Fallout 3 pirated already
 

Word around the campfire is indicating that a copy of Fallout 3 has been pirated, and videos of people playing the full game have appeared on YouTube.

It seems to be the Xbox version also, so it seems that piracy finds a way. I have heard reports of a review copy, or a member of staff's relative leaking the game.

I fully sympathise with the game developers and distribution teams, who have spent a lot of time and money, and then this happens. Despite my views on the actual game, noone deserves to have their product pirated.

How does this affect the product (FO3), the company (Bethesda) and the gaming market? FO3 was reported to be DRM free, but what methods will be employed now to try and prevent this sort of thing happening?

oh, poor boys, people expressed their positive towards the game and downloaded the game before it was even released. oh poor poor boys, now everybody will buy it later but play before. omg such a horrible thing. poor dudes at bethesda will have their millions on accounts later

this would happen even with drm protection, that thing is useless

If I was developing a game, I wouldn't want pirates to get their hands on it before paying customers, especially if people have pre-ordered and showed a little faith.

On the DRM side, if you've read what people have said in the past about why they need DRM, they use cases like this as excuses for limited uses and so on, despite the fact it appears to be insiders or reviewers who leak the product.

The people who will bear the brunt will be those of us who pay for a product and get a bizzare rental-like agreement e.g. bioshock.

a lot of people who pirate games actually do buy the games, i don't know why some people spread this disinformation

and what's the point? the people who pre-ordered the games get their solid copies anyways, it's not that they leaked a truck of cases with f3 copies

excuse me? drm has always been and still is a consumer's pain in the ass. but believe me drm protection gets bypassed anyways. just look at spore, people who bought it swear as fcuk because they can install it only 3 times only. but people who have pirated copy can play it anytime anywhere, with removed drm protection

you said you wouldn't want pirates to get hands on your product if you made something. i would be vice-versa happy about it, it's like market research. i know what people want and i see that they do appreciate my work. and people who liked it still buy it anyways

I find that assumption too optimistic...

Yeah some people will, some won't.

geez, not literally everybody makers still do get a nice income, it's such a popular title. pirates are going to be there anyways

I didn't say I agreed with DRM, nor did I say I thought this justified it, but I will be exceedingly suprised if this isn't used as another excuse for it.

It doesn't help the companies, it doesn't stop the pirates, it just creates problems for us folks who actually pay for the game, and that pisses me off.

have you ever considered.. well, you know, buy the game and download your copy? i definitely do get pissed off by drm and download my cracked coppy even if i bought it

Had to see it to belive it. I looked up on torrent search and yes, Fallout 3 for X-box. All ready to be downloaded. Goody.

Whats with the companies these days? They dont seem to care about piracy as they cant come up with any effective copy protection. Everything seems to be crackable.

And my thoughts on piracy: If I want to play a certain game, I play it. If this game is available on online I'l download it. That is all.

However, If I see an interesting game for sale either on a store or online auction, and I have enough money, Il probably buy it, because I like physical things and owning junk.

Still, either of these wont be much support to the gaming industry, as nearly all the games that I've bought or downloaded are too old to bring any noticable profit or its a used copy (If I buy the game that is). There are exceptions for this rule too, for example, my newest game is Season 1 of Sam & Max.

everything is crackable :p

I don't mind the CD-check things that I can easily get a no-cd fix for, but I object to paying for something and having to download a workable copy. Apart from the dubious legality of downloading a pirated copy even if you have a retail copy, I'd rather avoid buying it and playing it altogether, hoping that enough people will do the same and they will get the idea that offensive DRM doesn't work.

In my opinion, since this episode shows that its not just PC versions that can get put up on the web, and that the version wasn't even released yet, it should indicate to everyone that DRM is entirely ineffective, especially as r.u.s.s. says, everything can be cracked.

Unfortunately, some companies will take the opposite line, and continue with restricted use software as with Bioshock and Spore.

Same here. For crying it out loud, if I have to pay a stupid copy protection scheme which prevent me to install the damn game more than three time than I won't want to pay more than 10$ for that load of crap!

