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Piracy and the Four Currencies

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Re: Piracy and the Four Currencies

#21

Post by vibrunazo »

Zirro wrote: post #18
finnw wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if I did not care about programmer well-being, I would be reluctant to use torrents and pirate sites because of the threat of malware. But then I have one Windows PC that I use for both games and online banking. Maybe that's rare among HN readers.

I stick with TV-series, and I've never seen an infected file. If I had been downloading software, sure, I would have been slightly more worried, but even so most sites have comments and ratingsystems. Looking at them probably helps you find out if a torrent is malicious or not. TL;DR-version: In my experience, with some sense, your risk of running into malware in torrents is slim.

That's because you're knowledgeable enough to not click on the misleading ads yelling "download here". Average users might not be.

Offering a safe easy medium does have an appeal to many users, as shown by the success of Steam.

Re: Piracy and the Four Currencies

#22

Post by Natsu »

finnw wrote: post #17

"Integrity dollars" are not like the other three. 1. There is no limit to how many you can spend in a lifetime. 2. They are non-linear: the more you spend, the lower the integrity cost of everything you do in the future. 3. The effect of #2 is localized - if I still have a rack full of pirated CDs (both music and games) from my student days, I am less reluctant to pirate music, but that will not necessarily make me m…

They can also go "negative" in a way, in that people who want to support someone will spend more than is reasonable. Just look at some of those recent Kickstarter drives if you want an example of that. People are willing to spend more real dollars because there are so many "negative" integrity dollars that the price is still "cheap" to them.

Re: Piracy and the Four Currencies

#23

Post by chc »

teamonkey wrote: post #15
metabrew wrote: post #10

This is why Steam is so good - it's less of a pain, and takes less time, than piracy.

But not for someone who's previously had their account locked, someone on usage-capped broadband, someone who doesn't know if their PC is up to scratch and knows that they can't get a refund...

I'm not sure how Steam would be worse than piracy for someone on usage-capped broadband. It would be better than BitTorrent, at least. And I think Steam lists system requirements for everything in its inventory, so though the refund situation still sucks, it does address the "Is my PC up to scratch?" question somewhat.

Re: Piracy and the Four Currencies

#24

Post by teamonkey »

chc wrote: post #23
teamonkey wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But not for someone who's previously had their account locked, someone on usage-capped broadband, someone who doesn't know if their PC is up to scratch and knows that they can't get a refund...

I'm not sure how Steam would be worse than piracy for someone on usage-capped broadband. It would be better than BitTorrent, at least. And I think Steam lists system requirements for everything in its inventory, so though the refund situation still sucks, it does address the "Is my PC up to scratch?" question somewhat.

With piracy you can download it somewhere else and use a memory stick.

PC system requirements are still notoriously inaccurate. There are too many variables and the wrong combination of CPU, GPU, motherboard, memory bus, OS or drivers can make or break performance of a game. Minimum (or recommended) spec doesn't always mean that playing will be enjoyable.

Re: Piracy and the Four Currencies

#25

Post by chaostheory »

Humble Bundle, Steam, and most app stores solve these problems for gaming.

It's too bad some titles from Steam include some really horrible DRM from their respective publishers, namely Ubisoft. Whenever I somehow lose a connection to Ubisoft servers, my game pauses with a 'Waiting to connect to Ubisoft servers' screen. The only way to get out of this screen is to quit the game. Based on this experience, I will never buy another Ubisoft game again, and yes this is post Ubisoft PR release about lightening up their online connection DRM.

Re: Piracy and the Four Currencies

#26

Post by waitwhat »

teamonkey wrote: post #24
chc wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how Steam would be worse than piracy for someone on usage-capped broadband. It would be better than BitTorrent, at least. And I think Steam lists system requirements for everything in its inventory, so though the refund situation still sucks, it does address the "Is my PC up to scratch?" question somewhat.

With piracy you can download it somewhere else and use a memory stick. PC system requirements are still notoriously inaccurate. There are too many variables and the wrong combination of CPU, GPU, motherboard, memory bus, OS or drivers can make or break performance of a game. Minimum (or recommended) spec doesn't always mean that playing will be enjoyable.

You can actually backup&restore local content on Steam, so you can do the "download elsewhere then copy to memory stick" thing as well.

