fuchikoma

Likewise. In my college days when my friends smoked pot, I refused for months, until I researched it in depth, pulled together legitimate studies and anecdotes alike, weighed the risks - health, legal, financial, and so on, and after much deliberation, decided to try it. I didn't just go "hey, a chance to do a thing!" and try it on a whim.

Yantelope, I'm sorry if I seem to be picking on you here, but I just came back to the thread, and I feel the need to address what I perceive as logical errors. Whether or not your would play it is irrelevant. You clearly have interest in the game enough to download it. If you remove the option of piracy then it simply becomes a question of price. How much would you be willing to pay to try the game in order to see if you like it? $20? $10? $1? Someone who is bothering to pirate a game that wouldn't be worth even $1 to them is a fool wasting his own time. It is absolutely relevant. You said it's a fallacy to assume the person in question wouldn't have bought the game. Dex is right - you absolutely would know if the case is your own. As someone with a large library of games I've pirated to try, then bought, I have more than ample experience to make that claim. You're just ignoring the argument when it doesn't suit your position. In the real world, you do not remove the option of piracy, so that scenario is irrelevant. It's true though that the more a game costs, the less likely you are to try it. I also don't think anyone has mentioned pirating phone games here - most games cost $60, not $1. Talking about someone who would pirate a game that's not even worth $1 to them is sort of nonsensical. That's like asking why someone would pay to play a game they don't even like. You don't know if you like it until you play it, and that's why it's pirated. If it turns out to be bad, it is not a total waste of time - you find out what it is worth to you, which is the whole point of the exercise. Where is the contrivance? You're just expressing contempt at this point. People don't just act for absolutely no reason - you simply ignore the reason if it disagrees with your personal opinion. If anything, you are the one contriving justifications with all your leaps of logic and ungrounded assumptions about the pirate. You posit theories, but never explain why they should be considered as true. That is asinine. If you're going to make such powerful statements, you need to be able to logically justify them if you want to be taken seriously, because your conclusion absolutely does not follow from your premise. It's also fatally flawed in that the alternative you offer is to pay for a game, and then play it to find out it is bad. I think you are the one who has no concept of the value of time or money since you recommend spending more of the same on something worthless when you could spend less. Who in the world does not try to guarantee enjoyment or pleasure when they can? Really? It is the obvious logical choice for anyone who enjoys enjoyment. And to the point of pirates having a vested interest in not enjoying the games they try so they don't have to pay for them... Some may try to rationalize it like that, but to me, there is no point in playing a game I've decided I don't enjoy. I have a greater vested interest in enjoying them and paying, because I like liking things. It's not fun to decide there's no fun to be had with something. Oh my god... I hope that means you only buy indie games and downloadables then, because if you're buying $60 retail games used, this whole debate has been pointless. They give the developers as much money as a pirated copy, so quite ironically, you would be trying to rationalize that you are superior to a pirate for paying money, when you are only paying money to those who are leeching off the real makers and distributors of these games. I hope that is not the case, because personally, I find that position morally below simply taking the game and giving no one money for it. At least that does not fund the ones who distributed the pirated copies. By that logic, any hypothetical argument is pointless because you can't know everything. Certainly it means that any talk of "lost sales" is useless since that too is impossible to scry - however you can show case studies that suggest a trend one way or the other, such as the two AgamemnonV2 posted earlier. Maybe it's impossible to know with certainty whether or not I'll sell all my worldly possessions and become a hobo for kicks, but I have a lot of experience to show me how likely it is that I'll buy a game I don't want.

Logical reasoning must not be your strong suit. It's unfortunate then that most of this thread is either debate, or exploration of concepts.

No, you can't spell "privacy" without "priacy". You also can't spell "believe" (or "Liepzig")without "lie," or "catamaran" without "Tamara." I guess what I'm saying is... that's drivel.

