Ross's Game Dungeon: CarnEvil

[HLPrincess]

Hey, JudasPhysicist, you broke the forum! Put the pictures in spoiler brackets

[Pinkie Pie]

OKAY NEW IDEA

 

GOOFY-THEMED FREEMAN'S MIND EPISODE

 

I WILL FIGHT FOR THIS IDEA UNTIL IT HAPPENS GODDAMMIT.

 

I second that notion, but how does that fit with Gordon's personality?

The same way the pirate voice episode fit into his personality.

[Rifflesby]

$7.50

 

Btw, Ross, i worked outsourced phone support for BellSouth.net for a while too! Did it for about two years, then had to quit because my constant stress-caused heartburn got so bad it was burning my vocal cords, and I was at risk of permanently losing my voice. Fun times!

 

What was the name of your outsourcing company? I can't remember the name of the place I worked at, but it was in Columbus Ohio.

[JudasPhysicist]

7.50 is quite good for finishing an arcade cabin game.

 

Me and friends used around 20 to finish House Of The Dead

[urcousinvinnie5]

Of course I may be paranoid, but does anyone else think that ross pirating games EVEN WITH the games being abandon-ware is a bad idea. Because "the gubment don't care 'bout dat" because like ross said that most lawyers will say abandon-ware doesn't exist and you should always pay for a game unless the company puts it out for free. Does anyone else think that ross is in danger of going to jail. but then again I didn't even know abandon-ware existed until nyet III but still I feel as if ross is on thin ice and I hope he's not doing anything bad and hasn't gone to jail.

[HLPrincess]

Of course I may be paranoid, but does anyone else think that ross pirating games EVEN WITH the games being abandon-ware is a bad idea. Because "the gubment don't care 'bout dat" because like ross said that most lawyers will say abandon-ware doesn't exist and you should always pay for a game unless the company puts it out for free. Does anyone else think that ross is in danger of going to jail. but then again I didn't even know abandon-ware existed until nyet III but still I feel as if ross is on thin ice and I hope he's not doing anything bad and hasn't gone to jail.

 

Leave bad predictions to yourself

[scott155]

Being a pirate is alright with me.

[urcousinvinnie5]

not for me. but okay if you want to go to the brig that's fine matey

[Ross Scott]

$7.50

 

Btw, Ross, i worked outsourced phone support for BellSouth.net for a while too! Did it for about two years, then had to quit because my constant stress-caused heartburn got so bad it was burning my vocal cords, and I was at risk of permanently losing my voice. Fun times!

 

What was the name of your outsourcing company? I can't remember the name of the place I worked at, but it was in Columbus Ohio.

Client Logic. It's still there apparently!

 

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Client+Logic&ll=35.993437,-84.226738&spn=0.00612,0.008256&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&fb=1&gl=pl&hq=client+logic,+oak+ridge+tn&cid=0,0,4880591513570323383&t=h&z=18

[Stuff]

Am I crazy or there were another vid with this one. Pretty sure two videos appeared on my youtube timeline, the other one having something like 10 minutes. didn't watched because I had to leave, buy now it's gone.. what happened there?

[Kotzata]

.pl

 

 

I see what you did there

 

[RandomGuy]

I definitely was not expecting a full let's play from you. Not that I'm complaining.

 

Anyway I know that these were just things you off-handedly mentioned, but I think they deserve some mention if one of the points of this series is for you to state what you think about gaming in general:

 

1. Violence against women: maybe this is just something you can't control, that's just wired into your brain, but I really don't like this way of thinking.

 

It just seems sexist. You disdain violence against women to the point where a video game having a female enemy in it reduces your enjoyment of it (Evil Marie). Yet you declare killing a male enemy in a brutal and gory way to be awesome (Ludwig Von Tokkentakker). It implies, among other things, that women are both always incapable and weak AND that they're always more deserving of sympathy than men. I actually kind of like when games feature both female and male enemies, though all too often they make the female enemies both rare and elite (Half-Life does this, for example). I think the best aversion of this trend I've seen is the Mass Effect series... and even then, 3 somewhat plays it straight, as two of the three female enemy types are the strongest unit of their faction.

