Ok, i understand all this piracy stuff… but heres a situation i was in recently. As some of you may know i am a Sonic Adventure fan, and a Chao fan. Recently I saw Sonic Adventure DX inthe shops for the PC. Now i already have this game onthe Dreamcast, as well as the sequel. But i was never gonna waste ?20 buying a game i already have, so i downloaded it so i can see what differences there are.
I feel that this isn’t that bad, and its not like i am gonna distribute it to people i know either.
By the way its nice seeing an intelligent debate… especcially when it doesn’t resort to something like in my sig.
I agree with GD on the EA situation. I am a HUGE C&C fan, and seeing the series being turned into garbage by some money hungry company saddens me. I will probably never see another proper C&C game again. (and for the record my friend installed C&C generals on my comp and instead of wasting it i d/led a No CD crack - i was never gonna buy the game anyways)
Windows is another pont. Mr. Gates charges so much just because he can. Look at Linux! Free, and a MUCH BETTER OS than Windows. As soon as games and software is Linux compatible, Microsoft will either fade away, or buy linux as all power freaks work. I never buy these software, they are simply too much. Over ?100 for an OS, another ?100 for software packages, and these can only be used on 1 computer.
Well I don’t think you can rest easy thinking what you’ve done with Sonic for PC, Windows and C&C: Generals is OK in any aspect.
Maybe you have Sonic for the dc, still why warez the pc version? If there are any differences or additions then you do not deserve to see them since you did not pay for the game. Even if there weren’t any of those you still didn’t deserve to play it on the pc since you didn’t pay for it. You didn’t emulate something you own (which is legal I think), you instead illegally got hold of something you do not own (even if the game is pretty much identical it’s still not the software you bought)
About C&C, well, Abadd has covered that “never going to buy it” subject in detail in earlier posts so I don’t need to say anything more about it.
Lastly, about Windows, if you want what Windows offer then the right thing to do is to buy them. You are not going to put MS out of business or anything by Warezing them, still you don’t think MS employees are rich too do you? They are who is going to live the consequences should MS find they lose too much $ to be worth it. They are the ones that will get fired when they decide to cut down on staff. It’s the “little ppl” that get hurt from these things in the bigger companies…
You said yourself there are free and better alternatives so why did you warez Windows? It’s because you wanted something they offer and yet you weren’t willing to pay the price for it. Still wrong. And about the software packages exactly what are you talking about? There’s free alternatives for pretty much everything, from MS Office style apps (Open Office) to graphics creation programs like Photoshop (The Gimp) and in short for pretty much everything you can imagine.
True, linux doesn’t run all the apps someone might WANT (not need) but that doesn’t give you the right to warez Windows AND these apps. You only do it because you want the “luxury” of owning and using them and yet are not willing to pay the price for it. I find Abadd’s points to have covered pretty much everything you’ve said in your last post… What you did is still wrong no matter what way you try and see it…
I only agree about EA really, they ARE hurting the industry but they are hurting the industry WE want… and sadly we are not the majority. If you ask me EA is the reflection of the mainstream gamers, it is not them who are ruining the industry, it is the ppl that buy their products. Blame them
PS: I maybe (meh, it’s a public forum here, you never know who’s reading warez things too btw, I just don’t try to fool myself thinking what I do is OK because of this or that reason…
I know what you mean. I really wanted to see an end to the story and find out how Kane was connected to the alien race responsible for the planet-wide Tiberium infestation. I never found out if he was immortal or if he somehow went back in time to change the outcome of key moments in history (I think he was just very old and used Tiberium to regenerate himself). What the hell was he doing advising Stalin? I love how he was the only human on Earth who could translate the information stored in the Tacitus. Evil villains like Kane are in short supply these days.
Westwood Studios would love to finish the storyline they started. The story was going to be brought to a conclusion in Tiberium Twilight, which has been put on hold indefinitely. Even the sequel to C&C Renegade was cancelled despite the fact the first game sold well. The reason? Because it was set in the original Command And Conquer universe.
I won’t even touch pirated copies of the latest C&C games. EA can go to hell for ruining such a wonderful series of games (everything after Tiberium Sun isn’t a part of the original story).
Well, i know its wrong, but if theres a game i’m never gonna buy, i see that i should have the opportunity to play it in my lifetime.
[quote=“Al3xand3r”]
Maybe you have Sonic for the dc, still why warez the pc version? If there are any differences or additions then you do not deserve to see them since you did not pay for the game. Even if there weren’t any of those you still didn’t deserve to play it on the pc since you didn’t pay for it.[/quote]
I feel i deserve to play it. I have stood by Sega ever since i got one of there consoles, never pirating games cos i loved them. I wouldn’t see myself paying an extra ?20 for the ability to take screenshots of a game i like.
