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Or in my own case look at Good Old Games where I have bought many games that would frankly be trivial to pirate. So why did I buy? Because the prices are low, they guarantee x64 support, and make it beyond simple to buy. In other words they have made their service less attractive than piracy by giving the customer what they want at acceptable prices.

You mean more attractive than piracy, I'd say.
Other than that, I wholly agree.

Actually this is probably what an economist would call a "free market correction" in that the consumer has decided product is worth X and wants formats x-z, seller refuses to allow anything but format J and charges Y, so customer simply goes around seller. look at gambling, for years the states said "bad monkey, no games for you" and so illegal games popped up all over the place. Lotto comes with low barrier to entry? Bye bye illegal gambling for the most part.

Or in my own case look at Good Old Games where I have bought many games that would frankly be trivial to pirate. So why did I buy? Because the prices are low, they guarantee x64 support, and make it beyond simple to buy. In other words they have made their service less attractive than piracy by giving the customer what they want at acceptable prices.

I'm sure the guy in TFA would be happy to shell out $5-10 a movie if he could simply push a button and have it in any format at any time, but the copyright holders refuse so he goes around them, same as nobody had problems filling their MP3 players when all the record companies would offer is heavily restricted WMAs. The market WILL set the terms, and any attempt to force the market to go your way (unless you are a monopoly with a high barrier to entry like water and power) and the market WILL find a way around you. That is why we call it the "black market" and not the "piracy ring of death" or whatever the *.A.As would like it to be.

No it just sounds like he won't grab his ankles because some new shiny comes out, he never said anything about a boycott. He probably does like I do and wait until games released by douches hit the bargain bin, where there isn't enough money being spent to care whether it is a rental or has shitty MP.

I would also suggest whenever possible shopping places like Good Old Games, where they actually treat you decently instead of a walking wallet. BTW if you click the link you'll see they have 4 shooters for $20 for their weekend sale. I'd rather support a company with NO DRM, NO screwing you over after purchase, and who treats their customers well. All their games work well even on W7 X64 (which is more than I can say for some EA games I picked up) and nearly always come with manuals, expansion packs, and other extras.

But just because someone choose to not buy from an asshole company doesn't make it a political statement, many just choose like me to vote with their dollars.

If it's only available via digital distribution, then I guess I'm not the target audience, no matter how much of a gamer I am.

Some digital distribution is entirely DRM Free.

http://www.gog.com/en/frontpage/
http://www.wolfire.com/humble

Many indy games certainly are.
http://www.torchlightgame.com/

I've even sworn off of Blizzard with their announcement that they're killing LAN play on the sequels to the games that practically MADE LANs proliferate. I'm not going to say that the original StarCraft and Diablo games singlehandedly made LANs popular, but they sure as hell helped, and they were so supportive of it that they'd let you install spawns on your friends' computers so they could play too. Now that Blizzard is ALREADY filthy rich, they're just getting greedier? Fuck that.

Apparently you connect through the lobby (requires an internet connection), then do LAN play locally. Not the best solution, but meh. I can understand, considering all the pirated copies of their other games that are in use. However, understanding doesn't make it any less annoying.

And let us say, just for the sake of argument, that all the major game companies decided to be pricks and got together and quit making new PC games tomorrow. How many of you actually have ALL the good PC games, hmmm? Hell I'm still finding great new mods for Freelancer and that game came out 7 years ago!

If the game company acts like a prick, don't buy from them. Instead vote with your dollars and buy from somebody that treats you decent like good old games that don't fill your PC with DRM or make you phone home just to play. This is one of the reasons I refuse to give up PC gaming and mess with consoles. If MSFT, or Ubisoft, or any other game company acts like a total douche I can take my business elsewhere, and there is plenty of products to choose from, but if for example I'd have went with PS3 and wanted to keep my OtherOS and still game? Tough shit, buy another console.

With consoles ONE company owns the keys to the kingdom, and it is their way or nothing. With the PC I can buy big games or indy, new or classics, and have a wealth of places to shop at. EA killing online multiplayer on the consoles when the sequel comes out is just a glimpse of the console's future. It will be pay and pay and pay some more if you actually want to get the full on and off line gameplay. Finally with DLC I'm predicting the PHBs at the major game companies will pretty much destroy new games on both consoles and PC, by chopping them into pieces and nickel and diming the player to death to "maximize profit potential" so a new game will end up costing you $100+ just to get to play the whole thing.

Then it sounds like you need to be shopping at Good Old Games where they treat you like an actual customer, instead of a wallet with feet. NO DRM, NO charging extra for expansion packs (in fact they are already installed and included) NO limits to how many times you can re-download something you've paid for, plus lots of extras like strategy guides and soundtracks INCLUDED. Everything "just works", no hassles with paying, or backing up installers, and new games are added almost daily.

I'm a firm believer in voting with your wallet, and if the game companies see that enough of us are fed up with the bullshit maybe they will grow the tiniest of brains, if for no other reason than to keep their bank accounts from shrinking. So far Good Old Games is the ONLY online game store I've found where I don't have to worry about DRM or bullshit, just pay, download, and play. So support those that don't treat you like shit, and vote with your wallet. Oh and to the poster above with the "EA Kill List" it is nice to know that MoH:PA, which BTW they are STILL SELLING as part of the MoH:10th anniversary pack, has already had the online killed before I even got to install it. Nice.

As for TFA, call me nutty, but it is like the PHBs at these game companies want piracy to be the better deal! Crazy prices, shitty alpha quality code that often needs everal large patches just to be usable as intended, and now the STD known as DLC, or what we PC gamers formally called "free mods and maps" only they bend you over and don't even bother with a reach around. Meanwhile the pirate version won't phone home, will have ALL the content, and won't make you jump through flaming hoops just to use the damned thing. Oh and thanks to having the DRM stripped out you are actually LESS likely to get a virus than with the retail code! Man is this a fucked up situation or what?

