You/petition or/appeal or whatever, complaining to the customer service of the game. Single appeal complaining about a jerk will most likely be just noted. Repeated ones on same account will most likely warrant attention of the customer service.
And once he's been 'moderated' down enough times, and a rep witnesses (or pulls logs) documenting yet another blatant case of abuse, the troublemaker usually is gone.
Problem is, currently this procedure costs money to the MMO company (salaries of CSRs), so they tend to ignore troublemakers until the problem is so large that they risk losing multiple 'good' paying subscribers over the antisocial jerk. At that point it becomes a financially sensible move to ban the loser.
Basic bullies get temporary boot or warnings from customer service reps.
Repeat offenders may upgrade to permanent ban.
Cheaters usually are put out of their misery for good on the first offense when caught.
Rules of Conduct that you approve when you *subscribe* to the game are pretty watertight. Basically you are presented with the rules you are supposed to play by. If you break the rules, you won't get to play. Simple as that. And the EULA states that if you fail to follow Rules of Conduct, your license can be terminated.
Haven't heard any challenges based on that. Heck, I think I saw somewhere that Final Fantasy online version (PlayOnline) actually *turns your boxed game into paperweight* after certain time has passed since you cancelled your subscription to PlayOnline. CD-keys are oneshot, and once your account is purged due to cancellation, that's that...
By finnish law, they'll prosecute based on where the admins live, not where the server hardware is located. Getting the actual servers into their paws / getting them down might be harder if they are in the eastern europe, but they can still go round up the persons responsible. And the site won't tick too long if every computer of the admins is in the hands of the police as evidence.
Basically, copying without intent towards financial gain is a misdemeanor, punishable (as a maximum) with fines. This on top of any civil liabilities.
Problem is, you can't get search warrants in such cases. The crime is too minor.
Police thinks in this case that they can prove a bigger crime (with intent towards financial gain). That remains to be seen.. as does the fact that can they nail the finreactor admins for actual distribution, or just for linking to.torrents.
I personally think they did the searches with some rather baseless claims, but we'll see what the courts say.
Suddenly the achilles heel shows up. It uses system RAM to substitute for video ram, and boom, using 512MB RAM the FPS drops to one third of what it is with 1GB.
Great thing nvidia gave guidelines to testers of this card - 'use fast cpu and 1GB RAM'
Blizzard's implementation was broken. Most people use ADSL or other similar network connection which completely chokes if you max the upstream. So the Blizzard patcher maxed the users's upstream, totally killing the downstream.
But it *is* a substantial noninfringing use.
Anarchy Online is also distributing it's client free via Bittorrent
Uses perfectly normal BT client to distribute free trial of a commercial game. And I think they have already distributed few thousand copies of the client...
Hope they fix stuff fast. Last I had to use HP/Compaq internal web stuff (for verifying desktop computer warranties and look up for parts), it was horribly broken IE-only piece of junk. You basically couldn't do jack with Mozilla. Granted, that *was* something like 6 months ago, but considering how tightly it was IE-only, some webdrones probably had to/have to recode lots of it.
I do not advocate 500$ GPUs. They do have their market (I use 6800GT myself), but for general gaming, I'd pick either 9800pro, X700pro or 6600GT. Every single one is under 300$. Most are under 250$. That *is* the best bang for buck. For 95% of gamers its idiotic to pay 100-200$ extra for that last 10-20% of performance, but at the same time it's just sensible to pay 200-250$ for a solid card that is fast when you buy it, and still servers you well 2-3 years *after* purchase.
Problem is, this card will end up being touted as a 'great gaming card' by clueless salesdroids (or computers using this part will be sold as 'great gaming computers'). The 'Turbocache' architecture will gimp the card pretty badly.
So I stand by my original statement - this is a '3d screensaver card'. Gamers will be disappointed by it's performance. If not today, then year from now. And people want to buy computers that serve them for more than a year for the intended purpose.
Sure, GF3ti500 was a fine card when it was released.
Have you played todays games? At all?
Also remember that we take into account the future. Computers are not fashion items that are replaced every year, so we do not sell a new computer to a customer every year. Instead we aim to sell him a setup that will serve him for reasonable time - 3-5 years usually - without a need for upgrade. Most parts have 3 year warranty anyway.
