Legitimately and legally own any games that don't work but you found out the hacked versions of the game do?

Is this a common irony?

I wrote to distributor support and developer support and got "Sorry, we can't help you" from both of them so I fixed it myself.

Do you guys still have to ask why there isn't a heavy slap down on opportunists when its only the opportunists whom know how to repair things in the digital realm?

Discuss.

Download through DDs (Steam, GOG, GamersGate). Crack the protection. Create a custom installer. Create an image. Store as backup.

That's what I do with most of my games. Don't care if the game worked without me cracking it or not.

EDIT: I see cracks as mods, nothing wrong with using them. Also, nothing wrong if a game you bought isn't working, yet with a few seconds of a search you find a pirated copy that works. Download that one, and use it instead of the one you bought.

You won't be able to. All non-Steam made (cracked) games don't even notice the client / connect to the servers, so there is no way for Steam to track your achievements in cracked games.

So I'm guessing what's screwing up the legitimate Steam copy I own is the stupid DRM.
Because that's about the only thing the pirates would've removed from the functional copy.

All this crappy piracy protection software is making it so that pirates posses the only functional copies.

Thus DRM is encouraging piracy more so than preventing it.

DRM so uber that it prevents lawful owners of software from accessing it as well. *rolls eyes*

Sounds like Starforce 2.0 :P

With keeping in mind that the current situation is brought to us mostly / at least partially (depending on your point of view) because of said opportunists? No, I don't have to ask - I see the mentioned irony....
... and the heavy slap isn't there, because the opportunists don't care / know that it would break every budget to get to him - he's just a very small fish after all. Yes, the pendulum has swung too far - we all know that. But I refuse to "glorify" the guys who started it.

Why don't they just go enlist a hacker to create a DRM that discourages most novice hacks from cracking the software yet still allows the legitimate end user, who innocently and honestly support the developers, to be able to access their legally purchased software without hitches.

I'm pretty sure that there are tons of unemployed hackers whom can establish a functional DRM where everyone else has failed.


ie; thieves make the best locksmiths.

Counterquestion: why no hacker has taken this idea and made a business / a fortune out of it?

Bill Gates did - but he came from a generation that was more with it. =/

The pirates are a paradox - they're screwing every thing up and fixing it all at the same time.

As I said in another thread here, it all comes down to moderation and respect. The hackers take it to a point of making it excessively criminal and the authority takes it to an extreme of making it excessively asinine.

And I'm the middle of the road guy who keeps getting screwed.

Pirates don't realize that if they keep distributing currently sold games - developers lose out. Enough developers lose out - they stop making games and the whole industry and hobby fades away like the Hoola Hoop.

On the other hand, ripping and preserving the software for future generations to experience is a good investment - as you are seeing with this site.

As for an honor system, however, I think if you polled everyone in established countries you would find there are a lot more willing to honestly support than to steal out of convenience and most stealing are kids whom have no income anyway.

What game are you talking about?

-_-\

Seriously though, I have Toki Tori as well on two systems. Vista it refuses to run and Win7 it works perfectly. I have the cracked copy on the Vista system as well. :/
^
I assume that is what started this thread.
Most likely Toki Tori.

You can't fix stupid. As long as stupid people rule the world things like this will continue. The pirates won the DRM contest, now it's time to figure out a sustainable business model in light of the fact that you can't get 100% of users to cough up the dough for the product.

In reply to you and The Cheese - yes. the legitimate copy of Toki Tori crashes at the menu screen when I attempt to use a human interface device such as mouse, gamepad or keyboard. The error it presents pretty much says "We don't know WTF is causing this" and it doesn't even register in system events (it does drop a crash text in TT's directory which requires a special program to read - notepad just spits up random characters).

The cracked copy is Dutch (but still in English) and works fine.
Aww crap - is this pretty much why everything is going to hell in an MMO basket?

For me, if youve purchased the game, you may do whatever you want (but not uploading to torrent), especially cracking it.