Dota = defense of the ancients, a very popular Warcraft 3 map series. (WC3 worldedit=ungodly powers bestowed)

Hi Omn1dex. My name is Craig, I am an Ironclad developer and co-owner. If you were in my shoes how would you react to the line above?

question can we report site that pirate this game or wha?

I pirated to try it out but bought it the next day

I feel ashamed for even pirating such an amaazing game I almost bought 2 copies

I really was hoping they'd respond with where they got it from.

in telling my co-worker about this game "well I know what Ill torrent to night" I read him the riot act about how a independ company should be shown respect in the gaming world. It was kinda fun yell at my boss about it.

Though of the ex-boss' came in and i know he was a big PC gamer told him about it knowing him hel will end up buying 2. I have seen him buy two of ever pc game.

I bought the game to join and suport the community.I and did go buy it the day after the night I had to try and once I did I had to buy it.

I do still feel guilty and ashamed I just wish to Say I sorry. And I wanted to confess it and my shame and my guilt and I wish my words alone could show how genuine. Ill go so far as calling one and giving  you a verbal apology and letting you give me the riot act. Ill even be content with even being banned from the forms

and again how does one go reporting site and such

Seconded.

I must admit that I did think about torrenting this game the weekend it came out as I did not understand what the 4x thing was about (no demo at that point) But I thought screw it and purchased the game anyway. Not sorry that I did at all!

I read the reviews... didn't talk to anyone just asked a few people about the game and heard what they said and decided to try it. dl'ed the thing off a torrent and after deciding the game was worth it, I bought it.

Heck, i'dda paid 2x for the game at the time! But at that point... I ran out of money in my credit gift card

Not saying i'm proud of it but thanking the devs for not putting any real DRM on the game - Thanks guys! (or I probably never would have bought it)

I really believe that not including DRM gives pirates a backwards mentality.

I understand why this would bother you so very much.  You put your heart and soul into a game, and someone unabashedly discusses stealing it on your own forum.  I cannot imagine the feelings this must evoke, so I am impressed by your ability to stay calm and reserved.

Personally, I find it hard to condemn him on the principle of piracy.  I have done it before and I will likely do it again.  For me the issue is one of practicality - if there is no way for me to try something before I buy it, my likelihood of finding alternative ways to try it before spending my money is directly proportional to its cost - feature-full game demos are a great way to try a game, and if one exists I would not consider downloading it.  For me though the term "try" is not just an excuse.  If I spend more than a short time playing it and want to play more, I buy it.  For me it is a real vehicle to finding games I like and want, and wish to further enjoy.

I tend not to do this at all when I recognize the publisher and/or developer to be small or independent, and in need of support.  I am of the mindset that if we don't make a concerted effort to help the "little guys," as it were, diversity and innovation in the gaming industry greatly suffers.  So most games from Stardock, Shrapnel, Matrix and so on I will buy sight unseen - some I have purchased even though I had no idea if I would ever like or play them.  It is my way of giving back.  Sins was one of those games - I absolutely loved GalCiv and GalCiv II but can't stand real-time "strategy" games, so I normally wouldn't have given Sins a chance.  But for some reason I convinced my girlfriend (who is also a gamer) to go in with me on this as I had heard good things and trusted the publisher, so we purchased two copies and have not regretted it for a second - it has given us countless hours of enjoyment.

The second reason I would and do pirate something is when I have a legitimate copy of the game and need to do something that I no longer can, or am restricted from doing by the DRM, that I feel I should be able to do.  For instance, I had a game on DVD that got scratched to hell but needed to reinstall on a re-formatted PC, but it wouldn't read the disk.  Upon contacting the publisher they told me that I would have to purchase a new copy, but they would throw in a 20% discount for my trouble.  (The benefits of digital download, eh?) So I ended up downloading a torrent of the game.  Coincidentally, the game was the Fallout Collection, and shortly thereafter I heard about Good old Games, another company worth supporting, and purchased a new copy of Fallout for a fraction of the cost of the DVD...digital download, re-packaged to work on XP and Vista...I couldn't be happier.

