Mithrandir:

But Half-life does have a demo. In fact, Half-Life has an exclusive demo with brand new areas and puzzles not found in the full version. If you really don''t buy games without trying them out, you could''ve waited a month or two for them to put the demo out. You can chastize the company for not putting out a demo, but ultimately it comes down to your impatience. "I can''t wait two months for a demo, so I''m going to pirate the game. Valva/Sierra should know that they are dealing with a bunch of ADD-ridden 15 year olds who have to get the game when it first comes out. Their own fault." Wrong.

You may say that pirating promoted Half-Life, allowing you to buy it, and thus was a good thing. If you hadn''t bought Half-Life, it would''ve prevented you from making a mistake. But you said that it was missing music and cutscenes and stuff. The warez version wasn''t an accurate portrayal of Valve''s product, and thus if your decision was made based on that, ultimately Valve suffers. You can try to come up with excuses, saying that you aren''t a "warez kiddie" or something like that. In truth, you are worse. They pirate because it empowers them. You pirate because you are cheap and impatient.

On the other hand, and I really hate to say this, pirating does have some good aspects. As a game designer, I sometimes find old Abandonware (fancy word for pirating games where the companies don''t sell, support, or aknowledge the product) that spark the creative juices. As a game historian, I find information found among scores of old Japanese NES ROMs to be invaluable. Good luck trying to find the Samurai Pizza Cats NES catridge, but you can find the ROM in a matter of hours thanks to ROM sites.

My point is, everyone has their own thresholds for what they consider pirating. Everybody has different viewpoints based on the consumer, the producer, or the wallet. I think it is mostly based on age and professionalism. As a kid, I couldn''t buy Syndicate, but my friend made me a copy. As a consumer, I may think it is my right to test drive software before I buy. As a game developer, I would go to the house of anyone who pirated my software and strangle him.

Ultimately, the game developer makes the games. They are his games, and he controls the rights. Whatever rights you think you might have aren''t much compared to what the game developer does have. If he doesn''t want his 1984 game showing up in abandonware sites, he has ever right in the world to tell them to remove it. Since this is a game developer forum, I would assume that everyone here either is, or wants to be, a game developer. As such, I would assume they would ultimately want to protect the rights of the game developers because one day, they may work at Valve, and they may have to put anti-piracy measures in their games too (which is why Half-Life tries to connect to the internet - it was removed from the pirate version because it was the PIRATE version).

Mithrandir:

1) You may not agree with popular opinion, but reading reviews is a good way to learn more about a product. Good reviews, and even mediocre reviewers, will often explain enough gameplay details that you get a good handle on how things work. If the company doesn''t release a demo, it may be all that you get...

2) Half-Life uses the Quake 2 engine.

3) Half-Life was released 11/98 (I have checked this). The Demo was released early 2/99 (I have also checked this). I doubt there were three months difference between them. Even then it would still be a far cry from the 8 months you say.

Oh, and you don''t have the right to make backups of software you own. Please point me to any literature anywhere which states this. Remember to take into account that the process of copying the software mustn''t break any laws either.

Mithrandir, I''m not trolling. You are obviously don''t have a firm grip on the reality of pirating. Nothing I can say will change that, and nothing you can say will change my opinion. But the fact that you may be convincing someone out there that pirating is ok...well, I can''t let that happen.

Just remember, your moral standards and rules systems don''t amount to a hill of beans in the legal world. You may think you are 100% justified, but against the law is against the law, and no lawyer in the world would be able to defend you using the arguments you presented here.

DrJohnB:

Back to answer the original question, Warez sites survive based on the fact that there are just too many of them. Some of them, such as abandonware, peddle old warez that nobody really cares about anymore. I wonder how many people would care if you found the full version of a CGA DOS game written in 1982. Most ROM sites work on the same principles. Nintendo went through a while ago and got all the sites to remove NES/SNES ROMs, but a quick check reveals that not only have they put them back, but they''ve added N64 roms to the deal.

If you''ve been paying attention recently, some guys cracked the DVD encryption scheme, and posted the source code. Some suits found out, got really mad, and sued. But, they put the source code into evidence, which means it is public record. So the source code is freely available to everyone who wants one. Some online site sells shirts with this code on it. In this situation, it doesn''t matter how much they try, the source code is just too freely available. They can''t stomp it out. DVDs are too integrated now that they can''t change DVD players to use a new encryption (unless it only worked on new pressing of DVDs...but that wouldn''t work on people''s old $400 DVD player they bought a month ago). So, they are screwed. Not a whole lot they can do. Similar thing with warez sites.

