Another stupid bug

[SpencerH]

Can someone please lock or delete this thread. Its ruining the image I had of this forum.

I cant tell if thats sarcasm or not; didnt a CA employee call you a thief in the thread about a no cd patch?

[Jango Fett]

take a chill pill, even i enjoy a good flame now and then, cr@p bucket!

[King Azzole]

I cant tell if thats sarcasm or not; didnt a CA employee call you a thief in the thread about a no cd patch?

No. Whats your point? This thread needs to be locked I dont understand why its allowed to continue. Either way I wont be returning so if you care to start a flame with me take it to PM. I am not 13.

[SpencerH]

No. Whats your point? This thread needs to be locked I dont understand why its allowed to continue. Either way I wont be returning so if you care to start a flame with me take it to PM. I am not 13.

Unfortunately, the thread I was refering to seems to have been axed. Since you say it wasnt you, then I guess it wasnt you, and I apologize for that.

Since I did think it was you, however, I found it rather ironic that someone who bought RTW with his brother (and wanted to load it and use it on two computers), who was called a thief by a CA employee, to be ******** about another word for poo-poo (hopefully that word wont ruin any images you have).

Again, since it wasnt you and I'm not trying to flame anyone, I apologize for my error. I'm glad you're not 13.

[GFX707]

You get branded a thief for that these days? I remember the days when me and my friends used to take stuff like Wing Commander 2 around to each others houses and share all the stuff we bought. I bet at least CA employee has done that too. It's a TAD harsh to call someone a thief for that....I bought RTW from ebay....does that make me a thief?

[Papewaio]

You get branded a thief for that these days? I remember the days when me and my friends used to take stuff like Wing Commander 2 around to each others houses and share all the stuff we bought. I bet at least CA employee has done that too. It's a TAD harsh to call someone a thief for that....I bought RTW from ebay....does that make me a thief?

If the license was for a single machine at a time and you loaded the game onto multiple machines without deleting it off previous machines then you would be breaching your licensing agreement.

Now you wonder why a lot of game design companies have gone and why games are costing so much more. It is only partially true to blame it on piracy. It is the large companies that produce the games (not design them) and the selling points that are making the money from the markups. The design companies are not getting a large enough slice of the retail price. Markups are for the explicit cost of advertising, production and retail space. They use piracy as an implicit cost and excuse for the markups.

[Akka]

I cant tell if thats sarcasm or not; didnt a CA employee call you a thief in the thread about a no cd patch?

No, that was me.
Because I said I always DL a game before buying it. Wonder how I can be a thief when I end up buying the thing full retail price, but well... I don't blame him. It's hard not to become emotional when it comes to your creation and your way to make a living, especially when both are the same.

[Colovion]

It makes sense that you would be dubbed a theif for that.

However, I got into playing Age of Kings by a hacked version which I downloaded and got the Expansion pack for illegally as well. At the time I was a lot younger so I didn't really think twice about it. The game was awesome - nothing was missing besides the music track and at the time I didn't care. I played that game for countless hours and I'm possitive that if I didn't have those hours of play with that game I wouldn't be here today. After about a year or so playing the game I wanted to support Ensemble Studios for putting forth such a great game and went and bought the game and XP - mainly just because I'd never played it with the music track - and cause Age of Mythology was due out in six months. It's strange - I started by illegally downloading that game and ended up with such respect for the developer that I bought AoM soley because I respected the developers work; very similar to Creative Assembly now.

Oh yeah - don't download games, kids - it's wrong.

[Akka]

It makes sense that you would be dubbed a theif for that.

I can understand why I would be dubbed a thief for that, but I just say it's false ^^
A thief don't pay for what he steal.
I do (and I don't steal, I copy. Which is a form of infringement on copyright, but not a "theft" in the strict meaning, as nobody actually lose something during the copy, they just don't gain something).

It's strange - I started by illegally downloading that game and ended up with such respect for the developer that I bought AoM soley because I respected the developers work; very similar to Creative Assembly now.

Same here (except I wasn't too thrilled by AoM).

