Great job, Bioware!

[MetalCraze]

yeah I know (detonation's version was released yesterday, reloaded (incl. iso) today btw). but it says that detonation crack is reloaded crack - so no difference. anyway in before cracker group drama

 

[Thor Kaufman]

If thinking that our company is greedy for wanting some money in return for you playing a game that cost us a great deal to make... hey, whatever helps you sleep at night.

Me, I wouldn't want to be a thief. But maybe that's just me.

Isn't it great to see everyone talking about SecuROM & nobody talking about whether they actually like your game? I bet it's highly satisfying to the SecuROM, but what about you - is the reaction everything you hoped for?

I hope it bugs the shit out of you to see your DRM is a more memorable experience to your customers than your product.

Anyway, it's hard not to think of your company as greedy when it has gone from selling games at normal market prices, to leasing out installs for at least the same price.

If it's any comfort though, I don't think you deserve to be fucked with. I think you deserve to be ignored & forgotten. And if reviews were independent, rather than paid by you & your boss, they'd say the same about every other DRM-using games. To use Brother None's Audi analogy, publishers & developers like you are trying to sell people cars without the fucking engine & you're using rhetoric to the effect that "It's unreasonable to expect the fucking engine & you're just being greedy and evil".

Well fuck you. Cry all you want, you're entitled to no more sympathy than any other professional fraud.

And if people bought your shit, then fuck them too. Between the lot of you, you're killing PC gaming.

As for Brother None's analogy: nothing but a fucking fallacy. Since when was it ever acceptable that Operating Systems that come with a price tag in return for the promise of convenience & ease of use, aren't fucking backwards compatible? The answer is never. It has nothing to do with games not being developed by magicians & psychics, but everything to do with OS developers promising one thing & delivering another. Too bad EA DRMWare thinks that's behaviour worth emulating, but it doesn't make then any less a bunch of assholes who rather than your money, deserves a kick in the nads.

Amen, couldn't agree more

Then again, most modern games including Bioshock are shit, so whatever

What is this? You are not Xi. You need to be quiet.

First time i bait in the codex and the only one who seems to take it is a guy who is in the same side i was posting from. Being a troll is just not for me, i guess.

You are not Xi. Only Mighty Xi may use the all-powerful Categorical Imperative as God intended. I wish it weren't so.

I am also not entirely sure how pointing out this simple and well-known fact means I've "taken the bait".

fag

 

[serch]

I have bought at least a copy of every Bio's game, very Volournian, I know. Now that EA owns them, I'll have to crack ME after my purchase. This is fucking stupid and besides they are violating Spanish and European Law estabilishing unnacceptable unilateral limitations to the EULA.

 

[Lumpy]

Quick question: can one's action that affects nobody but himself be immoral?

 

[FeelTheRads]

But you see... if I play a game that I would have otherwise never bought due to various reasons* I somehow hurt the company. How? I have no idea... I just do. This is what they tell me.

*A reason could be that I can't afford it... sure, I don't go steal cars if I can't afford them, but at the same time I don't go steal the game from the shop, thus preventing someone from buying it. I'm simply playing a copy.

 

[GeneralSamov]

And which of the 2 would this action be?

 

[Futile Rhetoric]

Quick question: can one's action that affects nobody but himself be immoral?

I cannot think of any such action, but I wouldn't deny the possibility that it exists. Why, what did you have in mind?

 

[Hory]

Quick question: can one's action that affects nobody but himself be immoral?

In a society, can there really be actions which only affect yourself?

 

[GeneralSamov]

Fapping in the toilet?

 

[The Rambling Sage]

And The Rambling Sage's analysis, though unserious, contains some truth.

It only was unserious in that i was expecting no one to care about it since it was long and it would spawn a long philosophical discussion about how everyone uses the C.I without giving the lesser thought to it's implications in the topic to wich it is being applied... And a backdoor in case i made some error in the process, so i could bail out saying "it was a joke, don't hit me!"

This is fucking brilliant. Well done, Rambling Sage. :D

Thanks, glad someone liked (or even noticed, i am amazed) one my almost out-of-topic ramblings.

You are not Xi. Only Mighty Xi may use the all-powerful Categorical Imperative as God intended. I wish it weren't so.

I am also not entirely sure how pointing out this simple and well-known fact means I've "taken the bait".

