StarCraft 2 Pirated More Than 2.3M Times

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Cause pirates don't steal, they plunder and sail the sea's.


<Waits for exhaustive argument on how plundering is the same thing as stealing>
 
[citation][nom]dalta centauri[/nom]Cause pirates don't steal, they plunder and sail the sea's.[/citation]

Yeah, if there were still 2.3 million pirates in the world we wouldn't have global warming!
 
[citation][nom]darkavenger123[/nom]Blizzard deserves what's coming to them. Ripping off fans with a an average game that doesn't improve much upon the original, took away the LAN and milk the cow to the max by releasing it as 3 Episodes.Blizzard is the real pirate here trying to rob loyal fans!!!What goes around comes around. Karma Police has just arrested Blizzard.[/citation]

Dude, relax, its...a...video...game. Now, I'm not crazy about this three installments deal, but in all reality I could really care less about SC. The campaign was awesome, no doubt, and it does over the highest quality strategy, but it is what it is. You're probably comparing the campaign in SC to SCII, which is why you feel "ripped off" (but remember, it's your money, let it do the talking, but don't come in here with all this self-pity that you can't afford these games, over a three year+ period OMGZ 60*3=180!1!. OMGZ housz costz me $300,000 lets go pirate itz instead!)
 
[citation][nom]nukem950[/nom]I hate pirating. It gives companies the excuse of doing dumb things. I have a legal copy. I am a college student in college housing. The internet speed is terrible. I wish I could just play a LAN game with my friends(who also have a legal copy).[/citation]
Truth be told, blizzards torrent client is crap. It is much easier to just download the game using a proper torrent client, and then use the "cd-key" they provide when you buy the title. Blizz doesn't care how you've gotten the game data, so long as you've actually bought the cd-key from them.
 
[citation][nom]Bluescreendeath[/nom]Props to Blizzard for sh*tty DRM and taking away LAN...not that it did them any damn good. Those who want to pirate games will always be able to find a way...adding internet-DRM only makes it harder for legit owners.[/citation]
You can play the game offline any time after the one time activation...
 
[citation][nom]TheCapulet[/nom]Almost no one offers legitimate demos anymore. Who the hell wants to drop 60 bucks without even knowing if the game is any good, or will even run on your system? I frequently 'demo' games. If I like them, I buy them, and most of the time just leave the current install and input the key. If I don't, I just uninstall the game after the couple hours it took to come to that conclusion. I'm willing to bet that if publishers provided demos like days gone by, it would take a considerable chunk out of piracy numbers.Mafia II? Downloaded, liked it, bought the game. Civ 5? Downloaded it, liked it, bought the game. Black Ops? Downloaded it, got awful performance compared to other more demanding CoD titles, realized that the PC version's code was trash, and uninstalled it. (Crossfire 4890's. If that can't do it, even with .ini tweaks, nothing will) Developers don't push out demos anymore primarily because demoing a crappy port will almost always result in a lost sale. The gaming community (or at least a lot) replaced demos with torrents to avoid getting duped into buying a shitty game.[/citation]

You make it sound like it is the great unknown or something.

You can read reviews, watch gameplay footage, read forum posts about it, etc, etc.

But nope, instead you legitimise downloading 14 gigs, getting all the cracks, just to "try it out". You must be one of maybe 6 people in the world who does that and then actually buys the game afterwards.

 
I think this is funny. If you install a guest pass (8 hours of free online play) you can access the single player offline forever after that.

If you pirate the game, you can play single player.

Thats all that the pirate versions do so far. Let me say that again : If you pirate the game, you can play single player.

Blizzard has actually won a little war vs pirates with this game. You can not do anything with sc2 that you can not already do for free by pirating. There is no pirated lan version going around and there is no pirated bnet server. All you get is single player without bnet (so no achievements) when you either pirate or do the free trial pass option.

I think its pretty fair to say that Blizzard intended the game to cost money to play online and with bnet features. They give the game away at the basic level for offline single player.

