will admit I've done it before, but I still stand on the fact that it wasn't justified and that if I were to be penalized for it, I wouldn't complain. There are ways to do these things legally.

The way I see it, you can be an adult about it and swallow your pride if you get caught, or you can complain about it. People like to talk, so they complain about it.

Piracy sometimes is a necessary evil, like on the video Dil/Vrazzle linked. If the Developers try to sell a game for $40/£40 and the buyer finds out that the anti-piracy countermeasures prevent the game from being played., that's a form of theft/piracy too. Now all of you simmer down before i pirate a metallica album and piss off lars ulrich.

KGBOOM wrote:Piracy sometimes is a necessary evil, like on the video Dil/Vrazzle linked. If the Developers try to sell a game for $40/£40 and the buyer finds out that the anti-piracy countermeasures prevent the game from being played., that's a form of theft/piracy too. Now all of you simmer down before i pirate a metallica album and piss off lars ulrich.

...

Wat...

Alright, this is getting a little crazy again.

First off, I had no idea there was this problem you guys describe with computer games; I guess that's why I only do console gaming. Regardless though, piracy is never justified. IF this is a widespread issue, instead of bitching and mumbling about it, do something LEGAL about it. IF it is widespread with PC games like you all stated, first thing that had come to my mind is a class-action law suit. If these companies are selling games that don't work; hold them accountable. The law is a two way bridge: Companies hold us accountable for illegal piracy of their content, and we hold them accountable for selling us what they say they are.

@KG - If what has been described is 100% true, then yes I agree with theft; however, responding their theft with your theft puts you just as guilty, and then if you try to hold them legally accountable, they'll pull the piracy card on you. Fight the law, with the law; it is not a radial concept...

The Lars Ulrich quip was a joke, just to make that clear

eaustinn36 wrote:First off, I had no idea there was this problem you guys describe with computer games; I guess that's why I only do console gaming. Regardless though, piracy is never justified. IF this is a widespread issue, instead of bitching and mumbling about it, do something LEGAL about it. IF it is widespread with PC games like you all stated, first thing that had come to my mind is a class-action law suit. If these companies are selling games that don't work; hold them accountable. The law is a two way bridge: Companies hold us accountable for illegal piracy of their content, and we hold them accountable for selling us what they say they are.

Nobody's going to want to participate in a lawsuit over their broken video games. Even if there were enough people, the game companies could probably just get better lawyers, who would somehow find some convoluted way to fix the situation, like flying a plain to the manufacturer's headquarters and filing a form. If they own a hard copy of the game, and it isn't functioning, and the manufacturer of the game can't fix it, why can't the owner of the game fix it in whatever way they see fit? Them downloading a pirated copy just to fix their purchased copy can't be thought of as the same as piracy. I pay 60 dollars for a game, game doesn't work, I download pirated copy and the game is fixed. The pirates haven't made any money (or at least not any worth noting). The manufacturer of the game still made their 60 dollars. The purchaser got their game they payed for. Everybody wins.

Desert Sleepy wrote:Nobody's going to want to participate in a lawsuit over their broken video games. Even if there were enough people, the game companies could probably just get better lawyers, who would somehow find some convoluted way to fix the situation, like flying a plain to the manufacturer's headquarters and filing a form. If they own a hard copy of the game, and it isn't functioning, and the manufacturer of the game can't fix it, why can't the owner of the game fix it in whatever way they see fit? Them downloading a pirated copy just to fix their purchased copy can't be thought of as the same as piracy. I pay 60 dollars for a game, game doesn't work, I download pirated copy and the game is fixed. The pirates haven't made any money (or at least not any worth noting). The manufacturer of the game still made their 60 dollars. The purchaser got their game they payed for. Everybody wins.

Everyone wins? No, only the company would win in the long run. They are committing a crime of selling merchandise that doesn't work, while you are illegally pirating games. If you go into an illegal-illegal battle, of course the company will win; so you need a legal-illegal battle, where you aren't breaking the law, they are. Class action lawsuits work, and companies aren't immune from a law suit (often they try to settle out of court to avoid media attention or a disruption). A "give up" attitude on the law and a "give in" attitude to piracy (and yes, justify how you want it, but it is still piracy) is a bad path to take.

Why do you think laws like SOPA are even proposed? Because a vast sum of people pirate things; in fact, people who pirate things can be blames for SOPA's existence; no piracy, and the law wouldn't even be proposed.

However, if a company (no matter how dirty) brought charges ON YOU, due to pirating their content, while you claimed all of the above where they are selling "dead games".... sorry, but if I was a judge, I would hands down side with the company. People only have a valid case against companies who rip them off, if they aren't breaking the law also.

