PC piracy and gta4

[Vert101]

 

Market needs piracy. More people are playing the game(original or not), better for publisher and developer. It's all about popularity. They would rather like to have milions of fans playing game than few thousands

Nah... they would rather not have people playing pirated versions of this game at all. Believe me when I say this "If they could take your home for settlement... because you tried before you buyed... they would"

 

this is the form that the gaming industry is taking... even if you had every intention of buying the original game.

Edited January 19, 2009 by Vert101

[Frakkon]

They are low becaose most of the people have already bougth it for consoles.

ok so would a cross console release of this game have been better? PC gamers are still going be hit by crappy ports and extreme DRM measures.

 

I'd like to see the PC gaming industry get back on it's feet. I mean FFS we're the ones that made Devs what they are today.

 

we shouldn't have to take this crap.

Once again not starting anything but this is NOT a crappy port. Anybody that can run it PROPERLY would have no choice but to agree. Needs a little polishing but far far from a crappy port. This will be argued for a long time but if people get to see it run on the right machine they would change their tune. (But only if they owned the machine). That inlies the problem, everybody wants to play it but they cant so they are mad.

 

My PC wasnt doing it as high as I wanted so I bumped it up and have been loving it since.

Lol my system is running it 40+ fps and i cleary see this is a sh*t port.

 

Lots of stutter for no reason, sh*t shadows, on console no one complain those things..

 

Its not a bad port. Its a sh*tt one

[Frakkon]

Soon someone will release an engine like GTA4 open source and everyone whose got a PC will stop buying games altogether because we wont have to.

 

People do like Second Life and that's free.

 

Second life is a very bugged trash; also all the 'juicy' (if there is any on this game) is on paid things, and all things cost a lot. Also you need skill in 3d modelling to do anything on the SL.

 

Its an dying game, let it roll down.

[Toxcity]

GTA IV isn't a rubbish port.. as siad earlier in the thread if you have the hardware you can run it fine. As with most software it needs a few patchs but they are in the making (hope so).

 

I don't think piracy is killing PC gaming mainly because you can still pirate games on the consoles. And I think you will find the if PC gaming died then consoles will be just as easily hack to pirate games.

 

The issues is with Securom and the game developers. Firstly, we all seem to get crappy Xbox ports which still have the A B X Y buttons in the menus and so on. Why don't people make games like they used to?

 

Since Xbox/PS games are made on PC why not create the PC version of the game first and then port it to consoles? It will be far easier.

 

Makes me so angry.. console n00bs are taking over the world.

[Vert101]

They are low becaose most of the people have already bougth it for consoles.

ok so would a cross console release of this game have been better? PC gamers are still going be hit by crappy ports and extreme DRM measures.

 

I'd like to see the PC gaming industry get back on it's feet. I mean FFS we're the ones that made Devs what they are today.

 

we shouldn't have to take this crap.

Once again not starting anything but this is NOT a crappy port. Anybody that can run it PROPERLY would have no choice but to agree. Needs a little polishing but far far from a crappy port. This will be argued for a long time but if people get to see it run on the right machine they would change their tune. (But only if they owned the machine). That inlies the problem, everybody wants to play it but they cant so they are mad.

 

My PC wasnt doing it as high as I wanted so I bumped it up and have been loving it since.

Lol my system is running it 40+ fps and i cleary see this is a sh*t port.

 

Lots of stutter for no reason, sh*t shadows, on console no one complain those things..

 

Its not a bad port. Its a sh*tt one

yeah... welcome to the club hero. Most PC gamers that have wicked sick awesome systems are experiencing problems with this game. Not just pirates. A lot of legit users are feeling the hurt... it's not a minority thing.

[CptPusheen]

Lots of stutter for no reason, sh*t shadows, on console no one complain those things..

Check out new ultimate tweak @ http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=386262 Now you can have smooth shadows and few other improvements:) But let's back on topic. In my opinion "try b4 you buy" is a good atitiude but developers seem to forget about it because they don't release any demos and people are forced to check the game by getting pirated copy.

[Vert101]

 

Lots of stutter for no reason, sh*t shadows, on console no one complain those things..

