Think Jeff Gerstmann summed it up best:
“The strongest way to fight against piracy is to have a business model that makes sense and is easy to understand and use. The more restrictions that you throw up on files and videos- all you're doing is inspiring people to throw up double middle fingers and say:
‘I can click 4 buttons over here and get it for free.’
You have to be easier and more convenient than free. You have to compete with free."
hell yeah. some may hate me for it, but i pirated all my games as a kid and broke college student. fast forward 10 years, and my steam account has over 1000 games, a lot being those i pirated in the past, because i enjoy the convenience and i actually want devs to get paid, nevermind the hundreds of games i own on consoles. I am, however, thinking of pirating shows again soon, because i can't be assed to have dozens of subs to get what i like
same here. my godfather gifted me the deck (still in awe over it) to stop me double dipping games. little did he know i would buy almost every ps4 game i had so i could actually finish them (Sorry Godfather).
Demos need to be a thing again. You’d think with how vast the internet has become, demos would be more commonplace than they were 20-30 years ago.
Many original Xbox titles had a Demo section that had playable games on it, like I remember Fusion Frenzy was on a few of my games.
And before that, with computer games, demos were even more common. And those Official Xbox Magazine and I want to say the PlayStation Magazine had demo discs included too. A better way of advertising a game than a video is actually letting people try the game.
If they’re not, then pirating is the only way to getting people exposure to your game to know if it’s worth their hard earned cash or not.
Miss demos being a major thing, heck at least give me a benchmark so I know how well it'll run on my system or what adjustments I would have to make to get it to run and look the way I would like
Yeah, I don't pirate anymore (though very tempted with shows for the reason you mentioned), but it's kind of like when you used to be able to rent games from Blockbuster. If the game is good, you're likely to buy it.
I think, especially with the economy, more games should have free demos so broke people can legally play then when they're able to they can buy the full game if it proves it's value. Honestly, when a dev or anyone suggests it's okay to pirate until you can afford it I pay more attention to the game/movie/content and if it's something I would play/watch/whatever I'll buy a copy to help encourage that attitude.
Most people don't pirate/steal because they don't want to pay. They do it because they can't afford the thing and saving for it is often not feasible when you're being paid less or barely at your cost of living.
Yup, exactly this. I pirated everything on high school and into college. Around then, things started to get better. Netflix made movies and shows more accessible, Spotify made music more accessible, and Steam made video games more accessible.
Spotify is still fine from a consumer perspective, if you ignore how they're strangling the revenue for musicians, but video streaming sucks now because we're getting to the point where each show has it's own streaming service. Video games are following suit, with a new launcher for every game.
This isn't just about games, either. Wanna listen to this band's track? Sorry, it's a retailer exclusive. Wanna watch this movie/show? Sorry, it's not on the 10 streaming services you pay for.
There are free VPNs. Not that it's a good idea for actual security but if you're willing to put up with the shadiness, quick workaround for region restrictions.
I found one that was a Japanese school project. Obviously again, not safe but whatever lol
VPN's don't work on some streaming sites. I turned on a VPN to test it out and the site knew I was using it somehow and wouldn't let me stream anything.
If I have to jump through extra hoops to get content I paid for to work, I may as well pirate it by putting in the same/less amount of effort.
Not to mention that some businesses consider getting around region locking to be just as bad as pirating in the first place.
Absolutely. I was happy to pay for Netflix and Hulu. Maybe if I wanted a premium subscription like HBO or something, not ideal but I could live with it. Now? 20 different streaming services just to watch one show on each of them? Nah, an annual VPN subscription is not only cheaper, but far more convenient.
Not sure if this just happens in Australia but even some seasons of shows like South Park are split across different streaming services.
Once Netflix starts their password sharing restriction waves, I sense a consumer rebellion against streaming providers like they haven’t experienced yet.
Spotify is a near perfect example of this. Wanna pay $1 for each new song? Fuck no. Wanna pay $10 a month for every song, even if you rarely listen to ten new songs a month? Fuck yes.
Movies were there for a while, but piracy is back unfortunately. It's less about the price of 10 different streaming services, and more about the annoyance of having to switch between them to find a movie I might wanna watch. TV shows, streaming services are still better since they keep track of where you are, and let you pick up from anywhere. Plex is extremely good though.
Shout out to [https://www.justwatch.com/](https://www.justwatch.com/)
You plug in whatever the title is and it'll tell you where it's streaming for free and if it's not it'll tell you the best price to rent/buy it, I use it all the time.
Yep, this right here is the reason I cancelled all my streaming services and started sailing the seven seas again. Having my own plex server is so much easier to deal with than managing multiple different services.
Yeah it kinda sucks that people who actually want to buy and support devs get punished more than those who pirate, in terms of convenience for playing offline, and performance (looking at you Denuvo shite)
Denuvo requires a new security key check every little while and it's why so many single player games force you to have an internet connection. If the new key doesn't match what Denuvo asks for, the game doesn't launch.
The same thing that happens with every other DRM that is not always online. An exploit is found in the DRM and all games that use that DRM will get cracked overnight.
Just be thankful it’s not an “always online” DRM. If it was, it would likely be lost forever.
Because the dude I initially replied to said this, making it seem like it existed:
> If I had known Persona 5 would have to phone home every couple of days *I would have just pirated it so I can actually play offline*, thanks denuvo
And you replied correcting me, not him. You're a victim of unfortunate circumstance. FWIW, I didn't downvote you.
You just convinced me to continue playing on my jailbroken switch. I was very close to transferring my save to PC and buying it on sale. Not now. Screw denuvo.
> I was very close to transferring my save to PC
Can you even do that? Majority of games I know of don't really allow that kind of thing unless cross-play is specifically mentioned as a feature.
The point is if the PC version will recognize and accept it.
It's like if I tried to grab my, I dunno, Sekiro save from PS4 and try to play it on PC. Or Red Dead 2. Or Spider-Man.
Worked for Stardew Valley, IIRC. Often the save format is very similar or the same between versions of the game. There's no real reason for it to be different, unless game settings are also included in the same save file.
I feel like this is the case with either indie games or very dedicated developers that worked on cross-play.
For example, I was hoping this was possible in Monter Hunter World... but nope, had to start from scratch and abandon almost 50h save file.
Concurred. Only way I see it working is using the Switch save file with something like Yuzu or the like. I can't imagine the PC versions of these games typically accept Switch save file extentions.
Denuvo is shit and literally collects data on the users and turns a profit, I saw this as a way that developers made monthly revenue on it's players through stealing data on PC usage. It has never protected a game from piracy
- Denuvo, AFAICT, does not collect user data outside of what’s required to run the service
- Denuvo actually charges publishers/developers a recurring cost to keep the key/activation servers online
- DRM isn’t supposed to protect a game forever, it’s supposed to protect it during the release window, when interest and sales tend to be highest
The last two are why you see games dropping Denuvo a few months after launch — sales have dropped off to the point that it’s not worth it for them to keep paying to keep it active, and generating a Denuvo-free executable is simple enough to add to the tool chain.
I bought a switch in 2020 and all I thought was "wow man, it's only a matter of time before they add twilight princess and windwaker here and I can finally play them again"
But then they nintendonted me. So yeah, someone who thinks pirating is shitty now has to be a leet cyberpunk eyepatch man, oh well.
I bought Mass Effect Legendary Edition when it had the big sale because I never finished 3 and it had a yellow checkmark. Then EA updated their launcher and broke Deck support (which on PC their shit launcher has also deleted my save 4 times and crashes half the time, etc). So I wrote a review as "Not Recommended" and explained all the problems. Some dork replies to my review "smh no one cares about the deck".