A shame it have to happen to a game which (everybody hope) is so good...

i was waiting for this news to appear, but for PC's.

funny that they dont control their software harder, making it impossible for "developers relative" or whoever to get their hands on it and taking it outside of the offices.

There is the reason why people pirate it.
Beside, what are the positives of NOT pirating, though?

The positive of not pirating is that the company makes more money, gets more accurate ownership figures, so they alter the games they produce accordingly.

Several game designers, including Black Isle Studios, a personal favourite of mine, went under because they were'nt profitable enough. If half the people that pirated their games had paid instead, then maybe, just maybe, that wouldn't have happened.

Although in one or two cases they don't help their case by releasing poor or buggy products. Fallout 2 is a favourite of mine, but the original release was buggy as hell. Quest for Glory 3+4 also have their bugs, although thankfully there are fan patches now.

I mean, I don't see how it would aid me if I bought the game, if instead would pirate it.

aid you? what? you completely miss the point. did you like the game? would you like to show the makers that you liked it? do you wanna makers to make some more?

Too bad my computer is too crappy to run Fallout 3.

meh...they should've leaked the PC version...

It's not fair. Console players always get to play the good games sooner... and now even pirate leaks too? Damn... Consoles even stole piracy from PC gamers, that's just not right...

You know, you can just use an emulator. :/
But seriously - I don't care much for company, only for their product. And patches (hacked patches, hah!).

If there is no company, then there is no product. :/

Emulator for X360? Riiiiiiiiiight.

are you really that dull? without company there is no product

and yeah, try emulating xbox like tulac said

Seriously, without any companies, there wouldn't be any games (There's still freeware, but that quality changes a lot) nor any other companies to do any games!

If you want more games, you support the companies, capiche?

EDIT: Oh yeah. Emulating 360/PS3 version? Yeah, right!

just like Grand Theft Auto series, those games have always come to PC first then consoles, but GTA 4? nooooo were releasing it for PS3 first.:doh:

and now we PC'ers have to wait another year before we can play GTA.:notrust:

Personally, I don't mind having the releases later than the console versions, as it can mean extra content or bug fixes. It also has the added benefit of allowing you access to many more peoples opinions, something that seems more important to me given the occasional failings of the professional game reviewers.

I don't mind either. In some cases, the later PC versions are far superior to the consoles' and they fix things according to player feedback.

Why, thank you! I'm really ashamed, as a 'professional' game reviewer, I always get the flak that I'm a hired goon of the games industry. I really try to fight against that popular opinion, but some happenings like the Kane&Litch fiasco, are not helping. People lost their trust in game reviews.

Kane and Lynch was a classic example, even if no wrong-doing has ever been proved, to my knowledge. People are generally just suprised at some game scores, and the first question now tends to be, has the lure of more advertising cash or exclusives on new titles swaying the reviewers?

I have a particular issue though, with games like Oblivion and Bioshock, that are massively hyped as having particular features, but no review calls them on it. In Oblivion in particular, they hyped Radient AI, but the end product was rather poor compared to the gameplay videos they previewed. In Bioshock, it was claimed that it was a genre hybrid, but ended up being a shooter. Games journalists are supposed to find out this sort of stuff, but there are some that seem to enjoy being industry best buddies...

Anyway, I have rambled, did mean to say I wasn't picking on particular people though... turned into a rant!

You know, it's not that simple. In most cases, the ad revenue and other 'lures' are for the executives of that particular magazine or webzine or whatever. Most of the time, the reviewers themselves don't even know about these deals. After the favorable review popped up on the site along with the massive ad campaign for Kane&Litch, people started to ask questions. Then the reviewer came forth, that the execs pressured him into writing a praising review despite of the popular opinion on the game, he got fired and almost a lawsuit up his ass. Most reviewers don't get a single $ for the praising review, they just fear to lose their job if the don't comply.

I myself had a similar experience. When I got Turok for review not so long ago, my boss told me the publisher told us if we can't write a favorable review we shouldn't publish any. I wrote the review and tried to concentrate on the good side of the game and leave out the worst parts, but it was painfully hard for me. After submitting the article, I told my boss, that this the was the first and last time I got pressured into writing a 'favorable' review, and he should fire me if he doesn't like it. I value objectivity above all else, and people should know if a game is sh*t. He told me that it's okay, and he won't accept any more games with strings attached.

