Buggy Software: Aiding piracy?

[ANGELUS 10]

Yes I know its another piracy topic.. but I have some grounds for bringing this back up again.

 

I recently have got hold of a copy of Law and Order: Criminal Intent for the PC.

 

Having waiting for ages to get hold of it because I love those kind of games, I started to play it and was immediately gripped by the complexity of the wonderfully crafted game.

 

Then.. and this is what has brought me to this topic tonight.

 

The game crashed out to the desktop, killing my game.

 

Undeterred I relaunched the game and went at it again, saving my progress this time- again, after 20 mins the game died out on me.

 

I have a nearly updated computer, the specs are way over what the game wants and I have the most updated drivers on my machine.

 

The game is bugged to hell.

 

I ventured onto the Legacy Interactive website where I found on their message boards a lot, and I mean a LOT of complaints about this game.

 

Legacy dont seem to want to sort the problems out and are passing the problems off as the users PC, not the software's fault- typical helpdesk ****e.

 

I've emailed Legacy a dozen times and have got the same reponse back from them- bugger all.

 

If this does not give a BIG tick in the box for piracy, in my book I dont know what does.

 

There is no excuse for rushing out software with bugs in it- and if they cant be arsed to help their customers after the games release.. they deserve to be put out of business.

 

Rather than paying £30 for the privilige of dodgy software I would rather spend £5 on a bootleg that I can test out before getting the original.

 

Please discuss

[blork 10]

I don't think this arguement validates piracy at all. It certain warrants complaint, and I'm sure most stores would be happy to return your money or exchange it for another. They have 30-day/1-year warranties for these things (and no, I don't mean extended extra money ones).

 

Perhaps in future you should rent a game first, or borrow it from a friend for a while. Or read some reviews first.

[yeraknow 10]

I couldn't agree more ANGELUS, These game developers need to do a lot more testing, before they churn out their final product, thus keeping people away from pirating games. Why should you pay £30 to beta test their unfinished product, that in effect is what most game developers do. Put buggy software out THEN bring out a patch a few weeks later.

[JoeP 11]

I've written sofwtare for 20 odd years and anything that is 'cutting edge' with regard to graphics, animation, etc. is usually likely to crash because it doesn't get tested on every posisble system permutation.

 

There are God knows how many permutations of graphics card, memory speed, BIOS, etc. around and because the software usually gets it's performance by bypassing parts of the Operating System it's not surprising that it crashes.

 

Also, most games software is prodced to a tight schedule - I doubt that as much time as there should be is spent on testing.

 

It is annoying, though - but I don't think it's a justification for piracy. Sale of Goods act, anyone?

 

Joe

[ANGELUS 10]

I don't think this arguement validates piracy at all. It certain warrants complaint, and I'm sure most stores would be happy to return your money or exchange it for another. They have 30-day/1-year warranties for these things (and no, I don't mean extended extra money ones).

 

Perhaps in future you should rent a game first, or borrow it from a friend for a while. Or read some reviews first.

 

Agreed it does warrant a complaint regards to myself getting an inferior product that does not do what it says on the tin.. but to not even bother replying even to a technical query regarding your software.. for me, that is a disgusting way to operate a business.

 

The software is going back to the shop tomorrow as I have the receipt and I want my money back from it as well.

 

The thing that totally flips my lid as well- I downloaded the demo a good few weeks before getting the full game and the demo works fine, no problems at all and none of the glitches that the final product has.

 

So there again, bad bad bad.

All in all- aiding piracy and the spread of copied counterfit products which are usually the exact mirror of what you will buy in a shop.

 

Legacy are not helping themselves or any other software publisher by acting like this.

[blork 10]

The thing that totally flips my lid as well- I downloaded the demo a good few weeks before getting the full game and the demo works fine, no problems at all and none of the glitches that the final product has.

 

Now that must have been annoying. They probably put the most polished parts of the game in the demo, hoping people would "fall for it", almost. I agree, no excuse for that - but I still don't think it warrants piracy.

[Martin_s 10]

Given your stance on piracy in the past Angelus I'm surprised you bought the game to be honest but it's a step in the right direction I guess.

 

That aside though, the issue of good communication is a must and can make up for a lot of frustration from end users who've spent money on something they expect to work.