Yes. I have many times. I can afford not to now, so I'm pretty much out of it. I think it is justified sometimes - for instance in the exact scenario you gave, needing a demo. I make some distinctions though; if something is justified, it makes sense; it does not make it legal. I also don't feel it makes it moral, even if it is fair. (This kind of ethical ambiguity is one of the things that sets IP infringement apart from theft.) For instance, I paid full price for Wipeout Pure and it was the buggiest POS on PSP. It crashed constantly, and didn't even feel like a Wipeout game. If I figure they owe me a working game, would I be justified stealing Wipeout Pulse? I'd say so, as a consumer. Is it a moral victory? Well no, there would be other staff working on the new game, and other conditions so it's still not really fair to them to take it for what their predecessors did wrong. It may be fair that as a consumer I get one working game that I paid for, but it's not morally upright to steal from those merely associated with others who were trying to give me what I deserved in the first place. On the other hand, I see no moral issue at all with "pirating" a game that's not even sold anymore. That said, waiting for a game to drop off the market to pirate it is as bad as pirating it when it's new... It's very hard to generalize about piracy. Can't say honestly. I do, but they also don't interest me that much, so it's a happy coincidence. I think if I wanted them badly enough, I might pirate them because it's too risky running the legit product on my computer. Certain forms of DRM have effectively declared war on the user, and in war, you just try to survive. I am a lifelong computer geek, who has applied countless hacks to things, and have an academic interest in computer science so I have given this a lot of thought... based on a paper I wrote in college, I think the technical (not PR) solution is this: Most anti-piracy measures are tacked onto a finished product. Because of this, they are easily "untacked." A nag screen or forced quit routine can be bypassed by simply reverse engineering the executable and altering it to skip over the offending portion. A serial number can be copied. Checking a bit that says a product is registered or not can just be flipped to say it is. These sorts of measures are a padlock. If a thief wants what's inside, they must simply break the padlock and open it up. If the padlock is too well made, they will simply attack the door hinges and so on. Good security (has layers, yes, but also) is integral. It's not a padlock - it's a driveshaft that only works in your car. It's a key that also contains the heart of the system. I don't know what the best answer for consumers is, but if you want to prevent piracy, you could do something like including a hardware dongle that doesn't just spit out a serial number or something to check against (even a rolling one,) but instead spits out a decryption key that's needed to access part of the program. Or for a game or something, you could even put a chip in the dongle that handles all the calculations for something - like hitbox detection, or character stats. That way you can remove it, you can bypass it, but doing so will make the program technically unable to function. You would have to pour R&D into reverse engineering it, emulating it, and tricking the program into trusting the emulator in order to replace it (though to implement it, you'd of course have to make sure that it's working properly - for instance, a hitbox calculating dongle should not be subverted to make you invincible, but rather if it doesn't give predictable responses, it should be rejected. This is getting technical, but you could have the game engine run a randomized (to thwart simple "modchip" solutions) target shooting trial invisibly when the game loads, and if the targets are not hit or missed when appropriate, the dongle is failed. Of course it would still be possible to hack the program to expect the kind of responses the hack dongle would give - but the thing is, a determined cracker will hack your program, but the more effort it takes, the more determination it takes.) There are surely ways to do this in software too, but this is more to illustrate the KIND of thinking that's required to make robust protection for a program. Jumping to some points from this huge thread: Piracy is not theft. Theft displaces an item for the benefit of the thief and the loss of the owner. Piracy is intellectual property infringement - it is less like stealing a product from a store, and more like infringing on a patent, or showing a pay per view to a room full of people who didn't pay for it individually. It is unfair to the IP holder based on their terms, and usually the local laws, but it does not deprive them of anything, and there is no relation to whether or not the infringer would have paid for it in another scenario. The idea that one can pirate a game they would not have bought otherwise and it will not harm anyone is true, assuming they really were not buying it, and pirated only for personal use. This is a logical fact; it is not a justification, nor does it suggest a sense of entitlement. The truth is morally neutral; justification is a kind of rationalization; entitlement is a matter of opinion. This does not mean that it is ok to pirate in this scenario, but it also cannot be demonstrated to cause harm. I don't keep tabs on them, but I know that that was the case for Beatmania IIDX 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th style, and what's more, those are imports. Also, under $60 are many PSP games domestic and imported, like DJ Max Portable 1, 2, Classiquai, and Black Square editions, Hatsune Miku: Project Diva, and Higurashi no Naku Koro ni: Jan, God of War: Chains of Olympus, Need for Speed Carbon: Own the City, and Space Invaders Extreme. I've done this with DS games too - for instance, I have Scribblenauts, The World Ends With You, and Rooms: The Main Building all in their original wrapper, because it's more convenient to keep the downloaded copies on a flashcard. I pay because I am able to and I understand the economics of it. I pirated because I couldn't pay, and then because it became obvious how much disappointment I'd save myself by testing games first. Demos are framed to put the game in the best light possible and may skip tedious features or rough-edged levels. With the ability to pirate games, I would be a sucker to drop $60 on something because of some flashy ads without knowing how good it is. The thing is, these days people can have the content (any media) either way, but they must realize that paying (for new copies) makes a game successful, and funds further development from those teams. If you don't want a sequel, keep leeching... but if you want your favourite makers to succeed and continue development, then you must pay. Why you? Because if everyone lets everyone else pick up the slack, then no one does it and it fails. If you are able to support an artist, then you should, but that said, I will pirate some titles not due to entitlement or justification, but because it is possible and reasonable to do so.

I've never seen Windows default to 24 hr, setting the region to Canada, USA, or even Japan... and I've installed windows literally hundreds to thousands of times. It must depend on the version they sell in stores, or maybe it only does it for a few regional settings?

That's true. I've noticed Japan seems to use 24 hour, but in the US and Canada, it's 12 hr. Mainly, 24 hr time is just for the military.

