Every noticed that people seem to only have two states when they look at something new?

1) Wow! It works! Its awesome. This is the best thing ever!

2) FFS this is sh*t you stole my F*cking money you F*cking B*ast*rds.

and you wanna know the best bit? state two is normally induced by the user not following the instructions.

I always wonder how many people who complain about things like Impulse are blissfully unaware that most web browsers, including Internet Explorer, won't download anything larger than 2GB.

It's not like there's some magic alternative to having an Impulse-like download manager these days. Increasingly, games are larger than 2GB and thus, the requirement for a download manager ala Impulse.

Introduction

Piracy will always exist. If someone can get something for free they will.

I think the problem is mainly down to the price and quality of current games. £40-50 for one new Xbox 360 game, most of which are full of bugs and charge ludicrous amounts of money for downloadable content that 90% of the time is on the disc. People can't justify spending that sort of money on a single game.

Sins and Cost

I tried the demo for Sins liked it, downloaded Impulse, put my card details in and downloaded the full game at my line speed in about 10 minutes. Because I paid for it I'm entitled to join the fantastic community, receive excellent ongoing support by the developers in the form of more downloadable content and frequent patches. I also get to play online something pirates can't do as they don't have a valid CD key.

Sins - £20.00
Entrenchment - £5

Thats £25 for a full game, the first expansion and frequent updates to improve the game. If Ironclad continues the pricing scheme for the next two expansions i'll have spent £35 for the game and all three expansions. The only thing I was slightly disappointed when I brought the game was that it cost another £10-15 for shipping to have a physical copy of the disc sent to me. This is because I live in England not America. Thats another story though.

Impulse

There is nothing wrong with Impulse so people using that as an excuse, it's not washing with me.

- You don't need to run it to boot the game.

- It doesn't install any third party software, rootkits or spyware.

- Low memory usage and fast start up.

- Checks for updates to all my products as soon as I sign in.

- Links my CD keys to my profile so I can't lose them.

And for the people who are complaing about it needing IE7, you should update your PC, the internet is a dangerous place for little Timmy and his Vanilla XP.

For europa, it will be more... simply the BTW ( TVA taxe on the added value ) can be 11% in some country, 6% in other but in mine, it is 21%... add the share of the distributor, the share of the game shop, etc... You will be fast around 40 euro... yes, i wrote euro, not $$$...

But when you are a fan, you don't care so much for a few euro more... if  am bitching in these topic, it is because i wish really Entrenchment... yes, i have found a pirated version and already remove it because it don't allow me to play online...

Trust your product... same more expensive that the online version some people ( not all ) will buy the boxed version... not everybody is wishing wait years for a boxed release of the 3 expension... sure, pirate version exist but it is not the same... and very few of these using pirate version are real fan and will buy a boxed release who go out a few year after the first official release...

Maybe i will reinstall later the pirate version of Entrenchment... not for game but for test my model since i make models for various mod... and same so, pirate upgrade come one or two month after the official release... so, your release strategie will soon of later create problem in my real hobby who is modeling for sins... if i cannot more work on mod, 50% of the fun ( for me ) is already away...

I understand your point of view... you are not wrong... financial risk is not a option for a little business like you... my comment are mainly because i am a fan who is pissed off that he is not able to have what he will today...

Hehe, I'd buy a bumper sticker...  "I break for battlecruisers".... *LOL*

For the poster, it is already possible... with the collector edition... 29.95$ for the game + a audio CD + artworks posters + etc... it is why i have ask in a previous post if the collector edition is planned to be released by Calypso... It is really the perfect gift for friend ( or girlfriend )...

I have notice this to I thought for sure this get ugly and get locked out but this is a good topic and will use this as referance anytime I see something else of the same nature come up.

easly one can agrue how if you download a game you could be the resion why they  cance there next game.

I know the encomy is bad and  i see it first hand my Parents own there own business and I and they tell me they havent really been able to take a paycheck for the last 7-8 months so yes I know the econmy is bad all the more resion to do your part and spend...ok ill stop there

I happy I went back and bought this game its one of the few thats givin me hope that the future of gaming isnt going to suck.

and Ill just quote my self to  push the idea again ahah

If you're going to read and respond to what I wrote I kindly ask you to read it in its entirety and respond to the spirit of it and not just use it as an excuse to put someone down anonymously.  It is achingly clear that a standalone app is one that is dependent upon the code written within the actual application as opposed to  an interpreted language or to another application. To say that there's no such thing as a stand alone applcation is foolhardy since - despite the fact that nearly every app requires an OS it doesn't mean that it is inherently dependent upon an optional and non-integral part of it. Regardless - you and everyone else on the forum knew exactly what it is that I meant. IE7 is not a necessary part of the operating system and is not - despite your claims - part of an initial install (depending upon the disc you received and its manufacturing date and which if any service pack is included - mine with sp2 did not) No one is talking about Direct X or anything else. You're being willfully obtuse and pedantic for no other reason than to go "nyah nyah" and play internet tough guy.  IE isn't necessary to run most applications or really for much of anything else - a completely different situation from java or .net or gtk or whatnot. I would ask you next time to actually have something to say before going ahead and saying it.

