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Mac Version Of Halo Exemplifies Piracy Problem?
An anonymous reader writes "MacSoft takes popular games and ports them to the Macintosh for all the Mac users to enjoy, but according to a TwinCities.com article, apparently there are far more users pirating Mac Halo than actually buying it A MacSoft spokesman 'didn't release sales figures [for Halo] but said illegal downloads number at least in the hundreds of thousands.'" The article uses this specific game to discuss how PC and Mac publishers are "...making gamers enter special codes, authenticate themselves online and jump through more hoops." It ends by describing the pain of the developer in seeing their title pirated: "It was a dagger in the hearts of guys who worked 12 to 14 hours a day [on Halo]... We're on an emotional high, and it all comes crashing down."
but said illegal downloads number at least in the hundreds of thousands.
:)
There are over a hundred thousand mac gamers?!?
(disclamer: this is a joke, i own a mac
I'd just like to say a hearty F**K YOU to the pirates who are causing more and more of the software I buy to require increasingly awkward and intrusive copy-protection systems.
I have absolutely no ill-feeling towards the developers and publishers who seek to protect their livelihood, but I would very much like to be driving the car that leaves tyre marks on the pirate's flattened corpse.
That is all.
Sure, some Mac users are probably feeling miffed since Halo was originally planned solely for the Mac, and in the end the Mac was the last to receive it, but c'mon! Halo is an amazing game damnit, and well worth the $50.
Ugh, it just does not make sense to me.
I have not downloaded Halo (mostly because there's not a snowballs chance in hell it'll run on my iBook 700), but my friend did. He has a TiBook 1Ghz, and it runs EXTREMELY slow. He had to put it on the lowest resolution possible to even make it playable. But even then the game slows to a halt when there's any kind of action going on... Needless to say he quickly deleted it.
Now come on, this computer is less than a year old and yet it wont play a game that was made a few years ago. I wonder if it'll even run on the latest G4 desktops (I'm sure it flies on the G5). This is pretty unacceptable in my opinion.
I'm willing to bet that a lot of people were in the same boat as my friend: pirated it to try it and found out it ran as slow as molasses - then quickly deleted it.
I dunno who it is
but it prolly is fhqwhgads.
rightly or wrongly, that's the sentiment in much of the mac community.
If you could copy computer hardware for free then that would happen also. That is why these people pay a ton of money for the hardware and then pirate the software.
I have to admit I will never buy Halo on the Mac. Why? Well, I own it on the PC already. My Wintendo will always be my main computer box, since it does games better then my Powerbook. But, I personally enjoy a game of Warcraft 3 every once in a while on the road, so I pop in the same copy of the game I only had to buy once to play it on either my Powerbook or Wintendo desktop.
Use this same argument for Linux too. Many gamers see no reason to buy a Linux only version of a game over a Windows version. But a ton enjoy the fact that the Windows Quake disk also allows Linux play.
Macsoft also has the problem of not ensuring they keep up with patches. By what I understand, no Mac user could play online with a PC user for a while after release. Thats a bad thing for sure.
After all of these years, isn't Halo for the Mac public domain now? :-)
http://www.tomandemily.com
There's another type of very very widespread copyright infringement that takes place entirely offline. As soon as 1 person in the dormitory gets the halo CD or what have you, they share it with everyone else on their floor and set up huge lan games.. all from 1 CD. I estimate about 10 people on my floor got Call of Duty from 1 guy's CD and we can all play multiplayer online at the same time :)
Repeal the DMCA!
I get a pirated copy of every game first (with the exception of Bioware titles). There is no way in hell I'm buying a $50 game that won't run and cannot be returned. I'll waste the $0.25 on a blank and then see if it's worth buying.
Maybe if MacSoft worked closer with the development studios to get the titles out within a month or so of the PC release they'd sell more. When you have to wait 1-2 years for a game that is in the PC bargin bin for $9.99, most people will just pirate it since the perceived value isn't there.
For example, Neverwinter Nights. It was supposedly getting released for Linux, PC and Mac in the same packaging at the same time. Reality: 1+ years later, no expansion packs and it doesn't have the Aurora Toolkit and it's $50. The PC version is $30 with the first expansion (gold version) and toolkit included.
If you want to play games get a PC. Until Mac releases are timely I won't buy any.
Bungie was the Great Hero of Mac gaming with titles like Myth and Marathon. Fabulous games that didn't require a supercomputer to get interesting graphics and great game play. Scenario editors that spawned communities.
Steve Jobs was using Halo to demonstrate 400 MHz G4 Power Macs. Halo was being voted the Game of the Year before release. We were going to have it for Christmas 1998.