 

I also would NOT recommend trying to disarm a knife wielding woman. Trying to disarm anyone is very dangerous and can easily go wrong. Treat her like you would a knife wielding man. If she's just randomly charging you and has a knife- like in the scenario you mentioned in the video- of course your first reaction should be to gun her down. Assuming you have a gun. You'd do the same thing if a man was charging at you with a knife, wouldn't you?

 

2. Piracy: Call me crazy, but I'm in the minority that piracy is, except in extremely rare circumstances, always wrong. I do not sympathize with people who say "well I wasn't gonna buy it anyway" or something similar. It just comes off as a lame excuse to justify theft in most cases. And I don't get up in arms like some do when a pirate actually gets busted for breaking the law. Someone spent a lot of time and money making that, and by pirating it, you are stealing. I actually think the companies usually have a moral high ground here.

 

I'm reminded of an old Cracked article that talked about how entitled gamers are- they pirate and then complain when companies get draconian in an attempt to stop piracy. This got very, very bad with the releases of games like Modern Warfare 2, or Spore. There was even a case where, as an experiment, a bunch of indie game developers LET players set the price for their games, to see what the players thought it would be worth... and a huge number of players just pirated the bundle anyway.

 

This does not just apply to new games. Older games can and do still make a profit for their owners, and are still legally owned. Yet they are also often pirated. Now, the case is obviously different for games like this one, where it doesn't even have a home release and definitely wasn't going to make any more money. But in general I just really don't like the attitude of "this person isn't using their property the way I want them to, so I can steal it and be justified". It rubs me the wrong way.

 

3. Rail Shooters: even the linear shooters many people complain about aren't as restrictive as rail shooters. At least here you have freedom of movement.

 

I'm tempted to think that these people are talking about the Modern Warfare and Call of Duty series, since those are the best selling FPS games around. The claim that they're stupidly linear does hold weight, but I wonder why they get flak for it while games like Half-Life 2 get praised. Don't get me wrong, in general, I don't like the series (mainly due to other reasons like lack of vehicles, plain multiplayer, and lack of enemy variety) but the linearity complaint always struck me as odd. Especially since the campaign is so little of the actual game.

 

Speaking of Modern Warfare/Call of Duty, I actually think Half-Life can learn a lot of things from it. Black Ops 2 actually let's you choose certain decisions through your actions in the game, which effect the story, so the linearity complaint isn't very founded there. MW3 features Survival Mode, which is an arcade-y Co-Op hold the line mission where you fight off increasingly powerful and varied enemies (including militia, mercenaries, soldiers, badass gas mask commandos, chemical troopers, attack dogs, juggernauts, suicide bombers, helicopters, and mine-layers) using a huge variety of weaponry. You can also call in allies in the form of air strikes, rangers, and GIGN troops. I'd love if Half-Life 3 had this kind of enemy and weapon variety for the basic soldiers and allies, and if they were as accurate, smart, and aggressive as these ones. I'm actually kind of sad it's being replaced by the alien mode in Ghosts. This mode was the only reason I actually bought the game- albeit, after the price dropped.

 

4. "It would be nice if pirates couldn't touch a game for months or years, and in return gaming companies can just... not be evil": This assumes that no one buys any games after a certain time. Which doesn't happen. I bought Half-Life ten years after it was released, for example. It was released in the same year as CarnEvil. And you yourself say that you've never payed more than 20 dollars for a game (which I assume means you wait for the price to drop on relatively new ones).

 

I'm not really sure how serious you were with this suggestion, so I'm not gonna say much on it, but also remember the Steam sales. I can't remember how many games that were over five years old that I bought on Steam because they were on sale.

 

Interesting note on EA's marketing decisions: that space launch was for Mass Effect 3. Predictably, most of the copies ended up in the ocean.

 

Anyway, the video itself: this may surprise you (well, not really), but I liked it. I can see what you meant when you said you'd be channeling Freeman's Mind. A lot of the comments here feel like they could've come out of Gordon's mouth (was this all improv? If it was, why was the video so time consuming?). Your sense of comedic timing and delivery is superb; I could listen to you narrate a documentary on wall papering, and I'd still probably laugh my ass off.

 

Favorite joke: the return of the Doom Guy voice. For some reason that just had me guffawing. Maybe because I might have been imagining that this was a conversation between Freeman and the Doomguy. "Ross you pansy. You don't like killing women, killing babies, or torturing people? What kind of man are you!?"

