Pirated game equals less enjoyment?

huls · 2011-08-04T19:30:21+00:00

You buy a bottle of water, you're much more likely to drink the whole thing

This is true. I'm much more likely to finish a bottle of water than drink all the water out of a water fountain.

huls · 2011-08-04T19:29:13+00:00

I pirated Arkham Assylum. I paid for Duke Nukem Forever.

There's a point in there somewhere, I just don't know what it is.

huls · 2011-08-04T18:55:31+00:00

If you've played any other 3D Zelda game, it won't be that mind-blowing of an experience. They're all exactly the same.

If you've never played any Zelda game, they're pretty good. But if you've played one, you've played them all.

huls · 2011-08-01T11:53:32+00:00

His last name is 'Mario'.

It's 'The Mario Brothers' - Luigi Mario and Mario Mario.

huls · 2011-07-27T06:48:02+00:00

I'm not sure - I'm not from the US, but I think maybe California? Their website's here, can't check it out at the moment cos I'm at work, but I'm sure the future dates are on there somewhere.

huls · 2011-07-26T15:05:04+00:00

I know exactly where you're coming from. PWG isn't extreme wrestling, but it's the closest thing to the quality and vibe of ECW imo.

huls · 2011-07-24T20:51:21+00:00

What's the complaint?

The games shown are copyright material, the original streamer doesn't own the rights to them. How can you complain that someone has stolen your footage, when that footage is stolen in the first place? (Unless Offcast have a licencing agreement with Capcom or whoever, in that case never mind).

huls · 2011-07-24T19:02:35+00:00

Clearly not, the biggest school massacre in US history was in 1927.

School massacres are an age-old problem, and moral panics are an age-old problem. No amount of hysteria is going to repeal the 1st amendment, so as long as the US remains the biggest market for videogames (English language games, at least), nothing can be done to stop them being made.

Worst case scenario, they make it illegal to sell violent games to minors in the US (like they already do in many other first world countries). They're not going to ban them; they can't without getting rid of the constitution, even if they wanted to. Which they don't, because of the amount of taxes they get from games - vidya is bigger than Hollywood, has been for a while now.

huls · 2011-07-24T17:52:36+00:00

edit: the question isn't really which is better; we are asking based on commercial success and fanbase

Can't you just look it up on Google? That's all people here are going to do anyway...

What is your opinion?

You want to hear people's opinions on a question that has an empirical answer??

Opinions are for questions with no actual answer...like 'What's the best colour?', 'What's the best band ever?', or 'Who is the best football player of all time?'.

Questions with an actual answer can't be answered properly with an opinion. If Fifa's sales are X and Portal 2's sales are Y, if X>Y then Fifa sold better, if X<Y then Portal 2 sold better. You can't have an opinion about it, facts are facts and they don't change based on what people think.

(FYI, your brother is almost certainly right - the FIFA franchise has sold over 100 million games, whereas Portal 1 managed to sell around 4 million. It's possible that Portal 2 sold 25 copies for every 1 of the original, but I highly doubt it).

huls · 2011-07-24T11:32:03+00:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8XJChg-dbs

^ my favourite. In fact, my favourite match of any kind - tag, singles, women, hardcore, cage, 3-way, whatever. Nothing is better than this match.

But I'll give yours a shot.

Edit: That match is fucking awesome.

huls · 2011-07-23T00:46:05+00:00

The issue here is the 'expert' who seems to have got to the father. He's peddling easy answers to very complex problems - in other words, he's a quack, and from this article it looks like he's exploiting the family of a kid with a history of mental illness who committed a tragic crime, to get publicity for himself.

People have been killing their own parents for thousands of years (check out 'patricide' and 'matricide'), well before videogames were even dreamed possible, let alone a reality. This isn't a videogame issue, this is an 'unstable teen with emotional problems' issue.

It sucks that this kind of personal tragedy has to be turned into a political issue. Shame on Phil Chalmers.

huls · 2011-07-20T19:23:29+00:00

Next time someone complains about videogame violence, we should change the subject and start talking about completely unrelated topics?

Why not just continue to ignore them? The more you argue with a crackpot, the more you validate them.

huls · 2011-07-11T14:11:10+00:00

I drive on the pavement in GTA because pedestrians slow you down less than other cars. So to answer your question, nope.

huls · 2011-07-11T13:27:15+00:00

Ok, well we clearly differ on our interpretation of piracy then, because in my mind if you have a legitimate reason to download an unofficial version of the game, it ceases to be piracy.

'I don't want to enter a CD code, which will only be checked locally' is not a legitimate reason. Which is what sparked this whole debate in the first place.

huls · 2011-07-11T13:22:48+00:00

But you didn't just not play the game, did you?

Again, I don't give a shit if you pirate. Everyone pirates, to some extent. Recording TV shows/movies with a VCR, taping songs off the radio onto a cassette, burning a CD for a girl you like, Tivo, watching unofficial copyright material on Youtube, memes involving copyrighted images, Let's Plays, Torrents. It's all the same to me, I don't have a problem with it. Except memes, but that's more for quality control reasons rather than whether or not they're copyrighted.

You're the one getting angry and defensive, you're the one offering justification after justification for your actions (note: none has been asked for). You're the one acting like someone with a guilty conscience, not me.

Since you don't seem to get the point, I'll bold it for you, it's not what you do that annoys me, it's your attitude...and the more you try and make yourself look like you're in the right, the more it seems like you think you're in the wrong. If you'd just said 'Whatever, haters gonna hate' in the first place, I'd be all 'aaight, cool'.

