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Games Entertainment

A Portrait of the UK Game Pirate 146

Posted by Zonk from the they're-everywhere dept.
Next Generation has a report up on a British study that indicates something like 84 percent of 15 to 18 year olds pirate video games in Britain. 72 percent of those folks pirate games because they can't wait for the UK releases. From the article: "This study shows very clearly the drivers behind videogame piracy...Most respondents who have and will continue to illegally download games are young males, between 15 and 19 years old. They feel videogames are too expensive and resent the long wait for many games released in the US or in Asia before the UK. With a high level of computer literacy, it's easy for them to find a game online and download it. Their friends all do it and why shouldn't they?"
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A Portrait of the UK Game Pirate More

A Portrait of the UK Game Pirate

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  • In Britain, only teenagers pirate video games.
  • Other than the slim chance of getting caught, there is no reason why not.

  • News Flash! (Score:5, Funny)

    by brkello ( 642429 ) on Tuesday July 26, 2005 @06:39PM (#13171065)
    Piracy is easy. Kids do it. Game publishers are on streets selling crack to feed their family. Film at 11.

  • Not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Linus Torvaalds ( 876626 ) on Tuesday July 26, 2005 @06:39PM (#13171068)

    72 percent of those folks pirate games because they can't wait for the UK releases.

    If this was a tangible product, then it would be expressed as "they get it on the black market because it isn't commercially available".

    There's really no good reason for a game to be released in the USA, and then wait months before releasing it in the UK. It's marketing gone wrong.

    They feel videogames are too expensive and resent the long wait for many games released in the US or in Asia before the UK.

    Imagine that - something is overpriced, so they get it from illegitimate channels instead. Is there any market where this isn't true?

    The main difference between video games and physical products is that copyright gives the publishers a monopoly. It's not a free market.

    • Re:Not surprising (Score:4, Funny)

      by cpt kangarooski ( 3773 ) on Tuesday July 26, 2005 @07:10PM (#13171369) Homepage
      There's really no good reason for a game to be released in the USA, and then wait months before releasing it in the UK.

      Oh, I'm sure that localizing software from the US to the UK is a time-intensive process, requiring careful attention by the translators.
      • One of the reasons for the long delay in a game making it to England is sometimes the fact that the UK is treated as part of the Europe market in terms of release. The wait is then for the translations to happen for the major continental European languages.

        I guess as voice becomes more and more popular as a replacement for text for explaining things/moving plots along etc this process gets more complicated.

        If its only a couple of weeks between release dates I don't mind - it gives me a chance to check out
        • No-one seems to have pointed this out yet, but the main reason that it takes so long for games to make it to the UK/Europe would be that not everyone has made the switch to 60hz television, some people still use RF Units rather than SCARTs. I'm pretty sure the percentage that run their GC/PS2/XB through an RF must be relatively low by now, though. So there should be no excuse soon.

          • Re:The problem is the French and Germans! (Score:1, Informative)

            by Anonymous Coward
            The majority of games are simply forced into 50Hz mode resulting in borders and a ~20% slowdown. A lot of newer PS2 games and nearly all Xbox, Gamecube and Dreamcast games have a 50/60Hz selector.

            There are free tools available on the internet that allow you to automatically apply either of those changes to any game for that particular console, so I really cannot see how the PAL/NTSC difference has any real impact on the release schedules.

            The only time when it would take a while is if a 50Hz-optimised

        • Re:The problem is the French and Germans! (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Dachannien ( 617929 ) on Wednesday July 27, 2005 @02:10AM (#13173980)
          The problem isn't the French and Germans. The problem is with the game publishers who evidently don't "get" that Brits speak essentially the same language as Yanks, ignoring loos, lorries, lifts, and bobbies.

          If people are ripping you off and they say the reason is because they don't want to wait for the product to be released locally, then there's an easy solution: release the product locally! Start considering the US and UK to be part of the same market. If piracy is such a problem in the UK because of this, then addressing the customer's complaints will result in a far greater boost in revenue than any cost savings for releasing the game in the UK along with the rest of Europe.