That is why I highly recommend Comodo Internet Security as it is free for personal use, so no subscriptions to run out, low resource ( according to process explorer it is using a whole 15Mb and 0% CPU while running both the firewall and AV) and most importantly IT WORKS. I have relatives that are "clicky clicky" happy and will pick up more viruses than a Bangkok Whore, and Comodo has kept their machines squeaky clean.

Now as for TFA, I'd have some questions before I'd believe their "results", for example-What percentage of those that donate don't list their OS? Does their game equally appeal to Windows users? How many Windows users have downloaded the game? does their product mainly appeal to those looking for free stuff?

I know that this is the first time I've ever heard of this bunch, and looking at their "games list" here I don't see anything that would really appeal to a Windows user. Lets be honest here folks, it isn't like Windows users are hurting for quality top notch games. From Good Old Games to Steam, from the Amazon bargain bin to the latest AAA titles, it isn't like Windows users have to scour the backwoods of the Internet for games. My guess is since there is less Linux games it is simply easier to get noticed on that platform, whereas we Windows gamers frankly have games coming out our ears and don't really look much at the indy stuff unless it makes a big splash like World of Goo.

Glad you liked it, and I truly believe in putting your money where your mouth is and supporting those that treat you well. If you put yourself on the mailing list they have end of the month sales that are just incredible, I bought the original Fallout, along with divine divinty and a couple of other games, and on sale they came to $12 for all 4!

Oh and don't be afraid of trying the older games as well, as GOG includes with them a custom DOSBox that works better than anything I've ever seen! I got turned onto GOG from the Redneck Rampage forums, where I had been trying in vain to get RR to work correctly on my W7 X64. For $6 I got RR, plus both expansions, plus both soundtracks with killer tunes by Mojo Nixon and Rev Horton Heat, and from whipping out my CC to playing RR in W7 x64? About 5 minutes flat. since then I have gotten several of the other classics I missed and have yet to have a single problem. Oh and NO DRM, NO install limits, NO problems backing up the installers, NO limits how many times you can download a purchase or limits by IP address, in short they really treat you right!

So for all those here that haven't tried GOG I would HIGHLY recommend them. I honestly can't think of a single bad thing to say about them. Purchases are hassle free, downloads are usually as fast as your network will run, all the games, even the old ones, really work well, and if you want to give them a free try here is three FREE point and clicks you can have, just set up your account and pick them. But a word of warning, you WILL get hooked! Ever since joining I've been buying probably twice as many games as I usually did, simply because their sales are crazy and it is sooo damned easy to buy!

Glad you liked it, and I truly believe in putting your money where your mouth is and supporting those that treat you well. If you put yourself on the mailing list they have end of the month sales that are just incredible, I bought the original Fallout, along with divine divinty and a couple of other games, and on sale they came to $12 for all 4!

Oh and don't be afraid of trying the older games as well, as GOG includes with them a custom DOSBox that works better than anything I've ever seen! I got turned onto GOG from the Redneck Rampage forums, where I had been trying in vain to get RR to work correctly on my W7 X64. For $6 I got RR, plus both expansions, plus both soundtracks with killer tunes by Mojo Nixon and Rev Horton Heat, and from whipping out my CC to playing RR in W7 x64? About 5 minutes flat. since then I have gotten several of the other classics I missed and have yet to have a single problem. Oh and NO DRM, NO install limits, NO problems backing up the installers, NO limits how many times you can download a purchase or limits by IP address, in short they really treat you right!

So for all those here that haven't tried GOG I would HIGHLY recommend them. I honestly can't think of a single bad thing to say about them. Purchases are hassle free, downloads are usually as fast as your network will run, all the games, even the old ones, really work well, and if you want to give them a free try here is three FREE point and clicks you can have, just set up your account and pick them. But a word of warning, you WILL get hooked! Ever since joining I've been buying probably twice as many games as I usually did, simply because their sales are crazy and it is sooo damned easy to buy!

Except it is also easy as hell to get PC gamers to buy, it is called giving them a good value instead of squeezing them for that last penny, duh! I'll use myself for a couple of examples: 1.-I bought MoH:10th anniversary, even though I heard the latest game in the series sucked (which it did BTW) so why did I buy? Because they gave me extras that made it worth buying like the original MoH:AA plus the expansions, Moh:PA Directors Cut, plus a couple of CDs worth of soundtracks and making of behind the scenes.

Another example is Good Old Games which has gotten me to buy plenty of games I normally wouldn't have, simply by offering x64 compatibility along with no DRM and plenty of extras like soundtracks and strategy guides. They make the purchase so easy and painless that it is literally easier to buy from them than it would be to pirate the game. After all with a pirated version I couldn't be sure it would run on W7 x64, nor would I get any expansion packs, all the extras, and have it as simple as 1 click and I'm done.

So if you want PC gamers to buy it really isn't that hard. Don't try to get us to pay $50 for a 5 hour long badly ported x360 game, if you really think your game is worth $50 then throw in a couple of your older titles you aren't selling any more so we don't feel like we are getting ripped off, and make it easy to buy from you without making us jump through bullshit DRM hoops (I'm looking at you, Ubisoft!) that simply make the pirated version a better value. If you find the right price or incentives you CAN convert pirates to customers. Hell I can't even count how many guys I know that ran formerly pirated XP Pro that are now running W7 thanks to the $50 HP offer. MSFT hit the right price and many decided it was just easier and less hassle to buy the new OS than pirate it.