Had I sold a customer GF3ti500 for gaming two years ago, today he'd still be happy gaming with it. It might already feel bit slow, but all games start with it. Some DX9 shiny might be missing, but that's not critical. Had I sold him the 'sensible, low cost' option 2 years ago, today he'd be cursing me for selling that POS GF4MX.
Same thing today. When I sell the customer 260$ Radeon 9800pro, it will (guaranteed) launch and play every game published within the next 24 months. It will most likely play reasonably well every game published in the next 36-48 months.
Computers are not disposables. At least not to people around here. They fully expect their big purchase will keep them happy for a MINIMUM of 3 years without upgrades. Preferrably 5. I guess in USA people prefer to buy 300$ computers every year. Over here 900 euros for a computer that will serve you well for at least 3 years (And be bit on the powerful side during the first year) is called 'a better deal'. As a bonus you usually get more durable components.
Why bother when better deal is to resell a computer every year? Well, in Finland customer protection laws are much better than in the US. Basically if you sell a computer, no matter what you say as warranty, it must last 2 years, or you as a reseller are liable to cover the repair costs. So in Finland its actually unproftable to sell junk crap parts with crappy warranties. Even if you sell it as '6 months warranty', the law states you are liable for the 'expected durability of the item' (which has been translated to 'two years' in case of computers via test cases).
'Be honest' - 'Sell computers that actually last 3-5 years for the use they are inteded for' -> repeat customers. They come less often, but they are happier. And happy customers come often to buy consummables like ink, CDRs and other stuff like that.
Actually, that *was* one of the ideas of Futuremark, the company that publishes 3dmark.
Sadly I think they tried to make the game companies pay for their logo & right to include the 3dmark score 'requirements', and I don't think any software publisher took on the idea.
I seem to recall some MS 'Windows XP game recommender' at some point that used 3dmark database as a source for data to analyze your setup and compare it to what the game required/recommended. Neat system, way too few games listed tho.
Actually, here it is; http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/game s/gam eadvisor/default.mspx
(requires usage of insecure browsers due to use of ActiveX)
Um, high end cards push over 20GB/sec of stuff around. When each single pixel on the screen is mucked up by the card multiple times, the bandwidth requirement just skyrockets. This card will be seriously bottlenecked by slow RAM.
I do give 'em some credit - it DOES Have some onboard cache ram to hide the worst problems, but it will still be a dog. If not today, it will suck at the games of next year. Sucks for those who buy one computer every 3-5 years.
It may be 'passable for gaming if you don't mind somewhat low performance'. I can see multitude of situations where this would be a good card for a customer. Even a bit 'high end' card for him. I still would never recommend it for gaming.
I ignore benchmarks that test a low-end card with high end monster setup.
Besides, 36FPS is kinda poor. Sure, it beats old low end crap. It's actually not that far from good midrange cards. But still, I would *not* recommend it for gaming. Maybe as a low-cost option for those who just can't afford better, and understand it might underperform a bit in latest games.
Besides, Both Doom3 and HL2 are *not* that intensive on videocards. Try Everquest 2. It makes 6800 Ultras cry. Thing is, that's forward-looking engine. In a year most games will be like it, and that 6-12 months old 6200 TURBO Cache will be dog slow with 'em. People buy computers to last for 3-5 years. If they find that the latest game doesnt even RUN on their computer less than 2 years after purchase, they will be very unhappy if it was sold 'for gaming'.
However, our salespeople would never recommend such a setup for gaming. If you insist you cannot afford better one, we sure offer one for sale to you at low price. We *still* remind you that it might not quite be what you expect from a gaming card. We usually even offer that you can come back and exchange it for a faster card if you are unhappy, as long as you retain all paperwork and accessories and ensure the box stays neat. Even with the risk that next buyer balks that the box is 'opened'. It's called 'good service'.
Two years. And no, I do not repair 'brand name' crap that HP/Compaq/Dell/Fujitsu/etc push out. I do repair few smaller brands (Acer mostly), plus our own - built from components to order - computers.
And onboard sound and LAN work just fine for my needs, and the needs of 99% of our customers. I do have a separate Intel LAN card in my desk drawer for emergencies, but I've used my onboard Gbit LAN for quite a while with no issue.
