The %n Exploit's Effect on Illegal CS-S Copies

[Ninjaman09]

No, Edge, he likened overclocking to theft. That's what he meant:

Originally Posted by wickfut

I find it really funny how alot of the legit version owners are looking down on the pirated version owners.
the argument being "the software companies are losing money from the sale of the game" - when in effect alot of these people are overclocking the hardware they are running it on, basically doing the same to the hardware companies.

wickfut, I would reply but Gaco summed up my feelings on this pretty well. Overclocking is not illegal, like stealing is. It voids warrantees and can damage your parts, but you still paid for your hardware. What you do with it is up to you. Saying that people will not buy X800 XTs because they can get VIVOs is absolutely retarded - back that up with a single sales figure. I gaurantee you can't. You can't just make claims and assumptions that are completely made up. Well, you can, but you're a retard if you do.

Originally Posted by wickfut

yeah it is a lot of money - but then when you take away the shop fee's , the artwork royalties , distribution fee's , packaging fee's etc etc the actual creator of the software does not get close to $250 000

Wrong again. The only legal way to play Counter-Strike:Source as of this post is by buying Half-Life 2 through Steam. All of the money goes straight to Valve, and after paying for their servers and salaries, they still get a TON more than they would through their publisher, and even if it WAS through their publisher, $250,000 in revenue is still $250,000 in revenue, no matter the operating cost. It's basic economics. They have to cover their costs AND make money. So $250,000 in lost revenue is $250,000 more in costs they have to cover. They lose the money either way.

Got any other gems?

[saturnotaku]

Originally Posted by Edge

I don't think he ever implied that making hardware you already own faster is hurting sales. I think he was saying that purchasing hardware based on the fact that you can modify it to make it perform like a higher-priced piece of equipment is affecting sales of the more expensive component.

That's completely beside the point and irrelevant. Overclocking/modding is not illegal. You might think it's immoral/unethical, but burly men in uniform sure won't bust down your door. What we're talking about for CS:S is against the law. Thus, such a comparison is not valid.

Oops. Hey Ninjaman, GMTA (great minds think alike).

[vampireuk]

Lets not forget hardware manufacturers support it

[Edge]

That's completely beside the point and irrelevant.

I never said it was relevant (in fact I mentioned in my post that it was an entirely different scenario), I was only clairifying what he said. I do kinda wonder what ATI's official response is to people soft-modding their videocards, they usually seem to change them as soon as it's found. Donno why we don't see more "ti4200" scenarios though, seems like it's getting harder and harder to overclock your videocard to the speeds of a higher-end model (save for the 6800gt, which is only $100 cheaper than their top-of-the-line card). It's nice when companies like BFG officially support overclocking though.

[wickfut]

gacco your failiure to understand my point makes you call me retarded? get real

Lol, that OC argument gotta be the worst and most laughable in recent history! People are making their purchased hardware running faster, at their own risk. Let's give some examples of what this mentality means: If some private person made a custom driver, that gives +30% more performance than Nvidia's official ForceWare driver, it would be unfair to the company to download and use those drivers.
If I go out and bye a new MX510 mouse, then finds out that if I open it and tweak it a little, it can perform much better, but it would be unfair to Logitech.
I go out and buy a new Farrai ("dream on, Gaco", yeah I know ), and finds a way to tweak the engine so that its more efficient, uses less gas and drives faster, that would be unfair to Farrai.
I could go on giving expamples that demonstrate this total bull**** thinking, but I think you've got the point. A customer has every right to custom build/design/tweak/totally destroy his purchase products "even" if it means that he won't buy the poor company's next line of product.

tweaking a driver is totally different to modding something to match a manufactures own higher priced/spec'd product. also as its perfectly legal to modify anything you buy then try buying a cheap laser and doing some modifications on it to up the class and see how much trouble u get in , also try it with a microwave , a mobile phone etc etc different scenerios but still proves a point that what you buy isnt yours to play with. also try telling that to microsoft with their xbox / linux war

OC is NOT illegal, not by laws and not by morale. Nvidia has never said, that they don't wanted people to OC, and if what right do they have do to so? If I have already paid for their product, why shouldn't I be able to do what the hell I want with it?
But downloading and playing games that I haven't paid for, now THAT harms the company/developer, especially with steam (read what mezkal said).

yeah your right , it isnt illegal yet , how long do you think it will be before it is tho? also read answer above

And if Nvidia didn't want people to buy 6800GT's and OC them to ultra clock speeds, they could just have made the Ultra so much faster than the GT, that it actually would make sense to buy it. In any case, why does Nvidia allow companies like BFG Tech to sell their cards OC'ed by default, and only selling them slightly more expensive? That alone makes your argument pretty invalid...

gosh yes - you are so right on , nvidia make ultras so people buy GT's and overclock them , how thick am I? the other thing is , you are so thick you actually sided with me without knowing it by saying the BFG costs more than the others because it is overclocked - so make your mind up who your with eh

Witfuk, either you are joking and I failed to detect your sense of humor (:retard in this case, or you simply didn't think logically before posting

sure thing , im retarded because you havent a clue what im on about ? go figure

Saying that people will not buy X800 XTs because they can get VIVOs is absolutely retarded - back that up with a single sales figure. I gaurantee you can't. You can't just make claims and assumptions that are completely made up. Well, you can, but you're a retard if you do.

hey why not actually search yourself on some forums to the amount of people who ask questions about if its worth buying XT's or Ultras or should they just overclock ?