 

For all that though, it helps if you remember that there are literally hundreds of thousands of combinations of components out ther in PC's.. add to that the layer of complexity that is added when you start thinking about driver versions that can further complicate things... Oh and malware, security software, settings errors, etc... On that basis you'd then probably find yourself understanding why there are a number of problems testing a product so that there are no bugs (it's just not possible).

 

That said, if the problems reported are that big you'd think the writers would have put some more time into testing to avoid the issue...

 

 

You're right that it does encourage SOME piracy but as many have said in the past, it's only going to be a few people.. Most people will just take whatever they can for free and just use this sort of thing as an excuse if pushed...

[ANGELUS 10]

Given your stance on piracy in the past Angelus I'm surprised you bought the game to be honest but it's a step in the right direction I guess.

 

That aside though, the issue of good communication is a must and can make up for a lot of frustration from end users who've spent money on something they expect to work.

 

For all that though, it helps if you remember that there are literally hundreds of thousands of combinations of components out ther in PC's.. add to that the layer of complexity that is added when you start thinking about driver versions that can further complicate things... Oh and malware, security software, settings errors, etc... On that basis you'd then probably find yourself understanding why there are a number of problems testing a product so that there are no bugs (it's just not possible).

 

That said, if the problems reported are that big you'd think the writers would have put some more time into testing to avoid the issue...

 

 

You're right that it does encourage SOME piracy but as many have said in the past, it's only going to be a few people.. Most people will just take whatever they can for free and just use this sort of thing as an excuse if pushed...

 

You see- at least I'm an honest vagabond- like Robin Hood!

 

I am putting money back into the hands of software developers who create games I love to play.

 

I have bought a lot of games in the past you cheeky get - Law & Order is the latestish one as well as Football Manager 2006 which I buy every year without fail as it is quality.

 

Legacy Interactive should be shot to be quite fair- I have paid my money out after playing the demo which was brilliant only for my enjoyment to be spoiled by people not giving a toss to their customers.. its shocking behaviour.

[wendygs 10]

You see- at least I'm an honest vagabond- like Robin Hood!

 

I am putting money back into the hands of software developers who create games I love to play.

 

I have bought a lot of games in the past you cheeky get - Law & Order is the latestish one as well as Football Manager 2006 which I buy every year without fail as it is quality.

 

Legacy Interactive should be shot to be quite fair- I have paid my money out after playing the demo which was brilliant only for my enjoyment to be spoiled by people not giving a toss to their customers.. its shocking behaviour.

 

 

Ordinarily I would recommend making a complaint to Trading Standards over the shoddy quality of the product you were sold. However, I think that would be a complete waste of your time for a number of reasons. Specifically I have invariably found that it is quite impossible to get through on their phone lines and it is most unusual for them to provide any meaningful replies to emails.

 

I fear you may find that this outfit tends to a very lenient view of private sector mal-practice unless it is in their interests to do otherwise. My suspicion is the "unless" in this case might well entail the face fitting because the reality is these people are jobsworth, pension protectors.

[dosxuk 10]

Buggy software does not aid piracy. Buggy software aids the demise of software companies who release buggy software. If you paid £5 for a bootlegged copy and had the same problems I think you'd have either blamed the bootlegger for giving you a dodgy copy, or thrown the disc in the bin and written off the fiver. Either way, you don't trust that particular software developer to give you decent goods, so will probably look elsewhere in the future.

[alchresearch 214]

The worst piece of software I've come across recently is Pinnacle Studio 10. It comes on three installation CDs although the third is a DVD. It reads the first two ok and then just won't continue the installation when you put in the third. So you have to abort the install to continue.

 

When you register (you have to do this to get an activation code to make the software work) you get spammed by several emails from Pinnacle - half of them were sent twice or three times.

 

It installs Quicktime 6 player without even asking if you wanted it (therefore bungling up my copy of Quicktime 7 Professional).

 

To get some of the extra features working (Hollywood FX) you have to provide an activation key. The software says it's either on the CD wallet or in the Hollywood FX manual. The wallet has no key and there is no paper manual for the product.

 

And then when the program finally starts up it throws up an error that it can't find the sample video clip, because it never installed it.