Like I said, most customers are perfectly happy with onboard video. If more cost-effective solution is to sell a low end non-onboard video motherboard + cheapo 9200SE or FX5200 videocard, that's the deal. The store I work for DOES NOT claim it runs games. At all. The first question our salespeople asks is 'Do you want to play games beyond Solitaire on it?'. If the answer is 'yes', the discussion currently *starts* from 9800pro. If the price becomes an issue, they bring the discussion to 'budget' gaming cards, 9600XT and the like. With disclaimer stating that there may be issues with performance when playing the latest shiny games. Most customers understand it perfectly. If they still have an issue with price, we'll tell them that their remaining option is to go with the cheapest possible, without expectation that it runs games well.
'Not lying to customer'. Try it sometimes. It brings repeat customers. Most people who balk about price buy from '699 euros! SPECIAL!' big ads for big name electronics chains. And pull a cubic assload of crap as a computer. Same people come crying to our full service desk with their issues, but only thing we can say 'Contact compaq/fujitsu/HP/dell for warranty service. Or if you insist, we can repair it outside warranty, but due to non-standard parts that may take a while and be quite expensive'. Most people leave to battle with the automated phone systems of the big manufacturers.
In fact, such 'bargain hunter' idiots... we don't even WANT those people as customers. Sure, if they appear into our store, we serve them, being honest and offering our expert advice. We even carry specific models that are great for low end websurfing & wordprocessing. Very cheap. We still don't claim they play games.
And this 6200 'Turbo Cache' is one of the videocards that are SOLD As 'GREAT FOR GAMING' while it's nowhere near that. In our store this card will be sold to people that specifically do not want onboard video (maybe due to lack of TV-OUT), or specifically want features from the motherboard that are not available with onboard video. Nobody will ever claim it's good for gaming. At best a salesdroid may say 'yeah, it should start up most games, but it's not meant for gaming. performance will be poor.'. That's called 'being truthful to your customers'. If a customer balks at you or thinks you are too expensive, then a good salesperson knows when to give up and tell him to choose themselves or shop elsewhere. Recommendations are a service. Customer is free to ignore them.
Unsurprisingly, sometimes the 'choose themselves'-customers come back to exchange for the more expensive model later. Costs extra to pop open the computer and replace the card naturally, but that's called "paying for your stupidity".
In my experience, being truthful and fair to customers brings them back. Repeatedly. And they PAY for that. Quite well. And those who refuse to pay are usually not that interesting customers to us anyway. We are happy to let big retail chains fuck them over. They usually learn their mistake and next time, few years down the road, we usually get a new customer with slightly more clue.
Well, actually some do. If their kid is bugging for a gaming machine, and the salesdroid sells to the clueless parents a computer with part like this, the kid is bound to be disappointed.
I work in computer repairs. EVERY christmas I get people who come asking to see if their computer is somehow broken because "it's so slow". Almost every one of them never bought it from us - they bought it cheap from some big chain electronics store (HP, Compaq, Fujitsu.. you name it) with non-existing support on computers ('call the manufacturer'). Quite often the 'so slow' is because they've been sold a cheap year-old system with 256MB RAM & Windows XP and a video card that can't run games. As a 'computer great for all uses. kids can even play games on it!'.
Basically they were duped into buying not-so-cheap old tech with crap specs. Commonly with same money the could've bought a noticeably faster computer built from parts, but they trusted the 'big name' retail chain more than a specialist store.
So, I stand by my original post. Clueless salesdroids will sell computers that contain these cards as 'great for gaming', and their target audience will be disappointed.
If you want a computer for productivity apps, any builtin onboard video works just fine, and is cheaper to boot. A PCI-E 'turbocache' low end card is not going to change your windows desktop experience one iota. It's just a piece of junk 'low end gaming card' that underperforms for it's target use (gaming). Selling cheap crap cards using same brand name (GeForce) as their top end 500$ ubermonster cards is called 'milking the brand at all price points'. At least AMD has the decency to sell their low end stuff under another brand (Sempron). Videocard companies should do the exact same thing.
