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On June 23 2011 17:37 HeIios wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2011 17:31 Slaytilost wrote:Well if we're going all methophoric, my heart is pumping blood through my veins. And in order to do that i need to go to the store and buy food. After i've established living i also try to enjoy myself, and make some fun products during my day job, and that whats lights my fire. There is no company in the world that doesnt care about their customers, and only aims to bring the worst possible experience to them. There are no executives or shareholders that will potentially reduce the amount of sales on purpose. Why would they do that? It doesnt make any sense. Yes my heart is on fire, by making games that sell good and are fun to play. There's actually quite a correlation between both of em  Take a careful look at what I wrote, I never went to an extreme like you are (well maybe about burning them down, but come on). I'm tired of correcting myself in your assumptions, and thus I will burn you too. But not before I tell you something. I understand how a business works, trust me. I understand how consumers work. I'm saying we should start anew because I see no light at the end of the tunnel for PCgaming, we are going to get the shaft again and again until our asses are so sore that all we can do is ask for one more. It's the frog in boiling water effect, they keep adding nails to the coffin that is pc gaming, we've signed the release form for our bunghole. We will never go back to the way things were, and pirates (who are NOT consumers) is not to blame here, it's just that the console market is too great of a threat. It's not even david vs goliath, more like Roadrunner vs Megazord. This direction aint gonna work out for us.
Thats a pretty grim view of the PC games industry my friend. Why do you feel so shafted? There's still great titles around, and money to make. Sometimes gems like Starcraft 2 or Portal are released, instead of just another Call of Duty game that looks just like the previous.
In a way, i see the console market as PC gaming anew, a 'lets burn this PC down and create our own Xbox/PS/whatever'. There are actually very decent games for consoles, and sometimes you just have to bend over tbh. Just go with the flow, instead of always complaining (not targeting anyone in particular) about bad ports just to go out and buy a console to play the 'original' so to speak.
Now i'm not a fan of the controller, but i'm sure PC gaming wont die out completely. Personally i dont feel shafted at all, im having a blast playing games on my PC, even if they are ports.
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On June 23 2011 17:47 MaGariShun wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2011 16:47 Slaytilost wrote:
Quite frankly, you are naive. Companies make money, thats the way everything works. But just because a product has to make money doesnt mean it can't be fun or good, or Blizzard cant spend more time and effort in it. I'm sorry that you hate SC2 that much, but blizzard has done a tremendous job of making an awesome game, which they are very skilled at. Especially Blizzard is known for their innovation and care they put in their games.
My post was exaggerated and naive on purpose (read above). I never said I hate SC2, but what I miss in it is Blizzard's known innovation that you cite. That and the fact that I will have to buy 2 expansions with predominantly singleplayer content I dont care about just to be able to continue playing multiplayer. Oh, and the fact that they have become so greedy that they dont let you have multiple accounts, free namechanges or play cross server because you could somehow buy the game cheaper in china. Bnet 0.2 doesnt have clan features, didnt have chat channels for quite some time and the dnd doesnt really block traffic so you can get spammed during tournaments. Some of this stuff would be really easy to implement, they just dont do it because they are too greedy. I still bought the game, like it and play it, but it lacks on innovation and polish.
People bought BW even though it was more or less the same, at the time it was a predominantly singleplayer expansion. We will see two expansions probably cause they really couldn't complete everything within a reasonable timeframe. Both WC3 and SC had one expansion that had a fleshed out singleplayer aspect, it worked out ok then?
The fact that people can't smurf is great for me as there's way less griefing and people actually play against opponents they are close to in skill. The alternative is smurf accounts witch leads to screwing with the MMR ratings, people griefing low ranked players and trolling everywhere like it was in WC3/WoW. Cross server is price but also latency and the fact that they want to keep ladders separate for US/EU/SEA/SKR.
The chat client and other Bnet features are pretty lame at the moment, i admit. You blame everything on greed yet have no real proof. You say this or that is simple yet you know nothing about how the client works or how much work it takes.
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What's depressing about this argument is that none of the people who support having lan have any non-anecdotal evidence for their argument 
The other depressing thing is the failure at making a proper analogy for why pirating is bad.
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The reason pirating is bad is NOT because people stole the games
The reason pirating is bad is because if someone is 50/50 about buying a game since he's not sure, he's more likely to just steal it than spend $60.