          In other words: duh!

      • They have to remove the guns and replace them with sticks and whistles.

        Plays havoc with most strategies.

      • Re:Not surprising (Score:2, Interesting)

        by guaigean ( 867316 )
        Actually, it can have more to do with laws. IIRC, when Fallout/Fallout 2 were released, the US version was allowed to have children NPC's (which, by your choice you could kill). The UK, I believe, had laws against children in video games like that, and therefore all the killable child NPC's had to be removed and replaced. It's a small example, but enough minor variations in law can add up to months of delays.

        • Re:Not surprising (Score:1, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Why was this modded informative? It's not true. Plain and simple.

          I live in the UK. We have no such laws. We have plenty of games where it's possible to kill "child" NPCs. The only attempt that was made to actually censor a video-game on the basis of content was the Carmaggeddon case. In this instance, the publishers were compelled to put out, for a while, a "green blood" version of the game. The censorship was deemed illegal on appeal. This was a serious dent to the credibility of our ratings body (the BBFC
      • Youu're right- the proucess is nout hard at all. It's sou autoumated I can dou it tou my poust withouut any trouuble!

    • Re:Not surprising (Score:3, Funny)

      by Seumas ( 6865 ) *
      Consumer: I don't want to spend $70 for a videogame or $30 for a DVD. That's very over-priced. I'm going to copy this game from someone else, instead.

      Corporation: I don't want to spend $80,000 for a developer. That's very over-priced. I'm going to open up shop in the third world and hire one for less than a burger-flipper makes in my town.
    • The main difference between video games and physical products is that copyright gives the publishers a monopoly. It's not a free market.

      Last time I checked, I can't copy a physical product outright and sell it either. I don't have to make a perfect copy of Tony Hawk Pro Skater to compete with it, I just have to make a game that a kid would rather spend his money on. That's a perfectly free market.

      • Re:Not surprising (Score:2, Insightful)

        by hackwrench ( 573697 )
        A perfectly free market has low barriers to entry, so tell me:
        How are you going to afford making a game that someone would rather buy?
        How are you going to distribute the game effectively?
        How are you going to communicate to that someone that this is, in fact, a game they would rather buy and not some barely working piece of trash?
        • OK, so it's not a literally perfectly free market. The Original Post is still perfectly wrong about games being a monopoly.
        • Free Market only says you can say "hey, guys, I'm selling this product, who wants to buy it?". If you can't make anything that's in demand, well, your problem, I don't think you could make a car that people would buy, either.

      • I don't have to make a perfect copy of Tony Hawk Pro Skater to compete with it, I just have to make a game that a kid would rather spend his money on. That's a perfectly free market.

        No it isn't. Copyright protects the bootloader. Without the bootloader, your game will not even start on a game console.

        • Copying the bootloader for interoperability purposes (as opposed to piracy) has been legal for years. Please read the decision on Sega vs. Accolade [cornell.edu].

          I'm pretty sure that every video game console still does this (I know for a fact the GBA does), but legally it's a lame threat in the USA.

          • So it's legal given Sega v. Accolade and Lexmark v. Static Control. This I know. But why, in practice, don't I see more unlicensed games on store shelves? How can a startup game developer get past the "lame threat"?

            • Trademark law allows e.g. Sony to stop these people from writing on the box "for use with the Playstation 2".

              Though I do think Datel is making some unlicensed discs, stuff like Action Replays and the GC Freeloader that also defeat the region lock.

              • Trademark law allows e.g. Sony to stop these people from writing on the box "for use with the Playstation 2".

                Say what? The Lanham Act (the current major revision of U.S. trademark law) permits nominative use [publaw.com] of another person's trademark: "For use with PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system. PlayStation is a trademark of Sony. Action Replay is not sponsored or endorsed by Sony."

