4 ms·

Moral opposition to the concept of DRM perhaps. For me in fact it's that DRM is such a massive pain in the ass that I usually buy the game and then pirate a co

Moral opposition to the concept of DRM perhaps. For me in fact it's that DRM is such a massive pain in the ass that I usually buy the game and then pirate a copy that I can actually play without any storefront/UPlay/EPIC horseshit.

Wowfunhappy 6y ago
I actually do the same thing when a game isn't available without DRM, because I really dislike storefronts, but I get the strong impression we're a tiny minority among the people who use these cracks. I dunno, I suppose a tiny minority is all you need, so maybe that's it...
- breakfastduck 6y ago
  There are lots of people who do the same. Plus there's a huge number of people who go through a piracy 'phase'. Usually to get games when they're a teen with no cash. Most of the games they love are purchased once they've matured with a stable income. Speaking from experience!
  - cforrester 6y ago
    Poverty was also a major factor for a lot of us. Entertainment is a basic human necessity, and video games were so compelling to me as a child. When you have days where your mom has sleep for dinner so you don't, it's tough to find any money to spend on entertainment. I can see how it might seem like a better investment to chip in $10 to a cracker who will then release multiple games. We were fortunate to benefit from a program meant to help get lower income families access to computers and the internet, in the early 2000's, so piracy opened up entertainment options far more diverse than the TV channels we could get over the air. On top of games, I remember burning music CD's for my friends and family. Hell, I remember long hours fiddling with the concept of transcoding and burning VCD's (basically a DVD, but on a CD) for my family to watch.
  - m-p-3 6y ago
    That basically what I went through, I acquired many pirated games when I was studying and trying to make ends meet, and I believe I bought all these classic games since.
m-p-3 6y ago
And some DRMs like Denuvo are massive in size (add several hundreds megabytes to the executable) and resource intensive. It's quite common to see a significant performance gain and reduction in stuttering from the cracked version compared to the original version. For this reason I tend to prefer buying my games from GOG, which sells all its games DRM-free. I do value the work game developers put in these games and I buy all of them, but I like having the peace of mind that if something happens to my purchases down the road I could run a cracked executable later on.
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  > It's quite common to see a significant performance gain and reduction in stuttering from the cracked version compared to the original version. It's quite common when a developer updates a game to remove Denuvo, or when an official Denuvo-free executable is accidentally leaked (as appears to be surprisingly typical), but I don't think it's that common for cracks. Cracks generally do the absolute minimum to get a game to run, which often means leaving neutered but still performance-intensive DRM in place. Once a game works, I've never seen anyone take a second pass to improve performance. (Games that actually crash are of course a different matter.) IMO, this is again an indicator of the scene's priorities.

Wowfunhappy 6y ago

I actually do the same thing when a game isn't available without DRM, because I really dislike storefronts, but I get the strong impression we're a tiny minority among the people who use these cracks. I dunno, I suppose a tiny minority is all you need, so maybe that's it...

breakfastduck 6y ago
There are lots of people who do the same. Plus there's a huge number of people who go through a piracy 'phase'. Usually to get games when they're a teen with no cash. Most of the games they love are purchased once they've matured with a stable income. Speaking from experience!
- cforrester 6y ago
  Poverty was also a major factor for a lot of us. Entertainment is a basic human necessity, and video games were so compelling to me as a child. When you have days where your mom has sleep for dinner so you don't, it's tough to find any money to spend on entertainment. I can see how it might seem like a better investment to chip in $10 to a cracker who will then release multiple games. We were fortunate to benefit from a program meant to help get lower income families access to computers and the internet, in the early 2000's, so piracy opened up entertainment options far more diverse than the TV channels we could get over the air. On top of games, I remember burning music CD's for my friends and family. Hell, I remember long hours fiddling with the concept of transcoding and burning VCD's (basically a DVD, but on a CD) for my family to watch.
- m-p-3 6y ago
  That basically what I went through, I acquired many pirated games when I was studying and trying to make ends meet, and I believe I bought all these classic games since.

m-p-3 6y ago

And some DRMs like Denuvo are massive in size (add several hundreds megabytes to the executable) and resource intensive. It's quite common to see a significant performance gain and reduction in stuttering from the cracked version compared to the original version. For this reason I tend to prefer buying my games from GOG, which sells all its games DRM-free. I do value the work game developers put in these games and I buy all of them, but I like having the peace of mind that if something happens to my purchases down the road I could run a cracked executable later on.

Wowfunhappy 6y ago
> It's quite common to see a significant performance gain and reduction in stuttering from the cracked version compared to the original version. It's quite common when a developer updates a game to remove Denuvo, or when an official Denuvo-free executable is accidentally leaked (as appears to be surprisingly typical), but I don't think it's that common for cracks. Cracks generally do the absolute minimum to get a game to run, which often means leaving neutered but still performance-intensive DRM in place. Once a game works, I've never seen anyone take a second pass to improve performance. (Games that actually crash are of course a different matter.) IMO, this is again an indicator of the scene's priorities.