What did we get? Shafted. Bungie Sold Out to the Great Satan. Sure, when the sellout occurred there were still promises that Bungie would release for the Mac at the same time as the XBox. Never Happened. When Halo finally became available what did we get? Bug ridden trash with insane hardware demands and a non-functional scenario editor. Myth sold off, and the result - a well documented failure.
If Mac Halo is being pirated in great numbers as a result, I don't have a lot of sympathy for Bungie/Microsoft. They broke faith with their users.
Shit, If my Stuff were pirated I feel on to of the world. Yeah, I get no cash for my work but hey that just means my stuff is worth stealing.....
Cool Linux
A Linux News Site
It was a dagger in the hearts of guys who worked 12 to 14 hours a day [on Halo]...
The guys who are PLAYING it 12 to 14 hours a day certainly aren't expecting to be paid!
So, it is alright for a company to abandon their users and sell out to MS.
It is alright for their premiere platform to be the last one they port it to, years later.
It is alright for them to make the buyers unable to play with their PC friends who got the game years earlier.
It is alright for the game to run like complete ass showing it was quick port.
Is that all right?
Sleep is for the weak.
So the appropriate answer to Mac Halo's problems is a free and open beta test and/or "shareware" release, ala Doom, Quake, etc. Give people the engine and a couple of levels, and maybe multiplayer play and see what happens?
Now that I think about it, I wonder if id will do that for Doom III.
<MINIRANT>
Also, I wouldn't have expected any laptop made a year ago to support games released recently. That's the nature of the machine, unfortunately, as far as laptops go, unless they're one of those hacked-together beasts that use desktop components.
</MINIRANT>
Michael C. Hollinger
How have these guys measured this? downlading stuff off bit torrent you rarely get more than 20 seeds. How many files have you grabbed from kazaa that have more than 10 other clients they are downloading from? Seeing as there are loads of p2p networks, how have Macsoft come to the conculustion that "hundreds of thousands" of illegal downloads have occurred.
lots of comments here mention how the Mac version is buggy, slow and people resent buying the game after bungie sold out to Microsoft. Perhaps (in true RIAA style), Macsoft are blaming poor sales on p2p networks as opposed to poor product.
The Romans didn't find algebra very challenging, because X was always 10
halo is so overrated. its just a boring game beneath others. it took years to 'port' it to mac where it should be developed. just because microsoft wanted to push they console.
first it should be revolutionary. but bungie just released mainstream.
the fact is that there are too much too bad and too expensive games to spend money on. thats the reason for piracy.
And if these people had not pirated the game, how many of them would have bought copies? Only I small percentage, I'll bet. So how much money was lost due to piracy is an open question. In fact, how many copies of Halo will be sold due to this piracy (which is advertising, if unintentional)? Perhaps this will eventually be money in the pocket of developers rather than a dagger in the heart. There is no way to tell without hard numbers, and those are probably unknowable.
...is when no one bothers to even pirate your game. I worked on a little game for Gameboy Advance called Monster Force for a little more than a year. While the game itself is fun, the story behind it is so lame and unmarketable that no one ever touched it. I think the publishers just kinda DOA'd it. I know it made it to stores, but I've never seen it. I would LOVE to hear that it was the golden child of the ROM scene. All I want is for people to enjoy my games.
Before peer to peer, the content owner's couldn't estimate for sure the amount of offline piracy. And they still can't, because the only surveys they get are from online piracy. In fact, the RIAA didn't begin their Great Crusade against their customers until Napster came along. Out of sight, out of mind.
its seems possible that at least one member of the Halo team, or someone close to them, is actually celebrating this - because somebody with access to the PC version pirated it and put it on the web something like nine days before the official release.
--- Bwah?
If Mac Halo is being pirated in great numbers as a result, I don't have a lot of sympathy for Bungie/Microsoft. They broke faith with their users.
.well, it was special for that moment. I mean calling Bungie's new girlfriend the Great Satan; that's just too far. Microsoft's not too bad of a girl, once you get to know her. I know it hurt deeply when it happened, and Bungie probably used the whole let's be friends line. But just because Bungie decided to just be friends and are hanging out all the time with Microsoft now doesn't mean that you can sneak into Bungie's house and take all his stuff. That's just too far, you know? Honestly, Macuser, I'm surprised that Bungie hasn't applied for a restraining order. Don't get me wrong, you're really good looking, I'd even say you're pretty hot. You've really got some curves on you, that's for sure. This breaking into the house thing though and taking their stuff, that's just...strange. I mean stuff like this, it's just...freaky is all. I think everyone's been trying to be real nice to you, but someone should tell you straight up. Sometimes you can act a little weird, you know? Just...off, a little. Maybe that's why Bungie left you in the first place? And you've still got Blizzard right? He's cool, right?