Can't think of a good analogy atm, but this is similar: If a bank irl tries to rip you off with bullshit policies, what do you do? Well based on our responses, I would recommend finding another bank, OR if their polices break the law, press charges. You on the other hand, would argue "holding it up at gun point", to get the "money" (or game) you "rightfully deserve". Who do you think the court would side on in this example?

eaustinn36 wrote:Everyone wins? No, only the company would win in the long run. They are committing a crime of selling merchandise that doesn't work, while you are illegally pirating games. If you go into an illegal-illegal battle, of course the company will win; so you need a legal-illegal battle, where you aren't breaking the law, they are. Class action lawsuits work, and companies aren't immune from a law suit (often they try to settle out of court to avoid media attention or a disruption). A "give up" attitude on the law and a "give in" attitude to piracy (and yes, justify how you want it, but it is still piracy) is a bad path to take.

I'd hardly start a class action lawsuit if I was pirating games (and chances are, I wouldn't tell anyone). The only way it would come up would be if lawyers mentioned how it was easier to get pirated copies to work than purchased copies.

eaustinn36 wrote:
Why do you think laws like SOPA are even proposed? Because a vast sum of people pirate things; in fact, people who pirate things can be blames for SOPA's existence; no piracy, and the law wouldn't even be proposed.

However, if a company (no matter how dirty) brought charges ON YOU, due to pirating their content, while you claimed all of the above where they are selling "dead games".... sorry, but if I was a judge, I would hands down side with the company. People only have a valid case against companies who rip them off, if they aren't breaking the law also.

I hardly think somebody "pirating" a game they own so that they can play the game they own comes anywhere close to a company breaking the games they sell for thousands of people through their faulty anti-piracy measures.

eaustinn36 wrote:Can't think of a good analogy atm, but this is similar: If a bank irl tries to rip you off with bullshit policies, what do you do? Well based on our responses, I would recommend finding another bank, OR if their polices break the law, press charges. You on the other hand, would argue "holding it up at gun point", to get the "money" (or game) you "rightfully deserve". Who do you think the court would side on in this example?

No, it isn't similar. Stealing is stealing and being redundant is redundant, but armed robbery isn't even close to stuff like burglary and shoplifting. Aiming a loaded gun at somebody and threatening to murder them with it if they don't give up their money isn't even in the same boat as those other charges. It's more extreme and leaves the victim exponentially more scarred than burglary.

I'd say it's closer to say, you have video evidence of you handing 60 dollars to a bank teller, backing up and keeping the camera on the entire time, and then taking a step forward and trying to claim your 60 dollars, and being told, on camera (so you have undeniable proof that you did have the money, similar to how owning a game is undeniable proof that you own a game) that you don't have 60 dollars. You insist you do, and they give you a form filled with various questions that don't relate to your 60 dollars. You attempt to inform them that there's nothing relevant to your 60 dollars on the form, only to find that the teller is a cardboard cutout with a recording device attached that somehow detects what you're saying and plays back the appropriate response (I suppose in this scenario, doing business with cardboard cutouts is the norm). You ask the cardboard cutout to speak with a human, but it doesn't have anything to say to that, so you're out of luck and can't talk to a human. The cardboard cutout doesn't have answers, and you've been told you don't own 60 dollars which you have undeniable proof of that you do. In this scenario, you want your 60 dollars to purchase one of the bank's special 60 dollar accounts. For every one of these accounts, a number is made up for the account and every person has a unique number. You've just been stiffed out of your 60 dollars, and still don't have your account. Somebody standing nearby says that they got one of those accounts, and somehow figured out how to synthesize unique account numbers that will never be used otherwise. He offers you one of these numbers for free. Since you just payed for the account and didn't receive it, and taking one from this guy won't harm anyone since the number would never be replicated, you take one. You now are 60 dollars poorer, but still have the account, even though the "pirated" account doesn't come with the shiny in bank lockbox that you should have, but you're okay with that since you just wanted the ability to put money into ATMs anyway. You're still fairly screwed over. The bank and all it's patrons, however, are completely unaffected.

That's closer to this situation, I'd say, although it's far more absurd sounding than your metaphor, and wouldn't make as cool of a movie (and in these "troubling economic times", a movie about someone getting screwed over by a bank and subsequently robbing the bank actually sounds like a really good idea).