Ultimately though, I have to wonder if all this "evil piratez" bullshit isn't actually a cover for the fact that certain big game companies want their PC games to fail so they can stick with the consoles. Lets face it, since the days of code wheels many of the big companies have been more about control than anything else. The x360 for the first time gives them "black box computing" where they can nickel and dime the living hell out of the players and kill multiplayer for game A when sequel B comes out. Of course if they simply dropped their currently profitable PC games division the shareholders would have a shitfit, so instead they purposely go out of their way to treat their customers like absolute dogshit. When the PC gamers avoid them like the clap they can say "See? PC gaming is dead" and stick with the 360 without shareholder screaming.

So I have to wonder how much of the "evil piratez!" is bullshit seeing how companies like Valve can make money hand over fist even on old games that were probably the most pirated in history. Plus piracy makes a damn fine excuse for when your game sucks, like the company that made Titan Quest which one of the developers tried to argue with me in the forums that the fricking demo I was playing "Had to be pirated" because the shitty code would CTD after less than 20 minutes. And sorry about the length, but as a PC gamer that has watched PC gaming go from one of the greats to a bunch of shitty 360 ports for frankly crazy money with worse nastiness than most viruses I really don't feel much sympathy for the game companies ATM.

If you like D2 you'd probably like Sacred Gold. I picked up it and Divine Divinity from GOG, and while I find DD to be quite enjoyable it does suffer from that "Where the hell do I find foo?" problem, whereas Scred, while having tons of side quests you can do or ignore, has a really nice quest logbook which not only keeps up with conversations but also gives you a general picture of the area the quest is located at and marks the map.

And I have to totally agree about games not feeling like designers actually played them. The only thing I REALLY hated ( and I am FAR from alone) about DD is the first dungeon sucked, so what did they do for the sequel? Design an even suckier dungeon, twice as large! Arrrgh!

If you like D2 you'd probably like Sacred Gold. I picked up it and Divine Divinity from GOG, and while I find DD to be quite enjoyable it does suffer from that "Where the hell do I find foo?" problem, whereas Scred, while having tons of side quests you can do or ignore, has a really nice quest logbook which not only keeps up with conversations but also gives you a general picture of the area the quest is located at and marks the map.

And I have to totally agree about games not feeling like designers actually played them. The only thing I REALLY hated ( and I am FAR from alone) about DD is the first dungeon sucked, so what did they do for the sequel? Design an even suckier dungeon, twice as large! Arrrgh!

While I agree about Oblivion, it really is hard to make a game "open ended" without risking having the player completely fuck his game up. Take Divine Divinity for example. Great game, fun as hell IMHO, but you have to be VERY careful when it comes to unique items, because you can sell or lose quest items and make quests pretty much unwinnable.

So considering it would be pretty much impossible to have a sandbox style RPG with perfect freedom due to the fact that like DD you could completely bone your game beyond any chance of winning, and to try to figure every possible combo so as to insure that doesn't happen would probably take a decade for any decently sized RPG, you really ought to cut the game designers a little slack. even in the GTA games, which are known for letting you go nuts, they wouldn't let you have control during the cutscenes or interact with important NPCs. Why? Because it would have been too easy to blow away or screw over the ones providing jobs and thus leaving you "trapped" unable to advance in the game.

THANK YOU!!! It is nice to see somebody gets it!!! And nobody is asking MSFT, or EA, or any other gameco to support these things for eternity, hell just release a black box PC server if they are worried about their "precious IP" or whatever. Otherwise they should be FORCED to place a warning on the boxes of every new product that says "Warning: Online multiplayer for this product will no longer work after this date. Any and all purchases of this product after the date stamped on the package shall be for single player ONLY!"

But instead they want to have their cake and eat it too, and that is just false advertising. There are plenty of big box retailers that carry older copies of big name games, hell I saw a Madden 08 not to long ago in the console bargain bin (it was the x360 version I believe) and yet...what? Now the customer is supposed to keep up with "sell by" dates for ALL games or get boned? Where is the fairness in that?

Just one more reason I'm damned glad I was able to keep myself and my family on PCs and away from those damned consoles! If a game doesn't allow dedicated consoles, like MW2? Well I might pick it up for $10 for the single player but I am certainly not paying full price for a game rental. Folks here just seem to be missing the forest for the trees, look at how quick EA cut off support for their titles. Some were barely a year and a half old! This is just a back handed way of turning a purchase into a REALLY expensive rental, which then allows them to kill product X when product Y comes out. Is that really what we all want here? I don't know about the rest of you but I LIKE being able to fire up old favorites and play them online. I LIKE being able to buy old classics from places like GOG and find someone to play with online. Do we really want our games to be just another disposable product?

The key to making cash off the HTPC market with regards to gaming IMHO is this....Don't be a greedy piggy. I buy games all the time from GOG even though there are games on there like Fallout 1, which I just bought BTW, which can be had for free if you spend a little time searching the net!

So why did I buy it? simple, they make it easy and they aren't greedy, so it was literally easier to support GOG and buy from them that it was to search the net, find the game, try to get it to work on x64, etc. Folks like easy, and they like a good value. As long as you aren't greedy, or make them jump through a bunch of hoops (ala the nastier DRM) just to buy your game, folks will often just whip out their CC just for the convenience factor.

Will you ever become another EA games catering to a niche market? Highly doubtful but you CAN make more than enough money to keep your business going and make a decent living. It is all about finding your audience, finding out what they want and more importantly what they are willing to pay for, and catering to your market. So don't let the doubters get you down, as a PC builder I can tell you since Windows 7 HP came out HTPCs are getting more popular, with folks wanting to have the cool Windows 7 Media Center on their new LCD TVs. While it is doubtful you will become a millionaire selling games for HTPCs, with marketing and just plain old hard work you CAN become self sustaining while making a product that folks will pay for.

I say vote with your dollars. Companies like this that insist on screwing their customers over with ever nastier DRM? Well that is one company that will never get another dime from me, and this is from someone who has shelled out the bucks for games like Far Cry from Ubisoft.