The people who pirate will pirate. (Doesn't matter if they buy the game or not, you can't stop them from pirating)
The people who will buy the game will buy the game. It doesn't matter if it's pirated and free, they are fans and will be fans till the bitter end.
The people who are apathetic to the game but are too inept to know how to pirate said game are not a threat to the company. They will either buy the game or they won't.
The people who are apathetic AND are also adept at pirating the game will most likely pirate the game instead of buy it because one option is free and the other costs $60.
The pirates will be pirates no matter what.
The fans will be fans no matter what.
The apathetic will either buy the game or pirate the game (whichever is easier)
If Blizzard can make pirating the game difficult enough so that apathetic players will find it easier to buy the game instead of pirate it, why wouldn't Blizzard do that?
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On June 23 2011 11:30 branflakes14 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2011 11:28 lorkac wrote:On June 23 2011 11:18 branflakes14 wrote:On June 23 2011 11:14 lorkac wrote:
Which means the only people who would complain about no LAN are the people who are trying to not buy SC2. And the only reason you don't want a CCTV camera in your living room is because you want to commit crimes. What other reason can there be? The camera doesn't stop you doing anything you were normally going to do so you shouldn't have a problem with it. I actually would not have a problem with a CCTV camera in my room, personally. And yes, it is because I don't plan on doing anything illegal. And it also is because I don't feel shy about myself and I don't feel as if my life is this big secret I need to protect from the eyes of the world. I'm not some fundamentalist nut job in the midwestern united states. That's me personally. The question is, how bad is the crime in the place you're living in that CCTV cameras need to be bought? Do you really want to live in a neighborhood that is so bad that they need CCTV cameras? I was only trying to get a point across through analogy. In actively taking tough measures against piracy, publishers are treating customers like potential pirates rather than treating pirates like potential customers.
That's because treating pirates like "potential customers" doesn't help.
Here's an example. A person can use piracy as a "try before you buy" kind of thing. And I'm totally fine with the concept of trying the game out before having to pay for it. Therefore, the way to treat such people as "potential customers" is to give them alternate ways to try before they buy: you make a free demo.
Does the presence of a free demo affect piracy rates? Hell no. Doom had a full third of the game as a free demo and was the most pirated game ever.
On June 23 2011 11:34 Fruscainte wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2011 11:30 branflakes14 wrote:On June 23 2011 11:28 lorkac wrote:On June 23 2011 11:18 branflakes14 wrote:On June 23 2011 11:14 lorkac wrote:
Which means the only people who would complain about no LAN are the people who are trying to not buy SC2. And the only reason you don't want a CCTV camera in your living room is because you want to commit crimes. What other reason can there be? The camera doesn't stop you doing anything you were normally going to do so you shouldn't have a problem with it. I actually would not have a problem with a CCTV camera in my room, personally. And yes, it is because I don't plan on doing anything illegal. And it also is because I don't feel shy about myself and I don't feel as if my life is this big secret I need to protect from the eyes of the world. I'm not some fundamentalist nut job in the midwestern united states. That's me personally. The question is, how bad is the crime in the place you're living in that CCTV cameras need to be bought? Do you really want to live in a neighborhood that is so bad that they need CCTV cameras? I was only trying to get a point across through analogy. In actively taking tough measures against piracy, publishers are treating customers like potential pirates rather than treating pirates like potential customers. And this is the issue. Take a look at this picture: ![[image loading]](http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/9881/bitgamerp.png) Relatively recent poll from Bitgamer. Look at those numbers. People are pirating games and THEN SUBSEQUENTLY BUYING THEM. That's the piracy community, at least 87% of them according to this poll of 12,000 people of the best private tracker in the world. Instead of treating us like criminals who are literally stealing their livelihoods and actually producing quality games and removing DRM would make me, and a majority of others to buy their games. I outright bought Witcher 2 because of the removal of DRM after I played it a bit. The voice of "I PIRATE EVERYTHING SINCE I DONT PAY FOR EVERYTHING" is a very small part in the community but consequently the loudest -- giving the illusion they are the majority when in fact most of pirates hate their fucking guts if they like the game and don't buy it after. Every major cracker tells you to buy the products if you enjoy them. There are thousands of comments of people saying "SO BUYING THIS" after torrenting them. These are potential customers that they are driving away as criminals. That's my issue with this crap. They take away something that is basically mandatory in a game like this and then when people flip a shit about it, they blame it on pirates.
OK, let's break this graph down.
