VDisillusioned:
Yep absolutely. Total crass stupidity on the manufacturers part. I used to, ahem, obtain copies of software of dubious provenance but in recent years I have stopped doing it, partly on moral grounds and also to avoid infections by malicious code. I was therefore rather cheesed off having to download legally grey area code just so I could play a game that I had actually bought.
I applaud your attempts to make this a better world, too few of us do. Couple of points though.
1) I take a firm stance against the sort of limited-install game-is-not-really-yours DRM shenanigans emplyed by Bioshock, Spore, etc. I'll usually skip anything which such draconian measures in place, and if I'm absolutely compelled to play it, despite horrible DRM, I will do so without paying for it.
Sorry to all the developers who put time and effort in. But if I can't play it on my terms, I'm certainly not paying for it.
Though I'm sure that the games companies would dispute this, it's still quite legal to borrow a game from someone else when they've finished with it. I can pretty much always wait that long.
Ergo, right side of the law, but I'm just as bad as a pirate, as far as they're concerned. Worse, in fact, because I make a point of telling other people not to bother, and furnishing them with excellent reasons why they shouldn't.
This is a good strategy for keeping current with games, making sure money goes where it is deserved, and still not having to boycott some of the essentials. I recommend it.
I played my brothers copy of bioshock. Only had to wait a week, because he didn't much like it.
2) Regarding 'nasty software': Given the track record of companies like Sony, who own Securom, the current direction of DRM, and the assumption that we are all criminals by the security industry in general, I actually trust the crackers code much more than the code from the manufacturers.
That's not hyperbole. I trust the latest cracked EXE more than the original.
Yes, you can certainly pick up some nasty **** through the process of cracking games, but it has ALWAYS in my experience been because you went to a bad place to get your fixes, not because the cracked exe release was loaded with spyware to begin with.
Bottom line: the crackers are the ones taking malware out, these days.