Well, the actual reason is cos software and game developers are scared to have support for anyone other than windows. So its the only choice for a PC owner, and that choice is to splash out huge sums of money.
At the end of the day, i know piracy is bad, and i know its wrong, but my mentality it either not buy the game and have no experience of playing the game, or “get” the game and experience it.
Sega porting enhanced versions of Dreamcast games to other consoles is treacherous in a way. Did you know that the original Japanese version of Sonic Adventure suffered from even worse camera angles than the version released in America and Europe? Again, that’s very inconsiderate.
In spite of all the upgrades present in the GameCube version of Sonic Adventure, it actually suffers from extreme slowdown. So basically, Dreamcast owners received an incomplete version of Sonic Adventure (Japanese gamers bore most of the brunt of this by receiving the most incomplete version), whereas GameCube and PC owners received the complete version (dubbed DX Director’s Cut).
I know developers need to include gameplay enhancements and bonuses in remakes to make them more appealing to gamers, but I would have no compunction about pirating an enhanced version of an older game if the original version I bought and paid for was incomplete.
It’s like the Lord of The Rings DVDs: first they release the films with no extra footage, then they release DVDs containing all the extra cut scenes. I find that exploitative and grossly unfair.
They are not unfinished. They obviously had more time to work on the games or convertions for the rest consoles so that extra time went to issues that they had feedback on from previous releases. The game was complete before, you just should be glad they seem to be a company that is listening to players’ feedback and improved issues that were found with it’s original japanese release for example. Would you be happier if they hadn’t listened to the feedback and hadn’t taken the time to fix them for the US/EU versions?
You might say you’d rather they hadn’t released the Jap version at that date and instead worked on the game more but then if it wasn’t the camera angles it would be some other issue that they’d have feedback on and fix it/add on it for the next versions. The game reached a stage that was considered complete and it was released. They got some bad feedback and since they had time for the next versions they decided to resolve them for those. I see NOTHIN wrong with that…
Whatever happened to quality assurance? Was Sega in such a hurry to release the game that they ignored some of its worst flaws on purpose? This is why developers make use of beta testers.
All I’m saying is Japanese Dreamcast owners received an inferior version of Sonic Adventure than their western counterparts. Now Sega has released a complete “Directors’ Cut” version of Sonic Adventure for the GameCube and PC. The words “Director’s Cut” suggests the inclusion of everything that was missing from the original. That’s hardly fair. I’d feel somewhat cheated or betrayed if I owned the original Dreamcast game.
Remember that release dates are rarely decided by a game’s creators, but by the publisher. If Sonic Team had a game that was 99.5% as good as they would have liked by the time that publishing deadline came up, it would have been shipped as it was. I doubt that they were planning to make future versions “better” at the time - they would’ve just been keeping on schedule.
Alternatively, they might have genuinely overlooked the flaws. Not everyone’s idea of “good enough for sale” is the same.
Hmm… remember that “Director’s Cut” tends to mean “with stuff that it didn’t seem worth putting into the original version”. Although you’ve raised a good point, I think there’s two different things going on here:
Things like the versions of LOTR with added scenes etc. are generally just cashing in on everyone who rushed out and bought the original versions (or collectors / fans who want to own all of the different versions). But Alex is right about the different versions of Sonic Adventure etc. - they were completed at different times because they were created for different audiences. I don’t see this as Sega being greedy, it’s just that they happened to tweak and improve some aspects of the game between the different versions. They had the chance, and they took it, and I think that makes sense.
At the end of the day, no game, film, novel or work of art can ever be truly “finished” or “completed”, because most creators would like the chance to work on it more, improve it or just keep it up to date. The sad fact is that the world does not provide an unlimited time frame, and if things are improved at a later date the old versions have to be left as they are.
The only difference is whether or not the company *planned * to make a less complete and a more complete version from day one, just to sell more. But it doesn’t seem that Sega have done that here, so I don’t see anything wrong with this in that sense. They didn’t release the GameCube version of Sonic just to cash in on the Dreamcast owners who’d bought the game already; they released it so that people who had never played the game in the first place could play it.
The original Dreamcast version of Resident Evil Code: Veronica was incomplete (it was missing a few story elements involving Wesker) and Capcom later released the complete version for the Playstation 2 and GameCube (called Code: Veronica X and Code: Veronica Complete respectively). Granted, they did release the complete version for the Dreamcast in Japan for half the price of the earlier incarnation, but that won’t make the people who bought the original game feel any less cheated.
