Hurlshort

It would have been pretty hard to predict that my condo would lose 75% of its value in two years. There was no precedent for that. Heck, if people could sell these properties anywhere near what they paid for them, we wouldn't be in this pickle.

Who ever said you would? As a matter of fact, games have barely increased in price over their history. What was once $49.99 is now what, $59.99? I've lost track of the amount of times I've seen publishers and developers make that claim. So you are saying that you have read that were it not for piracy, prices would have somehow decreased since the 90's / early 2000's? Weird. Yeah, many, many times over the years, I'm pretty surprised you haven't Can you maybe find some links for us? I'm with Gfted, I've never heard that claim. I've heard them complain about development costs rising due to piracy, but I've never heard that the price is being shifted to the consumers.

Ah, the good old entitlement argument, I knew you'd show up eventually. Orchomene, I skimmed your overly long post and all I got was you are nitpicky and you might be trying to justify piracy, but you don't want to commit fully.

Well, I sprinkle in some romano cheese in the soup, but that's probably a bit different. American is really only good on a burger. And even then there are better choices.

I heartily recommend Cauliflower Soup as well, jest blend it and season to taste. It has a great texture. Both my kids have nasty coughs. They started about two weeks ago. I took my daughter to the doctors office for the second time because she had a bit of a temperature, but the doctor said to just hydrate, drink tea, and keep using the humidifier. I hope the get past it soon.

Why? What's wrong?

But piracy is not subjective at all. You are taking property without permission. The people who have worked to create what you are taking are unhappy about that. There isn't any moral 'grey area' here.

Didn't we establish video game piracy is costing people their daily bread?Also, says the guy who finds it "repugnant". Hey, I downgraded that to morally unripened! But I take piracy a lot more serious than I do DRM. DRM can be a pain, it can even on rare occasions cause a serious computer problem, but it still isn't a crime. Piracy is.

Did you just try and connect rape to DRM? Seriously, Maria is correct, these are video games. Lighten up and stop trying to compare them to serious things.

"Occupy activists descend on Brooklyn on first day of campaign to move homeless people into buildings foreclosed by US banks" Just a few corrections for you there Gfted1: 'they' are moving homeless people (not themselves) into empty foreclosed homes. Whether you agree with it or not, you're clearly trying to spin it negatively. Yes, because its their property to seize and give away. Whether they give it to homeless or retarded nuns, its their movement performing illegal actions. Everyone involved should have been pepper sprayed and hauled to jail. And I'm performing an illegal action when I smoke a joint with my mates. Boo hoo. Good on them. Your country has become ****ing backwards and it's good to see people finally deciding to shake things up. Especially when the response from people like you is "pepper spray them and haul them off to jail". The problem here is these foreclosed homes are going to go to auction, and then they are going to be sold 'as is' to some family looking to try and capture the American dream, and they are going to get stuck cleaning homeless feces off the walls of their new home. The fact is this does nothing to help the economy. We are in this mess because property values plummeted, how does it help anyone to drive them further in the ground by putting a bunch of transients in them? Do you think these homeless people are going to do a little maintenance and garden work? Maybe spruce the place up? I actually have a condo in foreclosure right now. I am trying to short sale it and the bank is working with me. It is slow and painful, but if some bum moved in because the place is vacant right now, it would only create problems for me, not the bank.

I've been arguing for trade schools in the US forever, but instead we keep cutting the electives that actually teach useful skills. It's not like electricians, plumbers, mechanics, and carpenters don't make good money. They make great money, but schools in the US do almost nothing to help students get into those career fields.

I don't really want to think about how many games I've bought since 2000. And that's just PC, if you add Dreamcast, PS2, Xbox, X360 and PS3.... Damn. I try an limit myself to one game a month. Which still puts me way over 50.

Steam allows me to buy quite a few titles I have passing interests in, and some of them I don't get around to playing. But for a few bucks, I don't consider it a real problem. It's nice to have them there if I get an itch.

I agree with Maria that the second hand sales discussion is irrelevant to the piracy discussion, and I believe the WMD one is insane.

I think you mean "tchotchkes." Nah, he probably meant Chachi

I'd expect you to be able to make the connection as an intelligent person, Walsh. "Oh, the 2nd hand sellers are the real criminals, so I'm actually doing a good thing by downloading the game myself". The art of good business is being a good middleman. Money doesn't go from consumer to game publisher before other actors get in on the action and in doing so contribute to overall economic activity. On a related matter, one would have to show that these middlemen, such as used game sellers, negatively affect the quality and budget of games before comming out against them. Assumptions aren't useful here. I believe I read something about how trade-ins actually increase the amount of new game sales, which makes sense to me. I know personally the only way I can buy new games regularly is by trading in my older games to offset some of the cost. We know how important those first few weeks are for the sales numbers, and so if trade-ins are actually driving those numbers up, it seems like a good situation for everyone.

that's my point though. what's so bad about it, when you take second hand sales into consideration. I mean "pitting" the two. imho, torrents are way better and more sensible I have no idea where you are going with this. A used game is sold to one person. That is much less than the thousands that can make use of a torrent. The original buyer of the now used game also no longer has access to the game. The person who set up the torrent has no such problem. What is not clear here? Second-hand sales are not illegal because you are taking a product you own and giving it completely to another person. This may be negative for the industry, but it is not illegal. However, buying one product and then allowing it to be spawned endlessly is very clearly illegal.

I don't see how buying a second hand game is different from downloading it. only in the first case you actually pay money to the guy. I don't think it's possible to convince me second-hand sales are more "legal" than torrents Ebay has a large amount of stores that sell new games, actually. But second-hand games is a pretty different argument. It's legal, as Gamestop's entire business model is built around it, but I can definitely see the argument that it is bad for the game industry. Comparing it to a torrent, where hundreds if not thousands of people make use of one copy of a game is pretty laughable though.

Kind of late there, buddy. Dang, it's always the little things that slip your notice.. my bad. I think I remember Kirk Cameron talking those up years ago.

There are a lot of avenues. A few years back I ordered a Baldur's Gate compilation pack from some specialty store on Amazon. You've got Ebay also. There are tons of legal ways to track down an old game in today's world. Or you can say shucks and move on. These are video games, not insulin.

Heh, not quite. I'm talking about an Obsidian developed version (or really any good developer.) Not to knock whatever no name studio made that game, but I'm guessing it is a standard waste of an IP. We get them with everything. It sparked my curiousity, here is the mission statement for Crave Games:

It's on Netflix streaming and it keeps coming up on my recommendations, but it looks terrible. I watched Role Models on cable, it's a pretty hilarious comedy.

Slowtrain, Deadliest Catch: The Game sounds phenomenal. Seriously, I could see that being a fantastic sim/adventure/RPG. There are quite a few ways they could do that game and make it epic, too. You could even have an awesome multiplayer aspect. I think I need to lobby for that to be Obsidian's next project.

I think you are talking more about the people setting up the torrents and all that, which are definitely pirates, but there are a heck of a lot less of them than there are people who simply use the torrents to get free stuff.

I'm not sure about that completely, I mean they managed it with the movie, and that probably has a similar development cycle to a video game. It just might not age well as a game, meaning if you don't play it when it comes out it might not be all that relevant.