I don't want a world where software cannot be cracked anymore than a world where a car cannot be opened up, repaired, rebuilt, and customized. Software is not a tangible thing, and even tangible things usually need to be cracked open.

You're not a normal user. I imagine you're talking about mods? That was one of the biggest issues people brought up about OnLive. I agree that kind of separation from a developer is a problem; however, this also means it's easier for developers to restrict who can mod their games giving them more control over quality and their IP.

but what is clear is that in the past 12 months or so I have spent significantly more on games than on films.[/quote]how much per how of watching/playing?
i.e. Im guessing Total $338 = 100s of hours vs Total $84 ~20 hours

OP question -
price of games maybe go down ~5-10% (not much) everyone will make a lot more money. Game sales would at least double

The publishers would come up with another scapegoat for their unpopular dealings (say, solar flares).

Apart from the people that pirate stuff, multiplayer games would become more complex as there would be no need to do all the important stuff on the server anymore.

The problem, in my opinion, isn't with piracy because its always been there - its the customer experience of trying to play a game on the PC...

1. Trying to play most games on a PC will most likely involve some hassle in getting the damn game to run - if not the installation, then crashes and speed issues lead to disappointment. A console solves this problem immediately.

2. A Keyboard is not the most beginner-friendly controller. Now, lets be clear here - the set up is bloody awesome if you have the patience, but for most, a controller is a lot simpler to figure out, nicer to look at and screams "game".

3. Hardware requirements...oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear! The customer needs to know about CPU, Memory, harddisk space....BORING! Seriously, there is a reason why the Wii won the console war with MS and Sony fucking their customers about with hardware add-ons such as the Kinect, PSMove...don't even get me started on the different models with varying Hard Disk sizes. Nintendo have always kept things simple and emerged successful on all their major consoles(yeah, we won't mention the Virtual-Boy thingy). The average gamer is only interested in the games themselves - not having to bugger about with what's underneath the hood...

4. The PC is a development nightmare compared to developing for a console with a standard spec. All the different versions of windows, graphic drivers etc...you might as well throw your hands up in the air and surrender.

5. PC games are now mostly created with consoles in mind - not PCs. Games like FPS, RTS, Space Combat Sims, Fantasy games that can be expanded...they belong on the PC. Oh, wait - Space Combat Sims? Where did they run off to? Of course, silly me - they just don't work well on a console so the whole genre disappeared over night...

6. Whats this? Games companies not supporting mobile chipsets in laptops? Are they serious? Come on, be honest, what is the number of desktop users compared to laptop users? Even still, how one can ignore the laptop user base is beyond me. Most people do have a laptop these days!

So, beating piracy alone isn't going to do much for the PC games market because the PC suffers from so many other problems. Some can be considered "part of the territory", but some can be fixed with a bit of common sense - such as making games exclusive to the PC. The attitude now needs to be: "you want state of the art visuals and sound with game play options you simply cannot get on the consoles? Want to write your own games? Then get a PC: the ultimate games machine.".

The PC market needs a kick up the bum!

1. Trying to play most games on a PC will most likely involve some hassle in getting the damn game to run - if not the installation, then crashes and speed issues lead to disappointment. A console solves this problem immediately.

Yes, well, games had few installation problems until game publishers starting pissing everyone off with intrusive DRM and "authentication" and "game registration" and "oh my CD key has already been used". I'm pretty sure most cracked torrents out there are actually easier to install and fire up than their genuine counterparts, and that fact alone indicates something has gone terribly wrong.

On the subject of modding a game - were would MineCraft be today if the .jar could not be cracked ?

I remember back in the day, I had to mod every game I had. Quake 2, Monster Truck Madness, Motocross Madness .... It was a fun time when I had lots of free time on my hands.

Cracking and modding are two separate things. You could mod an uncrackable game if you were given permission.

For instance, I have modded Skyrim, but it's not cracked.

And I dont think minecrafts success is due to the jar being cracked.

I'd see game and software sales going down a bit - many folks like the "try before you buy" approach.

That's an often used argument (or allow me to call it "excuse"). I don't think that it is really valid.

Back in the old days before the internet, when I was 10 or 11, every boy in my school (including me) was a pirate. Everybody had every game, especially the ones that were on the "index" (i.e. illegal because of alleged damaging effects to minors). We had them all, we played them all, and none of us ever paid a single cent or intended to do so, ever. My only excuse is that I was a stupid child/teen, and luckily for me there is something like the statue of limitation, which has put me at safety regarding civil action about 15 years ago.

Either way, while I'm only using free software or am paying for the software that I use ever since I started working, I know people who went to school with me, some of them even having families (in some cases, that's truly surprising), and they still pirate software (and movies, and songs). None of them even seems to think that they're doing anything wrong, and of course none of them intends to ever pay a cent for what they stole.

It is thus my firm belief that in general people who pirate (say, 99% of them) your stuff don't do so for trying and buying later. They pirate for no other reason than because it doesn't cost them money.

Having said that, I could imagine that if there was somewhat less greed among software/music/movie companies and prices were a bit more reasonable, people would pirate less, with or without copy protection. When I was a teen, a typical CD or a program would cost a fortune, of which maybe 2-3% was due to attribution to the artist and material cost, another 5% was for logistics, and the rest was greed.
This hasn't changed much. If you were to buy some software like Office or Photoshop, it costs you somewhere between 500 and 2000 Euros, for no justifiable reason. If a program like Photoshop was sold for 50 Euros, I would immediately buy a copy for at home. As it is, I'm using OpenOffice and Gimp instead, which isn't quite the same, and in particularly OO makes me shout and hit the monitor with my keyboard regularly, but it doesn't have the same smell of greed.

[quote name='Anri' timestamp='1352033856' post='4997151']
1. Trying to play most games on a PC will most likely involve some hassle in getting the damn game to run - if not the installation, then crashes and speed issues lead to disappointment. A console solves this problem immediately.

Yes, well, games had few installation problems until game publishers starting pissing everyone off with intrusive DRM and "authentication" and "game registration" and "oh my CD key has already been used". I'm pretty sure most cracked torrents out there are actually easier to install and fire up than their genuine counterparts, and that fact alone indicates something has gone terribly wrong.
[/quote]

Not arff! I remember buying Knights of the Old Republic and trying to install it on my laptop - there was CD-security thing going on...did my head in! Another one that makes me cheesed off is Force Unleashed, where one needs to set the game to administrator mode, other wise it plays choppy and super-slow.