Jeff Tunnell @ Underdogs

#61 Try Before you buy haha what a joke
For 1 they try and never buy, try before you buy is just a bloody excuse for stealing.
I see only an old excuse/reason for hacked/cracked game software, its quicker to read from a harddrive than a CD and in some games this makes a big differance if only in the time it takes to enter an online game, but this is now becoming another sorry excuse for stealing with broadband and the advances in speeds in gaming/hardware, this excuse is also becoming nonsence.
The truth is people hate paying for something they can get for free, when you consider that pirates now supply patched games with the latest updates, and in some cases improvements in the speed of data transferal and the like for free its hardly suprizing that the piracy problem is so large, but the truth is, as jeff said, in Game dev its a fact of life.
Untill we can AFFECTIVLY fight it we should discourage it and make it as difficult as possible, without reduceing the content of the software, sadly anti piracy normaly means doing exactly that.
Just because something is difficult to overcome, it dosent mean we should stop trying.
Rant over

#62 I come from Eastern Europe and we didnt have even chance to buy legal copies of games for years (things are slightly changing now), so guys here had only one option - go to market (bazaar) and buy 2 dollar CDs from pirates. I knew it wasnt right even then, but, besides the fact that none of my friends could afford game for even 20 dollars, we didnt have a chance to buy one even if we had such a money.

Internet wasnt an option as no online store would accept credit card from eastern european bank. Thats a problem even now.

But even then I knew that I'll buy legal versions later. Now, that I am older, have settled down and actually living in a country much richer, I am buying all the classics I liked just to pay the tribute.

I know its too late too few as these games are so incredibly cheap now and probably developers dont get anything (whats the point buying old Looking Glass titles when company is bancrupt and guys dont get even a slightest royalties), but its my debt.

And, to those who protect piracy conceptually - remember, if you earn more than 80 dollars per month and have the games actually in store near your house, backing up pirates is a blasphemy.

Remember, those who make living from warez are not only pirates, this business feeds lots of criminal activities. I have good friends in high ranks of Latvian police and they told how warez feeds human trafficing, dope dealers and so on. All these "business ventures" are interconnected.

One should remember that.

However, I often visit Home of the Underdogs, as these guys are my guides in the world of great games which had bad marketing and didnt make it trhough. Their dedication and love to old games is great. They do not provide downloads to games which can be bought or ISDA members.

It might be not legal by the textbook, but I love them as much as I despise shady people who are proud of cracking the game which hit the shelves yesterday.

#63 I do the try before you buy pirating all the time when there is no demo for the game. And yes, if the game is good I do buy it. If its crap, it just gets deleted.

I'm not some broke kid in 8th grade with no money... I just don't like wasting money on something that turns out to be crap. So... if the company that makes it doesn't make a way to give it a try before buying it... I'll just download it and take a look.

I do it often with movies too. 3 days after I watched my pirated copy of Black Hawk Down I was sitting in a theater watching it. The day after I downloaded We Were Soldiers I was at the store buying the DVD.

Believe it or not, there are honest people out there.

#64 I have just finished reading this lengthy and informative forum... good stuff and great participation... However, I agree with Jeff Tunnel at the direction of the discussion. Early on it was very informative and appeared to be headed towards some good discussion of possible solutions or ideas for developers to combat, limit, or even use hacks and warez to their advantage.. everyone here seems intelligent and savy...
We know what the problem is and we know we can't fix it. Lets find a way around it.

#65 ok Back to the subject of abandonware, I don't see why people have such a problem with TRUE abandonware. Look at true abandonware sites like The underdogs and a few other good ones. They only have games on there which cannot be obtained by any other way. They cannot be bought by the company or at software stores so they provide a place for it. These keep the old games alive. It's totally separate from warez where you are downlaoding games you CAN buy. The true abandonware sites stay true to the fact that if you can buy it they will not give you a download link (and sometimes tehy'll point you to a place to download it). Now I would like to hear why this is a bad thing since it keeps the old games alive.

--KallDrexx

#66 Technically, the only games that "true" abandonware sites would have would be things like Betrayal of Krondor that have been officially released by the copyright holder for download.

Underdogs is better than most abandonware sites, though, since they do remove links to games when companies contact them, but that's neither here nor there. It's still technically illegal for them to be redistributing the software without the permission of the original copyright holder.

Most of this topic is arguing about whether or not we agree with the state of abandonware or what it is or how it's determined, and not the simple legality. It's illegal, period. We may not agree with it's being illegal, but the simple fact remains.

As to indie developers embracing the warez community, I'd be all for it IF, and only IF, the warez community only released demos of software instead of the full, cracked versions. But then, it wouldn't be warez. It would be a demo CD, and perhaps someone might get paid at some point. With warez, you get it for free and move on.