lol ... it's people like me who go around making sure users can't play games
The company I work at, has a no games policy nowdays, so if we can't play, we make sure no-one else can

Isn't that a bit, ya know, selfish?

Well, yes, but no....

We have to enforce the policies, otherwise our boss is on our case...
It's just fun finding illegal software and games loaded on users machines and removing them quietly
It's also quite fun trying to figure out how they got them there and working in the first place, as we have certain measures in place to prevent it...but as you know, people find ways

Is there a way to suppress games that are installed on a stick? I know at my Hilite, all games have been removed from the computers and internet filters prevent an enjoyable web-surfing experience (and stop engineers from doing their jobs). However, I was able to install "Dilbert's Desktop Games", "Quake III", and "Interactive Buddy" on my stick, plug it into a computer at work, and play the games (Only to see if I could, then I got back to work).

This is what keeps piracy vs. legality wars going forever, people always find new ways to prevent piracy and shortly after the pirates find counter-measures.

mmm....
depends if the game needs the user to be an admin on the pc or not...but I suspect "portable" games and apps like that won't need to be....
if you're using an enterprise managed anti-virus, you could add it to the "un-wanted" programs...but that's a lot of admin to manage....

It's sad to block games on a computer, even at work ! It sounds like some kind of revenge, isn't it ? lol

At least, web based games should be authorized, you know, just in case (and it always happen at work) of not having things to do and avoid getting bored

Bjossi wrote:


It's sad because it's what lead programmers to create Starfoce
Blocking even real copies of the game

I wonder if that piracy war will find an end one day ? Either because the protection will be too hard to pass or because programmers will lack of ideas to protect the game even more.

In the end, those protections are useless because the pirates found a way to copy the game, they just annoy the legit consumer

Piracy will never end.

In South Africa, the biggest cause of piracy is the cost of games. If you take the exchange rate of the currencies, then all the duties and fee's the importers add on, it makes games VERY expensive here.
This makes services like Steam and Direct2Drive very nice here, because you get the game at a decent price (only the exchange rate to worry about) and you also get the benifits of specials. But then our bandwidth is very expensive...

People like myself who have access to decent bandwidth can afford to buy games using services like this, but the average South African just cannot afford a game off the shelf on a regular basis, thus it's much easier to lay your hands on pirated stuff.

We have a MAJOR piracy issue here with movie DVD's, and the suppliers just don't want to listen, so whilst the police make bigger and more busts, the pirates are just getting more and more...

Well, in Europe games are quite expensive too...

When you see the prices which range between 50 and 70€ (to make a reference to the united state dollar it makes 79 to 111$) for a game, it's quite unbelievable... Especially if that game has less than 40hours of gameplay (the VAT, value added tax, is part of this too, add 21% to the basic price and you have the price of the product... I know a lot of poeple outside europe don't understand the VAT)

For a DVD prices are about the same has game prices but you see more and more cheap low quality DVD coming on the market. Blue Ray Disc (and machines needed to read them) are much more (too) expensive, so right now, it has no real success here.

So well, I understand poeple who pirate games when you seen those price ! (though I'm not a pirate)
I think it's a phenomenon that will stop when shops will understand they must stop selling games at a so high price. (Praise Direct2Drive)

And the wages in Europe are quite low too, between 1000 and 1300€ (1,575.02 USD and 2,047.53 USD) with only this, it's really hard to live once you have removed the taxes, the rent, what you need for food, gasoline which is horribly expensive... (Lowest rent is about 600€ - 944.973 USD)

Luckily for us, the € is really high now but all this stay expensive.

If the situation in South Africa is about the same, I say I do really understand what you mean

It's even worse for us in England. All our stuff is more expensive than that in Europe. Games here are about £40 on average ($80). All the rest is much more. I think petrol is about 104p per litre ($7.92 per short gallon) and PS3 is about £300 ($600).

Despite this, I don't think piracy is as widespread here as it could be

I think that the PS3 is still around $600 here in the U.S.

400 dollars here from what i understand... why get that when you can get an Xbox 360!!!!

Well, I'd love to start making custom content for my game, but it just looks so complicated, but all i need to practice and motivation... I hope someday to make a game called "The Legend of Link-117: The Universal Warrior" well now u guys know why i'm Link-117 lol, it's part of my imagination it's also responsible for making The Water and Lava Temple, a map i made in ut2004.... its HUGE... and u might of guessed, i got the suit and the name from zelda and halo XD but its really cool stuff!

The PS3 and games are similarly expensive here. But the gas prices are far beyond what you have probably ever seen; around £1/liter.

Eat Uranium wrote:


Well, maybe you don't see it but Piracy must be widespread with so high prices.
I don't think England is an exception with high price and average wage, you fall into it faster than you think.

If you know a bit how computer works and have access to internet, it's really easy and fast to go into piracy.
(I won't say how to do it without efforts but I'm sure you all know what I mean)

Belgium is a really small country and there's pirates everywhere

Even for petrol, I remember one of the petrol station in my city had some problems, so you could get "free gasoline" just by jumping on the pipe.

So for about 10 days, you could see poeple jumping on the pipe to avoid paying LOL
10 days to notice the pump had a problem, I'm sure the owner lost a lot of money.
That story always makes me laugh but it's sad indeed !

After this story, who will try to jump on the pipe while getting gasoline LOL !

What I meant is that piracy is less visable. I'm sure it happens alot, but there are few times and places people can get away with selling the stuff in public. I'm sure there are thousands of Delboys out there, you just don't notice them until you want them.

People will always try to save money, thats why pirate DVDs and games can be sold - if real ones were cheaper, the pirates would go out of buisiness very quickly.

Dellboys ?

indeed people always want to save money but since the game developers and so on need to live of their wages i don't see a price drop happening soon.
so piracy will undoubtably last for eternity

You have to watch Only Fools and Horses to understand. One of the best sitcoms ever made.

Its about a duo of brothers in south London who dodgy deal in stolen and broken merchandise.

What pirates fail to understand is that the reason they have something to illegally download in the first place is the legal buyers who keep the industry alive.

Money is what keeps human civilization going.

Let's make a world without money

Instead we should find another kind of compensation to keep poeple working !

Isn't it a bit like that in star trek ? I remember a scene in star trek 4 (when they come back in the 20th century to save a whale), where the enterprise's crew criticize terrians for using money or something like that... they say it's rustic or so...

Well, I like star trek, but I'm not a huge fan, so I wouldn't be able to tell exactly what they say about money (so, sorry to all star trek fans here if any )