Sadly, there are reviewers who lost their objectivity, either for money or the fear of losing their jobs. Even if I will lose my job over this, I won't be the b**ch of the games industry. Sometimes I'm really ashamed to be a reviewer, seeing all those 9.5 reviews of awful games. I use to have disputes with my boss over ratings too, he always finds my scores too low, or "you always concentrate on the bad side of the game". Well, if it's bad, why should I lie about it? Gamers deserve to know these things...

While I like to have games, keep coming out - piracty for me, is not a way to destroy companies/get new games - but to replace/find games which are impossible to find, nowdays in major retailers. But IMHO, piracy isn't a killer of the PC gaming. Hell, in the firs tmonth, crysis was more pirated than bought - and after another month or two, it sold million copies. I am not trying to make piracy look good, but thinking that the already established company will die due to piracy, is idiotical. I have seen plenty of people suggesting alternatives to stop the piracy - and believe me, those ways actually make more sense.

Also, do not blame the reviewers. They can also be under the hype, just like any other normal person. As he said - boss and advertisments are the main parts. Remember - if you give a game, too low of a review, the company which produced it will stop giving out information to you, will not give you interviews, et cetera.

@gufu1992:

In terms of abandoned games e.g. that which this site has available, then it's not piracy in the same sense, as they are not preventing the company from making a profit, as the games are old and out of print. This site is very responsible in that sense.

With other games, in particular current generation titles, it causes negative reactions, including higher prices, and DRM. This causes legitimate buyers to be inconvenienced and out-of-pocket, and doesn't solve the piracy problem, which has led in recent years to a kind of feedback loop, where now games like Spore have limited installs but despite this rental agreement, dont have reduced cost.

As for hype, reviewers should be doing their best to cut through it, thats their job after all!

@Playbahnosh:

Thanks for the insider info, it's always great to hear from people who can give examples of how things are seen from the journalism industry point-of-view. Thankfully for most people, you can "shop-around" for reviews, unlike in my youth when I just had one monthly game magazine subscription!

In todays world, the hype doesn't help the game - instead, anyone expirienced will find the game worse, due to earlier hype.

But, the current generation... I don't support it. Maybe, unless you don't want DRM on your computer, but I still dislike it.. :/

I agree about the damage of the hype-machine, its one of the reasons I liked morrowind but was disappointed by oblivion, which promised so much and didn't deliver. Not the first time I was burned, and unfortunately it's unlikely to be the last.

It does seem to me that there are very few current generation titles (especially for PC) which are better than their ancestors, except in the obvious graphical capacity (and you could say voice acting, but I prefer text).

I could list examples, but this thread is so far from the original topic this probably needs a new thread!

Fallout 3 looks terrible, pirate it please, maybe it will convince them to not make the sequels they've promised.

Don't worry Pigggy, someone will pirate it for you. :whistling:

@Panthro

Well, the things I said are no real secrets. Ask any professional reviewer and they will have a similar story, I'm sure. The reason people don't trust us anymore, is, granted, we are as hopeless as the crowd sees us. If we don't deliver, the industry won't give us info. If the publisher doesn't like the reviews, they'll be reluctant to give you games to review in the future, or any info about upcoming releases. It's not that we want to suck up to the games industry, but rather most of us have no choice. In a smaller scale, if the General Editor (my boss) doesn't like my low scores for games, he will be reluctant to assign me games to review. That's it, sadly, the facts are quite clear. I'm trying to be as objective as I can, but it's not that easy, particularly regarding the big releases.

On the other hand, the hype is not helping either. Along the years, I learned to control my salivation, but I do fall for one or two campaigns still. The last one was Spore. I fell for it, it looked awesome, the vids were awesome, the pic were awesome and the premise was awesome. I got it for review, and it was....the sh*t compared to what I expected. It wasn't a bad game per say, but it was so much less than what they promised. I could only give it an average mark, and surprisingly my boss went along with that. I won't believe hype anymore. I wait, and see for myself.

