Sometimes It's OK To Steal My Games 438
spidweb writes "One Indie developer has written a nuanced article on a how software piracy affects him, approaching the issue from the opposite direction. He lists the ways in which the widespread piracy of PC games helps him. From the article: 'You don't get everything you want in this world. You can get piles of cool stuff for free. Or you can be an honorable, ethical being. You don't get both. Most of the time. Because, when I'm being honest with myself, which happens sometimes, I have to admit that piracy is not an absolute evil. That I do get things out of it, even when I'm the one being ripped off.' The article also tries to find a middle ground between the Piracy-Is-Always-Bad and Piracy-Is-Just-Fine sides of the argument that might enable single-player PC games to continue to exist."
Sounds like some kind of liberal! (Score:5, Funny)
Me, I prefer the moral clarity that comes from seeing everything in black and white. If the founding fathers had taken the "middle ground" we never would have ended up with the Constitution, the most error-free and infallible document ever created.
Re:Aleks (Score:3, Funny)
Your morals are not my morals (Score:5, Funny)
Reasonable people recognize this and go through life without calling people names.
You may feel piracy is wrong, and that's fine. We can agree to disagree. The Amish feel cell phones are wrong. We can agree to disagree. Tom Cruise feels psychiatry is wrong. Ok, he can go fuck himself.
Re:Actually.. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Actually.. (Score:5, Funny)
You get piles of stuff for free with any Ubuntu distro, and none of it is pirated (at least I haven't heard of any "Linux for Pirates", but maybe it exists)
Yarr... we be workin' on that, matey. These peg-fingers make the work slow, and it be difficult to motivate without promise of any booty. Ye have me word on the pirate code that it will be free as in grog when we be finished, yar.
Re:Actually.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Actually.. (Score:4, Funny)
Insulting people is not going to get you anywhere.
Really? Some comedians seem to make a living on that.
Re:We need to stop saying... (Score:3, Funny)
Mmm. If you ever happen to encounter any CPT violations, contact your local theoretical physicist, and keep an eye out for rogue muon neutrinos.
Re:Actually.. (Score:1, Funny)
If you want to be so literal hardly any (or none?) linux distros give you tons of free software.
Because most software doesn't weigh very much.
Re:Your morals are not my morals (Score:3, Funny)
That's because they're hypocrites and doesn't really disprove what the parent was discussing in the first place.
Re:Actually.. (Score:3, Funny)
"same level of quality"
A couple of so-called "AAA" titles from recent years:
Fallout3 - Backpedal, activate v.a.t.s, rinse repeat. Bugs still not fully patched (too busy working on paid-for-dlc, sequels). Inventory management UI that makes 1st year compsci projects look like works of art. GOTY!
Mass Effect - A first/third person shooter game released in 2008 with no AI. No really, observe how the mobs act. They can be approximated with
if melee, run closer, punch
if ranged, stand, shoot
2008. I expected neural net AI reacting to movie-like scripted events.
Break the game down into its elements: camera on face/dialogue chooser, planet chooser (with mouse sensitivy forced low to give you a sense of the vastness of space even though you're just choosing destinations on your ships navigation screen), D-grade First/Third person shooter. Character improvement that may as well not be there. Real-time elevator ride simulator. Yes, you get to wait 1-2 minutes in REAL-TIME before the next area starts loading. WOAH! INNOVATION!
Each element feels like it was programmed by some college dropout and the results simply lumped together. The entire game is about denying you control, whether by sticking you in a the lander vehicle or denying you any non-squad member info to make decisions (until you visit their locker located in a far corner of your ship).
GOTY again.
Do you really think making this kind of rubbish should be rewarded and not punished?