Rampant piracy threatens PC games

[usergame]

Global piracy cost the US games industry more than $4bn in 2004, not including losses from net piracy.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6449421.stm

I'm not much of a gamer anyway but who's to say that the people that contributed to "losses" would have bought the game in the first place?

Why doesn't the gaming industry just sell ad space in virtual cites? - like billboards and pepsi machines where the player can get a pepsi to raise his life level or something to that effect

[cash_site]

I don't know... it's getting tougher these days... i mean, downloads are like 6 GB + now!! Plus, the best part of the games are the multiplayer online ability !!

Most times people will download to try it out on their system, then purchase the real deal, just to get the serial key and play online... *cough*

[Stripe]

I think a lot of it too is that there's just a ton of crappy games out there.

I can't tell you how much I've dropped on games that ended up being less than poor.

[phishhead]

I wish I had time to game.... the new job keeps me going till the evening then sometimes I'm finishing up at home. thats why I've been AWOL on the board. Don't have time to even surf the internet like at the helpdesk.

[cash_site]

I wish I had time to game.... the new job keeps me going till the evening then sometimes I'm finishing up at home. thats why I've been AWOL on the board. Don't have time to even surf the internet like at the helpdesk.

I hear you Phish! I was awol for a few months - only just enough time to lurk on some of the threads

Hopefully the xmas break will give some time for you to get practicing to shoot again.. ala COD_2

[Linedawg]

I wish I had time to game.... the new job keeps me going till the evening then sometimes I'm finishing up at home. thats why I've been AWOL on the board. Don't have time to even surf the internet like at the helpdesk.

I feel your pain. Between work, school and the new baby I have limited time to play any game. But the up side is I’m in game development so I can play them as a part of “HOMEWORK”

But my job is my biggest road block in this. Originally I supposed to work as desktop support lead. But now I have that with supply demands, and personal on site tech to several VIP’s and get phone calls all hours of the night. I cant wait to get into the programming field. But entry level job in programming are hard to come by.

[cash_site]

But entry level job in programming are hard to come by.

Really? I would have thought there would be tons of graduate positions - since in this current skills shortage, grads are the cheapest, cos mid-range bums like me are asking for too much money

Keep at it though, talk with Doohg, he just started doing freelance-contract software development... #1 tip is to always keep practicing

back on topic, not sure how bad the piracy is, tons of fake torrents, or they're nuked 0-day, or worse, riddled with trojans! It's not that the games industry is winning the 'war', more like criminals are contaminating the scene