FallsInc, and everyone else that was hit by the raids, I wish you all the best of luck in the future... We're all going to need it.
Here's to hoping we can get people to stand up for what they believe in. I know I certainly don't have the courage to do it myself, but the DMCA, as it stands, is a terrible, terrible law. It stifles creativity, prevent real competition, and makes things that have no right being illegal a federal offense. I never thought I'd see the day where the law was (ab)used against installers and chip sellers that had no hand in piracy. Clearly I was wrong.
The fact that we're wasting taxpayer's money and that we diverted hundreds of personnel whose job it is to protect our borders away from their jobs to go after people like us is sickening.
The money is meaningless to me; as a college student what the ICE seized from my house was well over half of everything to my name... But in the end it's just money. I did what I did as a hobby; I modded consoles because I enjoyed it; I've always been addicted to taking things apart and putting them back together and modding was my 'fix'. Alas, no more. Nintendo, the ESA, and anyone else that had a hand in this... Thanks for ruining one of the true pleasures I had in life.
Regarding the absolutely insane "estimated losses" and other FUD being spread around the media, all i can say is that anyone that actually believes those figures to be more than 5% accurate is an idiot.
Using myself as an example, I'll try and illustrate my point:
When I was younger (and at 19, that really wasn't that long ago) the first gaming system I ever owned was a gameboy. My mom bought it for me as a birthday gift, much to the dismay of my dad, and after a big fight and returning one, I was finally allowed to keep it. I played Super Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon.. and that was about it. A few years later, my mom bought my brother and me an N64 for Christmas. My dad wouldn't let us keep it, so it ended up going to my cousins... My aunt, who felt bad, ended up buying us a Playstation (1). My favorites for those two systems were Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, 007 Goldeneye, Wave Race 64, Twisted Metal, and a few others. But after a while, the systems' appeal wore off and I stopped playing them.
My cousins had both a Dreamcast, and a Playstation 2, neither of which were too appealing to me... and as such I never had much desire to buy a next generation system.
A few years later, we decided to setup a home theater in my basement. I was looking for a way that I could stream my music, movies, and photos from my desktop PC to my TV screen in the basement. After looking at all sorts of things ranging from an HTPC to just hooking my laptop up to the screen, I found out about Xbox Media Center from a friend that lives in Australia.
After doing some research, I decided that buying and modding my xbox to run linux and xbox media center was the perfect solution; at less than $300 it was the cheapest of everything I had looked at, and its featureset was impressive. So I bit the bullet, bought an xbox, and modded it. Microsoft literally got a new customer because of the modding potential of the system they sold.
XBMC was a dream to use; easily one of the best pieces of software I've seen on any system, let alone a game console. And I loved the fact that it had active community support and that updates were released all the time. Then one day at school, I overheard a few friends talking about halo. At the time, I had no idea what halo was; I figured it was some geek game that nerds played 24 hours a day eliminating any social life they might have otherwise had. And I was right about one thing... The next day, I went out an bought a copy and started to play single player. I was hooked from the start, and for a few weeks I spent the majority of my days neglecting homework, friends and family to play halo. I started playing it over XBConnect to friends across the country, and became even more hooked.
I bought a few more games, including Amped 2, Need For Speed Underground, and a couple of others... And then Halo 2 came out. With advent of Halo 2, I decided to try out Xbox Live. Needless to say, the Halo 2 online experience blew me away and I bought a subscription. Actually, I bought two (one for me, one for my brother), along with 4 copies of Halo 2. My brother and I played on live together, we had LAN parties, we did it all.. and it was a blast.
And then the 360 came along. Naturally, I had to buy one, if only to say I had the latest and greatest. Microsoft had me hooked on their franchise. The launch titles were a bit disappointing; COD2, PD0, PGR3.. all fun, but nothing too spectacular.
I bought a few more games for the 360, hoping to find something I enjoyed... Including, but not limited to: Oblivion, Need For Speed Carbon, GOW, COD3, Amped 3, Crackdown (Mainly for the halo 3 online beta), GRAW, and a couple of others. I bought multiple wireless controllers, a wireless mic, a camera, and a couple of faceplates too.... Microsoft has literally made thousands and thousands of dollars off of me... someone who, had it not been for the modding potential of the xbox, they would never have seen a penny from.
And now of course, they'll never make another cent off me again. With all of my consoles and original games being confiscated I'm in no position to be buying any more games or playing video games at all...
While my situation is likely not the norm, the fact that they go around touting these made up numbers off "losses" from potential game sales is ridiculous. I'd put money on it that in almost 95% of the cases of piracy the pirate would never have been a paying consumer anyways (at least not at the prices being charged). And don't get me wrong; I'm strongly against piracy... but going after individuals that sell modchips that have many MANY legitimate uses is NOT the solution.
This post has been edited by appleguru: Aug 3 2007, 06:38 AM
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Topic: Raid casualty comes forward to tell his story (Read 2165 times)