Check out new ultimate tweak @ http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=386262 Now you can have smooth shadows and few other improvements:) But let's back on topic. In my opinion "try b4 you buy" is a good atitiude but developers seem to forget about it because they don't release any demos and people are forced to check the game by getting pirated copy.

yeah... try before you buy is a good way to lose your house

 

and just remember R* was just in a legal battle with EA games... if they can take your house for collateral for pirating their game, they would prolly be way happy hey...

Edited January 19, 2009 by Vert101

[CptPusheen]

Lots of stutter for no reason, sh*t shadows, on console no one complain those things..

Check out new ultimate tweak @ http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=386262 Now you can have smooth shadows and few other improvements:) But let's back on topic. In my opinion "try b4 you buy" is a good atitiude but developers seem to forget about it because they don't release any demos and people are forced to check the game by getting pirated copy.

yeah... try before you buy is a good way to lose your house

I'm talking about gaming industry. If developer release demo I can download it and check if it fits my taste, how good It runs on my machine etc. but what to do if there is no demo available?

[Vert101]

 

Lots of stutter for no reason, sh*t shadows, on console no one complain those things..

Check out new ultimate tweak @ http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=386262 Now you can have smooth shadows and few other improvements:) But let's back on topic. In my opinion "try b4 you buy" is a good atitiude but developers seem to forget about it because they don't release any demos and people are forced to check the game by getting pirated copy.

yeah... try before you buy is a good way to lose your house

I'm talking about gaming industry. If developer release demo I can download it and check if it fits my taste, how good It runs on my machine etc. but what to do if there is no demo available?

I know what you're saying man... and I can understand it... however Devs Don't

 

With Devs you generally get what they give you when they feel like it. I mean look at EA and Blizzard.

Edited January 19, 2009 by Vert101

[RSANtilles]

I just check out gameplay footage on Youtube these days, quicker than downloading demos which, I agree they dont seem to release demos as much ass they used to, magazine CD's and DVD's used to do them all back in the 90s.

 

There was an article recently in The Times (yes The Times...pink pages) that Apple were stripping DRM from iTunes, now hopefully the software industry will follow suit and we can all play without all this securom crap.

 

My GTA IV was from D2D and I still suffered the same errors and slowdowns as the majority in this forum. Thankfully I upgraded to Vista x64 and now plays a lot better than my 32 bit OS, which I shouldnt really have been using on my 64 bit system

 

When I was high school in the early 80s I remember kids at school gathering in the evening computer club with their Spectrums and C64's and copying cassettes of software, so even way back then it was going on, did it kill the industry? No. And the games back then used less memory than some of my regular emails take nowadays, heck the entire mem capacity of the Spectrum was 128k hehe, easily send that in an email.

 

Then in the late 80s/ early 90s it was still going on with the little blue floppies for Amiga and Atari ST's then the early CD Rom PCs had massive collections of pirated stuff on 1 CD (not DVD yet). Again, did it hurt the industry? Perhaps but it still grew and grew into Playstation, Saturn, Dreamcast, Gamecube etc etc and the DVD games started coming out, and pirated stuff was s till out there, car boot sales mainly, you ouldnt miss the crowds round that guys stall each Sunday morning...not that it interested me, I favoured legit stuff, besides the wife would kill me.

 

IMHO The only way to beat piracy is to stop charging us a massive fortune for new games and make old games free when theyre no longer available. I believe they call it abandonware for the old stuff. £5-10 for a game would satisfy most kids/adults and I bet theyd still make a profit.

I mean £30-£40 for a new game is beyond ridiculous, some games are hardly even worth it, I bought several new games late last year and they were complete in a few days casual playing with little replayability. Im not big on the online side of things.

 

Anyway with the current economic crunch I have a feeling theyll have no choice but to follow HMV's example of dropping prices on most DVD's and music.

[Vert101]

removing DRM from the music industry is one thing... but removing DRM from the gaming industry, for many game Devs, would be like choking on chicken bones.

 

ah well... at least we can dream hey?

