pouët.net

I believe no Amiga game released in the last 15-20 years has had any form of copy protection. These groups are releasing, they aren't cracking.



Wouldn't know anything about that #TTE

Ping : Crackers .......no carrier.

Buying software is an insult. Almost like paying for Netflix. Or Windows. ;)

Thanks.

It lately dawned on me that the cracking scene does a great job at archiving the meta-data of entire industries. Setting up a late 90s DAW for revisiting old projects wouldn't have been possible without it. Just figuring out which product version was released when was an impossible task.

And even today, most devs don't seem to give much of a quack about maintaining a proper release archive. Meh!

This thread reminds me of what Proudhon once said: "Property is theft!"

Since for Proudhon "property" was more like "capital" – things used for economic exploitation – while things actually used by person – like toothbrushes and personal computers – fall to the category of "possession" (personal belongings, including dwelling-house), it may be complicated how his views relate to the software piracy. Because possession was something earned through person's own production, it may be possible he would have seen software business as legitimate.

...at least when it doesn't involve the accumulation of property.

Which covers like 1% of all cases, or like 0.001% of overall money spent on software nowadays.

Simply, do not copy the gamz. If you want to have a back-up, buy another one! ;)

It's curious what these crack screens say:

I dunno. Could be something to do with the fact that "Pinball Dreams" was created by the demoscene group The Silents and not some soulless corporation... Maybe...

Back in the daze there wer no corporations per se. Many games were done by the scenners, who, by the way, were still ripped (robbed) by the publishers.
To just name a few examples:
- The Last Ninja on the C64 published (stolen? and recoded) by System 3,
- Abandonned Places 2 published and CRACKED (yes, they did hire a cracker to have it working on the A1200) by ICE,
- Tha Citadel published by Arrakis,

So publishers are not corporations? Ah, OK.
Ah well, I prefered cracked games because of cool intros anyway. Plus, local stores did not hold that many (read almost none) C64 games where I lived. Cracked games I could get via schoolyard trading. This left me with the practice for life: if it’s easier and more convenient to pay, I’ll pay happily. If not, I’ll pirate equally happily.

See, in my experience they almost always screw paying customers. Like, against my aforementioned “practice for life”, I now have this mid-size hand-picked DVD collection stashed away in the basement. Stupid pieces of flimsy plastic with shitty resolution. OK some are in fancy tin boxes, but whatever.

Now do I photocopy books? Certainly not. It’s easier and more convenient to buy or borrow.

Software these days? With subscription model of “buying” software? The likes of Adobe, Autodesk and such can f*ck off. Windows? Who pays for that, it’s free, it never expires!

I've paid for Photoshop since the early 2000's and I'm pretty happy with the subscription model. The software keeps getting updated with new features all the time.

I’m happy for you.

I have a honest question regarding SW prices: I for one live in the EU, and it is huge, with wildly differing average incomes / wages.

Some barely scrape by on 1200€ a month, others have to get by with just €400.

Do we all have to pay the same price for SW on, say Steam, despite of that ?

@bsp:
Very good point. Back in the daze, when EU were less "unified" the prices were way different and more adapted for the wages.

I can - let's say that - answer you as follows: For ex. in Spain, after the c*vid lie shit, the prices have risen insanely and inexplicably high. When I asked some of my cronies "how do ppl cope with such a crazy situation", the answer was/is "we have no choice, we gotta."

Noone "up there" cares about it. It is cruel, soulless corporate (hello 4gentE ;) world THEY are making.

Do you think the Egiptian way of master-slaves living was over already in Egipt? No way, do not get fooled, it is still here!!

Greetz!

About ‘subscription model’ of selling software I mentioned earlier, I found this to be the case: The subscription model is a means of inflating the value of corporate stock. It just so happens that investors seek to invest in businesses with large amount of subscribers. Like Facebook for example. Or a telecom. Investors don’t know jack shit about business they are investing into. All they know is they want to invest in something that has a lot of subscribers. Subscribers and their number became a new metric for forming of stock value, it’s a new keyword for investment algorithms. So the second a (software) business switches to subscription model, its stock value skyrockets. And that’s why you have this inflation of subscription models. It’s exclusively about dumb corporate greed.

Now @neon, I was not talking about buying a piece of software with permanent license, then getting (paid for or free) updates for a set period of time. I think that’s what you were referring to. That’s not a sbscription model. That’s plain old legal way of procuring software. Subscription model doesn’t sell permanent licenses, it only sort of rents you the software for as long as you repeatedly keep paying for it. And then the lock-in mechanism gets in your way in such aggressive and obtrusive manner that you just give up and instead get a cracked version that works like a charm if available. You just tire of getting punished for being a paying customer…

What corporations call piracy, we the people call communism! :)

and communism has been a massive success!

Well, if destruction of the planet along with all life was the measure, my bet would be on capitalism. As Borat would say: “Great success!”

Actyivity is high, some cool installers and keygens every now and then also..

^ That's good to know. Disassembling (and well, sometimes cracking and training) other people's code back in the days (on ye good ole Amiga 500) taught me a lot of things so why would that be different today.

@sim: How am I not surprised. When you take a look under the blanket, our world is built upon lies and injustice (with SW being the least of our problems).