Reading this objectively, it sounds like one big rationalization.  I could just as easily (or more easily, truth be told) have said that I and my girlfriend bought the game and down with those who don't, but that wouldn't be intellectually honest of me.  I did, but I understand those who sometimes cross the line.  I don't understand those who cross the line intentionally knowing that they will never pay for the game they are stealing.  Nor can I relate to someone as a human being who would actually think their piracy could be used as a tool for steering development.

I don't know...Perhaps you, a developer, looks at someone like me and says "you're a pirate."  Period.  No grey area.  That intent and execution make no difference, anyone who downloads something for free is in the same boat.  I would definitely understand that point of view.  However, I look at my recent experience with EA technical support (if you can call it that) trying to get a game to work and I have to wonder what in the world they spend the hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue on, because it certainly isn't quality assurance, and definitely isn't tech support, and I question why I would ever spend that much money on an EA game again.  I would pay far more for a game like Sins, with constant updates and fixes, and actual community involvement, than a mass-market corporate machine churning out titles that may or may not have proper testing and support, whose developers are contractually obligated to stay out of the way once the title hits market.

Anyway, I thought my point of view would be interesting.

Congratulations on the success of Sins, by the way.  I hope the release of Entrenchment is even more successful, driving sales of both products.

That is right up there with Frogboy's 'I don't want you as a customer, take your refund and go away' posts.

I admit I pirated the beta of SINS, it was good enough that I bought the full game soon after release without waiting for a demo.  Now I have pre-ordered Entrenchment and I am enjoying the beta.

I think the main thing that is currently driving piracy is more restrictive DRM.  If someone has problems playing legal version of a game because of DRM they have two choices: get help from the game maker or install a pirated copy that works.  Given that people usually take the easy option and getting a pirated copy is almost always easier than dealing with tech support they will probably get the pirated copy.  If they have never pirated a game before this is their introduction to piracy.  If the problem repeats with future games they buy, they may decide to pirate in the first place to avoid problems.  Thus it is possible for a normal, formerly lawful, person to start pirating games as a result of DRM.

The fact that people said the pirated version of Spore crashed less(and had no install limit) with the recent Gears of War problem show that bad DRM is causing a big mess.  If more companies used the Stardock/Ironclad methods, then I think we would see a significant drop in piracy.

Certain major companies just can't see that the more DRM they put in, the more people that will get sick of it.  They need a major wakeup call that sadly has not happened yet.

Well the reason Dota worked so well in Warcraft 3 was because of the hero system which was amazing at the time and still is, and that it was and is a fast paced game.  A dota like game wouldn't fit Sins because of it's slow pace, however if someone were to completely revamp Sins to make ships be controllable like a fighter drone for the advent than we might be on to something.

Edit: Just read the posters bottom line about him being a pirate.

I have to admin I pirate games to try first, I didn't know stardock had a demo version available at the time and there was a post with Sins for free so I downloaded it as trial version.  I do not pirate games and keep them but I pirate them and either never play it again or buy it the next day.  This was the case with sins, I got it off a torrent, tried it in all it's glory and once I tried the Vasari I just had to buy it.  I bough two copies as well, one for a friend and one for myself, and I never regreted it.  Truth be told I hate EA to death, I hate their service, I hate how they release something and leave it at that and never patch it, and I just hate them.  They make **tty games like Undercover (seriously wtf?) and than make you pay for something they will never support.  Then I find Sins and stardock/ironclad.  THANK YOU GUYS YOU ARE SO AWESOME you always patch your games, you're customer service is just plain amazing, your quality of games is uberly mega sexy time awesome and you guys are just plain awesome.  As a way to give back to the game for pirating in the first place I started a mod which is going all right as of now and thanks to you're awesome support for modders I can make the game even better just like all the other modders do.  Thank you so much man I will always buy any games you make (assuming they are FPS or RTS) since I had such a good experiance with Sins, the minute Sins 2 comes out I'm going to buy it as well as the minute a boxed version of the Sins 1 expansions come out since I don't have a credit card.  Once again thanks so much for making such an amazing game, it's better than HW2, Age of Empires and any other RTS I've played, in my opinion it is as good if not better than Starcraft!  Please continue with your amazing work guys, this game is your big break for your two companies and I see a long line of pure good quality games coming from you in the future!