22% of these people "try to support good developers." OK, but what about the mediocre ones? This is something that I don't think people understand: most good developers were bad developers at one time or another. Not everyone has the talent to pull everything off right the first few times. Making a game is like any other skilled art form: it requires practice.
The mediocre developers today are the good developers of the future. Which these pirates are shafting by playing their games without paying for them. If you don't like their games, that's fine: don't play them.
43% will only buy the absolute best of the best, using whatever metric they so choose. These have the same problem as the above: it doesn't help anyone but the best of the best. I guess a game developer doesn't deserve money if a game isn't absolutely perfect.
There have been so many games that I have enjoyed. But far fewer of them are what I would call "amazing". The majority of pirates are saying that they shouldn't have to pay for a game that is merely good; it must be "amazing" or fuck that game developer for not being utterly perfect in every way and innovating the genre.
Hell, I love SC2, but would I call it "amazing"? No; it is merely an example of a excellently executed RTS game, using standard RTS gaming conventions.
22% ARE THE REASON WHY WE DON'T HAVE LAN! They admit it themselves: they would steal the game, but they can't, because they can only get the full experience by buying it. That is 2,640 sales of SC2 that we can, by their own admission, say would not have been made if SC2 had LAN play.
LAN in SC2 now has a definite price tag: $158,400. Minimum.
10% are assholes. But to be honest, these are the ones I respect the most. Why? Because at least they admit it. The top 65% likes to pretend that their actions are all noble. That they are pirates, but they still support "good developers", however widely or narrowly they define that.
There's a purity in saying, "I'm just going to take what I want." I can respect that. Sure, they're tools. But they're pure about it; they don't try to put on airs. They don't try to act like they're not exactly what they clearly are. They don't try to convince you that they can be bargained or reasoned with. They want your shit for free, period.
It's the entitlement complex of the 65% that I hate. The ones who say that it is wrong for them to buy a game and find out it's not "good". That it's wrong for them to make mistakes. That it's right for them to play mediocre games without paying the game developer what they're due just because they don't find those games to be "good".
The voice of "I PIRATE EVERYTHING SINCE I DONT PAY FOR EVERYTHING" is a very small part in the community
The statics clearly show that 10+22=32% of the community are part of this. The only difference is that 22% are willing to pay if methods are employed that restrict their access to certain content unless they pay. This 22% is the reason DRM, in all its forms, exists. It's the reason why we cannot have nice things.
32% is not a "very small part" of anything; it is almost one third. One out of every 3 pirates will not buy the game, no matter how good, unless forced to (and even then, it's only 1 in 5 that will do it if forced to).
So don't go acting like pirates are all noble and game developers can appease them with anything less than server-based DRM or MMO-style content lockdown.
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On June 23 2011 17:57 lorkac wrote:
If Blizzard can make pirating the game difficult enough so that apathetic players will find it easier to buy the game instead of pirate it, why wouldn't Blizzard do that?
Because it can turn "fans" into 50/50 guys or pirates if its done so that it impairs their experience too hard.
The chat client and other Bnet features are pretty lame at the moment, i admit. You blame everything on greed yet have no real proof. You say this or that is simple yet you know nothing about how the client works or how much work it takes.
I'm a programmer and CS student myself, so i know some things about software development. Name change is already implemented just not free, so i call that one easy. Dnd also can't be too hard you just have to track the status on the serverside (which i presume they do cause it shows you the status of your friends in the client) and then don't pass the messages if the target is on "block" mode. Im well aware that other things are more difficult and that even little changes require extensive testing and deployment can fuck things up. But blizz has so much capacity that it really shouldn't be a problem
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On June 23 2011 17:47 MaGariShun wrote:
It is of course not that simple and people have to make money to run a business. What I tried to say in a very black-and-white-ish and exaggerating manner is, that you can only play the "business" card until a certain point. If game designers are not passionate and just think about the dollarz, games won't be good. Creating a good game involves a huge amount of and creativity (read: new stuff) and creativity has no place in a completely calculated business because you have no guarantee that something produces money if it hasn't been done before. What you're left with are EA/Activision style annual re-releases of a minimally altered old game.
Activision releases a new Call of Duty just about every year. Every time its more or less the same game, sure the explosions get prettier and all that, but in essence its the same game. Yet still 18 million copies of Call of Duty: Black Ops where sold (which grosses about $818 million). Do you believe 18 milion people got shafted, and will be shafted every year?