Count yourself lucky? Gee thanks Dad! Steve Ballmer's got nothing on you. Cripes. Now here is my point again so that you actually follow - it's an annoyance and I run no other apps that use it. Many, many other people also have no other apps that use it. Many people actively remove or disable it. It is not (truly)cross platform (no linux support as was in the previous app). All your points have been addressed by my previous post(s).

Freedownloadmanager or Orbit on every box I've built since at least 2005. I thought everyone had a download manager? Only browser I've seen with acceptable performance and restarting/resuming was Opera. I Still would like to hear why you chose IE and not something else though Brad (hopefully this doesn't sound like a challenge - I'm just unclear on why it is you made that decision). Haven't seen the 2 GB download limit myself on the browsers I use. Gog has a download manager but I've never needed to actually use it.

On the civility thing - it's nice. I just find the usual black and white positions a bit tired and boring - rather like being forced to listen to Fox News or something - the usual ill-considered hogwash and entrenched positiions.

The problem is that there is  a huge gray area vis a vis piracy that typically devs and publishers don't want to address or acknowledge. It reminds me of the RIAA vs. everyone stance that one reads so often. Yet I've purchased more music from exposure to blogs and from college radio and friends than I would have otherwise. And usually I go to the shows and make sure I pay the bands directly by buying the cd's and merch at the show. Since this isn't something anyone is tracking - or has in their best interest to track - this isn't considered a real source of income - even though the musicians themselves see it. Similarly downloading a pirated version of a game that doesn't have a full featured demo and deciding whether it's something you want to buy or not isn't tracked so there's no way of knowing how many people bought game x because they had a chance to try it out first. It certainly isn't in starforce's best interest to track this - and publishers aren't tracking it either. Nor are publishers interested in providing consumers with a license that has actual value by allowing you to redownload the game if your disc is harmed or lost despite being a good customer and buying it to begin with. That is where I think Stardock and Gog "get" it unlike so many others.

While I'm rambling - here's another request: could we receive notifications of sales via email regarding what's on sale on impulse? Again, in case it wasn't heard the first time: demos and tabs please.

Ultimately if people continue to pirate games without repurcussions then there will be no money in making these......and no big companies will put money forth to make epic games again.  Think about that when you pirate.  You're destroying your own hobby

Except IE7 is a necessary part of the OS.

I'll tell you why people pirate games... There are no viable free alternatives... There, that's it... Nothing to see here anymore, move along...

Oh... You're still here? Oh well, I'll go on then...

I'm not saying it's a good reason, I'm just saying why it's done. As long as the number one game in a genre isn't free, people will pirate games. Well, people will pirate games ANYWAY even if that would change, but for different reasons...

The problem is that people put too much value on money. The developers want to make the big bucks on any blockbuster game, the "true" gamers want to play all the cool games, and value the money they got too much to part with it and buy them all...

Solution? Beats me... How do we convince people that money just isn't that important when it's the most widely used currency for judging success?

For a lot of people (most likely not the majority, however) the 'try before you buy' argument stands rather strong.

Me, I did pirate a copy of Sins shortly after it came out. I was amazed by the game, due to it not having a single player campaign however I knew I would not be playing it for long. Still, I kind of made a silent promise to buy both the original and the expansion once it comes out (back then there was still talk of a single player campaign being included in the expansion if I recall correctly).

Well, here I am. Even though there still isn't a single player campaign/story mode (which, unfortunately, is why I put Sins aside again for now) I did as I said and bought both the original and the expansion.

So, to view piracy solely as the big evil that'll destroy the gaming industry (and the video and music industries to boot) people might want to look at it from a different angle for a change.

Sure, bad stuff will sell even less than before - but good stuff won't be impacted that badly by it (if, and that's a pretty big one I believe, the industry finally stops with that DRM, online activation, activation limit and whatever else they come up with bullcrap).

In fact, good games (like Sins) might even profit from piracy somewhat. See it as free advertising to a certain extent.

Oh, and one thing that'll never stop bugging me is those industry monkeys who'll claim that every (or nigh every) pirated copy of a game/dvd/album is a lost sale. This simply doesn't even come close to reality.