Mmmm...tacos...

The PS3 was only cracked recently, and they still haven't got games running on it easily.

I think that's a rather successful story to be honest...how many years did it take?

And unfortunately with people like that in the industry, saying idiotic things, pirates don't just have their cake and eat it too. They feel morally superior while doing so because of the things on the other side of the isle. 

My point wasn't simply that pirates will eventually crack anything for the same reason people climb mountains, it was more that there's already an entire industry built around finding the pinnacle of hardware DRM. How much time and money has been spent on DRM, if you could find me these figures I could probably find that the amount spent on DRM well exceeds the potential sales increases it may have offered. I can absolutely find examples of games that did poorly because of the DRM or anti-piracy techniques they implemented. How much better off would some games be if the publishers had dumped that money into the games themselves instead of DRM? How many QA workers could the cost of licensing DRM software hire? We'll never have the chance to find out, because we don't live in that world.

Of course, there are some who've seen the light and instead of trying to take vengeance on their customer base because of the perceived potential for wrongdoing amongst a subset that is largely comprised of young people who don't have any money, realize that they would really only be hurting customers, as they're the only ones honest enough to run unadulterated code. Thankfully Stardock is one such company, offering me rewards for being a good customer, and not punishing me for something someone else did.

Yes.

Man....

One thing is. In the Decent pirating communities *I know thats hard to imagine* where the professional crackers are. Indie games or Small companies like Stardock don't get pirated. and when they do they often stress to buy it if you like it.

Infact I've seen pirating work in Stardocks favor from 1-2 of my friends they pirated sins of a solar empire and ended up buying it. as well as a copy of galciv 2. I pirated Red faction Guerrilla and company of heroes. Its how i decided i liked the games before buying the THQ Pack on Impulse. I have similar stories for several games.

I Love Stardock and do not wish to rip themoff and actually think that their a great company i've bought alot of their games but i do not hate pirates. And besides Pirates will likely Buy Elemental if they truly like it. and if not then they never would have anyways No sales are really going to be lost this way and they'll download this stuff on their own servers. If they want to wait for updates and to deal with having no tech support and the knowledge in their heart that they didn't support the game+ No multiplayer..Then so be it let them enjoy their limited content.

I garentee you at least 40% of them will become or already are paying customers.

In other words, pirates are doing the propaganda campaign. That is true to some extent. In my opinion, demos would reduce the "need" for pirate games. Demos are easier to get, they have no virus, and allow you to decide if you want to pay for the game or not.

But if a game has no demo, and you don't know or don't trust the company, would you pay for it? I preordered Elemental because I love GalCiv2. But if GalCiv2 was not that good or I didn't know Elemental, then a demo would be in need.

Another point in favour of legal games (only online bought ones) is that you don't need to care about the installation disk. My computer crashed, but I could reinstall GalCiv2 without any problem because I own it in Impulse. That day I got more convinced to pay for games.

I did. I never played any other Stardock game in my life.

So Elemental is the first ever Stardock-made game I've ever played - and I preordered after just reading about what it's goals are and the fact it's a freaking turn-based game. Haven't played one of those since AoW...

That's based on subscribers, not households.  Each subscriber serves more than one person (in most cases) ie a household.  That wiki article stinks because the h.p. (house hold penetration) is blank for most of them...which doesn't make sense.

Anyways, last time I went online and researched it something like 70% (or more) of households have broadband in just about every 1st world country out there.

And obviously I don't have 'data' for this...but I would imagine the % of people with computers/gamers in the house is much higher than the flat percentage based on # of households/population.  These statistics include old people and people totally uninterested with technology.

If I were to guess, I would say at least 90% of homes with PC gamers in them have broadband access.  Of course this is just a guess lol.

I clicked randomly on the geek.com article and it seemed to be a guy being very skeptical of the ELSPA's 90% DS claim, but that's beside the point.  You actually got some evidence and that is what is generally lacking from forum debates.

Keep it up guys!  This has been a very interesting read on an otherwise slow day at work.

Eh i've always been a big fan of full version demo's that last for a few hours then you have to buy them.

Games just cost way to much to buy them without knowing what they are.  S'why i'm such a console game hater heh. Least with PC most games have demos/betas you can play in to get an idea of the game before getting it.

I sympathize with some pirates though, the ones in countries that don't exactly have good currencies and are only able to get games online.

50-60$ USD is just to much in those situations.

Here's a completely different take on (new) DRM and piracy.

DRMs latest shenanigans is to prevent reselling by providing game content only available through online distribution.  If you bought a resold game then you lose out on the bonus content or buy it seperately.  Too many retailers like Gamestop and Ebay have munched into software developer profits.  Of course the resale business may never have taken off if it weren't for console systems.