Originally Posted by Mrrockitt
I understand it is natural to knock Steam as one of the latest corporate monsters and that it is our duty to hate such organsations because we all like to think we are authority-resenting freedom fighters but I actually think Steam is great. I have also never had any bans or reason to complain about the service in many years of use. Steam is greatly responsible for the massive resurgence of Indie and 'bedroom coders' and as a Kid of the 80's this is wonderful to me! So how can Steam be seen as 'The Man' when they are helping so many small developers who would have no chance of getting published by one of the 'Big Boys' in the industry?

I don't really care what way do I get the game, ie is it GOG, retail or that 'bedroom coder' putting it on their site/torrent and asking for contributions. I have already described the problem with steam's conditions of delivering a game to the player.

Originally Posted by Goldseeker
i personally have no moral problems with copyright infrigement - no one loses anything in the act so no problems. The concept is just too outdated and no longer applicable when making a copy costs nothing. There is no need to restrict copying to have profit, you just have to find other ways. Kickstater is one of them.

This. As I've read somewhere (and of course wholly agree) the concept of 'lost profit' in the context of piracy is wrong from the very foundation. This profit wouldn't occur anyway, as people who have the money to buy the game (of the pirates) tend to patronize game developers, whose products they enjoy, and thats the right way. If they couldn't pirate it they would've never bought the game OR would buy more blindly (provided the lack of demo, quite often nowadays) backing both good and bad developers (more) equally, which is more harmful to the overall quality of product in the industry than the former solution.
Originally Posted by Mrrockitt
What I am talking about and perhaps should have explained more clearly is the harm that piracy does to the smaller compnaies and individuals. Thousands copying the latest blockbuster will do little harm to a massive compnay but thousands copying a game made by an Indie develper cannot possibly encourage them to make more games!

What I wrote above applies equally to the 'smaller compnaies and individuals' too. If it's good - buy it, if not - ignore it.
Originally Posted by Kriss
Pirating to play and get for free with no intention of buying - bad.
Pirating to test and buy if a product is good - justified as long as there is no other way to get a proper demo.

+ this very much. Well put, Kriss wink

Originally Posted by Kriss
I don't get why people don't just make their own boxed copies. Retail isn't profitable at all for developers, not to mention you often times get really badly made boxes, because you need a publisher for physical releases, and they often times have a ton of pointless branding.

Well, while it may sound silly, it's that the box has been designed officially, that many great fans of the game you bought have almost identical boxes, and in the case of self-publishing - it goes straight to you from the devs (at least it has that opportunity).
In other words: From Larian with love wink
The game I bought cost $65 and I probably could've paid yet some more to get the boxed version. While I do understand the profits from retails are (prolly) way smaller than from digitals, seeing how Larian cares for their fans I don't exclude the possibility, that in the future they will still offer some sort of pre-order-(or kickstarter- for that matter)-only boxed version for their most committed fans, and that would make me perfectly happy.

Seek your own truth. Always.