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Not sure if this is enough for you, but they can't access certain parts of the forums (like user mods and tech support) without registering their game with a CD key.

They also can't get DLC, right?

So I don't see where OP's issue is. You can pirate the game and have the most basic form of it, or you can buy it and be able to buy into a MUCH better version...
 
They also can't get DLC, right?

So I don't see where OP's issue is. You can pirate the game and have the most basic form of it, or you can buy it and be able to buy into a MUCH better version...
I'm fairly certain that if the base game can be pirated, so can the DLCs/patches.
 
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Are independent pirates still a thing? I haven't seen one in a long time, I know privateers exist but it was a damn long time since I saw pirates in the game popping up to blockade my unprotected ports in the new world.

they all fly under the flag of Yargs Revenge.
 
The difficulty is that DRM very rarely succeeds at stopping pirates (i.e., people will find ways to bypass it very shortly after the game's release, and proceed to pirate it as normal). On the other hand, it frequently does succeed at causing problems/crashes/annoyances for legitimate users (at which point, the cracked version the pirates are distributing becomes not only the cheaper product, but the better product, and that's just twisted). As far as I can tell, the only schemes which have met with even partial success are the ones (Sim City 5, Diablo 3, etc.) that "outsource" some of the necessary calculations from the game to outsider servers, requiring a constant connection - which inevitably overloads on the first day, leaving no one able to play the game they paid good money for and leaving the publisher with heaps of bad publicity (to say nothing of the upkeep cost on those servers....). Better, on the whole, not to worry too much. You may lose money from people who pirate instead of buying, but one suspects that many of the pirates would not have bought your game even if a free version were unavailable, and it is certain that a free version (even an unauthorized one) will bring the game to the attention of people who would never have tried it out otherwise, and that at least some of these people will go on to buy it.

In short, copyright violation will never go away. It has existed... not throughout human existence, but as long as there has been copyright laws to violate. Though Shakespeare could not expect his plays to be on the stage a week before other theaters were producing their own versions, playwrights and actors were not driven out of business. Authors and publishers were not driven out of business. Game designers, I expect, will somehow pull through.
 
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it's hard not to feel bitter buying eu4 and ck2 with ALL DLC, just to see that anyone can get it for free on popular torrent websites, is there anyway you can make it more unprofitible to pirate the games? they miss out on multiplayer but i'm sure thre's more things you could do? i'd hate to buy stellaris just to see bunch of people pick it up for free.

They also miss out on support and mods as someone said earlier.

I think the best anti-piracy is what Greenheart games did with GameDev Tycoon. Hilarious.

I impulsively bought that game simply because i found that so funny.
 
I'm sure if you need support for your pirated game you can find it on other sites too, also, the mods can easily be leaked too. Yes, you'll have to register your game, but NOTHING is stopping you from downloading mods and sharing them elsewhere.
If this was an EA or Ubisoft forum I'd think you were a paradox employee forced to ask for drm so they could say "see the fans wanted it."
 
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If this was an EA or Ubisoft forum I'd think you were a paradox employee forced to ask for drm so they could say "see the fans wanted it."

nah, that's too nice and out of character for EA and Ubi. they'd ban half the forum members and THEN ask what DRM people want from their selection. and the selection would all be just a bunch of secuROM copycats... or the NSA. i wouldn't put it past them.
 
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First of all, I support small companies like Paradox because they have reasonable prices on their games and DLCs. I kind of only buy the expansions and the music DLCs as I do not really care about any sprites and models. As a matter of fact, I would like only counters in every game. Paradox is also not putting any DRM on their games and I can move it around to other locations on my hard drive and I can also have the games on multiple computers if I would desire that(and if I would own multiple computers). If a company charges 80 dollars and even more for their dirty AAA titles and then put on DRM which destroys my game experience then I do not at all feel sorry for those developers and that company. Until they don't release DRM free version of the game, I will not buy it. When they do then I might buy it. Also the game would become even more expensive if a DRMwas used and for what? So that legitimate customers like me would suffer and get a worse product than the pirates?
 
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I'm sure if you need support for your pirated game you can find it on other sites too, also, the mods can easily be leaked too. Yes, you'll have to register your game, but NOTHING is stopping you from downloading mods and sharing them elsewhere.

Yeah but it won't be the official support. Official support has certain benefits.
As for the mods most are only linked to on this forum and steam workshop so they aren't easy to find otherwise.
 
I hate DRM and any company or game that has it, I am refusing to buy the games. Consequently I have only a very few companies to buy from and Paradox is one of the few ones. If their policy on DRM changes then I will no longer buy their games, period.

I enjoy paradox games more than to drop it entirely. I'd probably buy it, register it and paralelly download and play the drm free version.

Everyone wins. Sorta.
 
I enjoy paradox games more than to drop it entirely. I'd probably buy it, register it and paralelly download and play the drm free version.