                Though I do think Datel is making some unlicensed discs, stuff like Action Replays and the GC Freeloader

                I know

      • Last time I checked, I can't copy a physical product outright and sell it either.

        Check again. Unless there's government coercion (e.g. patents), yes, you can copy a physical product and sell it.

        The Original Post is still perfectly wrong about games being a monopoly.

        The *whole point* of copyright is that it creates an artificial monopoly. If it didn't do that, it wouldn't work.

        Digital media like video games have no cost to reproduce. The supply is essentially infinite. When the government gr

        • A free market is a market without coercion. Copyright is a coercive monopoly, and therefore incompatible with a free market.

          The problem is that the devs need to get paid. And how do you guarantee that if anyone can copy anything without worrying about the SWAT team breaking down their door? The only way I can think of is by funding development with donations. How many people (besides me) would contribute $20 towards the developement of a game when they may not even be able to try a demo?

          The good news is th

          • The problem is that the devs need to get paid.

            I think you've misread my argument that copyright is incompatible with a free market as an argument to abolish copyright. All I'm saying is that copyright is incompatible with a free market.

            The ramifications of that might be that copyright is not a good idea, but it's impossible to tell without more experience handling digital media entering the public domain (i.e. society can't make an informed decision one way or the other until copyright duration come

            • I think you've misread my argument that copyright is incompatible with a free market as an argument to abolish copyright. All I'm saying is that copyright is incompatible with a free market.

              Probably. It's someting I've been pondering for a while.

              The Street Performer Protocol partially solves this. However, it's reputation based, and doesn't address the problem of gaining a reputation in the first place.

              Reputation could be gained exactly as the Wikipedia article suggests: make some stuff for free (probably
    • Nobody pirates newspapers, magazines and books. The publishing industry doesn't beat it's chest in anger at the sale of photocopiers, that could easily destroy their entire industry.

      Hardly anybody even pirates books electronically - even though their an ideal target due to their low size when transcoded to a txt file.

      Look elsewhere in the media, there aren't any pirate TV stations that've started up broadcasting TV without the adverts. In the last couple of examples people buy books and watch normal regula

      • Imagine that - something is overpriced, so they get it from illegitimate channels instead. Is there any market where this isn't true?

        Nobody pirates newspapers, magazines and books.

        Does anybody think newspapers, magazines and books are overpriced?

        Piracy only starts to spring up when people are dissatisfied with the leggitimate option

        And one form of dissatisfaction is considering something to be overpriced.

      • Nobody pirates newspapers, magazines and books

        Go to torrentspy.com and search for book. I have seen many magazines and books scanned and put online. I even had some magazines a while back. There are people pirating clothing patterns and copying them at home so they don't have to buy them. It's big with women.

  • I can see the release date thing as a driver... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Atrax ( 249401 ) on Tuesday July 26, 2005 @06:42PM (#13171100) Homepage Journal
    ... but I do think that cost is a major cause. The target market is in the late teens and while this segment has a lot of purchasing power, they're also a hotly metketed-to segment.

    This inevitably results in fierce competition for the teen dollar, and hey, "if I can get this game for free, I can afford to spend the money on that neat pair of sneakers everyone says are so cool" and so on...

    Now, for me, as an adult with a bit more of a budget than the average 18 year-old, the release date thing really annoys me. In Australia we usually have a long wait for product 'x', but I can buy online if I so choose and bypass the release date problem (except where a PAL version of a console game isn't available until long after the NTSC version)

    So yeah, I think cost is the biggest factor.
    • But this is lame statistics.

      Let's say GTA comes out in the U.S. You live in the UK, but your aunt lives in the U.S. She buys the game for $50 for you as a gift. You rip it into UK's PAL format so your PS2 can play it.

      In the eye of the industry, that aunt is a fucking pirate deserving to burn in hell. To me, she's a good customer.

    • The target market is in the late teens and while this segment has a lot of purchasing power, they're also a hotly metketed-to segment.

