I know how to deal with these things, but I really think you're overstating the general convenience of piracy massively.
Piracy doesn't work for the vast majority of people for the reasons you describe. Yes they're not actually serious problems if you're sufficiently tech literate and experienced, but most people aren't and most people aren't capable of learning (or can't be bothered in the first place).
But as inconvenient as pirating can be at times, I prefer the freedom and control it gives me over straight convenience almost all the time. You're trading a little immediate pain and toil for a better outcome. Heck isn't that the same reason a lot of people go to college in the first place? Delayed satisfaction. Convenience isn't the most important factor (or at least shouldn't be) when making decisions.
So you build a collection of things you might have an interest in. Start downloading them as you find them, so that they're ready once you have an opportunity and excuse to watch them. Heck you don't need terabytes of storage like some of those crazy media hoarders - just enough to keep you occupied during a sick day or when the wife is away for a few days.
It's weird. I used to pirate a lot because of a lack of income - I was a kid but still wanted the movies/games. Later on I started things as I got older and had more disposable income - I wanted to support the creators and "do the right thing", morally as well as legally. But now I'm back to pirating things again not because it's free, but because of all the additional benefits it provides:
(1) I can obtain movies/TV shows in a DRM-free, open(ish) cross-platform format that doesn't require a special, Windows-only player which requires authorization per viewing and lacks functionality compared to other video players of choice. (2) I can obtain an actual file, period. Something I can store on my own devices and not rely on streaming and Internet access to watch. (3) In terms of games, I don't have to deal with dodgy DRM schemes, or DRM at all. I can also pick and choose which patches to install once they're released by a scene (so I can use, for example, an older RAGE patch that doesn't lock out most console commands, whereas on Steam you can't downgrade updates once they occur).
At this point in my life it's really, really hard to justify subscribing to these services and buying (or renting as the case generally is) content, because the actual product is generally worse in terms of user control and freedom than what you'd get from TPB.
The only reason I'd stop now would be if there was a real, legitimate way to prove and punish with accuracy everyone who pirated, and it was all but guaranteed that if you pirated you'd get caught. If that were to eventuate, I'd definitely stop... but I wouldn't start buying things either, because there's no motivation to give people what they want apparently.
Gaming should be about being fun. I like challenges in gaming, but if I'm going to be spending a lot of time grinding before I get a satisfying outcome, I might as well do it in real life. No-one recognizes an achievement in gaming with any level of seriousness, but if you can build a quad-copter with an Arduino and your own flight-control code, well that's much more impressive to show off and makes you feel genuinely proud about something worthwhile.
Games are a make-believe world you spend a few hours in every so often to escape. Nothing wrong with that, but please don't inflate any successes you accomplish in a game to be worth THAT much. Hence, spending time mindlessly grinding in a game doesn't seem like a good effort-to-reward ratio.
Windows XP is definitely a source of nostalgia. I'll miss it for that purpose alone, but I'm happy enough to run Windows 7 without any complaints. It's fortunate Win 7 will still be supported for a long time.
I think what you're trying to say is that people who've had an account for a while and posted regularly enough to be seen, and aren't being dicks, are more likely to be able to say something and have people respond to them. I tend to agree - many a forum I'm posted something I thought was a quality post and sometimes insightful, only for everyone to ignore it and quote dickheads with poor language skills and even worse logic skills.
Having said that, I make a new account here every few months for reasons of anonymity, as well as being able to say my mind which can piss off Slashdotters at times, so burning the bridge is a good way to start fresh.:)
but I'm at least happy that for once the Open Source community *tried something different* instead of just aping Windows or Mac OS X (though GNOME 3 is obviously inspired by the latter). Maybe it worked, maybe it didn't, but at least we can claim to attempt to lead, instead of just blindly following.
At this stage of my life I can honestly say I don't care about attempts at being different, just for the sake of being different. Execution is far more important. I'd rather a copycat of Windows/OS X which had more features and was overall better and more versatile (GNOME 2), than something which was completely new and hard to establish a comfortable workflow with (GNOME 3 - well, Gnome Shell specifically).
Being different is not a virtue if the outcome is rubbish.
It's convenient... REALLY convenient, and it was the first in the market...
Indeed, and I can easily see how Steam's convenience makes it so popular. I just sometimes wonder what how the obsession of convenience will result in a few years time in terms of our rights as consumers.
Publishers/developers are rarely going to release games without copy protection...