Everyone wins. Sorta.
Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. If you get caught for pirating something which you already own(and believe me those types of pirates exists) then you would still face criminal charges. That is more common whenit comes to older games or games which you have no real possibility of buying due to regional restrictions or simply because they don't sell them anymore. This is also seen in the movie industry, I remember that I have searched an eternity once for a relative old TV series and I could not find the seasons which I searched for anywhere. I searched legal webshops, I even drove around Budapest to all the major shops which sell DVDs to ask about it and no place had it.
 
Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. If you get caught for pirating something which you already own(and believe me those types of pirates exists) then you would still face criminal charges. That is more common whenit comes to older games or games which you have no real possibility of buying due to regional restrictions or simply because they don't sell them anymore. This is also seen in the movie industry, I remember that I have searched an eternity once for a relative old TV series and I could not find the seasons which I searched for anywhere. I searched legal webshops, I even drove around Budapest to all the major shops which sell DVDs to ask about it and no place had it.

Yeah, probably not legal either. Although I wonder how a developer would view it.

For old games though, I always go to the shop near Astoria. Just beside ELTE Bölcsész, it has a surprisingly huge range of old games. I bought Ceasar 3 there a couple of years ago, it should still be there. For old movies wasn't it on amazon?
 
Actually, one of the appeals of PDX is that their games are largely DRM free, as they believe fans should not be disadvantaged with cumbersome DRM just because they want piracy groups to spend an extra 10-15 minutes cracking their game. If I recall correctly, this is the official position of their CEO, and they do mention this time and time again, likely for PR reasons. It definitely wins browny points with me though.

From a business perspective, it is just not as worthwhile for smaller game companies and publishers to invest in anti-piracy measures. Anti-piracy software is an investment that is supposed to, in theory, influence the 'swing' pirates to purchase the game. No one is really fooling themselves that DRM will make piracy impossible, but the idea is that there may be pirates who are hindered from pirating thanks to DRM, and thus, with no other alternative, would go on and purchase the game. The number of 'swing' pirates is I would, mostly theoretical and open to debate. Certainly though, given the financial and PR costs of DRM, it would be a less viable option for smaller companies than larger companies, where the number of 'swing pirates' are higher due to the overall larger customer base and where the financial cost of DRM is proportionately less due to greater total revenue.

Just to give an example:

PDX is a small publishing company compared to, say, EA. PDX is about 0.5% the size of EA when it comes to revenues. So, (just examples here) if EA has 100,000 customers, then PDS would have have about 500 customers (0.5%). If the percentage of people who would be persuaded to buy the game if DRM is implemented is 1%, then investing in DRM would bring EA 1000 customers, but it would only bring PDX 2-3 customers. The cost of investing in DRM is the same for both companies, and EA has larger overall budget. Under this scenario, it makes sense from a business perspective for the larger company to embrace the implementation of DRM and the smaller company to shun it.

Of course, this is all assuming that 'swing pirates' are around 1% which may not be entirely true. There is certainly the argument that DRM may actually lower the customer base or even encourage piracy... But I'm guessing good ol' EA has hired people who has conducted professional analysis...

EDIT: fixed calculation errors
 
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PDX is a small publishing company compared to, say, EA. PDX is less than 0.01% the size of EA when it comes to revenues. So, (just examples here) if EA has 100,000 customers, then PDS would have had 1000 customers (0.01%).

I believe you were planning to use 1%. A 0,01% would be 100,000 EA to 10 PDX individuals.
 
Whether or not someone else would pirate the game has never influenced my purchase decision. I don't keep tabs on and I don't care about what others do. I do the right thing and that's all I need to know.

The only DRM that really pisses me off if when I need to log in to someone else's system to play even when playing steam. I mean if it is built into the game menu and I don't need to navigate to a webpage, I don't mind as much, but even then - let me play you're stinking game already! I was pretty psyched to play the Mortal Combat classics on steam but then it asked me to create an account and log in to some crap, I just uninstalled (no big loss, got it with a bundle). I guess I didn't want to play that bad.

Even though DRM is annoying and I disagree with it, it does not provide any justification to pirate. Anyone who makes that argument I completely disagree with and question their sense of morality and justice as harshly as I would EA's for releasing Sim City in the state it was in with the always online requirement. Basically: Pirates are just as bad as EA, and that's about as bad as it gets in the gaming industry I would think.

ALTHOUGH: I have pirated for rare games that I can't find to purchase, but with GOG.com, that isn't a big issue anymore. Also, full disclosure, when I was a poor college student, I couldn't wait to try EU:Rome so I tried to pirate but it didn't work on my PC at the time, but then I bought it when I got a better PC!
 
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Yeah, probably not legal either. Although I wonder how a developer would view it.

For old games though, I always go to the shop near Astoria. Just beside ELTE Bölcsész, it has a surprisingly huge range of old games. I bought Ceasar 3 there a couple of years ago, it should still be there. For old movies wasn't it on amazon?
Thanks. I will check it out. Now as far as movies, I searched for Everybody Loves Raymond Season 7 in Hungarian synchronization. I know that it exists but I could never find it. In fact there isn't even any torrent on it so I am kind of out of luck. I could have bought it in English a number of years ago but I didn't.