[quote=“Geoffrey Duke”]The original Dreamcast version of Resident Evil Code: Veronica was incomplete (it was missing a few story elements involving Wesker) and Capcom later released the complete version for the Playstation 2 and GameCube (called Code: Veronica X and Code: Veronica Complete respectively). Granted, they did release the complete version for the Dreamcast in Japan at half the price of the earlier incarnation, but that won’t make the people who bought the original game feel any less cheated.
The same holds true for Sonic Adventure.[/quote]
Agreed, I was just saying that this isn’t a deliberate cash-in scheme as with LOTR and its brethren. The Dreamcast version of Code Veronica wouldn’t have been set up that way so that Capcom could cash in later. It wasn’t until the game came out much later on different platforms that they had time to incorporate that stuff. Although the later versions on other consoles may have even been labelled “complete”, the original version really was a complete game - at least, it was as complete as was feasibly possible at the time, given shceduling constraints etc.
It’s like the “missing” scenes from the remastered (old) Star Wars films. The creators were not able to put them in to the original version, which is the difference in these cases. as much as it’s annoying for players, they didn’t withhold this stuff just to make money later on.
I don’t think that’s the case with Resi either. I bet it was conceptualised later just to add something extra to the new versions. Same as Resident Evil 1: Director’s cut on the playstation. Or even same as the Sega Saturn Resident Evil 1 which had an extra game mode over the original PS one game. It’s not that they release games incomplete, it’s that they add bonuses to later versions to attract ppl since the game has gotten older by then and also that they have that little extra time to work on them. You expect more from a newer game, you expect more from an old game on a new console. It’s that simple… And then there’s also the “special edition” factor same as in movie DVDs like Lance said.
But they make money from it nonetheless. I see no reason why Capcom couldn’t have included the extra Wesker related scenes and journals in the first release of Code: Veronica. Capcom isn’t the type of developer to rush a game’s release. Calling a later version “Complete” suggests the original version wasn’t. Why should gamers tolerate incomplete games? If the extra content wasn’t meant to be included in the original version, then why call the subsequent release that includes the extra content BioHazard Code: Veronica Complete?
Developers should avoid leaving out planned content. Using content that should’ve found its way into the original version as a selling point is disgusting.
Well as far as I know, they didn’t include this stuff in the original version simply because it wasn’t finished off (or even made) at that stage, and/or they didn’t want to include it back then.
I wouldn’t say that Capcom would rush a game’s release, by the way, but a line does have to be drawn somewhere, and a game has to finished up and put on the shelves when the deadline comes. Sadly, that’s the games industry for you.
Although Capcom made the horrifically tactless decision to subtitle the latest version “complete”, that does seem to be more of a marketing point than a literal truth. As far as I’m aware (and I’m sure I read this in an official interview), Capcom never originally intended to put Code Veronica on anything other than the Dreamcast. They never intended to make any other versions of the game, that is - “complete” or otherwise. It does seem to me that this wasn’t an intended cash-in. Although…
[quote=“Geoffrey Duke”]
It’s like the Lord of The Rings DVDs: first they release the films with no extra footage, then they release DVDs containing all the extra cut scenes. I find that exploitative and grossly unfair.[/quote]
Woah there GD, now you’ve stepped into completely different territory. The release of 2 different sets of the LotR films is completely justified and a completely different story then what you are arguing for.
The Cinema version is by no means an “incomplete” version of the LotR films, nor is it inferior in any respect to Extended edition. I would argue that the cinema and extended editions are simply two different versions of the same film.
Its sort of like the original Star Wars trilogy and the Star Wars Special Edition trilogy, know what i mean? And with Star Wars i would argue the Special Edition is infact the inferior version.
The same with Lord of the Rings, i prefer the cinema versions of lord of the rings to the extended edition. The added scenes are nice for us tolkien fans (especially those in The Two Towers) but for the most part they are not needed and drag out the story. The cinema versions flow much better then the extended editions, Plus sitting through 4 hours of film regardless of the quality is tough. They aren’t trying to cheat us by releasing the films in two different versions.
So you are saying that the release of a movie’s special edition version with enhanced/extended/added scenes and features and other extra content like “the making of” stuff is just fine while the exact same thing for a game is wrong?
AFAIK the special edition LOTR DVDs contain the actual cinematic movies but also include extra cut scenes etc, so basically, they are the same as the DVDs containing just the films as seen in the cinema but without the cut content.
Why not release the special edition DVDs with the extra scenes in the first place (and make the extra scenes optional)?
warez things too btw, I just don’t try to fool myself thinking what I do is OK because of this or that reason…