One time i bought an entire tv series on disk..... i go through them pretty quick..... and being constantly held up by the idiotic piracy warning message became unbearably frustrating.

So you know what i did next?

I downloaded the series illegally off the internet!

Their piracy warning was the sole reason for my piracy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Edit: and i will tell you another thing, they know full well this is the effect they are causing, but its sheer unadulterated pure arrogance that they persist with it.

Unskippable DVD ad's is my second example of DRM being misused. VALVe's one game policy is of course my prime example.

I know they where "kind" enough to let you fast forward through some unskippable content. For a laugh we took a DVD and VHS version of a film and tried to see who could get to the start of the film first. VHS won.

Are you talking about their refund policy?

Because they changed that after being taken to the Federal Court of Australia.

Do I have to log into something to take the survey? Better question: do I have to pay money to take said survey? Even better question: will I get paid to take said survey? Best question: will the information I give taking said survey be passed on to data mining companies who wish to make money on the piracy survey given by a totally non related third party vendor site, who may or may not be adhering to international trade treaties concerning data retention and information sharing NDAs?

Most important personal question: should I just not give a damn and go make a sandwich instead?

I only know the answer to the last one.

no I'm on about how all games a bound to one account. play on and the rest (apart from a few drm free games, or using work arounds) are locked and unplayable. I play civ5, daughter can't plat TR2013. Absolute abuse of DRM, and it not the publishers choosing this, its valve.
no
no
no
Don't know but, if so it has very limited scope and value
thats up to you

Things that will make me less likely to give a game company money for their PC game title: (and either pirate it or do something else with my time)
1.If the PC version of the game is not available in Australia or isn't released in Australia at the same time as it gets released in the US and elsewhere. (or if the game is censored or has things removed in Australia compared to what the rest of the world is getting)

2.If the company involved takes an anti-modding stance for their PC titles (either on the game I am thinking of buying or their games in general). Any game company that has problems with modding of their games (the exception to this being things like MMOs or cheating in multiplayer games) doesn't deserve my money (I say this as someone who has been modding games since Wolfenstein 3D came out). Anything that involves paying extra on top of the game to get access to modding or tools also counts here. Oh and any game company that does things to any of their games post-release aimed at stopping modding or making it harder (except where such changes are done specifically to prevent online cheating and things) is a lot more likely to end up on my personal blacklist.

3.If the game requires a monthly subscription (I dont like MMOs, I prefer something I can own and keep forever)

4.If the game features any kind of open-ended payment or microtransactions or the like (i.e. if its not possible to pay a one-off price and get ALL the official content released up to that point)

5.If the game includes DRM that gets in the way, takes up system resources even when I am not playing, makes it harder to reverse engineer or fiddle with the game data formats (e.g. DRM that encrypts game data as well as executables) or makes the game run slower than it otherwise would without the DRM. Steam and Origin are fine because I can load those as and when I want to play games on those platforms and they dont get in the way.
DRM that requires any kind of kernel drivers or kernel code (or does things that are likely not to work on future versions of Windows) is also on my no-no list because it increases the chance that I will not be able to play the game in the future.

6.If the game is incomplete or doesn't have an ending or whatever and you have to buy DLC to get the whole experience (DLC should be extra missions or quests or cars or other content, not things that are really part of the base game but are being sold as DLC just to make more money.

7.If the game specifies unrealistic system requirements (i.e. the game would not be fully playable if you played it on a system that matches the minimum system requirements for the game). Or if the developer doesn't provide properly usable system requirements at all (if I cant be 100% sure my system meets the specs for the game I wont be giving anyone money for it)

8.If the game has game-breaking or critical bugs and the developer refuses to acknowledge the bugs or to do everything they can fix them (obviously this doesn't apply for older games where the games are no longer being developed, just to games that are still receiving patches)

9.If the game (because of DRM or other reasons) refuses to run if certain hardware or software is installed (e.g. games that complain if you have virtual optical drive software or debugging software installed even if you aren't actually using the virtual optical drive software or debugging software on the game in question). The exception to this is games that complain for legitimate anti-cheat reasons etc

and 10.If the PC port is intentionally cut down or gimped compared to console versions (e.g. content in the console versions that isn't in the PC version)

Actually, I take this aspect a bit further (aside from the fact that I avoid DRM entirely); anything that requires closed source software to run with elevated privileges or in kernel mode is a no-no. This, notably, means that I will not buy NVIDIA graphics cards; I will either use AMD cards that have decent open source drivers or (what I have been doing) stick with integrated graphics.

Thing is, if you allow software you don't trust to run with admin/root privileges or in kernel mode, you open up a major security risk; said software could do pretty much anything, including making your computer unusable or stealing your credit card details.

I imagine this would only apply if you are a Linux gamer as if you run Windows like me, you are already trusting all the kernel stuff written by Microsoft :)

I dont game on Linux because the games I play dont run on Linux :)

Not regarding PC games, but what would be of console games were it not for emulators? 95% of each one's libraries were never released elsewhere, and the remaining 5% is grossly overpriced.

Console exclusives are preposterous enough as they are. Like if you could only watch a movie on a specific TV, or listen to a song on a specific sound system. Imagine if even 30 years later you still had to count on the good will of companies to actually re-release titles.

Thank God for emulators.

I played the game in Spanish. One of the replies that seemed to be always available was "Tu madre!" (Your mother!). What was the English equivalent of it? Was it the same?

I love that DVD vs VHS race experiment, brilliant!

VHS wins because the technology is too primitive to allow basted scumbag blocking of fast forward.

The only thing worse than a scumbag is a basted one, so slippery.

Well technically i am referring to a specific 'act' of bastedry, not an individual person.

OK, I get it now, just general basting.

hmmm the term 'general basting' kind of has an element to it that sounds fun!

"me and the boys were out all night at the party getting drunk and doing general basting with the hot girls there"