What happens when pirates play a game development simulator and then go bankrupt because of piracy?

What happens when pirates play a game development simulator and then go bankrupt because of piracy?

This is hilariously funny and extremely sad at the same time … make sure to read the whole thing.

The cracked version is nearly identical to the real thing except for one detail… Initially we thought about telling them their copy is an illegal copy, but instead we didn’t want to pass up the unique opportunity of holding a mirror in front of them and showing them what piracy can do to game developers. So, as players spend a few hours playing and growing their own game dev company, they will start to see the following message, styled like any other in-game message:

pirate message

Boss, it seems that while many players play our new game, they steal it by downloading a cracked version rather than buying it legally.
If players don’t buy the games they like, we will sooner or later go bankrupt.

Slowly their in-game funds dwindle, and new games they create have a high chance to be pirated until their virtual game development company goes bankrupt.

On policy making and profit protection

TorrentFreak runs an inspirational piece, which touches upon civil liberties, policy making, and profits of the large companies involved in movie and music making.

The job of any entrepreneur is to construct a use case and a business case that allow them to make money, given the current constraints of society and technology. They do not get to dismantle civil liberties, even if they can’t make money otherwise. That goes for Blackwater Security as well as the copyright industry as well as every other entrepreneur on the planet.

Take.fm – a cross between Netflix and The Pirate Bay

One of the websites that helped me change my opinion on movie piracy recently was Take.fm .  Something tells me that it will be shut down and humiliated by authorities when it will grow, but for as long as it is open, I think that it is a good example of how movie access should be.

Take.fm is a cross between the famous American video-on-demand service Netflix and the well-known pirated content exchange website The Pirate Bay.  Take.fm brings the best of both worlds.  Netflix, from what I hear, has an excellent selection of content and very user friendly interface.  Too bad it is not available outside of the United States.  And unfortunately to some – it is a commercial service.  The Pirate Bay, on the hand, is free and offers pretty much the same content.  However, most of this content is buried in tonnes of noise, porn, SPAM, and such.  It’s not easy to find what you want, and when you get it, nobody can guarantee you the quality of the downloaded material.

Take.fm has a very easy, straight-forward interface.  You can browse or search for movies.  Poster thumbnails are a great help.  Once you find something interesting, you can check IMDB rating which is integrated with the website (finally, somebody did it!), select your option for either DVDRip or BDRip (yes, Bluray), and click “Download Torrent File”.  I don’t see how it could have been simpler, really.

While the selection of titles might be not as great as you’d find on Apple TV or Netflix, there is enough for everyone.  They have new releases, old movies, and classics.  They have movies in all genres.  The quality of downloads is awesome.  And the download speeds are amazing.  At least my ADSL line is maxed out every time I get something from there. And the best part is that you don’t even have to register.  You can, but you don’t have to.  I, for one, am not registered yet.

If the movie industry wants me to change my opinion back, they have to come up with something as good or better as Take.fm – an excellent example to follow.

My new stand on movie piracy

I have changed my opinion on movie piracy during the last few days.

Until recently I was strictly anti-piracy.  Maybe not strict enough, but stricter than anyone I know personally.  I wasn’t downloading movies from the Web.  I was buying DVDs.  I was renting DVDs. I was a frequent movie-goer. I was advocating people against movie piracy.   I was wrong.

I am tired of being the “last samurai” pain in the butt.  Nobody cares anymore.  And the worst part, is that movie industry doesn’t care.  Why should I then?

There is no way anymore for me keep watching movies, while staying an anti-pirate.  I cannot rent a legitimate DVD anymore – everyone is using pirated and copy-pasted disks.  I cannot share films with my friends, most of who are downloading them from the Web.  There is no video-on-demand service around here, like Netflix in the USA.  Our home ADSL speeds aren’t in the AppleTV ranges yet. And I can’t stay up-to-date using only cinemas, because all of the cinemas in Cyprus belong to the same people, they show the same movies, and they bring only about one new titles a week.

There is an option of buying DVDs from Amazon, but the prices (including shipping) are prohibitive, and, as I was reminded with my recent DVD player change, I have to pay attention to the regional encoding.  Otherwise the DVDs that I bought won’t play at all.  Oh, and, of course, if they play, I will have to go through a gadzillion of un-skip-able ads, trailers, FBI and CIA warnings, and the like.  I am tired of this crap.

So, from now on, I won’t be paying much attention to all the movie anti-piracy noise.  I will still try to get the movie legally – in the cinema or pay-per-view somewhere online, or whatever option will be available.  But if everything fails, as it often does now, I will download and watch the pirated version.  I have tried it recently, and it is a pleasure, indeed.  It’s easy to find the film I want to see, it takes minutes to download it (compared to days or weeks waiting for it in the cinema or for a shipping delivery), I can talk about it with my friends again, and I can move on spending times on the things that I worth spending time on.

I tried my best and failed miserably, annoying a lot of people on the way.  I won’t do it anymore.

P.S.: I won’t be producing or commercially distributing any pirated materials.

P.P.S.: The above opinion change for now only applies to the TV and movie industry.  Software industry is different and I still stand strict on the anti-piracy stand there.

P.P.P.S.: If you were annoyed by my anti-piracy rants over the years, please excuse me.  You should know how passionate and stubborn I can get, often for no reason.