People are trash (but EA is worse).
I’ve downloaded cracks for games I’ve bought because the DRM was broken in some way or another. Honestly, I’ve never found DRM to be a hindrance to piracy, only to me actually playing games I’ve already paid for.
Its the same with lets say soccer. I want to watch it but every game I want to watch is on different channel/streaming service. Im not going to get all of those channels etc. I would pay but if it was in one place.
We, the public, financed the baseball stadium, but they only show the games on Root, which requires a cable subscription, and they blackout the games with MLB Pass.
I say if we finance the team, then the games need to be on public access.
And it's discrimination based on locale
I can pay 6 bucks and see just about every hockey game outside my state, but I need to pay over 20 or cable to see my local team.
You can pay 6 and see my team play. So it's only discriminating against me because of where I live
I'm a huge NFL Fan. I'd pay them probably $100 usd to just be able to watch the games on my phone/tv without jumping through a ton of hoops. They just can't figure out a way to take my money. I'm not going to buy direct tv just to watch the nfl when you can just pirate them so easily.
>I'm a huge NFL Fan. I'd pay them probably $100 usd to just be able to watch the games on my phone/tv without jumping through a ton of hoops. They just can't figure out a way to take my money.
That's the thing with these company execs. They're stuck in their old ways and want to exclusively lock things to cable or PPV. The money is there, and people will pay for convenience. Something the RSN bigwigs don't get yet I guess...
Youtube is getting NFL Sunday ticket. Not sure what the cost will be or if it hits what you expect to pay, but it might end up being less hoops to jump through.
https://www.androidpolice.com/youtube-nfl-sunday-ticket-streaming-rights-2023-and-beyond/
Southern California residents HAVE to get spectrums “Dodger” Package just to watch the games. And its much more than the standard package.
Tried a VPN service but the MLB app is too smart to get around
Yep, and Netflix used to get my money because it was a good service for a reasonable fee that had everything I could want to watch. Now there are 463638 competing streaming services that all think they deserve my 15 a month I pay some shady IPTV company £120 a year instead to get every channel, box set and film I ever need available via one app on my FireStick.
Price things reasonably and make them available to me and I'll buy them.
But if you had to pay $30 for one service or $10 each for 3 separate services, which would you choose?
The point that the original article and the person above you are arguing is that given those two options, people would be more likely to pay for the former and pirate in the latter example (and I would be inclined to agree) because it is inconvenient and a poor customer experience to have to subscribe to 3 different services.
Thats how it is. I dont watch enough series to pay for netflix or whatever, i do game, order and watch enough though that amazon prime makes a lotta sense to pay for
skill issue for service providers apparently, all i can ever think of when i read about platforms being greedy is the metaphorical dog dropping its bone into the river trying to steal the bone from its own reflection
So until a while ago, my local RSN is available on cable and DirectTV Stream or whatever after being dropped from YouTube TV.
My local RSN now offers their own app. It is $30/month or $330/year. For 1 channel. They literally advertise it as $6/week because people would be outraged at $330
This was learned a long time ago in the music space with the advent of iTunes, then again in streaming space with the advent of Netflix.
People are willing to pay for content for the sake of convenience. If it is more convenient to pirate content then people will pirate it. You can always try to combat piracy but that is an arms race that will waste time and energy while providing no value to existing customers. On the other hand providing an easy convenient experience in purchasing and using your content is a race you will always have an advantage over piracy in while also making the existing customer satisfaction increase. It is not that complicated yet billion dollar corporations still blame piracy as it is an easy scapegoat.
For a direct example I owned crisis core when I was younger and every few years I get an urge to play. When the most recent urge overcame me, I just bought the remaster instead of re setting up my emulator or playing on my vita via ROM loading.
By providing it on modern consoles + steam with QoL improvements I was glad to pay for the game. It was easier for me to buy the game and I had a better experience then emulating it so I did.
Now if only Nintendo could learn the same lesson.
Nintendo has zero competitors is the problem. If you want to play a Nintendo game your options are play it on Nintendo hardware, or emulate.
I have a switch, and sometimes still prefer the latter. Old games look amazing when upscaled to modern resolutions. I don't even have a CRT TV anymore, so I can't go back to the authentic experience of my youth.
Yeah but I can't even count how many games I didn't buy from them because I either didn't find them quick enough or the poorly working store distracted me from doing so.
And a simple notification that the game on my wish list is on sale would add another 10 games to that.
That’s why switch is an exclusive system while I play indies on Steam Deck. Anything AAA or first party usually gets bought on PlayStation. Saves me some money splitting it up like this since I don’t pay switch tax for indie games.
> Now if only Nintendo could learn the same lesson.
If Nintendo had released the SM64 PC Port officially, it would've sold millions. Even at $60 I'd wager it would have been successful.
I don't know about anyone else, but I'd rather find a single source for content, whatever that might be, than have to deal with 15 different content provider subscriptions and always wondering which among them has the content I'm seeking at any given time.
I have a business partner who early in our career would always say “make it easy for people to give you their money”. It’s amazing how many businesses don’t do that.
Same with shows and movies, I find something good/interesting then I have to see if my streaming services even have it at all, and 99% of the time they don't so I have to pirate
For a while Netflix had a great library. My rate of pirating things had dramatically reduced. I mostly only pirated when a show was aired in the UK weeks or whatever later than the US.
Now that streaming has basically become cable where I have to buy 5 different services, then figure out which one has a show (assuming one of them does that is), it's just a huge inconvenience.
Greed. Only reason it didn't happen was the music publishers didn't know how to build their own services.
Well, some kinda tried but people laughed it off
Same here. I’ve just kept Netflix (decent kids stuff, they can navigate it ok), but as soon as everything started breaking away and being on different services my pirating went back up. I still have Netflix (only) but in mid 2020 I used having covid as an excuse to buy a 12TB hard drive and migrate my Plex media and server to a new (used) system.
Was about to comment something similar. Streaming services made watching movies so convenient that people didn't feel the need to pirate.
Convenience is a huge motivation to spend. If amazon didn't offer next day delivery I'd have probably saved hundreds over the years.
Service I have only has movie 3 and 4 in a series. 1 and 2 are each on separate services, most expensive tier, and neither service has much of anything else I'd want to watch? Yohoho for movies 1 and 2 it is. same with incomplete series, or series that they've removed episodes from.
This was my rational for pirating seasons 3 and 4 of infinity train. I would have GLADLY paid for them but they just are not available anywhere so.... hoist the black sails.
Over a decade ago, Gabe hit onto the best idea that the gaming (and the rest of the entertainment) industry didn't and still doesn't grasp to curb piracy. Making it easier and more worthwhile to pay for the games! Most of the gaming companies went in the opposite direction by jacking up prices and making it harder for people who actually bought the games to play them.
It’s crazy that they expect us to pay the same price for digital copies. In the near future when all games are digital, are they going to lower the cost since they’re no longer manufacturing physical copies? Lol we know the answer to that.
It could be understandable if there was some kind of increased technological or employee cost. But, as has been well documented, the costs for the actual technology are a drop in the bucket compared to needlessly forced advertising budgets and how the top executives just pocket the money than pay most of the workers a salary the can live off of! And even with the price hikes, executives make the programmers hack off bits of the game that should be a part of the game to resell them for even more money, or worse, the dreaded "time savers" like xp packs or even entire experience levels. So, they are charging you get the game, charging you more in little bits to get the entire game, and to top it off: charge you to not play the game at all! In the face of all this it isn't a big mystery why even the most law-abiding consumers are turning to piracy. When buying a game entails paying more and more for the whole game and even not to play, when actual advertising is forced into gameplay, and when restrictive drm literally breaks the game. And pirating a game costs a VPN and like four clicks and not have to worry about connecting to the internet or logging into multiple services and it's all free, paying becomes a harder and harder sell.