Thankfully it's noticeably faster than crap like Geforce 4 MX and GeForce FX5200.
Great for windows / productivity use, and running of spinning cube 3D screensaver.
What's sad is that this card will pop up in gazillion 'budget' home machine that are then sold by clueless salesdroids to even more clueless moms and pops as 'gaming machine' with 'TURBOcache' (so it must be TURBO good).
And naturally such computer will stutter along happily with anything slightly more demanding than CounterStrike (the original one).
Thankfully in Finland the law is different. Copyright infringement without a goal of financial gain would be punishable by fines. Of course you still may end up having to pay to the copyright holders, but even that is bit iffy - if there was no financial gain, it's hard to quantify the neccessary reparations. In Finland you just can't sue for A BILLION DOLLARS because some teen copied your crappy software to 10000 users. Yes, the teen would pay, but the sums would probably be sane (say, 10000 euros)
Then again since no-gain infringement is only punishable by fines, the police can't get search warrants based on that. Hence basically 'copying for your own use' (aka 'leeching') is almost not a crime over here, unless you setup a laptop warez station on the steps of the police station and offer free copies to passerbys. Tho even then it's more likely the police would just kick you off the steps for bothering people.
Well, I think the point is that they *knowingly* facilitated copyright infringement. They actively moderated the site. 'Common carrier'-style defenses would then be out of the window.
But even that should be a crime comparable to running a red light. However, once money becomes part of the equation, things change.
Our law currently puts the line at 'goal of financial gain'.
Doesn't matter if one actually gained something, but if something is done with an expectation of getting financial gain out of it, then it's a much more serious crime.
Asking for donations alone might be very borderline, but in this case those donations also gave you perks (I *think* better status as a downloader even if you just leeched. not sure, wasn't an user. based on hearsay).
In which case prosecuters can easily spin it as at a thinly veiled attempt to hide 'pay us for (more / easier to get) warez' deal, which definitely means that the admins had in mind a goal of financial gain. Doesn't matter where the money was supposed to be used (hosting fees). Admins got money. 'Financial Gain'. Tough.
There is actually a test case from way back (the time of BBSes. You know - modems - 14.4K HST tech) where a BBS was selling 'bytes' (pay money, get to leech X bytes of latest warez). I don't have idea of the exact resolution of the case, but I do know the sysop of that BBS at least ended up paying sizeable reparations to the companies who sued him (Adobe, MS, Autodesk etc.. the usual BSA members). I don't think he ended up in the jail, but it sure made a huge hole in his pocket. And that case was clearly 'with goal of financial gain'.
It should also be noted that nobody as far as I know has been prosecuted in Finland for piracy unless; - There is selling / money involved (for example, selling bootleg CDs/DVDs) or - Pirated software was used by a company for business use (Say, a company using pirated AutoCAD to save money)
Problem is that by finnish law, if you take money when offering copyrighted stuff, the crime goes from 'tekijänoikeusrikkomus' (punishable by fine) to 'tekijänoikeusrikos' (punishable by upto 2 years in the can)
True, no arrests. Only search & seizure of some computer hardware.
And yes, the donations were voluntary. However, you supposedly got benefits from donating. So, indirectly, that would mean that they took money for warez. Or more exactly, gained money from operating a warez-related site. Heck, the way finnish law in question was written, if you run a warez site and run banner ads (that bring you revenue), that alone can land your ass in the can if the prosecutor claims you operated the site with the intent to profit (via running banner ads). It doesn't matter if you in the end actually profited anything. And in this case supposedly the money went to cover costs of the hosting of the site, so I think they can make the leap and charge the admins for intent to profit from the operation.
I'm quite sure the finer points of that will be discussed in court in time. However, the basic problem was - money played part, and that makes it a much more serious crime in Finland.
Slashdot Mirror
It already works like that.
/petition or /appeal or whatever, complaining to the customer service of the game. Single appeal complaining about a jerk will most likely be just noted. Repeated ones on same account will most likely warrant attention of the customer service.
You
And once he's been 'moderated' down enough times, and a rep witnesses (or pulls logs) documenting yet another blatant case of abuse, the troublemaker usually is gone.