 

I really like RDG, but it's nice to hear that you'll get back to Freeman's Mind. I suppose I'm rather antsy for new episodes because, upon replaying Half-Life, I remembered that Freeman is really close to Xen. Can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to that, and kind of fearing how it can go wrong. But I have faith that it'll be great, like the rest of the series. You have yet to make a video that I've actually disliked.

 

In conclusion: nice video, shame that it will be the last for a while, but looking forward to more of Freeman.

[scott155]

 

2. Piracy:

Call me crazy, but I'm in the minority that piracy is, except in extremely rare circumstances, always wrong. I do not sympathize with people who say "well I wasn't gonna buy it anyway" or something similar. It just comes off as a lame excuse to justify theft in most cases. And I don't get up in arms like some do when a pirate actually gets busted for breaking the law. Someone spent a lot of time and money making that, and by pirating it, you are stealing. I actually think the companies usually have a moral high ground here.

 

I'm reminded of an old Cracked article that talked about how entitled gamers are- they pirate and then complain when companies get draconian in an attempt to stop piracy. This got very, very bad with the releases of games like Modern Warfare 2, or Spore. There was even a case where, as an experiment, a bunch of indie game developers LET players set the price for their games, to see what the players thought it would be worth... and a huge number of players just pirated the bundle anyway.

 

This does not just apply to new games. Older games can and do still make a profit for their owners, and are still legally owned. Yet they are also often pirated. Now, the case is obviously different for games like this one, where it doesn't even have a home release and definitely wasn't going to make any more money. But in general I just really don't like the attitude of "this person isn't using their property the way I want them to, so I can steal it and be justified". It rubs me the wrong way.

I can agree that "well I wasn't gonna buy it anyway" is a pretty lame excuse. If it's fun enough to pirate, it's fun enough to buy. There are few cases where piracy is (in my opinion) acceptable.

 

1. Abandonware, like Ross has said. In these cases piracy is usually the only way to get the game. And even if you can find a legal copy, it will likely be a used copy which will net the devs the same amount of money as if you had pirated it. If it's for sale on a digital distribution platform, I would not consider it abandonware.

 

2. There is no demo or I'm not sure if my computer can run it. I don't want to buy a game that I won't be able to play or one that just sucks. In this case, if the game works and is fun, I will then buy it.

 

Neither of these cases results in a loss of money for the developers.

 

I also think that anti-piracy measures should be less EA Draconian and more Dennaton passive-aggressive. Hotline Miami had a buggy pirated version, so the devs helped fix the pirated version to give everyone the best experience. That would make any pirate with half a soul feel like a massive dick. It also takes away the "Well, the devs are being evil so I won't give them money so I'll go pirate herp derp" argument. In cases where the developers EA are being evil EA I think you should boycott the game instead of pirating it, because then it just gives the evil devs EA more statistics to go

"LOOKY LOOK! PIRATES! ARM THE DRM CANNONS!"

"But sir, the cannons are aimed at the loyal paying custom-"

"FIIIRE!!!"

Not that I EA know any EA developers like that EA

 

Favorite joke: the return of the Doom Guy voice. For some reason that just had me guffawing. Maybe because I might have been imagining that this was a conversation between Freeman and the Doomguy. "Ross you pansy. You don't like killing women, killing babies, or torturing people? What kind of man are you!?"

 

This would make for a wonderful cross-over episode. If someone can get a Doom Guy model in source and if Ross can find someone to do the animation I think it's feasible.

[sullygass95]

 

1. Violence against women: maybe this is just something you can't control, that's just wired into your brain, but I really don't like this way of thinking.

 

It just seems sexist. You disdain violence against women to the point where a video game having a female enemy in it reduces your enjoyment of it (Evil Marie). Yet you declare killing a male enemy in a brutal and gory way to be awesome (Ludwig Von Tokkentakker). It implies, among other things, that women are both always incapable and weak AND that they're always more deserving of sympathy than men. I actually kind of like when games feature both female and male enemies, though all too often they make the female enemies both rare and elite (Half-Life does this, for example). I think the best aversion of this trend I've seen is the Mass Effect series... and even then, 3 somewhat plays it straight, as two of the three female enemy types are the strongest unit of their faction.