It was less of "taking the bait" and more of "taking notice of the big wall of text and Xi baiting hoping for a second round in my personal duel of philosophy with him", sorry if i made it sound like the former instead of the latter. I fail at english when trying to just joke, and most of the rest of the time too.

meanwhile Reloaded cracker group is also released Mass Effect incl. crack. I'm sure the dark side (or better to say renegade, amirite DGaider?) part of the hivemind knows that reloaded never fucks things up.

All this fiasco was surely quick and painless for the latest shit in EA's arsenal, now to be in all of their releases, blah blah - I'd love to see the faces of this thing's creators... and of the sucker who paid them for it.

 

[Futile Rhetoric]

No, actually, "not having my property stolen" is pretty much a right.

So is the pursuit of happiness, if we're going to go down that road.

'sides, it's imaginary property. Notice how there's a different branch of private (and criminal) law that deals with it? There's a reason for that.

 

[aries202]

If thinking that our company is greedy for wanting some money in return for you playing a game that cost us a great deal to make... hey, whatever helps you sleep at night.

Me, I wouldn't want to be a thief. But maybe that's just me.

Neither do I, David. That's why I won't pirate the game, MEPC or use a crack to play the Mass Effect for PC game.

That's not the point, however.

The point is that every lock (or copy protection scheme) can be broken - when they are made by men (meaning human beings). I don't think you are greedy for wanting the money back on your investment in Mass Effect. Treating potential legal customers who have legally bought this game as some sort of criminals is borderline, I think. The whole DRM thing with 3 limited activations etc. seems at least to me to suggest that at least EA thinks that way.

Apparently this is meant to discourage casual pirating between friends. However, if we look at the music industry nearly all music-cds and music-dvs is out on sites that have pirated stuff on - at least I think they are : And this is because some people in the music industry or a low level tech engineer that maybe got their hands on a pre-relese cd or the goldmaster for the music, will copy it - and then just show it to his friends - and - ah, you can figure out the rest, I think, you're smart people My best qualified guess is that something similar are taking place within the game (and movie) industry.
I don't support it, of course, but it has been known to happen and is happening still.

--- and didn't you guys earn the money back when the Xbox 360 version was released.
Apparently the Xbox version 2½ million copies...

 

[Lumpy]

Quick question: can one's action that affects nobody but himself be immoral?

I cannot think of any such action, but I wouldn't deny the possibility that it exists. Why, what did you have in mind?

Pirating a game.
Let's say a friend has a spare DVD containing Mass Effect, and its crack. He lends it to me, I make a copy and return the DVD. Then I proceed to play the game without paying for it.
Obviously, my action hasn't had an effect on anyone but me. As far as Bioware is concerned, it's the same as if I didn't even exist. I'm not hurting them in any way.
So, how is my action immoral?

Don't mistake morality for legality. Pirating a game is just as moral as borrowing a book from the library. The difference is that one action is legal, the other is not.

 

[MetalCraze]

Let's say a friend has a spare DVD containing Mass Effect, and its crack. He lends it to me, I make a copy and return the DVD. Then I proceed to play the game without paying for it.
Obviously, my action hasn't had an effect on anyone but me. As far as Bioware is concerned, it's the same as if I didn't even exist. I'm not hurting them in any way.
So, how is my action immoral?.

it isn't. it is natural for people to share. most of my first RPGs I copied from my friend's originals. I don't see how it can be wrong. he and not only he copies my games. I'm also constantly copying my games for my nephew. it is called sharing in a normal society, something corporate fucks totally forgot about.

 

[dagorkan]

Let's say a friend has a spare DVD containing Mass Effect, and its crack. He lends it to me, I make a copy and return the DVD. Then I proceed to play the game without paying for it.
Obviously, my action hasn't had an effect on anyone but me. As far as Bioware is concerned, it's the same as if I didn't even exist. I'm not hurting them in any way.
So, how is my action immoral?.

it isn't. it is natural for people to share. most of my first RPGs I copied from my friend's originals. I don't see how it can be wrong. he and not only he copies my games. I'm also constantly copying my games for my nephew. it is called sharing in a normal society, something corporate fucks totally forgot about.

Um, you mean except for what it says it's illegal in the user agreements?

 

[aron searle]

If anyone has ever played about with mods, then they will know you end up frequently re-installing the game when the mods inevitably fuck something up.

Stupid bioware

Quick question: can one's action that affects nobody but himself be immoral?

Don't you start this crap all again

/Throttles lumpy

 

[MetalCraze]

EULAs are written by soulless greedy corporate machines that will die alone.

 

[Shannow]

To people talking about "people not being able to play because of DRM"

I agree, it's shit.