"Look, um, Macuser. I know what you and Bungie had was something special. But I think, and don't hate me for saying this, I think you just need to move on, you know. That something special. .
Just trying to talk, ok, sort things out with you? Call me later?"
I wonder if the reluctance of Mac users to hand over cash for Halo has anything to do with not wanting to line Microsoft's pockets?
Halo is very different from what it was first supposed to be: a third-person action game (a la Syphon Filter for the Playstation). Maybe it would have been more successful among computer gamers if it were something different, not simply another FPS among tons of them?
Circumcision is child abuse.
Where is the demo? I go to Macsoft's Halo page and see a nice collection of screenshots, but is there a downloadable demo? Perhaps that link to "Preview" is it. Nope, that just goes to a review article on Apple's site. Well, maybe they're just really trying to sell it. Maybe it's really under the Game Demos & Updates page. Sorry, not there either.
The real reason why people are downloading the pirate version is because that's all that's available for them to download if they want to try it out on their system. And let's face it -- this isn't the early 1990's anymore where you have to trust some biased Mac magazine who gives a favorable review because Macsoft spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a multi-page ad campaign. Everyone checks the review sites to see how it fares instead of just rushing out to buy it. And guess what... they're finding out it's junk.
Macsoft, some of your products are great (Neverwinter!!) but you're not going to sell a whole lot of games with your "Trust Us" approach. Put out a demo and let people give it a spin. If it's good, there's a good chance they'll buy it. If they don't buy it after trying it out, then it's your own damned fault for putting out such a lousy product. But don't blame the p2p networks for spoiling sales of the stinker called Halo.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
I'd probably have more sympathy for Bungie if the Mac and PC ports of Halo weren't so hopelessly late and sloppily ported.
Still, they can surely find some comfort in the fact that the Xbox version is, absurdly, still selling at full price.
They're really in no position to whine about anything.
Preferences > Homepage > Customize stories on homepage > Authors > Zonk > Uncheck
This article has so many things wrong that it would be more efficient to list what they got right, than what they did wrong.
Unless MacSoft knows how many pirates would have purchased the retail version were the pirated one not available, any losses claimed are necessarily nebulous.
Oh, and... "Computer-game piracy has lagged behind music piracy" - that's worth a belly laugh.
Want people to stop pirating games to run on DaemonTools rather than buying them in a store? Add copy protection that only affects people who bought it in a store!
Want people to stop downloading music instead of buying CDs? Make it difficult for CD purchasers to effectively use their CDs!
Want people to stop pirating movies instead of watching them in the theater? Air anti-piracy ads in the theater!
Did anyone ever think the Mac Halo was pirated so much because Mac owners were broke after buying a system that can actually play it?
Naturally it is sad to see this happen. Many people on this forum will remember what happened to Amiga due to (amongst other things) how rife piracy was. I remember having boxes and boxes of floppies containing cracked games. Having experienced that, I am now much more careful about stuff like that.
I use Linux for my desktop, most of my software is legit, i.e. free as in gpl'd beer. All my PS2 console games are payed for and lovingly arranged on the shelf.
Mac people pirating games are harming the future of games on their platform. Windows is the dominant PC gaming operating system, its been like that for years. Windows warez junkies are all over the place, but software houses can still make money due to sheer market penetration and online gaming.
Bottom line, if you love your Mac and want to see it grow as a gaming platform. Support it or watch it die.
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
The game runs like hell and half of the features don't even work. The gamepad support is "coming", the multiplayer crashes my machine and the game with all the details turned down at 640x480 resolution runs on my 933MHz iBook like I'd expect Half-Life 2 to run on a 286 with all the features turned on.
I've played better looking games on my iBook that ran a lot smoother. If the game started out on a Mac, why did macsoft have to port it anyway?
A friend of mine gave me a Halo CD with a CD key good enough to play locally but not online. I said "thanks" and got down to playing. I finished the game in about 5 days of long sessions, and here's my review:
Halo on the Mac sucks slimy donkey balls.
I kept hoping that it would get better, but it got worse and worse until finally it was torture. I finished because I'm anal-retentive that way: I hate to leave things unfinished.
Please note that I'm not trying to defend or condone software copyright violations. I understand that people sweat blood to get games out the door. But I'll save my conclusions for the end.
Also, before you write me off as same effete Mac poser, note that this is my first Mac; I got it three months ago. I've used Debian for years, and still run it as a workstation and server. I got the Mac so I could run all the Unix tools and servers I need, run Vim from Bash, and use Photoshop -- all in the same OS (as long as that OS isn't Windows, which I despise, and not for political or ideological reasons).
