RTW $14.99 + $8.00 shipping

[ravinhood]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 10638&rd=1

I guess this is about as good as it gets for this game right now, with all it's flaws, bugs and need of major patching and ai issues, the price is reasonable for what you get. If you can live without a manual, and I can since my buddy has one, and it only takes one good read for me to remember all that is necessary to rememer about these TW games, I can live without one.

I know hour American Dollars buy more in Taiwan, I'm just wondering how they can afford to sell the games so cheaply from their end, unless the actual cost of the game to distributers is like $5 a game or maybe $10. They've been selling top of the line major titles for almost a year now on ebay at 1/3rd to 1/2 the cost of most titles upon release. Course the ebay garage salers usually catch up to them within six months and you can get the box, manual and cd's that way.

They just ship the CD/case only, but, if you want the Taiwanese manual and box they will ship that to you as well for an added charge of $15! haha Seems shipping is cheaper for them if they can only ship the cd/case and not the box with manal. $8 for shipping is quite reasonable if you don't mind waiting up to 2 weeks.

Most of these RTW titles from them have been averaging $30, but, this one guy is letting them go for $14.99, he only has 8 copies for sale though, so you better hurry, two of the copies are gone.

[Marc von Martial]

"Games is not shipped from the USA" / "No box, no manual" / "Taiwanese box/manual"

This stincks so obivous like warez / illegal copies it´s incredible.

[ravinhood]

How are they doing it Marc? I ordered the complete package of Railroad Tycoon III from this site http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 56066&rd=1

and they seem as legit as they come. I couldn't read a word of Thai though from the manual, it came with box, manual, cd keys the works, just I couldn't read any of it and if they got artists that can copy the manual and cd art as well as this depicts, then it's more than just pirates, this would have to be organized crime.

These other offerings are cropping up now to compete with this HalfPrice ebayer, people are just placing orders directly to the source now I suppose, because there are now several people selling the same type of games by the same system, either from Taiwan or Thailand. The one from Thailand even offers to ship the upc, flap and all now, because of so many suspicions that they are pirates. But, all you have to do is buy one full copy of the complete version and pretty much see they aren't lying.

Now, they might be copying the art for the boxes and cd's and a perfect rendition of the manual in their perspective languages, but, don't you think that wouldn't be cost effective if they were truely pirates? A pirate would want to gain every penny they could and "only" offer a cd and no manual or box I would think.

LOL, I just scrolled down his page, did you see the prices for DOOM III? $17.99 woohoo, where's my credit card! lol (Just kidding I hate FPS)

[Marc von Martial]

Now, they might be copying the art for the boxes and cd's and a perfect rendition of the manual in their perspective languages, but, don't you think that wouldn't be cost effective if they were truely pirates? A pirate would want to gain every penny they could and "only" offer a cd and no manual or box I would think.

I could point you to a lot of websites in Asia and Russia that sell our games as "legal" copies, with box, manuals etc. Funny though that we do not have any deals with them and on top of that never did authorize anybody to translate manuals to asian or russian languages.

These Ebay "sales from somwhere" are popping up like mushrooms. Because you can "legally" sell copied software shipped from somwhere on this planet and thus avoid prosecutions with a very high percentage. I´m not saying everybody that sells software cheaper then the standard shelf price is doing this illegally, but a lot do.

They add boxes, manuals to make it look more legal or official, thus generating more sales as they lure people into thinking that they buy a legal copy. Pirates are not dumb.

[freeboy]

And those serial numbers on the games for sure if illegal, wiull not allow patches imo[:-]

[Hexed Gamer]

Doesn't have to be from the east to be originally from the east.

Best example I have seen, you go to the Pacific Mall in Agincourt Toronto (called Asiancourt for good reason), and you can buy goods that are obviously imports for prices you sure won't be paying if it came from the real source.

A friend bought a set of dvd anime for a series, price was like half what it commonly is.
It had a proper professional DVD case with multifold dvd holding insert. The box had proper art all professionally printed. The dvds were all entirely properly professionally produced.
But when you play one, its clear the inclusion of a Chinese language option, not found on the normal original tells you all you need to know. Beyond the fact they actually have the nerve to expect you to honour their copywrited version, (always a stunning bit of preposterous expectations eh).

Unless the buyer is actually really capable of genuinely knowing the original ISN'T from Hong Kong, but Japan, this item is indistinguishable from the genuine article. If they had left off the Chinese language option, you would be incpable of knowing.
But then again, they never expected to sell it to a whacky english speaking north american in the first place eh.