Instead support companies that don't treat their customers like shit. Right now until midnight Monday EDT GOGs is having a nice sale on some of their Sci Fi simulator games like Freespace and Descent. You can buy them individually or get all 7 games for $17! All work on X64, and most importantly all are DRM FREE, with no activations, or limited installs or other bullshit. You also get manuals and reference cards and all sorts of other goodies.

So while I don't mind the occasional CD, as that is easy enough to get around while keeping Joe Bob from ripping copies of his CDs, this server based DRM bullshit, be it limited installs or having to be online 24/7, that shit just don't cut it. But luckily there are plenty of other places and games to by, so I can vote with my dollars, and Ubisoft can do what they like. Their games can gather dust next to the Tabula Rasa boxes at the local Walmart. I'll instead support companies like GOG that treat me like a customer and not a beggar or a thief.

I mean, how damned sad is it when a company manages to even beat the head of Activision for douchebaggery? Man I never thought I'd live to see the day.

Uhhhh...I would say that is a BIG yes considering that the RSX is based on the Nvidia 7800 and even the cheapest desktops I am building ATM come with the AMD 4xxx chips, unless you are counting Intel which anybody who actually cared about graphics wouldn't.

As for TFA, doesn't Steam support DRM? I thought you couldn't do DRM on Linux thanks to the GPL, so how exactly would that work? After all wouldn't it be trivial to bypass any Steam DRM on Linux, by simply intercepting whatever hooks they use? Considering how anti-DRM RMS and other vocal members of the Linux community are I just don't see how that would work unless they are going DRM free, which I doubt the game companies would allow for anything recent.

And now slightly OT, but has any Linux users tried getting GOG games running on Linux? While steam is okay GOG with their DRM free installers and loads of extras is a nicer experience IMHO, and I would love to recommend it to some of my Linux using friends, but since I don't currently have a Linux box setup and haven't been able to find anything one way or another about whether GOG running on Linux I am curious. So has anybody gotten GOG installers to run? Is it easy, hard, or royal PITA? Inquiring minds want to know.

Well I would say it depends on whether they give you good value for the money or whether they just stick the old game on a server and expect to rake in more cash. Because funny that you should mention it but I just bought the original Fallout from GOG when they had it on sale for $3. Why did I buy it when there are still sites that offer the old free version they released a few years ago?

Because GOG goes out of their way to make sure the games play nicely on today's hardware without hassle. Thanks to their customized DOSBox install I have Fallout, Redneck Rampage, Beneath a Steel Sky, and all work perfectly on Windows 7 x64. No tweaking, or dealing with sound issues, or fiddling with DOSBox, it all just works without having to do anything more than install and click on the desktop link. And if that alone wasn't worth $3, they give you soundtracks, strategy guides, wallpapers, etc, and all with NO DRM and easy to backup installers along with unlimited downloads and installs.

So I'd say it all comes down to giving the customer the extra value to make buying an older game worth it. Would I buy Mech 4 off of GOG? If they did it like many of the others, with the expansion pack, mech packs, soundtracks, and all the extras already installed and ready to go, yeah I'd consider shelling out another $5-$10 just to not have the hassle of digging out my old Mech 4 discs and getting them set up for x64. If you want customers to buy older games, especially those for dead OSes, you really need to go the extra mile to make it worth buying. Oh and for those that haven't checked out GOG yet, set you up an account and you can get 3 free games including Beneath a Steel Sky to get you started. But I have a feeling once you see how easy shopping at GOG is, and how nicely they treat you, you'll end up hooked like me.

Well I would say it depends on whether they give you good value for the money or whether they just stick the old game on a server and expect to rake in more cash. Because funny that you should mention it but I just bought the original Fallout from GOG when they had it on sale for $3. Why did I buy it when there are still sites that offer the old free version they released a few years ago?

Because GOG goes out of their way to make sure the games play nicely on today's hardware without hassle. Thanks to their customized DOSBox install I have Fallout, Redneck Rampage, Beneath a Steel Sky, and all work perfectly on Windows 7 x64. No tweaking, or dealing with sound issues, or fiddling with DOSBox, it all just works without having to do anything more than install and click on the desktop link. And if that alone wasn't worth $3, they give you soundtracks, strategy guides, wallpapers, etc, and all with NO DRM and easy to backup installers along with unlimited downloads and installs.

So I'd say it all comes down to giving the customer the extra value to make buying an older game worth it. Would I buy Mech 4 off of GOG? If they did it like many of the others, with the expansion pack, mech packs, soundtracks, and all the extras already installed and ready to go, yeah I'd consider shelling out another $5-$10 just to not have the hassle of digging out my old Mech 4 discs and getting them set up for x64. If you want customers to buy older games, especially those for dead OSes, you really need to go the extra mile to make it worth buying. Oh and for those that haven't checked out GOG yet, set you up an account and you can get 3 free games including Beneath a Steel Sky to get you started. But I have a feeling once you see how easy shopping at GOG is, and how nicely they treat you, you'll end up hooked like me.

How about not kicking your customers in the balls, how about that? Name me ONE other industry that goes so far out of their way to piss off and shit on PAYING customers, just one. You can't, can you? I honestly think the major game corps like Ubisoft want to kill off PC gaming, but can't just outright say so for fear of pissing off their stockholders, so they treat their customers like dogshit and when enough have said "screw this" they'll say "See? Not enough people play PC games to be worth the cost." and then just get rid of their PC gaming division.

We aren't asking for much here folks, just a working product that doesn't make us jump through flaming hoops just to use the damned thing, and to be treated like actual customers instead of dirty beggars. That isn't too much to ask for, is it? A few companies selling box sets, like The Orange Box and EA MOH Anniversary Edition seem to get it, and give us decent value for our money. Good Old Games seems to get it, giving us extras like soundtracks and giving us DRM free games with as easy downloads and no hassles, so why shouldn't we demand similar treatment from Ubisoft?