There is also a huge part of the 2+ million number who just used torrents to get the game data because the blizzard downloader has been very slow at times. Pirated 2.3 million times should be written as Torrented 2.3 million times.
 
[citation][nom]Bluescreendeath[/nom]Props to Blizzard for sh*tty DRM and taking away LAN...not that it did them any damn good. Those who want to pirate games will always be able to find a way...adding internet-DRM only makes it harder for legit owners.[/citation]

What DRM? what on earth are you talking about? I have the game, I just log on and play and it was easy to install.

Its just like logging into World of Warcraft

Its as simple as logging into this website to post.

But.. you gotta pay... obviously not a part of the deal you like. Still, if its some commiseration you can pirate starcraft 1 and play that on LAN.
 
[citation][nom]waynewarrior78[/nom]I really can not stand the argument that "Ill pirate it and then Ill pay for it if I like it!" That is horse crap. I cant go to 711, steal a coke, drink half of it, then decide to go back in and pay for it.[/citation]

Until you have a Star Trek replicator and can create your own COPY of the coke can Please stop comparing real-world goods with digital ones.
 
The sad thing about this is that people will make all the wrong assumptions.

2.3M downloads does not mean 2.3 installs.
2.3M installs does not mean 2.3M lost sales - which is what the DRM mob would like us to believe.

They will say "we need better protection!" and they will run to the legislators to beg for ever-more intrusive laws, then tie themselves up in knots trying to dream up copy-protection schemes that piss of legitimate users, slow down large-scale piracy not at all and give the crackers a little light entertainment for the few hours or days it will take them to break the protection.

I can only speak for myself, I have not purchased this game, nor have I pirated it (or any other game). I will not buy this game at $99, or at $49. I will think about it at $25, and probably bite at about $20. I'll probably buy a legit used copy - eventually.

On an individual level, piracy is not theft, it is a form of pushback. The DRM/Protection mob would do well to realize this.

But they probably won't.
 
[citation][nom]nukem950[/nom]I hate pirating. It gives companies the excuse of doing dumb things. I have a legal copy. I am a college student in college housing. The internet speed is terrible. I wish I could just play a LAN game with my friends(who also have a legal copy).[/citation]

I bought the CE, don't own a CD/DVD/BR drive. Bliz's torrent was slow as shit, so you can bet I "pirated" my copy.
 
[citation][nom]TheCapulet[/nom]This is activision/blizzard we're talking about here. CoD4, WaW, MW2, and all WoW games are ALL still at release prices, and haven't seen specials since released, as far as I known. Don't get your hopes up.[/citation]

Pretty Sure WoW + BC Didn't Release at $30 for both.
 
[citation][nom]rhino13[/nom]My goodness! I think you are a member of a dying PC faction that doesn't belive that they are entitled to steal other people's hard work.[/citation]

There are more of us out there than you realize.

And an awful lot of the rest are not lost sales.
 
Hmmm .... I think a whole lot of you are full of it. The anti piracy crusaders make me chuckle. Piracy and games have been going on since games began. Yet we have a MASSIVE video game market. The gaming market is so utterly successful it boggles the mind. Is it successful enough to support a half dozen MEGA companies billionaire dreams? That I do not know. I do know this, I am a typical gamer amongst my friends. We are all 30 somethings with kids, most of us hold down good IT jobs. We typically purchase 8 to 15 games a year. We also pirate a similar number. I can tell you from experience, the pirated games tend to sit and not get played. Why?? Well if we really wanted the game we would have done our research and bought it. We really just pirate games mostly to have the games in our collection. Besides, for the most part, pirated games are a HUGE pain in the ass to actually play. Easy to download, often hard to get working.

Anyway ... just my .02.
 