 

Night guys... maybe I'll hear your thoughts tomorrow

[CaptainDingo]

I've ranted about this in many places, so I'll just do it here too.

 

Piracy will rise in PC gaming for a few reasons:

 

1: More developers "lie" about their games' system requirements (which many could say GTA4 is guilty of, since look at all we've had to do just to make this game playable!) which forces people to download the game to see if it even runs at all before potentially wasting $50 on a headache. The fact that more and more companies decide they "don't need to" release demos only enhances the chance their game will be pirated on release. They dig their own grave here.

 

2: As DRM becomes more and more draconian, people will continue to pirate games more (not less) because the pirated versions run better and don't limit your installations or treat you like a thief. Think about it this way: Who is the DRM actually punishing when the only people who have to deal with DRM are legal buyers? Hmmm...

 

3: As support for games gets dropped immediately after hitting retail, we'll always see more games being pirated. Not to mention, games that release and the developer vanishes off the face of the earth are even easier to pirate because they never patch their game, so no new cracks ever have to be made. GTA4 is looking to be one of those "cash and dash" games; we've gotten one patch and it didn't really do anything.

 

The fact of the matter is, piracy will always exist. But all DRM does, believe it or not, is increase piracy.

 

And then there's probably the smaller chunk, I'd say 15-20% of people who pirate because they're in poverty and can't afford any games. Kind of like a starving person stealing a loaf of bread, I have no problem with people from poor countries or just poor areas of good countries pirating. Their lives are probably hard enough as it is, if they want to indulge in some entertainment, I won't tell them they're wrong.

 

But here's a funny and true image that is semi-related to the discussion...

 

[CptPusheen]

If security system is told to be safe it's just raging hackers. They like challenges and harder systems seem to be cracked faster

[GTA_XP]

When pple read those issues and performances trouble, pple will pirate

the game to save their money for an unfinished bugged game.

[nvr2fst]

 

I've ranted about this in many places, so I'll just do it here too.

 

Piracy will rise in PC gaming for a few reasons:

 

1: More developers "lie" about their games' system requirements (which many could say GTA4 is guilty of, since look at all we've had to do just to make this game playable!) which forces people to download the game to see if it even runs at all before potentially wasting $50 on a headache. The fact that more and more companies decide they "don't need to" release demos only enhances the chance their game will be pirated on release. They dig their own grave here.

 

2: As DRM becomes more and more draconian, people will continue to pirate games more (not less) because the pirated versions run better and don't limit your installations or treat you like a thief. Think about it this way: Who is the DRM actually punishing when the only people who have to deal with DRM are legal buyers? Hmmm...

 

3: As support for games gets dropped immediately after hitting retail, we'll always see more games being pirated. Not to mention, games that release and the developer vanishes off the face of the earth are even easier to pirate because they never patch their game, so no new cracks ever have to be made. GTA4 is looking to be one of those "cash and dash" games; we've gotten one patch and it didn't really do anything.

 

The fact of the matter is, piracy will always exist. But all DRM does, believe it or not, is increase piracy.

 

And then there's probably the smaller chunk, I'd say 15-20% of people who pirate because they're in poverty and can't afford any games. Kind of like a starving person stealing a loaf of bread, I have no problem with people from poor countries or just poor areas of good countries pirating. Their lives are probably hard enough as it is, if they want to indulge in some entertainment, I won't tell them they're wrong.

 

But here's a funny and true image that is semi-related to the discussion...

 

Absolutely NO excuse for pirating! Because your poor? Ok everybody that is poor can have it for free. While we are at it let them steal cars and they should be allowed to keep them too. TVs, MP3 players, movies and so on.....hell your poor everything should be free. If that were the case everybody would want to be poor. Where would the incentive be to work and upkeep a productive life?

 

This is allready going on with welfare. Why work.....when day given it for fwee!

 

 

Think before you speak.

[nvr2fst]

When pple read those issues and performances trouble, pple will pirate

the game to save their money for an unfinished bugged game.

When people read those issues and performance troubles..........THEY SHOULDNT BUY THE GAME!! Rockstar or any other company are not a public service group! "Its a bad game......Now I have a right to pirate it" Get Real. They OWE you nothing! Worst excuse for pirating I ever heard.