Here's what sucked the most:
Gameplay sucked. Much of this game was like punishment from God. I've played FPS games since Wolfenstein, and I've never played anything that sucked like this (although I never played DaikatanaAfter I finished it, my friend called and asked me what I thought. He said he wasn't very far into it, but had heard good things about the multiplayer. He said we should perhaps buy copies of the game so we could play it online. I told him not to bother.
Moral of the story: if it hadn't sucked, I would have bought two copies. I didn't go searching for a warez version and am frankly sorry that I wasted my time on it.
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
From the perspective of someone who creates and sells small games for a living, I'd pooh-pooh most arguments legitimizing the act of piracy.
1. If the game "isn't worth buying," don't pirate it, spend 30 hours playing through the whole thing, and claim that you "wouldn't have bought it, anyway."
2. If you want to try the game out before buying, don't pirate it; play the demo.
3. If there's no demo, and you don't trust the developer enough to buy the game, sight-unseen, don't buy it. The developer doesn't deserve your money, but neither do you deserve to own a copy of their game.
4. Copy protection schemes that prevent you from playing the game you paid for are inexcusable. If the copy protection detracts from the game, tell the developer why you're not going to buy from them again. Don't pirate the game; piracy will only make future copy protection schemes worse for legitimate users.
Recently, a young man from the UK e-mailed us, requesting a free copy of one of our games, citing that he could not possibly buy it. Later, he e-mailed us asking for tech support on the full version. Is this audacious, or simply stupid?
We're indie. We're working on our 14th game.
So fuck to game companies that insist on adding copy protections that only harass the paying public. Why should I pay for a crippled product when I can get the uncrippled version free? OFP is a case in point I own it and all the extensions legally but had to download it because I lost the key. FUCK YOU codemasters.
Next time I will just save myself the bother okay? Don't believe the copy protection is crippled? Look at the size difference between the official game.exe and the nocd.exe.
As for the hardworking developers.
Hidden & Dangerous, are we ever going to get a working patch? Should I just consider downloading the sequel for free as the patch perhaps?
Mafia, what on earth possesed them to take a year to release a patch to fix a lot of issues including in a driving game not supporting logitech force feedback wheels properly.
Keep screwing us with badly tested games and idiotic copy protection and we will revolt.
Imagine if you went into a supermarket and at the checkout they stripsearched everybody. People who just walk out without paying go through unhindered. Idiotic? That is what copy protection is doing. Games are ripped before they are in the shops.
Only mmorpgs seem somewhat safe although there of the more popular ones "illegal" servers where you can play free.
Worse yet are game companies that release a game months later in some parts of the world. I seen games available on the net months before they appear in the shop (no not halflife2). Even the movie industry is learning that staggered releases are a stupid thing. In computer game land it borders on suicide.
I used to buy my games but I have felt increasinly that I was being treated like an idiot and a criminal. Well now I am a criminal. Happy?
Oh and anyone else notice that while CD's are cheaper then floppies and game manuals are a thing of the past and the market for games has increased the price of games has gone up? I also seem to remmeber being able to finish most games without having to patch them. Must be old age messing with my mind.
Oh and for a really old poor copy protection. One of the sequels to elite stopped the game every so often and required you to find a word on a page. The catch? If was a lot easier to use a cheat sheet then to use your manual to find the word. Of course pirates had a hacked exe and were never bothered at all. SMART MOVE.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Here's a quick story:
Friend #1: Has a high-end Mac G5. Downloaded Halo and used it until his copy arrived.
Friend #2: Downloaded the game. Tried it out on his current older machine. Ordered a new iBook. Bought Halo.
Myself: Downloaded the game. Tried it out on my Powerbook 667 (under min spec). Played for a night. Didn't have money for a new machine nor wanted to spend the time playing. Deleted it.
So, there you go. Three of the "hundreds of thousands" of pirated copies would have been prevented by supplying a demo or providing alternate software distribution schemes.
How hard is it to sell a serial number online and follow it up with box & CD later in the mail?
-fuzzheadBugs and delays aside, let's give Bungie a little credit. Afterall, when Microsoft bought them and announced Halo for XBox, I was sure that PC or Mac Halo would never see the light of day. And I'm sure that the suits were all against anything but an XBox only title. Doing it on Mac and PC simply doesn't make economic sense given the numbers they have sold on the XBox. With that in mind, the only reason Bungie would release Mac and PC versions would be to keep their word to their customers. That's an honorable thing in these days of the bottom line rules everything.
