True, but I've never heard a Japanese or Korean person claim that their connection is standard. Not that I come into contact with them much.

Theodis wrote:

You can still play it just takes longer to start in the same way you'd experiance more loading time if you're running a game off a CD Drive because you can't afford a harddrive big enough to store the whole game on.

Running the game off a CD drive is different; it adds maybe 30 seconds at the most to the startup time. It's mildly annoying, but I can take the opportunity to go and get a drink or something.

Compare that with waiting 12 hours for it download, AND having to give money to the ISP to pay for downloading it.

Well security cameras won't stop everyone from shoplifting so why bother? The protection doesn't prevent piracy altogether but reduces it.

Cameras are different; they allow for personal identification. However good Valve's copy-protection-via-Steam system is, I doubt that it can take your photo or get your real name. =)

In other words, it's only a deterrent if there's a large perceived chance of getting caught. Cameras are good deterrents because there could be someone watching you, and you wouldn't know. Copy protection is a terrible deterrent, because the worst-case scenario is not being able to play the game.

Running the game off a CD drive is different; it adds maybe 30 seconds at the most to the startup time. It's mildly annoying, but I can take the opportunity to go and get a drink or something.

Ahh but that's 30 seconds each and everytime you load and generally thats more than once per game depending on the game whereas the download is a one time thing atleast until the next patch. You could always leave you connection on over night. I have myself downloaded several 300+MB files on a 56k connection. It's not fast but it certainly isn't infeasable or worth whining about.

Compare that with waiting 12 hours for it download, AND having to give money to the ISP to pay for downloading it.

Likewise you have to pay for that harddrive to store your game on to reduce loading times. My analogy works fine :P.

Cameras are different; they allow for personal identification. However good Valve's copy-protection-via-Steam system is, I doubt that it can take your photo or get your real name. =)

Just wait. In a few decades you may have to have your retina scanned and the analysis sent to some verification server before it sends back the decrptyion algorithm :P.

Copy protection is a terrible deterrent, because the worst-case scenario is not being able to play the game.

It still prevents people from simply installing the game on another machine easily and without a steam account that validly owns a copy of the game you can't easily update. It's not a good deterent but it still reduces the piracy as I'm sure there is a large amount of the player base that isn't computer savey enough to get around it.

Theodis wrote:

Ahh but that's 30 seconds each and everytime you load and generally thats more than once per game depending on the game whereas the download is a one time thing atleast until the next patch.

True.

You could always leave you connection on over night.

Then I wouldn't be able to sleep. My computer is in my room, and its fans are very loud.

I have myself downloaded several 300+MB files on a 56k connection. It's not fast but it certainly isn't infeasable or worth whining about.

I'm not whining, I'm just saying why I don't like it. Difference. =P

Likewise you have to pay for that harddrive to store your game on to reduce loading times. My analogy works fine :P.

But I have the hard drive anyway. If I run out of room I just delete something. I would incur extra fees for downloading large files, however.

Just wait. In a few decades you may have to have your retina scanned and the analysis sent to some verification server before it sends back the decrptyion algorithm :P.

Yeah, and then we'll all get barcodes tattooed on our foreheads...

No thanks.

It still prevents people from simply installing the game on another machine easily and without a steam account that validly owns a copy of the game you can't easily update. It's not a good deterent but it still reduces the piracy as I'm sure there is a large amount of the player base that isn't computer savey enough to get around it.

And in the meantime it inconveniences everyone.

Theodis wrote:

I wasn't refering to your machince but as part of the analogy a computer that would need a new harddrive. Like my old laptop for instance which physically couldn't possibly hold a full installation of Balder's Gate so I was forced into playing off the CD. In that case I would have had to somehow get a larger harddrive which would cost a whole lot of money as laptops aren't very modular.

BG's installation size was way too big for the time. I didn't like that about it either. (Well, BG2. I never played BG1.) Luckily it didn't stop me from playing, but I would have felt annoyed if it had.

As does every copy protection scheme unfortunantly with all the unethical shmoes its pretty much a necessity :P.

Personally I wouldn't bother putting extensive copy protection on a game I'd made. If someone is determined to pirate a game, then copy protection won't stop them; and if it did, they most likely wouldn't buy it anyway. Instead, I'd spend the time on making my game better.

Sure, the game would get pirated, but it'd get pirated anyway. I'd rather have a great game with little to no copy protection rather than a good game with heaps of copy protection.

Personally I wouldn't bother putting extensive copy protection on a game I'd made. If someone is determined to pirate a game, then copy protection won't stop them; and if it did, they most likely wouldn't buy it anyway. Instead, I'd spend the time on making my game better.

If they liked the game and couldn't pirate it odds are they will buy it if they can. However if you plan to release a game without copy protection you better have the money to publish it yourself as generally it's the publishers that impose the copy protection schemes on the developers.

Sure, the game would get pirated, but it'd get pirated anyway. I'd rather have a great game with little to no copy protection rather than a good game with heaps of copy protection.

I would too from a player standpoint but I'm not going to go broke by not having any kind of protection in a game I'm going to sell. Companies do go broke because of it.

They're not trying to force their standards on me, so I don't worry about them (the standards, I mean). I don't care about consoles anyway. =P

You arne't being forced to go by the US standards either as you aren't being forced to buy them anymore than the japanese ones. You could spend a lot of money and go out of your way to get the japanese junk.

Besides, I can't speak Korean, and I can't speak Japanese nearly well enough to play a Japanese game.

And apparently you don't have the bandwidth for a US one :P.

Theodis wrote:

True, but I've never heard a Japanese or Korean person claim that their connection is standard. Not that I come into contact with them much.

Yes but then again you don't have to worry about their standards as they don't bother to release as much outside Japan. Many of the peripherials for console systems never make it to the US along with any software that requires them.

And THEN we brits get NOTHING further down the line...

Theodis wrote:

And THEN we brits get NOTHING further down the line...

Meh I had to order Spellforce from the UK since they don't sell the expansion in the US and I don't think even plan to. I also had to get the UK version of Sacred becuase the US one was crippled so they could get a T rating over here. Apparently over in Europe blood is actually acceptable for teens to see :P. Luckily for me the British speak a somewhat understandable language.

Hm. I suppose you are right in these respects.

The problem is, (*cough NINTENDO cough*) is that their headquarters are based in Germany.
So before they can release games over here, they need to translate into most languages in Europe.
So we have to wait for them to translate an entire game into German, French, Polish, Spanish, Swedish...you know the deal. The list goes on.

Y'know we had to wait around 6 months to get Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker?
And 3 months for Metroid Prime?

And we had to wait a whopping YEAR (Year) to get Animal Crossing.

Games magazines here often joke about this fact (the ones that don't get their wages paid by Nintendo, anyway);
NGC, my favourite mag, had spoofed Shigsy's (Miamoto) christmas list- and how he had been told to find the place called "Yurop" and increase the market there.

Seriously. We get nothing. At all. We're lost and forgotten.

*SEND AID! All donations will be sent to Save Elation, the little-known charity*


(Ack, I ripped off Faulty Towers. Bad Me.)