4 ms·

I'm very out of the loop at this stage of life, but one thing I have wondered--has software as a service, and all the online gaming, killed off all those kinds

I'm very out of the loop at this stage of life, but one thing I have wondered--has software as a service, and all the online gaming, killed off all those kinds of warez? Are most of these pirate sites nowadays just for movies/tv? (One of the reasons I have been wondering about this is that I so f'ing hate windows etc updating and phoning home all the time I would prefer a version cracked a la 2007 to prevent that, over the legit copy I own.)

BlueTemplar 3y ago
Online-only, heavily DRMed games are still a tiny minority of games. And even if you look at popularity instead, Minecraft (so far as the more open Java version is still popular at least) single-handedly skews the results enough for them not being a clear win for the locked down games.
- chickenimprint 3y ago
  Where are you getting that from? On Steam, the offline title with the highest concurrent player count is Civ 6 on place 18, with 1/30 the amount of players of CS:GO. On Twitch, Minecraft, which almost all streamers seem to be playing on multiplayer servers, is in 20th place, behind 19 exclusively online games. I would estimate more than 99% of all playtime is spent on online games.
  - BlueTemplar 3y ago
    Read again.
    - chickenimprint 3y ago
      What did you not understand about my comment?
- jasonfarnon 3y ago
  what metric are you using if not popularity? the raw # of games put out on the market? I can remember the online game thing starting way back when I was still playing. Quake had an ethernet option, and I remember something called "Unreal Tournament" spreading like wildfire around dorms when I was in school. My first though was "it's really fun shooting at real kids instead of barrels!" immediately followed by "this is going to be really hard to crack!" I figured every developer would move online by now just to kill cracking.
JW_00000 3y ago
I genuinely think Spotify and Netflix, and other streaming services, have been the biggest blow to torrent sites. For the average user, it's just so much easier to pay $10/month (or even less when you share your account with friends) and get easy & user-friendly access to the content (in a way that happens to be legal). 10-15 years ago, before Spotify/Netflix, people used to say: "As long as it's easier to acquire things illegally, people will continue doing so," and I think that has really been shown to be true.
- kyriakos 3y ago
  There is still no worldwide availability of all streaming services which keeps piracy for media going. For example I have no way to legally access to Disney+, paramount, hulu or peacock content. I'm happy to pay but can't.

BlueTemplar 3y ago

Online-only, heavily DRMed games are still a tiny minority of games. And even if you look at popularity instead, Minecraft (so far as the more open Java version is still popular at least) single-handedly skews the results enough for them not being a clear win for the locked down games.

chickenimprint 3y ago
Where are you getting that from? On Steam, the offline title with the highest concurrent player count is Civ 6 on place 18, with 1/30 the amount of players of CS:GO. On Twitch, Minecraft, which almost all streamers seem to be playing on multiplayer servers, is in 20th place, behind 19 exclusively online games. I would estimate more than 99% of all playtime is spent on online games.
- BlueTemplar 3y ago
  Read again.
  - chickenimprint 3y ago
    What did you not understand about my comment?
jasonfarnon 3y ago
what metric are you using if not popularity? the raw # of games put out on the market? I can remember the online game thing starting way back when I was still playing. Quake had an ethernet option, and I remember something called "Unreal Tournament" spreading like wildfire around dorms when I was in school. My first though was "it's really fun shooting at real kids instead of barrels!" immediately followed by "this is going to be really hard to crack!" I figured every developer would move online by now just to kill cracking.

JW_00000 3y ago

I genuinely think Spotify and Netflix, and other streaming services, have been the biggest blow to torrent sites. For the average user, it's just so much easier to pay $10/month (or even less when you share your account with friends) and get easy & user-friendly access to the content (in a way that happens to be legal). 10-15 years ago, before Spotify/Netflix, people used to say: "As long as it's easier to acquire things illegally, people will continue doing so," and I think that has really been shown to be true.

kyriakos 3y ago
There is still no worldwide availability of all streaming services which keeps piracy for media going. For example I have no way to legally access to Disney+, paramount, hulu or peacock content. I'm happy to pay but can't.