I've argued about this with PC Gamer staff members. They claim that their magazine is totally unaffected by pandering to publishers & developers and I found that hard to believe. As a magazine, you get so much competition and getting games early is vital or you end up having your reviews published over a month after most reviews have hit websites due to printing delays.

While PC Gamer (UK) does indeed give plenty of low scores, I've seen increasingly weird decisions made by the staff over the years. When PC Gamer was the best selling games magazine in Europe, they were in a very strong position and could kick any publisher in the balls so to speak - but back then, very few people had internet so they only had to compete with other magazines and if the publishers pissed PC Gamer off, bad scores could and would affect the sales of any given game since a large amount of people relied on those reviews.

Personally, I think that with all the reviews out there, all the competition between websites and magazine, that the publishers have it a lot easier to pull the strings and demand higher scores. After all, it's easy to go "well, we'll give the exclusive to site or magazine X then".

It IS hard to believe. Nobody in the PC media is unaffected by the publishers and developers, nobody. We are but small webzine in Hungary, but even we are not unaffected. The real problem are not the low scores, negative popularity is popularity too, just look at the GTA series. The real problem is information and timing. It all depends on the sources, what can you publish when, because gaming news is almost more important than reviews.

The thing is, people rely less and less on reviews, and much less on scores. In a system where 9.3 is uber-good and 8.2 is the sh*t, you can't be sure. That's why people want hands-on experiences, videos, demos, pirated copies, before they buy the actual game, because we, the media, is inherently corrupt. We battle with each other with very little regard for the readers. The small indy magazines and webzines, like us, are pretty unworthy for the reader's attention. We have a sizable core fanbase, but its never near enough. While IGN and Gamespot are at each other's throats, we, small-timers, write our reviews and try to stay afloat on the sea of sh*t that is the PC (and console) media. :noworry:

@Playbahnosh:

Sorry to hear that what should be a dream job is held back by things like that, I would have hoped that pressure could be applied on the game developers and publishers in return, although you could argue that they have the economic pressure too.

@Blood-Pigggy:

While I'm not one to pirate things (or at least not these days), I will be waiting for fallout to drop into a special offer state, probably within 6 months given what I've seen so far, or thanks to its lack of DRM I can pick it up cheaply in my local 2nd hand store.

Yeh, I thought it would be a dream job, thats why I joined the magazine. But sooner or later you'll realize that someone has to review the sh*tty games too, and you gotta watch what you write about them, because you can get into trouble. The job has its good moments too, like when you get your games for free, and you can tell people about games in your own words. I still like to write about games, despite all the obvious hardships. It's NOT a dream job, but it's helluva lot more better than the rest I'm qualified for at this stage of life (like working at mcdonalds or as a friendly neighborhood sanitation worker).

As for putting pressure on the publishers...not a chance. The tables have turned, and now the publishers and developers are in command, they blackmail you with insider informations, so you write a better review, the coerce the magazines with possible huge ad campaigns so you write favorable reviews...etc. There is a huge war between gaming magazines, who has the insider info, who has the game the soonest...etc. You can't put pressure on the publishers, because they will just ignore you, there are hundred other magazines that will gladly accept the bribe you refused in the name of fair play. That's today's world.

IMHO, all jobs related to games always seem like a dream job - but they never are. You might still like it, but it is completely different than what you originaly think.

Piracy is not legal, but it does have its place, whether the companies it affects want you to know it or not.

- Do I believe that it drops their income for a specific title? Yes.
- Do I believe a company will die because of piracy? Not particularly. If the game is good enough, and they manage their money wisely, they will survive to write the next one, which will hopefully be better than the last.
- Does piracy permanently harm a company? No. I believe it actually helps to get the name of the title, and the company out into the eyes of the consumers. If the title's good enough, more people will look for that company's next title. This will, in turn, bring in more overall cash flow.
- Do I believe copy protection works? No, at least not more than a few short months. If someone in the company is savvy enough to write the copy protection, someone outside the company will be savvy enough to break it. This is how it's been for many years. So, what ends up happening is the company wastes money developing what will become useless protection schemes.