But yet again we see a game corp screwing over their paying customers while the pirates laugh their ass off. Games like AC2 are already cracked and all over P2P networks like Emule, so it isn't hurting the pirates a damned bit, just those that actually broke out their wallets and dared to pay for the game. And we all know that even basic CD checks will take care of Bubba making copies of his disc, so it isn't to stop casual piracy either. The only thing that makes sense to me is a back handed way for corps like Ubisoft to kill their PC gaming division without having their stockholders have a screaming shitfit. Why else would you go so far out of your way to mistreat your own customers?

I always thought demos rose from the old shareware system? You may not be old enough to remember this, but we old greybeards remember the game companies actually passing around the first few levels of their games for $0.00, and then if you liked the game you simply called a 1-800 number and for a few bucks they gave you a code that would unlock the rest of the game. Man those were the days, when game companies were filled with players and they really appreciated your business.

Now it is like Hollywood, only worse. Can you imagine the royal shitfit folks would have if every CD or DVD they bought demanded to be hooked to the net before every play or it wouldn't work? I can think of no other industry that goes so far out of its way to shit on their paying customers like the game corps do. I still think the scumbags at the mega game corps want to kill PC gaming dead so they can nickel and dime everyone to death with DLC, and control every thing you are able to do thank to the x360 being "black box computing" at its finest. Lucky for me there are still tons of games I haven't played and Good Old Games actually treat those that give them money as valued customers and NOT their bitches.

You're not getting what I was talking about Hoss. When I'm talking shitty AI, I'm not talking about making the bad guys smarter than a group of Einsteins, I'm talking about not having AI that is dumb as a damned stump and about as entertaining. Let me give an example: MOH: Airborne. While I heard it wasn't the greatest Gamestop had the MOH: 10th Anniversary set on sale for $20, so I thought what the hell. The other MOH games were pretty fun, right?

Oh Lord save us from EA Games and their latest "rubber band" AI for it truly is the ubersuck. Here is how it went-On normal levels the bad guys would literally line up for you to kill them. I had Nazi bodies stacked in a certain area like cordwood, yet the bad guys never seemed to notice the killing field I had going on and happily stood in the same spot, over and over and OVER, for me to just pick them off. Boring with a capital B. Oh, but you should just play on hard for a "challenge", right? WRONG, because on the harder difficulty suddenly it didn't matter what kind of cover you had because you might as well had a sign that said "he is this way!" in neon over your head, and suddenly the German infantry was replaced by hordes of T-800 series Terminators, which could pick you off over 500 yards with an iron sighted rifle while taking dozens of rounds straight to the face without even being slowed down. Yeah, that really helped with the "realism" there partner.

So I ain't asking for much, hell the AI in the original Far Cry or FEAR was pretty damned good if not great, so why not rent the code for them if your game designers suck? Instead we have been taken a HUUUUGE step back, with more and more games simply acting like nobody even bothered to beta test to see if it was any fun or not before shipping. Used to they had the excuse they spent all their time on the graphics, but now thanks to that damned x360 a good 90% of the new AAA games are being made...shudder..."multiplatform" and so don't even look as good as games did 5 years ago.

I truly believe the major game companies are trying to kill PC gaming dead, so they can have the lock in of the x360. Old Bill better get off his ass and go clean house, because we all know the big thing keeping folks on Windows is the apps and games. If there ain't anymore gaming on Windows many of the geeks and power users could switch to Linux. And where go the geeks and power users so to go their families whom they tech support. And sorry for the length but the the way we loyal PC gamers are being shat upon really pisses me off. Between the obnoxious DRM, the crazy prices, the alpha quality code, and the shitfest "multiplatform" garbage that don't even bother having normal PC controls, it has gotten to the point I won't even buy games unless they are in the bargain bin or at Good Old Games where they treat you like a valued customer and not a walking urinal with a wallet.

I suppose I'm helping them kill PC gaming, but so be it. I'm personally tired of shelling out good money for garbage and then treated like a criminal for daring to support the game company. At least there are 1000s of games I have yet to play, and GOG seems to gain more and more titles every day. It is nice after being treated like shit to have a company sell me DRM free games, complete with all the extras like soundtracks and strategy guides, all while treating me like a valued customer.Maybe it is just me but I'm really sick of having game companies shit on me and pretend their shit don't stink.

Damn, and I though WE were getting ass raped! Dude that must totally suck! And I agree of the length thing, I am getting pretty damned tired of shelling out good cash for a half assed barely alpha quality buggy as hell game that maybe lasts half a day, at most. Does GOG work in OZland? If so you might want to score you some decent games there, as the lack of DRM and being treated like a valued customer is soooo nice, especially when compared to the kick in the balls we get from the big game companies.

If it does work pick up Redneck Rampage, add the cuss pack, and be prepared to LYAO. I mean you just gotta love a game with a titty gun and big old renecks that scratch their ass if you shoot them from behind. The graphics of course are a little dated, but it is a hell of a blast. And you really gotta love a place that has sales with titles like divine divinity and Fallout for $6 for the pair!

Well I hope it works for you, as those prices are bug fucking nuts. At least here I can usually pick up most games from the Amazon bargain bin for under $30 after 6 months, and with GOG I can get a fresh game any time for less than a pizza. Now if you'll excuse me I'm gonna dive back into Divine Divinty (which I picked up for $3, sadly the sale ends at midnight) and see if I can score me some good drops.

The biggest problem IMHO is the game companies ass raping their customers. I usually buy between $50-$70 a month in games but now? Now I either pick them up from the bargain bin or go to my new favorite hangout Good Old Games which if you haven't gotten on the mailing list you should, as their sales kick ass! I picked up the original Fallout AND Divine Divinity for $6! And BOTH work beautifully on Windows 7 X64!

