EPTA short history of Activision Blizzard or how... - Page 29
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Feremuntrus
United States64 Posts
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backtoback
Canada1276 Posts
Zuckerberg: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard Zuckerberg: Just ask. Zuckerberg: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS [Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one? Zuckerberg: People just submitted it. Zuckerberg: I don't know why. Zuckerberg: They "trust me" Zuckerberg: Dumb f*cks. wait can anyone comprehend what is he trying to state? | ||
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gilga
United States24 Posts
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Spawkuring
United States755 Posts
On June 01 2010 12:40 backtoback wrote: wait can anyone comprehend what is he trying to state? Those were statements from the creator of Facebook. He basically admits that he's willing to give out anybody's information and that his users are "dumb f*cks". Not exactly the kind of message you want to give out to people. | ||
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MrMoose
Canada176 Posts
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Captain Peabody
United States3128 Posts
And they wonder why people actually crack and pirate games. I can gladly say "yes, I DO have a pirated copy of Modern Warcrap 2", something I wouldn't even CONSIDER a couple years ago and the ONLY reason I did it was because of what they did with the online gameplay with that game. If your sense of morality is dependent upon the person or corporation you want to steal from being upright, moral and doing stuff you like, then frankly that's not really morality at all. That is to say, if the only reason you don't steal from someone is that you happen to like them and think they're a great guy, then that's no more morally praiseworthy than someone who doesn't murder solely because he doesn't feel like it. But, really, I'm sick of pirates trying to take the moral high ground based on perceived injustices by corporations towards what amounts to their own bloated sense of self-entitlement. Because, you know what? You're not owed anything by Activision, Blizzard, or any other corporation. You're not entitled to "playing a game without paying money for it," as another person in this thread said. A game is not an item that really belongs to you but is being wrongfully withheld from you by evil, greedy corporate masters. No matter how bad a game is, it was created by a company, and it belongs to them, not you; it is their property, the same way a shoe in a shoe store is the shoe store's property, or the corn produced on a farm is the farmer's property. If you want to acquire that product, you must pay the company the amount they set. This is irregardless of how much it's "really worth" or should be worth in your eyes; the company owns the game, and they get to set the price. If it's ridiculously high, no one will buy it; thus, it is in their interests to set a price that people will actually buy; this is called Economics. But nonetheless, the game still belongs to them. It is their "private property," a concept that has been attacked by charlatans the world over, but is still the only reasonable way to run a society. The thinking behind a lot of this seems to be "Well, if I'm not going to buy this game, I might as well pirate it anyway." That is, the assertion is that the act of pirating the game and simply not buying it are basically equivalent in a moral sense. But this is a mere trick of words, and simply atrocious moral calculus. In both cases, it is true, the company gets no money from you; but in the first case, the product is taken by you without any compensation to its owners, while in the second, you pay no money and so receive no product, as the law dictates. In one, you are given the product by its owner and creator freely; in the other, you wrest it from them by force. To put it simply, the difference between the two acts of pirating a game and not buying it is simply the difference between stealing something and not stealing it. To put it in analogous terms, it's the difference between seeing an apple, deciding that the price is too high for the quality of the apple, and then not buying it, and seeing an apple, deciding that the price is too high for the quality of the apple, getting angry, and then stealing the apple and eating it anyway with the excuse that you were planning not to buy it anyway. The acts are under no possible system of morality equivalent. So, to put it simply, neither a game being bad, nor being made by greedy unprincipled people, at all give you a moral right to pirate a game. If you don't like the game, don't buy it; but if you don't buy it, don't feel like you have some kind of Sacred Right to play it anyway. | ||
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Half
United States2554 Posts
On June 01 2010 12:56 Captain Peabody wrote: If your sense of morality is dependent upon the person or corporation you want to steal from being upright, moral and doing stuff you like, then frankly that's not really morality at all. That is to say, if the only reason you don't steal from someone is that you happen to like them and think they're a great guy, then that's no more morally praiseworthy than someone who doesn't murder solely because he doesn't feel like it. But, really, I'm sick of pirates trying to take the moral high ground based on perceived injustices by corporations towards what amounts to their own bloated sense of self-entitlement. Because, you know what? You're not owed anything by Activision, Blizzard, or any other corporation. You're not entitled to "playing a game without paying money for it," as another person in this thread said. A game is not an item that really belongs to you but is being wrongfully withheld from you by evil, greedy corporate masters. No matter how bad a game is, it was created by a company, and it belongs to them, not you; it is their property, the same