look what i found

http://insert_warez_site_here :wink:

I searched Unity3D in a rapidshare search engine, and it came up with about 60 of this.

it is stupid.

Are you surprised?

No, I just think it is very stupid. If i wanted pro, I would pay for it.

But i am happy with good olā€™ free version.

:smile:

Anyone elseā€™s opinionā€™s on this?

What is there to say? Itā€™s tacky. Iā€™ve ran into people online who wanted to make sure their software was safe from piracy when they used pirated software to make their game.

I think people often wants all features even if they never use them. If they are not serious about making business out of games but just wants too fool around or learn they often use a pirated version.

I am very torn in this issue because I believe pirated software necessary for the success of a software company. The more people who learn their software the better. Imagine 3dsmax with a 100 percent solid copyprotection? where would all the knowledge come from so that companies can use it in a business? Students and people with wealthy daddys wouldnā€™t be enough. However companies using this opportunity to make money with pirated software is a big problem.

Unity has gone down a very generous route with the free version making the need for pirated versions much less though. However as I said before if there are features that people want to use and learn in the proversion but are not willing to pay for pirated versions will exist.

So in short, using a software for learningpurposes should be free, making business using a software and it should be payed for.

Of course it is up to every software company to do whatever they see fit and make up their own businessdecisions and pirating is and should be illegal. Thats my two cents anyway.

Autodesk has free software for students. Now they offer it for unemployed people wanting to learn new skills. Certainly, there are people who will not qualify for learning editions, but life is hard and somehow they might actually survive.

Besides, if you want to learn modeling on a budget, use Blender. The skills you learn can be transferred to other applications as well.

As for Unity, the free version is good enough for learning. There is a demo for pro. Letā€™s not kid ourselves, most pirating is probably not for the sake of learning. Then again, most game pirates are just trying out it and will buy it.

For competitors, GarageGames offers a perpetual non-source demo which lets you use TorqueScript and people pirate that all the time (their full version comes as source code).

There are opportunities to acquire educational software and have access to it, but itā€™s not as easy or exciting as just downloading it and declaring noble intentions that are obviously incompatible with their actions.

I edited your post a little mikesgames :slight_smile: Even though I know how many warez sites out there are offering everything, including Unity, It would be a little strange if we allowed posting links to those places in our own forums. :wink:

It is indeed stupid with software being pirated like it is today, but as JRavey says, 99% of pirates download software for the sake of learning or curiosity. Thats why its so good to see that most serious companies out there today also offer everything from lengthy trial versions to free modified versions of their apps.

If you want to see it that way, sure. I wasnā€™t trying to convey noble intentions on mine or any other part I was merely offering a reasoning about the software industry.

I can use myself as an example if you want to. I started dabbling with a pirated version of 3ds max around hmm 10 years ago. I doubt there was an educational license then but that is not the point.

The point is I now work as a professional 3d artist and my company pays the 3dsmax license. Would I work as a 3dartist if I hadnā€™t had the opportunity to learn the software, be it from illegal methods. I doubt it. I benefitted from the pirated 3dsmax and so did Autodesk. Am I unique? not in any way.

You canā€™t just think pirating BAAAD! Itā€™s not that easy.

It certainly isnā€™t for making business anyway so what would it be for?

If I was Unity, which Iā€™m not, I donā€™t think Iā€™d be too upset about it. I doubt most of the downloads are going to be lost sales* or result in even remotely successful productions. Itā€™s probably just someone who grabs it to see what itā€™s like, tinkers around a little bit and never does anything again. If youā€™re actually making money with it and need to rely on it for your livelihood, you arenā€™t going to want to rely on cracked software for very long.

Like Filto above, I used tons of pirated software to learn and Iā€™m not ashamed to say it. I started with Max in 1995 when I was in high school. The educational versions were around $1000 back then and a full license of Maya was about $20,000. I spent most of my time going through tutorials and reverse-engineering other peopleā€™s work. I had a great head start when I went to college for animation. I donā€™t think Autodesk(Kinetix at that point) was going to lose any sleep over a teenager poking around with their program a few nights a week.

*this might have been more of an argument when indie wasnā€™t free

Or maybe your a kid like me who doesnā€™t have the money to get pro.

btw, I didnā€™t torrent Unity. No point in it.