I can't say I'm totally innocent, but as a general rule if I played a game and liked it, I bought it. Actually, every one of the games I've gotten in the last 8 years is off the store shelf. I do believe in supporting a company's hard work. And if I don't like the title, I sell it back to the store as a used title, recovering some of my cash.

I've got a pretty nice library of PS1/2/3 games, all original. The machines might die, but I'm hoping to eventually be able to play them on emulators.

Exactly.

Now...what was that about Fallout 3? Oh...yeah...it got pirated...

Well....shame....n stuff :whistling:

Not about games, but same thing applies:
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/steal_this_comic.png

Of course there is also another point to consider:
Would those who play pirated versions, actually buy the game if they couldn't get their hands on a pirated one?
All those game devs say that those people would buy their games, that's a doubtful claim.
Extremely doubtful even.
Great chances gaming has become so popular because many could learn what gaming is about and can be fun via cheap pirated games.

[Edit]
Remember the times where every game had its shareware version?
One where you could play approx 1/3 of the game?
Now all we can get are some lousy bugged demos.
If you really wanna try a game out you must hunt for the pirated version, the 'official' demos are complete shit.
Worthless.

Not really, all the people that were doubting it finally got to either see it streaming or played it themselves, and ALL the people that had doubts (generalization here) are now convinced not to buy it. It's the real fucking preview for all the ones we never got to see because Bethesda doesn't know how the industry markets their games. Bethesda belongs in the film or music industry, not the gaming industry.

All the people that were waxing on about it are still going to buy it because they're the sorts of gamers who enjoy that sort of watered down tripe.

Quite honestly, Bethesda has no excuse, their entire PR campaign is a hype machine, unlike Blizzard or Bioware or practically any other company that releases a host of screens or in depth gameplay presentations they decide to limit their exposure to booths, gameplay demos (them playing it and showing off, not allowing people to download it and try it out) and selective play time to previewers, - previewers who are playing specific sections of the game (after the Vault, etc.) with pre-made characters that were admittedly pumped up for previewing purposes - and worst of all, denying previous Fallout developers the chance to work on the game (they actually turned away around three of them) which makes them look like *****.

Besides, they're slovenly, they've set up a release party that most likely took millions of dollars. There are celebrities that mean absolutely NOTHING to the game or the industry, freaking Courtney Cox is hosting it for god's sake. This wasted PR money could've been spent on polishing their completely horrendous AI that they FAILED TO FIX (yet promised to) or their terrible animations that they FAILED TO FIX (yet promised to).

Frankly, I think pathetic companies like Bethesda deserve to be pirated, they give out improper, wrong, and blatant bullshit out as information then expect people to pay full price for their games without trying it out. They repeatedly peddle out industry terms such as "immersion" or "choice and consequence" that really don't mean anything but are sucked up by the general public. I honestly don't care for the people that buy into this stuff, because when it comes to well informed gamers like me or most of you, it's heinous, it's lying and it's comparable to false advertisement.

I'm not one of those people who say that Bethesda bought out their previewers, however, I am one of those people that say that they constantly attempt to rig their previewers into a positive spin. Blizzard doesn't do that, Warcraft III had people showing doubts (MANY) as to its direction near its release, this coming from notable publications such as PC Gamer or Computer Gaming World. Bethesda on the other hand, has PR people hovering over a previewer's shoulder for the WHOLE SIX HOURS they are playing making commentary. And I don't have to bring up the whole pumped up character thing, that's just terrible, giving the previewer a false impression of the final product.

I don't know why people aren't aware of Bethesda's shitty business practices, it's the worst I've seen of any company. Even STALKER, which failed to deliver on practically ninety-nine out of hundred features it promised (the AI initially shown was insane) was completely honest about the cuts it made, unlike Bethesda who not only showed a scripted AI scene - among other videos of bullshit they never delivered on - but never said a word until AFTER the game's release about it being cut, and long after.

Legal or not, companies like Bethesda deserve to have their games pirated. It's entirely a question of ethics, and when people are constantly giving Bethesda their money because they're easily pleased, that's great for them. But as soon as they take an actual franchise that has any merit to it (Fallout) then it's just a cash in.