way a shoe in a shoe store is the shoe store's property, or the corn produced on a farm is the farmer's property. If you want to acquire that product, you must pay the company the amount they set. This is irregardless of how much it's "really worth" or should be worth in your eyes; the company owns the game, and they get to set the price. If it's ridiculously high, no one will buy it; thus, it is in their interests to set a price that people will actually buy; this is called Economics. But nonetheless, the game still belongs to them. It is their "private property," a concept that has been attacked by charlatans the world over, but is still the only reasonable way to run a society. The thinking behind a lot of this seems to be "Well, if I'm not going to buy this game, I might as well pirate it anyway." That is, the assertion is that the act of pirating the game and simply not buying it are basically equivalent in a moral sense. But this is a mere trick of words, and simply atrocious moral calculus. In both cases, it is true, the company gets no money from you; but in the first case, the product is taken by you without any compensation to its owners, while in the second, you pay no money and so receive no product, as the law dictates. In one, you are given the product by its owner and creator freely; in the other, you wrest it from them by force. To put it simply, the difference between the two acts of pirating a game and not buying it is simply the difference between stealing something and not stealing it. To put it in analogous terms, it's the difference between seeing an apple, deciding that the price is too high for the quality of the apple, and then not buying it, and seeing an apple, deciding that the price is too high for the quality of the apple, getting angry, and then stealing the apple and eating it anyway with the excuse that you were planning not to buy it anyway. The acts are under no possible system of morality equivalent. So, to put it simply, neither a game being bad, nor being made by greedy unprincipled people, at all give you a moral right to pirate a game. If you don't like the game, don't buy it; but if you don't buy it, don't feel like you have some kind of Sacred Right to play it anyway. I have a split stance towards piracy. In one regard, its childish, stupid, and while I don't care about ethics, hypocritical. After all, you clearly wanted to play. But on the other hand, it gives an extraordinary amount of power to the consumer. It creates an environment where business is as much based on objective desire as it is in trust, mutual respect, and a reciprocal relationship, something that can be only good to the Game industry. By this I mean the consumer is evaluating more then just how much he wants it. He's also evaluating how much he likes the company producing it. In the long term, thats an extremely positive relationship we see very little of in the business world. The downside is that its basically unique to PC's, so Developers take the easy way out and sell to "konsole kids" (tm). | ||
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Spawkuring
United States755 Posts
On June 01 2010 13:01 Half wrote: The downside is that its basically unique to PC's, so Developers take the easy way out and sell to "konsole kids" (tm). That right there is the Achilles' Heel of piracy. PC games by their very nature are easy to pirate, so any PC company who feels like they're suffering from piracy can simply move to consoles and solve the problem instantly. PC gaming may not be dying as some claim, but it's obviously not in peak condition either, and piracy has had an effect on it by driving off all the developers and either making them multi-platform or purely console. Piracy against PC companies doesn't work because all the PC companies that are worth pirating either have console sales to fall back on (Modern Warfare 2), or have fanbases that are too loyal to actually go through with a boycott (Left 4 Dead 2, Starcraft 2). Even though Blizzard is suffering massive fan backlash due to Bnet, even most people on this very forum admit that they will still buy the game. Not exactly the most threatening group when looking at it from a CEO's viewpoint. I tend to blame gamers more than greedy corporations for the money-driven state of gaming today. Gamers can't expect companies to respect them when they can't even organize a simple boycott without breaking down in flames. | ||
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ThunderChunky
United States24 Posts
On June 01 2010 12:56 Captain Peabody wrote: To put it simply, the difference between the two acts of pirating a game and not buying it is simply the difference between stealing something and not stealing it. To put it in analogous terms, it's the difference between seeing an apple, deciding that the price is too high for the quality of the apple, and then not buying it, and seeing an apple, deciding that the price is too high for the quality of the apple, getting angry, and then stealing the apple and eating it anyway with the excuse that you were planning not to buy it anyway. The acts are under no possible system of morality equivalent. That's a flawed analogy as an apple is not intellectual property, but physical property (if you eat the apple it's gone). It would be slightly more accurate if the apple was laying on the ground and the choice was either to buy it, steal it, or let it rot. The end result of pirating: you get to play game, the company gets no profit The end result of not buying: you don't play the game, the company gets no profit The outcomes for the company are the same whether you abstain or pirate. That is the point that pirates are making. | ||
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Izslove
Australia69 Posts
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Goga[OEP]
13 Posts
On June 01 2010 15:04 Izslove wrote: So my post got deleted and I copped a 72 hour ban for posting this on the bnet forums That's because the mods on the bnet forums are just trying to minimize the damage. They don't want the casual gamers to get a smell of whats going on right now, so long as they remain customers. Pretty much ignoring any more constructive feedback. My 0.02$ | ||
