i was a fearsome pirate as early as 1994, when the www just started. reason was there was no store where we could go buy games, and as a student i didnt have a credit card. later, as gaming evolved, i still pirated games until the online multiplayer space took off. then i started buying games for the multiplayer component. you know why i stopped pirating games??
in 2004 i was a director and shareholder in a company that had perfected an absolutely amazing piece of code - a content management system that was as good as joomla is now. in order to promote more interest from programmers, i had my team develop a CD that we handed out to budding programmers and university students with a scaled down version of the CMS for them to play with, look at the code and test their programming skills.
i got a call from a customer wanting a web page upgrade, and when we went to the site to look at it, we found that some little sh*ts had "stolen" our code and tried to make a website out of it. of course, this website was not working correctly because we had deliberately taken out some functionality.
i cannot describe the sense of anger and betrayal i felt. here we were, trying to "do good" and people were just shafting us. that evening i went out for dinner with my business partner, and told him how annoyed i felt, and how we should prosecute the offending pig that dared to steal the years of hard work, toil, sweat and thought we'd put into this.
then i tried to imagine the guys who had developed starcraft and broodwars, at the time my favourite game... and tried to imagine how they must feel after working so hard to create something that i could play and gain enjoyment from for years and years, and people just 'take it' - with no regard whatsoever.
i've never pirated a game since that day, and i never will.
i know how much work goes into software. i've seen how much work top developers do to produce a great game. i've seen how much sh*t they have to take from snot-nosed, pimply little pubescants (like the 'tard that posted how he wont quit pirating), how much whining they have to deal with just to get the balance of the game correct.
that's just me, and my opinion shaped from the personal pain of being on the receiving end of piracy.
here's the mind bender.
if EVERYONE stopped pirating games, their price would be so low that they would be totally affordable. even better, software houses would have a better cash flow, be able to throw more staff at their projects, and produce games faster (we wouldn't have to wait so long for diablo 3)!! they could spend more money on R & D and make even better games, with more technology.
so to every one of you moronic pirates out there... think about this... you're actually not scoring anything!!! you're just screwing it up for everyone else you selfish pricks.
and hey, if you can't afford a game, GET A JOB! and if you still can't afford the game and you still want it, MAKE A SACRIFICE!
interesting philosophy