Wrong again. The only legal way to play Counter-Strike:Source as of this post is by buying Half-Life 2 through Steam. All of the money goes straight to Valve, and after paying for their servers and salaries, they still get a TON more than they would through their publisher, and even if it WAS through their publisher, $250,000 in revenue is still $250,000 in revenue, no matter the operating cost. It's basic economics. They have to cover their costs AND make money. So $250,000 in lost revenue is $250,000 more in costs they have to cover. They lose the money either way.

i think if you actually search and read my post i didnt say counterstrike , i said pirated software on that part. also isnt counterstrike source just an old game running with a new graphics engine , i dont think was much production overheads there if its just a rehash do u ?

That's completely beside the point and irrelevant. Overclocking/modding is not illegal. You might think it's immoral/unethical, but burly men in uniform sure won't bust down your door. What we're talking about for CS:S is against the law. Thus, such a comparison is not valid.

my god another one ? i never said it was illegal , im making a comparison to loss of earnings and nothing more. why does this not sink in ?

so we started on the main reason being that it created a loss in earnings - to which i pointed out my comparison to hardware loss of earnings , now it has switched to the law?

so now you can put your hand on your heart and say you have never done anything at all illegal

yeah sure

[saturnotaku]

Originally Posted by wickfut

so we started on the main reason being that it created a loss in earnings - to which i pointed out my comparison to hardware loss of earnings

How about those folks who buy mod-able products because they wouldn't otherwise be able to afford something high-end? Which is better - 1,000 people buying $400 X800 VIVOs or 500 people buying $500 X800 XTs?

You also don't quite seem to grasp the concept of the fact that regardless of what product you buy, the company who made it has made money. They're making a profit regardless. When you have a pirated copy of a game, they are receiving absolutely nothing. Therein lies the difference.

[wickfut]

How about those folks who buy mod-able products because they wouldn't otherwise be able to afford something high-end? Which is better - 1,000 people buying $400 X800 VIVOs or 500 people buying $500 X800 XTs?

well i think the profit will be in the X800XTs to be honest . the 2 cards are the same so the actual manufacturing costs to profit margin will be greater if people purchased the xt

You also don't quite seem to grasp the concept of the fact that regardless of what product you buy, the company who made it has made money. They're making a profit regardless. When you have a pirated copy of a game, they are receiving absolutely nothing. Therein lies the difference.

so its ok to pirate some firmware for a card because you have already paid for the lower spec card? i just purchased HL2 on preorder dvd , is it ok for me to play cracked CS:source now ?

[Xovax]

Wickfut, there is nothing wrong with overclocking. Although some of your arguments seem to make sense at first, when I think about them harder ithey just fall apart.

I liken stock clock speeds/bios to the company saying "This model was designed for and runs stably at these settings and we will cover them under warranty to show we mean that." By overclocking, you simply void the warranty and any responsibility the company has towards the stability of the product because you have not followed so-called "recommendations".

By the way the word pirate basically means to gain what you did not pay for. In the case of software this is blatantly illegal. You state that by modding cards or overclocking them you are gaining the speeds of more expensive models at lower price (i.e not paying for the performance gain). However, what you are actually buying is the "absolute physical performance" (the limits of the card when pushed till it doesnt work" of a card.

By the way, the ability to overclock cards to speeds of a faster model actually boosts the company's income as more people will buy the lower end product with the hopes of achieving the performance of the higher end at less cost. Since a company actually makes like >90% of their income from the mid-lower end, the ability to overclock is really very financially profitable.

[Ninjaman09]

Well, everyone else has pretty much said all that needs to be said. If you want to bravely stand against reason and logic, go ahead.

[Gaco]

I have also said everything I need to say. Wikfut think that OC will get illegal soon and I think thats total BS and he doesn't know what he's talking about. Just give 1, just 1 link that idicates, that Nvidia doesn't like their custumers to OC their cards. Coolbits is also included in the latest ForceWare beta drivers and if these were implemented by Nvidia, there comes another reason of why your argument is invalid. You have nothing to back anything of what you say up, and besides it goes against all common sense to suggest that the customer doesn't have the right to tweak and mod his hardware, within the laws ofcause, and why OC soon should get illegal, I simply can't figure out how and why you have that idea and expecially how that can be compared with software piracy.
Now everything is said. I might take this discussion up with you again if you can give us some real arguments to prove just half of your statements true, but until then I see no sense in responeding anymore.

PS: I didn't mean to call you a retard, I meant to make the retard smileym which is : retard : without the spaces, followed by a real smilie, just to make the sentence look sarcastic. I have now corrected the post and I apologize for the misunderstandment

[wickfut]

ahh well , it was a good argument , lasted a while

next

[vampireuk]

Yes we all know you can simply upgrade a Geforce 256 to a 6800GT by pirating some firmware