Modchip raids have gone too far - do something about it!

Well, you're not quite doing the math right. It's not necessarily that a consumer would have bought that particular game if they hadn't pirated it, but that they would have bought some other game or entertainment product if they hadn't gotten that one for free. Sure, I agree that it's not an exact one to one loss analysis, but I think it holds up overall.

I don't use mod chips and frankly, I don't think its something any of us should be wasting our time lobbying anyone about. You'd be better off pressuring the console manufacturers to remove region coding like they have done with handhelds since there would then be no need for mod chips at all.

 

Your reasoning only apply to those who have unlimited amount of cash, in other words the rich, and most of the people in the world aren't that fortunate.

I think the only thing that could pressure console manufacturers to finally remove region coding is to make sure modchips remain legal, which it still is in most countries except USA.

 

I don't like copyright infringement (of games, **AA can suck my nuts). However, I still do it sometimes (more rarely now, since I have more $$ in my wallet than say, 5 years ago) but I remember having my PS1 and still playing the same one copy of GT because I couldn't afford any other games. If I was to mod my PSX and get burnt games from my friend, who had a truckload from Kosovo, No one would lose out cause I wouldn't have bought those games anyway. Thats my attitude with software like Photoshop now. I can't afford it at all, so I download it or use the Gimp. Either way Adobe don't get any money for their annoying bloatware.

 

If you didn't play a bunch of copied games and only played GT then in the end you would have gone out at bought a game out of boredom for GT, even if it wasn't one of the copied titles.

Piracy logic always fails when people try to excuse themselves. If you're going to do it at least have the balls to stand by your decision rather than try it paint it a different colour.

 

I was 9-10ish at a time when games were $70-80 each (in the UK at least). Like I said, I only download when I don't have the money to buy the real thing. There's nothing nicer than a real game on your shelf, but sometimes you can't buy a game, so no one's losing out.

 

The only thing software piracy leads to if you let it run wild is to make originals cheaper. Don't forget we are dealing with cartels distributing original games worldwide.

I live in Thailand and have witnessed this first hand for the past decade. When the busts and legal threats fail as a tactic the distributors have to start competing with copies, and they have here successfully. Originals are generally regarded as "cool" in Asia, people want to buy them if the price is right.

For example, original video DVD's and PC games in Thailand are prohibited to export, but sold really cheap atm: New releases of PC games are roughly USD $7-15 (200-500 Baht) and video DVD's around USD $5-10 (150-300 Baht).

 

These laws are just plain RETARDED
I hate ppl who copy games for profit AND those who pay for copied games.

IMO there are LOTS of good reasons to own modchips

Here's a story of my first modchip:
Portugal, late 90's

I went to a friend's house and played PSX for the first time, immediatly fell in love with Soul Edge and FF7.
A few months later I break down and buy a PSX! and then my favorite games are nowhere to be found new or used...
About that same time I met a guy with a modded PSX and saw it working

so I started thinking "with 15€ I could get a modchip and finally get to play FF7 and Soul Blade AND at full speed (60hz) and full screen and I can play tons of games that werent released in Portugal ... or... ill just suck it up and stick with all those wonderful EA sports games which is all I cand find for sale xD

It wasnt a very hard decision
All the original games I ended up buying were influenced by the backups I got, I ended up getting lots of original PAL games and even some imports.

But still most of my original PAL games just sat on the shelf and never got more that one play because they were slooooooow compared to the NTSC backups I got at the time ^^
I always laughed so hard whenever I saw anyone playing the horrible PAL version of Tekken 3

and thats my story

there are really lots of factors which make ppl get modchips
about 1/3 of JPN games get released in the US, and only about 1/2 of those get released in europe and with a lot of months of delay

"should I wait 6 months for a crappy PAL version in slow 50hz and huge black bars IF its ever released, or I could go to the local copy dealer and get it now?"

I know lots of ppl who have tons of copied games, and not a single one of them would buy those games if they couldnt get the copies.
however all of them ended up buying memorycards and other peripherals and some original games as well influenced by some of the copies they played

 

The United States has gone fucking stupid with Bush in the office. They need to stop this stupid crap and start doing things right. Hopefully the next pres will fix this crap.

