Malfador Games Pirated
 

I don't know if anyone can do anything about this or whether this is even news, but I'd just like to say that I've been in Malaysia on holiday and I've been able to find pirated Versions of games like SEIV, Starfury and Dominions 2 on retail shelves here.

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I saw SE4 for sale for a buck when I was in East Asia.

They had pictures and a description from some other game on it.

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Everything is available for a buck, in those places. From photoshop, to the latest games, to operating systems. Im actually supprised that smaller games like these are worth peoples times, when they could be cranking off a hundred coppies of a more popular game.

Not really much to be done about it.

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<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That is how those people do things. What they can't buy they steal, then resell.

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People will steal anything ain't nailed down or painted.

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people? which people? i wouldn't, i don't think anyone i know on these forums would...

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I know that when I was in Korea back in 87-88, I could go down to the nearby town and get copies of just about any game they had for the Commodore 64 I had at the time. But they were more than a dollar, IIRC. I think most of the games sold for about $5.

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Well it was more expensive making copies back in 87-88. Esp. if you buy CDs in bulk, you can make copies of programs for pennies each.

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<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Poeple who have no value for other people and the hard work they put into something. They steal something that is not theirs, copy it, and then make money off of selling it to others. These people are parasites and need to be rooted out and killed like deased vermon.

This is why I am a big advocate of conquring the world. If we ruled the worlds, then people who would dare pirate SE IV or any product of Shranels would simply be made to dissappear. Although some day they might find their remains, rest assured they would never be able to identify them.

Then agian, if this was your only means to feed your family, what can do? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

[ January 13, 2004, 05:03: Message edited by: Atrocities ]

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<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Like amazon.com ripping off their customers via third-party resellers? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

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SE4 and then SE5 should have additional copywright protection measures ie having to turn to page x and write a word randomly chosen from the text - this would make it harder to simply sell the stolen copy )(i saw that done in elite II) unless they have the booklet they can play onwards.

Other suggestions are welcome but its a big shame so many games are pirated. Its illegal and i agree 100% we should pay for quality games.

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Paul1980au
The week point with the Page x Paragraph Y Third word is that they can include a single sheet of paper with all of them.

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<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Actually, I would like to know how much 10-pack of CD's cost in US? In Finland 10-pack CD-R costs about 9 € (~11,25$). 10-pack CD-RW is about 15 €.

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<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">i think he meant chosen from the whole manual.

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narf you are correct.
It would take a little bit of effort but it is certainly doable. 100 code words would be more than enough to make it playable.

Beyond that they could scan the manual in and include it on the cd.

It is not a pretty world out there.

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<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, back then, it would have been 5 1/4" discs. Cd's were still fairly new back then, and I can't remember if they were using cd r/w back then, not that I could have afforded to have one even if Commodore did make one. I know hard drives were fairly expensive back then, usually costing several hundred dollars.

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<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You can easily buy 50 CD-Rs of the highest speed for 5 dollars US (on sale, but they are always on sale somewhere). CD-RWs tend to be more expensive, but not by much. Now go to Asia where prices tend to be lower in impoverished nations...

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<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Oh hell no... those are the most annoying schemes ever! All that they do is piss off legitimate customers. All a dedicated pirate has to do is run it multiple times and gather all of the words it uses, placing them and the locations in a text file. Or even better, just scan the manual into PDF format and away you go. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif Though I should have read the rest of the thread before posting this... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ January 13, 2004, 14:35: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

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since you know it is going to be pirated... why waste money and effort in that area ( talking se series scale )

Reg Key for Online games works quite well for the multiplayer games....

But solo play... leave it alone...

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The only way we're gonna stop piracy is to get into the area of the world, in force, and wipe them out. It's not just software losing cash, it's every industry that can ship to South East Asia.

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wow. thats certainly ONE solution. there is quite a bit of piracy at home, too, you know. industry estimates are 50% of all games are pirated.. thats based on their guesswork comparing sales of hintboks to sales of the game its self. I would guess that its probably significantly more than 50% domestically. Im sure its in the high 90s, overseas.

It isnt just Asia, though. Its also Eastern Europe, the Mid-East, and India. I dont know about Africa, but I would guess that its the same there, too.

Guess we are going to need one of those black-hole radiation bursts from the thread next door. Maybe it isnt too late for me to get work in NORAD.