Sure you could descibe it as a re-release and people get screwed over by buying at again and again. But if they werent satisfied with the last game they wouldnt buy the next. So, the way i see it is its just a franchise with a loyal following that enjoys to play the new game every year. I sincerely believe that if someone did not enjoy the previous 2 COD games they wouldnt buy the next one. Which basicly means people like COD, eventhough i dont.
My post was exaggerated and naive on purpose (read above). I never said I hate SC2, but what I miss in it is Blizzard's known innovation that you cite. That and the fact that I will have to buy 2 expansions with predominantly singleplayer content I dont care about just to be able to continue playing multiplayer. Oh, and the fact that they have become so greedy that they dont let you have multiple accounts, free namechanges or play cross server because you could somehow buy the game cheaper in china. Bnet 0.2 doesnt have clan features, didnt have chat channels for quite some time and the dnd doesnt really block traffic so you can get spammed during tournaments. Some of this stuff would be really easy to implement, they just dont do it because they are too greedy. I still bought the game, like it and play it, but it lacks on innovation and polish.
I kinda like the expansion model tbh, you should also consider what good it brings. For one, you wouldnt be playing now if they decided to release the game in one go, the singleplayer would still be in development. Also, what i like most, is that they can revise the game's balance, add and remove units to keep it fresh. Sure there is a price tag, but in my opinion well worth it. I actually think multiple characters per b.net account was a feature once, or will be a feature in the future just because there still is some sort of character selection screen after you log in. Those could be remnants of an alpha feature.
We shouldnt judge whether features are easy to implement or not, Blizzard's wonderful employers are the only ones that can do that. Either way, they decided not to prioritise implementing/improving some of the things you mentioned. As you might have noticed they are still hard at work at some features, and new features will be added. Chat channels where added, they have some crazy plans about a map-market and i'm sure there will be lots of more awesome stuff coming expansions. Sure some features are missing, and i'd like to see them implemented (watching replays together anyone?), however as the game is now its well worth my money in my opinion. It lacks innovation as in, its not a completely new franchise star1 was, but i find it (compared to other games) a pretty innovative and polished games. But you know, that just like my opinion man.
Of course you don't get rich. The question is if you rather want to be rich or do the stuff you wanna do. If it works out both then awesome, if not, you have to decide.
When you pick both you have to balance them too. I'm sure David Kim and his team would have wanted another 5 years to balance the game perfectly, but it has to ship at some time.
Luckily in this business you get rich by making good products, because customers buy good products.
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On June 23 2011 18:11 MaGariShun wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2011 17:57 lorkac wrote:
If Blizzard can make pirating the game difficult enough so that apathetic players will find it easier to buy the game instead of pirate it, why wouldn't Blizzard do that? Because it can turn "fans" into 50/50 guys or pirates if its done so that it impairs their experience too hard.
I repeat--true fans will always buy it no matter what.
"fans" who turn 50/50 because the game doesn't have enough non-game features are not really fans and were already in the 50/50 category anyway.
The presence of the pirate culture allows those 50/50 fans to think "The game is not to my liking, but enough to my liking that I'm willing to steal it." Without that piracy culture present, that 50/50 fan would not even think of the option of not paying for it--and hence will have pay for a copy in order to try it out. (Demo's being the other way to try it out)
It's the presence of the Piracy culture that allows people to have the option to be 50/50. Without the pirate culture, people either buy the game or not.
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He's right. I wouldn't put a LAN in either.
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On June 23 2011 18:11 MaGariShun wrote:
I'm a programmer and CS student myself, so i know some things about software development. Name change is already implemented just not free, so i call that one easy. Dnd also can't be too hard you just have to track the status on the serverside (which i presume they do cause it shows you the status of your friends in the client) and then don't pass the messages if the target is on "block" mode. Im well aware that other things are more difficult and that even little changes require extensive testing and deployment can fuck things up. But blizz has so much capacity that it really shouldn't be a problem
I'm a programmer and a game developer myself, so i guess i have some insight in game development. Its not, ever, the question if Blizzard is capable enough. Its never the question whether its technically possible. Its capacity that is the problem, game development isnt that hard, its just a whole lot of work. Its the sheer amount of content, or code that goes into such projects. I'm Blizzard has a huge todo list, and they have to prioritize that. At the moment they seem focused on the new expansion instead of the things mentioned above.