 

I also would NOT recommend trying to disarm a knife wielding woman. Trying to disarm anyone is very dangerous and can easily go wrong. Treat her like you would a knife wielding man. If she's just randomly charging you and has a knife- like in the scenario you mentioned in the video- of course your first reaction should be to gun her down. Assuming you have a gun. You'd do the same thing if a man was charging at you with a knife, wouldn't you?

I disagree, this disgust for violence towards women is not sexist. It comes from a very primal instinct to protect females because they were and still are on average weaker and smaller than men. An average man wielding a knife generally poses a greater threat than an average woman wielding a knife, so it's not sexist to be less intimidated and ready to shoot a woman than a man in this situation. Women being incapable has nothing to do with not wanting to hurt them, I don't even know how you made that connection. Maybe it is a little gender biased to show more sympathy towards women in pain than men, but I think given that most men are bigger and stronger than most women it helps that at least some men have instincts not to harm women because evolution gave them a physical disadvantage to men that puts them in more danger of a man than vice versa. Of course guns shoot a hole through part of this argument, but I don't like widespread proliferation of guns for other reasons that I don't want to get into or argue here. I agree with Ross, unless the woman's done something really evil or poses a serious threat I feel worse about killing them and am also less likely to execute a woman in a game than I am a man, though I usually execute neither. I won't really contest your other points I don't know enough about piracy to make an argument for either side, but I thought I should elaborate Ross' position here or rather the general feelings men have for not liking violence against women.

[RandomGuy]

I can agree that "well I wasn't gonna buy it anyway" is a pretty lame excuse. If it's fun enough to pirate, it's fun enough to buy. There are few cases where piracy is (in my opinion) acceptable.

 

1. Abandonware, like Ross has said. In these cases piracy is usually the only way to get the game. And even if you can find a legal copy, it will likely be a used copy which will net the devs the same amount of money as if you had pirated it. If it's for sale on a digital distribution platform, I would not consider it abandonware.

 

2. There is no demo or I'm not sure if my computer can run it. I don't want to buy a game that I won't be able to play or one that just sucks. In this case, if the game works and is fun, I will then buy it.

 

Neither of these cases results in a loss of money for the developers.

 

I also think that anti-piracy measures should be less EA Draconian and more Dennaton passive-aggressive. Hotline Miami had a buggy pirated version, so the devs helped fix the pirated version to give everyone the best experience. That would make any pirate with half a soul feel like a massive dick. It also takes away the "Well, the devs are being evil so I won't give them money so I'll go pirate herp derp" argument. In cases where the developers EA are being evil EA I think you should boycott the game instead of pirating it, because then it just gives the evil devs EA more statistics to go

"LOOKY LOOK! PIRATES! ARM THE DRM CANNONS!"

"But sir, the cannons are aimed at the loyal paying custom-"

"FIIIRE!!!"

Not that I EA know any EA developers like that EA

 

Here's the thing though: while technically, pirating abandonware doesn't hurt anyone, it's still illegal, and the general moral implications bug me quite a bit. If someone decided to jail the person who pirated an abandonware game, and shut down the file, I'd think they were completely justified. Even if they didn't continue to distribute it themselves. Why? Because it's there stuff. They can do what they want with it; they don't have to justify crap if they honestly and legally got it. That's why the whole idea bugs me so much. Essentially, "use your property the way I want you to or I'm going to steal it".

 

It really shouldn't bug me, since I know objectively that abandonware isn't making any money anyway- and the nature of piracy means you're not actually physically taking a product per se- but it just does.

 

I don't like the "pirate it, then buy it if I like it" mentality. It essentially makes the developers rely on charity. I don't like a policy, like the one you said, that just relies on appealing to people's good nature. I'd prefer if there was just never piracy, period (why do you think DRM even exists in the first place?), but, yeah, that's not going to happen. It lacking a demo or you not being sure if your computer can run it is more of a grey area, but I still.

 

Agree about the "company is evil so I can do what I want herp derp". It bugs me to no end when I see people ragging on companies for greed AS THEY'RE STEALING FROM THEM.

 

I disagree, this disgust for violence towards women is not sexist. It comes from a very primal instinct to protect females because they were and still are on average weaker and smaller than men. An average man wielding a knife generally poses a greater threat than an average woman wielding a knife, so it's not sexist to be less intimidated and ready to shoot a woman than a man in this situation

 

Yes it is, because you are treating someone differently based on their sex. A knife is dangerous regardless of who is swinging it- less so than a gun, but still.