But what the game companies get wrong that GOG gets right is value. When I buy a game from GOG I get soundtrack and wallpapers and strategy guides, all kinds of stuff. They give me more value for my money, and that matters. A good example was the last EA game I picked up: MoH 10th anniversary. I heard the latest MoH sucked (which it did) but I still paid $30 for it, why? Because I got the making of, I got the soundtrack, I got all the previous versions like Allied Assault and Pacific Assault, in other words they gave me more value so I bought even though I had about half of the games in the set, just to have them all in a nice neat box with the extras.

Too many of the game companies expect us to shell out $60 and then give us nothing but a ...shudder... multiplatform game, which of course is a code word for a bad x360 port. What are you shitting me? Pay $60 for a game you can't even bother to fix the controls for? Kiss my ass Mr. Game company! The ONLY reason why game companies are moaning that "PC gaming is dead" is because their laziness and greed are killing it, and I believe it is on purpose. These game companies have been about control since the days of having keywheels and other DRM crap in the 80s, and they see the x360 as the ultimate DRM in a box. So they put out half assed completely shitty x360 ports and then when they naturally fail they say "See? We told you PC gaming is dead".

But there are still places like GOG that treat players like more than walking wallets, and until the game companies take their heads out there asses that will be where my money goes. And I apologize for the length, but as someone who has been PC gaming since the days of the Voodoo 1 it really pisses me off how badly the companies are treating us now. Hell ATI has to push eyefinity and Nvidia GP-GPUs simply because all the games are being built for 5 year old x360 hardware!

Hey pal I agree with you on piracy, which is why more and more of my games are coming straight from the nice folks at Good Old Games where they treat me as their customer and not their bitch. NO DRM, easy to back up installers, no limits on how many of my machines I can place it on, extras like soundtracks and wallpapers, in short they give me MORE value for my money instead of making me jump through hoops.

But the problem is that piracy is the ultimate magical bogeyman for the game publishers, because there isn't any real way for them to measure it, so they can just make up any numbers they want. Just look at that crazy number the BSAA has been pushing as gospel, what is it now...something like 600 billion they are claiming now? It is just like how congress can use kiddie pron as a bogeyman, because nobody knows what is really out there they can claim it is growing, its an epidemic, basically pull any numbers out of their ass they desire.

Ultimately though I think everyone is missing the forest for the trees, because as I said I don't think the real goal is stopping piracy, but control. Since the bad old days of dongles publishers have wanted complete and total control of the platform their software runs on. Until this last generation it simply wasn't possible because the consoles weren't online. Now that it is I truly believe the goal is to wipe out PC gaming and force everyone onto a black box where they control the price, the way you play, what content you can have, basically turning gaming into cable TV where you are fed what they want you to have...period.

But luckily for me there are literally thousands of good PC games I have never gotten to play, with more being added to places like GOG every day. And by cutting off new games my 4650 1Gb should last me that much longer without needing an upgrade, since what few new games we are getting are nearly all "multiplatform"...shudder...which means it is nothing but an X360 game badly ported.

But don't buy into the "its teh evils piratez!" bullshit, because look at the facts. Assassins Creed I sold millions of copies, made best seller lists on every platform, so what do they do? Fuck the PC gamers for buying their product! That sure smells more like trying to kill the medium than fighting piracy. Oh well, I just downloaded Command and Conquer Tiberian Sun and Firestorm for free and I haven't played those in ages, so it is time to kick some GDI butt. BTW plays perfectly on Windows 7 HP x64!

MechWarrior 3 and 4, Freelancer (just played last night, great mods for Freelancer to be had), No One Lives forever 1&2, Soldier of Fortune 1-3 (I got 3 for $2) Command and Conquer (pretty much any of those) heck I could go on all night.

A good game is a good game, I don't care what age it is. For example I just picked up the Redneck Rampage Collection a couple of weeks back. And while it is no Half Life, it is pretty fun and funny, especially with the cuss pack installed. Just because it is old doesn't mean it can't still be entertaining, which is why I refuse to buy games like AC 2, even though it looked like a game I'd want to buy. When I buy a game I want to actually have it, as opposed to a really expensive rental which is what AC2 and the latest Silent Hunter are.

Well I would say Sacred was pretty good, with lots of quests, tons of items, and plenty of replay. A really huge gameworld too, which was nice. For me I preferred Sacred over Diablo II. There was just more to do, more ways to customize my character, etc.

But even if you think Diablo is the end all of dungeon crawlers, if you haven't picked up Sacred you really can't beat $10 for the original plus the expansion pack. And when you put the two together that is a really really REALLY long game, which if you like hunting for new weapons and getting new powers for your character is a real plus.

What is sad is I never thought I would see a day when EA would actually look like the better choice, but thanks to Ubisoft they look positively cuddly in comparison. Hey maybe that could be the new EA motto..."EA--Way nicer than Activision and not nearly as douchey as Ubisoft!"

Seriously though when are these companies gonna wake up and smell the fail? It is really soooo simple: give the customers MORE value for their money and watch them pay, screw them over and watch the piracy shoot up, as this proves yet again that often the pirate version is the better choice. For an example EA got me to shell out $30 for MOH: 10th anniversary, even though I heard Airborne sucked (which it did) and how did they do that? By packing in MOH:Allied Assault with both expansions, along with the Director's Cut of Pacific Assault and an interactive timeline of the pacific war and finally the soundtracks. In other words they gave me MORE for my money, so even though I already had Allied and Pacific I bought it.