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On June 23 2011 18:11 MaGariShun wrote:Show nested quote +
The chat client and other Bnet features are pretty lame at the moment, i admit. You blame everything on greed yet have no real proof. You say this or that is simple yet you know nothing about how the client works or how much work it takes.
I'm a programmer and CS student myself, so i know some things about software development. Name change is already implemented just not free, so i call that one easy. Dnd also can't be too hard you just have to track the status on the serverside (which i presume they do cause it shows you the status of your friends in the client) and then don't pass the messages if the target is on "block" mode. Im well aware that other things are more difficult and that even little changes require extensive testing and deployment can fuck things up. But blizz has so much capacity that it really shouldn't be a problem
So you're saying the options Blizzard had was to either spend more money than they already did to try to get a *possibly* safe LAN system or ensure they prevent LAN abuse by saving money and not spend any resources in coding/testing it?
And you're confused why Blizzard decided to use the free option of not bothering with LAN? (Using your logic of course)
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I can understand why they would think that from company's point of view but there are a few things i really dont agree with:
LAN feature ≠ giving it away for free.
Look at all the Valve games. They all have LAN, you can download all of them from wherever and get on a jailbroken server easily.
That means they dont sell at all right? No. Most people that try the pirated multiplayer actually end up buying the game (if they like it) Why? Because finding good servers is hard, ping is high, people are stupid and cheating is not avoidable.
Thats an easy example because theyre all FPS games right? Strategy games cant work that way... Well look at wc3. Again, LAN, custom servers and actually a pretty big scene on them afaik. But if they join these servers, play and have fun do you think they will stay there? Ofcourse not, they will seek out the better service with customer support, cheater protection and competition.
The only exception to this is Garena for DotA and thats because the system in game cant match you up by skill in custom games, besides dota isnt even made by Blizzard.
Another exception is Modern Warfare 2, though not that well known you can get full service (actually better service in some ways) with pirated copy. This is kind of a exception because it has no servers and activision actively went against pc so the fact people actually bought it on pc after getting told theyre secondary market is impressive.
This goes to my second point -
Goodwill is important
Look at the entire marketing strategy for Battlefield, its all about how they care and its working like magic.
Most Indie games feature single player only or multi player that can be cracked without a problem but still they get amazing sales with no marketing (not all of them ofcourse).
I've been pirating games all of my life, I have absolutely no hard feelings doing so, but now as Im starting to earn some money I actually buy a lot of my games. Why? Because I can see if a company cares. There is absolutely no reason for me to buy some of the games i own except for being appreciative of the work developers do.
Valve, Blizzard, Indie companies - these are all companies I can put faces behind that care and I buy most of their games due to it (and the support ofc.)
Activision - sure I can put a face behind them but its not one I would give my money...
Bioware - though they dont have a "face", I used to buy their old games, not so much now with all the pre-release DLC bullsh--
My point is if a company actively speaks to its community and updates their games they will have loayal fans which can and will bring new people to the community.
This all applies to people who have an interest in buying your stuff which brings me to my final point -
Pirates are not stealing from companies
Sure, to take it literally they are but a lot of them would never buy your game.
They should a must be thought of as potential customers, not people who steal, companies should try to motivate them to buy their games, not fight against them and piss of their fans in the process.
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On June 23 2011 07:10 mdma-_- wrote:
that still doesnt explain why they cant allow people to play each other in lan with the necessecity of being logged into bnet/whatever online client.
cheap excuse just to blame it on pirates tbh
No people who steal from others, regardless of how justified they feel cause this kind of thing.
You need ID with you credit card? It's because too many people try to commit fraud.
You need two IDs to rent a movie? It's because people steal films.
Are you complaining about the retardness that is DRM? It's there because people steal in the first place.
It boils down to this; stupid rules and regulations are there because people, consumers, do stupid things.
I completely understand why Blizzard does not have Lan support.
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If we didnt have money to worry about we wouldnet have to settle with lagg down with the monetary system and "Lan latency" will be standard in everygame.
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On June 23 2011 18:28 Slegg wrote:
Pirates are not stealing from companies
Sure, to take it literally they are but a lot of them would never buy your game.
They should a must be thought of as potential customers, not people who steal, companies should try to motivate them to buy their games, not fight against them and piss of their fans in the process.
People who intend to steal never intend to buy the product--that is why they steal. This sentence is aggravating to hear because it means absolutely nothing.