      This inevitably results in fierce competition for the teen dollar, and hey, "if I can get this game for free, I can afford to spend the money on that neat pair of sneakers everyone says are so cool" and so on...

      I think a more logical reason for why cost is an issue is because games are usually priced somewhat equally, even though the content is vastly different. GTA: San Andr
      • I think a more logical reason for why cost is an issue is because games are usually priced somewhat equally, even though the content is vastly different. GTA: San Andreas, Disgaea, or Guild Wars might give you 100+ hours of gameplay for $50, whereas Star Wars: Republic Commando, Prince of Persia 2, or God of War might give you 10 or 20. After you spend $50 each for three great games that last 100+ hours, and then spend another $50 each on three lesser games that are much, much shorter, you start to think, "

  • Those aren't the REAL reason. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by defkkon ( 712076 ) on Tuesday July 26, 2005 @06:49PM (#13171187)
    I'm sure the late release dates is one reason. I mean, I live in Canada, so I don't have to worry about that. I'm sure the late release dates are annoying as hell.

    I can also believe that the high prices are a factor. ONE factor.

    The real reason. The BASE reason is because its free and easy. You could charge $15 for every game. You know what? The people would still pirate. I can buy CDs for $9.99 off of iTunes now. Do I? Well... I'll leave that up to your imagination. The key here is that FREE is always better that having to pay something. I don't care if the release dates are pushed back and the price is sky-high - free is always best.

    • I wish I had some mod points to give you for putting it so succinctly. Whatever anyone says, this is what it really comes down to. One hundred dollars or one dollar, the effects of piracy are either too small or too far away for most people to care. Free and easy will always beat all when the effects on a person's conscience are nil.
    • I just bought a couple of used Gamecube games on Ebay, because I think $50 is too much.

      What I did was legal, but Nintendo didn't make any money from me.

      That is one of the things driving DRM... making media non-transferable.
      • However, you (may have) just given money to someone who is likely to own a Gamecube, and is now lacking a couple of titles from his Gamecube. This is a guy likely to buy himself a game, and so Nintendo have a the chance of vicariously making money from you!

        I realise you can sell your walkman to buy games and your games to buy drugs etc, but ssh.

    • I agree with you totally. Before Suprnova went down, I was always amazed that there would be torrents on there of $5.99 bargain bin DVDs like Cabin Boy or Hercules. Completely free and real easy is way out ahead of reasonably cheap and reasonably easy.
    • I can buy CDs for $9.99 off of iTunes now. Do I?

      I can buy CDs from allofmp3 for $3. Do I? Yes. Close to $100 worth in the last year. Would I do it if it were $9.99 and DRMed? No.

      Same with CDs.. I'm not going to pay $15-$20 for a CD.

      Just as the open source attckers often say "only if your time is free" the same applies to piracy.

      There's an opportunity cost involved, and if someone wants to sell me a product cheaper than my opportunity cost, then I'll buy it. If they don't then that's their loss. I
      • I totally agree with you, but seriously doubt we'll ever see the greedy content producers figure this out. According to their *projections*, selling at a high price to a few people is more profitable than selling at a low price to lots of people. :(

    • Re:Those aren't the REAL reason. (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The real reason. The BASE reason is because its free and easy. You could charge $15 for every game. You know what? The people would still pirate.
      No! They wouldn't! You fail to grasp the problem. Who'd want to spend 24-72 hours downloading an iso off bittorrent, burn it to DVD and end up with a crappy black marker denoted copy that you can only play on a chipped console, when you could just roll down to the store and buy it for $15 dollars and get a shiny case and booklet as well.

      Market rules still apply.
    • I balance it against convenience (and that warm inner glow that you get for doing the right thing).
      I bought HL2 on Steam. It patches itself, it reinstalls itself when I rebuild my machine, it works online without any hunting for hacked servers etc etc. My major gripe with most purchased software is having to put the f'in disk in the drive to play - something I don't have to do with a hacked pirate copy.
  • They feel videogames are too expensive and resent the long wait for many games released in the US or in Asia before the UK.

