[Suggestion] Real-life piracy

[Galevav]

I was up against an enemy pirate when an amusing idea popped into my head:
I've heard of games that discourage piracy by altering the gameplay to impossible or near-impossible levels. Wouldn't it be funny if a player who didn't put in a proper license key got to play the game, but every beacon yields an endgame-difficulty pirate ship with the only choice available being "Piracy cannot be forgiven!" or "Buy a game license, pirate scum!" &c.

[Justin]

Hah. I don't think we have any way of tracking piracy... but I kinda wanted ships to always to have the purple pirate paint for people who pirate it.

Thought that would be funny.

[cookie42]

Honestly, I think doing that would just discourage pirates from ever buying the game. Not trying to start a debate here, but a fair few people do actually pirate as a way to demo a game, and later buy it if it's worth it, which this game definitely is. Although I do like the idea of a different color for their ship, or something like that.

[CaptainQuirk]

Not trying to start a debate here, but a fair few people do actually pirate as a way to demo a game, and later buy it if it's worth it, which this game definitely is.

I'm going to bite anyway and say; breaking the law is breaking the law. Once you've downloaded a file, irregardless of purpose, that statistic contributes to the validation of piracy as a model. As much as I am not a huge fan of 'rampant' capitalism I do think that if you want to try a game and there's no demo available, either suck it up and buy (for a game like FTL is $20 or whatever really that much?) or find a friend and get a review.

[curithwin]

To stop game piracy is very, very difficult, since everything you do will be hacked and cracked within a week for any seasoned software pirate.

The only way, known to me, to stop piracy is to have to link up to an external server to check details and CD-Keys, but that would require people to have an internet connection to play. Also this is not full proof either since, if you get the details of a person you can still play on THEIR account.

This problem is due to programming languages being open-ended and having no end to what you can do with most low level codes.

[Maze1125]

but a fair few people do actually pirate as a way to demo a game, and later buy it if it's worth it, which this game definitely is.

And those people are still doing it to save themselves money.

Let's assume two people, a pirate and a non-pirate, who have identical tastes, play the demos of 100 games.
These two people find that 20 of those games are at least mildly fun and worth considering further.
The pirate downloads all 20 for free and tries them out fully.
The non-pirate chooses the 10 of those 20 he likes the most and buys them in order try them.
The pirate finds 6 of those 20 to be worth his money and so buys those 6.
The non-pirate finds 5 of the 10 he bought to be truly good games.

The pirate has bought 6 games and got 6 games he likes.
The non-pirate has bought 10 games and only gotten 5 he likes.

Now, this is rather seeming like an argument in favour of piracy, but it's not. From an individual's perspective, piracy is obviously the better choice, as it gets you more for less, but that doesn't make it morally right.

The point is that the pirate who does it "as an extended demo" is being selfish in exactly the same way as the pirate who just takes any game they want for free. The "demo" pirate is getting more for less in exactly the same way as pure pirates, they're just less extreme about it.

[curithwin]

Let's assume two people, a pirate and a non-pirate, who have identical tastes, play the demos of 100 games.
These two people find that 20 of those games are at least mildly fun and worth considering further.
The pirate downloads all 20 for free and tries them out fully.
The non-pirate chooses the 10 of those 20 he likes the most and buys them in order try them.
The pirate finds 6 of those 20 to be worth his money and so buys those 6.
The non-pirate finds 5 of the 10 he bought to be truly good games.

The pirate has bought 6 games and got 6 games he likes.
The non-pirate has bought 10 games and only gotten 5 he likes.

Now, this is rather seeming like an argument in favour of piracy, but it's not. From an individual's perspective, piracy is obviously the better choice, as it gets you more for less, but that doesn't make it morally right.

The point is that the pirate who does it "as an extended demo" is being selfish in exactly the same way as the pirate who just takes any game they want for free. The "demo" pirate is getting more for less in exactly the same way as pure pirates, they're just less extreme about it.

I do not agree at all with this. How many people, who pirate games, go out and buy them AFTER they have played the full version? A long time ago I used to use Pirated games, but since I came to Christ I destroyed ALL my pirated software and purchased it all, just to say a big sorry. This is the only reason I can see, unless the Pirate wanted to play multiplayer and could not with a pirated copy.

[CaptainQuirk]

I do not agree at all with this. How many people, who pirate games, go out and buy them AFTER they have played the full version? A long time ago I used to use Pirated games, but since I came to Christ I destroyed ALL my pirated software and purchased it all, just to say a big sorry. This is the only reason I can see, unless the Pirate wanted to play multiplayer and could not with a pirated copy.

I think you'd be the exception, not the rule. The fact that you got rid of all your pirated stuff to say sorry implies that you knew that it was wrong to pirate the whole time.

The argument of 'trying before buying' is not a sound argument. I am not allowed to steal a car and try it for a few days before I buy it, so why should anyone be allowed to steal FTL or any other game?

[ThePsuedoMonkey]

This discussion is pointless, for the same reasons that are similar discussions on other controversial topics (i.e. politics, religion, and civil liberties). Not one of you has the capability to convince someone that your view of such topics is correct, because everyone has an internal commitment to their stance based upon what they interpret as morally good and right. When you have that situation, anything external that challenges that stance is always viewed as hostile or unfair, which prevents any amount of critical thinking by either party since they are simply regurgitating what they feel is the single correct interpretation of reality.

Please do not start including DRM, it's a huge headache and no fun for anyone. It's also the only reason I never finished playing "The Witcher."

[CaptainQuirk]

This discussion is pointless, for the same reasons that are similar discussions on other controversial topics (i.e. politics, religion, and civil liberties). Not one of you has the capability to convince someone that your view of such topics is correct, because everyone has an internal commitment to their stance based upon what they interpret as morally good and right.

Way to stereotype basically all of thinking humanity. Sure I have a view, but it doesn't mean that I won't be swayed by a logically sound, well-reasoned argument. I am just yet to hear one on the subject of piracy.

I cannot join the dots between, "The developers put in huge amounts of time and effort to create something for us to enjoy and deserve to be paid for it." and, "I deserve to be allowed to take someone else's creation and make use of it for free and I will pay for it if I, subjectively, enjoy it." There's no correlation between the two that I can find other than peoples sense of self-entitlement.

DRM is a huge hassle and can get very annoying, I won't argue with you there. It often feels like I am being punished for being a loyal consumer because other people don't do the right thing.