[Neon25]

 

And then there's probably the smaller chunk, I'd say 15-20% of people who pirate because they're in poverty and can't afford any games. Kind of like a starving person stealing a loaf of bread, I have no problem with people from poor countries or just poor areas of good countries pirating

WTF.

 

Games are a unnecesary LUXURY, you don't NEED THEM TO LIVE.

 

Besides- if you have a computer capable of running newest games, you're not poor. And even if you are and bought a new computer by sacrificing so much, it's up to you to earn money to buy games. If I buy a Ferrari and it breaks, it's up to me to buy spare parts(expensive as hell).

 

And if the game is good enough you can buy it after 6,7 months- what's the problem with that? It will be like half the price or less.

Edited January 19, 2009 by Neon25

[DML]

What is this doing in this forum?

 

How poor of a port GTA IV is, or how much of a pathetic sellout company Rockstar has become, has nothing to do with piracy. So why bullsh*t and waste everybodys' time? All this thread is doing is humoring Rockstar, Lucas Arts, Take2, EA, Eidos, Epic, and all the other twattyboy publishers and developers who cry "PIRACY!!!" before taking it up the ass from console manufacturers. Seriously, they eat this sh*t up...and actually believe it...so don't feed them by buying into their putrid sewer sh*t.

 

It's money. The PC version would be better, would sell MUCH better, and would have even more fans, if it was release before (or at the same time as) the console version.

 

How slowly does that have to be constantly spelled out?

[z3ro7]

Crappy Ports, DRM is killing PC gaming. Not piracy. The developers and publisher just want to hide their sorry ass and blame piracy that is killing PC and that is totally wrong.

i agree

[algenon_iii]

And then there's probably the smaller chunk, I'd say 15-20% of people who pirate because they're in poverty and can't afford any games. Kind of like a starving person stealing a loaf of bread, I have no problem with people from poor countries or just poor areas of good countries pirating

WTF.

 

Games are a unnecesary LUXURY, you don't NEED THEM TO LIVE.

 

Besides- if you have a computer capable of running newest games, you're not poor. And even if you are and bought a new computer by sacrificing so much, it's up to you to earn money to buy games. If I buy a Ferrari and it breaks, it's up to me to buy spare parts(expensive as hell).

 

And if the game is good enough you can buy it after 6,7 months- what's the problem with that? It will be like half the price or less.

Yes, exactly!

 

In the UK a xbox can be bought new for around £130 (less than £80 on ebay), that's the price of a mid-range graphics card. GTA IV for the xbox can be bought on ebay for £10.

 

If someone can afford a PC "good enough" (minimum specs) to play GTA IV then they could easily afford to get a cheap basic/2nd hand PC for web, word processing plus a xbox plus 2nd hand games instead.

[CaptainDingo]

I still stand on all my statements. Good games with constant support sell copies, even with little or no copy protection.

 

Games like Sins of a Solar Empire and Blizzard games prove this.

 

I have no sympathy for developers whose games are pirated en mass. 99 times out of 100, it was their own doing.

 

That being said, I bought GTA4.

[nico_bellic]

All I can say is piracy will never end when there is still 3rd class or even 4th class country.

And in my country, you can get console games for only $0.5. Mass piracy console games. Same goes with PC games. How about that?

 

And dev must release more and more demo before releasing a game with TRUE requirements.

[The Horror Is Alive]

If piracy is killing GTAIV, then R* brought it on themselves.

[CaptainDingo]

 

Absolutely NO excuse for pirating! Because your poor? Ok everybody that is poor can have it for free. While we are at it let them steal cars and they should be allowed to keep them too. TVs, MP3 players, movies and so on.....hell your poor everything should be free. If that were the case everybody would want to be poor. Where would the incentive be to work and upkeep a productive life?

 

This is allready going on with welfare. Why work.....when day given it for fwee!

 

Think before you speak.

 

 

No, you think before you speak. You're awfully rude. Not everyone who is on social aid is capable of helping themselves. You can't generalize a group of people like that based on a few bad stories of lazy people exploiting these systems.