Problem is, currently this procedure costs money to the MMO company (salaries of CSRs), so they tend to ignore troublemakers until the problem is so large that they risk losing multiple 'good' paying subscribers over the antisocial jerk. At that point it becomes a financially sensible move to ban the loser.
MMOs ban troublemakers - for good - all the time.
Basic bullies get temporary boot or warnings from customer service reps.
Repeat offenders may upgrade to permanent ban.
Cheaters usually are put out of their misery for good on the first offense when caught.
Rules of Conduct that you approve when you *subscribe* to the game are pretty watertight. Basically you are presented with the rules you are supposed to play by. If you break the rules, you won't get to play. Simple as that. And the EULA states that if you fail to follow Rules of Conduct, your license can be terminated.
Haven't heard any challenges based on that. Heck, I think I saw somewhere that Final Fantasy online version (PlayOnline) actually *turns your boxed game into paperweight* after certain time has passed since you cancelled your subscription to PlayOnline. CD-keys are oneshot, and once your account is purged due to cancellation, that's that...
Finreactor servers were actually in Holland.
Didn't save their ass.
By finnish law, they'll prosecute based on where the admins live, not where the server hardware is located. Getting the actual servers into their paws / getting them down might be harder if they are in the eastern europe, but they can still go round up the persons responsible. And the site won't tick too long if every computer of the admins is in the hands of the police as evidence.
The situation is murky at best under Finnish law.
.torrents.
Basically, copying without intent towards financial gain is a misdemeanor, punishable (as a maximum) with fines. This on top of any civil liabilities.
Problem is, you can't get search warrants in such cases. The crime is too minor.
Police thinks in this case that they can prove a bigger crime (with intent towards financial gain). That remains to be seen.. as does the fact that can they nail the finreactor admins for actual distribution, or just for linking to
I personally think they did the searches with some rather baseless claims, but we'll see what the courts say.
http://theinquirer.net/?article=20318
Is getting 6fps?
Suddenly the achilles heel shows up. It uses system RAM to substitute for video ram, and boom, using 512MB RAM the FPS drops to one third of what it is with 1GB.
Great thing nvidia gave guidelines to testers of this card - 'use fast cpu and 1GB RAM'
This card is pure crap.
Blizzard's implementation was broken. Most people use ADSL or other similar network connection which completely chokes if you max the upstream. So the Blizzard patcher maxed the users's upstream, totally killing the downstream.
/ fr eecampaign/
But it *is* a substantial noninfringing use.
Anarchy Online is also distributing it's client free via Bittorrent
http://www.anarchy-online.com/free/ad_campaigns
Uses perfectly normal BT client to distribute free trial of a commercial game. And I think they have already distributed few thousand copies of the client...
Hope they fix stuff fast. Last I had to use HP/Compaq internal web stuff (for verifying desktop computer warranties and look up for parts), it was horribly broken IE-only piece of junk. You basically couldn't do jack with Mozilla. Granted, that *was* something like 6 months ago, but considering how tightly it was IE-only, some webdrones probably had to/have to recode lots of it.
I do not advocate 500$ GPUs. They do have their market (I use 6800GT myself), but for general gaming, I'd pick either 9800pro, X700pro or 6600GT. Every single one is under 300$. Most are under 250$. That *is* the best bang for buck. For 95% of gamers its idiotic to pay 100-200$ extra for that last 10-20% of performance, but at the same time it's just sensible to pay 200-250$ for a solid card that is fast when you buy it, and still servers you well 2-3 years *after* purchase.
Problem is, this card will end up being touted as a 'great gaming card' by clueless salesdroids (or computers using this part will be sold as 'great gaming computers'). The 'Turbocache' architecture will gimp the card pretty badly.
So I stand by my original statement - this is a '3d screensaver card'. Gamers will be disappointed by it's performance. If not today, then year from now. And people want to buy computers that serve them for more than a year for the intended purpose.
Sure, GF3ti500 was a fine card when it was released.
Have you played todays games? At all?
Also remember that we take into account the future. Computers are not fashion items that are replaced every year, so we do not sell a new computer to a customer every year. Instead we aim to sell him a setup that will serve him for reasonable time - 3-5 years usually - without a need for upgrade. Most parts have 3 year warranty anyway.
