killamch89 Posted August 22 Share Posted August 22 (edited) With the rise of subscription services and expensive software, some people turn to piracy. Do you use any pirated software? If so, why did you choose that route instead of paying for it? Edited August 23 by Shagger Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shagger Posted August 23 Share Posted August 23 (edited) Whilst discussing piracy as a subject matter is perfectly welcome on VGR, linking/naming host websites and sources or offering detailed descriptions/instructions on how to download pirated software or compromise anti-piracy measures is not. Because of this @killamch89, I have edited your opening post and thread title so it does not encourage replies that violate this policy. Edited September 4 by Shagger Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shagger Posted August 23 Share Posted August 23 (edited) With that out of the way... I did pirate Hogwarts Legacy simply because I could not stomach the idea of any of my money, even the tiniest amount of it, ending up in the pocket of that vile bigot J.K Rowling. Another interesting one I downloaded was C&C Red Alert 2. I own the game, have for years, but struggled to get it to work on more modern PCs. I tried the official ports from EA and they have issues. I even tried a couple of abbandonware versions that I downloaded completely legally, but they version had issues as well. So, I turned to piracy, and incredibly that worked! I downloaded a version of the game with a strange Russian splash logo added to the intro sequence that I have to assume are the people who hacked and/or modded this version of the game. For the reasons stated in my previous post, I'm not going to name this splash logo. I didn't actually download the game from this Russian site, I honestly can't even remember where I got it from, but this is the only version of the game that run stable on modern hardware. The game didn't crash like the other versions did, there were no incompatibily problems and the game's menus, cut scenes and dialogue were all in the original English. It was, well, perfect. In conclusion, there are moral and technical ways pirating software and games can be justified. That matters little to publishers of course, but it's not just greed and poverty that drive people to pirate games and software. These publishers need to understand that. Edited August 23 by Shagger Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
killamch89 Posted August 31 Author Share Posted August 31 On 8/22/2024 at 8:54 PM, Shagger said: Whilst discussing piracy as a subject matter is perfectly welcome on VGR, linking/naming host websites and sources or offering detailed descriptions/instructions on how to download pirated software or comprise anti-piracy measures is not. Because of this @killamch89, I have edited your opening post and thread description so it does not encourage replies that violate this policy. Okay np. On 8/22/2024 at 9:23 PM, Shagger said: With that out of the way... I did pirate Hogwarts Legacy simply because I could not stomach the idea of any of my money, even the tiniest amount of it, ending up in the pocket of that vile bigot J.K Rowling. Another interesting one I downloaded was C&C Red Alert 2. I own the game, have for years, but struggled to get it to work on more modern PCs. I tried the official ports from EA and they have issues. I even tried a couple of abbandonware versions that I downloaded completely legally, but they version had issues as well. So, I turned to piracy, and incredibly that worked! I downloaded a version of the game with a strange Russian splash logo added to the intro sequence that I have to assume are the people who hacked and/or modded this version of the game. For the reasons stated in my previous post, I'm not going to name this splash logo. I didn't actually download the game from this Russian site, I honestly can't even remember where I got it from, but this is the only version of the game that run stable on modern hardware. The game didn't crash like the other versions did, there were no incompatibily problems and the game's menus, cut scenes and dialogue were all in the original English. It was, well, perfect. In conclusion, there are moral and technical ways pirating software and games can be justified. That matters little to publishers of course, but it's not just greed and poverty that drive people to pirate games and software. These publishers need to understand that. I find that turning on Windows compatibility mode can work with some older games. That's how I can run the original AOE II and III on my PC. I'm not sure if this applies to C&C Red Alert 2. I've had pirated versions of Photoshop in the past because Adobe's subscription policy is predatory but I've been able to find viable alternatives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