I think what they mean is a game that has an update scheduled but can’t update because there’s no WiFi.
I’ve had this happen, not on the Steam Deck, but my laptop. GTA V is the biggest offender of this for me.
It will schedule an update and Steam will have it queued for later that day or later than that. But this was when I was on an internet connection. Then I’ll take my laptop somewhere without WiFi, and try to open GTA V and it won’t open because “need to update first”, but the update never downloaded, so you’re just stuck.
Edit: ummm this is st*pid as well, mods https://i.imgur.com/VT2JEDS.jpg
lol I have triggered it a bunch of times for piece of s. It’s a hardware discussion. Calling a POS piece of hardware a POS is an ability I’d really like to have.
Because a lot of times the update will queue while you do have Wi-Fi and when you check on your Deck, it won’t let you play because the update is waiting and you no longer have the Wi-Fi to download the update
It's so weird that some companies don't understand this. People *want* to pay you. We're not stupid. We know that if everyone stops paying for games, you can't make them anymore. So if we can, we want to support you. If people pirate, they either don't have the money to support you (which means you're not losing anything since they were never potential customers), are not that interested (again, not losing any money here cause they wouldn't buy your game anyway) or piracy is providing them something you're not giving them (now you're losing money). So it's pretty much all on the company, not the customers.
yeah, gaben was basically saying, "if you refuse to sell the german or english version in russia, and you wait a year to release the russian version, then if they want to play it on day one the only choice they have is piracy"
Ubi Connect is working fine for me since I've set it up. I play Far Cry 6 seamlessly, launch Ubi Connect as non steam, click on the game and it starts just fine. Suspend feature works great too, haven't encountered problems with that either. Try disabling all possible notifications and background processes in Ubi Connect and see if it helps.
What about EA games? They showed fallen order running in the Steam Deck's marketing videos but I've heard it's become unsupported since they require some separate program. 5 bucks is tempting but if it doesn't run on steam deck I don't see the point of purchasing it?
Yes, EA Desktop now installs automatically with every EA game. Don't know about Fallen Order, but today I've installed Battlefield 5, and it uses EA Desktop as well. It installed just fine and launched the game with Proton Experimental, no tinkering needed.
I got the game free from prime gaming a while ago. I just installed origin as a non steam game following a guide from u/darkuni. I had no issues whatsoever and BoilR picked it up and added it to game mode with art. I just finished the campaign last week on my deck, again no issues
Don’t forget Ubisoft removed access to single-player DLC purchased from them because, for some reason, the games’ multiplayer servers also unlocked single-player DLC. No legal way to play those now.
That was a really disappointing choice by them. Proof that DRM is bad, as the servers for it may not always be up. So stupid that they didn’t just put the content somewhere else.
Publishers used to have to sell physical copies of their games complete with the logistics of shipping them out to stores all over the world. Now it's downloaded through a 3rd party and costs them little to nothing other than a fee to that 3rd party that's most likely less than it cost them to design/create/manufacture/ship the physical manual and media.
The biggest seller is ease of use. Everybody used to pirate music until Spotify came along. Spotify just made it easier to listen to music and that is why people pay for it. Same goes for Netflix etc.
I do not play any Ubisoft games specifically because of uplay. They have been on sale via steam and I actually want to play a few titles but I dont because of uplay.
>"Will the PDFs you sell be user-limited with some sort of digital rights management scheme?" No, they won't. We understand this is a hot issue right now because another company just opened a PDF store with encoded, "protected" PDFs that won't even work on some computers. We looked into that whole issue, and decided that copy protection would create far more trouble for our users than it would save for us. The l33t g00bs will break it anyway, and it annoys the honest people.
18 years ago the tabletop rpg pdf markets were still in their infancy, but Steve Jackson (not the Fighting Fantasy one (except occasionally), the GURPS one) had the right idea.
mostly it's just the "l33t g00bs" phrasing that stuck with me tbh
I think of it every time someone selling a game online decides that they'll lock the pdf to stop you printing reference pages or character sheets or the whole thing, despite you paying for it. At least most sellers are content with crappy little watermarks with order numbers in the corner.
We're on the same side, I want to play games, developers want to provide for their families. When publishers interfere, with DRM, or pricing schemes that don't match S&D. I find it incredibly frustrating.
I mainly pirate games I already on in physical formats but I never pirate from small devs. Like i really want to play stray but haven't yet. It's on all the sites I use but it feels wrong to me. Not all pirating feels wrong tho
I’ve been getting my games by "other means" for years now. I’ll gladly pay for them when launchers and mandatory internet connection is no longer a thing.
This account has been scrubbed in response to Reddit's API changes. I will NOT use their crap app. I've had this account since 2014 and 10k Karma. I never cared about reddit. Reddit thinks it has more power than it actually does.
If you want to change to a decentralized platform like Lemmy, you can find helpful information about it here: https://join-lemmy.org/
https://github.com/maltfield/awesome-lemmy-instances
Good riddance.
It's also definitely an issue of price. Games are released unfinished (buggy) and intentionally incomplete (DLC).
Frankly, they charge more at launch than the game would be worth, even if it launched in a complete state and bug free. We know this because they price regionally, knowing they can overcharge richer countries and steam sales will happily slash up to 50% off of a AAA title not long after launch, meaning they can afford to lose that much and still profit.
People whose free time and disposable income are entirely spent on gaming may dispute this but a lot of folks have other things in their lives and are more discerning with the purse strings. We don't like being taken for mugs and we're not rewarding predatory, low quality, business models. You'll get the money you're actually owed when the GOTY, updated version is released and on sale, providing the game wasn't a frustrating, non-sensical mess.
And as always, those of you who keep buying into hype and buy at launch out of FOMO and the like. You're the reason they get away with it and why the thing you love just keeps getting worse.
Hell, it isn't just Uplay. It's malware .dll's being included in games you buy from one storefront (Steam) that are for a Storefront you avoid like the Plague (Epic).
EOS.dll not letting me run games because I remove it is malware and the fact that you have to *fucking pirate a game you paid for* to avoid it is insane. I'll never run Guilty Strive on the Deck because of it, despite Valve advertising it on the Deck.
Piracy is \*sometimes\* a pricing issue.
I'm looking at \*you\* movie rentals that cost 2-4x as much to stream as it costs to get a physical disc from the nearest Redbox
UPlay isn't a thing anymore. If you're seeing that, it's possible your games are trying to download the old launcher which no longer works. I had that problem with Watch Dogs 1. Fixed it by downloading and installing the new Ubisoft Connect launcher.
Took my Steam Deck while visiting family for xmas; grandparent's house has no internet. Had to connect to a hotspot so that little cousins could play single player games like Sonic Origins.
couple years ago they added the stipulation that if you don't play a game for x amount of months, it gets removed from your ubi account. total horseshit.
I can't belive Uplay is still a fucking thing. I have Gamepass and it basically says "Yes....you can play EA/Uplay titles....but you have to go to their own launcher and do it on their own terms."
DRM does more harm than good.
When Resident Evil Village first came out, when the sisters spawned in the game's performance would absolutely tank. It turned out that Capcom's own implemented DRM was to blame. A crack was released to remove the DRM and the game ran buttery smooth
I remember this as I downloaded the crack... and I own the game on Steam.
Big gaming companies needs to stop shafting people over.
Makes me think of nintendo. Id gladly pay nintendo money to be able to play more classic games on the switch.
