Re: Why Must People Crack Games
Well.
2 points here.
First a historic one.
Back when I was a teen ager till I was at least 20-25 years before opensource came up, pirating and cracking were the norm.
You are pushed to use certain software, in my day that was windows and office and a few other things.
Those things cost quite a lot.
If you can get them funded or part of work fine, but there were not the student options there are now.
And so you cracked everything from games, to well pritty much everything.
From mp3s to well whatever.
It was the fighting the system and the big corperate bastards, I think that was my justification for doing it.
It meant I could use software I would usually not work, most of my cracks were off ftp servers, things like adobe acrobat full, winzip, nero burning rom, , etc, etc, etc.
I never went into it like friend did when I was in student flatting, dvds, movies and tv series never interested me like that.
So why did I mostly bail out?
1. opensource came along.
And a lot more freeware.
I didn't need k1000 when I upgraded to win7 I had to concidder what I would get.
And I had a bit of cash, abbyy fine reader was what I ended up buying for scanners, malware in things like dvdvideosoft stuff got me into my applian software though to be honest I use it not as much as I thought I would some of it is still quite visual, a thing they don't seem to fully acknowledge.
winzip became 7zip.
Nero, well I didn't care for 7 or 8 it was cheap enough to buy but cdbxp for writing and goldwave for extracting.
Vlc and winamp which by now I had a list of plugins for including chip music things like that.
The other thing was the antipiracy law.
Ok so it was fun being a pirate, and fighting the system, but to be honest while even reveering those hackers I knew that got in and did stuff for a laugh but in 2002-03 that changed.
A few of what were my friends some hackers started getting serious, causing dammage that didn't sit with me that well.
Being a pirate is fine and all, but I only did it to survive, or to help my friends, it was never take the bastards down so I become the chief bastard nothing like that.
It was true in the past I had grabbed more than I wanted or needed because it was around just doing all of it.
K1000 was really nice, braille, ocr, scanning nice till my scanner broke.
If I ever got the funds and cash though I'd still buy it.
Things like getright actually stopped you getting it same with flashfxp, which I ended up buying except I hardly need a download manager these days and ftp servers I used to use are long gone.
Fact is unlike a few people I knew I was not really a serious pirate by any means I was a standard user trying to survive any way he could.
Bar my screen reader I have about 4 or 5 comercial programs not counting the os to my name.
They don't include games.
To the games, bar a few titles like bavisoft and sadly the abandoned code factory titles, 10-35 bucks is reasonable for a game heck in mainstream games especially consoles while a few are that price, most mainstreams are double that at least and maybe over 100 bucks in some cases.
So our games for what they are are not that bad to be honest.
On the asking front it can be the most difficult thing, asking or accepting it, I was once told by someone well that he could buy a game, but I felt embarrased accepting the offer.
So it probably works both ways.
But back to the past, what I was doing is not worth fines or jail, and to be honest while I did it to survive I wouldn't sell it to make cash for my own proffit I condem those that do though a few of my friends and those I knew from flatting actually did.
The idea of being a pirate is to fight the system, and take them down.
But unless you really want revenge you have a life to.
If you are noticed you have 2 issues.
1. what is the point fighting the system if you are noticed, 1 punch and you are wasted.
2. if you get hit, its unlikely you can go back to your normal ish life if you wanted to.
Unless ofcause you are that skilled at it then maybe you become part of the system or get a nitche somewhere in a new life but usually you get a mark against your actual life, and that means your life is basically over, you are known.
I know people that did it to get noticed but you don't have a life no job prospects, nothing you may as well die, its not worth it especially if you were small.
I stopped naturally.
I still dabble here and there from time to time but nothing really big, certainly nothing to take em down.
Maybe if a demo of a program is to short, or I have a reason to review something I may just do that but will intend to buy it.
Sadly even this has stopped.
The main reason that it has though is because there are a lot more that seem to have a chip on their sholdour.
Keygens and cracking software is full of malware, I only ever went for serials for the last 3 years up to 2006-7 and am completely stopped now.
Even joke lists I was on I have pulled out of.
There is to much ransomware around, from time to time I will use a vpn on another box not mine and a torrent program to get things like some books maybe but thats it really.
There is a certain thrill in breaking other peoples stuff but its only till you are past your teens unless you want revenge and thats just petty and stupid.
Or if you make cash off of it then maybe or if that is your life.
For me, being marked as having done something bad aint that great of an idea.
For one thing you can never get a job, its marked against you, and you can never go on holiday.
Becides, you are noticed, and even those that had it good got to big and now look at em.
kim.com was an example.
He did it big, thought he could probably beat the system, made cash.
Maybe he could have pulled back but he got noticed.
There was a brief struggle and now we don't hear about him anymore.
The thing about all of this is being hidden.
If you are noticed, then unless you have a reason, its not fun.
Best case scenario you are noticed, and you realise that maybe you went to far, you stop, and you get on with life or you don't or well you are noticed and thats the end of your current life branch in which case well.
For me it naturally ended, I enjoyed being a small time pirate, it was nice fighting the system.
But I have a life of sorts, and with the free andopensource as well as low cost stuff, and then things like bandcamp, and up to a point ms store, and low costing stuff about, I can't see me going back to that life.
Even if I did I'd need a really good reason to do that.
Back in 1995-2001 you just went for it, no security for me, you just got your ftp client, and torrent program and went for it.
Now its just to dangerous for someone like me.
To many breaches, to many threats, to much ransomware and to much to lose.
Generally the big monsters out there aint interest in a consumer its all about the banks and big businesses that will make a real killing.
That being said, if they get interested in you you may as well chuck it all in.
The same goes with the big guys on the other side, not just the hackers, they kind of are well if they want you they will almost certainly kill you, your friends, family and maybe everything else.
On the subject of pirating software if it was abandoned and no more I guess that would be ok but abandoned without support hmmmph.
That is why that on the next windows install I may throw away my inoetics synths, the company that sold them doesn't anymore.
So chances are I won't be getting much support for them if they screw and they never met my needs.
I have the old realspeak solo loaded which is 32 bit but when I have the cash again for something really big I plan to either buy the acapella infovox4 or the vocaliser/eloquence deal from atguys.
That or ivona I am not sure.
Now to the modern stuff.
In china everyone seems to pirate even my friends that do business.
Especially if software is expensive, ofcause you can't be updated and you can't ever be secure but ifyour software is 3-5 grand to buy it legally then it still runs.
You use wechat and talk to a someone or a bot, pay them a price, then you get what you want.
My friends don't know how it is gotten but it is.
A lot of stuff happens over there that wouldn't happen here.
And you need backups, you always are assured of getting something and have to reformat quite a lot but for people that use expensive software then they probably have a good enough reason to justify to at least recieve.
The final clincher with my own pirating was that my job prospects went boom.
A lot of my previous stuff I ever needed stopped being needed.
I don't need a scanner all the time, jaws, office and a few critical programs.
Now its a book reader, music player, a few games mostly thats what I use now.
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