Back to the lawyer thing, what are we supposed to do? Go use our unlimited money we have from selling thousands of games for 60 dollars a copy to consult with good lawyers? How are a bunch of victims of overzealous antipiracy measures supposed to band together and sue every game company which has screwed one of us over? I know that the legal system is perfect and flawless in every way, and that as such, there's surely a perfect answer that works out for us, but I don't know what it is. The only way we'd ever be able to start a class action lawsuit would be if we (we being victims of antipiracy measures who haven't pirated anything) could somehow find each other, somehow present our case to a lawyer who listens to potential cases for free, and is simultaneously a good enough lawyer to find out how to state our case in legal terms. The lawyer than has access to commercials or ads on popular internet sites, and uses those ads to somehow find even more antipiracy victims (while not charging us for it, since we don't have the money to pay for all this). After gathering stock of all the victims, the lawyer than gets a large team together to make their case, and somehow sues every game company until their antipiracy measures don't effect people who don't pirate so much.

That all sounds rather far fetched, and I have a feeling I'm not even close to how it's done, thus making it even more difficult for me to know what to do and how to get my copy of Counter Strike: Source that I have on hard copy feet away from me right now. I can somehow magically fix the antipiracy system, and then get the copy that I'm owed (only taking several years), or I can download a copy of a game I already own (at my expense, since I have to go the extra mile to get the game I own, and don't get most of it's features that I should get), only taking about nine minutes. One of these options is illegal, while the other is impossible.

If I had to guess, I'd say that the amount of money us victims of antipiracy who have not and will not ever pirate (though I may have unknowingly pirated the songs "Mr. Blue Sky" and "Yakity Sax". I'm not entirely sure, the sites seemed pretty normal. They weren't torrent sites or pirate bay or anything like that) loose throughout our lifetime due to being screwed over by the antipiracy measures doesn't compare to the amount of money we'd loose trying to even get the ball rolling on a legal case that in all probability won't work out for us.

Desert Sleepy wrote:Aiming a loaded gun at somebody and threatening to murder them with it if they don't give up their money isn't even in the same boat as those other charges. It's more extreme and leaves the victim exponentially more scarred than burglary.

Desert Sleepy wrote:
And Gabe Newell is an evil, thieving bastard, and Steam is worthless. I'm not serious here, but I'd like to choke him to death with clay cutting wire.

I know you weren't serious, but the thought was still there.


Also, if the law suit idea is really not settling with you... there is always capitalism. If a company is pulling this bullshit, another company could come up and market their games to put the other out of business, legally. However, since steam or whoever is big, you'd need to provide an incentive for that other company to surface: a mass boycott of all steam products (if the problem is as big as you say, it should have a huge effect). This boycott will cause one of two things: 1) The company (steam) notices profit loss and will reform it's policies to reestablish its fan base, or 2) Another company tries to enter the trade, and immediately when they do, everyone end the boycott by giving that new company 100% of the sales. Of course though, I think this idea is a little harder to coordinate; using social networking can help.

OR, probably a simpler method, just have the "pirated" site owners get licenses to sell the games legally (it would cost them a lot of money, and they might have to start charging for their games, BUT, as you said, their games actually work.


EDIT: But honestly, if this problem is as big as you say, then how is Steam getting ANY business at all if all their games don't work upon buying them... I think the userbase would start taking notice.

eaustinn36 wrote:EDIT: But honestly, if this problem is as big as you say, then how is Steam getting ANY business at all if all their games don't work upon buying them... I think the userbase would start taking notice.

It's not solely Steam. It's Steam for me. In the video, the guy has a problem with something that isn't Steam. That's one of the reasons dealing with it would be even harder, because it's not Steam screwing over 1/5th of their users, it's Steam screwing over 1/15th of their users, Ubisoft screwing over 1/20th of their users, Generic Company X (don't know that much about these companies. For example, I could have said Activision, but for all I know Activision is a part of Ubisoft, which would make using both of them in the example redundant) screwing over 1/25th of their users, and so on. What the guy in the video seemed to be saying was that most companies that sell PC games have pretty shitty anti-piracy measures, and lots of companies sell computer games, so there are lots of companies with potentially shitty, easy to get screwed over by anti-piracy measures.

eaustinn36 wrote:Alright, this is getting a little crazy again.

First off, I had no idea there was this problem you guys describe with computer games; I guess that's why I only do console gaming. Regardless though, piracy is never justified. IF this is a widespread issue, instead of bitching and mumbling about it, do something LEGAL about it. IF it is widespread with PC games like you all stated, first thing that had come to my mind is a class-action law suit. If these companies are selling games that don't work; hold them accountable. The law is a two way bridge: Companies hold us accountable for illegal piracy of their content, and we hold them accountable for selling us what they say they are.

@KG - If what has been described is 100% true, then yes I agree with theft; however, responding their theft with your theft puts you just as guilty, and then if you try to hold them legally accountable, they'll pull the piracy card on you. Fight the law, with the law; it is not a radial concept...

It's happened with me, and usually it's the case with someone who didn't do something right.