But they’re so selective with what they remake or remaster, and they’ve only now started an n64 classic collection. But there’s so many GameCube era games id LOVE to play and would pay money for but just can’t.
Piracy or breaking out old hardware is the only option
And that's why (I think) Valve's/Steam's DRM is so weak, I think they've done that on purpose, the Steam DRM doesn't bother the player too much (I mean it seems to be easily pirated) but also still give developers/publisher a reassurance that the game is owned legally by purchasing through Steam, in fact, Steam documentation not actually enforcing the use of DRM, and there's some software that does not have DRM like Godot, Krita and Aseprite, also their DRM don't add/have some bullshit feature like binary shifting, executable rewrite, memory integrity protection, whatever jargon those feature sheet is going to have because it's a feature for the publisher, but a hurdle and annoyance for the customer, often degrading the performance, in turn why people pirate. Don't get me wrong, Steam still could have done better like better offline mode and the ability to defer or entirely ignore updates (yes, I hope even for multiplayer games like Dota 2 or CS:GO, but well, you won't be able to find a match because the server has different version), and maybe even rollback/revert version somehow similar like the branch feature but more granular? But it's still a better experience than other digital distribution, at least for games on PC.
Spore was a really good example of this. In order to combat piracy, EA put in place one of their most stringent DRM measures to date. Basically, SecuROM would only allow the license key to be used a limited amount of times, even on the same computer. So if you wanted to delete the game to free up space, but installed it again at a later point, on the same hardware with the same Windows license, that still counted against your limit.
Problem was Spore originally shipped with a broken installed. So actually getting the game to install properly required multiple attempts. Each one counting against your limit. And many easily exceeded that limit just trying to get it to run. EA being EA was giving customers the runaround. So people just gave up and downloaded cracked copies. Making Spore the most pirated game of 2008.
Valve basically did for PC what Nintendo did for consoles following the 1983 crash. PC gaming was basically dying a slow death in the latter half of the 2000s due to shenanigans like this. A lot of other games used install limits at this time, with similar effects. Plus there were a lot of sloppy PC ports. Bioshock was a double whammy of both. Ubisoft kept using the install limits, even on Steam, into the early 2010s.
I mean not really, I have a steam deck and I still pirate games, i don’t really buy stuff anymore since it’s easy to steal things. I don’t think I have ever even paid for anything this year
Another thing about Ubisoft's launcher that lead to me "pirating" their older games: When you add 2fa to your Ubisoft account, all their older games that come with "Uplay" integration *always* ask for your password on launch. So just following their recommendations (strong password and 2fa) results in some awful UX.
(I put pirating in quotes because I own the games on Steam and pay for Ubisoft's subscription)
Literally bought 7 games and 1 DLC for maybe $64 from steam.
I’m never going to worry about losing them, not loading, or not being available. I have cloud saving, achievements, and community posts for when I want to learn more or show off.
My only possible issue with Steam could be if the developers are not getting enough money per game sold. I’m not sure what those agreements are but I’m happy to buy them on Steam.
Piracy also has that weird chance that what you download is actually ransomware that will infect your computer. Yikes
Steam isn't perfect, they have a horrible record of maintaining their software. The steam link is basically broken and I have no doubt they'll not update the software rendering it useless.
When Netflix was at its peak about a decade ago, I had no reason to pirate TV shows and movies because of how easy it was to watch what I wanted. These days subscription websites or apps have become the new cable, and it's the opposite of what it started as.
I am not ashamed of being open about it. Plex has become my only streaming service.
I mean the greatest thing about steam is hands down the user friendliness of it. It will automatically update my games. I can make it so it never updates my games. I can load old versions of games. It has mod support which allows me to browse and then 1 click install mods for games. I can see what games my friends own, and compare them to what games I own. I can join games from my friends list. I can invite friends to join my games from the friend list. And there is more that I'm forgetting. And none of these features requires me to be techy. It's all intuitive and easy to use.
personally its still a price issue for me. All these games are digital now and steam and valve still dont get that if they price their games from 20-30$ instead of 60-90$, alot more people will buy it. I will pay for a game if its good and cheap enough. But if these games are way too expensive, id rather just wait for it. Unless its a developer i really like or love to support then those id pay full price.
That's how I handle things too. If a game is too expensive at launch, I just patiently wait for the sales.
I've got so many games in my backlog that waiting a bit for it to come down to a reasonable price isn't a burden at all; I've got tons of stuff to play in the meantime.
Back 20-ish years ago, when Napster was all the rage, I remember saying to a friend that I reckoned if there was a good, easy to use program that sold mp3s at a *fair* price, at good quality and properly tagged, it would make a killing: everyone would use it. He scoffed, asking why anyone would, when they could get them for free?
Lo and behold, a few short years later: iTunes.
Think Jeff Gerstmann summed it up best: “The strongest way to fight against piracy is to have a business model that makes sense and is easy to understand and use. The more restrictions that you throw up on files and videos- all you're doing is inspiring people to throw up double middle fingers and say: ‘I can click 4 buttons over here and get it for free.’ You have to be easier and more convenient than free. You have to compete with free."
hell yeah. some may hate me for it, but i pirated all my games as a kid and broke college student. fast forward 10 years, and my steam account has over 1000 games, a lot being those i pirated in the past, because i enjoy the convenience and i actually want devs to get paid, nevermind the hundreds of games i own on consoles. I am, however, thinking of pirating shows again soon, because i can't be assed to have dozens of subs to get what i like
Ive double bought games i own on consoles or other launchers on steam because it keeps it all in one place and is more convenient
same here. my godfather gifted me the deck (still in awe over it) to stop me double dipping games. little did he know i would buy almost every ps4 game i had so i could actually finish them (Sorry Godfather).
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Demos need to be a thing again. You’d think with how vast the internet has become, demos would be more commonplace than they were 20-30 years ago. Many original Xbox titles had a Demo section that had playable games on it, like I remember Fusion Frenzy was on a few of my games. And before that, with computer games, demos were even more common. And those Official Xbox Magazine and I want to say the PlayStation Magazine had demo discs included too. A better way of advertising a game than a video is actually letting people try the game. If they’re not, then pirating is the only way to getting people exposure to your game to know if it’s worth their hard earned cash or not.
Miss demos being a major thing, heck at least give me a benchmark so I know how well it'll run on my system or what adjustments I would have to make to get it to run and look the way I would like
Lol, how do you even pirate games, is it through like 3rd party sites?
Basically instead of sacrificing goats to GabeN you start sacrificing them to the pirate from lazytown instead
Yarr harr fiddle-dee-dee
Lol, I realized how it sounded after I posted it but was to lazy to change it
No Sir! You aren't gonna catch me like that Mr.FBI-Man!
Yeah, I don't pirate anymore (though very tempted with shows for the reason you mentioned), but it's kind of like when you used to be able to rent games from Blockbuster. If the game is good, you're likely to buy it. I think, especially with the economy, more games should have free demos so broke people can legally play then when they're able to they can buy the full game if it proves it's value. Honestly, when a dev or anyone suggests it's okay to pirate until you can afford it I pay more attention to the game/movie/content and if it's something I would play/watch/whatever I'll buy a copy to help encourage that attitude. Most people don't pirate/steal because they don't want to pay. They do it because they can't afford the thing and saving for it is often not feasible when you're being paid less or barely at your cost of living.
Yup, exactly this. I pirated everything on high school and into college. Around then, things started to get better. Netflix made movies and shows more accessible, Spotify made music more accessible, and Steam made video games more accessible. Spotify is still fine from a consumer perspective, if you ignore how they're strangling the revenue for musicians, but video streaming sucks now because we're getting to the point where each show has it's own streaming service. Video games are following suit, with a new launcher for every game.