Had I sold a customer GF3ti500 for gaming two years ago, today he'd still be happy gaming with it. It might already feel bit slow, but all games start with it. Some DX9 shiny might be missing, but that's not critical. Had I sold him the 'sensible, low cost' option 2 years ago, today he'd be cursing me for selling that POS GF4MX.
Same thing today. When I sell the customer 260$ Radeon 9800pro, it will (guaranteed) launch and play every game published within the next 24 months. It will most likely play reasonably well every game published in the next 36-48 months.
Computers are not disposables. At least not to people around here. They fully expect their big purchase will keep them happy for a MINIMUM of 3 years without upgrades. Preferrably 5. I guess in USA people prefer to buy 300$ computers every year. Over here 900 euros for a computer that will serve you well for at least 3 years (And be bit on the powerful side during the first year) is called 'a better deal'. As a bonus you usually get more durable components.
Why bother when better deal is to resell a computer every year? Well, in Finland customer protection laws are much better than in the US. Basically if you sell a computer, no matter what you say as warranty, it must last 2 years, or you as a reseller are liable to cover the repair costs. So in Finland its actually unproftable to sell junk crap parts with crappy warranties. Even if you sell it as '6 months warranty', the law states you are liable for the 'expected durability of the item' (which has been translated to 'two years' in case of computers via test cases).
'Be honest' - 'Sell computers that actually last 3-5 years for the use they are inteded for' -> repeat customers. They come less often, but they are happier. And happy customers come often to buy consummables like ink, CDRs and other stuff like that.
Actually, that *was* one of the ideas of Futuremark, the company that publishes 3dmark.
e s/gam eadvisor/default.mspx
Sadly I think they tried to make the game companies pay for their logo & right to include the 3dmark score 'requirements', and I don't think any software publisher took on the idea.
I seem to recall some MS 'Windows XP game recommender' at some point that used 3dmark database as a source for data to analyze your setup and compare it to what the game required/recommended. Neat system, way too few games listed tho.
Actually, here it is;
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/gam
(requires usage of insecure browsers due to use of ActiveX)
Oooo
3.2GB/sec
Um, high end cards push over 20GB/sec of stuff around. When each single pixel on the screen is mucked up by the card multiple times, the bandwidth requirement just skyrockets. This card will be seriously bottlenecked by slow RAM.
I do give 'em some credit - it DOES Have some onboard cache ram to hide the worst problems, but it will still be a dog. If not today, it will suck at the games of next year. Sucks for those who buy one computer every 3-5 years.
Um, it's all about what it's sold for.
This card will not, ever, be 'great for gaming'.
It may be 'passable for gaming if you don't mind somewhat low performance'. I can see multitude of situations where this would be a good card for a customer. Even a bit 'high end' card for him. I still would never recommend it for gaming.
I ignore benchmarks that test a low-end card with high end monster setup.
Besides, 36FPS is kinda poor. Sure, it beats old low end crap. It's actually not that far from good midrange cards. But still, I would *not* recommend it for gaming. Maybe as a low-cost option for those who just can't afford better, and understand it might underperform a bit in latest games.
Besides, Both Doom3 and HL2 are *not* that intensive on videocards. Try Everquest 2. It makes 6800 Ultras cry. Thing is, that's forward-looking engine. In a year most games will be like it, and that 6-12 months old 6200 TURBO Cache will be dog slow with 'em. People buy computers to last for 3-5 years. If they find that the latest game doesnt even RUN on their computer less than 2 years after purchase, they will be very unhappy if it was sold 'for gaming'.
It's great if you are happy with it.
However, our salespeople would never recommend such a setup for gaming. If you insist you cannot afford better one, we sure offer one for sale to you at low price. We *still* remind you that it might not quite be what you expect from a gaming card. We usually even offer that you can come back and exchange it for a faster card if you are unhappy, as long as you retain all paperwork and accessories and ensure the box stays neat. Even with the risk that next buyer balks that the box is 'opened'. It's called 'good service'.
Two years. And no, I do not repair 'brand name' crap that HP/Compaq/Dell/Fujitsu/etc push out. I do repair few smaller brands (Acer mostly), plus our own - built from components to order - computers.
