An Interview with Oleg

[Untamo]

Originally Posted by zapatista

piracy is a real problem, even if it is just friends at school making copies of games for each other, it all adds up in lost sales.

but the biggest problem is the real mafiosi who have organized networks for marketing pirated software, and it is bigger business to them then dope smuggling or women trafficking and their subsequent prostitution. piracy is BIG money ! this then gets sold openly to the public in 2e and 3e world countries in stores ( for ex even 90% of all chinese government computers actually use pirated OS and office programs), while in 1e world countries it is sold at markets and from car boots or down the pub. those really are the major thefts oleg needs to protect against (just like any other game designer), and a decent protection is needed for it.

Yes, I agree it's a problem, but dealing with it is an even bigger problem and I see it as a futile one. There aren't many examples of games that haven't been cracked and pirated. So, my opinion is that it's better to just ignore the pirates and focus on serving the PAYING customers.

Plus: It's a growing trend to crack games just because they have anti-piracy systems in them (to remove the invasive protection systems, to relieve one of putting the cd in and such).