If I said that people who are hungry would like to eat, it would not be understood as an argument for stealing from a grocery store.
I'm not saying Blizzard shouldn't have LAN. Whether or not LAN is present doesn't stop the arguments in support of piracy from being stupid.
At no point is taking someone's product and not compensating it a good thing. It's an insult to the industry, and an insult to the market itself. It isn't like you're renting the game. Pay say small price for a month's worth of service, pay full price for full service. You're stealing someone's property.
Yes, his property. His product. To you it is just data that you copied, to the company it's another person out there in the world pushing the mindset that games should be free.
The logic for piracy is at best selfish and at worse malicious. It sounds too much like politicians promising bridges that they never have to build unless absolutely forced to.
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On June 23 2011 07:12 Coldplum wrote:
I don't see why there can't be some sort of security feature built in that forces you to log onto Bnet before you can access LAN. Or even have a separate LAN security identifier accessory...i.e. like an identifier key-chain that you purchase in conjunction with your account.
Because of cracks, this has been tried and doesn't work.
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On June 23 2011 18:24 lorkac wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On June 23 2011 18:11 MaGariShun wrote:Show nested quote +
The chat client and other Bnet features are pretty lame at the moment, i admit. You blame everything on greed yet have no real proof. You say this or that is simple yet you know nothing about how the client works or how much work it takes.
I'm a programmer and CS student myself, so i know some things about software development. Name change is already implemented just not free, so i call that one easy. Dnd also can't be too hard you just have to track the status on the serverside (which i presume they do cause it shows you the status of your friends in the client) and then don't pass the messages if the target is on "block" mode. Im well aware that other things are more difficult and that even little changes require extensive testing and deployment can fuck things up. But blizz has so much capacity that it really shouldn't be a problem So you're saying the options Blizzard had was to either spend more money than they already did to try to get a *possibly* safe LAN system or ensure they prevent LAN abuse by saving money and not spend any resources in coding/testing it? And you're confused why Blizzard decided to use the free option of not bothering with LAN? (Using your logic of course)
No, I was pointing out two things they could change easily and that would make the community happier. Yet they don't for whatever reason. They won't make any money out of it, probably on the contrary (they will charge for namechanges eventually - maybe it comes together with the map marketplace) so its just about doing the community a favor that doesnt cost them all too much. They decided not to do it which is a decision I dont like, cause the "old Blizzard" would probably have done it.
My post was not about LAN mode, but I'll give you my opinion: I fully understand why there is no LAN. From a business perspective it is the logical thing to do, but I'm sure the game would have made profit even with it and all the piracy. I always hate it when they cut stuff because of piracy. Its just not fair. Because other people pirate the game the paying customer gets punished? I don't like that way of thinking. IMO Blizz shouldn't force customers to use their service to ensure they have to buy the game, but provide a service such good that people buy the game and use the service because of it.
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On June 23 2011 18:28 Slegg wrote:
Pirates are not stealing from companies
Sure, to take it literally they are but a lot of them would never buy your game.
They should a must be thought of as potential customers, not people who steal, companies should try to motivate them to buy their games, not fight against them and piss of their fans in the process.
This is just silly. It's because of pirates that we have sequels every year and it's because of pirates that I have to log in to Battle.net every time I start SC2. Stop pretending that piracy is something small and harmless. Downloading games IS stealing, no idea on which planet you live in. People work hard day and night to give you great games and by downloading the game for free you are not acknowledging their efforts. There is no free meal as they say and the same is with games. Today you get if for free and few months/years down the line you see companies less willing to invest money into expensive games and projects. No other company besides Blizzard, is willing to spend this crazy amount of money for a game to promote E-sports. If SC2 is not successful, I doubt we will see e-sports rising anytime soon. If you cannot afford a game, save some money and wait for it to become cheaper. I have been buying my games, although they cost A LOT in Bulgaria. SC2 is like 1/9th of your monthly salary. If I can't afford a game this month I might get it the next on. People had to work shitty jobs just to pay for their music/movies in the past, the same should be for games.
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On June 23 2011 18:40 lorkac wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2011 18:28 Slegg wrote:
Pirates are not stealing from companies
Sure, to take it literally they are but a lot of them would never buy your game.
They should a must be thought of as potential customers, not people who steal, companies should try to motivate them to buy their games, not fight against them and piss of their fans in the process.