Unfortunately this piracy problem is a double edged knife in the back. Bungie developers are rightly pissed off, and now the suits will make sure that Halo 2 never sees anything but the XBox. Any experienced developer will tell you that supporting more than one platform is a lot of work which publishers are less and less willing to pay for. So we won't be seeing any more multiplatform Halo.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
They say "gamers need a way to download games legally." Well guess what, people don't download games cause they like downloading, they download cause the games cost $50+! And then you have expansion packs, etc, that are another $40-50, sequels, etc etc etc. And then even at that, only 10% of the games you buy will be worthwhile. I know Halo is an excellent game, but I can safely say that Mac users hold something against Microsoft because they basically stole Bungie, and Halo, and since Halo was debuted over 3 years ago - on a mac - that grudge will never go away.
,and I always say to myself "if that game was $20 cheaper, I would be buying it right now."
All they have to do is start charging LESS for their games and they will make up profits in the numbers of games sold. Look at Avril Lavigne - she sold over a million albums in the US cause they were only $8.99 or something like that, not $20 like most artists. I see games in the store every day
But don't even get me started on Sims games - they have made SO much money out of those expansions (Which are basically collections of the stuff you can get for free on the net, legally) it's not even funny.
Probably cause they want to see if it really is as shit as the PC guys say it its.
They download it, find the fact to be true and don't waste their money on it.
Hype = amount of piracy.
Quality = amount of purchases.
I don't see what they are shocked at, unless they are under the illusion that they have a product that anybody would in their right mind play on anything but at 320x240 res (TV).
GPLv2: I want my rights, I want my phone call! DRM: What use is a phone call, if you are unable to speak?
did you bring your coat? /* responding to your sig */
eBayDig 1s a typo saerch engien
It was a dagger in the hearts of guys who worked 12 to 14 hours a day [on Halo]... We're on an emotional high, and it all comes crashing down.
Man, that sucks. Spending all that time working on a great game and then having people play it.
...and certain companies have absolutely no qualms about extorting that. I've always[0] found the argument that there's no Mac game userbase a bit lacking. If you make something good, people will buy it. However, in the past the majority of the game development took place on other platforms (specifically, Windows). What little effort was put into porting those titles invariably produced unstable, ill-performing, and embarassingly late hacks that I'm sure were more emulator than engine. Anyone else here ever try to get a network game of Doom on with PC users back in the day? Or try to assign keys? Or try to play on anything less than a top of the line system?
I've owned and played Halo on my XBox for how many years, now? C'mon Bungie. You sold out, you're now putting out Mac games through the 2004 equivalent of Lion Entertainment, the least you can do is STFU and get back to making Halo 2 (...for XBox) and suckling at the teat of your overlord Mr. Gates. Stop insulting Mac users and, by proxy, your great legacy.
[0] I used System 6.
Think of it this way.
Just because Halo started off for the Mac doesn't mean it could stay there. Dev for the XBox is a completely different creature. They probably had to throw out everything in order to take advantage of what the NVidia chipset offered. So a game born on a Mac finally returned to the Mac after a trip through XBox and PC development land.
At the end of this convoluted process, the code finally got to porting stage. Now, Westlake used to be awesome at porting. Unfortunately, they are starting to lost their edge with the newer 3D games. They turned out decent and stable ports for mid level gamers, not the CPU choking gibfests for the hardcore fans.
While hardware specs on graphics cards between Mac & PC are reaching parity, the driver support is not. Either way, Mac games lose out.
This is all irrelevant, in the face of growing console sales and shrinking computer game sales. Developing for the PC/Mac was supposed to be easier than console, but they have historically been less stable and more difficult to run than console games. The QA doesn't come up to snuff.
Is seeing something you put your heart into sink like a stone, or never make it out the door. The heartbreak these guys are feeling is the heartbreak of not making all the money you thought you were going to. Its not like piracy started last week. Did they think their game was going to be different? That everyone would pay for it even though that never happens with other games?
As someone who has published software, I can sympathize, but really. Piracy is a fact of life. Its been going on since the earliest days of the computer business. Remember Bill Gates' famous letter? If you can't stand to see your program pirated, then get into another business. Or at least another line of programming. The broader the appeal of a software title, the broader the base of people that will take it for free if they can. And it has to be taken into account when budgeting the cost of a project. If you can't make sufficient income because of pirating, then your business model is broken.
Maybe I don't understand the motivation of these guys, but wouldn't your aim be to make the best game possible? Wouldn't you feel a certain pride that it is so good that people are actually stealing it? Don't get me wrong, I'd be pissed, too, but if they are only doing it for the money, maybe they should look for a job where they can get more of it for less work.
