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PC Software Piracy Decreases Worldwide, But Remains Rampant (torrentfreak.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A new report published by The Software Alliance shows that usage of pirated PC software is decreasing worldwide. While this is a positive trend for the industry, piracy remains rampant in many countries. This includes Libya, where a massive 90 percent of all software is used without permission.
> This is Slashdot so I'm waiting for all the "Piracy shouldn't be a crime... it's not theft...
How about having a little perspective. WHO GIVES A SHIT about software piracy in a failed state where slavery is being openly practiced? People really need to get their priorities straighted out.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
As someone who's been playing vidya since Pong...you bunch of whiny, feckless morons. You'll happily throw away all the good so you can spend hundreds of posts whining about the bad. Meanwhile, the rest of us are having fun. You could too if you'd stop looking at the glass as half-full...
You're one of the morons that lead to this nightmare privacy violating scenario. Everything you do is now spied on 100% you practically can't engage in your hobby in the AAA sense without having to forcibly give up your right to privacy because their are millions of morons who don't understand how technology works and are easily fleeced. The fact that overwatch sells lootboxes for skins/models that used to be free is not a step forward idiot. It's a step into a dystopian gaming world where everything is locked down behind encrypted files. The whole 90's era of game modding would have never existed in the modern environment. The end goal of the CEO of EA is streaming encrypted games and making all new AAA content service based. AKA walled gardens. That was the end game that ceo's and evil former microsoft ceo's like gabe fucking newell were planning during the 90's.
The only reason they got away with it is because the internet radically transformed the relationship between buyers and sellers, high speed internet gives sellers of software all the power and customers have none because they'd need physical proximity to the business for their outrage to make chances in company policy. Since the dumb half of the market fed the enemy the smart informed consumers got robbed by the dumb ones enabling companies to make money hand over fist off a small number of idiots (microtransactions lets remember make over 50% of the revenue but represent less than 2% of game players).
In what world does drm locked games lead to gaming freedom or better games? A corporations goal is to give you the least game for the highest profit. Level editors disappeared because they compete with DLC and microtransactions that CEO's and the rotten half of game developers forced into games because their customers are trapped 200 miles away.
Loot boxes where you pay huge amounts of money so that you might get a chance at a skin or model is downright backward compared to the 90's where you know you actually had access to the game files and tools and it was free because you know you paid for it.