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Age of Empires III Patch Status [March 24, 2008, 08:46 am ET] - Viewing Comments

Bruce Shelley's Age of Empires III Blog has news that the first patch for Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties is nearing release, pending completion of the localized versions and final approval from Microsoft (thanks Gamer's Hell). Bruce says the response on the forums to the patch is very positive and he describes a couple of significant strategy imbalances it will address. He touches on some other topics of significance, including the closure of Iron Lore Studios, the growing impact of piracy on PC gaming, and the passing of Gary Gygax. He also poses the question of the day: "A bigger question for me is whether game piracy and its cousins (music piracy and online game cheating, for example) are becoming so socially acceptable and widespread that they are changing our culture. Will a society that finds it increasingly okay to steal and cheat online find it similarly acceptable to lie, cheat, and steal in all aspects of offline life?"

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5.	No subject	Mar 25, 05:20	Paketep
	Exactly. I buy my games, and I'm tired of hearing always all the same excuses: piracy blah blah more piracy. Stardock and Valve are examples that if you make a good game, don't riddle it with DRM up your ass and don't overprice, everybody will buy it.


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4.	Re: No subject	Mar 24, 21:47	Jerykk
	Oh boy, here we go again. Technically, copying a game isn't stealing it since there is no "taking" involved. You aren't taking something away and leaving nothing behind. You are simply copying something. This is a key difference that some people (i.e. developers and publishers) seem to overlook. If somebody walks into a store and steals 50 copies of your game, that's now 50 less copies that you can sell to anyone. You will never make a profit off of those 50 copies. Now, if someone walks into the store, buys one copy and then makes a bazillion copies of that, you haven't actually lost anything. You've made a profit of one copy sold. Now, you may have potentially lost a bazillion sales as a result of this copying. However, this is only the case if every single copy would have otherwise been legally purchased. Unless you have some magical way of establishing that as a fact, you can't claim any lost profit. Stardock recognizes this. They don't focus on how many games have been copied, they focus on how many games have been sold. On another note (in reference to the actual blog), comparing piracy to cheating is completely ridiculous. You know all those people you see cheating online? They all bought the game because any game with CD-key validation can't be played online (unless you play on cracked servers which are relatively few and rarely visited by actual customers). And then you have all the people cheating offline. Why do you think strategy guides are still selling? Because customers like to cheat. Why do you think Gamefaqs.com is so popular? Because people like to cheat. Comparing piracy to cheating is placing the fault on people when the actual motivations behind piracy are far more complex.


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3.	Re: No subject	Mar 24, 21:09	Skullguise
	Piracy is not stealing? WTF? Step into reality...


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2.	No subject	Mar 24, 18:04	Paketep
	Wrong, Mr. Shelley. You make great games, but here you are dead wrong. And BTW, piracy is not stealing. Sorry. Also: http://torrentfreak.com/good-pirates-help-businesses-sell-more-product-080324/


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1.	Yes	Mar 24, 10:27	Lincolns Mullet
	Welcome to America, Mr. Shelley.


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