Which is something I STILL don't understand. GTA V was leaked several days before release and is now available on torrents. On consoles, not the PC! DRM does nothing to prevent copying of games, and only presents obstacles which the user may or may not encounter, but are potential obstacles none the less. But you're right, it's become so much a part of the industry and there's too much money (and greed) at stake to change that. Somehow it was done for music, but movies and games? The DRM-free movement is not strong enough.
I like you. Posts like yours help prevent me tripping and falling back to my idealistic tendencies which often result in me wasting yet more time on the latest Linux distros, only to find out they still suck for desktop use.
Heh, are you my clone? I'm also a 30 year old married gamer, with a good job (hardware engineer for a defense research organization).
I also game a lot (well, a fair chunk anyway). Sometimes I regret it, knowing that I could be doing more with my life playing with my Raspberry Pi or Arduino or learning a new skill, but it appears that this is normal enough behaviour anyway so I'm not sure why I regret it. But I still keep playing.
So Gabe is learning that Microsoft is planning on walling up and is moving to keep his options open. That's good, that makes business sense. But there's a problem...
Steam has made the concept of a perpetual, one-time rental service palatable. For the vast majority of purchased made on Steam, you don't own your games anymore. Sure you never technically "owned" any of the games, but you know what I mean - you could keep them and back them up, make copies of the installers and whatnot and not rely on a vendor to authorize continual access to the game. But Steam does, and what's worse, people are happy with this. I suppose it's better for a lot of people than to have to deal with buggy disc-based copy-protection checks and what not, but it's still DRM.
The problem with this is that because the majority of people have no problem with this and see no long-term ramifications for this, everyone releases their games on Steam. That's fine, except it becomes the ONLY option to get a lot of games. I cannot get Dishonored DRM-free - it's Steam or bust (or torrents, but that's not financially palatable to developers I suppose). So if I have a problem with Steam's EULA or ToS, I'm basically unable to play the extreme majority of top-tier titles, and only some of the indie titles out there. GoG provides a good alternative, except that they don't cater to Linux users which reduces my interest in them as a long term source of games (I use Windows now, but won't be forever and want to ensure I have an exit strategy).
Of course, in terms of Linux, no-one has made such an impact in getting games on Linux than Valve has with Steam for Linux. However, this in turn might reduce the motivation to make a DRM-free Linux (or Windows) games if Steam is there and us minority fellows aren't worth the trouble. Which saddens me greatly, because it means DRM will never leave us because too many gamers cannot stand on principle, or simply don't care. I'm not going to say my opinion is any more right than anyone elses, so please avoid the flames.
And hairyfeet, don't reply to this. I know you're unable to understand the concept of differing opinions.
Indeed. There seems to be some idea that it's the dumb, uneducated public who believes piracy is wrong and if they only did some research and opened their minds, they'd change their opinion.
Well I have done my research, lots of it, and weighted the different opinions and positions out there, and I still believe that despite the fucktard behavior of certain companies and organizations, it's still a reasonable concept that if someone is offering a product for some cost, and you are interested in purchasing said product, you should either pay for it. If you cannot, GO WITHOUT. There's plenty of free entertainment and good entertainment out there - it's just the push by the media to ensure you keep spending your money. If you can't, then don't. It's not that hard and it ensure you don't end up a hypocrite.
Some day that might just happen - I wouldn't be surprised if violent video games are eventually outlawed as a last resort to dealing with school shootings.
Unfortunately the Major is right. He appears to sound level headed enough to know that this is probably just a teenager venting, as does everyone, and that's all there is to it. But at the same time he's stuck between a rock and a hard place - given the fucked-up state of the US, if he lets it go and the kid DOES shoot up the place, then things won't turn out well. There's enormous pressure on him to process this by the book because school shootings are such a high-profile issue these days.
Putting myself in his shoes, I think it's a fucked up situation is all, and I hope the charges are dismissed quickly once it's clear that if the kid really wanted to shoot up the school, he'd do it with a gun and not resort to an FPS overlay.
I long for the day the $ joke in Microsoft's name finally dies out. People no longer understand its origins and it doesn't make sense anymore. Every company wants to make money, Microsoft makes shit-tons, big deal. It just looks petty at this point, as if people cannot move on.
It won't be because it is not an improvement, it's a regress to Windows 3.0. Full-screen, single window Program Manager.
People will adapt. Nothing stays forever in technology. It doesn't matter if it's an improvement or not - it's important to be able to change your workflow when necessary, otherwise you hang onto outdated methodologies.