DojoMojoMofo... mucho mojo agogo, yo... I don't play online much, but feel free to compare your collection to my randomness... I do have SFIV and BBCS, though I'm pretty rusty now - never got into massive combos, etc. I do have Burnout Paradise on PS360, and some other misc multiplayerable stuff like GTA4. I'm also DojoMojoMofo on most things, like Game Center and OpenFeint on iOS.

Interesting. Definitely following this.

Weird... Maybe try deleting all the cookies for Kotaku? Other Gawker sites should let you view your profile in any case. I'm destarred and banned on Kotaku, but still starred everywhere else because I'm one of the old ones from before they split the sites up. Anyway, good exit note. You kept it civil and not too insulting (certainly nothing libelous... all facts.) I think that's good. Even if Joel would sooner assume the whole world is wrong and he's right, it's still good feedback to give them, and may make a difference to someone (Crecente? Denton?) some day. Now... just try to keep your integrity and don't post when you don't absolutely have to or it'll be no better than most game "boycotts."

I don't know if I like this one or if it's just burned into my brain through sheer repetition. Ninja Crusaders is actually pretty fun. Then, most NES games starting with "ninja" are pretty fun!

I got sick of trying to be heard with my OEM XBox headset (cutouts, having to tap it constantly to trigger the voice chat, etc) so I got a Turtle Beach X12... The bass is phenomenal on these things! So, I'm listening to this rich and rumbly ballad, from the album that got me hooked on Syrufit and Mei Ayakura in the first place. (Even on Youtube it comes through pretty well, but there is a huge sound difference going from 320p to 480p on this one.)

Nice one, Dean! Though I did see some parts that weren't so irrational (Hamburgers are named for Hamburg, which is why during WWI, some Americans incorrectly called them Salisbury steaks - kind of an older version of "freedom fries".) I was kind of surprised that they didn't mention that something visible can be seen, invisible cannot be seen, flammable can catch fire, and inflammable... also catches fire! (I guess it gets "inflamed," where things never get "invissed...")

Yeah, I don't disagree with either of you really. Both perspectives are important factors in considering a game. The difference I see though is that I think Yantelope is right that quality of the game can only apply to what is actually in the game - that it's not lower quality for lacking an optional feature. To your point though, the quality of the experience can very much depend on what you have available to you in the game. Sort of like an object can have good workmanship even though it is simple, but something with more features may be more useful to you.

I think that's handled by the fact that they offer a "metascore" for critical reviews, and a "user score" for user reviews. If there's too large a disparity between the two, it may be worth looking into. And my two cents on the discussion between Yantelope and MasterDex - I get the feeling it's a matter of terminology. Yantelope is talking about the quality of the game - how good on average is the content that is there? I think MasterDex is talking more about the VALUE of the game - how much is it worth as a player, compared to other games?

As a 3DS owner, I can completely see the reasoning for tearing down the 3DS and hyping the Vita, personally. Joel's Razer Blade article was actually the only time I've suggested paid editorial, I think. Sony's PR companies have definitely been known to make stupid moves in the past, but I don't think they'd be THAT stupid - paying off journalists - that could tank their reputation in one swoop. (Though when someone's basically paying your bills, I'm sure in most cases there's a bit more "sensitivity" to their product's image despite best intentions to stay objective...)

Franz Ferdinand is great... Here's a tune from the game "Touhou Sangetsusei - Great Fairy Wars," arranged by Innocent Key. It's kept popping back into my head for the last couple days... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ermdTkBxQ0o

Yeah, I am a fan of Armando Iannucci, Chris Morris, and Edgar Wright - I doubt most of their works were on TV in Canada, but knowing them, I download it or watch their shows at a friend's place after he grabs them. I hadn't heard of some of those shows yet, so thanks! And to Yantelope's point... indeed, I'm a geek or maybe a nerd! I wouldn't expect anyone to know most of these here. I've never seen Homes Under the Hammer, but that did remind me, I'm also a big fan of and Charlie Brooker's Newswipe and Gameswipe. Haven't gotten into Screenwipe or How TV Ruined Your Life though.

It's by no means an exhaustive list, but some of my favourites have been Fifth Gear and Top Gear, The IT Crowd, Red Dwarf, Spaced, numerous Doctors Who, Black Adder, Mr. Bean, and standup by Rowan Atkinson, Look Around You, Brass Eye, Jam, Time Trumpet, and while I haven't seen much yet, Coupling and The Day Today. Also, Wallace & Gromit - I'm sure the whole world has seen that. So mostly comedies... I don't know if you've heard of it, but we actually have a premium channel called BBC Canada.

You mean people have been arrested or something for taking photos? Arrested, or harrassed and threatened, often with their memory cards confiscated. You can find a lot of cases by searching for "War on Photography." Since it's still quite legal, I think most result in no charges being laid, but the chilling effect has been very real.

Good to know, thanks... I really don't see them on the various British TV shows I've watched. The only place I've encountered swot was strangely, Kodansha's bilingual version of the "Love Hina" manga series, where it was used a lot (published 2000, translation uncredited...)