timppu: Too bad the hacks are quite often version-dependent, and finding them in the first place is a much bigger pain in the arse than people like to claim, especially when you take into account to loads of Steam games with additional 3rd party DRM.
JMich: Steam skeleton keys exist. You wish to deny that, feel free.
Obsolete keys which depend on which game you want to use it on. At least the last time I checked for pointers on that. A skeleton key which works only a few doors, or is already obsolete and doesn't work on any doors, is a rather poor skeleton key.
JMich: For many other DRM Schemes, skeleton keys also exist. So far, Starforce was the only one I recall that required individual hacking, at least in the first year or so.
Yeah, you just "have to know where to look", invite-only pirate FTP sites, join relevant IRC channels or maybe even old usenet binary groups, right? Sorry if I fail to see that easier than just getting the DRM-free version of the game from my external HDD.
JMich: You say that the difficulty of producing the files is due to DRM. I claim it's not. If you have the DRM'd files, you need to find the crack. If you don't have the DRM'd files, you need the files and the crack.
In a DRM-Free case, if you do have the files, you can play. If you don't have the files, you need to find the files first.
But yeah, claim strawman, nothing in common between those two cases.
No, I said that finding all the relevant cracks for all your hundreds of DRM'ed games that you already have (many possibly with many layers of DRM) is not such an irrelevant blip as you and velvet make it to be.
It is ridiculous for you to come up with "if you don't have the original DRM-free installers, you'll have to pirate them from somewhere anyway". That is completely irrelevant to this discussion, as is saying that you can't watch the Robocop DVD you bought ten years ago if you have already thrown it to trashbin.
timppu: I know, but that doesn't change the fact that hunting down for both the (cracked) updates, missing pirated DLCs etc. is a true pain in the ass, and in many cases unachievable.
JMich: Availability of files and perceived availability is not the same. And inability to find patches/DLCs is not dependent on DRM. Rise of Nations patches? NWN Premium modules? Chronicles of Riddick DLCs? GRID DLCs?
Cracked updates. Ie. all the unofficial stuff you need in order to play your DRM'ed game. If you try to use the official update with a crack, there's a good change they are not compatible, unless the crack was specifically made for that version.
If you have to resort to redownloading the whole game again (because your original game, that has the DLC already, came with DRM), then the question about missing DLCs etc. comes relevant, as the pirate version you are downloading may be missing them. Similarly like how many old CD games seem to exist only as rips, with no music, FMV or latest updates.
timppu: If the author is known and the site/author is easily trackable (e.g. downloading the piece of software from the author's homepage), common sense says there is less chance of malware (intentionally) being included, than downloading a piece of software by an unknown Russian author on a torrent site.
JMich: Yes. Or, if the community is self moderating, as was the case with Demonoid. Malware infected torrents didn't last there. Nor the members that uploaded them.
Good that there are such exceptions, even if the idea of joining a pirate community just to keep playing my legit games doesn't sound too enthralling.
timppu: Only if you chose not to download the updates in time, in which case you can blame only yourself. As it happens, I keep the updates to e.g. my retail PC games on my HDD. I don't presume The Patches Scrolls will be there forever to offer them.
JMich: So you already have the latest versions for your games (DRM'd or not), thus you know exactly what version crack you will be looking for. I thought you'd have to download the whole thing from scratch, since you wouldn't know what version you had.
Why would I have to redownload the whole game from a scratch, if I have it already DRM-free? With DRM'ed games it may be different as hunting down for the correct cracks may be much more tiresome than just redownloading the whole game ("a scene release") from the scratch, even though you already have the original game (but with that DRM). After all, you have said yourself that the individual cracks are not as widely available as the scene releases.
As for "knowing already exactly what version of the crack you are looking for":
- First I have to check manually which version of each game I have. I haven't learned them by heart for all my games. What version of Arkham City or GTA IV I have on Steam? The heck I know, same goes for the rest of my Steam games. I'd have to check the exact versions first for each game.
- Then finding a working crack for that specific version, also if it depends on the language/country version.
Sorry, but that is a lot of work for hundreds of games, compared to not having to do it at all, but just running the original DRM-free versions.
timppu: Irrelevant, just as pointing out that you can't watch your Robocop DVD anymore, if you threw the DVDs to trashbin before.
JMich: See a few lines above. Having files and looking for crack is equivalent to having files and not needing crack.
Yeah, except for the "looking for the cracks (and make sure they are malware free)"-part. So they are not equivalent at all.
Not needing something vs. needing something and having to search for it and validate it, are not equivalent things.
JMich: Not having files or crack is equivalent to not having files, even if they require no crack.
In the same sense as having lost your Robocop DVD is equivalent to not having the Robocop DVD. Maybe so, still completely irrelevant.
timppu: Yet, the p2p networks work on the premise that people are willing to share the data as well. If they weren't, no one could download anything. Or if only few people (prime seeders) were, the download speeds would be abysmal.
JMich: Funny how filesharing could work before p2p networks. IRC and BBS probably didn't exist, nor invitations. Hell, I've even got files over ICQ. Bittorrent is not the only filesharing method there is.
You sure make invite-only and limited-connections pirate FTP and BBS sites, or binary pirate Usenet newsgroups, sound easy. I wonder why people didn't just keep using them, instead of moving to p2p networks?
Are you still trying to convince me how laughably easy it is to find cracks for hundreds of my original PC games, compared to just running the (legit) DRM-free versions I already have? Seriously?