... we don't even WANT those people as customers. Sure, if they appear into our store, we serve them, being honest and offering our expert advice. We even carry specific models that are great for low end websurfing & wordprocessing. Very cheap. We still don't claim they play games.
And onboard sound and LAN work just fine for my needs, and the needs of 99% of our customers. I do have a separate Intel LAN card in my desk drawer for emergencies, but I've used my onboard Gbit LAN for quite a while with no issue.
Like I said, most customers are perfectly happy with onboard video. If more cost-effective solution is to sell a low end non-onboard video motherboard + cheapo 9200SE or FX5200 videocard, that's the deal. The store I work for DOES NOT claim it runs games. At all. The first question our salespeople asks is 'Do you want to play games beyond Solitaire on it?'. If the answer is 'yes', the discussion currently *starts* from 9800pro. If the price becomes an issue, they bring the discussion to 'budget' gaming cards, 9600XT and the like. With disclaimer stating that there may be issues with performance when playing the latest shiny games. Most customers understand it perfectly. If they still have an issue with price, we'll tell them that their remaining option is to go with the cheapest possible, without expectation that it runs games well.
'Not lying to customer'. Try it sometimes. It brings repeat customers. Most people who balk about price buy from '699 euros! SPECIAL!' big ads for big name electronics chains. And pull a cubic assload of crap as a computer. Same people come crying to our full service desk with their issues, but only thing we can say 'Contact compaq/fujitsu/HP/dell for warranty service. Or if you insist, we can repair it outside warranty, but due to non-standard parts that may take a while and be quite expensive'. Most people leave to battle with the automated phone systems of the big manufacturers.
In fact, such 'bargain hunter' idiots
And this 6200 'Turbo Cache' is one of the videocards that are SOLD As 'GREAT FOR GAMING' while it's nowhere near that. In our store this card will be sold to people that specifically do not want onboard video (maybe due to lack of TV-OUT), or specifically want features from the motherboard that are not available with onboard video. Nobody will ever claim it's good for gaming. At best a salesdroid may say 'yeah, it should start up most games, but it's not meant for gaming. performance will be poor.'. That's called 'being truthful to your customers'. If a customer balks at you or thinks you are too expensive, then a good salesperson knows when to give up and tell him to choose themselves or shop elsewhere. Recommendations are a service. Customer is free to ignore them.
Unsurprisingly, sometimes the 'choose themselves'-customers come back to exchange for the more expensive model later. Costs extra to pop open the computer and replace the card naturally, but that's called "paying for your stupidity".
In my experience, being truthful and fair to customers brings them back. Repeatedly. And they PAY for that. Quite well. And those who refuse to pay are usually not that interesting customers to us anyway. We are happy to let big retail chains fuck them over. They usually learn their mistake and next time, few years down the road, we usually get a new customer with slightly more clue.
Well, actually some do. If their kid is bugging for a gaming machine, and the salesdroid sells to the clueless parents a computer with part like this, the kid is bound to be disappointed.
I work in computer repairs. EVERY christmas I get people who come asking to see if their computer is somehow broken because "it's so slow". Almost every one of them never bought it from us - they bought it cheap from some big chain electronics store (HP, Compaq, Fujitsu.. you name it) with non-existing support on computers ('call the manufacturer'). Quite often the 'so slow' is because they've been sold a cheap year-old system with 256MB RAM & Windows XP and a video card that can't run games. As a 'computer great for all uses. kids can even play games on it!'.
Basically they were duped into buying not-so-cheap old tech with crap specs. Commonly with same money the could've bought a noticeably faster computer built from parts, but they trusted the 'big name' retail chain more than a specialist store.
So, I stand by my original post. Clueless salesdroids will sell computers that contain these cards as 'great for gaming', and their target audience will be disappointed.
If you want a computer for productivity apps, any builtin onboard video works just fine, and is cheaper to boot. A PCI-E 'turbocache' low end card is not going to change your windows desktop experience one iota. It's just a piece of junk 'low end gaming card' that underperforms for it's target use (gaming). Selling cheap crap cards using same brand name (GeForce) as their top end 500$ ubermonster cards is called 'milking the brand at all price points'. At least AMD has the decency to sell their low end stuff under another brand (Sempron). Videocard companies should do the exact same thing.