 

You're using illogical slippery slope reasoning to put words into my mouth and make my argument look ridiculous based on things I never said. Show me where I said people who are poor should steal cars, TVs, MP3 players, and movies. I said if they want to download a video game, download some virtual infinitely copyable data to their hard drives, I'm willing to look the other way and get along with my life rather than act like I'm so much better than they are and like they're scum of the earth. I guarantee you're no angel either, nor are any of us.

 

Should people be able to steal a car? Of course not. You're being as ridiculous as that "You wouldn't steal car, you wouldn't shoplift, etc. so why would you download music" propaganda that tries to make us think physical theft is the same thing as piracy.

 

Theft involves stealing something. Piracy is making a copy of data, nothing is "stolen" in the process. The only theft that occurs is a legally-transcribed theft, not an undisputed theft like if I physically take something from you. I'm not saying that makes piracy 100% okay, because of course it's still illegal, but you're taking it too far by saying making a copy of a data file is as bad as going into a parking lot, breaking into someone's car and driving it away. In actual theft, you have one apple, I take one apple from you, and you now have no apple. In piracy, you have one apple, and I make a copy of that apple and now we both have an apple.

 

The game industry doesn't lose much money to piracy at all, because barely anyone who regularly pirates their games has any intention of buying them to begin with. So even if you stopped pirates from pirating, the developers won't make any more money because pirates often never had any intent to buy to begin with. Nico proved that point just now.

 

 

And in my country, you can get console games for only $0.5. Mass piracy console games. Same goes with PC games. How about that?

 

They largely invent their "this is how much money we've lost to piracy" numbers by looking at how many times their software has been downloaded and multiplying that by retail price. They never take into account the fact that most of these people wouldn't buy these games if the option to pirate was no longer there. They'd just suck it up and play something else, or nothing.

 

Having a debate like this wasn't the reason I came to this forum anyways, so I'll just leave it at that.

Edited January 19, 2009 by CaptainDingo

[Stickymaddness]

 

You wouldn't steal a handbag. You wouldn't steal a car. You wouldn't steal a baby. You wouldn't shoot a policeman. And then steal his helmet. You wouldn't go to the toilet in his helmet. And then send it to the policeman's grieving widow. And then steal it again! Downloading films is stealing. If you do it, you will face the consequences.

 

 

 

[cold fusion 33]

 

If that were the case everybody would want to be poor. Where would the incentive be to work and upkeep a productive life?

 

This is allready going on with welfare. Why work.....when day given it for fwee!

Sounds a bit like communism to me .

[5m0k3y]

Piracy is not killing PC gaming, the reason is this:

 

Game developers claim they are losing sales due to piracy, but in most cases the people who download pirated games are people who would not normally buy games anyway, due to financial (or other) reasons. So the devs can't claim loss of sales as these people wouldn't be buying their product in the first place.

 

You can't lose money you do not already have. <- Logic

 

As the old saying goes; "don't count your chickens before they've hatched".

 

The only way they would lose a sale due to piracy is if someone who intends to buy the game, gets hold of a pitated copy, realises that it's a piss-poor, buggy attempt at a title and decides against spending their money on it.

 

 

What is really killing the PC gaming industry? Developers and their half finished, buggy, patch-it-later games!

[noVa]

multiplayer is the one of the best DRM, good multiplayer with a serial key protection = people will buy the game.

 

majority of the games i buy are for the multiplayer modes.

[algenon_iii]

multiplayer is the one of the best DRM, good multiplayer with a serial key protection = people will buy the game.

 

majority of the games i buy are for the multiplayer modes.

Trouble is R* with a mega-bucks budget seem to have done a worse job than the MTA crew as cheating is rife apparently.

[p7ast1k]

if i'm completely honest, i admit, i downloaded the game....

 

but only after preordering it

 

even today, i still use the no-cd because i h8 DRM and activation crap

 

i do however slightly regret lining Rockstars pockets for such a sub-standard console port and have not played it for weeks now because of the sh*tty performance even with resolution/details reduced