    Guess not much has changed since I used to pirate 8-bit BBC micro games [nvg.ntnu.no] in the 80's with my friends from high school. Of course, as soon as we published a game ourselves, our attitudes changed ;-)

    I guess that absence of homegrown coders is one thing that might be different nowadays -- even kids who were just a few years younger than me were used to computer games being studio aff

  • No faith in copyright providing a net good perhaps, hmm?

  • Segmented markets are no longer feasible (Score:4, Insightful)

    by infernow ( 529374 ) on Tuesday July 26, 2005 @07:05PM (#13171325) Homepage
    It seems that part of this problem could be resolved rather easily by just releasing the game to the UK when it's released elsewhere. If they can release the game in Asia at the same time as in the US, I see no reason why some English-language versions of the game can't be shipped over to the UK for sale. It's not like it has to be translated or anything.

    This is all rather similar to the DVD region-coding tactic. Splitting the world into isolated markets where you can charge more or less for the same product just doesn't work any more. People will just get on the internet and, for example, order their Futurama DVDs from Europe earlier or for less than they can in the US, or they'll just pirate them. Companies know that piracy equals lost sales, so why don't they just release as widely as possible so people can just get what they want?

    • I see no reason why some English-language versions of the game can't be shipped over to the UK for sale. It's not like it has to be translated or anything.

      The netcode has to be done for the 50 Hz timing of the TVs used over there. And yes it does have to be translated, as many of the game console makers require that a PAL release support one or more continental languages in addition to English.

      • OK, so the 50Hz timing is still at least partially a valid issue - for console games, anyway. But the translation, however viable/required from a business point of view, simply doesn't cut it with the UK gamers anymore.

        The companies need to acknowledge that there's no way to avoid the fact that, like it or not, people in the UK get annoyed if they've got to wait extra months where at least a part of the delay is translating the game out of the language you speak and into languages that you don't. For UK g

    • Splitting the world into isolated markets where you can charge more or less for the same product just doesn't work any more.

      It also goes against every principle of Free Trade. I thought Australia or another country was trying to sue the DVD consortium through the WTO for the practice, but I haven't been able to determine what happened to that.
      • I thought Australia or another country was trying to sue the DVD consortium through the WTO for the practice [of region-splitting]

        Well, they won. DVD players can't be sold legally in Australia without being "modded" to be R0. There's a small but lucrative market in shipping Australian PS2s, for instance, to the UK and other places - manufacturer's fitting of the mod-chip, as it were.

        • I thought Australia or another country was trying to sue the DVD consortium through the WTO for the practice [of region-splitting]

          Well, they won. DVD players can't be sold legally in Australia without being "modded" to be R0.

          Hmm, I know basically nothing about the WTO, but I would have thought winning a case via an international organization like that would mean that and you win it for everyone- all companies in WTO member countries would have to abandon regional encoding.
    • I remember getting the Japanese edition of Metal Gear Solid at it's time of release, then waiting nearly a full year for the European version to appear... It is not only that the games are released later; sometimes they don't even make it the Europe at all. During the PSX era, there were a large number of pretty good Squaresoft games such as Einhander, Chrono Chross and Legend of Mana, that were not released because the market in Europe was not considered important enough. If you had a modded PSX, then y

  • They feel videogames are too expensive and resent the long wait for many games released in the US or in Asia before the UK.

    ... and that would be why I stopped. My job doesn't pay me near enough that I can afford to buy a USD40-50 game more than once or twice a year, and no game (except Alpha Centauri and Halo) can keep me entertained for more than a few weeks... I just can't replay the damn things. If I want to play something, my options are:

    1. Don't buy the game
    2. Pirate the game via bittorrent
    3. Pirate the
    • How about you could buy 4 games a year if you bought $20 used copies? They're just as good and cost less and you can usually find anything you want used at local game shops with the right amount of time.
    • You forgot the fourth option: spend less.