Re: Piracy and the Four Currencies

#27

Post by chris11 »

chaostheory wrote: post #25

Humble Bundle, Steam, and most app stores solve these problems for gaming. It's too bad some titles from Steam include some really horrible DRM from their respective publishers, namely Ubisoft. Whenever I somehow lose a connection to Ubisoft servers, my game pauses with a 'Waiting to connect to Ubisoft servers' screen. The only way to get out of this screen is to quit the game. Based on this experience, I will never…

Yeah, Ubisoft lost a sale of Assasins Creed over the Holiday. I wasn't going to give them any money for a product that used to have such onerous drm.

Re: Piracy and the Four Currencies

#28

Post by yason »

chaostheory wrote: post #25

Humble Bundle, Steam, and most app stores solve these problems for gaming. It's too bad some titles from Steam include some really horrible DRM from their respective publishers, namely Ubisoft. Whenever I somehow lose a connection to Ubisoft servers, my game pauses with a 'Waiting to connect to Ubisoft servers' screen. The only way to get out of this screen is to quit the game. Based on this experience, I will never…

Humble Bundle, Steam, and most app stores solve these problems for gaming.

Still, there's another unit of currency in play that the app stores and subscription services don't offer. It's $VPO or Value of Proud Ownership and it's a currency you get instead of spend. You only get $VPO from buying while these centralized stores are more like renting.

I've written many times that the desire and ability to own something is an inherent motivation to buy it. If I like the band and the album, I buy the cd-or-equivalent because I want to own it. And to own means investing in something that belongs to you to the degree that you can resell it. That's my tribute to the creators, because it's human nature to try to liken yourself to what you admire. Owning a copy is flattery. Even owning a pirated copy is flattery because the price isn't a major factor there: owning it is.

I've been playing games in this decade that I bought in the 90's. Granted, I use an emulator and I often download, from abandonware sites, the ports most suitable for my emulator: I might have originally bought the game for Amiga but now I'm playing the PC version under DOSBox. Other games I've salvaged in time from 3.5-inch disks to my hard drive as images. But I still own the games I bought and nobody has taken it away from me.

This is why I'm not into app stores either.

While I might be a hermit retrogamer and certainly not a fan of the bleeding edge releases, and while I realize that for many people services like Steam might be a exact best solution, the underlying fundamentals don't change. There's a significant motivation factor buried in it.

If I really loved a game made this year I would want to buy it, not rent it. If I smelled it's a classic I would want to be able to play it in an emulator in the 2030's or even later. This means I need an "internet-age hardcopy", i.e. something that I can stash somewhere and unpack later for use with an emulator or original hardware. This would not be possible when I can't be sure any of the app stores is online after the next five years. This is the same reason Spotify doesn't speak to me at all.

Re: Piracy and the Four Currencies

#29

Post by hamoid »

Zirro wrote: post #18
finnw wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if I did not care about programmer well-being, I would be reluctant to use torrents and pirate sites because of the threat of malware. But then I have one Windows PC that I use for both games and online banking. Maybe that's rare among HN readers.

I stick with TV-series, and I've never seen an infected file. If I had been downloading software, sure, I would have been slightly more worried, but even so most sites have comments and ratingsystems. Looking at them probably helps you find out if a torrent is malicious or not. TL;DR-version: In my experience, with some sense, your risk of running into malware in torrents is slim.

How would you know if a program you downloaded had been modified to send files from your hard drive to a server? I think it can be easily done without an antivirus noticing.

Re: Piracy and the Four Currencies

#30

Post by winthrowe »

yason wrote: post #28
chaostheory wrote: post #25

Humble Bundle, Steam, and most app stores solve these problems for gaming. It's too bad some titles from Steam include some really horrible DRM from their respective publishers, namely Ubisoft. Whenever I somehow lose a connection to Ubisoft servers, my game pauses with a 'Waiting to connect to Ubisoft servers' screen. The only way to get out of this screen is to quit the game. Based on this experience, I will never…

Humble Bundle, Steam, and most app stores solve these problems for gaming. Still, there's another unit of currency in play that the app stores and subscription services don't offer. It's $VPO or Value of Proud Ownership and it's a currency you get instead of spend. You only get $VPO from buying while these centralized stores are more like renting. I've written many times that the desire and ability to own something i…

Isn't $VPO equivalent to the situations where the author stated that you might have -$I, that is the value of proud ownership is a credit to your integrity?
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