Pirates take it to the next level

#1 Piracy can be pretty big money for large groups (the ones that package and redistribute software), but your common warez group on IRC won't make a cent. They're not in it for the money, either. Now, piracy rings out of China and Russia are. And they do make money. In fact, their packaging is often so good that you wouldn't even know you got scammed. Which is a far cry from downloading 3DS Max, a dongle crack, and a serial number generator.

#2 Any money they might potentially lose is going to be more than made up for by the tons of free PR they'll get when every gaming mag runs this story.

#3

Quote:As far as I understand it there isn't even any money in it for the software piracy groups

Don't believe that for a second. Piracy is big money. Maybe not big as in winning the lottery big, but big enough that they will pay out some decent cash for someone who will supply them with late beta / release candidates prior to the game's final release. They leaders of the piracy rings stand to make a mint when they can crank out pirated copies of a highly anticipated game BEFORE it appears on store shelves.

#4 How so though, how will they get the money, they put it on kazaa. And i doubt Kazaa pays them, sure they get more hits with ads and stuff, but most ad companies will turn them in. So how do they get paid honestly? Selling it sure they get a few bucks, but you must realize, alot of that is spent getting the stuff and on the computers, and the testing, then you have the time cracking it and the food, and such. So where does the money come from? As for these things, i personally do not believe it unless its on video, i mean HL2 and Gabe Newell lied to the HL2 Community saying it wasn't the september release *they were supposed to package* But, yet it was. So anymore, i'm starting to think that these companies deserve whats coming to them, and they should stop lieing to the gamers.

#5 Oh, and another thing, the companies also have to buy people off, so i ask again wheres the money go? This is similer to the suggestions that GG Makes alot of money, but yet people again, people think what they want to think.

#6 It is a fact that in some countries, more money is spent on pirated software than on legitimate software.

Sure, in the US pirates use Kazaa and no money is exchanged, but in hong kong, for example, CDRs with cracked copies of Windows XP, games and so on are openly sold on street corners and in flea markets.

THAT is where the money comes from.

#7 I've seen "HK" Disks of my console games go on sale by pirates for $15 before we were even done TESTING the release candidates. Someone got their hands on a beta - maybe one we sent out to the press for a demo - and that's all she wrote.

We assisted the FBI in busting one of our QA people who was secretly copying discs after hours and selling them to a pirate who would then mass-duplicate them and sell them over the Internet. I don't know what he was being paid --- I personally wasn't involved and didn't know the guy --- but it was sobering to discover.

There are warez sites that run on a subscription basis, allowing unlimited access to pirated games provided you either contibute your own cracked games or pay your subscription.

Filesharing like Kazaa may have hurt the pirates as much as it hurt the legitimate customers. But make no mistake - its a full-fledged black-market business. Even in the United States.

Quote:So anymore, i'm starting to think that these companies deserve whats coming to them, and they should stop lieing to the gamers.

I find that a pretty shocking attitude, especially from someone who's involved in game development. How in the hell do you justify that? You are saying that people deserve to be robbed and have their careers and years' worth of hard work jeopardized simply because they don't reveal all of their dirty laundry to the public?

That's twisted.