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If Sahib has to pirate games to feed his family than maybe that country in question if over populated. Maybe a world where a lot of people can't work to make a living is over populated and "Be fruitful and multiply" should be re examined. Does god want mindless followers, or followers with good sense. Anyway different threads, different solutions, Atrocities for Overlord 2004!
Cthulhu doesn't want followers with good taste, Cthulhu wants followers that taste good!
Sorry to take the OT etrance ramp.

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overpopulation? nope. we could feed everyone in the world from Canada and the US.

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Or from just the US. Not sure on the amount of arable land in Canada, as a lot of it is in rather frigid regions that are not suitable for crop growing, but there might be enough there to feed the world just from farms in Canada (assuming that more farms were built to support the increased export need http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ).

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well, if you divide the population of the world by the US's land mass, you do get 2 acre sections which is enough for a family of 4, but the US has deserts, so i included Canada to be sure.

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I just think (although there's nothing I can do about it) that if a population is that desperate to provide for it's self that they have to resort to piracy of other countries or persons software,movies, and music, that there is something really wrong with that country. I'm thinking Indonesia here or maybe Cambodia. Anyway what can the victim country do? How many times do you say "Please Stop it" before doing something stronger. I work for a CD duplicator and we were doing a big run of some Russian CD's not knowing they were all covers of popular rock songs. We got in trouble although we didn't know what the songs were. "Hotel Kalifornia" doesn't sound the same in Russian.

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<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Do you really think so? Or is it just no one has the will to do it.

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<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Do you really think so? Or is it just no one has the will to do it. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It all amounts to he same thing, if your fatalism is only sufficient.

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one of my philosophies is 'never give up'. something can be done about it. like increasing the resources of the citicens of those countries.

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I'm with Narf on that, we shouldn't give up because the task seems beyond our ability. No task is.

For commerical goods, military force is fully justified. Just start pulling up Piracy reports or call up a shipping company that runs container ships in South East Asia or the Eastern Med.

On the Internet, we got a number of options. CDKey checkers that compare with an Online dbase (but those can be cracked and someone forbid if that dbase was leaked!), reducing the speed of the internet to something redicously low (14.4 anyone?), or redesigning both Operating Systems and the Internet itself to prevent it (and why not kill spam one time).

Then CD Burners. They made that Copy Proof CD, but as CNN reported, that's bypassed by a single key. Why not design copy-proof programs? Programs that'll self destruct or void itself if you try to copy it where the programmers and developers alone know the special codes to install patches.

Or Perhaps the Pregnancy Prevention approach and use a wide variety and combination of prevention methods together to reduce it down.

It also wouldn't hurt to setup a digital privateers' guild on the global level to hunt down these people and shut them down for good.

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<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That is just ridiculous. Trying to fight the tide of technological progress will only get you run over. Noone would go for such a vast reduction in their internet speed, even regular dialup Users! Well, surely there are a few kooks (or however you spell that...) that would, but not many.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif MS tried that, and look where it got them... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif But more seriously, all that would do is cause more and more pirates to go to free, open source OS like Linux et all. You can not redesign the internet to prevent it, unless you want to give up basic rights and have it patrolled draconianly (even by programs).

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It is impossible to make a copy-proof CD. Any method can and has been cracked.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Because that won't work.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Impossible. If you can read data, you can copy it. There is no way a CD (or any other realistic medium from which you read the data) can tell it is being copied instead of being read normally.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Umm... so you have to call them and have them come install updates to your program? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif Reverse-engineering can and does undo all of the anti-piracy stuff built into programs. Go ahead and write in the need for special codes. Someone will just remove that from the program. Unless you want to make your program run 24/7, which will never fly for the vast majority of software applications, and never for games.

[ January 14, 2004, 03:18: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

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some of you didn't seem to notice this:
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">crime tends to follow low-income areas. why? because they have to feed their families somehow. and no job prospects means depressed. and depressed means anger. and blah blah blah dark side.

so, help those areas acheive prosperity and democracy.

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That's harder than you would think.

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Also copy protections should not break the law itself. I am allowed to make back up copies. If I cannot then perhaps this is not the product for me.

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<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">i didn't say i thought it would be easy, just that it would be the right answer.

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The problem with computer piracy is that it is not limited to low income Groups. The problem is with the core nature of the internet.