So, let's see here. Blizzard removes LAN play because it will "encourage piracy". So, it gets pirated anyway (and breaks a piracy record, too) and they lose a significant chunk of money from frustrated PC gamers like myself who hate depending on Battle.net for multi-player. Way to go Blizzard !!! It sounds like your plan worked
 
I pirate games for several reasons. The main one being the number of times I've bought games that were bad, buggy, and/or incompatible with my hardware, coupled with the inability to return it once the package has been opened. For example, I bought a move controller and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 for the PS3, only to find that it doesn't work left-handed. In total, I wasted almost $150. I spent $50ish on Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion only to find my save games hopelessly corrupted, with no clues as to how to prevent older saves from corrupting again.

In most cases, I'll download a game in order to find out a) Whether it's buggy or incompatible, b) a good game or not, and c) how much DRM it's utilizing. Anything using secuROM is an automatic "Will never purchase". If it works without crashing every 5 minutes, isn't a decent, enjoyable game, and employs only modest DRM, I will go out and purchase it.
Click to expand...

if you buy games when they first come out then yes you will get a buggy game. I bought Oblivion Iv 4 $10 via steam and I didn't torrent. Either wait for the game to be stable, check out forums to see if it is compatible with your hardware or wait awhile for the price drop.
 
Just because you have downloaded the title from a torrent, doesn't mean you are pirating the game, I have done it myself many times to down load the game, as it is much faster than downloading directly from blizzard and its sub par torrent feature. Problem with blizzard direct download is their is only one seeder, Blizzard, after you have finished downloading, it kicks you off from sharing, which leads to a slow Download experience. The only problem with the torrent is most of the SC2 ISO's online are for the EU version, and that won't work my US bnet account.
 
I gave up paying for DRM crippled software after I bought GTA IV. You can't just play the game, you have to sign up for a 'Games for windows live' account. I have stopped playing it because of all the hassle involved in just getting into the game. Soooo, why should I waste my money when I can have a similarly cumbersome experience for free? I feel no remorse in torrenting shitty software that treats even paying customers like pirates. At least then it makes sense to be treated that way.
 
I wonder how many of these downloads were used with legitimate product codes, I imagine some people opted for a digital copy, but their Download speed was too low, so they used a torrent service instead.
 
who cares, the best of sc2 is in the custom maps and community online.

People who pirate it might do it before they buy it so they can play online.
 
[citation][nom]waynewarrior78[/nom]I really can not stand the argument that "Ill pirate it and then Ill pay for it if I like it!" That is horse crap. I cant go to 711, steal a coke, drink half of it, then decide to go back in and pay for it. However, the biggest problem facing gaming is not piracy. (off topic sorry) Its the countless idiots that continue to buy the same F*#&# game twice a year. Madden, COD, MOH.....all of those games simply tell gaming makers to screw off quality and ingenuity and just rehash the same crap over and over again.*steps off soap box*[/citation]

Thats why we pirate you d*** *****. BTW I bought SC2 for the MP.
 
All arguments trying to justify pirating software are asinine. I've been there, and have plenty of friends who have as well, and each of us, you all included, knows it at some level. Piracy is stealing, except it's stealing from the comfort of your own home with a near certainty of never getting caught. Makes it easy, but most certainly does not make it ok.

Try to put yourselves in the shoes of a programmer, designer, etc. of a game studio, where you have to listen to people try to convince you why it's ok for them to steal the thing you've put the last 3 years of your life into. It's ok because you busted your ass to make a GOOD game, and since it made a profit anyways you should STFU: they don't have to pay you.

Now gear up to spend the next 3 years of your life working overtime to spit out something else so they can steal it. In counter to the popupar "and people wonder why we pirate ____" I say, and you wonder why game company's produce shitty/buggy software. Hard to continuously care about the quality of your work when it just gets stolen.

But hey, by not fully supporting the games you actually enjoy, you fuel the gaming market that doesn't care about sales! Oh yes, we are ushering in the era of farmville type games. We are all very much dictating the direction of the industry with our pocketbook, or the lack thereof. But maybe that's the direction computer gaming needs to go, and consoles will be the future of purchase gaming.

At the end of the day though, if you want something someone else has worked to provide to you, compensate them. How you act when there's no repercussions speaks volumes.
 
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