Pumpe

First of all: No, I dont do piracy.
Second: This is not a moral or ethical thread as its clearcut that its wrong (unless your mother is ill and you gotta save her by copying games on discs covered in Nanobots, but they gotta be saturated in good game CNA [Code...whatever] and you cant afford to buy all the good games and noone wants to help. This situation also apply to any family or close friend.)
Third: Its not my intent to create two camps here. Also, please point out obvious errors.

So, I checked out that there Hawken game on the front page and for some reason I read the comments and suddenly out of nowhere theres this little argument about PC-gaming dying and that one of the reasons is piracy. That got me thinking: Is it really true that PC gaming has more and easier piracy going on? Well, 10 years ago Id say a clear yes, but today the PS3 might be the only one that can make that claim. Lets call this shit educated speculation because we can never know for sure what is being copied and to what extent.

When I first think of harder I think of actually getting pirated games to work. What does the consoles have in store?
The main difference here is that you have to flash the xbox 360 (which basically means the hdd gets amnesia and you get to teach it new tricks). Nothing too complex and there are a ton of tutorials and whatnot that explains it in detail. That is the basics and if you only play single-player games. You are set. Things get a bit harder if you still want to keep hooked up on Xbox Live, but it is doable and with a really small risk of being detected. Basically the method involves updating the homebrew dashboards and firmware etc. Id post references, but I dunno if thats wise or not. What I will say is that the information to perform the tasks above is by no means obscure (there are clips on youtube for gods sake).
In the end: yes, theres a small risk you'll get banned for using a flashed Xbox, but on the other hand it seems that you can play the games online most of the time.

Then we got the PS3. It took some time, but it got cracked in the end. It requires a physical card to crack which indeed makes it harder to get ready for piracy. Pirates dont recommend that you use Sonys own stuff or whatever its called, but there are alternatives to use that carries little to no risk. Which basically means that you dont really miss out. Same thing here: you gotta update some firmware to keep the games working, but nothing serious.

The PC, its easy, but playing a PC-game online isnt that common (happend in MW2 for 2-3 weeks) and there are cracked servers in a few games, but it isnt that commonplace for the multiplayer to work. To challenge myself I tried to find a bypass for a few of the more popular MP-games (SC2, BC2), but there is no crack to play these games online (or just LAN).

From what I gather the main obstacle for a console pirate is A) flash the device and B) small chance of being banned and that risk can be minimized. The PS3 is trickier tho since you need to get hardware (mailorder is harder). However, you seem to be able to play stuff online. The PC-pirate just gotta install a crack and accept that MP dont work. Does this make the PC easier? Debatable, but it has some upper-hands (or whatever you wanna call it).

The second thing I thought of was availability. If the machine is pirate ready: How can I get games and how many of them are there?
First we take an ABC in the world of Release-groups (aka the Scene. Such a stupid name). The Scene has its roots in competition: basically, who could crack and release a game first? As the PC took over (from Amiga) it also got more games and thus it was the hot-spot for release groups and there were a bunch of them. Now there are more games on the consoles and it is no coincidence that new release groups pops up like flowers in the spring. There is more competition (I got no clue if theres any copy protection on console games, but its still a matter of getting your paws on the game, packaging it and releasing it) and as the Scene is based on competition there is no mystery as to why console games get pirate released with a bigger frequency than PC-games. This information is also out there for all to see: http://www.nfohump.com/ (there are no PS3 games, but make no mistake. Google a PS3 game and put torrent at the end of it and voila).

So it seems that the consoles actually see more pirate activity than the PC does. If the piracy works like supply and demand theres a whole lot more console pirating going on (which is reinforced when you see to what extent updates are released for xbox games).

This is some american thing, right? Im not trying to be a douchebag. Most of these discussions seems to originate from you fellows. Altho, my german is shit and they like to ban things.
 
History repeats itself: Goethe became the scapegoat for a bunch of suicide cases after his ideas of Weltschmerz in the book about Werther (cant remember the name in english) and Faust.
Judas Priest/Twisted Sisters/Black Sabbath/KMFDM got blamed for suicides and violent acts.
Movies got blamed for violent acts (and movies are more "realistic" in the sense that it contains real human beings).
Darkwing Duck/Power Rangers got blamed for violence among kids.
 
Yes, things leave an impression, but saying the impact is that great is very fucking unlikely and most likely just a knee-jerk.
The biggest danger with games is that kids can become socially isolated and passive in a physical manner.
 
Edit....whats really pitiful about this kind of debate is that almost all crimes and acts of violence are happening in areas and people with a difficult socio-economical situation (and that is quite well-documented). Why focus on percieved flyshit when there are real problems to deal with?

Did you post it on social.bioware.com?

If you find an anomaly and dont land (IE do the mission) you can return at a later point to do the mission.
 
I must ask: Why would you want to deplete all planets?

" Do you have unlimited ammo? Yes / No / No Answer.  Technically yes, mechanically no. You load in heat-sinks to reduce the machine's heat--not actual ammunition. "

Considering what you get at the end of lotsb Id say it wouldnt make sense if it isnt a taste of whats to come. Regardless if its a DLC or not.

Done and done.
But dude, you forgot to add Insanity to the inquiry about difficulty.
 
Another question, will you publish the whole thesis when you are done?