      Stores like Best Buy and Target have games in their sales circulars every week.

      Coupons (like Best Buy's Gamer Gift Card or the $5 off any PS2 title that they're offering now) and discount cards help to save a little bit of money. Coupons are free, and the cards are cheap - I got my EB Edge card for $5.

      When games hit the clearance racks, they drop in price amazingly quickly. Toys R Us had a very nice selection of games in a clearance sale that, over the cour

      • Every game will drop in price eventually

        Every game? Try finding a cheap used copy of Chrono Trigger for Super NES.

      • That sounds like you live in the US. It doesn't work like that in Europe. Console games are more expensive in first place and they usually only drop in price if they're either reissued as "Greatest Hits"/"Platinum"/whatever they call 'em or don't sell for like a year. In the latter case it's very rare that the game is just good but ignored, more likely it's crap that deserves to rot in the store.
    • There are many more options that you seem to have forgotten.

      4. Rent the game.
      5. Borrow a friends copy when they are finished.
      6. Look for an alternative job with higher pay
      7. Re-evaluate your current expenses to leave more disposable income

      I'm sure there are still more that are left uncovered.

      Just because you can't afford it doesnt justify you pirating it. In fact, I'd wager that you'd still pirate it if the game was half price.

    • you're all exactly right! I have no moral standards! I have no ability to distinguish between right and wrong! I eat babies with ranch dressing!!!!!!

      honestly...if it were that easy to "reevaluate my expenses" and magically make more money appear, wouldn't I have done it already? It's not like I smoke two packs a day or something.

  • They feel videogames are too expensive and resent the long wait for many games released in the US or in Asia before the UK.

    I don't know anything about how long it takes for legit games to hit the stores in the UK, but the price issue is universal. I just can't help but think if games were more reasonably priced, the level of piracy would go down. Most people actually would prefer a real copy, but few think $40 plus is reasonable.

  • Education is key (Score:3, Funny)

    by satanami69 ( 209636 ) on Tuesday July 26, 2005 @08:10PM (#13171856) Homepage
    Just teach them kids right and don't copy that floppy [albinoblacksheep.com]

  • sounds like an untapped market to me (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Naikrovek ( 667 ) <jjohnson.psg@com> on Tuesday July 26, 2005 @08:15PM (#13171901)
    whenever you see people breaking the law with intellectual property, you are looking into the eyes of an untapped market. Apple saw this and created iTunes.

    A surprisingly large portion of illegal downloaders download songs, movies, and games because they want to download them, not because they want to steal. So sell it to them electronically.

    Problem: Teen blokes in the UK download US games before their native release?
    Solution: Release the US version in the UK and the US on the same day. Make it available for download in the UK and take $10 off the price because the words are all spelled wrong and the voice overs have that horrible American accent. Also, you don't need to package the box, press the CDs, and ship it to the UK. Give the online purchaser in the UK the same price you give to the chain stores here in the US.

    I think you'd see the percentage of illegal downloads go down.

    • Release the US version in the UK and the US on the same day. Make it available for download in the UK

      Then how will the downloaded version boot? Don't console games have to have a specially pressed disc with specific bad sectors and a copyrighted bootloader, which consumer DVD+/-RW burners cannot reproduce?

    • Its not like when games finally arrive here they have necessarily corrected the Websterian spelling mistakes and done anything with the grating accent. I'd pay extra to get that sorted for sure.