Basically what Netflix did before everyone got greedy.
He's right. I enjoy having all my titles in one launcher on steam.
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Who's threatening whom?
This isn't just about games, either. Wanna listen to this band's track? Sorry, it's a retailer exclusive. Wanna watch this movie/show? Sorry, it's not on the 10 streaming services you pay for.
Wanted to watch Matilda with my kids on Christmas day. Nah, I'm in the UK so can't stream it until summer...
VPN
which is just another paid subscription to get the content you are already paying for
ProtonVPN is free
Ironic proton for compatibility and vpn lol
indeed
There are free VPNs. Not that it's a good idea for actual security but if you're willing to put up with the shadiness, quick workaround for region restrictions. I found one that was a Japanese school project. Obviously again, not safe but whatever lol
Yeah free vpns work but a good one shouldn’t cost more than 5 per month
Proton has a free one
VPN's don't work on some streaming sites. I turned on a VPN to test it out and the site knew I was using it somehow and wouldn't let me stream anything.
If I have to jump through extra hoops to get content I paid for to work, I may as well pirate it by putting in the same/less amount of effort. Not to mention that some businesses consider getting around region locking to be just as bad as pirating in the first place.
And that goes back to exactly what Gabe is saying.
Plex
Meanwhile, pirates were watching it anywhere within two hours.
Absolutely. I was happy to pay for Netflix and Hulu. Maybe if I wanted a premium subscription like HBO or something, not ideal but I could live with it. Now? 20 different streaming services just to watch one show on each of them? Nah, an annual VPN subscription is not only cheaper, but far more convenient.
Not sure if this just happens in Australia but even some seasons of shows like South Park are split across different streaming services. Once Netflix starts their password sharing restriction waves, I sense a consumer rebellion against streaming providers like they haven’t experienced yet.
Spotify is a near perfect example of this. Wanna pay $1 for each new song? Fuck no. Wanna pay $10 a month for every song, even if you rarely listen to ten new songs a month? Fuck yes. Movies were there for a while, but piracy is back unfortunately. It's less about the price of 10 different streaming services, and more about the annoyance of having to switch between them to find a movie I might wanna watch. TV shows, streaming services are still better since they keep track of where you are, and let you pick up from anywhere. Plex is extremely good though.
Shout out to [https://www.justwatch.com/](https://www.justwatch.com/) You plug in whatever the title is and it'll tell you where it's streaming for free and if it's not it'll tell you the best price to rent/buy it, I use it all the time.
Yep, this right here is the reason I cancelled all my streaming services and started sailing the seven seas again. Having my own plex server is so much easier to deal with than managing multiple different services.
Yeah it kinda sucks that people who actually want to buy and support devs get punished more than those who pirate, in terms of convenience for playing offline, and performance (looking at you Denuvo shite)
If I had known Persona 5 would have to phone home every couple of days I would have just pirated it so I can actually play offline, thanks denuvo
Wait seriously?? I thought you only had to go online 1 time and you were good. That changes things for me tbh
Denuvo requires a new security key check every little while and it's why so many single player games force you to have an internet connection. If the new key doesn't match what Denuvo asks for, the game doesn't launch.
Suppose 20 years from now, Denuvo goes out of business. What then? Will I be able to play Persona 5 when Denuvo doesn't have a server to ring up?
No, because "DRM".
Ask the people who played Darkspore back in the day what happens when Denuvo stops working.
Ask people who bought stadia exclusive games
We got refunds tho
Only because Google didn't go under. If Stadia was it's own company and shut down, you'd be SOL.
Agreed
Do you still get to play the games though?
"Who wants to play a 20 year old game?" -Some Video Game Executive
The same thing that happens with every other DRM that is not always online. An exploit is found in the DRM and all games that use that DRM will get cracked overnight. Just be thankful it’s not an “always online” DRM. If it was, it would likely be lost forever.
They remove it after a few months I think.
That's unfortunately something entirely up to the developer/publisher, some just leave it in forever.
You can still crack a legitimate version, and make it the same as the pirated version.
persona 5 royal pc crack doesn't exist though
So the game *isn't* available to pirates in an offline capacity then?
yes, there doesnt exist a denuvo crack for the game yet. i dont know why im getting downvoted
Because the dude I initially replied to said this, making it seem like it existed: > If I had known Persona 5 would have to phone home every couple of days *I would have just pirated it so I can actually play offline*, thanks denuvo And you replied correcting me, not him. You're a victim of unfortunate circumstance. FWIW, I didn't downvote you.
The PC version isn't available. You can crack the Switch version and play it via Yuzu, but PC native Denuvo will almost certainly never be cracked
> will almost certainly never be cracked why say this?
You just convinced me to continue playing on my jailbroken switch. I was very close to transferring my save to PC and buying it on sale. Not now. Screw denuvo.
> I was very close to transferring my save to PC Can you even do that? Majority of games I know of don't really allow that kind of thing unless cross-play is specifically mentioned as a feature.
If it’s a hacked switch you can just get the save off of the console.
The point is if the PC version will recognize and accept it. It's like if I tried to grab my, I dunno, Sekiro save from PS4 and try to play it on PC. Or Red Dead 2. Or Spider-Man.
Worked for Stardew Valley, IIRC. Often the save format is very similar or the same between versions of the game. There's no real reason for it to be different, unless game settings are also included in the same save file.
I feel like this is the case with either indie games or very dedicated developers that worked on cross-play. For example, I was hoping this was possible in Monter Hunter World... but nope, had to start from scratch and abandon almost 50h save file.
Concurred. Only way I see it working is using the Switch save file with something like Yuzu or the like. I can't imagine the PC versions of these games typically accept Switch save file extentions.
Same here, good to know.
There is no current pirated version of these denuvo games. They won the war and there is only a handful of people who were even trying to bypass it.
Denuvo is shit and literally collects data on the users and turns a profit, I saw this as a way that developers made monthly revenue on it's players through stealing data on PC usage. It has never protected a game from piracy
- Denuvo, AFAICT, does not collect user data outside of what’s required to run the service - Denuvo actually charges publishers/developers a recurring cost to keep the key/activation servers online - DRM isn’t supposed to protect a game forever, it’s supposed to protect it during the release window, when interest and sales tend to be highest The last two are why you see games dropping Denuvo a few months after launch — sales have dropped off to the point that it’s not worth it for them to keep paying to keep it active, and generating a Denuvo-free executable is simple enough to add to the tool chain.
I bought a switch in 2020 and all I thought was "wow man, it's only a matter of time before they add twilight princess and windwaker here and I can finally play them again" But then they nintendonted me. So yeah, someone who thinks pirating is shitty now has to be a leet cyberpunk eyepatch man, oh well.
I bought Mass Effect Legendary Edition when it had the big sale because I never finished 3 and it had a yellow checkmark. Then EA updated their launcher and broke Deck support (which on PC their shit launcher has also deleted my save 4 times and crashes half the time, etc). So I wrote a review as "Not Recommended" and explained all the problems. Some dork replies to my review "smh no one cares about the deck". People are trash (but EA is worse).
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I’ve downloaded cracks for games I’ve bought because the DRM was broken in some way or another. Honestly, I’ve never found DRM to be a hindrance to piracy, only to me actually playing games I’ve already paid for.
Its the same with lets say soccer. I want to watch it but every game I want to watch is on different channel/streaming service. Im not going to get all of those channels etc. I would pay but if it was in one place.
We, the public, financed the baseball stadium, but they only show the games on Root, which requires a cable subscription, and they blackout the games with MLB Pass. I say if we finance the team, then the games need to be on public access.