Thankfully it's noticeably faster than crap like Geforce 4 MX and GeForce FX5200.
Great for windows / productivity use, and running of spinning cube 3D screensaver.
What's sad is that this card will pop up in gazillion 'budget' home machine that are then sold by clueless salesdroids to even more clueless moms and pops as 'gaming machine' with 'TURBOcache' (so it must be TURBO good).
And naturally such computer will stutter along happily with anything slightly more demanding than CounterStrike (the original one).
*sigh*
If everything is available in some huge data retention center, and it's readily accessible, it WILL be abused.
:p )
Power corrupts.
(Absolute power, on the other hand, is kinda neat
Thankfully in Finland the law is different. Copyright infringement without a goal of financial gain would be punishable by fines. Of course you still may end up having to pay to the copyright holders, but even that is bit iffy - if there was no financial gain, it's hard to quantify the neccessary reparations. In Finland you just can't sue for A BILLION DOLLARS because some teen copied your crappy software to 10000 users. Yes, the teen would pay, but the sums would probably be sane (say, 10000 euros)
Then again since no-gain infringement is only punishable by fines, the police can't get search warrants based on that. Hence basically 'copying for your own use' (aka 'leeching') is almost not a crime over here, unless you setup a laptop warez station on the steps of the police station and offer free copies to passerbys. Tho even then it's more likely the police would just kick you off the steps for bothering people.
Well, I think the point is that they *knowingly* facilitated copyright infringement. They actively moderated the site. 'Common carrier'-style defenses would then be out of the window.
But even that should be a crime comparable to running a red light. However, once money becomes part of the equation, things change.
Our law currently puts the line at 'goal of financial gain'.
Doesn't matter if one actually gained something, but if something is done with an expectation of getting financial gain out of it, then it's a much more serious crime.
Asking for donations alone might be very borderline, but in this case those donations also gave you perks (I *think* better status as a downloader even if you just leeched. not sure, wasn't an user. based on hearsay).
In which case prosecuters can easily spin it as at a thinly veiled attempt to hide 'pay us for (more / easier to get) warez' deal, which definitely means that the admins had in mind a goal of financial gain. Doesn't matter where the money was supposed to be used (hosting fees). Admins got money. 'Financial Gain'. Tough.
There is actually a test case from way back (the time of BBSes. You know - modems - 14.4K HST tech) where a BBS was selling 'bytes' (pay money, get to leech X bytes of latest warez). I don't have idea of the exact resolution of the case, but I do know the sysop of that BBS at least ended up paying sizeable reparations to the companies who sued him (Adobe, MS, Autodesk etc.. the usual BSA members). I don't think he ended up in the jail, but it sure made a huge hole in his pocket. And that case was clearly 'with goal of financial gain'.
It should also be noted that nobody as far as I know has been prosecuted in Finland for piracy unless;
- There is selling / money involved (for example, selling bootleg CDs/DVDs)
or
- Pirated software was used by a company for business use (Say, a company using pirated AutoCAD to save money)
Problem is that by finnish law, if you take money when offering copyrighted stuff, the crime goes from 'tekijänoikeusrikkomus' (punishable by fine) to 'tekijänoikeusrikos' (punishable by upto 2 years in the can)
True, no arrests. Only search & seizure of some computer hardware.
And yes, the donations were voluntary. However, you supposedly got benefits from donating. So, indirectly, that would mean that they took money for warez. Or more exactly, gained money from operating a warez-related site. Heck, the way finnish law in question was written, if you run a warez site and run banner ads (that bring you revenue), that alone can land your ass in the can if the prosecutor claims you operated the site with the intent to profit (via running banner ads). It doesn't matter if you in the end actually profited anything. And in this case supposedly the money went to cover costs of the hosting of the site, so I think they can make the leap and charge the admins for intent to profit from the operation.
I'm quite sure the finer points of that will be discussed in court in time. However, the basic problem was - money played part, and that makes it a much more serious crime in Finland.
I doubt they have resources to take on the Joe Random Leecher.
And in this case there is a small critical detail - cops have proof that the admins took money ('donations') for access to the tracker.
Basically, indirectly, they were selling warez.
Selling warez is bad.