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Perkins1752
Germany214 Posts
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Goobahfish
Australia71 Posts
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Santriel
Belgium33 Posts
On June 01 2010 13:21 Spawkuring wrote: That right there is the Achilles' Heel of piracy. PC games by their very nature are easy to pirate, so any PC company who feels like they're suffering from piracy can simply move to consoles and solve the problem instantly. PC gaming may not be dying as some claim, but it's obviously not in peak condition either, and piracy has had an effect on it by driving off all the developers and either making them multi-platform or purely console. Console piracy is a LOT more prevalent than PC piracy. Of course most of the kidiots don't know how to do it but chances are they ALL known a computer guy who knows how. Even the Dreamcasts reverse-spinning disks were pwnt in a matter of weeks. Hell, nowadays we even have cross-console emulation. If THAT is not a sign I don't know what is.... Also, Console piracy, contrary to your belief, is a LOT EASIER than PC piracy. DRMs generating their protection numbers at random, you can't just apply the same routine and crack everything at once. Due to the nature of consoles, you just have to figure out the consoles pattern and bang, all games are cracked at once. | ||
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tontonba
United States74 Posts
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EleanorRIgby
Canada3923 Posts
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Jaug
Sweden249 Posts
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artanis2
United States732 Posts
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artanis2
United States732 Posts
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ryanjm
United States3 Posts
On June 01 2010 12:56 Captain Peabody wrote: If your sense of morality is dependent upon the person or corporation you want to steal from being upright, moral and doing stuff you like, then frankly that's not really morality at all. That is to say, if the only reason you don't steal from someone is that you happen to like them and think they're a great guy, then that's no more morally praiseworthy than someone who doesn't murder solely because he doesn't feel like it. To put it in analogous terms, it's the difference between seeing an apple, deciding that the price is too high for the quality of the apple, and then not buying it, and seeing an apple, deciding that the price is too high for the quality of the apple, getting angry, and then stealing the apple and eating it anyway with the excuse that you were planning not to buy it anyway. The acts are under no possible system of morality equivalent. Not exactly. Your first paragraph I quoted seems to imply that every action which is morally blameworthy has no bearing on any other moral decision. For instance, let's say North Korea suddenly had democratic elections, and Kim Jong il went out and murdered 1,000 people voting for the other candidate. You then decide to support his re-election campaign by giving him $5,000. Are you saying your action isn't morally blameworthy? I think there is a very valid basis for considering where your dollars are going when you support a company. So, in simplistic terms, I DO consider whether the company I'm giving my dollars to is "doing stuff I like." Because if you just blindly give your money to a company that has no respect for their customers, you're supporting them. So now we get to the stickier situation of not supporting the company, while at the same time playing their game. Unfortunately, all of the examples you gave have to do with zero sum goods. If I take an apple that doesn't belong to me, someone else doesn't get to use that apple. Software is more similar to books or movies. If I loan my book to a friend to read, is that stealing because he didn't pay for it? Maybe you would point to the EULA disallowing that and no equivalent with a book. The EULA is a one-sided contract that could say you sell your soul to the devil and no one would even notice. But let's pretend that's actually a contract worth upholding. What if your book had a disclaimer that you cannot loan it to any friends? At what point does something you buy become "yours" versus just a license to use it? Should any consumer reasonably expect that when they buy a game at a store, they're only really buying a license? You see, the game is rigged, the tables are tilted, and there really isn't anyone with the pockets (short of a class action) to push back for the user's rights. But I do agree that at the base of the issue is the fact that you are taking something that you did not pay for, regardless of whether it cost the company money. But again, I think it's really just the numbers involved and the anonymity of the Internet that makes this clearly "wrong." If your friend loaned you his copy of the game that you played for a couple of days then gave back, no one would think twice about that being wrong. But if some guy in China gives 5,000 people a copy that you play for a couple of days and then delete, that's wrong. Another part of the problem is that there is no pricing tier. For instance, with movies, you can go to the theater and pay $10 to see it when it comes out on a big screen, or wait till dvd and pay $4, or wait till tv and pay nothing. Books, similar system (and libraries). With computer games, there is no equivalent. You either pay $50-60 or you get nothing. For many games, I'd be willing to rent them, or pay $x to get a 3 day license, etc... but they haven't set anything like that up and that's definitely hurting them. In the end the issue is much more complex and morally convoluted than what I think you make it out to be. | ||
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