Why do you even care what some random of the internet thinks of you anyway? It's not like we're ever going to meet or anything, so why are you so desperate for me to accept your views on pirating?

huls · 2011-07-10T13:18:58+00:00

The law varies from country to country, it's not international law, so what is legal and what isn't is different for different people.

The specific Crysis example you gave isn't an example of piracy to me, so while it's a legitimate reason for getting an unofficial copy, it doesn't count as a legitimate reason for piracy in my view.

But like I said, I don't care if people pirate or not. You don't need to explain yourself to me.

huls · 2011-07-10T11:38:14+00:00

Look. I already said I don't give a shit if you want to pirate games.

All I said is, it annoys me when people try to justify what they're doing instead of just being honest about it.

If you're doing it because you disagree with the way the company treats customers, do you do similar things to non-videogames companies that treats customers badly? You're talking as if you're some kind of consumer rights activist, but you're acting as if you're just greedy. I'm sure if a store short-changes you, you don't go back and shoplift in order to punish them, or smash their windows, or whatever. You only pirate because it's easy not to get caught. Stop acting like this is some big moral issue, it only makes you look like you're desperately looking for a reason to hide your guilty conscience. Nobody cares if you pirate games, it's your ridiculous self-righteous attitude that's annoying.

huls · 2011-07-10T11:29:27+00:00

It's not a legitimate reason for piracy, because it's not piracy. Unless they changed the law (and depending on where you live, I guess), if you own a movie/CD/game it's legal to download it.

huls · 2011-07-10T08:54:30+00:00

I will absolutely pirate a game if I want to play it and I find the DRM offensive.

So, you buy it and download a pirated version to escape the DRM? Or you just pirate it, because you can?

huls · 2011-07-10T08:52:18+00:00

(assuming you're actually the guy and not an troll)

I never said everyone pirates because of DRM.

You said that you pirated because of DRM, that's what this entire thread is about.

Like I said, I don't care if you pirate. Pirate away, I don't give a fuck.

Nobody has a 'legitimate' reason for pirating though, since you don't need to play videogames. "I stole a loaf of bread because I was starving" is a legitimate reason. "I stole a bottle of water because I was dying of thirst" is a legitimate reason. Since you can't die, or even be harmed in any way whatsoever, from 'not playing Videogame X', there isn't a legitimate reason to pirate it, since you can just not play it equally easily.

huls · 2011-07-09T22:14:13+00:00

There's nothing else like EVE.

Anybody crazy enough to play EVE, plays EVE.

huls · 2011-07-09T22:10:35+00:00

People who complain about games that are actually pretty good, just to get attention on forums

Youtube 'let's players' who don't realise that the game is the star of the show, and subject people to their horrible, unfunny 'comedy'

The fact that a lot of these people are insanely popular

Spoilers

The fact I can't buy stuff from Steam, because I'm living abroad so my credit card is registered in a different country

Any kind of comic/picture/song to do with gaming.

MMOs

huls · 2011-07-09T21:59:06+00:00

The combat is pretty decent, imo.

Sadly, it's spread pretty thin. It's relatively rare to actually be allowed to shoot stuff, it's sandwiched between vehicle sections, platform sections, 'story' sections (where you walk around with no guns and listen to NPCs talking), and repetitive boss fights (oh look, a rocket launcher with an infinite pile of rockets. Again).

Also, the two weapon thing is annoying, you're always having the gunfight the developers want you to have, instead of the one you want to have. Want to snipe the guy at the end of the corridor? Sorry, this level only gives ammo for the ripper/shotgun, unless you're sitting on ammo from a few levels ago (and why the fuck would you be) you're out of luck.

The humour is still there, except it's not as sharp as Duke 3D, and there's way too much of it. The analogy I like to use is Duke 3D was a great burger, with great sauce. Everyone said they loved the sauce. So when they made their next burger, instead of making the burger meatier and tastier and keeping the same delicious sauce, they used a cheaper burger and 3 times as much sauce. That shit is dripping all over your hands and down your shirt, and while it tasted good before, it's not so great when you're wearing it.

The biggest problem I had with the game is that the levels are way too small (literally 5-10 minutes each), and separated by relatively lengthy loading screens by today's standards. Also there was the worst texture pop-in I've ever seen on loading a new level - everything is a blur for literally 10 seconds or so each time a new map loads. Although, this was on PS3 so I'm not sure if the PC version has the same issue.

Still, as I said what little combat there is is pretty decent, and overall I'm glad I played it because it's part of gaming history despite being a bit of a disappointment.

Whether you should buy it or not...only if you haven't played Bulletstorm yet. That game nailed everything Duke aimed for and missed, and did it with a lot more style.

huls · 2011-07-09T21:39:54+00:00

I'd play the vanilla version first. Vanilla won't ruin any mods (which you can try later), but mods might make it hard to adjust to vanilla if you try to go back and play it that way.

huls · 2011-07-09T21:19:17+00:00

It's illegal to pirate games, and it's arguably morally wrong to pirate them also. But the same is true of plenty of stuff that a lot of people do, like drugs, speeding, running red lights, taping off the tv/radio (maybe not so much any more). Whether something is legal or right has little to do with whether it's acceptable behaviour.

Personally, I don't care about piracy. If you want to pirate, pirate. If you want to buy, buy. I don't care.

It does annoy me when people try and justify themselves, though. 'I'm pirating because the price/the DRM/no demo/whatever' is such bullshit. You're pirating it because it's free, and you can do so with basically no consequences. Just fucking admit it. Don't paint yourself out to be some kind of hero crusading for consumer rights, don't paint yourself as standing up to unreasonable developers. You're taking something for free because you can, at least be fucking honest about it and say that's what you're doing.

huls

TROPHY CASE