They need to pull ALL of our troops out the Middle East. Those guys have been fighting since the times of the Bible and they have never stopped. Its stupid to think we can force them to stop fighting by... fighting them?
Bring back the troops and leave them alone and they will leave us alone. Spend money to improve health care and schools. (maybe boarder control) and stop worrying about this little crap.

 

Except Clinton is the one who signed it and made it law.

 

Perhaps but I dont think we saw raids like this during his time? I also dont think he intended it to be used on the little man who installs a single chip for someone and has a grand total of 1 in his house!

 

I have no sympathy for thoes busted in the ICE raids. They were not simply just people who had a moded console. They were people selling moded consoles or selling the service of moding consoles. They were people making a living off it.

If you're going to mod a console, Do it your self! Making it easly avalible for the public just makes it easier for people to pirate. I'm starting to have a huge issue with CF on the PSP due to the fact most now use it for pirating ps1 games. Sure one will argue the BS that they barely sell anymore but sony is offering PS1 downloads from their PSN store, So yes it's hurting their potential profits from it (I've my self have spent over $60 on it and quite enjoy buyig ps1 games from the japanese store).

 

Not to be too obvious, but the evidence of the cost of piracy is that companies like Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft react to it. If (as some have proposed here) piracy actually makes these companies money, why are they trying to stop it. This site, amoungst others, is so quick to paint Microsoft and Sony as money-hungry b@stards, why do we think they'd react to piracy at all if it wasn't costing them? To give the appearance of "doing the right thing"? I don't think so.

Fact is, piracy costs Nintendo and Sony and Microsoft money, which means it costs us money.

 

Well, I certainly don't condone piracy. Legitimate backups are another thing, though, and I'd rather the companies lose money than I lose the right to make and use a legal backup. Unfortunately, newer games are copy-protected, meaning that the DMCA blocks any attempt to get around it. So modchips are illegal and I probably wouldn't use one, but I can see where chippers are coming from.

Also, said companies also try to shut down import sites and homebrewers (and they sometimes succeed). Shouldn't we try to keep that from happening?

 

There's two parts to this. One is the global way in which multi-national companies operate (which is what they seek to protect when they go after importers) and the other is homebrew.

I don't think that the companies are trying to stop homebrew (witness XNA on the 360 and Sony's work with Yaroze and lately it's Linux platforms) but it is trying to regulate it. This can be viewed both ways, as supression of artistic integrity, or as a company trying to maintain some quality standards and ensuring that any and all software that you create will not harm the console experience for whoever subsequently plays it. It's unfortunate maybe, but I agree that some regulation of homebrew games must occur to avoid highly offensive and/or damaging software from being distributed.

The importer thing is different, however the regulation of imports is done to protect the local agents and dealers. Most of the importer situation is probably their own fault (price mark-ups that cannot be explained) but some of the price differential between regions reflects the differing market conditions (there's something called Big Mac economics which you can google, it's very interesting). If they were to allow free imports from other regions, I think you'd find that all world-wide operations would end up being centralised somewhere, and you'd have to send your console back to China (for example) for repairs because there would be no local dealers. We pay a premium to have the conveinience of dealers in our own country. Whether you think that this is worth it is another thing entirely....

 

Lik-Sang was the last straw for me. Not allowing homebrew is one thing (you could write an app to run burnt games), but region protection is just SHIT. If I can read French and want to import a game from France (either cause it's the original, or its out earlier, or whatever), who am I hurting? It's a legal copy, so the developers\publishers make money, and so do the console makers. Why can't I just play them on my system? Instead I have to get a chip, and when I have a chip, its so damn easy to download 'just one game' to 'try it out', and before long I've got 3 rooms filled with DVD-Rs.

 

I voted for Bush twice.........I stand by my choice but at this point I wonder if he even has any fucking clue what he's doing right now.

but things would be alot worse with Gore or Kerry in the white house.

IF hillary gets in we're truely fucked.

Lik sang shut down because of faulty things they were sellign and had to blame some big company as an excuse. I was never happy with anything I bought from lik sang as they never ever ever ever worked.

Lik Sang had been sued a few times before as well.

 

This is the argument I always come back to - and I can't see any other view until all paedophiles/rapists/violent individuals are dealt with by society.