 

Women being incapable has nothing to do with not wanting to hurt them, I don't even know how you made that connection

 

I didn't have to make a connection, as one of the reasons Ross gave for not liking violence against women was explicitly that they're on average weaker than men. Implying that the average woman being physically weaker determines how he views violence against women in all contexts regardless of who it is or what they're doing. Like in this one, where the woman was a bullet sponge magic zombie.

 

Maybe it is a little gender biased to show more sympathy towards women in pain than men, but I think given that most men are bigger and stronger than most women it helps that at least some men have instincts not to harm women because evolution gave them a physical disadvantage to men that puts them in more danger of a man than vice versa.

 

Okay, so you just said that it was sexist ("gender biased"). No comment needed here.

 

. I agree with Ross, unless the woman's done something really evil or poses a serious threat I feel worse about killing them and am also less likely to execute a woman in a game than I am a man, though I usually execute neither.

 

And that's sexist. You are, right off the bat, thinking that a woman is more deserving of sympathy than a man, and that they have to do more to be considered worthy of death than a man. You feel worse about killing them even if all other things are equal, just because of their gender. Women are not inherently more deserving of sympathy than men.

 

I feel no worse about killing a woman than I do about killing a man in video games, or seeing one die on film, or hearing about it in the news.

[scott155]

 

Here's the thing though: while technically, pirating abandonware doesn't hurt anyone, it's still illegal, and the general moral implications bug me quite a bit. If someone decided to jail the person who pirated an abandonware game, and shut down the file, I'd think they were completely justified. Even if they didn't continue to distribute it themselves. Why? Because it's there stuff. They can do what they want with it; they don't have to justify crap if they honestly and legally got it. That's why the whole idea bugs me so much. Essentially, "use your property the way I want you to or I'm going to steal it".

 

It really shouldn't bug me, since I know objectively that abandonware isn't making any money anyway- and the nature of piracy means you're not actually physically taking a product per se- but it just does.

 

I don't like the "pirate it, then buy it if I like it" mentality. It essentially makes the developers rely on charity. I don't like a policy, like the one you said, that just relies on appealing to people's good nature. I'd prefer if there was just never piracy, period (why do you think DRM even exists in the first place?), but, yeah, that's not going to happen. It lacking a demo or you not being sure if your computer can run it is more of a grey area, but I still.

 

Agree about the "company is evil so I can do what I want herp derp". It bugs me to no end when I see people ragging on companies for greed AS THEY'RE STEALING FROM THEM.

 

Well the "pirate it, then buy it if I like it" mentality is really only valid, in my opinion, if there is no demo or trial version. Obviously a "never piracy, period" situation would be best, but unfortunately there's idiots on both sides. Although stuff like the

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4eWRq_oGLA or the Garry's Mod Error or pretty much anything listed here is obviously the best way to deal with pirates, if only for the shits and giggles.

 

As for abandonware, the legal action like you're talking about seems kind of like someone who spits in their food they don't want so nobody else can have it. On one hand, it's their food so they can do what they want with it, but on the other hand, they're kinda just being dicks about it.

[RandomGuy]

I think my favorite is Serious Sam 3's straightforward anti-piracy method: spawn an invincible super fast killer scorpion to chase you down and murder you if you pirated the game.

 

Well yeah, basically. But it's still legally theirs, so they should be able to do what they want with it; it's not like they're throwing spare food into a fire in front of starving people or anything, they're just choosing not to sell a certain product any more. That should be their right. Now, of course if they did that then piracy should be of no concern, but... like I said, I guess it's just hard-wired into my brain to see that kind of attitude as wrong.

[SirNicholas]

I like the GameDev Tycoon anti-pirate measures, if only because it fits the game perfectly. GTA should have you getting your shit stolen everywhere you turn, but maybe that would be indistinguishable from the proper game (never actually played it).

 

The problem I have with DRM is that it often hurts paying customers more than pirates. Perhaps more so with films and music than games, but in the end the pirates can usually remove all the restrictions while legal version still has them. Think of DVDs where you have to sit through 15 minutes of previews that you can't skip because the DVD tells the player you can't. With a pirated verion you just click and play and have enough popcorn left over for during the actual film.