The net was designed to be open source, free for all to use and add to. But the law and human nature operate in the opposite direction.

Increasing the quality of life would help in reducing some of this, but not all of it. The underlying problem is the net's dual nature. Secrets and Stealth vs Access and Information. Sure, you can hide on the net, but that is a mere illusion.

Fyron, my post was to merely point out how insane prevention is, but avenues that can be taken. Like an STD, 100% prevention cannot be achieved unless you simply don't do it.

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Creative developments in copyright protection will help to make it harder for the pirates and help the underlying bottom line for software companies the alternative is to do nothing which is not such a good idea to keep creative game programmers in business.

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I have not seen any game companies go out of business from piracy. Sure, it reduces profits, but the vast majority of people that pirate a game would not have paid for it in the first place, so it is not really much in the way of lost profits.

Unlike a STD, software pirates are sentient beings and very ingenious. Copy protection and such has always been breakable, has always been broken, and will always be breakable.

[ January 15, 2004, 03:49: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

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Well, I worked at a major software company for 10 years, so I have some opinions on this...

1) Many software companies have gone out of business due to piracy and not just because of lost sales but also because people get it before it's released, say it sucks and it keeps people from buying who would have bought the game (and hated it possibly. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif )

2) There is no way to keep a game from being pirated. The company I worked for spent millions to 'copy protect' our games and it never worked. It's stupid to even try. Instead of spending money on that spend it on making a better game.

3) There are many games that I thought I'd hate that I downloaded just out of boredom and ended up liking and purchased. Many of the pirates actually go out and buy the games after they've pirated and finished them because they were so good.

4) Software companies don't understand their customers worth a crap. Lets be honest, how many 10-15 year old kids have $500 a year to buy 10 games? Not many at all. Games are too expensive for the core demographic they are designed for and then add on a $13-15 a month fee for the newer games and you've priced your customers out of the market, all but forcing them to pirate some of the games they want to play simply because they can't afford them.

5) Many games don't have demos, which means you're going to pay $50 to see if you even like a game. I just dropped $55 on Horizons and I find it hugely boring. I wasted $55 on a coaster. If they had a demo I wouldn't have wasted my money.

Game companies need to not waste their time on anti-piracy software and simply make better games and people will buy them. The most successful companies are the most pirated (Lucas Arts, Electronic Arts, Blizzard) and they're still making a crapload of money simply because they make QUALITY games that people WANT to play.

In my opinion, 90% of the games released every year are crap. They're nothing but technology demos on how pretty graphics can be with no thought behind them. No story, no challenge, no emotion, but simply a point and click kill fest of monotony and repetativeness.

When Halo is the 'Best Game of the Year', things suck. It's not a good game. It's a pretty game, it's technology is impressive, but I was never challenged in it. I never had to out think a puzzle or achieve anything spectacular. I didn't feel like HOLY CRAP when I beat the game. Max Payne 2 was light years better than Halo was. It had a great story, great level design, great easter eggs and an amazing conclusion to the game.

Space Empires succeeds because it's not a clickable screen saver like the games that are out now, it's a struggle. A challenge that is always changing and has many different solutions. It's emotional from the beginning to the end, you feel loss when your ships die, you feel great when you kill someone off. THAT is a game and THAT is what the pirates will actually pay for after they've pirated it, not to mention the word of mouth the pirate gives to all of his/her friends about how great the game is.

That's how I found Space Empires, from a pirate talking about it. Otherwise, I never would have heard about it.

*hops off the soapbox*
- takr

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Copy protection isn't just futile- it can cost you sales if done badly. Case in point are the schemes that cost 10-20 FPS in performance. This gives -everyone- an incentive to crack the game. And it always is.

CD checks can be bad too. SF's for example has the auto-run always triggering the installer..annoying. It also costs laptop Users power unless they dedicate a lot of HD space to a copy of the game cD.

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<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Do you really think so? Or is it just no one has the will to do it. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Malaysia used to have a big problem with pirated Versions of movies on VCD. You could walk down any street in Kuala Lumpur and see stalls selling them on the roadside.

This year, I find that it is no longer possible to find pirated VCDs on the street. Why? Because the government decided to get tough on them. Not to placate Western governments and companies, but because the VCD pirates were getting too powerful and arrogant, threatening the families of police officers, burning their private cars, breaking into police compound to retrieve confiscated CDs and copying equipment. So, yes, I believe that it is a "will" problem.