And as some have noticed, my friend bought it honestly. He bears no guilt in his action.
Aside from the unrealistic price, and the fact it was sold through a vendor in a location ideally capable of handling asian imports.
But saying he was wrong making use of that opportunity only goes so far.
If knowingly doing something we had reason to think might be wrong in some way was not a good thing, then we would all collectively have to deny ourselves the use of the internet.
Because right now, even if in a puny minor fashion, all of us are almost certainly, even if only in micro small measure, supporting organised crime.
Don't think so, then you are a massive amount more naive than even me

[riverbravo]

ORIGINAL: Marc Schwanebeck

. Pirates are not dumb.

They must be selling an ungodly amount of pirated sofware to incluge manuals and boxes.

That goes beyond a small time pirate or a group of pirates.

When it comes to pirated software the only thing that really matters is the actual software.With the current route that Matrix is taking with the whole DL thing you can see that boxes and manuals are really not much of a concern when it comes to cheap software.If people are willing to pay 60 US for a DL version of witp then just think of the stampede that will happen when some pirate offers it for 15 bucks and it comes just like the 60$ game and with a disk at no 10 dollar charge.

Another thing that low level pirates like to do is to use a CD stomper or some other kind of CD label maker to make a pretty label.Thats all it is is a pretty label.The paper that is used as an adhesive to stick to the cd leaves little traces in the CD rom or DVD/CD player and will eventualy screw up the player.

Another thing that is going on in citys is the good ole booth set up at french markets and other outdoor vendors.These are usualy run by asians.Cops are all around and dont do a thing about it,hell, the cops are even buying stuff.

Also, if you go to game conventions...the ones that have RPG,WH and other TT or RPG stuff going on you can always find people with a backpack full of stuff wanting to sell or trade.The last one I went to in new orleans had a huge vendors room and 90% of the stuff was pirated.I took a long close look at all the DVD's for sale and they were ALL pirated.

I can see were making copies of software that is no longer available can help out the community and draw in new players or at least get there interest up in a certain style of game.But the all out piracey of software is the most damaging thing to game companies.

Just look at the how the record industry got nuked....not totaly nuked but a large % od profits have gone down the tubes.

[Hexed Gamer]

Most of the squeeky wheel nose about copywrite always seems to come from the music industry I have noticed.

What I find funny, is most of the music made in the last 15-20 years NOT from a group that has already been playing for the last 30 to 40 years, is not good enough to steal

Rap, couldn't pay me to listen to it, I sure don't want to steal it eh.
Most new groups, can't even play their instruments well let alone sing well, and when they can, they can't write a decent tune. Well that's my view at least.

I have downloaded a lof ot tunes in the past. I always seem to be picking up the "greatest hits assortment of a group I already have the purchased music for, I am just to lazy to figure out how to convert it to mp3 so my computer will play it. Or, it's easier to download the assortment, the go through my cds and do collect them together myself. I have this really impressive collection of cds, can't recall the last time I actually played one though.

But getting back to the pirates, thing is, they have no expenses for software developement, no costs of any such sort. To them, its just cheap supplies and likely very cheap labourers. Sure they can put out a boxed with manual copy.
Cds boxes and manuals don't actual cost that much physically.
All the cost is incurred getting to the stage where you need the cds boxes and manuals.
My box for HTTR for instance, it's just printed cardboard.
The expense was getting someone to design the image that's on the box.

I assisted in producing the Steel Panthers Screaming Eagles Mega Campaign Team Editions cds (yes that was me).
Each cd was worth 30 cents eh. One cd mailer with postage (to anywhere on the planet) less than 5 bucks Canadian.
So there you have it. To some, a Generals edition with all 4 megas, is potentially no more than a 2 dollar item, and upwards to 5 bucks max.
Physical cost that is.

Matrix Games is asking 70 bucks US for a digital download (I used US destination in that reference).
Frankly, I think it's worth it.
That I could make the exact same offer for 10 bucks and make a 5 dollar profit, doesn't mean they are over charging you.
I never encountered any of the trouble in making the program now did I?

Oh and just for any potentially dim viewers, NO it will be a cold day in hell before I sell it to you.

[dinsdale]

Just to add an interesting anecdote to the thread: Last night on ESPN/FOX's coverage of the Twins V Yankee game, one of the commentators chuckled that the Twins's manager was in an office working on his laptop yesterday. He wasn't looking at stats or footage from previous games, he was downloading music! Apparently he liked the Outkast snippet played the night before and wanted to try some more. It was meant to illustrate Ron Gardenhire's personality and how relaxed the Twins were during the series, but it's interesting how downloading has moved to the mainstream.

There are street sellers hawking everything from fake-Gucci to fake golf clubs, it's natural that the same would happen to video games. It's actually been happening for years: fake cartidges for the original Nintendo, for example.

Either it's the cost to do business, or it's not. What prevents me buying a fake watch or clothes is quality, what prevents me buying fake software or ER Season 8 taped off Hong Kong TV is also quality, but less so. Unless the benefit of buying software from legitimate outlets is significantly more worthwhile than buying from fakes such as the one Ravinhood pointed out, then more and more are going to buy the fakes.