One of the interesting things about warez is that it requires lots of disk space. You can''t download files if they aren''t there. The really bad warez-nutz will just get a xoom or geocities account to put files up. These places eventually catch on, and delete the files without notice. That is why a lot of files don''t work. Some of the more advanced nutz will take a hidden directory in some incoming dir of an open ftp site. This pisses off the administrators who then remove the incoming dir permanently. Regardless of the legality of warez, they are at least making life a little bit harder for some of the rest of us.

(I used to have a job where hackers of this sort were a real concern. You really have to cover your butt in everything you do.)

We do have the right to make one backup copy of our software
solely for backup or archival purposes.

"...Therefore, you must treat the SOFTWARE like any other copyrighted material (e.g.,a book or musical recording) except that if the SOFTWARE is not copy protected you may either (a) make one copy of the SOFTWARE solely for backup or archival purposes, or (b) transfer the SOFTWARE to a single hard disk provided you keep the original solely for backup or archival purposes."

That was from a Microsoft Software License Agreement. I just wanted to point that out to you.

From the back of the "Donkey Kong 64" booklet:

"WARNING: Copying of any Nintendo game is illegal and is strictly prohibited by domestic and international copyright laws. "Back-up" or "archival" copies are not authorized and are not necessary to protect your software. Violators will be prosecuted."

I guess I should''ve been more clear. You are not given the right for back-up purposes automatically, unless specifically granted by the company. Nintendo especially doesn''t give out this ability. Similar passages to the above appear in all their games, including Pokemon among many others. If everyone was able to make backup copies of software, then Nintendo wouldn''t have succeeded in taking down the Taiwanese developers of the Doctor 64 game copier.

It is interesting though. In a quick search of a few of the hundreds of games I own, some neat things popped up. Most PSX games said nothing of the matter, probably because it was assumed that they couldn''t make copies of PSX games. I don''t have any recent (US) PSX games, so I don''t know if they''ve changed their tune in recent times. Abe''s Odyssey, however, did have a blurb in the back asking (very nicely) that the owner of the game not make copies.

I have a Japanese Dreamcast, and thus all the games are Japanese...along with the licensing agreements. However, seeing as there are only a few plants worldwide that can make GD-ROMs, regardless of whether you want to make back-ups, you won''t be able to.

The PC games, however, seem to be in a completely different league. The majority of PC games I checked allowed a backup copy. Baldur''s Gate and Rollercoaster Tycoon both said this. I couldn''t find the license for Half-Life, but Tribes, another Sierra game included the -Sierra Warranty & Legal Information-, which I assume is similar for all products under the Sierra label:

"You are entitled to use this product for your own use, but may not copy, reproduce, translate, publicly perform, display, or reduce to any electronic medium or machine-readable form, reproductions of the software of manual to other parties in any way, nor sell, rent or lease the product to others without prior written permission of Sierra. You may use one copy of the product on a single computer. YOU MAY NOT NETWORK THE PRODUCT OR OTHERWISE INSTALL IT OR USE IT ON MORE THAN ONE COMPUTER AT THE SAME TIME."

While the majority of the statement seems to protect having a backup copy, as long as you don''t let anyone use it, even yourself, the very first statement in the agreement says that you can''t copy. Since you can''t copy the product, and people can''t sell copies, even if you are allowed a back-up (which you aren''t), you would have to either (A) break the law, or (B) be a willing participant to the law breaking.

The Microsoft license seems to be what the majority of the game companies based their on (almost word for word - hey, isn''t that plagurism?). However, some of the bigger companies with actual legal departments have tighter license agreements. Please remember, just because Microsoft allows something, does not mean everybody does.

Yeah, a lot of people are going to get angry at me for this.

1.) How the $*!^ can you pirate and be a developer at the same time? You claim to use this TRY-BEFORE-YOU-BUY approach but that''s just another one of those "warez kiddies" excuses you were talking about. It''s not a $*!^@ing car buddy, you don''t need a test drive, are you that poor that you can''t take 50 bucks out of your budget. You you are too poor, then you can''t play the game, just like if I don''t make money, I don''t eat. Some of us depend on the income that you people throw back in our faces.

2.) TRY-BEFORE-YOU-BUY??
So you''re telling me that if I go steal a stereo system (relevant because warez is stealing), I can use it and decide if it''s good. If it''s good I can go buy it, and if I don''t like it that much I''ll just play it until a new one comes along. Since when was stealing taken out of the law?

3.) You people make me sick and I''ll guarentee that most people here at gamedev feel the same way. All you are doing is lowering the amount of money the publisher makes, therefore the developers get a lower net percentage, and soon enough developers won''t get any money at all, because you cheap *$#$ing bi*!$es wouldn''t buy a 50 buck game. You say "Oh yeah, 50 bucks hurts a company alot :-)", it does when everyone thinks it''s ok.