Umm...you're crabby about the interscene movies in Neverwinter Nights? C'mon, that's just silly. Cinematics are neat for about the first time you see them, then are just another time-waster. Yanking 'em hardly impacts gameplay.
May we never see th
All I have to say is let the buyer beware. And in addition, we really need reviewers who can bring themselves to comment on HORRIBLE stability bugs. I always read the reviews before getting a game, and they never mention bugs, even if the game is so buggy that it doesn't hardly run, the reviewer will never mention that little tidbit. Don't you think that is maybe more relevant than anything else?
I'd like to see a "cumulative stability rating" for developers and publishers, based on (a) whether their games are stable out-of-box, and (b) how long it takes them to patch problems that *are* present, and (c) the severity and frequency of exibition of any such problems. This is the only way I can think of to properly encourage game developers and publishers to release stable games. The problem is that, at the time the review is produced, the reviewer has no idea whether the game will be patched in the future. Lots of reviewers informally mention stability issues ("company blargh has a history of buggy games") but there is not numerical, cumulative rating that companies can compete for.
If GameSpot would do this, I think we'd see a much more solid collection of games.
May we never see th
Well, you're awfully well informed, to be able to tell us what every single person in the world who ever pirated is thinking. I've got some news for you: there's more to life than greed.
I have been seriously thinking about getting Halo, because from all I've heard it's still a good to great game. However, I cannot justify giving money to Microsoft, for reasons that anyone on Slashdot should know perfectly well. Thus, when college is out this summer, I'll probably copy my younger brother's copy, and get whatever cracks are necessary to play it.
Please note: I am doing this because, and solely because, I cannot justify giving any money to Microsoft, and some money would go to them if I bought Halo. My general policy is if a game is worth playing, it's worth paying for, and I do not currently own any games I have not paid for (unregistered shareware aside), except for games that can no longer be bought (ie, "abandonware"--I'd pay for it if I could find someone willing to take my money, but they won't). I am willing to bet you that there are plenty of other people in my position out there--people who honestly would have bought Halo if it had been from anyone but Microsoft, but who, like me, can't morally justify giving them money, or who just want to stick it to them (which I consider to be a less mature version of the same feeling).
I think that your view is somewhat over-cynical, and extremely absolutist. There will always be exceptions. Not everyone is like you. Some of us really do have moral standards above the common cockroach.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
The staggering number leads me to believe they counted downloads of the PC version too (And maybe even the Xbox?), and then suddenly a hundred thousand doesn't seem like that much anymore.
Also, could one of the reasons that people download this game instead of buying it be that people simply can't buy it? I haven't really gone looking, but I think you'd have to visit atleast a few dozen stores before you'd find one that had Mac Halo.
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2. If you want to try the game out before buying, don't pirate it; play the demo.
I haven't seen a good game "demo" released since the shareware version of quake 1. if you run across a demo that actually show you enough of the gameworld or the atmosphere that it sucks you into buying the damn thing, i'd like to hear about it.
3. If there's no demo, and you don't trust the developer enough to buy the game, sight-unseen, don't buy it. The developer doesn't deserve your money, but neither do you deserve to own a copy of their game.
aside from games made by bioware, the ol black isle studios, or the lucasarts adventures, i would never plop down 65 bucks for a game i hadn't had the chance to test.
i've snagged my share of warezed games, but i shit you not when i say that had i not done so, the pc video game industry wouldn't have seen a dime from me. when i run across a well designed game, a game i enjoy, I END UP BUYING IT EVENTUALLY.
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Halo still is a relatively obscure game in the online world. I can say without a doubt that I have not come across a mac user in my hours put in playing HALO online so far. There are less than 200 servers with only about 1,500 players most of the time. In fact, there are so many T'kers (team killers) now, I doubt anyone will be playing Halo in a few months, especially with no updates planned till JUNE. Like the other MAC users have complained, nobody can play HALO at an acceptable frame rate. Even on high end PC's the damn game can slow to a crawl. Who are we to feel sorry for here? The suckers who paid for HALO, or the suckers who "pirated" HALO? :)
"Jeremy, you need to get to an internet cafe and cut and paste some appropriate sentiments about me from the world wide
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Don't you get it? That was intentional on the aliens' part so the intruders would get bored, and leave!
