Gorth

Does that mean the game really doesn't have any swamps worth mentioning?

Since this seems to be your level of debate, I can only conclude you have no interest in being serious, ranting and raging against the injustice of the universe being the extent of your attention span.

I don't think anyone (in their right mind anyway) really think every unauthorized sale of somebody's work equals a lost sale. Equally, I don't think anybody believes it comes at no impact whatsoever to those deprived of their payment. The "loss" is a group of potential customers that gets tempted by free alternatives with no discernible consequences and says what the heck, everybody else does it. The size of that group is what is relevant when trying to estimate losses. So far nobody has come up with a way of doing that, which makes the Dutch report utterly ridiculous (not that I would trust the selective quoting being in anyway objectively done on a site with 'torrent' as part its name). As for my "funny" question about your employer paying you are not, I was genuinely interested in gauging your response, even if the questions sounds facetious. Of course people wants to get paid for their work (duh), but that applies to those who make a living of offering services that can be converted and distributed through channels they weren't intended for too. If we for arguments sake agree (whether we agree or not) that not paying for a service isn't the right thing to do, what are the alternatives to the current model? Do like the Swiss government and just tell the entertainment industry to roll over and die then get "real" jobs? @Delfosse: Not sure what you are trying to say really. Aussies are good swimmers, but Europe is a long way from here. Not sure they would have left home anyway as they were busy fighting and dieing against the Japanese who were amassing troops across the Torres Strait for invasion of Australia. Mind you, the total Aussie population at the time was smaller than the Belgian. Go rant at them instead for not putting up a better fight... Is it a ridiculous statement? It is.

Scientific research mode: Which side landed up?

Um, it's THEIR money. Where the smeg else are they going to build it? In Australia for all the Australians to enjoy? :headbang: "Naaah, we can't try to make this a great place to be, because this is a bad place to be!" Well, frankly, yes. Might just as well build a massive butter palace on the slopes of Montserrat. Maybe Britain should just let itself devolve into ghettos, in case you get too prosperous and Portugal invades. Unlikely to happen. The treaty of Windsor is still in effect (has been since 1386).

Yeah, I could have said no, but that would be like shooting myself in the foot Funny how training always feels like it comes after the point where you needed it the most. It's been a recurring experience the last 15 years. Still, it's nice to catch up on some things and see if you did figure out most of the worthwhile stuff or if there was still room for improvement.

I somehow doubt they would sit around and play those games they downloaded

That sounds like Kaspersky support... Tomorrow is going to be one of those days where I wish public holidays were the same countrywide. Microsoft is doing a training course online out of Singapore tomorrow and that means i have to go to work, even though it is a public holiday here (but not in the rest of Australia). Bye bye long weekend.

I think people who download stuff without paying for it are THAT hypocritical. As I said before, no problem with people boycotting a publisher if they don't like their conduct. The very moment they pirate their products, they lose any moral high ground by proving themselves to be hypocrites. They want their products, just don't want to pay if they can weasel their way out of it somehow.

I know it's a game, but Europa Universalis III is a very bad influence, giving you all sorts of obscure, interesting, distant and sometimes unheard of cultures and conflicts as inspiration for searches on the net. While outside my normal "time zone" of interest, it was very interesting checking out the history of the Timurids and their successor state, the Mughal Empire. Much, if not most of Europe (and by extension the "western world") is actually shaped by events in the Transoxiana region. The great migrations had a lot of impact on current demographics.

Seriously, I know you are smarter than this. In a transaction between two individuals, where tangible goods -or services- are being exchanged it makes sense to talk of thievery. Do not equivocate the issue. This is not thievery, it's freeloading. It's just a tad more complicated. So can we just call things by their names and leave corny appeals to emotion out of it, pretty please? At least I'm not referring to Somali pirates to make digital pirates look less bad

I wonder if you would take the same stance towards your employer the day he decides not to pay you, because he didn't really take any goods off your hands, only the time invested in performing your job?

Of course. If they check the Internet, how can they possibly not change their wicked ways?

Now I'm curious... is there even such a thing as 'A Swiss'? I thought they were ethnic Germans, Italians and French living together.

And this makes a sweeping, evidently racist comment okay? No, tell you what, it doesn't. It's an insult to my family in the first place, so, yeah, I'll take it personally. Well, I hope you'll bring your family my apology if they feel offended then, but the Swiss state has had some rather dubious practices for a long time. From protecting organised crime and the being the piggy bank of the Nazis to being one of the more overtly xenophobic (sounds nicer than racist) countries in Europe. Whatever the Swiss government says regarding ethics is going to met with a raised eyebrow and an 'uh-huh?'

Ehrm.. what has that to do with the game box? Have we already seen the intro to South Park and I missed it? Truth is, developer logos on the box are not that common. Check other THQ games. Check other Bethesda games. Nothing much to do with the box, just a commentary on the attitude of publishers, seemingly pretending developers don't exist. I don't think I have a THQ game (don't they mostly publish shooters and RTS games?), so I don't know what qualifies as MO for them. .

I didn't assume Dutch artists made more money because of piracy (re-read my post), only on a national level, some Dutch profit from it. I actually had various service providers in mind, which are quite numerous in Holland (torrent sites, file hosting services etc.) It's big business. The Swiss, well nobody really cares about the Swiss. They seem to have made it their national goal to profit from other peoples misery anyway for more than century, so whatever they do is always a bit suspect.

Like F:NV? I've never seen the physical box (got it from Steam), but at least the intro of the game has a blurb that acknowledges that Bethesda developed FO:NV in "association" with Obsidian Entertainment

Dutch government, not Danish. It doesn't say it doesn't decrease anyone's profit (in fact it confirms that those who gets pirated suffers losses), it just concludes that it is a net profit for Holland on a macro economy level. Probably because a lot of those who make a profit of piracy resides there, where as those who gets "robbed' reside outside Holland.

Space Rangers 2 is the best of its "type" since Elite 2. I've completed it once and is considering it again once my current stint with The Witcher 2 is over.

That's exactly what I need Off to convince a few individuals that they need to shift too. They share my sentiments on the current state of the MSN client.

It's an easy assumption to make though. There is nothing to defend about it really. Not even sucky "always online" DRM and watching your every move big brother style. The solution is really very, very simple. Ignore the game. Ignore the company. Buy something else somewhere else. It seems to have turned into a new culture/tradition with people just wanting to flop down in front of a screen and get passively entertained.

I'll try search for some of those names (Aim, Miranda and Trillian), thanks guys

Well, Microsoft Live Messenger without "Live" still makes it some kind social networking thing that they want to turn it into. I hadn't thought about Google+ (I even created an account there when it was opened up to the public). Facebook is banned on my router firewall. I wouldn't touch it with a fire poker. Maybe Skype will have to do, even if I hate giving out those details to more people than I have to.

I kind of liked the old MSN Messenger and hung on to it for years, including when it devolved into Live Messenger. After the last update however, it has become completely useless. Any tips for a good instant message replacement (first one to say twitter gets slapped with a fish)? Needs to be something simple I can convince family and old friends to use too, so not too sophisticated to set up and use. For various reasons I would prefer not to rely on Skype.