Why on earth are the moderators allowing posting of warez sites on this forum?

Example:
This one (http://www.dexterity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3572)

By posting a link to a warez site, you are promoting it. No matter if your intentions are good. How many people have clicked through and picked up serials just from this one forum post? 10? 20? The only way to curb piracy is to make it difficult for the average joe to get a hold of pirated material. Posting links to warez sites just makes it easy.

Anyone who wants a serial just needs to type it into Google, and they can get it. Posting sites to this forum is hardly likely to increase the piracy problem - quite the reverse in fact as the people here are more likely to fire off complaints to the ISPs responsible to get the site pulled.

Pirates are going to pirate games, they are unlikely to buy them in any case. Anyone who seriously wants to pirate a game just has to use google.

The core market for our games are the more 'casual' games player - they are not so tech-savvy, and avoid the hardcore crack sites partly through moral reasons, and partly due to the prevelance of porn pop-ups & other nastiness.

However, some sites are making serials easier to get hold of, even trying to 'legitimise' the activity. They often quote 'Internet Act 143-225-372' or some such rubbish to claim it is freedom of speech or to be used for 'educational purposes' (any site that has a clause like this is almost certainly doing something illegal) No such laws exist anywhere in the world, but the average joe user doesn't know this, and professional looking sites that even host games (the listgame.com was a prime example) just allow the easy access for people who were just looking for games, and can legitimise piracy in their eyes. the more action we (as a community) can take to reduce this, the better.

I see your point, but in all honestly,most people who warez these types of games probably never intended on buying them. Anyone on this forum is usually a coder or something, so im sure they wouldnt download pirated stuff because they know what it feels like to see their hard work being given for free.

There are many tangential problematic issues that arise from posting crack / warez sites on the dex forums. Increasing the piracy of games isn't one of them. Every game released if its remotely good, and in most cases even if it really stinks, will be pirated and most likely a link posted on some site where people with the time and inclination will be able to download your software for free.

There is nothing content providers (like game developers) can do about it. I for one don't think piracy is as big an issue as people make it out to be. For one, the very nature of it being illegal means that the piracy sites can't get too high a profile or they will be shut down. This means that they are out of the view of the majority of people who actually pay for software. People who pirate your game are likely people who never would have purchased it in the first place. They are not your target demographic... One of the fringe benefits of piracy is that it actually contributes to word of mouth sales for your game. This is one of those very difficult to measure but also very critical aspects of marketing any product.

Of the full time developers who frequent these forums, if you search you will be able to find every one of their games available somewhere online. Weather it be websites, usenet, or some peer2peer sharing program. Yet these individuals still make a good living selling their games online. Piracy is a problem, it's wrong, but it's also not the end of the world...

i have yet to find a pirate copy of starsSPAMhip tycoon, despite it selling well.
and although it seems we got listgame.com removed, if you looked at its forums it was full of people hooked on shareware games who wanted the serials. i think its fair to say at least 30% of these are potential lost sales.
Piracy IS worth fighting. We have got a number of sites shut down, and that can only be good news for all concerned.

While posting URLs of crack sites here is probably not a problem for reasons cited above, it might be a good idea not to make these URLs clickable links, because _that_ would improve their pagerank :].

BTW, if "*Expletive Delted*" is _more_ meaningfull than the previous title, I don't want to have to read it ;)

I did actually change it to "Don't post links to warez sites" but then one of the other mods came along and replaced it with a speeling eror :)

Cas :)

I think not informing other developers of sites where their games are hacked is a bit of a head in the sands attitude. that how the music biz got in such a mess. you cant just hope piracy will go away, beacuse it wont.
even if listgame.coms forums are back up now (dont think thety are) there are hundrds of users who failed to get cracks from their in the last few days. maybe that will help show these people thats its easier and simpler just to buy the damn things.

I set up a google alert for the search of mygamename+warez. So i can get an email every time a new site clkaims to have a crack and I can report them asap.

Hey, sounds like a good idea; what's the deal with that?

There is nothing wrong with being vigilant about stopping piracy. You can do that without posting links to warez sites. Personally, I think that it is particularly wrong (and stupid) to pirate software from small independent firms. They dont have the money or the time to defend themselves, not to mention that their company could be supporting themselves and a family. Also, if they cant make money off their games, they cant make more games and that ultimately hurts the industry and gamers.

I would not consider this forum a hotspot for warez sites or a place to go if you are looking for serials. Coders, game developers or those interested in game development dont pirate? I have no doubt that there were some forum readers that clicked through to those warez sites and took advantage. Stop posting links to warez sites. Post them in a private place so you are not unwittingly promoting these types of sites.

I'm in favor of posting them, and don't really mind if they're clickable either. Has there been a crack site posted yet that didn't end up taken down within a week? I definitely don't mind a few more people visiting their site if it means the end of said site! And every time someone has posted a link, I've done my little investigation and emailed abuse@wherever and things like that. I'm not the only one who does. I wouldn't know of these sites to do that to if they weren't posted here! Putting it somewhere private does hide it from pirates, but it also hides it from anyone who'd try to stop it. And in this forum, you'll find more of the latter than the former, I think.

One other possibility - if there was in fact a crack-slaying forum, it could be invisible to non-members (I know phpbb can do this, I presume this board can). That would cut down almost entirely on the 'bad clicks', without cutting down on the 'good clicks'.

Anyway, someone official should set a forum rule one way or the other (I've certainly seen "no crack links allowed" a lot of places), and then there's no cause to argue! Not that that's ever stopped anyone before.

I think a war on piracy is a lot like a war on drugs or terror. Difference is, fighting it costs nothing but time, so why not annoy the little punks?