And I bet you felt like pounding some nails into your dick, too. :)
1.Microsoft deliberatly dragging its heels on updates and the editor (probobly either to get more sales of Halo XBOX or mabie so that halo 2 comes out first)
2.Microsoft preventing Bungie from doing the ports to PC and MAC inhouse (probobly because MS wanted them to get working on the next XBOX thingo MS had lined up)
3.Rediculous hardware requirements for both ports (brought on because microsoft insisted that the ports contain all the graphics effect fluff and crap that the XBOX version has and then some)
4.Sucky multiplayer (because the netcode isnt optomized for transfer over a low-bandwidth link like dialup or low-bandwitdh broadband)
and 5.Lack of content because MS is deliberatly holding back the halo editor
I have learnt one thing about MS
If there is a game that is ultimatly "owned" by Microsoft and it has both a version on XBOX and a version or versions on other platforms, avoid the other platform versions since MS will deliberatly make them sucky compared to the XBOX version so they can sell more XBOXes
if you buy expensive hardware, you have no money for games :)
First, I'd like to re-iterate some of the things expressed in a previous "Developer's perspective" post: The fact that there is no demo isn't an excuse to pirate. It means that if you don't trust the developer, you just don't bother yourself with it.
Moving on, from my own personal experience, I can refute some of the claims that I see a lot of people make about "how it could be". The game that my company recently released was an online multiplayer only title, with the only form of copy protection being a unique key that could only have X active instances at any given time. No CD checks whatsoever. We made it that way because, as gamers ourselves, we hate stupid copy protection schemes. Also, the game was available for purchase on the web, as both an installation package and an ISO, for both win32 and Linux. The retail CD included both versions as well. We released a demo that included two maps, and one of the two playable races in it's entirety.
Initially, the number of instances of a key that we allowed play simultaneously was rather forgiving. After the game had been out for a while though, we noticed that many keys were often in use up to their maximum number of instances. Obviously people were doing a whole lot of sharing, so we tightened down the number and saw a moderate spike in sales follow immediately, without a noticeable decline in player base.
I guess the real point I'd like to make is this: it's completely debatable how much harm is being done by piracey, but the fact remains that it's not doing anybody any good.
all that aside, my guess would be that their figures probably aren't all that far off. A lot of the trading that they haven't/can't track happens in places like IRC or DC or Hotline or FTPz and then there are the copies that get handed around on CD-R.
I've downloaded games I should have bought, but then again, I've bought games that I should have downloaded.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Bungie ditched the mac and windows. I bet there are still bitter mac users that deep down just want to hurt Bungie.
With all the CD key authentication in Halo, playing a pirated version on a mac is a total pain in the ass. I live in New Zealand, so Halo for Mac was only released here today. My friend downloaded it about a week ago, just to try it out - as soon as it was available in stores, he bought the game.
Trying to play Halo online with the pirated version (Online play is the most fun bit, in my opinion) was near impossible; could only connect to 1/5th of games, and most of those were laggy as hell.
Besides that point, how many people just downloaded it to use as a demo, see if it would run well enough on their hardware for them to bother buying it? $50 is a lot for something that is not use to you, and you can't easily take back. How many places actually accept software returns anymore?
I know this is how I feel:
... which rocked!)? By the time it was released all my friends were tired of playing it.
I purchased NeverWinter Nights for the PC, and played it for months, then bought the first expansion (and later the second).
The problem is that I would have preferred getting it for the Mac... and the PC version has a currency adjusted price in my country, but the same is not true for the Mac version...
Why should I purchase the game twice? Why is it only released on the Mac so late (Unlike Warcraft 3
The only reason to get it for the Mac is to see how it performs... and that's not worth paying for.
Piracy is wrong, but it's wrong to blame the Mac community for the Game creator's short-sightedness and lack of better release dates.
Dito for Halo...
ironic that this was one of the few games that I actually own legally (both PC and mac). It's just a shame it sucks so bad for the crapintrash. Then again, i've not had the luxury to dump $3k+ on a dual G5 and play, but if I had that machine I would be doing other things instead.
:-\
Don't get me wrong, mac's are wonderful and amazing machines, but... seriously, games? No... terrible systems for gaming. Thought more ppl would realize this when VALVe canned their HL-MAC project
According to the figures presented by Steve Jobs at the last MacWorld San Francisco about four million users have switched to OS X. According to Jobs about 40% of the installed base are using OS X.
So if there were actually "hundreds of thousands" of pirated copies of Halo it would mean that between 5 and 10 % of all OS X users copied Halo. It would also mean that on the mac more people pirated the game than there were copies sold for the Windows platform. I find this highly improbable. If compared to other mac game sales it is even less likely.
Maybe they are just frustrated because nobody seems to buy their bad port?
Regards
Jeff
First, I really recommend renting games first, downloading demos before buying, or at least finding a large gaming website for with some quality reviews. Your hit/miss ratio is way too high.
Second, like Araxen stated in the other reply, new computer games almost always cost $50 (with a few exceptions for compilations or special editions), and console games start at $40-50.