[Ross Scott]

Am I crazy or there were another vid with this one.

No, you're just crazy.

 

 

but I think they deserve some mention if one of the points of this series is for you to state what you think about gaming in general

 

1. I ended up having this discussion with someone else. Basically it's instinctual reaction on my part more than anything, though I have some thoughts on it regardless. While it may be technically sexism, I don't carry the same attitudes people normally think of as sexist, for example I don't think women should be denied rights or held back in any way they're capable in. I'm NOT implying what you said about them always being incapable and weak. I probably would imply that are on average more deserving of sympathy than men however. As for the double standard on violence, look at prison statistics. Men are approximately 9-10 times more likely to commit violent crime than women. Women are on average, far less violent than men. The ones that aren't are more of an exception rather than an equal standard. If the game was handling this topic in a mature manner my attitude might be different, but in my opinion most games that portray violence against women aren't especially mature.

 

2. I think you're arguing multiple points here, one of which I don't disagree with, another I disagree with dramatically. I think because I do play a lot of abandonware, what are the "extremely rare circumstances" for you are much more common for me personally. I don't have much of an issue with how companies price their games and I agree people shouldn't treat access to games like they're a right if they don't agree with the publisher's price. I actually don't even have an issue with copy protection, though I personally don't like online-authentication systems for non-multiplayer games. What I hate, hate, hate is when IP owner pig-headedness intentionally kills old games off that they're no longer collecting any money on anyway. I equate this as essentially book burning in the name of profit and think it should be fought by any means necessary, with pirates often being the last line of defense of games going extinct. To be clear, I'm not advocating that old games that are still being sold should become pirated. They're still making the game available, so it's not dead, thus I don't have a problem. 3D Realms is an example of this. If Midway was still selling CarnEvil cabinets and getting money from them, I wouldn't have gone and covered this game because of that.

 

 

4. The larger point here was that piracy can severely hurt brand new games as a lot of companies get the majority of their income within the first couple months, if not weeks. If a game is still being sold years after the fact, great, but a LOT of games have slipped through the cracks over the years. Neither side is really in the right or wrong. It's wrong of the pirates to hurt the game developers, and it's wrong of (some of) the rights holders to snuff out games or make it impossible to keep them functioning after a certain time period.

 

But it's still legally theirs, so they should be able to do what they want with it; it's not like they're throwing spare food into a fire in front of starving people or anything, they're just choosing not to sell a certain product any more. That should be their right. Now, of course if they did that then piracy should be of no concern, but... like I said, I guess it's just hard-wired into my brain to see that kind of attitude as wrong.

Well I agree this is not on the same level as making people starve, but I think it's part of the same spectrum of attitudes. It's destroying culture in the name of profit, which I find immoral, I can't think of any justification for it, I think that trumps copyright law, implied ownership, almost everything, unless the original author was deeply ashamed of it or something. I see this as superseding laws; if preserving culture that would otherwise die is illegal, then I think it's the law that's wrong, not the practice. Moreover the people who shut this stuff down are almost never the actual creators, but rights holders that bought a company going bankrupt. Again, I think destroying culture in the name of profit is never moral, no matter what the law says.

[sullygass95]

I can agree that "well I wasn't gonna buy it anyway" is a pretty lame excuse. If it's fun enough to pirate, it's fun enough to buy. There are few cases where piracy is (in my opinion) acceptable.

 

1. Abandonware, like Ross has said. In these cases piracy is usually the only way to get the game. And even if you can find a legal copy, it will likely be a used copy which will net the devs the same amount of money as if you had pirated it. If it's for sale on a digital distribution platform, I would not consider it abandonware.

 

2. There is no demo or I'm not sure if my computer can run it. I don't want to buy a game that I won't be able to play or one that just sucks. In this case, if the game works and is fun, I will then buy it.

 

Neither of these cases results in a loss of money for the developers.

 

I also think that anti-piracy measures should be less EA Draconian and more Dennaton passive-aggressive. Hotline Miami had a buggy pirated version, so the devs helped fix the pirated version to give everyone the best experience. That would make any pirate with half a soul feel like a massive dick. It also takes away the "Well, the devs are being evil so I won't give them money so I'll go pirate herp derp" argument. In cases where the developers EA are being evil EA I think you should boycott the game instead of pirating it, because then it just gives the evil devs EA more statistics to go

"LOOKY LOOK! PIRATES! ARM THE DRM CANNONS!"