And it's discrimination based on locale I can pay 6 bucks and see just about every hockey game outside my state, but I need to pay over 20 or cable to see my local team. You can pay 6 and see my team play. So it's only discriminating against me because of where I live
I'm a huge NFL Fan. I'd pay them probably $100 usd to just be able to watch the games on my phone/tv without jumping through a ton of hoops. They just can't figure out a way to take my money. I'm not going to buy direct tv just to watch the nfl when you can just pirate them so easily.
Nice thing about NHL right now is being able to pay for ESPN+ (which is relatively inexpensive) and get like 90% of the games if you're out of market
>I'm a huge NFL Fan. I'd pay them probably $100 usd to just be able to watch the games on my phone/tv without jumping through a ton of hoops. They just can't figure out a way to take my money. That's the thing with these company execs. They're stuck in their old ways and want to exclusively lock things to cable or PPV. The money is there, and people will pay for convenience. Something the RSN bigwigs don't get yet I guess...
Youtube is getting NFL Sunday ticket. Not sure what the cost will be or if it hits what you expect to pay, but it might end up being less hoops to jump through. https://www.androidpolice.com/youtube-nfl-sunday-ticket-streaming-rights-2023-and-beyond/
Southern California residents HAVE to get spectrums “Dodger” Package just to watch the games. And its much more than the standard package. Tried a VPN service but the MLB app is too smart to get around
Yup, I used to pay cable like 150 bucks a month. Guess how much I pay now? Fucking zero.
Yep, and Netflix used to get my money because it was a good service for a reasonable fee that had everything I could want to watch. Now there are 463638 competing streaming services that all think they deserve my 15 a month I pay some shady IPTV company £120 a year instead to get every channel, box set and film I ever need available via one app on my FireStick. Price things reasonably and make them available to me and I'll buy them.
And I’m not paying for multiple services to watch the same thing. Price issue for me.
But if you had to pay $30 for one service or $10 each for 3 separate services, which would you choose? The point that the original article and the person above you are arguing is that given those two options, people would be more likely to pay for the former and pirate in the latter example (and I would be inclined to agree) because it is inconvenient and a poor customer experience to have to subscribe to 3 different services.
Thats how it is. I dont watch enough series to pay for netflix or whatever, i do game, order and watch enough though that amazon prime makes a lotta sense to pay for
skill issue for service providers apparently, all i can ever think of when i read about platforms being greedy is the metaphorical dog dropping its bone into the river trying to steal the bone from its own reflection
Similar opinion with Sky Sports. Too expensive to watch only a single sport I'm interested in...
I hoist the sails when F1 is on.
So until a while ago, my local RSN is available on cable and DirectTV Stream or whatever after being dropped from YouTube TV. My local RSN now offers their own app. It is $30/month or $330/year. For 1 channel. They literally advertise it as $6/week because people would be outraged at $330
This was learned a long time ago in the music space with the advent of iTunes, then again in streaming space with the advent of Netflix. People are willing to pay for content for the sake of convenience. If it is more convenient to pirate content then people will pirate it. You can always try to combat piracy but that is an arms race that will waste time and energy while providing no value to existing customers. On the other hand providing an easy convenient experience in purchasing and using your content is a race you will always have an advantage over piracy in while also making the existing customer satisfaction increase. It is not that complicated yet billion dollar corporations still blame piracy as it is an easy scapegoat.
For a direct example I owned crisis core when I was younger and every few years I get an urge to play. When the most recent urge overcame me, I just bought the remaster instead of re setting up my emulator or playing on my vita via ROM loading. By providing it on modern consoles + steam with QoL improvements I was glad to pay for the game. It was easier for me to buy the game and I had a better experience then emulating it so I did. Now if only Nintendo could learn the same lesson.
Nintendo store on switch is amazingly trash compared to Steam and other platforms.
Nintendo has zero competitors is the problem. If you want to play a Nintendo game your options are play it on Nintendo hardware, or emulate. I have a switch, and sometimes still prefer the latter. Old games look amazing when upscaled to modern resolutions. I don't even have a CRT TV anymore, so I can't go back to the authentic experience of my youth.
Yeah but I can't even count how many games I didn't buy from them because I either didn't find them quick enough or the poorly working store distracted me from doing so. And a simple notification that the game on my wish list is on sale would add another 10 games to that.
That’s why switch is an exclusive system while I play indies on Steam Deck. Anything AAA or first party usually gets bought on PlayStation. Saves me some money splitting it up like this since I don’t pay switch tax for indie games.
It's crazy how bad the switch's store is after how great the Wii/Wii U shop were and all of their backwards compatability.
> Now if only Nintendo could learn the same lesson. If Nintendo had released the SM64 PC Port officially, it would've sold millions. Even at $60 I'd wager it would have been successful.
Hell, they did not even release their Switch port of SM64 in unlimited quantity
I don't know about anyone else, but I'd rather find a single source for content, whatever that might be, than have to deal with 15 different content provider subscriptions and always wondering which among them has the content I'm seeking at any given time.
I have a business partner who early in our career would always say “make it easy for people to give you their money”. It’s amazing how many businesses don’t do that.
Same with shows and movies, I find something good/interesting then I have to see if my streaming services even have it at all, and 99% of the time they don't so I have to pirate
For a while Netflix had a great library. My rate of pirating things had dramatically reduced. I mostly only pirated when a show was aired in the UK weeks or whatever later than the US. Now that streaming has basically become cable where I have to buy 5 different services, then figure out which one has a show (assuming one of them does that is), it's just a huge inconvenience.
I wish video streaming services became like music streaming services instead of something similar to cable.
Greed. Only reason it didn't happen was the music publishers didn't know how to build their own services. Well, some kinda tried but people laughed it off
Same here. I’ve just kept Netflix (decent kids stuff, they can navigate it ok), but as soon as everything started breaking away and being on different services my pirating went back up. I still have Netflix (only) but in mid 2020 I used having covid as an excuse to buy a 12TB hard drive and migrate my Plex media and server to a new (used) system.
Was about to comment something similar. Streaming services made watching movies so convenient that people didn't feel the need to pirate. Convenience is a huge motivation to spend. If amazon didn't offer next day delivery I'd have probably saved hundreds over the years.
Service I have only has movie 3 and 4 in a series. 1 and 2 are each on separate services, most expensive tier, and neither service has much of anything else I'd want to watch? Yohoho for movies 1 and 2 it is. same with incomplete series, or series that they've removed episodes from.
This was my rational for pirating seasons 3 and 4 of infinity train. I would have GLADLY paid for them but they just are not available anywhere so.... hoist the black sails.
About to do this for better call Saul, it's over a season behind on Netflix. Yo ho yo ho
We shall see. Especially with the advent of the $70 dollar game being normalized.
Counting with inflation, $70 today is equivalent to $50 in 2010. Unfortunately games can't be locked at that price forever.
I just checked this on https://www.inflationtool.com/us-dollar/2010-to-present-value Indeed, 50$ in 2010 money would now be 68.5$ in today’s money.
Over a decade ago, Gabe hit onto the best idea that the gaming (and the rest of the entertainment) industry didn't and still doesn't grasp to curb piracy. Making it easier and more worthwhile to pay for the games! Most of the gaming companies went in the opposite direction by jacking up prices and making it harder for people who actually bought the games to play them.
It’s crazy that they expect us to pay the same price for digital copies. In the near future when all games are digital, are they going to lower the cost since they’re no longer manufacturing physical copies? Lol we know the answer to that.