But as long as they waste their time and the shareholder's money on stupid DRM that does exactly jack and squat to stop piracy while screwing over their paying customers we will continue to see the pirate version be actually more useful to the consumer than the retail version. it has gotten to the point I refuse to buy at release anymore, because I can never be sure if their crappy DRM will work with my 64bit OS. So I wait until a game hits the $30 bin before purchase, simply so I can have the No-DVD for the last patch ready to go at install. I used to buy all the big games at release, but this douchebag behavior on the part of the companies making the AAA titles has driven me away.

Thanks to them it is the $30 bin and GOG all the way. at least with GOG I can back up the installer and don't have to worry about DRM borking my machines. And in this economy bitch slapping your paying customers is a sure way to drive them off, just as I won't be buying any more games from Ubisoft, even though I was looking forward to AC2 and the latest Silent Hunter. Great move Ubisoft, burn all your customers while the pirates laugh their asses off. real smart.

... at least according to their CEO. In general, it does look like "most" of their games are DRM-free, but I was unable to find a clear statement about when and what. The example above is Majesty 2: The Fantasy Kingdom, the DRM in question is Stardock's GOO.

I am currently only buying DRM-free games. I patronize GOG extensively, they explicitly state they never use DRM. The games are older, but they have many good ones, the prices are excellent, and ... NO DRM. I'm very interested in Paradox, but want to be able to know - clearly and explicitly - which games lack DRM

... at least according to their CEO. In general, it does look like "most" of their games are DRM-free, but I was unable to find a clear statement about when and what. The example above is Majesty 2: The Fantasy Kingdom, the DRM in question is Stardock's GOO.

I am currently only buying DRM-free games. I patronize GOG extensively, they explicitly state they never use DRM. The games are older, but they have many good ones, the prices are excellent, and ... NO DRM. I'm very interested in Paradox, but want to be able to know - clearly and explicitly - which games lack DRM

...they should lose it. Are they still actively marketing this game? Do they still sell it?

They are still marketing and selling the game, actually:

King's Quest Collection on Steam
King's Quest 4+5+6 on GOG.com

Activision released a bunch of old Sierra games through GOG.com, cheaply and DRM-free: so far, they have three King's Quests, three Space Quests, Phantasmagoria and two Gabriel Knight games, with probably more to come.

King's Quest got released on gog.com recently, so it is still being sold (or rather, again being sold).

http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/king's_quest_4_5_6

IMHO this is good news, even though it kills the "if they don't use it" argument dead. I have left quite a bit of money at gog.com (no DRM on any of their games, compatibility fixes, decent support, etc.) and was quite surprised that Activision would open their back catalogue to them at all.

How can you distinguish between illegally available copyrighted material and legally material before you downloaded it? How can I know that a publisher of a software, video or song is publishing it illegally and not have the permission of the copyright owner?

If I go, for example, to http://www.gog.com/en/frontpage/ (where I can buy older games and download it) or http://www.abandonia.com/ (where I can download abandoned games), how can I know if the publisher have the permissions to do so?

After this "three strikes law" I can be disconnected without doing anything wrong, except to believe that the mentioned sites have the permission to publish the games.

I agree, everyone needs to give credit and try buying a couple of games from GoG just to see how nice it is. I went and bought the Redneck Rampage collection (which for those that haven't tried it is funny as hell and a blast to play) and it came with not only the game and both expansions, but the full soundtracks in MP3 format (good music too like Mojo Nixon and Reverend Horton Heat) manuals, wallpapers, and avatars. And it came already set up with a pre-configured optimized DOSBox so I can launch the game on Windows 7 HP X64 just by clicking the shortcut. Considering how much of a PITA I've had messing with DOSBox in the past it was really nice.

So anyone who hasn't gone to GoG really needs to go sign up. There are even 3 free point and click games you can have for free! So give it a try, you'll be glad you did.

What is ironic is that as up-to-date games get more and more draconic DRM, the customers will find old second-hand games, whose DRM is much less bothersome (or even non-existant), to be relatively more attractive.

Queue reference to "Good Old Games". What an awesome company. Legit DRM-free "Fallout" for $5.99. Legit DRM-free "Psychonauts" for $9.99. Holy crap. This needed to happen years ago. Yay Gog!

Hey now, don't be lumping GoG in there with that Steam DRM crap, as GoG purchases are DRM Free and can not only be re-downloaded any time you want, the installers are easily backed up to CD/DVD. And of course I would point out this part "and you can play it without an internet connection" which already makes them better than Ubisoft games.

All Ubisoft has done for me is make sure this gamer won't be giving them any of my hard earned money. Thanks Ubisoft!

How EXACTLY is this offtopic, when we are discussing a copyright case and whether or not /. is pro copyright infringement? This guy slapped a copy of Mario on P2P, he did NOT stand on a street corner selling copies. These companies get outrageous fines, and then use their money and clout to bribe congress for even more outrageous laws. Don't forget this is the same company that with the FBI got a man 5 years in PMITA prison for selling some cheapo Chinese NES clones in a mall. How old is the NES now? Close to 30 fricking years, isn't it?

By the time ANY software actually reaches the end of copyright it will be so old as to be nearly impossible to run, if you can even find the code. Did you know that NO SOFTWARE has actually reached end of copyright yet? Thanks to the copyright extensions of 76 and Sonny Bono even the software written for mainframes in 61 is STILL under copyright. So lets cut through the bullshit folks, there is a hell of a big difference between wanting to see the artists paid and supporting the cabal between congress and multinationals that is the copyright mess we have today.

EVERY CASE that involves copyright infringement should be used to point out how rigged the game is. Joe and Jane Public need to know how bad they are being screwed, and I bet some even here didn't know that Steamboat Willie is still covered after 84 years. Just think about how many games your friends at Good Old Games could be offering us with nice pre-configured DOSboxes ready to go if so much of the 80s and 90s games weren't already in the limbo hell that is abandonware? If we had sane copyright terms those games would be PD NOW, and we could all enjoy them. Instead like so much of our past and culture it rots until some corp can/ever figure out how to squeeze yet another nickel from it. Disgusting, just like a million and a half for slapping a copy of Mario on P2P. If it were a Britney album and the RIAA, would we be all for this?