Being able to adapt to change is the most important thing in this industry. Standing still is not maintainable.
They are the preventer of progress, destroyer of compatibility. At one point they decided they had destroyed every competing browser vendor, declared their browser "done" and fired the team who produced... IE6.
I don't understand. They didn't stop progress - Firefox and Chrome were developed and went past IE, along with the rest of technology to the point where Microsoft is now caught on the left foot because THEY didn't progress. Compatibility is also their strong point - Windows has a huge amount of legacy software to support, which hence results in a lot of bloat but also compatibility so people don't have to worry too much that their software won't work on a newer version of Windows. It's one of the main selling points of the OS after all.
As for the browser wars, Netscape Communicator was SHIT compared to IE 4, then 5. I remember moving to IE because it was, at the time, the genuinely better browser. When IE 6 stagnated, alternatives appeared and LIFE WENT ON. People treat Microsoft as if they killed their child or something - they only become a problem if you let them.
You're correct that Samsung is the only company that consistently makes a profit with Android. But... it doesn't make any business sense to exclusively focus your entire phone business on a single mobile platform (Windows Phone) that hasn't shown to be particularly popular or profitable to anyone, without having say Android phones as something to fall back on if the gamble doesn't pay off. That to me screams ulterior motives.
Nokia didn't even TRY (as in, never actually put to market an Android phone, not including anything in R&D). If they put in a high-end Android phone with Lumia quality hardware, I'd very, very seriously consider it instead of Samsung. But they didn't fucking try because their ex-Microsoft boss had other ideas. And that's what's so annoying about this business. People using politics instead of common sense.
It's where I get my Java downloads for development as well as end-user runtimes, and they're completely clean and without toolbars. I've given up being snarky to those who complain about the toolbar though - they just need to be educated, which is what this post is for.:)
I also feel like the only geek/nerd/social outcast on Slashdot who doesn't hate Java/Oracle.
This is news for nerds: a new category of consumer device that could really shake things up.
Nerds have been burnt by promises of new devices that were set to make an impact and failed badly. It's not a surprise the response is lackluster - it's a reflex to avoid becoming enthusiastic and investing in something which is probably going to fail anyway. If it works out, THEN we'll become interested.
Slashdot Mirror
Piracy doesn't work for the vast majority of people for the reasons you describe. Yes they're not actually serious problems if you're sufficiently tech literate and experienced, but most people aren't and most people aren't capable of learning (or can't be bothered in the first place).
But as inconvenient as pirating can be at times, I prefer the freedom and control it gives me over straight convenience almost all the time. You're trading a little immediate pain and toil for a better outcome. Heck isn't that the same reason a lot of people go to college in the first place? Delayed satisfaction. Convenience isn't the most important factor (or at least shouldn't be) when making decisions.
So you build a collection of things you might have an interest in. Start downloading them as you find them, so that they're ready once you have an opportunity and excuse to watch them. Heck you don't need terabytes of storage like some of those crazy media hoarders - just enough to keep you occupied during a sick day or when the wife is away for a few days.
It's weird. I used to pirate a lot because of a lack of income - I was a kid but still wanted the movies/games. Later on I started things as I got older and had more disposable income - I wanted to support the creators and "do the right thing", morally as well as legally. But now I'm back to pirating things again not because it's free, but because of all the additional benefits it provides:
(1) I can obtain movies/TV shows in a DRM-free, open(ish) cross-platform format that doesn't require a special, Windows-only player which requires authorization per viewing and lacks functionality compared to other video players of choice.
(2) I can obtain an actual file, period. Something I can store on my own devices and not rely on streaming and Internet access to watch.
(3) In terms of games, I don't have to deal with dodgy DRM schemes, or DRM at all. I can also pick and choose which patches to install once they're released by a scene (so I can use, for example, an older RAGE patch that doesn't lock out most console commands, whereas on Steam you can't downgrade updates once they occur).
At this point in my life it's really, really hard to justify subscribing to these services and buying (or renting as the case generally is) content, because the actual product is generally worse in terms of user control and freedom than what you'd get from TPB.
The only reason I'd stop now would be if there was a real, legitimate way to prove and punish with accuracy everyone who pirated, and it was all but guaranteed that if you pirated you'd get caught. If that were to eventuate, I'd definitely stop... but I wouldn't start buying things either, because there's no motivation to give people what they want apparently.
Any particular reason you're trying to lable me?