Walk into central london and next to the men and women on their way to the commercial 'city' we still have refugees and homeless people drudging through bins looking for scraps of peoples leftover McDonalds....if they are lucky enough to find them.

bottom line.

Modchips are illegal. They circumvent specific security measures put in place by the manufacturers for a specific reason. They have a closed system of operation;

Each console asks that you buy their approved games from their approved developers in their approved shops. They own it all - from the inception of a 'great idea' to the game on your doorstep.

But....

If I never installed a modchip in my dreamcast 7 years ago then I would never have played over 600 shit games to a ratio of about 50 good ones that didn't insult my intelligence as a consumer. Of those 50 i'd say I have about 20 that I like and went out and bought, re-play and feel were worth every penny spent.

There is so much utter crap out there, hurried into production, plagued with poor management, marketing and no substance....it's always been like that...with every system.

But we can trust reviewers cant' we?

Well...In the medical world they have things called 'Drug Lunches' where a consulting pyschiatrist will be treated to a VIP meal and rolled out the red carpet in the hope they will be so pampered that they will take on this new medication without really looking at what it actually 'does' behind the PR smokescreen of the 5 star hotel lobby they are in.

It's the same in the gaming world...people pay for the front page = they don't earn it. I think that 'innocent' period lasted about 2 - 3 years in the early days of UK gaming journalism...

so...

We can't trust the reviewers but the ads look big and bold and the packaging looks 'neat'. Who are we kidding here?

Luckily for us, whether we like it or not, things 'are' getting better. Hackers have actually created a system that cannot be shut down anymore which in turn means the movies/music and games industries are rapidly rolling towards a 'try before you buy' approach. They don't have any other choice.

Then. - we get to make up our own minds (for once) and...if we like it - we buy it because (not being idiots) we know that if we don't - we might not get another one....

Rant over...

yeah, im wasted.

 

Getting caught with only one when he did many previously for profit. That guy? The one who used it "to pay all the bills because he was in between jobs" that guy? All of this according to him I might add.

I don't know how many raids happened during the Clinton era but I am positive the raids have nothing to do with who is president. Once its a law its a law. I'm sure if the law was passed close to when his term was over then no you wouldn't see a bunch of raids. This is turning into a Michael Moore film. You are telling me Bush took a special interest in these modders? Why? According to you guys these are the small guys and if I'm Sony or Nintendo why waste a political favor to bust a guy with 1 chip in his house? No they use political favors to get laws passed and who was president again?

They haven't gone after the end user and as long as they only go after the guy who makes a living doing this I'm all for it.

 

Well I think I've to agree and disagree with most coments here...

First of all, while I do agree most games these days are below the line, saying you pirated a game becos is bad is like stealing/not paying a newspaper becos theres only bad news in it.

Both cases are similar since you're paying for information (either news or entertainment) while the tangible part of the product represents a small part of the actual cost.

Second, piracy cant in any way help to propagate a console: the fact is that the Saturn could be hacked and even softmoded before the PSX, and that didnt help the console at all. The PSX became the market leader becos it had great games to boot. The Saturn died 2-3 years after launch and the N64 had just a few games and ocassionaly, so high cartridge prices and the inhability to pirate the console (unless you had a Doctor64) isnt a excuse for its failure.

Of course theres the profits made out of the hardware, which is maybe why the PSX is still being produced even when sony knows most of the production goes to third world countries where piracy rules the land.

But today this 6thgen (or 5th if you consider the Nes/SMS to be the first) is the most subsidized one ever, so the more hardware the companies sell the more they lose, and if you add piracy you got the recipe for red numbers.

Today, pirating a nextgen console is like buying a cellphone with a contract (and therefore subsidized) hacking it to unlock the system and using it on another carrier. The original carrier you got the phone from (verizon, sprint, etc...) will lose money. Thats also the reason why nobody in that industry wants WiFi phones, since people would unlock them and use skype instead.

The music industry is another thing altogheter since their operational costs are low as hell,the quality is piss-poor and the whole thing is nothing but a big Cartel.

I seriously doubt game companies could let you use the game for free and get the money back with just a monthly fee and ads like music does today.

 

I never bought from them, but just the excuse given did make me think why can't we import games? Why are European gamers shafted, even if they're willing to import, etc.