On the other hand, I find that pirated DVDs and software are still commonplace.

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Take a look at the film industry. People pirate from the preview screenings, post it Online, and the film gets trashed whether its good or not. The Film industry admits this is costing them money and they are actually considering cutting out test screenings and early screenings along with limiting trailers, film scripts, and even release dates.

How long until this filters into the software and gaming industries?

We got the recording industry lawsuit happy already. lol

The fact is, piracy promotes one thing and that is the isolation of developers from customers. Developers withdraw and hide and keep more and more secrets, fearful of releasing any information.

btw, Once again Fyron, you missed my analogy.

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Sure I did. I was just pointing out that the analogy is flawed because diseases do not have the means to actively develop new ways to defeat protections.

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HiRider II: http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin...3;t=010717;p=3 note, read from bottom to top.
HiRider II: Even games sold only on the internet get pirated where you live.
NekoTonya: Jealous?? : p
NekoTonya: The Boards put newer Posts at the top
HiRider II: yes
HiRider II: older post at the bottom
HiRider II: it forces you to not scroll down to view new Posts
NekoTonya: Me brb
HiRider II: So, if you were to want to tell them why everything is pirated where you live, what would you say?
NekoTonya: Back
NekoTonya: What would I say?
NekoTonya: Well alot of games sold in the US/UK arent sold where I live.
NekoTonya: In order to satisfy Malaysian gamers
NekoTonya: Pirating is the only way.
NekoTonya: Plus, import taxes
NekoTonya: I'm not quite sure we'd want to fork out 200++ for a single original game.
HiRider II: See, most people in the USA and Canada can't understand what it's like living somewhere with a bad economy and low value money.
NekoTonya: I don't blame them. The education system does not focus to foreign countries.

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<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">not actively, but they can reactively.

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Very solid point there. Our education system certainly does not focus on forign affairs or world politics. Even having sucessfully completed it, I am not entirely sure WHAT our education system focuses on.

I AM entirely sure that most people I meet are insufficiently educated, forigners included in this sweeping generalization. Most non-US residents seem to have a better handle on world events, though they seem to eat up just as much propoganda about the driving factors behind those events as do US residents.

Im not sure what that has to do with anything, but those guys have a legitimate point. Its not the evil people pirating games, is a world economy working against them. Its not like there are a whole lot of sales being lost to those pirated games. On the other hand.

This could be an arguement for taking down barriers to free trade, and bringing affordable goods to more areas of the world. That would end up in increased revenues in the end... But of course anti-globalists are the new humanitatians, and they will tell you that taking down barriers to free trade is just an excuse to abuse forign workforces and further weaken the economies of smaller nations.

believe what you like, but its sort of a religious debat at this point. not much to be gained for arguing either side.

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<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">what we need is free trade and global standars, but not globalized standards, for workforces, if you get the difference. the idea of a world government scares me. why? because it would eliminate competition in the government area...and we all know how well a monopoly works. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

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That's an interesting point raised by Jake Monroe re games only available in pirated Version.
I have to say that if I could I would happily pirate F1 2003 for the PS2 and I would not feel the slightest bit guilty about it. Why? Because Sony has chosen not to release the game in NA and not only that have secured a licensing agreement with F1 that ensures no one else can make an F1 PS2 game.

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Actually... PS2 games (as well as X-Box and Gamecube) can be and are actively pirated every day over the internet and with cd/dvd burners... going with an easily copied medium for console games (as compared to game cartridges) is the downfall of what used to be hard to pirate games. Using these pirated copies requires altering your console system a bit with a "mod chip," but that is not too hard.

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HiRider II: See, most people in the USA and Canada can't understand what it's like living somewhere with a bad economy and low value money.
NekoTonya: I don't blame them. The education system does not focus to foreign countries.


But it is also ironic that this generalization is in itself a generalization. I do hope that your education system does not paint everyone from north america as well off with a good economy. That is just not true.

The way I see it is that if your living in a good economy or bad economy and you have a computer , internet and you have the personal time to commit to playing large time involvement games as SEIV then you should have the money to purchase the said game.
The question of availability and ease of purchase should dictate where you purchase the said game from.