I was a bit more on your side until my grandmother had to pay money for something she's never even heard about. Not TW2 thing per se, something similar tho. If the method of locating pirates was 100% accurate, I wouldn't be that opposed, but the fact is that it's not (and no, don't argue, it's really not - as far as ISP goes, several computers can 'share' a single IP, they don't see past router. Not to mention how much mess do dynamic IPs bring into that.)

No problem :). I just thought it would be good to suggest coming back to the original topic instead of creating another semi-flame war about DRM or Linux, heh.

Did they ever confirm that that was how they were doing that? Apart from some articles on pro-piracy websites, I don't recall there being anything to indicate that people were receiving settlement offers that hadn't pirated the game.

From what I remember it was a lot of raging against CDPR for allegedly waiving their right to sue by releasing the game DRM-free. Ultimately, they did fold on it, but not because there was any objective evidence of wrong doing on their part.

I payed 10 bucks for the HIB and I wish I could afford to pay more. Ideally I would pay about 2 dollars pr hour of entertainment from a bundle so I would check on Howlongtobeat the average completion times of the games i want in a bundle but sadly I can't afford that at the moment so 10 was my limit.
Still, only paying the minimum seems shady to me - the people that do that are also the ones that see a free sample stand with cookies or whatever in the local supermarked and then eat everything on the plate even if they were only supposed to take 1 sample. I guess there are greedy scoundrels everywhere including the gaming world. (This is not counting the people that live in poorer parts of the world and can't afford to pay more).

Yes, I know for a fact that they were actually doing that. I won't tell you how do I know as I won't spread personal info around the net, so you can freely dismiss me as 'pro-piracy' source.

Srsly amok, I highly respect your HIB campaign, but can't you read? TET has posted over and over that, while he personally thinks huge discounts are bad for the industry, that's the way to stay competitive in this day and age.

Surprise surprise, you can still believe that the industry is being flushed towards an unsustainable singularity and go along with the flow when the alternative is drowning right now.

In this post I make no prediction as to whether the singularity is real, nor do I pass judgment on the ethics of such a decision. But accusing TET/GOG of inconsistency and/or hypocrisy is just wrong.

I was not judging at all, I think it was the right decision from gog.

It was a reply to Shmerl - how things change, and how GoG also fell into this trap - it is unfair to use that single forum post from a HB employee from 2 years back as evidence for whatever. It was just an example of how gog also have done something which is against what they said previous. We all do this.

that's only in your eyes, as this is your priorities :)

Depends on the games and how much I want them. i've paid more than the average before, though never past ten dollars. I've paid a bit over the average most of the time, rounded up usually to 5 bucks. I've also bought extra bundles, but those are usually strictly the average or one dollar purchases if they're for friends and there are games that can be played in co op with them.

I paid 7 dollars for the EA one because it all went to charity and i think I did the same with the THQ one to help them out a bit since they were going under. I also bought 2 extra EA basic bundles to play Burnout Paradise with my brother and a friend, since the bro likes racing games.

Honestly, I buy bundles this way because none of the games are really THAAAT interesting to me, but at the price they're being sold it's almost too good to pass up and these companies know it. Whenever I'm really interested in a specific game I'll pay full price or wait for a small discount. All the games I've bought on crazy deals and such are games that really didn't tickle my fancy that much and I really had no intention of getting them in the first place, but I figure marketing departments know it's better to sell a game for a buck and have it out there and if it's good enough, maybe I'll buy the sequel full price if I really like it. Hell, it happened with Borderlands. Bought the complete version for 7 bucks off Steam, enjoyed it and when the sequel came out, bought it at 33% off on the first sale it had.

Sure, as well as of many who helped HB to become successful. That was my point. They could be more careful about their loyal users. Losing their trust isn't the best decision.

About charities, note for example that EFF isn't listed in the Origin bundle. I guess because they realize it's equal to endorsing DRM, while EFF is principally opposed to it.

and I think someone pointed out that the most loyal users may be those who like to buy games cheap, not the ones who buy DRM free.

Some for sure, hard to say if most. I'm not sure if HB measured or could measure this somehow, but DRM free drive gained them a lot of users in the past.

I'm not so sure. I am not convinced about how large the "DRM Free revolution" really is. I have a feeling that the "don't care so much about non-intrusive DRM" followers are a much larger crowd.

I agree, the DRM indifferent crowd is larger probably. Most people don't pay attention to ethical issues when it comes to digital tech, either because they have no clue, or because they don't care. Otherwise DRM would be well gone everywhere already. But even if smaller group, users who reject DRM were a significant part of the original HB success. So if HB goes after the DRM indifferent majority as a "business decision", that can be the case, but as I said above, it's against their initial PR which helped them grow. Somewhat dishonest, which I think is worse that the fact of them endorsing DRM itself.