[Marc von Martial]

ORIGINAL: riverbravo

They must be selling an ungodly amount of pirated sofware to incluge manuals and boxes.

That goes beyond a small time pirate or a group of pirates.

When it comes to pirated software the only thing that really matters is the actual software.

That´s not true, everybody can go to his local print shop and make a small business deal with them for printing boxes or manuals. You choose the low quality variants (not with heavy cardboard, spot or flood UV printing, low res and digital instead of offset) and it´s cheap to have a low quality box printed. Sure it´s a tad more expense for the pirate group, but the people that actually buy it now because it looks "official" are more. Why do you think all that street sellers in Asia have their products (be it music CDs, games or movie DVDs) in boxes? To make it more official looking for the potential customer.

As I sayed, I have tons of links to websites where our products are sold illegaly , with box and manual. Almost every of them is "located" in Asia or Russia, one in Brazil.


But of course it´s the game industry (or music) that are bad guys, because of the "insane" prices [8|]. The pirates are only the modern Robin Hoods that give the product to the little man on the street.

Some day people will look back and say. "Those where the days, where they still made games and music".

[Hexed Gamer]

Just bought a 25 spindle of dvd blanks (yes just got in from the store). 19 bucks for 25.

A month ago it was 29 bucks.
A year ago more like 55 bucks.

Pirates don't make blank media. The software industry makes blank media.
The computer hardward industry makes dvd writing drives.
The software industry makes programs to burn digital information onto blank media.

If you ask me, the pirates are merely exploiting the stupidity of the overall digital media based industry.

I have very limited sympathy for an industry the energetically shoots itself in the foot.

I used to think blank cds were cheap. Now they are not really worth it in all cases.
Why limit my storage needs to 700 megs, when I can use a 4.7 gig storage device.
The only reason I still actually use cds, is sometimes the program insists on it being put on a cd.

The ONLY reason I don't like pirated wargames, is I try not to screw over people I call friends.
I really, honestly, and truely, don't really care about anyone outside of the wargaming software trade. Really, I don't.

If you are a musician, to bad, get over it, your industry is screwing you faster than the pirates can. Want some vaseline with that recording?

People complain about the cost to upgrade Windows. What cost. It makes me wonder how Bill still makes money at all on his software.
And I am not revealing any hidden secret telling you you can download every single Windows application ever made. You don't get a manual if you download it admittedly.
But then again, I don't think I have ever read an application manual for any program since like 1992.
They get updated every 6 months for one thing, so you generally can't read and master the manual fast enough for it to count.

So here I sit, with oodles of blank media. Which I can claim is to store legitmate data.
And everyone knows, I could just as easily be making copies of any movie out there. That I can download within a couple of hours, in some cases on the exact same day the film enters the theater.
All made possible by a flaky industry that doesn't appear wise enough to protect itself.

I have no brilliant answer to how to solve this delima.
But I do have an answer for people crying over piracy to some extent.
And you won't like it.

[dinsdale]

ORIGINAL: Marc Schwanebeck
Some day people will look back and say. "Those where the days, where they still made games and music".

Well Marc, music appear to be surviving:

http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,14 ... _tophead_8
Music sales increased in America for the first quarter of 2004, the first rise since 2000, when measurements started.

Do you remember this picture from the '80s when the music industry was about to die?




What stops you from buying a knock-off Cartier watch from a street seller? Whatever it is, if you can replicate it with games then you won't have a problem. There have been Asian rip-offs of clothes for decades, you can buy a kit-car which looks like a Ferrari. Whenever a new sandwich bag hits the market, 2 or 3 competitors immediately copy it and brand it themselves. The makers of Ziplock though don't bewail the situation, they find a way out of it though.

[Hexed Gamer]

Arthur C Clarke is the man who came up with the artificial satelite concept eh.

Didn't think it would ever amount to anything, so he never acted on claiming the idea legally.

Damn shame eh

I agree with your product comments dinsdale, I always get a chuckle out of products the basically copy the other guys bright idea.
I still don't think a Swiffer is all that great a mop though.

[koiosworks]

The music industy had a small increase in sales in one year out of the last 4. It is still net down since 2000. surviving yes, thriving no.

http://www.ifpi.org/site-content/statis ... sales.html

all i know is that i pay the same for a game today as i did 10 years ago and the price of making games has increased by 20 fold. i'll guarentee you that Creative Assemble will not see a dollar of the 15$ R:TW deal....

