Gaming and theft.

[TL]

You are being watched Crusto! 

[dougtitchmarsh]

No, shoplifting is bad mmmkay.
Doesn't anyone want to code the game "Crusto the Criminal" yet? Our antihero could spend his days trying to sneak around shoplifting games while avoiding the patrolling store detectives. If caught he gets the chair in glorious 8 bit definition gore 

[guest5158]

Only from a couple of mates (who stole my games in the first place)! 

[Bobinator]

What? No, never! How could you ever accuse me of something like that?



That... that's all abandonware! That's different!



I'm... I'm pretty sure most of these are no longer sold! I think!

...Ninja vanish!

[rush6432]

See this "abandonware" term that people are slapping on older games now is just an excuse to copy the game in my opinion... I dont think it applies to alot of titles..

The fact is, the original creators usually still hold the rights and whatnot which makes it still their property. No one can just label a game "abandonware" because its old.... thats like saying if a car is older than 1990 that you can steal it.... what sense does that make?

Sure the likelyhood that you'll get in trouble is much lower with an older title, but still the chance is there and if the original game creator wanted to persue someone for plastering their game all over as abandonware , they sure could!!!

I understand if the original creators cannot be found anymore and the company doesnt exist anymore, but plenty of software out there is labeled incorrectly as abandonware and the creating company(s) still exist....

For instance. super street fighter 2 for PC/DOS .... capcom still exists, its still a valid copyright yet i see it plastered all over "abandonware" sites...

Am i the only one that is a little perplexed over this? Seems a bit odd and it seems to be an increasing trend/argument to get free stuff...  Just because its no longer sold doesnt mean its abandonware.

[WiggyDiggyPoo]

..............

So come on folks, nows the time to own up.

Never video games, used to take cigerettes and porn mags from my newsagent when I worked there lol  My modded Xbox of course but that seemed to be the done thing (at least 10 of my friends all got them done by 1 friend lol), making up for that now by buying the games when I see them....

Piracy/theft is an odd thing, I have no issue grabbing TV/films etc but games? I seem to have gone cold on the idea.

Its odder now because the majority of games I amy buying, are second hand, which of course means the people originally wanting to be paid for the games have been so (hopefully!).

I'm a bit of a bargain hound when it comes to new stuff, or at least I won't buy something until its 'of a fair price' - got plenty of other things to play whilst I wait lol

[Bobinator]

Am i the only one that is a little perplexed over this? Seems a bit odd and it seems to be an increasing trend/argument to get free stuff...  Just because its no longer sold doesnt mean its abandonware.

In all seriousness, while it might be sort of a legal grey area, I think it's necessary. A lot of games that would fall under the 'definition' of abandonware are probably very rare or very expensive. It's one thing to pirate games that are distributed easily on sites like GOG, but when you're talking a game where the original company doesn't exist, what are you expected to do?

I mean, come on, it's not like people exactly trip over copies of "Dangerous Dave Goes Nutz", you understand what I mean? It's hardly anybody's fault but the right owners... if said right owners still even exist. And if we're talking second hand, it's basically the exact same thing, because nobody's getting paid except the guy who owns the physical copy of the game.

Also, the car analogy doesn't really make sense on the discussion of piracy. You can't make multiple copies of a car, after all, for starters.

TLDR: If you can buy a game 'officially' from a place like Steam, or GOG, do so, as that's what you SHOULD do. If you can't, it's not your fault.

[rush6432]

Thats a cop out....  you know what the right thing to do is.

[Bobinator]

EDIT: Eh... truthfully, I'm gonna bow out of this. The original post was more meant in jest, and I'm probably taking this way, way too seriously. Obviously, this isn't the right thread for this, anyway. Sorry if I got a little "spirited" about things, rush. You guys have fun in this thread, you dirty, thieving lot, you!

[SnakeEyes]

When  was 11 or 12 I got a few MD games for Christmas. Some good ones but I also got Fantasia. I took it back to exchange it.

Now the shop it was bought from was a big toy shop and only had videogames in a few small locked display cabinets. What you had to do was choose which one you wanted to look at, get a shop worker to unlock the cabinet, get the game out and let you have a look. Wait till you decided whether to buy or not and return the game back to the cabinrt if you did not want to buy.

Now this was right after Xmas and the shop was incredibly busy and they were just not that interested in videogames at the shop, The sales guy was visibly annoyed with me as I decided to have a look at Bonanza bros, Decapattack, and Alien Storm. The cabinet was right next to the counter to pay and he just said hurry up and decide and give me a shout. Turns out he buggered off for a fag.

Another assistant came over saw the cabinet was open and started mumbling about F'ing idiots leaving the cabinet open and literally pushed me out of the way and locked it. He looked at me and said are you buying anything. without waiting for a reply he told me to get out of the way as I was in the way of people buying toys.

So basically I was left standing there with 4 MD games ( 3 i was looking at and the original fantasia ) no one wanted anything to do with me and I was basically told to bugger off, So I did, with 3 free brand new MD games.

[TL]

That is hilarious 

Also reminds me of a story involving my old next door neighbour. We went into the St. Albans branch of Calculus to get a Lynx game and the main reason we went there over anywhere else was that they always let us try out the game on our own machine. So my neighbour couldn't decide between Hockey or Basketbrawl and wanted to try both out. He plays Hockey first and really likes it and then sticks in Basketbrawl but isn't impressed at all so he buys Hockey and we go home. We are then sitting in his lounge and he goes to play it and realises the Basketbrawl card was still in his Lynx! Safe to say he didn't take it back.

[rush6432]

EDIT: Eh... truthfully, I'm gonna bow out of this. The original post was more meant in jest, and I'm probably taking this way, way too seriously. Obviously, this isn't the right thread for this, anyway. Sorry if I got a little "spirited" about things, rush. You guys have fun in this thread, you dirty, thieving lot, you!

I wasnt try to bait you into an argument honestly.  Its just a good topic . Ill admit though i am kind of derailing things a bit here so ill bow out too.