Gaming should be about being fun. I like challenges in gaming, but if I'm going to be spending a lot of time grinding before I get a satisfying outcome, I might as well do it in real life. No-one recognizes an achievement in gaming with any level of seriousness, but if you can build a quad-copter with an Arduino and your own flight-control code, well that's much more impressive to show off and makes you feel genuinely proud about something worthwhile.
Games are a make-believe world you spend a few hours in every so often to escape. Nothing wrong with that, but please don't inflate any successes you accomplish in a game to be worth THAT much. Hence, spending time mindlessly grinding in a game doesn't seem like a good effort-to-reward ratio.
Windows XP is definitely a source of nostalgia. I'll miss it for that purpose alone, but I'm happy enough to run Windows 7 without any complaints. It's fortunate Win 7 will still be supported for a long time.
Windows 8, for all its warts, is still Windows. It still has a similar file and directory structure, msconfig, registry, all that jazz.
Fly: What are you trying to tell me? That I can dodge bullets?
Morpheus: No. I'm trying to tell you that when you're ready, you won't have to.
I think what you're trying to say is that people who've had an account for a while and posted regularly enough to be seen, and aren't being dicks, are more likely to be able to say something and have people respond to them. I tend to agree - many a forum I'm posted something I thought was a quality post and sometimes insightful, only for everyone to ignore it and quote dickheads with poor language skills and even worse logic skills.
Having said that, I make a new account here every few months for reasons of anonymity, as well as being able to say my mind which can piss off Slashdotters at times, so burning the bridge is a good way to start fresh. :)
At this stage of my life I can honestly say I don't care about attempts at being different, just for the sake of being different. Execution is far more important. I'd rather a copycat of Windows/OS X which had more features and was overall better and more versatile (GNOME 2), than something which was completely new and hard to establish a comfortable workflow with (GNOME 3 - well, Gnome Shell specifically).
Being different is not a virtue if the outcome is rubbish.
Why is grinding seen as a achievement in games (or at least games like Diablo)? Sounds more like a job than a fun pastime at that point.
Indeed, and I can easily see how Steam's convenience makes it so popular. I just sometimes wonder what how the obsession of convenience will result in a few years time in terms of our rights as consumers.
Which is something I STILL don't understand. GTA V was leaked several days before release and is now available on torrents. On consoles, not the PC! DRM does nothing to prevent copying of games, and only presents obstacles which the user may or may not encounter, but are potential obstacles none the less. But you're right, it's become so much a part of the industry and there's too much money (and greed) at stake to change that. Somehow it was done for music, but movies and games? The DRM-free movement is not strong enough.
Good post all round.
I like you. Posts like yours help prevent me tripping and falling back to my idealistic tendencies which often result in me wasting yet more time on the latest Linux distros, only to find out they still suck for desktop use.
Heh, are you my clone? I'm also a 30 year old married gamer, with a good job (hardware engineer for a defense research organization).
I also game a lot (well, a fair chunk anyway). Sometimes I regret it, knowing that I could be doing more with my life playing with my Raspberry Pi or Arduino or learning a new skill, but it appears that this is normal enough behaviour anyway so I'm not sure why I regret it. But I still keep playing.
But as for the GP yes, they're trollin'.
Fuck moderators. I say the word please, I put a smiley face, and yet some faceless cunt decides to downmod me because they enjoy pissing people off.
So Gabe is learning that Microsoft is planning on walling up and is moving to keep his options open. That's good, that makes business sense. But there's a problem...
Steam has made the concept of a perpetual, one-time rental service palatable. For the vast majority of purchased made on Steam, you don't own your games anymore. Sure you never technically "owned" any of the games, but you know what I mean - you could keep them and back them up, make copies of the installers and whatnot and not rely on a vendor to authorize continual access to the game. But Steam does, and what's worse, people are happy with this. I suppose it's better for a lot of people than to have to deal with buggy disc-based copy-protection checks and what not, but it's still DRM.
The problem with this is that because the majority of people have no problem with this and see no long-term ramifications for this, everyone releases their games on Steam. That's fine, except it becomes the ONLY option to get a lot of games. I cannot get Dishonored DRM-free - it's Steam or bust (or torrents, but that's not financially palatable to developers I suppose). So if I have a problem with Steam's EULA or ToS, I'm basically unable to play the extreme majority of top-tier titles, and only some of the indie titles out there. GoG provides a good alternative, except that they don't cater to Linux users which reduces my interest in them as a long term source of games (I use Windows now, but won't be forever and want to ensure I have an exit strategy).