      Worse still, I got Act of War as a present (its a turkey btw, don't buy it). It features cut scenes with an apparently "British" dude. Christ, there are 80 million of us who speak in our native accent all the time but Atari got some bad American actor to try his hand and then got a scriptwriter who apparently thinks

  • It really is easy (Score:2, Insightful)

    by GrassMunk ( 677765 )
    The kids pirate because its easyer than asking mommy and daddy for 30 - 70 USD. I mean who really thinks that a teenager discusses the social ramification about piratings games. They do it cause its cheap and its easyer than asking the 'rents for cash. Then when they get to univ. its more about saving money for school than paying for games. Then once you've graduated and have a job your saving for a house or a car or rent. In all honesty i dont understand how game companies make any money?
    • You see, that is something true. Back in Mexico I used to download games/music/programs and whatever else I wanted just because it was easy, it is a matter that you can just do it, and as I state in my sign, the chances of being caught or having any punishment are almost 0.

      When people say that in the UK they do it because of the money, I laugh. If there is something I have learned when I came to the UK is that people have money, they do not care too much. Come on!, some people spend 50 each week in gas... a
  • I have to wonder how they come up with those numbers. Do 84% of 15-18 year olds even have computers in their homes, or broadband access for downloading games? I seem to remember figures from the 2000 US Census saying only half the households in the US had computers, and something like 25% of the households that did have computers were not connected to the Internet. I would think patterns in the UK would be similar. If so, then those figures don't add up.
    • That was 5 years ago, computer prices have fallen drastically since then. I can almost garuntee that the percentage of homes without computers in the US is much smaller than that now. Who needs broadmand to install a game that a friend of yours has, then download a small crack to play it without the disk? I'm not sure about the UK, but I'd think that a fair amunt of homes would have computers as well.
    • /Do 84% of 15-18 year olds even have computers in their homes,/ Presumably:) /or broadband access for downloading games?/ The article suggests they are downloading, but it might be an assumption. Internet connections are not needed, especially at a school where there is a very large social group. I was pirating at that age and didn't even know what the internet was. And my reason for doing so was that I wanted a lot more games than I could afford.
  • http://www.acemurdermystery.com.nyud.net:8090/imag es/pirate/Bluebeard_2.jpg [nyud.net]
    That's a picture of a UK game(Legged) Pirate , Blue beard

  • Dear Zonk (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This story is not acceptable as it does not contain any references to the highly relevant and burgeoning subjects of 'women playing games, women in games or women in the games industry'.

    These are a critical issues to the modern world and things that I go to sleep worrying about every night, much like world poverty and war. I'm sure you feel the same.

    Please can you amend this story to somehow reflect the role of women in the games market, possibly 'do women pirate games' or something similar.

    Thanks,

    signed,

    Mo
  • ...If you don't like the way products are released in your market, you have several options. Piracy isn't (a legitimate) one of them. And before I hear that it's not piracy, it's copyright infringement, realize that I'm not referring to the product that you're downloading but the money you are depriving the developer of having.

    If you don't like your options when a game comes out, you have several legitimate choices:

    1) Purchase a substitution game that is released with terms you like. (IE, released in the US
  • "Anyone who has a computer connected to the internet and enough knowledge to setup "emule" a browser (for checking warez sites) or a bit torrent client." Thank you for reading!

    Seriously why the media people even tries to "stereo type" gamers, pirates and even computer users? when are they going to realize ANYONE can be in that demographic? all you need is the rigth tools and the most basic knowledge and you are in. You learned to play halo or mario dash with your kids and you do it each week, well you are a
    • Oh and in case you were wondering, the reason why you find recent releases in "warez" is because sometimes there are people "groups" who upload this files to the web and then brag about it and/or use that as credit to get other files. They are not necesarily teenagers or even "haxors". Just people who have access to those files for whatever reason most of the time they are beta testers, co-developers, store employees or reviewers, but of course no one can prove that. So is easier to blame "those damned haxo
  • They feel videogames are too expensive and resent the long wait for many games released in the US or in Asia before the UK. With a high level of computer literacy, it's easy for them to find a game online and download it.

    Since when did most people in that age group have a chance to purchase games that are both expensive and are of limited availability?

    Besides - most people in that age droup are in high-school. While they could get a job, they don't get much money out of minimum wage work on weekends. Fo

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