Reddit Mac Games Piracy

Jun 10, 2017 Yes. You can play the pirated games on your macbook. There are many ways you can do that: Find a game file.dmg for games that have already been released for MacOS.

For as long as video game piracy has existed, gamers and the industry have argued about whether the practice really hurts sales of legitimate games. In 2010, the Business Software Alliance estimated that generalized software piracy costs the world $51 billion annually and half a million jobs. Even most people who doubt
  • May 23, 2017 A popular section of Reddit devoted to piracy discussion was shut down last night following a dispute that boiled over into mutiny. After being helped by Reddit's admins, the people now in charge.
  • Hey guys what's up, I've tried to search hero on the forums about putting cracked dlc's on a legit game and only found one post about witcher 3 on steam. I would like to know if it is possible to do on epic Store and a how to guide would also be usefull. Thanks in advance.
every pirated download is equivalent to a lost sale will admit that illegal downloads have some negative effect on overall game sales.

So it's more than a bit surprising that an exhaustive study of piracy's effects by the European Commission found that 'illegal consumption [of games] leads to increased legal consumption.' To be more precise, the study estimates that for every 100 games that are downloaded illegally, players actually legally obtain 24 more games (including free games) than they would in a world in which piracy didn't exist.

The 306-page 'Estimating Displacement Rates of Copyrighted Content in the EU' report (PDF) points out a number of caveats for this headline number, not least of which is a 45-percent error margin that makes the results less than statistically significant (i.e. indistinguishable from noise). That said, the same study finds that piracy has the more-expected negative effects on sales of films and books (and a neutral effect on music), singling out games as one area where piracy really does seem to work differently.

'This positive effect of illegal downloads and streams on the sales of games may be explained by the industry being successful in converting illegal users to paying users,' the study authors write. Increased game sales may come from piracy as 'players [get] hooked and then [pay] to play the game with extra bonuses or at extra levels,' they continue. When it comes to games, 'only free games are more likely displaced by online copyright infringements than not,'—that is, people who pirate games seem to use them as replacements for other free gaming options more than for games they would otherwise buy.

How do they know?

The core of the study's findings come from surveys of 30,000 consumers in six EU countries (UK, Germany, France, Spain, Poland, and Sweden). Thus, it relies largely on self-reported data about game purchases and use of illegal download sites. But the study isn't so naive as to simply ask 'how many games do you pirate' and 'would you buy more games if piracy wasn't an option' and be done with it.

On the contrary, the study authors take pains to use a number of survey strategies and statistical models to limit the effects of false and misremembered responses, as well as the 'endogeneity' problem in the correlation (i.e. people who like games are more likely to play both pirated and legitimate games).

For instance, the survey asks respondents about their generalized moral attitude toward piracy and their familiarity with piracy terms, both of which are highly correlated with reported piracy rates. As the study authors put it, 'if people know piracy terms but do not report piracy, this might indicate untruthful responses.'

Respondents were also asked specific questions about their willingness to pay various prices for their last illegal download to try to transform hypothetical counterfactuals about a piracy-free world into specific questions about an actual game. Finally, econometric models were used to estimate piracy's effects based on piracy-correlated factors like the availability of high-speed Internet and the frequency people use the Internet to read about news or to do homework.

While it may be truly impossible to know what a piracy-free world would look like, this is one of the more exhaustive and rigorous efforts we've seen to actually suss out whether and how much piracy displaces legitimate game sales. The counterintuitive finding that sales likely increase as piracy goes up should be taken with a grain of salt, but it can't be dismissed entirely.

2000: In the age of broadband Internet access, pirated software (or “warez,” as it’s called) is easier than ever to obtain and use. Many users these days are getting DSL or cable internet and have CD burners, which is all you need to get and use warez from the Internet.

The Wintel platform is the most popular platform to commit software piracy on – because most of the population uses Windows. However, PC warez are like a bad marketing campaign. All hype, no product. If you go to Yahoo and do a search for “warez,” you will find tons of listings, often leading you to banner sites – and links to other banner sites. Of course, every site will promise that the links you are clicking on contain the best software for illegal download.

After about an hour you will feel like a hamster pressing a button for a pellet.

Other methods exist for the PC hobbyist pirate. Some use FTP, IRC, and even AOL to move their warez around. While it’s easy to find a pirate who may have a program you need, it is even harder to obtain it because most require you to upload a program to them in return for 5 downloads of your choice. I have seen people spend up to 24 hours looking for a program on various PC warez web, FTP, IRC, ICQ, and AOL warez places. Eventually, they just give up and go buy what they are looking for.

The Macintosh community is a very kind, understanding, and generous community overall. This type of thinking also applies to Mac warez. I know of several places on the Internet that deal in Macintosh warez and give it away free, asking nothing in return. If a Wintel warez site operates on the basis that it lets you “leech” from them, it is kept very low-key and secret. Macintosh warez sites operate the complete opposite by asking you to “tell your friends” and “spread the word.” If you have a problem with the warez you just downloaded, they will even attempt to help you understand what the problem is – and correct it.

A perfect example of this type of generosity is Mac OS X: Public Beta. While the keynote was being conducted, I knew of ten different leech sites getting the beta uploaded from France. Other software titles I have seen floating around are Mac OS X Server (which I have purchased legally, in case you are wondering), and preview editions of Microsoft Office 2001.

In the age of broadband Internet access, it is very easy for someone to download a 650 MB CD image in under an hour, and then spend another 20 minutes to burn the software to CD using Adaptec Toast (the choice burning software of most Mac warez traders). Some images don’t even need to be burned, and if you have a big hard drive, you can simply mount the CD image and run.

Mac

Most Macintosh applications and games cannot tell the difference between a mounted CD volume and a mounted volume that is really a disk image sitting on your hard drive. Some programs do check to see if you are running from the CD; if you’re not, they will simply tell you to insert the CD. Hacks for those programs usually exist and can be obtained just as easily as the program itself – sometimes the hack is even included.

PC warez proprietors would eat their hats if they knew how easy it was to take a Macintosh program on CD and transfer it to a compressed image. Most PC warez has to be downloaded in sections – one compressed file for the program, another for sound, and one more for various add-ons. It can become quite confusing – the PC world normally is – and a complete waste of time, in the end, should you be missing one package.

From what I can see, the Macintosh community keeps it’s code of honor of keeping things easy, not taking advantage, and just being plain nice even when it comes to downloading commercial software for free. Whether or not that is a good thing, I leave for you to decide.

R Piracy Reddit

The use of warez is a violation of copyright law. Low End Mac does not condone software piracy. We even register shareware.

keywords: #warez #softwarepiracy

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