Yup, I bet you would have quit gaming all together if it weren't for torrents

These retard pirate threads need to be locked and deleted.

Again, the artists dont really give a shit. The companys give a shit. Big difference. The artist says taking a beer doesn't really matter, mommy says no.

Well, no, it's just that I was really on the fence about this game, and had I waited for the demo, it would be too late-- I would already have spent my money on other summer releases that I was already following. I wouldn't have bought this game at all, it would have just been forgotten, really.

Of course, I'm not defending the redundancy of this topic. It's like OP just made it with the sole reason of announcing to the world that he pirated the game.

So the devs should be thanking your action of pirating it for the resulting sale?  Am I the only one to whom this sounds crazy?  Please god I can't be the only one........sigh

/face - palm  

Its better than not getting the sale, is it not?=P

Well, it does sound a bit crazy. But it's true. Without the option to rent PC games, and without a demo coming for a while(basicly, if it comes after SF4's PC release, it's a long time for me... heh...), it's kind of hard to evaluate a purchase unless you've been really hyped up about it. Demigod was just something that came up on the horizon soon after its release for me, and it looked fairly interesting, but mixed reviews and remarks really pushed me away. It wasn't until I played a few rounds of single player that I figured the game and its mechanics were worth a purchase.

I'm not saying that they should be thanking my actions(other then the act of actually purchasing it, of course), but that it's not all black and white. Stardock themselves said they don't care about pirates. And hey, if it works as a poor man's demo, so be it. It got my money that way.

There was no demo for this game.  It did not function on release.  It currently barely functions. It is not currently worth money to non-fan boys.  When they fix it so you can load up multiplayer and hop into both custom and ladder matches without getting stuck with retarded AI's or ppl randomly disconnecting left and right...

That is when they should expect ppl not to pirate and expect people to buy the software.

Thank you for stealing our game. We're glad you liked it and decided to then buy it. We were hoping that our hard work would pay off and if it wasn't too much trouble hoped you'd actually pay for it. You can now go to heaven.

cheers

Dev Team

Obviously those of you complaining about this thread 'rubbing it in the Dev's faces' aren't familiar with SD's policy on Copywrite protection and the reasoning behind it.

Let me sum it up for you.

They don't put copywrite protection on their games because they feel that they'll lose more sales from people who just dont want to mess about with the protection, then they will to pirates, who would have cracked the protection anyway and have a chance to be appreciative and buy the game on merit, like this fellow.

So I rather think this thread and others like it prove that their marketing model is working.

Personally, I pirate every game before I buy it. If it's crap, I don't play it anyway and I'm glad I still have my money. If it's good, it goes on the List and I buy it when I can.

That's how I started playing Sins of Solar Empire. Which, in turn, led to buy it and get Impulse. Now I own Sins, its expansion, Supreme Commander, and, of course, Demigod. So does my brother, and a few of our friends.

Now I'm not saying all pirates are like me, or even that most of them are. This guy, however, seems like he is, and thats money in their pocket that they might not have otherwise gotten.

I see a lot of bullshit both for and against copyright infringement.

Here's some interesting reading, specifically with regard to publishing, and Baen.

http://www.baen.com/library/palaver6.htm

http://www.baen.com/library/palaver7.htm

(More on the site, I'll presume everyone can figure it out without links)

I know that I've recommended a few of the books. Which have sometimes ended up resulting in more sales. I've also used Baen's webscripions. Just because I wondered and someone said something, I combed through them looking for any watermarking, and haven't found anything like that. Whereas I'll not buy a Kindle barring some massive changes, I will buy from Baen. (Actually I've lost a few books, and due to their CDs now have them just as digital copies*, which I prefer.)  I used a Zaurus to read them, back when they were new (Both the Zaurus and the library/Free CDs) Something not easily done with most formats.

The more DRM crowd seems to actually be full of crap. Thankfully, Stardock has seemed to notice this. Now, there are differences. I wonder what releasing older games sometime would result in. It's hard to know, in particular because book publishing and games are different, but there are important similarities with regards to the DRM arguements. (To be honest, I've not actually seen anything but a few *brief* mentions from any game publisher. Such as the mentions of 120,000/18,000, but not much later sales data. Granted I haven't looked too hard.)