But it's exactly as much shit as - say - someone buying a Troika game on release day and finding it won't run because of an early game-stopping bug.

That will be patched. Just like this will be patched. The difference is of course that one problem is a part of the game and other a part of the security - and thus more evitable. But it's not different in any other way: the fact is that a guarantee that a product will immediately run and run well on release day on your computer has always been pretty scarce for PC productions.

One is intentional, the other is a mistake. Both are shit and I personally disliked Troika for their buggy games but EA/Bioware is a lot worse, imho.
I still expect games to work out of the box. I expect to play them as much as I like, on as many computers as I like, without an internet connection (if they're not mmos), without having to de-install other programs first and without the CP destroying parts of my hardware.
If the game does not provide that I will most probably not buy it. In ME's case I'm so sick and tired of this debate and the connected game that I won't even torrent it. There the DRM worked

(don't flame little me... please? Just having a little fun there.)

If you really had wanted to troll you should have left that part out

Futile Rhetoric sounds like some anti-pirate trying to troll. Otherwise he must have the moral integrity of a politician and be quite stupid to boot...

 

[Warden]

Quick question: can one's action that affects nobody but himself be immoral?

Yeah, masturbation is immoral! Immoral I say!!

 

[Futile Rhetoric]

Futile Rhetoric sounds like some anti-pirate trying to troll. Otherwise he must have the moral integrity of a politician and be quite stupid to boot...

Oh dearie me, straight into an ad hominem and no substance whatsoever. Your mommy must be very proud of you, kiddo.

 

[Mareus]

Wait, I really don't understand some of you people. You are saying piracy is the same as stealing, but at the same time you forget that game companies lie to their costumers all the time. They say the game will have this and that, and they say it will rock, bla bla, bla. They offer you to play a demo which is very often only the best part of the game, while lying about the rest of the game saying it is even better. They bribe the review magazines and sites to give their games higher scores and to spread more lies. And then the naive costumer comes all happy home, showing his friends and brothers what a great game he bought, only to find out few days later he was cheated. Not only that, but you cannot even return the game to the store if you didn't like it. How is that any different than stealing? If it's not stealing than it's fraud.

On the other hand you have pirates who put some balance to everything, because:
1. they allow poor people who do not have money for originals to enjoy the games which are very often too expensive. Some of those poor people may as well one day become game developers due to inspiration they got from their childhood days.
2. they allow people like me to try out the game before buying it
3. they give free advertisment to companies who created the game, encouraging people to buy their games
4. they allow people to play games even after some game companies stop supporting them, thus preserving a lot of games which would without pirates become just a lost page in history.
5. they keep the trend of lowering the price of games, because game companies know that if the price is too high, pirates will take most of their costumers

Now imagine what would happen if there was no piracy. Many people got their first games from a pirate, because they were just too poor. Some of those people became so enamoured by those games that they started developing games of their own, or writting books, or making movies... No pirates, no such people.
Without pirates poor people would still not buy too many games, and rich people can afford anything anyway so I doubt anything would drasticly change. The prices would probably be even higher because they would know the gamers do not have any alternative.
Gaming would not be so widespread, because it would be reserved only for rich people. Even how things are now, a lot of people still cannot afford games and strong computers. Without pirates it would only be worse.
I really doubt the quality of the games would be any better, because the moto of 99% game companies is making money anyway, not producing art.

Don't get me wrong, piracy is stealing legally but not moraly, and I can find more than enough moral reasons to support it as long as something in the gaming industry doesn't change. You can throw it around all you want, but it all comes down to companies wanting to earn more money, not making better games.

If the game companies stopped lying, bribing,... and would offer the possibility to return their game if you didn't like it there would be no argument for supporting piracy. But as long as that does not happen I will get myself a nice pirated version. Try the game out and only buy it IF I find it worthy of my collection.

 

[Warden]

People focus, focus on the topic - how greedily sleazily stupid is Biowhore on a scale from 1 to 100; 99 or 100?

 

[dagorkan]

EULAs are written by soulless greedy corporate machines that will die alone.

And you're a soulless greedy little communist who will die alone.

 

[Warden]

EULAs are written by soulless greedy corporate machines that will die alone.

And you're a greedy little communist who will die alone.

Yeah! Back at you! Yayaya! *mirror-hand*

 

[dagorkan]

Soulless and greedy applies more to him than to the 'corporate suits', he's the one without principle. These 'corporate' guys have families to feed as well, they're doing their jobs.