Of course, in terms of Linux, no-one has made such an impact in getting games on Linux than Valve has with Steam for Linux. However, this in turn might reduce the motivation to make a DRM-free Linux (or Windows) games if Steam is there and us minority fellows aren't worth the trouble. Which saddens me greatly, because it means DRM will never leave us because too many gamers cannot stand on principle, or simply don't care. I'm not going to say my opinion is any more right than anyone elses, so please avoid the flames.
And hairyfeet, don't reply to this. I know you're unable to understand the concept of differing opinions.
Please believe that I say this in the nicest way possible - look at your own post and realize the irony.
And yes I'm aware of the irony of my own post as a response to yours, so no need to point that out. :)
Indeed. There seems to be some idea that it's the dumb, uneducated public who believes piracy is wrong and if they only did some research and opened their minds, they'd change their opinion.
Well I have done my research, lots of it, and weighted the different opinions and positions out there, and I still believe that despite the fucktard behavior of certain companies and organizations, it's still a reasonable concept that if someone is offering a product for some cost, and you are interested in purchasing said product, you should either pay for it. If you cannot, GO WITHOUT. There's plenty of free entertainment and good entertainment out there - it's just the push by the media to ensure you keep spending your money. If you can't, then don't. It's not that hard and it ensure you don't end up a hypocrite.
Some day that might just happen - I wouldn't be surprised if violent video games are eventually outlawed as a last resort to dealing with school shootings.
Unfortunately the Major is right. He appears to sound level headed enough to know that this is probably just a teenager venting, as does everyone, and that's all there is to it. But at the same time he's stuck between a rock and a hard place - given the fucked-up state of the US, if he lets it go and the kid DOES shoot up the place, then things won't turn out well. There's enormous pressure on him to process this by the book because school shootings are such a high-profile issue these days.
Putting myself in his shoes, I think it's a fucked up situation is all, and I hope the charges are dismissed quickly once it's clear that if the kid really wanted to shoot up the school, he'd do it with a gun and not resort to an FPS overlay.
I long for the day the $ joke in Microsoft's name finally dies out. People no longer understand its origins and it doesn't make sense anymore. Every company wants to make money, Microsoft makes shit-tons, big deal. It just looks petty at this point, as if people cannot move on.
People will adapt. Nothing stays forever in technology. It doesn't matter if it's an improvement or not - it's important to be able to change your workflow when necessary, otherwise you hang onto outdated methodologies.
Being able to adapt to change is the most important thing in this industry. Standing still is not maintainable.
I don't understand. They didn't stop progress - Firefox and Chrome were developed and went past IE, along with the rest of technology to the point where Microsoft is now caught on the left foot because THEY didn't progress. Compatibility is also their strong point - Windows has a huge amount of legacy software to support, which hence results in a lot of bloat but also compatibility so people don't have to worry too much that their software won't work on a newer version of Windows. It's one of the main selling points of the OS after all.
As for the browser wars, Netscape Communicator was SHIT compared to IE 4, then 5. I remember moving to IE because it was, at the time, the genuinely better browser. When IE 6 stagnated, alternatives appeared and LIFE WENT ON. People treat Microsoft as if they killed their child or something - they only become a problem if you let them.
You're correct that Samsung is the only company that consistently makes a profit with Android. But... it doesn't make any business sense to exclusively focus your entire phone business on a single mobile platform (Windows Phone) that hasn't shown to be particularly popular or profitable to anyone, without having say Android phones as something to fall back on if the gamble doesn't pay off. That to me screams ulterior motives.
Nokia didn't even TRY (as in, never actually put to market an Android phone, not including anything in R&D). If they put in a high-end Android phone with Lumia quality hardware, I'd very, very seriously consider it instead of Samsung. But they didn't fucking try because their ex-Microsoft boss had other ideas. And that's what's so annoying about this business. People using politics instead of common sense.
I feel like the only geek/nerd/social outcast on Slashdot who's aware of the developer's download page for the JRE/JDK:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html
It's where I get my Java downloads for development as well as end-user runtimes, and they're completely clean and without toolbars. I've given up being snarky to those who complain about the toolbar though - they just need to be educated, which is what this post is for. :)
I also feel like the only geek/nerd/social outcast on Slashdot who doesn't hate Java/Oracle.
Nerds have been burnt by promises of new devices that were set to make an impact and failed badly. It's not a surprise the response is lackluster - it's a reflex to avoid becoming enthusiastic and investing in something which is probably going to fail anyway. If it works out, THEN we'll become interested.