I'm not paying for their cash in, I'm not paying for their pathetic attempt to leech money from Fallout fans. And I'm really not going to give them any money for their unbelievably shitty business practices.

Completely agreed. You can play the buggy demo IF there is a demo. Most of the games nowdays don't even have that. And yeah, shareware was awesome back then. You could play the first few levels of them, get a feel for the game, and decide if you like it or not. AND as an added bonus, you could give it to other people, all legal. But today, even when a demo is available, it only flashes the shiny graphics in your face and a few 'awesome' design elements, known as baits. Almost all of these games get worse quick after the demo area.... :notrust:

I hate to say it, but the only real way to find out if a game if worth purchasing or not, is to dl it. Quite the shame...on the games industy.

@Pigggy

Don't blame it entirely on the developers. They are just making the games. Yes, there are developers who went out of their way to be a$$holes, see Maxis and Lionhead for example, but most them are just programmers and designer. The publishers are main enemy here. They make the marketing campaigns, they draw the lines on the release dates and they decide in what format the game will be published. The publishers are the ones making the huge showcasing promos and they pick the best parts of the game to be released as screenshots and videos. Publishers don't care about ANYTHING other than profit. They couldn't care less about the quality of the game, what impact it has on gaming history and how the developers will look like after the game is released, the only thing they care about is the sales figures. Heartless slavedrivers, that's what they are. The thing is, they are the only ones who get paid after the game is released. The developers get paid DURING development by the publisher, and maybe, only maybe, if they are lucky, they'll get royalties from the sales. Direct your anger towards EA and the likes.

Bethesda and Blizzard are their OWN publishers.

Fubbs method of anti-Pirating:

Find where the server is hosted by, e.g computer or whatever, call up the CIA and say thers a terrorist in the building that is going to implement a virus or something into the internet and shutdown world trade, and then they'll go blow it up. Next thing you know, the '.Zip or Compressed file is corrupted'

:)

If only it was that easy. Im preordering my for PC, i think ill get the special edition from Amazon.ca, not sure yet. I want to,, cause i'd like a vault boy bobble head.

Or you know... you can just allow for a free game download, but all features will be unlocked once you get the full CD key.

^^Yeah, because those are hard to come by. Actually, keys which are comprised of only alphanumeric sequences can be barely even be considered security.

haha, server for torrents

Piracy works on this principle:

Why buy it when you can get it for FREE?

Fixed, because you can get lots of things for free as well, but compared to them, piracy is much easier.

No. Blizzard is owned by Vivendi and Bethesda is owned by ZeniMax Media Inc. So, no, they are not their own publishers. Furthermore, one day they'll all be bought by EA. Sadly.

What? Those are the fucking owners, Blizz/Beth have their own publishing divisions and oversee their own projects. This isn't SirTech/Independent Publishing, this is a company who has investors and develop their games with input and support from the higher ups.
Bethesda packages and releases their owns games, and so does Blizzard, if anything, Vivendi and ZeniMax only help distribute the games and don't have direct impact on the development like a typical publisher/developer duo where the publisher doesn't own the developer but rather enters into a contract with them.

Big difference, if you're going to tell me that a project managed by a third party publisher is the same thing as a company that's composed of its own assets and only surreptitiously managed by an owner then that's just silly.

Bethesda and Blizzard's development departments work on their own games, dictate the release and development specifications of their projects and ultimately package, release and then distribute (with help and applied marketing from the owning company which have more control in these areas). Therefore Blizzard and Bethesda are responsible for their own marketing and publicity when it comes to content. Todd Howard is one of the lead members of Bethesda, and he's one of the idiots who spills bullshit along with Emil and Hines.

There are situations where you could blame the publishers for everything easily, this goes especially for corporations like Interplay or EA which were (or still are) notorious for forcing their subsidiaries into deadlines or changes on par with the requirements that they forced upon the developers.

Companies like Blizzard or Bethesda don't suffer from that, they're very large, very contained companies that manage nearly everything with the only significant effects from the owners applying to use and distribution of their properties.

Whatever. My argument still stands: They'll be swallowed by EA sooner or later...

your argument keeps changing :p
mysteriously

What are ya talkin' about? :huh: