I’m downloading the Warcraft III ISO. I will now try to use some half-ass reason to back it up. Namely, I’m sick of having to suffer the “endless loop of consumer madness” I always experience. Here’s how it works:
Game is released, usually at a price of $50-60. I almost NEVER have that much spending money (except for that month-and-a-half I had a job), so I wait for the price to drop.
Price finally gets to a reasonable level, but I don’t have the cash on me. So I wait to get it.
I get cash, then go to store. The game has sold out. I end up in a rage and buy anime.
Repeat steps 2 and 3 for all eternity.
I’m also doing it for Max Payne, but that’s because they don’t have that game anymore (now that Max Payne 2 is coming out), and the PS2 port probably sucks. I’ll beat anything that the loop will also continue with FFXI.
My principle before was to buy games I wanted. I want to support the industry. I may hate the RIAA, but I still buy CDs. If a series I like goes out on DVD, I go to buy it. I support corporations because without them, nothing we have would exist freely. However, I can only take so much shit before I snap. Blizzard, if you hear me, crank out INDIVIDUAL Warcraft III games, not that rip-off Battle Chest. Oh, and make a Starcraft 2!
I really see nothing wrong with getting a multiplayer game and only playing it single player to test it out. Long as you end up buying it or something.
It happens to the best of us, I used to be an avid PC game collector, I saved every penny I made doing chores and bought a new game whenever I could. I always made sure to keep the box and the manual, I actually have a few interesting items in my collection, but I digress. Over the last few years I’ve basically stopped buying new games for several reasons:
I don’t have the time to mess around with a game for too long, sooner or later something will come up and if I haven’t finished a game by then it could take months before I get back to it.
In my days games lasted… I remember playing the original command & conquer, it took me forever to finish, recently I actually bought Homeworld 2; that lasted all of 3 days (Last 3 missions are great BTW). I’ll admit nostalgia might be a factor in how long I remember games lasting, they probably didn’t really last that much longer, but they just seemed to have something that made you want to stick with them for days on end.
I always hated the whole multiplayer oriented trend that’s going on nowadays. What ever happened to solid storytelling? Developers seem to forget there are actually some of us out there who just don’t want to go online to play a game.
Maybe I’ve just been around long enough to get blazé, but it seems to me that there just isn’t that much that’s new and exciting now a days, sometimes I just feel like I’ve played this game before and that it used to be better.
At the same time the quality, or at the very least originality of games seems to be going down the prices keep going up. Why would I pay $80 CND for a game that will provide me less than 24 hours of total entertainment when I can buy a pocket book of $9 which will last me for 5-6 hours? Those of you who don’t read much might not this that the book is such a good deal, but hey, at least you don’t get PKed reading it.
The last point is just a personal gripe of mine. Like I mentioned before, I love collecting boxes for games, I have a whole bookcase filled with them, so you can imagine how pissed off I was when they switched to the mini boxes. Now I know the companies love them, half the size means they can fit twice as much software in the same crate, but damn they just don’t look as good as the old school boxes and they clash with the rest of my collection.
I always considered myself more of a PC gamer than a consol gamer so all these little annoyances finally almost turned me off the whole gaming thing, and then there’s the fact that one day my daily expenses almost caught up to my income and I just couldn’t afford to buy that many games anymore. As far as I’m concerned ISO’s are a miracle solution, you get to play the game, and see how you like it, no cost, if afterward your want to buy it then so much the better. Never mind the fact it’s technically illegal, if every computer user followed the law to the letter most people couldn’t afford to do half the things they do with their PC.
There’s no reason to feel like you betrayed your principles, just think of it as raising the stakes, the next time a company wants you to buy a game they have to give you something to make it worth it. After all would you rather give your money to a developer who makes crappy games or one that makes good games?
Why not wait a year or two to play games? By then, the price usually drops dramatically. And if it’s a fairly popular game, you’ll have no trouble at all getting a copy. Of course, it means you’ll be behind by a couple years… that’s never really bothered me, though. I haven’t beaten a Final Fantasy game since number 6.
i also have a lot of those old school boxes they’re so pretty… those new cases just suck and they ruin your cd… like diablo 2 there have to fit 3 cd’s in one of those stupid cases… that’s just not done
hey guyzzz do u wantz to piratzzz me beta FFXI!!!///?? lzolzlolzzz
It’s good for like 4 more days and I’m on a 56K, so you’d probably finish downloading it around a week after the beta ends. =P
Oh, and pirating just because you can’t buy the game in stores is a pretty lame excuse. Blizzard.com sells every single one of their games at retail value and they even have a 2 day delivery process, so the wait is entirely painless.
In addition, stating that you pirate Blizzard’s games and then demanding that Blizzard release Starcraft 2 just shows how completely oblivious you are to your actions. Why should Blizzard devote its time and rescources to making a great game so that you can just free-load and get it for free? If your boss asked you to work for a week and then turned around and told someone that he never bothers to pay his employees, would you bother to do your job?