Oh yeah - don't download games, kids - it's wrong.

No. What's wrong is to not buy a game you have liked.
Reward the ones who deserve it.

Now you wonder why a lot of game design companies have gone and why games are costing so much more.

Well, actually, the games aren't costing more. They even cost less than before (remember the first CD games, totally unpiratables, which costed nearly half more than the ones today, while the price of the support was the same ?).

What's fun, is that you can see the prices of games following more or less exactly the level of piracy : the more there is piracy, the cheaper the games are. Somehow revealing :)

And if companies go away, it's mainly because of the investment necessary to make a game. Some years ago, it was barely some hundred of thousands bucks. Even some tens of thousands sometimes.
Now, it's several millions at the bare least.

It is only partially true to blame it on piracy. It is the large companies that produce the games (not design them) and the selling points that are making the money from the markups. The design companies are not getting a large enough slice of the retail price. Markups are for the explicit cost of advertising, production and retail space. They use piracy as an implicit cost and excuse for the markups.

That's very, very true.

[Jugurtha]

What's fun, is that you can see the prices of games following more or less exactly the level of piracy : the more there is piracy, the cheaper the games are. Somehow revealing :)

.

Yes it's hilarious. How long do you think it took to develop RTW? 3-4 years? How many people worked on it for all that time and how much do you think they get paid? How much do you reckon all the other resources allocated to this game over the life of the project cost?

Those evil marketing types (who always seem to be able to fool everyone else but not us) get involved to spread the game to as many people who wouldn't be likely to pick up a game like RTW. If it wasn't for them persuading a whole lot of people to buy this game we, who spod-like wanted this game, would never have got it. The development costs are simply too high.

If the price drops in paralell to piracy this is simply a reflection of normal market demand and supply being skewed by theft. They have to try and cove their costs.

I did my Honours dissertation on software copyright theft about ten years ago. The rates of piracy in Western Europe were about 40-50% of all software. In Russia and the Far East you are (were?) looking at 95% of all software was pirated. Is it any wonder that Microsoft Office cost so much?

My brother keeps getting ripped copies of stuff, to be honest I'm not interested. I'd rather pay for a game like RTW.

[Akka]

Why the useless rant ?
I DO buy every game I like. I consider that good creation MUST be rewarded.

But I fail to see the link with marketing garbage or the hypocrisy and lies of the publishers ("games are expensive because we're ruined by pirates *cries* We don't want to, but we're forced to recoup our losses due to evil, evil pirates", but funnily enough, the prices racks up when there is no piracy, and decrease when there is...).

[Jugurtha]

Why the useless rant ?
I DO buy every game I like. I consider that good creation MUST be rewarded.

But I fail to see the link with marketing garbage or the hypocrisy and lies of the publishers ("games are expensive because we're ruined by pirates *cries* We don't want to, but we're forced to recoup our losses due to evil, evil pirates", but funnily enough, the prices racks up when there is no piracy, and decrease when there is...).

I'm glad that we both agree on that then.

Exactly how are they supposed to get their money back with piracy rates that high? Of course the price will go down on a product like RTW, unlike Office or Windows it only has a very short shelf life and has to make as much money as possible as fast as possible. If there is loads of piracy they need to try and compete with that supply of free games, so prices go down.

You don't quite get the point about the marketing do you? If it wasn't for them the only people playing this game would be history nerds like us.
The game would have significantly worse production values and be a lot worse to play. You've got to get a wide audience playing the game for it to get the kind of resources RTW has had. It's also another cost to be recouped.

[GFX707]

The ony REAL threat from piracy is stealing potential customers, i.e if someone was going to buy the game but instead chose to download it or buy a pirate version.

I am sure that not that many people fall into that category. Most of the people who get pirate versions are people who a) wouldn't have paid full price anyway or b) wouldn't have been interested otherwise

There are many cases of people not being interested in a game until they downloaded the pirate version and then bought the retail version because it got them into it! The publishers and fatcats use this stuff as excuses and for propaganda. As for me I like to buy the games that I feel are worth supporting.