Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Why torrents are not evil imho

Sorry I confused GOG with Origin, for what I hope will be the only time in my life. Origin allows unconditional refunds with 24 hours, GOG is refund within 30 days if there are technical problems that they are unable to solve / game breaking bugs they can't fix/get fixed.

in this thread: people with differing morality.

lol.

seriously though, you do realize that morality is a taught mechanism and your beliefs will generally not line up with the next persons. in a war based society it is taught that to fight and kill is honorable, while in a peaceful society it is considered murdered and the worst thing a person can do.

or closer to home, in a wealthy community it is taught stealing is dirty and wrong, while in a poor community it is taught to do whatever is needed to get by.


anyhow, the thing that mostly gets overlooked with torrents are those people would never have purchased the product in the first place. they dont have the resources to spend 20$ or more on a movie, or 60$ or more on a game. instead they have a basic internet connection and take the risk. people always act like every torrent downloaded is a loss to the producer of the product, but it is hardly the case. only a small fraction is actual losses.

in general if people have the resources to avoid taking a needless risk, then they will not take said risk. people rarely put themselves in harms way on purpose if it can be avoided.

I bet EA's Origin forces you to be online to play the game then.
Sidenote, a curse on EA for misusing Origin's old name for their fail service. -_-



Yeap. No good and evil, no black and white. Just one huge gray blob.

It is theft plain and simple. We seek to justify why theft is ok all the time but that doesn't change what it is or the morality behind it. The fact that we justify it is why theft is so rampant. The fact that you pat your self on the back because you ended up buying the game doesn't change the general situation that the vast majority of 'stolen' games are not later purchased.
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I will be the first to admit that many 'laws' are stupid (beyond stupid). However I think this one is quite straight forward. So ask yourself while you did pay for this game - how many games did you download over torent; play, enjoyoed and then found a reason to not buy at full price.

This thread should be moved to general discussion.

This thread is rather pointless anyway, you are only supposed to pirate Bethesda's and Ubisoft's games and nothing else, everyone knows that. ^^

^Hahaha. I think we can agree to disagree on this one, I guess

Honestly don't know, my comp is online pretty much all the time anyway.

As to your other point, couldn't agree more. Origin deserves something better than to become the name of a game service.



You forgot EA too.

Thanks to all who have replied to this thread. It seems it has generated some interesting feedback.
My initial intention was to, in a rather obscure way, show to the devs that they were right in their decision to not have highly restrictive DRM applied to DOS.
I did not post this to start a right vs wrong/legal vs illegal debate.

I know what I did was illegal but so what...you gonna send the internet police to arrest me?
I think not. So lets get off that high horse and face reality for a moment.

Game piracy is common place in this day and age. Where piracy hurts is that the devs/publishers/etc, don't get any money for their work.

But where does it hurt anyone, when a person decides to buy a game they originally pirated?
If it wasn't for the fact that I pirated this game and tried it first, then I simply would not have ever bought it.
It is only theft if I don't pay for it.

I feel that I have done nothing wrong at all to Larian or their workers. The game is fantastic and fully deserves my money, which they now have.

Oh and meme, in regards to your question "how many games did you download over torent; play, enjoyed and then found a reason to not buy at full price."
Well, in all honesty I cant think of a single one. If I torrent a game and like the game and it plays well on my pc, I buy it. So boohoo to you.

Well, the only experience I've had with this kind of stuff is downloading ROM's for a virtual gameboy and some MP3's off of Limewire. And I haven't done either in years.

The GB ROM's actually got me to buy several games. The music MP3 generally didn't help much as I only downloaded music that I just couldn't find to buy anywhere, older music usually.

For games, yeah I much prefer demos. DA2's demo saved me $50. Without demos it's non-professional reviews and Let's Play vids on YouTube. If you can't tell if you like a game from that then you just aren't trying hard enough.

Now as far as knowing whether or not your PC can play the game ... well that is different. There are some programs you can run (some free) that will basically 'test' your gaming PC and let you know what are you lacking. I had just upgraded mine a year ago so it would play Skyrim fully maxed out with HD textures, so I wasn't really worried about this game. My brother however has an old PC that's been having problems running WOW and other older games, but he doesn't have much problem with this game. So overall this game is not very demanding, plus if you get the game setting set right it makes things even smoother.

But, as a final note, I have to say that you really shouldn't acquire anything you know is being done illegally, whether you know you'll get away with it or not.

Most of the times, the library was my middle man for that

Anyho... Torrents, warez & the likes are only shunned by the big businesses - and then purposely gave it the derigatory name of piracy.

Real piracy is about raiding a warehouse, shop or shipment of physical copies and then selling it. (And then burrying your loot, drawing a sketchy map how to find it and loosing that map).

Torrents etc. are more akin to a library with an unlimited photocopying machine. Most people download the product, try it out and then either ditch it or support it. And support can come in more ways than just buying the product. Do you know how much an advertising campaign costs? Well, people who are happy with a product are sure to put in a good word - and the advise of a person you know outweighs the empty words of a shiny commercial.

And let me put that library analogy even further. There's a ton of games out there that are just magnificent, but because the original company got busted, are not available on the market - also known as abandonware. If it wouldn't be for the likes of torrents, those things would've died an unkown death... but they won't, because the internet remembers. Same goes for series etc... Heck, even Triumph Studio's "Age of Wonders" was at a certain moment abandonware (though I don't remember the exact reason) but now they're back in business.

I personally used it most for being able to play games that I had purchased at a certain moment in time, but my physical copy got either stolen or it deteriorated (funny how cd's don't seem to last longer than 5 years). Honestly, I don't see the need to repurchase something, unless I'm a real hardcore fan of something & I just can't bother to wait out the download time. Divine Divinity, Temple of Elemental Evil & Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magica Obscura are typical examples for me where I have at least 2 boxes and 1 digital version

Anyhow, the "Borrow & Copy" tactic in the gamerscene is as old as the streets, and for me stands on the same level as when we used to copy an album on cassette. You didn't see the industry making a big fuss about that either...

I admire your roundabout but seemingly heartfelt way of apologising to Larian devs and their hungry children <straight face> stubbie even though the guilt was gnawing away by the sound of it, victimless crime and so on. Take care what you download though mate, and remember that consoles are The Man's answer to PCs and their freedom to get at what you want when you want it

Interesting thread. Let me add to it. I had never heard about Larian - and very likely I might never have - if I had not stumbled over Dragon Knight Saga on Usenet a couple of years ago. I do not visit Game Stores, as I do not care about console games and I don't hang out on gaming sites a lot.

I installed DKS and was awed. Within a week, I bought the game.

In total, I have bought from Larian:

- Dragon Knight Saga
- Divine Divinity
- Dragon Commander (bought pre-release)
- Divinity Original Sin (Kickstarter Backer)

So I guess that there is a balance between the bad (pirates that never pay for games) and the good (people that learn about games that way and buy what they actually play). So torrents and Usenet can be free advertising for the game studios. I guess that Larian may see it in a similar way, which would explain their opposition to DRM. (D:OS does not have it, even on Steam. Dragon Commander was available without it, DKS had it removed as soon as Larian was allowed to severe ties with the publisher).

Even pirates fall into two groups: those who would not buy or could not afford to buy the game in any case (no real damage done to the studios) and those who refuse to pay for something they enjoy and could afford to buy. The latter is morally unacceptable, IMHO and damages the game developers.


BTW: I buy every game I play, but I buy blindly only where I trust the game's developers (i.e. D:OS, Elite Dangerous, Star Citizen or Larian after Dragon Knight Saga).