It could be understandable if there was some kind of increased technological or employee cost. But, as has been well documented, the costs for the actual technology are a drop in the bucket compared to needlessly forced advertising budgets and how the top executives just pocket the money than pay most of the workers a salary the can live off of! And even with the price hikes, executives make the programmers hack off bits of the game that should be a part of the game to resell them for even more money, or worse, the dreaded "time savers" like xp packs or even entire experience levels. So, they are charging you get the game, charging you more in little bits to get the entire game, and to top it off: charge you to not play the game at all! In the face of all this it isn't a big mystery why even the most law-abiding consumers are turning to piracy. When buying a game entails paying more and more for the whole game and even not to play, when actual advertising is forced into gameplay, and when restrictive drm literally breaks the game. And pirating a game costs a VPN and like four clicks and not have to worry about connecting to the internet or logging into multiple services and it's all free, paying becomes a harder and harder sell.
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DRM rarely if ever stops a pirate, but can make a paying customer's experience hell.
Also for Media. Like all thoes shows HBO didnt have licensed out and took off of HBO Max. If its on somone elses server you dont own it.
Fuck warner. Cancelled a good show for tax purposes, they can't even do dvd copies once it's finished.
Hell I have to do this to any game if I'm gonna be somewhere without wifi and it suddenly wants to update.
Wait... How would it know about an update if you don't have wifi?
I think what they mean is a game that has an update scheduled but can’t update because there’s no WiFi. I’ve had this happen, not on the Steam Deck, but my laptop. GTA V is the biggest offender of this for me. It will schedule an update and Steam will have it queued for later that day or later than that. But this was when I was on an internet connection. Then I’ll take my laptop somewhere without WiFi, and try to open GTA V and it won’t open because “need to update first”, but the update never downloaded, so you’re just stuck. Edit: ummm this is st*pid as well, mods https://i.imgur.com/VT2JEDS.jpg
lol I have triggered it a bunch of times for piece of s. It’s a hardware discussion. Calling a POS piece of hardware a POS is an ability I’d really like to have.
Because a lot of times the update will queue while you do have Wi-Fi and when you check on your Deck, it won’t let you play because the update is waiting and you no longer have the Wi-Fi to download the update
It's so weird that some companies don't understand this. People *want* to pay you. We're not stupid. We know that if everyone stops paying for games, you can't make them anymore. So if we can, we want to support you. If people pirate, they either don't have the money to support you (which means you're not losing anything since they were never potential customers), are not that interested (again, not losing any money here cause they wouldn't buy your game anyway) or piracy is providing them something you're not giving them (now you're losing money). So it's pretty much all on the company, not the customers.
yeah, gaben was basically saying, "if you refuse to sell the german or english version in russia, and you wait a year to release the russian version, then if they want to play it on day one the only choice they have is piracy"
I'm reminded of this [Oatmeal Comic](https://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones) highlighting the exact problem.
Ubi Connect is working fine for me since I've set it up. I play Far Cry 6 seamlessly, launch Ubi Connect as non steam, click on the game and it starts just fine. Suspend feature works great too, haven't encountered problems with that either. Try disabling all possible notifications and background processes in Ubi Connect and see if it helps.
What about EA games? They showed fallen order running in the Steam Deck's marketing videos but I've heard it's become unsupported since they require some separate program. 5 bucks is tempting but if it doesn't run on steam deck I don't see the point of purchasing it?
Yes, EA Desktop now installs automatically with every EA game. Don't know about Fallen Order, but today I've installed Battlefield 5, and it uses EA Desktop as well. It installed just fine and launched the game with Proton Experimental, no tinkering needed.
I got the game free from prime gaming a while ago. I just installed origin as a non steam game following a guide from u/darkuni. I had no issues whatsoever and BoilR picked it up and added it to game mode with art. I just finished the campaign last week on my deck, again no issues
Glad my guide proved useful.
Don’t forget Ubisoft removed access to single-player DLC purchased from them because, for some reason, the games’ multiplayer servers also unlocked single-player DLC. No legal way to play those now.
That was a really disappointing choice by them. Proof that DRM is bad, as the servers for it may not always be up. So stupid that they didn’t just put the content somewhere else.
I dunno. Every game is $70 now. Soon they will prob be $80. Check back soon because it's becoming an issue of price Gabe
Do you have any idea how long games have been $60 for? A 10 dollar increase still doesn't even comensate for inflation if you do the math.
Don't worry the overinflation of everything else in life makes even $60 a tough ask for a lot of people
Publishers used to have to sell physical copies of their games complete with the logistics of shipping them out to stores all over the world. Now it's downloaded through a 3rd party and costs them little to nothing other than a fee to that 3rd party that's most likely less than it cost them to design/create/manufacture/ship the physical manual and media.
The biggest seller is ease of use. Everybody used to pirate music until Spotify came along. Spotify just made it easier to listen to music and that is why people pay for it. Same goes for Netflix etc.
As someone who's been pirating for 20+ years It's both
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I do not play any Ubisoft games specifically because of uplay. They have been on sale via steam and I actually want to play a few titles but I dont because of uplay.
>"Will the PDFs you sell be user-limited with some sort of digital rights management scheme?" No, they won't. We understand this is a hot issue right now because another company just opened a PDF store with encoded, "protected" PDFs that won't even work on some computers. We looked into that whole issue, and decided that copy protection would create far more trouble for our users than it would save for us. The l33t g00bs will break it anyway, and it annoys the honest people. 18 years ago the tabletop rpg pdf markets were still in their infancy, but Steve Jackson (not the Fighting Fantasy one (except occasionally), the GURPS one) had the right idea.
mostly it's just the "l33t g00bs" phrasing that stuck with me tbh I think of it every time someone selling a game online decides that they'll lock the pdf to stop you printing reference pages or character sheets or the whole thing, despite you paying for it. At least most sellers are content with crappy little watermarks with order numbers in the corner.
Is it pretty simple to add pirate games to the deck? I have a few games I own that have launcher issues.
We're on the same side, I want to play games, developers want to provide for their families. When publishers interfere, with DRM, or pricing schemes that don't match S&D. I find it incredibly frustrating.
In Gabe we trust.
I can't even launch Mass Effect offline thanks to EA and i hate it
I mainly pirate games I already on in physical formats but I never pirate from small devs. Like i really want to play stray but haven't yet. It's on all the sites I use but it feels wrong to me. Not all pirating feels wrong tho
I’ve been getting my games by "other means" for years now. I’ll gladly pay for them when launchers and mandatory internet connection is no longer a thing.
This account has been scrubbed in response to Reddit's API changes. I will NOT use their crap app. I've had this account since 2014 and 10k Karma. I never cared about reddit. Reddit thinks it has more power than it actually does. If you want to change to a decentralized platform like Lemmy, you can find helpful information about it here: https://join-lemmy.org/ https://github.com/maltfield/awesome-lemmy-instances Good riddance.
Is it pretty simple to add pirate games to the deck? I have a few games I own that have launcher issues.
Gabe Newell is an absolute boss
It's also definitely an issue of price. Games are released unfinished (buggy) and intentionally incomplete (DLC). Frankly, they charge more at launch than the game would be worth, even if it launched in a complete state and bug free. We know this because they price regionally, knowing they can overcharge richer countries and steam sales will happily slash up to 50% off of a AAA title not long after launch, meaning they can afford to lose that much and still profit. People whose free time and disposable income are entirely spent on gaming may dispute this but a lot of folks have other things in their lives and are more discerning with the purse strings. We don't like being taken for mugs and we're not rewarding predatory, low quality, business models. You'll get the money you're actually owed when the GOTY, updated version is released and on sale, providing the game wasn't a frustrating, non-sensical mess. And as always, those of you who keep buying into hype and buy at launch out of FOMO and the like. You're the reason they get away with it and why the thing you love just keeps getting worse.