[Kevinugly]

ORIGINAL: koiosworks

The music industy had a small increase in sales in one year out of the last 4. It is still net down since 2000. surviving yes, thriving no.

http://www.ifpi.org/site-content/statis ... sales.html

Interesting link. What the music industry conveniently forgets is that the boom in CD sales was the result of people replacing their ageing vinyl collections with easily stored, easily played digital media discs. Now the boom is over and so rather than deal with the problem they instead blame those 'outside' the industry who share music illegally. The 'Home taping is killing music' campaign coincided with the boost in sales resulting from the new cd format - if we used the 'logic' presented by the music business then one could argue that home taping actually increased sales.

That said I don't think that the gaming industry and the music industry have much in common. It's becoming easier and easier for musicians to make good quality recordings at home or in small scale studios. The gaming industry is heading the opposite way - twenty years ago a game could be relatively easy coded by an individual at home, nowadays even a 'mod' project seems to require a team (if it's a built on a recent release of course). Piracy is a real problem for game designers, it's not for Metallica

[dinsdale]

ORIGINAL: Kevinugly
if we used the 'logic' presented by the music business then one could argue that home taping actually increased sales.

IIRC that arguement was used by a lot of artists during the 80's. Bono was one prominent opponent of the music industry's annual cry poverty campaign.

That said I don't think that the gaming industry and the music industry have much in common. It's becoming easier and easier for musicians to make good quality recordings at home or in small scale studios. The gaming industry is heading the opposite way - twenty years ago a game could be relatively easy coded by an individual at home, nowadays even a 'mod' project seems to require a team (if it's a built on a recent release of course). Piracy is a real problem for game designers, it's not for Metallica

I disagree. Without $500,000 spent on a video, no one is getting on MTV or Fuse. Tours for bands are generally loss-makers without merchandising or sponsorship and recording an album for 9 months in a studio is extremely expensive.

It's a little like the game industry, the big boys spend more and lose more, the minnows have an opportunity to use increased methods of getting their songs heard, provided they can cope with the losses.

ORIGINAL Hexed Gamer
I still don't think a Swiffer is all that great a mop though

That I agree with

All industries have to put up with theft, copyright infringement and IP theft. Few blame those issues for their own destruction though.

[Hertston]

Buying "commercial" pirated software (which this obviously is) is the worst of all worlds. Not only do legitimate devs and publishers not get your money but crooks and worse (it's a significant source of funding for terrorist organisations) DO get it. Illegal videos were a HUGE source of funds for the IRA at one time and for all I know dodgy DVDs still are.

Or put simply.. your "bargain buy" might be financing the next bomb that kills fifty kids in Iraq. I hestitate to say this as illegal is still illegal, and developers must get money for our hobby to survive.. but if people MUST pirate at least peer-to-peer doesn't bankroll Osama bin Laden... it just bankrupts developers.

[Fred98]

ORIGINAL: riverbravo

....then just think of the stampede that will happen when some pirate offers it for 15 bucks and it comes just like the 60$ game and with a disk at no 10 dollar charge.

The think of the sucker who can’t get the game to run or can’t install patches or can’t play by email due to the security devices.

They come here and shout “This game sucks” and then more people are put off buying a legitimate copy.

And we genuine wargamers suffer.

[Kevinugly]

ORIGINAL: dinsdale

That said I don't think that the gaming industry and the music industry have much in common. It's becoming easier and easier for musicians to make good quality recordings at home or in small scale studios. The gaming industry is heading the opposite way - twenty years ago a game could be relatively easy coded by an individual at home, nowadays even a 'mod' project seems to require a team (if it's a built on a recent release of course). Piracy is a real problem for game designers, it's not for Metallica

I disagree. Without $500,000 spent on a video, no one is getting on MTV or Fuse. Tours for bands are generally loss-makers without merchandising or sponsorship and recording an album for 9 months in a studio is extremely expensive.

You're missing the point, technology has reached the stage where anyone can record an album on a home studio setup that will sound almost as good as that recorded by some mega-act over nine months in a multi-million dollar recording studio. Sure they won't get played on MTV, probably won't chart and won't embark on major tours of the World's big cities. But then they won't have the overheads to cover, the recording costs to recoup, security to pay etc. etc. and they can still make a good living at it. Contrast that with the gaming industry where costs continue to rise, and the technology to make even a reasonable game isn't available unless you're already a development studio, or have the backing (and the backgound) to found a new one.

[Hexed Gamer]

Actually Joe, I WANT games released, where it is the norm, that some aspect of the game requires a person come online and get some "thing" to make the file work.

Would it bother me if I had to log on to Matrix Games to make a purchase run? Nope.

Would it bother me if the only way I could get the inevitable patches etc was to log on and prove I had it honestly? Nope.

Would this be a major pain if the game gets old and the company is gone and I can no longer play the game as a result? Not really.
10 years from now, 95% of the games sold today won't mean squat to anyone anyways.
Or that seems to be about the amount of games that become no longer of interest in my observation.