Garry's Mod Pirates Get Stung

[Icehearted]

More cleverly pulled than the Batman Arkham Asylum pirate trick. A respectful nod. What a shame more companies exploiting DRM couldn't be this intelligent about it.

 

[The Red Spy]

Garry's Mod, by the way, costs just ten bucks and can be purchased via Steam [http://store.steampowered.com/app/4000/].

I believe this sentence has been fixed.

 

[Android2137]

As long as anyone who has been falsely targeted gets appropriate tech support, I'm behind this 100%.

 

[dfphetteplace]

And now, if someone who pirated it was going to buy the game, they won't.

 

[ddq5]

Sat what you will about the ethics of piracy in general, but do not. Fuck. With. Indies. Pirating an independent developer's game is just low, it's personal to them. In this case, the pirates had it coming.

 

[newwiseman]

I've always been fascinated by the number of individuals who pirate something and then call tech support because it isn't working.

Now I don't openly condone piracy but I'm not fully against it. But I am against these ignorant hicks, they are the ones who actually hurt companies and studios by wasting their fucking time asking for help when they never bought the product to begin with. Forcing devs to spend time tracking bugs that aren't really there, ignoring those that are, and hiring tech support to answer calls. Then there are the actually bandwidth fees incurred by companies updating these dumb asses software.

I'm all for stings like this, dip-shits deserve to not be allowed to use software, paid for or not.

 

[Canid117]

Fear the mighty Mjolnir!

 

[tzimize]

I support this but do think that Steam should allow for some sort of review of cases where gamers claim they had a legit copy and were mistakenly banned.

Not gonna happen unfortunately, and is the reason why I am not very fond of this. Its funny, in a way...but if this hurt even one legitimate consumer then it has not been worth it. In that case he has lost one paying customer (for the future) and gained nothing from those that didnt pay anyway. :\

 

[FightThePower]

"...while others are simply put off by the sheer unfairness of not being allowed to play a game they didn't pay for."

This is absolutely hilarious.

 

[ActionDan]

Oh hell yes. Amazing stuff.

 

[BabySinclair]

That's good, props to Newman for the sting.

 

[Delusibeta]

I support this but do think that Steam should allow for some sort of review of cases where gamers claim they had a legit copy and were mistakenly banned.

Not gonna happen unfortunately, and is the reason why I am not very fond of this. Its funny, in a way...but if this hurt even one legitimate consumer then it has not been worth it. In that case he has lost one paying customer (for the future) and gained nothing from those that didnt pay anyway. :\

a) The punishment is getting permabanned from Facepunch's forums. Whoop-de-doo.
b) Gary can cross-reference the "random" string of numbers (which is actually their Steam ID) to see if the user in question did buy the game.

 

[geizr]

There are only three reasons for piracy: lazy, cheap, and a douche-bag. Those with the audacity to complain that it is unfair their pirated copy doesn't work are the very definition of douche-bag.

 

[Totenkopf]

Good job!
I just hope that things like this will happen to more pirates.

 

[Grunt_Man11]

There are only three reasons for piracy: lazy, cheap, and a douche-bag. Those with the audacity to complain that it is unfair their pirated copy doesn't work are the very definition of douche-bag.

Couldn't agree more.

I hate pirates greatly. It's because of them that those of us who buy copies legitimately have to put up with crap like DRM.

I'm not saying pirates justify DRM, but they are the prime cause of it.

Hopefully, Garry's little victory here will inspire the bigger companies to drop over-reactionary crap like DRM, and use this much more effective means of rooting out and punishing pirates.

*Hopeful thinking.*

 

[Distorted Stu]

All hail Garry, i true king of the internet

 

[icame]

F***ers deserve whatever they get.

 

[Mr S]

Serves them right! (I'm one of those kind of people btw... )
You don't really expect that when you illegally acquire a game you have an assurance you get away with it do you?

 

[sir.rutthed]

My question is what exactly is stopping these guys from pirating it again? They obviously have no compunctions against it.

presumably the loss of all the stuff they bought through steam.

That's assuming they bought other stuff, rather than pirating everything or just having pirated Garry's Mod. I really don't see how this is going to solve anything long term; it's just a publicity stunt. A funny one, but a stunt nonetheless.

 

[Naturality]

Cool, but borderline entrapment...