People who intend to steal never intend to buy the product--that is why they steal. This sentence is aggravating to hear because it means absolutely nothing. If I said that people who are hungry would like to eat, it would not be understood as an argument for stealing from a grocery store. I'm not saying Blizzard shouldn't have LAN. Whether or not LAN is present doesn't stop the arguments in support of piracy from being stupid. At no point is taking someone's product and not compensating it a good thing. It's an insult to the industry, and an insult to the market itself. It isn't like you're renting the game. Pay say small price for a month's worth of service, pay full price for full service. You're stealing someone's property. Yes, his property. His product. To you it is just data that you copied, to the company it's another person out there in the world pushing the mindset that games should be free. The logic for piracy is at best selfish and at worse malicious. It sounds too much like politicians promising bridges that they never have to build unless absolutely forced to.
My mistake, I didnt mean to make it sound like I support it or think its not stealing.
I meant it from marketing point of view (Sure, to take it literally they are but a lot of them would never buy your game.)
I meant this for single player games, I have many friends who pirate games and will never buy most of them unless they can clearly gain something from it (like multiplayer)
Once again, Im not saying piracy is right, or should be accepted, I mean it in the way they shouldnt try to fight against someone who doesnt actually hurt them (as in the will never buy it, so his money isnt a loss) example - Assassins creed 2's awful DRM system which only limits paying customers.
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On June 23 2011 07:18 darkscream wrote:
Bad argument made by propagandist.
Pirates wouldn't have bought the game anyway, and including LAN would let your game get exposed to new people for free. This is like saying "terrorists ruined travel", even though it's the government ruining travelling.
This analogy fails because terrorists are in the vast (VAST) minority whereas pirates are in the majority.
There is no excuse for piracy, even if you think it is not harmful. Saying piracy is ok is like saying people don't own the rights to the fruits of their own labour.
Piracy is the WRONG way to go about "fighting" record companies and game companies that you think have unfair licenses and relationships to content creators.
The right way is to be a customer of the companies that have business practices you agree with.
As a pirate you hurt both types of companies.
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On June 23 2011 18:43 MaGariShun wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2011 18:24 lorkac wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On June 23 2011 18:11 MaGariShun wrote:Show nested quote +
The chat client and other Bnet features are pretty lame at the moment, i admit. You blame everything on greed yet have no real proof. You say this or that is simple yet you know nothing about how the client works or how much work it takes.
I'm a programmer and CS student myself, so i know some things about software development. Name change is already implemented just not free, so i call that one easy. Dnd also can't be too hard you just have to track the status on the serverside (which i presume they do cause it shows you the status of your friends in the client) and then don't pass the messages if the target is on "block" mode. Im well aware that other things are more difficult and that even little changes require extensive testing and deployment can fuck things up. But blizz has so much capacity that it really shouldn't be a problem So you're saying the options Blizzard had was to either spend more money than they already did to try to get a *possibly* safe LAN system or ensure they prevent LAN abuse by saving money and not spend any resources in coding/testing it? And you're confused why Blizzard decided to use the free option of not bothering with LAN? (Using your logic of course) No, I was pointing out two things they could change easily and that would make the community happier. Yet they don't for whatever reason. They won't make any money out of it, probably on the contrary (they will charge for namechanges eventually - maybe it comes together with the map marketplace) so its just about doing the community a favor that doesnt cost them all too much. They decided not to do it which is a decision I dont like, cause the "old Blizzard" would probably have done it. My post was not about LAN mode, but I'll give you my opinion: I fully understand why there is no LAN. From a business perspective it is the logical thing to do, but I'm sure the game would have made profit even with it and all the piracy. I always hate it when they cut stuff because of piracy. Its just not fair. Because other people pirate the game the paying customer gets punished? I don't like that way of thinking. IMO Blizz shouldn't force customers to use their service to ensure they have to buy the game, but provide a service such good that people buy the game and use the service because of it.
I repeat my question.
But this time I'll use smaller words.
Why should blizzard spend extra effort (and money) to counteract something that shouldn't be done anyway?
For example. If rats steal an apple from your fruit bowl each day--does that mean you should buy one extra apple each time you buy groceries since you can't stop that rat anyway? Or should you buy a rat trap? OR you could pick the option where you stop buying fruits and just buy canned goods since rats can't steal canned food. Buying the rat trap requires bait, requires management, lots of time, etc... Just buying food that rats can't still is easy to do and removes the problem more quickly.
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EPT