4.) Do yourself a favour and get out of development, you could never make it in the real world of development if you pirate and I''ll guarentee anyone on gamedev with 1/2 a brain would say the same thing.

5.) Good luck to your deaths.

Yeah, a lot of people are going to get angry at me for this.

1.) How the $*!^ can you pirate and be a developer at the same time? You claim to use this TRY-BEFORE-YOU-BUY approach but that''s just another one of those "warez kiddies" excuses you were talking about. It''s not a $*!^@ing car buddy, you don''t need a test drive, are you that poor that you can''t take 50 bucks out of your budget. You you are too poor, then you can''t play the game, just like if I don''t make money, I don''t eat. Some of us depend on the income that you people throw back in our faces.

2.) TRY-BEFORE-YOU-BUY??
So you''re telling me that if I go steal a stereo system (relevant because warez is stealing), I can use it and decide if it''s good. If it''s good I can go buy it, and if I don''t like it that much I''ll just play it until a new one comes along. Since when was stealing taken out of the law?

3.) You people make me sick and I''ll guarentee that most people here at gamedev feel the same way. All you are doing is lowering the amount of money the publisher makes, therefore the developers get a lower net percentage, and soon enough developers won''t get any money at all, because you cheap *$#$ing bi*!$es wouldn''t buy a 50 buck game. You say "Oh yeah, 50 bucks hurts a company alot :-)", it does when everyone thinks it''s ok.

4.) Do yourself a favour and get out of development, you could never make it in the real world of development if you pirate and I''ll guarentee anyone on gamedev with 1/2 a brain would say the same thing.

5.) Good luck to your deaths. We''re looking forward to it!

I''m not angry, just dissapointed. I can''t say I wasn''t expecting someone to post that sort of degrading response. It was a matter of time. Congrats, you did it.

We''ve been over this several times. A stereo is not software. Please don''t compare the two. If you''re a developer, as I assume you are because you''re on these boards, you would know the difference between software and "material things."

The technological wonder that is a personal computer and the internet has brought us the ability to "try before you buy." Some abuse this and just "try" (warez kiddies), while others actually do "buy" (myself and lots of others).

I don''t like to be a victim of advertising and popular culture. I''m the kind of person that is offended when I see a blatantly obvious ad intended for my demographic (~20). I don''t like to be influenced by someone or something "because it looks good" or "because it''s cool". I make my own decisions.

What''s my point? Lots of people buy a game based on the box cover at the store. They''re victims of advertising. I''m not one of them. I won''t buy a game just because it looks flashy on the cover, or else I feel like a sheep in the advertiser''s pasture. BAAAAAHHHHH BAAAAHHHH. Usually, a well-written magazine article weighing both sides (very rare) will be enough to sway me if the game genre is one that I like. If I''m still undecided, I have no objection to "try before you buy." A few times, I have tried the game on a friend''s computer, then went out and bought it because it was very good.

Same reason I don''t click those stupid banners on the top of gamedev thinking "oooh look, punch the monkey! I could win lots of money! ... scratch and win, I could be a millionaire!!" I click them only for the knowledge that it helps gamedev''s budget. That''s all.

I am NOT superficial. I look for the content inside, because that''s what counts. If a game developer spends 2 years and comes out with a product that isn''t good, he doesn''t deserve my money, period. Survival of the fittest. Best of luck to him/her on their NEXT product. Maybe when I take the leap from amateur to professional in the industry, my views will change and I will "sympathize" with the developer more, but as of Feb 19 2000, this is the way I see it.

Oh, and I would venture to consider my future brighter than yours.

Have a nice day.

Guess what? You''ll never put a stop to piracy. Likewise, you won''t a stop to thieves who need money to eat.

In my opinion, piracy is just another excuse for Billy and other such greedy business men to hike up prices.

High software prices have created entire piracy industries throughout the world. The root of the scene is North America, where Joe Smoe from a game publisher leaks a CD to the big ''warez'' groups. (Class, Origin, Fairlight, Deviance, etc). A lot of these groups are good guys who just want to share software to people who are broke. Others make a great deal of profit my selling software to other countries (i.e Singapore) a lot sooner than it would be available on the internet. Many Asian countries are huge industries to sell pirated CDs. Walk downtown and buy a few CDs right off the street if you''re down there.

What it boils down to is this: the customers who are paying 50-100 dollars per game are in reality paying welfare to others. If publishers lowered prices to 10-20 dollars per game, you''d see a happier population, more sales. But maybe just NOT AS MUCH CASH for business. On the other hand, after a few years of this type of new sales regime, you just might see the money again. Who knows...

Personally, i''d rather do something that contributes to the greater good of society than try to build up a pile of gold in my backyard... but thats just my 3 cents.

--
XPirate