I just spent 20 dollars I don't have on games because I'd rather have the GOG version than anything else.

Plus I will admit some years ago I tried to download black and white because I couldn't find it anywhere, and ended up getting a malicious virus instead resulting in my reformatting the hard drive and losing ALL OF MY MUSIC. Pretty much put me off anything of that sort. Unless whoever owns the game specifically states you can download it for free, such as Arena from Bethesda.

Plus if I was a hacker I could place a small piece of code in the game files that allows me to use your computer to attack other computers.(thanks Comp Sec class!) So your computer might be a zombie.

Which website?


LOL JK. :P

It's nothing new. Abandonware has been around for a very long time and that's not likely to change any time soon.

Those who want to pirate will do so, those who see value in buying will do so.

I've recently bought games here on GOG to replace my abandonware versions. I've even bought games that I already owned physically.

Yeah, but that one bad experience was enough for me.

Actually, a lot of pirate trackers will respond to polite requests from small companies saying stuff like "You know, we're small, we're gamers, and we sell our stuff for minimum profit and with no DRM because we love this stuff so much. Please don't consider this a legal threat, we're just asking you to consider removing the following torrents from your tracker in light of this."

You'd be surprised. A lot of pirates feel like they're "sticking it to the man." When this becomes no longer the case, they would rather not.

Incidentally I know people who claim to shoplift, but only from places like Walmart. They certainly don't do it when I'm around, or I wouldn't hang around any more. It's sort of the same thing, if you ask me (just an opinion).

This. I don't think I have ever downloaded a malicious software through a torrent. Its pretty safe actually, but we're going in the gray zone with this stuff...

... damn, what happened to your rep? :D

I've pirated a lot through my life -- Less and less as time goes by and I can get my own stuff, but go back about 5 years and I was pretty much the king of piracy around. I can still find pretty much anything I want on internet, so I still hang around, although I haven't pirated a game since Mass Effect (Which I admit I pirated due to the secuROM install limit, and eventually bought on steam when EA released it there sans secuROM). I must say I see very little reason to pirate things from GOG -- In my mind, if something isn't worth $5, it simply isn't worth my time overall.
Also, I happen to have enough money nowadays to pay for what I get, so I'd rather just help developers/publishers/whatever than steal from them if I like their software or services. I also tend to get games to give to friends who can't get them themselves, which helps developers a bit more (since the only option my friends generally have is piracy).

I must say I admire GOG for allowing this discussion to go on the forums -- I got permabanned from Steam forums because I mentioned I had found a copy of Arcanum: of Steamworks and Magicka Obscura on a tracker back when GOG did the fake closure thing. Funny thing, I ended up buying the game the following weekend when GOG put it on sale and didn't resort to download it from said tracker. However, the sole mention of it, along with me saying there was no way I could get simon the sorcerer 2 anymore was enough for nice steam admins to permaban me.

So kudos to GOG overall for allowing this discussion. Software piracy is a fact, and making it taboo won't really diminish it, and allowing discussion on it won't really make it any worse, unless people start handing out links.

Now please don't permaban me, I haven't pirated games in ages :P

EDIT: The main reason I wrote this was to state that I had never gotten a virus from a game torrent back in the day when I had one downloading pretty much at all times. I didn't mention it, because I forgot :P

I used to have 5 120GB drives back when 120GB was the most you could get. All of it was shared on the largest scandinavian DC hubs. The largest had a 500GB share limit for acceptance which was pretty hefty considering most computers came with a 60 or 80GB drive. My upload was in the vicinity of 1 TB pr. week, which was A LOT back then.

Now, I find myself buying everything I want (and a good bit of stuff I don't really want). I have about 230 games on Steam, ~140 on GOG, ~60 retail PC titles and ~30 retail PS3 titles. All bought in the space of 4-5 years. That's not counting all the movies and series I have on DVD and Blu-Ray now.

Five years ago I basically had fuck all that wasn't pirated.

What the hell happened?

You grew a conscious, became mature, and obviously got a good job to afford all of that :)

I envy all of those Scandinavian countries, with their bustling economies and incredible beards(though I can hold my own in that area, but technically my Irish kin were raped by vikings, so that blood is in me somewhere and one could argue that's where my beard growing powers come from) Plus you guys have your own race in Morrowind.

THE AGE OF VIKINGS IS UPON US AGAIN!!! FLEE THE COASTLINES!!! (Invaders by Iron Maiden plays)

I would love to see something along the lines of each game adding a small(10x10) icon to the side panel of your posts, with names displayed when you mouseover. It may not stop the pirates much, but it would add incentive to actually buying them, and having a big gog collection would make you a forum legend, muha.

[EDIT] Or maybe a line under your post, taking the signatures place.

Exactly. At least if they pirate the gog versions, they might be tempted to try the service and guarentee no viruses.

Anyone noticed that lots of torrent trackers have been going offline recently? Is the internet quitting on torrents?

Piracy has a cost, it's time and effort. As your time resource dwindles and your cash resource grows piracy makes almost no sense provided you can find what you're looking for retail or used (which apparently is just as evil as piracy I hear).

publishers and developers either need to make All of their software available easily or stop whining about piracy

Everyone pirates System shock 2, why? because its not possible to buy it in this day and age

You can't get it on GoG, you can't get it on Steam - The only way to play the game is to pirate it, I mean I have my boxed version right here close to me but I understand all of the people that dont and this is their only way

The threat of piracy for low priced old titles like here on GOG is not that serious. Probably most people enjoy the buying experience here. You can be sure that the download is okay, that you are on the safe legal side and you can download your games again and again. Probably the last point adds very much to the value of GOG (which GOG itself underestimated when they shut down at the end of beta).

For new titles like Mafia 2, Fall Out Vegas, ..., an occurence on torrents would be much more severe. There are millions of $ lost in a very short time.

I guess there are people who are behaving always morally and others always immorally and then there are people who follow the law as long as the majority does also (probably thats me ... its not high standard I know ). So I vote for at least doing something and try to persecute pirates. This might be difficult to do, but not doing anything is really like an invitation.