*non-DRMed copies, thank you.

A few of thoughts on this topic.

1) I support Stardock with far more vigour than most developers because of their stance on DRM' (among other things like customer service). There are games I have spent money on that are now unusable to me because of the copy protection with them, including Supreme Commander. If this game was not being handled by SD I wouldn't have touched it with a 10 foot pole.

2) Copyright law is a very grey area with abuse rampant on both sides of the fence. In my opinion a moral person will (or at least should) give money for any game, music, movie, ect that they deem to be of value. Failing to to so will generally hurt themselves as without finacial recompense artists and creators will no longer produce the things we enjoy.

3) A good friend of mine plays in a cover band. They get paid to play in local night clubs. They did not write the songs they play. The original writers and/or performers do not receive any monies from these performances. Curious as to where this would fall in the stealing or not stealing debate. In my opinion for a theft to be valid a property law needs to be broken. Stealing milk from a store is different than pulling satellite signals from the airways into my house.

4) Yes, is was a foolish thing to put in the post, and outside of a healthy discussion about copywrite law has done nothing of merit.

These are only my opinions, not justification for people to rampantly pirate anything they want anytime they want. This topic is an interesting one to me, and not as clearly cut as either side makes it out to be.

1) I support Stardock by paying for the game

2) Copyright law is not gray at all.  It's pretty clear.  Just because a bunch of underage and/or irresponsible people who can't/won't pay for it steal it, doesn't make it right or "cool."

3) If your friends band is a cover band it is covered by the fees the venue has to pay to play all the music when your friends band isn't there.  Someone is indeed paying.

4) Of course it was a foolish, and stupid, thing to post.  In fact the arrogance required to make a post like that would make me hunt that person down and sue them if I was a developer.  That kind of attitude needs to be smacked right in the kisser.  But fortunately for the OP it's probably not worth the effort.

To say that it's not clear cut is simply trying to justify stealing.  Which you can't do.  You can make all the arguments you want but it all boils down to, are you playing a game you did not pay for?  If you are, you stole it and should go to jail.  If you aren't then you are the only reason developers still make games for the PC.  It IS that clear cut.

Its really a strange discussion wich is inflaming in an official game forum, wich is looked after by the actual developers of the game...

But i like to add to Fortunato comment that your contribution about, that developers are undergoing piracy by changing to console platforms is definitive wrong...

Console games are quite easier to crack then some of the modern DRM protections (*cough* Starforce *cough*)

I dont want to say that i concur with these self-proclaimed "pirates", its just that not even half of the games wich get released are getting a demo. (on release or before...)

I mean sure, you can look up a review of your game on every gaming Website or magazine,(if you know one) but that doesnt beat the feeling of actually trying the game for a while.

I know that developing a demo is consuming resources wich could lead to greater costs (for the developers)... But you know games arent cheap, im not just speaking of demigod, wich is actually quite moderate in terms of price, but im not comfortable with paying 60 bucks (That could be euro or dollar) for something i havent tried. (But sometimes i do and then i sometimes regret it...)

Finally i like to say that the creator of this thread should really think his attitude over, i mean come on do you think your cool because your a "pirate"?

Even if you do it, keep it for yourself and dont brag about it... dont set someone on the wrong path...

edit: Wa while this is also my first post here i want to point out that the step by releasing this game without copyprotection was a good one... sure it got "pirated" (Stolen) quite often, but by adding a copyprotection you dont really "hurt" the "pirates"... you actually do the opposite...

Cause games will be always cracked sooner or later the bereaved are the ones who actually buy the game and have a ton of problems and restrictions on their hand. Like being able to only install a game a certeint number of times... (By then being in need to call a hotline to actually install it again.) There's a ton of cons coming with Copyprotection and no pros so far that i see.

so yeah thats my contribution to this super thread......... also thats not my mothertounge as you may have noticed