🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <34326...@news.bfp.net>, sklomp@digitalpla.netNOSPAM wrote:

> In article <eilersm-3009...@phx-1-45.psn.net>,
eil...@psn-remove.net (Michael M. Eilers) wrote:
> >> 
> >> I'm a huge advocate for pirating software. I am one of the
> >> (supposedly) many who try before we buy. I've gone through games like
> >> MDK and Redneck Rampage, and personally, they stink. Sure, there were
> >> a few new ideas, but they had no replay value. Quake, on the other
> >> hand, is a great game, and that's why I bought it last week.
> >> There used to be some kind of telnet BBS that had a try-before-you-buy
> >> concept and you had 24 hours to try the full game before you deleted
> >> it. If that were extended to two or three days, I think it's a great
> >> idea.
> >> 
> >> Pirating doesn't mean you're cheap (Usually, I don't support the
> >> idiots who just suck up everything they can because they 'can'), it
> >> means you want to know what you're buying.
> >
> 
> >Interesting theory. So I suppose you put 10,000 miles on a car before you
> >buy it, just to see if it will last?
> 
> No, but i usually take the car for a test drive before i buy it.

the poster above was suggesting that he had actually finished the games
("gone through") before he even considered buying them--that is far, far
more than a test drive, requiring many hours of play for even a simple
game. Thus my example.

> > Or perhaps you eat your food before
> >paying for it, to see if it was good, and then puke it up and eat it again
> >after you have paid. 
> 
> That was a stupid example. But i'd usually ask someone else their
opinion on a 
> meal before i buy it.

See above.

> You are talking about permantly pirating a piece of software, which is not 
> what the guy was talking about. You are either ignorant of the practices 
> behind what i would call temporary pirating or are very well-to-do and can 
> afford any software you buy without even trying it. 

Wrong on all counts. I buy software I can afford with a 30-day MBG; if I
don't like it, I package it up and send it back, without leaving a copy on
my hard drive. I've never had to pirate a single program, and I've never
been stuck with one I don't like--and I've never had to rationalize or
justify committing theft, unlike many posters to this thread.

> However, a lot of companies do makes demos (like game companies) my question 
> is why did he even pirate MDK or Redneck Rampage. There were demos of the 
> games out and even my 13 year-old nephew could tell that those games were 
> shallow and not worth buying.

Yes, pirating a game that has a demo out makes little sense at
all--pirating the actual game takes up many times the disk space of the
demo, and would take hours to download, and is illegal, and yet there is a
legal way to find out if you like the game or not. In fact, there is
*always* a legal way to find out. Pirates have no excuses whatsoever for
their behavior.

michael

-- 

"I will never again look at an Apple design and not think, 'Power [Computing] would have had this 4 months ago for $1,000 less.'" 
--Steve Fuchs, programmer, Apple user since 1986

"Are the gods imaginary companions to console you for the possbility of dying?"
         --Greg Bear, _Eternity_

Michael M. Eilers * Fearful Symmetry Designs