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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 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.
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.
Could the fact that some of the cash would go to microsoft and that they are responsible for some annoyences to the mac community matter (like the whole halo affair you talk about)?
I know that I would never cash not even one dollar for anyone that could give just one percent of it to microsoft, seing how they are ruthless and brutal with my platform (linux). Couldnt the same behavior just have happened with mac users?
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
Hey, Chef, what's a sellout?
Well, kids, that's when some in the [software] business tries to make money.
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.
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
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.
I've not copied a game since I gor my first full time job a few years ago. However, I've had to visit crack sites time and time again because of the stupid copy protection mechanisms malfunctionin on my perfectly legit copies of the games. I am so tired of ackward copy protection mechanisms that I've almost stopped buying computer games. Now, my console game purchases outnumber my PC game purchases by over 20 to 1. IMO, any company that puts copy protection in front of the user convenience deserves exactly what they are getting: lowers sales, and thus, more pirate copies, probably becasue in many cases the original, uncracked game is inferior to a pirated one you could pick up from kazaa.
Protecting your livelihood by lowering the qaulity of your product and making it less attractive is a recipee for disaster. Just like the RIAA is just shooting themselves in the foot by protecting their business model by copy protecting CDs in an ineffective way that hurts many of their customers, the PC software industry is just asking for decreased sales by releasing the unisable crap they've been releasing lately. Most software developers I know agree that the copy protection mechanism that the publisher adds to their games are just making their games less attractive, and forcing them to make patches that 'fix' broken copy protection mechanisms that make some costumer return their games because they are unplayable on their computer due to an 'incompatible' CDROM drive.
If developers and publishers want to stop piracy, they could start by either releasing their games at a lower price tag, or by going after the groups that are releasing their cracked games to the internet, as opposed to giving money to the makers of copy protection mechanisms.
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
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?"
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.
Get real. Nobody pirates software (or other media for that matter) because they are trying to make a statement against company/group XYZ -- they do it because they are greedy. Anything else is an absolute lie, it's somebody with a guilty conscience trying to justify their criminal activity. Try to feel noble. You can claim that you're sticking it to Microsoft, but you know that's not the truth.
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
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?
-fuzzheadI have to admit... I've downloaded a copy of Halo just because I read the performance requirements were SO steep that I didn't want to shell out half-a-hundred bucks just to get a game I couldn't play. I'm glad I did.... My Dual G4/450 with my Radeon 9000 Pro card gets a whopping 8 FPS. How could MacSoft, Westlake or any of those guys make a game that doesn't take advantage of dual processors in dual proc systems? That's complete nonsense to me. No thanks... I'll keep playing it on my Xbox. I deleted it off my mac and tossed the CDR I burned.
If Macsoft had just provided a demo for guys like me to evaluate it on my system, I'd not have had to do that. But they won't produce a demo because they know that 80% of the existing mac market can't play the game worth a damn.
Bugs 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.
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.
Well, mod me redundant, because the response to your post is so obvious.
You played Halo on the Xbox for 30 seconds, and decided that it was not good?
Maybe you should consider giving it a little more time. Or, forgetting about Halo- I would suggest that you give the next few games you play a little more time before you decide if they are good or bad.
At least complete the first mission-
No reason to lie.
Believe me, Microsoft is not going to miss your not buying of a piece of software created by one of their subsidies and then published through a company they have no stake in.
If any Mac user thinks he/she is hurting Microsoft by refusing to purchase Halo, then they're sadly mistaken. They have more of a potential of hurting Bungie, Gearbox, or MacSoft.
You are, in fact, wrong.
I purchase a number of games. And not just games -- I have purchased *more expensive equivalents* and simply postponed purchasing a non-game product to avoid purchasing Microsoft products. I use Linux for things that it would be easier to use a pirated copy of Windows for. I use a MacAlly Q-BALL (and waited years to buy one) because the functional alternative was a Microsoft product.
You may be right that the majority of pirates do not feel this way. However, I do. I consider it an ethical mandate to avoid giving my money to Microsoft, and if I want something and there is no alternative to and the software cannot be pirated, I simply go without. This does not apply to any other company, but my wallet my own small way of expressing my unhappiness with Microsoft.
I even build systems in a day and age when OEM computers are price-competitive with home-built machines to avoid giving money to Microsoft.
May we never see th
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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!
Realize that it's the same argument. The fact is you want the software and you don't want to pay for it, despite the fact that the law says that you must.
In most cases, I don't. When the item is fungible, I purchase it from another vendor. When it is not, I generally avoid it. If I'm stuck without other options, then I pirate it. Every dollar that Microsoft recieves results in money going to attack Linux, to play dirty tricks in the industry, etc.
Finally, it's a tough argument to claim that raping a girl is analogous to pirating software. Yes, pirating software means that a potential sale (in my case, a zero percentage chance, since if I couldn't pirate the software, I wouldn't use it *anyway*) is lost. That's quite different from the kind of physical and mental impact that raping a girl can have.
I do purchase products and services from companies that I don't like. Microsoft is a single exception -- they go so far beyond what I consider reasonable and acceptable that I refuse to provide them with funding. If the cost to me is a miniscule chance of a fine, I will take that cost more than willingly.
Microsoft funds research, but research funded by them ends up in a mess of patents intended to maintain their monopoly. It's not at all the same thing as giving money to a university researcher.
I am certainly not playing by the rules that society has built (though to be fair, not in an era of software) to be appropriate.
Microsoft has violated a lot of rules that society has built as well. They happen to have a large number of lawyers and can afford to pay money to political campaigns, so they can get away with it. I think that few people would dispute a claim that a significant portion of the reason that Microsoft is where it is today is because they are willing to play dirty.
This is my own form (along with attempting to find good alternatives to Microsoft products and improving those and encouraging others to use them) of poking back at Microsoft.
I'm not trying to claim that it's a particularly noble way of doing so. I am not an activist. I have no interest in crusading. I am simply a person that has a deep dislike for a company that has had a negative impact on me over the years. Perhaps some of this is just self-justification, and perhaps some is irrational. [shrug] I don't know. I do know that I find your arguments not in the least convincing when it comes to interesting me in giving Microsoft any money.
If Microsoft doesn't want you to use their software without paying for it, you don't use the software.
Ah, but see, I think few people are interested in really using Microsoft's software. How many people are really deeply affectionat of Windows and want to use it? Now, how many people are forced to use their products because Microsoft has produced a market in which they and they alone have a system that is compatible with products other vendors are selling? Perhaps you find this reasonable and equitable; I do not.
I know that many people use, say, RAM Doubler, or Kaleidoscope, and say "Wow, this is a really nice piece of software." They are convinced that they should use it because it is good software that provides them with functionality that they want at a good price. I, at least, feel that Windows does not do this, that most of the value of Windows lies in the fact that it is the only system that is compatible with application software out there.
Can I universalize this, a la Kant? Probably not. But it's what I intend to do -- not let more of my money slide into Microsoft's coffers than must be.
May we never see th
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