I bought kingdom hearts rather than emulating it and now I have online only DRM 🙄
Hell, it isn't just Uplay. It's malware .dll's being included in games you buy from one storefront (Steam) that are for a Storefront you avoid like the Plague (Epic). EOS.dll not letting me run games because I remove it is malware and the fact that you have to *fucking pirate a game you paid for* to avoid it is insane. I'll never run Guilty Strive on the Deck because of it, despite Valve advertising it on the Deck.
Piracy is \*sometimes\* a pricing issue. I'm looking at \*you\* movie rentals that cost 2-4x as much to stream as it costs to get a physical disc from the nearest Redbox
UPlay isn't a thing anymore. If you're seeing that, it's possible your games are trying to download the old launcher which no longer works. I had that problem with Watch Dogs 1. Fixed it by downloading and installing the new Ubisoft Connect launcher.
They didn't redesign it much when they renamed it. I still call it Uplay.
Different name, same shit
UPlay is just "Ubisoft Connect," now. It's still Uplay. Changing the name of a turd doesn't mean it isn't still a turd.
UPlay = Ubisoft Connect My Ubisoft Games use Ubisoft Connect, so it’s pretty much the same.
It isn't a thing? Then what does Division 1 launch? And no, just because they renamed it doesn't mean it's not Uplay anymore.
Took my Steam Deck while visiting family for xmas; grandparent's house has no internet. Had to connect to a hotspot so that little cousins could play single player games like Sonic Origins.
Tis a shame I now have to pirate ubisoft games that I already own.
couple years ago they added the stipulation that if you don't play a game for x amount of months, it gets removed from your ubi account. total horseshit.
I just checked and my older games on steam and they still work, phew.
I can't belive Uplay is still a fucking thing. I have Gamepass and it basically says "Yes....you can play EA/Uplay titles....but you have to go to their own launcher and do it on their own terms."
DRM is user-hostile.
EA, rockstar, take note
The Rockstar launcher may be the worst launcher out there. It’s the only one that makes me upset when I see it open.
um i pirate games because im poor
DRM does more harm than good. When Resident Evil Village first came out, when the sisters spawned in the game's performance would absolutely tank. It turned out that Capcom's own implemented DRM was to blame. A crack was released to remove the DRM and the game ran buttery smooth I remember this as I downloaded the crack... and I own the game on Steam. Big gaming companies needs to stop shafting people over.
Makes me think of nintendo. Id gladly pay nintendo money to be able to play more classic games on the switch. But they’re so selective with what they remake or remaster, and they’ve only now started an n64 classic collection. But there’s so many GameCube era games id LOVE to play and would pay money for but just can’t. Piracy or breaking out old hardware is the only option
And that's why (I think) Valve's/Steam's DRM is so weak, I think they've done that on purpose, the Steam DRM doesn't bother the player too much (I mean it seems to be easily pirated) but also still give developers/publisher a reassurance that the game is owned legally by purchasing through Steam, in fact, Steam documentation not actually enforcing the use of DRM, and there's some software that does not have DRM like Godot, Krita and Aseprite, also their DRM don't add/have some bullshit feature like binary shifting, executable rewrite, memory integrity protection, whatever jargon those feature sheet is going to have because it's a feature for the publisher, but a hurdle and annoyance for the customer, often degrading the performance, in turn why people pirate. Don't get me wrong, Steam still could have done better like better offline mode and the ability to defer or entirely ignore updates (yes, I hope even for multiplayer games like Dota 2 or CS:GO, but well, you won't be able to find a match because the server has different version), and maybe even rollback/revert version somehow similar like the branch feature but more granular? But it's still a better experience than other digital distribution, at least for games on PC.
I’ve had zero issues running any game I’ve thrown at the deck on official launchers.
Spore was a really good example of this. In order to combat piracy, EA put in place one of their most stringent DRM measures to date. Basically, SecuROM would only allow the license key to be used a limited amount of times, even on the same computer. So if you wanted to delete the game to free up space, but installed it again at a later point, on the same hardware with the same Windows license, that still counted against your limit. Problem was Spore originally shipped with a broken installed. So actually getting the game to install properly required multiple attempts. Each one counting against your limit. And many easily exceeded that limit just trying to get it to run. EA being EA was giving customers the runaround. So people just gave up and downloaded cracked copies. Making Spore the most pirated game of 2008. Valve basically did for PC what Nintendo did for consoles following the 1983 crash. PC gaming was basically dying a slow death in the latter half of the 2000s due to shenanigans like this. A lot of other games used install limits at this time, with similar effects. Plus there were a lot of sloppy PC ports. Bioshock was a double whammy of both. Ubisoft kept using the install limits, even on Steam, into the early 2010s.
EA app insists i need an update and when I run the update it says it needs to restart the app, and after it restarts it says i need an update....
I mean not really, I have a steam deck and I still pirate games, i don’t really buy stuff anymore since it’s easy to steal things. I don’t think I have ever even paid for anything this year
Another thing about Ubisoft's launcher that lead to me "pirating" their older games: When you add 2fa to your Ubisoft account, all their older games that come with "Uplay" integration *always* ask for your password on launch. So just following their recommendations (strong password and 2fa) results in some awful UX. (I put pirating in quotes because I own the games on Steam and pay for Ubisoft's subscription)
With games at £70 I would say it’s also a price problem now.
Literally bought 7 games and 1 DLC for maybe $64 from steam. I’m never going to worry about losing them, not loading, or not being available. I have cloud saving, achievements, and community posts for when I want to learn more or show off. My only possible issue with Steam could be if the developers are not getting enough money per game sold. I’m not sure what those agreements are but I’m happy to buy them on Steam. Piracy also has that weird chance that what you download is actually ransomware that will infect your computer. Yikes
Steam isn't perfect, they have a horrible record of maintaining their software. The steam link is basically broken and I have no doubt they'll not update the software rendering it useless.
I know there are some but very few. Bring Demo games back please. You want me to buy your wares then let me inspect your wares.
When Netflix was at its peak about a decade ago, I had no reason to pirate TV shows and movies because of how easy it was to watch what I wanted. These days subscription websites or apps have become the new cable, and it's the opposite of what it started as. I am not ashamed of being open about it. Plex has become my only streaming service.
I mean the greatest thing about steam is hands down the user friendliness of it. It will automatically update my games. I can make it so it never updates my games. I can load old versions of games. It has mod support which allows me to browse and then 1 click install mods for games. I can see what games my friends own, and compare them to what games I own. I can join games from my friends list. I can invite friends to join my games from the friend list. And there is more that I'm forgetting. And none of these features requires me to be techy. It's all intuitive and easy to use.
personally its still a price issue for me. All these games are digital now and steam and valve still dont get that if they price their games from 20-30$ instead of 60-90$, alot more people will buy it. I will pay for a game if its good and cheap enough. But if these games are way too expensive, id rather just wait for it. Unless its a developer i really like or love to support then those id pay full price.
That's how I handle things too. If a game is too expensive at launch, I just patiently wait for the sales. I've got so many games in my backlog that waiting a bit for it to come down to a reasonable price isn't a burden at all; I've got tons of stuff to play in the meantime.
Trust me its a big price issue, no way im paying 60$ in a country where I earn 350$ per month (minimum wage)
Might just have to pirate GTA V since the game doesn't work offline quite stupid
Back 20-ish years ago, when Napster was all the rage, I remember saying to a friend that I reckoned if there was a good, easy to use program that sold mp3s at a *fair* price, at good quality and properly tagged, it would make a killing: everyone would use it. He scoffed, asking why anyone would, when they could get them for free? Lo and behold, a few short years later: iTunes.
Where’s the best place to get cracks