"But sir, the cannons are aimed at the loyal paying custom-"

"FIIIRE!!!"

Not that I EA know any EA developers like that EA

 

Here's the thing though: while technically, pirating abandonware doesn't hurt anyone, it's still illegal, and the general moral implications bug me quite a bit. If someone decided to jail the person who pirated an abandonware game, and shut down the file, I'd think they were completely justified. Even if they didn't continue to distribute it themselves. Why? Because it's there stuff. They can do what they want with it; they don't have to justify crap if they honestly and legally got it. That's why the whole idea bugs me so much. Essentially, "use your property the way I want you to or I'm going to steal it".

 

It really shouldn't bug me, since I know objectively that abandonware isn't making any money anyway- and the nature of piracy means you're not actually physically taking a product per se- but it just does.

 

I don't like the "pirate it, then buy it if I like it" mentality. It essentially makes the developers rely on charity. I don't like a policy, like the one you said, that just relies on appealing to people's good nature. I'd prefer if there was just never piracy, period (why do you think DRM even exists in the first place?), but, yeah, that's not going to happen. It lacking a demo or you not being sure if your computer can run it is more of a grey area, but I still.

 

Agree about the "company is evil so I can do what I want herp derp". It bugs me to no end when I see people ragging on companies for greed AS THEY'RE STEALING FROM THEM.

 

I disagree, this disgust for violence towards women is not sexist. It comes from a very primal instinct to protect females because they were and still are on average weaker and smaller than men. An average man wielding a knife generally poses a greater threat than an average woman wielding a knife, so it's not sexist to be less intimidated and ready to shoot a woman than a man in this situation

 

Yes it is, because you are treating someone differently based on their sex. A knife is dangerous regardless of who is swinging it- less so than a gun, but still.

 

Women being incapable has nothing to do with not wanting to hurt them, I don't even know how you made that connection

 

I didn't have to make a connection, as one of the reasons Ross gave for not liking violence against women was explicitly that they're on average weaker than men. Implying that the average woman being physically weaker determines how he views violence against women in all contexts regardless of who it is or what they're doing. Like in this one, where the woman was a bullet sponge magic zombie.

 

Maybe it is a little gender biased to show more sympathy towards women in pain than men, but I think given that most men are bigger and stronger than most women it helps that at least some men have instincts not to harm women because evolution gave them a physical disadvantage to men that puts them in more danger of a man than vice versa.

 

Okay, so you just said that it was sexist ("gender biased"). No comment needed here.

 

. I agree with Ross, unless the woman's done something really evil or poses a serious threat I feel worse about killing them and am also less likely to execute a woman in a game than I am a man, though I usually execute neither.

 

And that's sexist. You are, right off the bat, thinking that a woman is more deserving of sympathy than a man, and that they have to do more to be considered worthy of death than a man. You feel worse about killing them even if all other things are equal, just because of their gender. Women are not inherently more deserving of sympathy than men.

 

I feel no worse about killing a woman than I do about killing a man in video games, or seeing one die on film, or hearing about it in the news.

Alright, the feelings are sexist in the sense that I have different feelings towards women than men, but not in the sense that I think one is generally inferior to the other. I think Mr. Scott already said this, but men and women ARE different; there's no way of getting around that. Men are on average bigger and stronger than women and statistically commit more violent crime than women: so the average woman is less inclined to violence and therefore more deserving of my sympathy than the average man. Of course there are outliers on both sides, but that isn't enough to change my psychology of feeling differently under certain circumstances about men and women because under certain circumstances they are different. Also, the word incapable implies a lot of negatives traits that don't have anything to do with this discussion, I don't think women are intellectually incapable or psychologically incapable just because I think they are generally less violent. Maybe it's not it's dictionary definition, but the word sexism implies an unfair treatment of one sex over another, but I don't think it's unfair that I feel worse about hurting women if they are less likely to commit violent crime than men for the same reasons I think it's fair that men and women have separate Olympic records because men and women should not be held to the same physical standard; science is on my side on this particular point.