Why don't all the game companies just give us the games for free! Why should they be paid, since they should do this out of the kindness of their harts. It isn't like it cost anything to produce, manafacture, program, etc. Some games use to cost $80+, and now they still have the nerve to sell them to us for $50.00-. The kicker is that they expect to earn something back!
Since the price of CDRs are so cheap, the games should be copy-protection free and only cost us $0.99. Heck, this is just like the artists being exploited by the evil RIAA conglomerate. The new price set by our standards should be $0.00 and under, be copy-protection free, come with all the source code, printed and bounded documentations, a figurine, and a top of the line video card because they shouldn't expect to be paid anyways!
The game makers can get some other job to support themselves, thus they wouldn't have to bother with copy protection! Now excuse me, I am going back to "look" around the places where I find games leaked before they are released.
The same people advocating alcohol 120%'s "legal" uses also suggesting you download the cracked/warzed copies of alcohol 120%.
Seriously, I wonder how many people have this program just to make it easier to run their warze.
Nope... I don't care a bit about the cutscenes.
What bioware PROMISED, while NWN was under development, was a simultaneous release of both the Mac and PC versions (in the same box even) of a COMPLETE game. And when they released the PC version (with no Mac version), they promised Mac users that they could buy the pc version, and that a Mac binary would be released shortly later (ala Quake 3).
What bioware DELIVERED was a seperate Mac version almost two years late. They delivered a crippled and incomplete game that lacked the level-builder toolkit and the expansion. And they expected to charge full-price for a game that lacked said toolkit, when the pc version WITH toolkit AND expansion is selling for $30.
Oh, and the Mac users who bought the pc version, under the belief that bioware would live up to their promise when the Mac version slipped the FIRST time? They got shafted, without so much as even a rebate or refund from bioware. If they want to play NWN, they have to buy it AGAIN, at full price.
cya,
john
Imagine all the people...
First, Halo for Mac rocks on toast! Awesome game, in every sense. I've played it on a G5 dual, an older G4, and watched someone play it on a Titanium Powerbook, all with minimal issues (most of the time, maxed out graphics settings and it ran very well, chugging along only when there were multiple explosions and numerous opponents on screen). Awesome game. And the multi-player stuff is simply fantastic. Well-worth the purchase price, in every way. Second, anyone who spouts off crap like "Yeah, but they deserve it because they sold out to Micro$oft!" should just be kicked in the nuts. Hard. Grow up you 2-year old infants. It's called business. Deal with it. There are no good games for Mac? Wrong - there are excellent games for Mac (check out MacSoft's webpage to see a bunch of them, for example) and if you buy them, there will be more as publishers like MacSoft realize there really is a market for them. Steal them and those publishers will decide there's no money to be made and drop it entirely. Sometimes geeks can be their own worst enemies.
I, on the other hand, have all kinds of ill feelings towards developers and publishers who are stupid enough to think that piracy will be stopped by adding copy protection.
...
... or by going after the groups that are releasing their cracked games to the internet ...
In addition to being ill feeling you are also ill informed. Copy protection does work. No one expects to stop all piracy. All that is expected is to stop the most casual and simplistic piracy. People pirate software because they can, price has nothing to do with it. I witnessed a molecular modeling and visualization package being sold for $15 when you bought the associated chemistry textbook. The software was required for the class. The first semester almost no copies of the software were sold, yet all the students had copies and used it for their homework. The bookstores got the publisher to add copy protection for the next semester. Software sales were then inline with book sales. It did not matter that more sophisticated students could still copy the software, they are an insignificant minority. Similarly I can't count the number of times I read on some gaming forum something like "I tried a burned copy but it didn't work so I bought my own CD."
If developers and publishers want to stop piracy, they could start by either releasing their games at a lower price tag,
Do you have a clue as to what the developer receives after the publisher and retailer take their cuts? Also, see $15 retail price above.
Naive. It's like drugs, as longs as their is a market there will be smugglers and dealers. The only solution is to get gamers to stop playing cracked games.
I've often thought that if I ever went through the trouble of developing and marketing a package (game or otherwise) that I would be disappointed if I didn't see the product pirated even a little bit. In my mind, putting a product not even worth infringing ("piracy" is such a stupid word - har har mateys) upon would be just depressing in a career changing kind of way.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
The article says tens of thousands. But really, that's moot.
Basically, MacSoft gets a 2 year old game that was insanely popular when it was released - it prompted people to buy XBoxes for Halo alone - and they wonder why people are pirating the game. Perhaps because a vast majority of those people have already played and beaten the game? And a significant number of them probably own the game on XBox already.
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