I find Steam to be one of the worst DRM schemes. It requires you to be online with a special client app and connected to a server to verify authenticity. The only thing I've seen that's worse is Spore's DRM.

GoG is a much better model of how to sell games to customers who have the option of piracy. Why bother with torrents, often buggy cracked executables and all that crap if the game is available online, DRM-free, with support, for a reasonable price?

http://www.gog.com/en/about_us/

And "reasonable" can be more than $5-$10. I only start to think long and hard about whether I want to buy a game when the price goes over $30 or so - and you rarely see games under $40 these days, "hot titles" can run $60+! Steam sales have shown cheaper games make more money so it's a win/win situation.

The only flaw is you need a credit card or PayPal account - a system like this with "GoG points" available in stores would fix this issue and make the system available to kids without online payment options.

Apologies for messing up on the embedded link, that's what comes from having a bit of keyboard delay whilst an application is compiling in the background of my Gentoo Linux PC...

The link is Good Old Games, though I suspect many on here already know the site.

Well, since we are talking about DRM, I should mention Good Old Games.

Basically, they sell "old games", without any DRM whatsoever, and that are 7/Vista/XP compatible.

And although they have some fairly "recent" titles (Painkiller, for example), I don't recall seeing any of their games on the P2P networks. Or any cracks. Oh, right, they don't have anything to crack to begin with :)

Oh and the games are dirty cheap as well. And legal.

I think that the person that mention that this should be about beneficts for the legitimate client is right.

In the GOG case, I can install the game wherever I want, when I want, no activation or "phone-home" or whatsoever. And they really provide a "value added" service: some games aren't available anywere else (even P2P networks), and they have gone the extra step of making them playable on the modern versions of Windows.

So the publisher cashes in their older titles, instead of clinging on them and not doing anything with them (like actually selling the games) and/or chasing whoever dares to mess with it, i.e. fan-made remakes, reverse engineering and things like that, GOG cashes in with the nostalgia of the clients, and the quality of the majority of the offerings, and the clients cash in as well, being able to play quality games for low-low prices, and not having to worry about if SecureRom will break their Windows.

Just a quick mention of Steam. I like the concept, and they are doing some things right. But I hope they don't let the publishers run wild with the platform (the Bioshock 2 "protection" seems insane! DRM on top of Steam and validations?!).

And then there are sites like Good Old Games, which remove the copy protection/DRM with the publisher's blessing, patch the game up to the latest version, and distribute them for the price of a combo meal at Schmucky's.

In fact there are no other sites like GOG that I can think of. There is only GOG.

GOG rules.

And then there is the Wii offering older games through the Wii shopping channel.

That's an interesting point actually. Steam also offers old games made to work with current operating systems and computers. Then there's GOG, and PS3 and 360 also offer such. It might just be that the trend is continuing and we will see much more such in future. Sure in most cases you need to pay the $5-$9 again even if you own the game, but if you think the game is good its not really that much, and it comes with somewhat improved graphics and making it work in newer systems (or other platforms, like your console).

I just installed Sins of a solar empire after buying their trilogy pack through impulse. It even picked up my existing pirated copy of Sins, installed the updates and entrenchment and away I was playing. Though it was only yesterday and I didn't really look for it specifically I'm pretty sure impulse does not have to be running to play. The whole transaction was surprisingly smooth.

Anyway, most of the games will move over to Good Old Games once they get old (and of course, were good).

It's still selling fairly well.

http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/myst_masterpiece_edition

This seems kinda similar to FreeDOS, except less useful. FreeDOS is a binary-compatible version of MS-DOS that some OSS devs put together, and actually works well. Except that no one really uses it, except for specialty things like boot/driver disks

and the sale of classic MSDOS PC games through outlets like D2D, GOG.com and Steam.

You could begin building your collection with Commander Keen.

Actually, GOG and several DOS games on Steam use DOSBox, not FreeDOS; nobody is particularly interested in selling a game that would require most users to install a new operating system (and replace much of their hardware!).

What about Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project?

Speaking of which, Serious Sam HD (the updated version of Serious Sam 1) is on massive sale this weekend only until Monday on Steam! Down to $6.79 from $20! Man, Steam game sales are awesome. I now have more games than I can possibly play because of the recent Steam Holiday Sale which had games at prices where you shouldn't even bother with pirating :P

That being said, the Duke Nukem 3D Atomic Edition can be gotten from Good Old Games for only $5.99. The nice thing about GOG is that you can download any of the games you purchase from them again anytime (just log in to your account), and these classic games have absolutely no DRM (unlike Steam where Steam has to be running for your games to run).

Also, if you're going to give old Duke3D a spin, don't forget to grab the fan-made Duke Nukem High Resolution Pack which will give you high resolution textures, actual 3D models and a windows-native 3D hardware acceleration!

Cheers!

http://www.gog.com/en/about_us/

I wouldn't call it average from a technical standpoint. Keep in mind what the average was at the time it was released.

To be fair on the old Duke, I didn't play it when it was first released, so by the time that I tried it I had already played Quake 1. I remember at the time thinking that it was a step down from Quake. Maybe it was because I wanted the strippers to be less pixelated!

As for still being fun to play it now, it is on my list of games to revisit. Ooh, and I just found it on special at $3.89. Nice timing!

I know that this might be a bit off-topic, but I bought the Tex Murphy games on Good Old Games. They ran through preconfigured DosBox (same original resolution though) and they worked straight "out of the box" as it were; no problems there at least. They have a lot of other games to if people are interested, though, as I said, don't know about the graphics bit but if DosBox can scale I am sure you can mess around with it as much as you desire.