Creative, I think if you made something that was really good in indie, finding funding to get the pro would be quite realistic since it is not that much money and you would be bringing something to the table.

Game engines and such are stolen for learning most of the time, and very few people develop skills from it, but it is still laughable to try and justify when so many free options exist. I knew one kid who couldnā€™t afford any engine and actually made a decent Double Dragon type game in SDL. He was certainly more hardcore than most hobbyists and if I still knew him would gladly buy him a pro copy of a lower-cost engine and be a patron of sorts.

As many criminal behavioral researches have concluded:
the louder one shouts about forbidden activities, the more a suspect he/she becomes (shouting is done to distract authorities from his/her participation in it):wink:

kidding, well in this case anywayā€¦ (i hope iā€™m right)

Any game engine? There are tons of free game engines available. Its just what tools they have, generally the more tools/easier it is to make a game or bigger name engine the price goes up. Iā€™m glad Unity isnā€™t like that. For what tools and ease of use it offers they could probably get away with selling license at $10,000+!

And yes anything you want you can find on the internet and even for free. The choice is up to you where your morals stand. So long as people walk this Earth there will be pirates in some form. I personally like all legit software. I like to support those who have created something that can benefit me by making a purchase or using their graciously free limited versions of their software.

Also, hereā€™s something to think about: if someone was smart enough to crack that software, whats to say they didnā€™t put some other malicious code in there? Remember virus scanners only catch what they are told to by their definition files! Not to mention cracked software can be unstable! So based on those two things, I canā€™t fathom why anyone would use pirated software.

OK, he couldnā€™t afford any non-free engines, so he wrote up some nice stuff using SDL. The point is that even if you have no money, you can still program while maintaing good moral standing.

I think that the cops should set up a fake fraud site where you can get things like this free, and then they track the IP code to a house, and arrest the people who commit the crime. Last time i looked, it was illegal.

Well, I sorta believe that it would be okay to torrent something if you are poor and will not make any money off of it. And if they end up wanting to sell stuff, they should buy the full version. Because, what if you couldnā€™t tell if the program is right for you in the 30 day trial?

Mike, I think of it as a civil matter more than anything.

If you cannot evaluate something in 30 days, call the vendor and ask for an extension.

:smile:

interestingā€¦

Well, I sorta had a pirated version of photoshop CS4 for awhile. But then I planned to actually use it in my website and for 3d models, so, I bought it. But buying it wasnā€™t like what you guys do. For you, its all like, ā€œOk, do I want this? Yes I do. buyā€ But for me its like ā€œShit, no money. do choresā€

I get $10/week.
$520/year.

pretty lowā€¦

Yeah itā€™s illegal. Yeah, the cops do set up fake torrents. But, there are some programs that will decrease the chances of you getting caughtā€¦ It basically has a list of IPā€™s from Colleges, Military thingys, and multiple high-up computers that could be tracking. Its also updated almost daily. Its called PeerBlock and its free.

I just use Gimp for texturing, I could afford Photoshop, but my skill with it doesnā€™t justify the cost for me.

itā€™s interesting, how people treat software (and music, movies, and about anything else that can be easily copied). Copying open source is ā€¦ well the point. Copying something, that the creator never intended you to copy (ie, you need to buy a copy from an authorized re-seller), isā€¦ stealing. Sorry, sugar coat it, or rationalize as you feel necessary, but there it is.

As I LOVE irony, hereā€™s some more:

  • people always judge the value of the theft by the street value of purchase. Letā€™s use Unity for gigglesā€¦ Unity 1.0 retailed for $1500 (or was it $1800?). So if you crack Unity 1.0, you boosted a old used car, right? Of course, Unity 1.0 was developed over 4 years by the three founders, whom I will assume lived like peasents on a meer $20K Euros annually each. So, if you steal the very fist version of Unity, despite the list price, youā€™ve nailed those poor blokes for about $180K Euros and 4 yrs of their life.

The irony here, Iā€™ve never meet anyone who pirated software who didnā€™t argue the first price when they were doing itā€¦ and the second when it happened to them.

  • Irony 2ā€¦ pirating drives Bill Gates nuts, and always hasā€¦ so itā€™s not all bad :lol:

Cheers,

Galen