Matts Blog

Rounded Corners (Using 1 Image and CSS)

Matthew S. — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 20:14:19 +0000

I wanted to put my knowledge of CSS to the test, and providing rounded corners to every browser (read: most browsers) seemed like a sufficient enough challenge and one worthwhile undertaking. I haven’t done it alone, there was some help (see the “further reading” at the bottom of the page). Anyway, I knew of CSS Sprites and I had the idea of using 6 spans within a div to achieve this (I have seen a similar version using 4 spans). So my coding and (hopefully) sufficient explanation follows below the click.

The main requirement of this is an image which has coloured edges, and a transparent inner-circle, see [this image] as an example. The coloured outer-areas must be the colour of the background, that bit is important. The main principal here is that we will have these on top of our div, so they give the impression of being rounded corners! While I have used PNG, GIF is a wiser choice to some extent – the IE6 browser does not recognise alpha transparency in PNG (unless forced to).

The HTML code is as follows (explained below):




 Rounded Corners
 



 
 
 Little sentence
 
* {
 margin : 0 ;
 padding : 0 ;
 }

body {
 background-color : #373737 ;
 }
div {
 background-color : #990000 ;
 margin : 10px ;
 }

.c-top,  .c-bottom {
 height : 5px ;
 display : block ;
 }
.left, .right {
 display : block ;
 height : 5px ;
 width : 5px ;
 }
.left {
 float : left ;
 }
.right {
 float : right ;
 }
 .c-top .left {
 background : url("corners.png") no-repeat 0px 0px;
 }
 .c-top .right {
 background : url("corners.png") no-repeat -5px 0px;
 }

 .c-bottom .left {
 background : url("corners.png") no-repeat 0px -5px;
 }
 .c-bottom .right {
 background : url("corners.png") no-repeat -5px -5px;
 }

There is a lot to take in here – so to begin with lets start with some of the basics. I’m giving the background of body a grey background, I also use this colour for the rounded corners image (it translates to RGB: 55, 55, 55). Furthermore I have a reset on here, which resets all (*) margins and paddings to 0 for every element, this works across all browsers – and at its very basic core removes potential troubles later on.

Now the meat and potatoes of this code, c-top and c-bottom are the two main spans across the top and bottom of the div we are working with. They are 5 pixels high as that is the amount of height we need per corner (and this ensures it), the span also goes across the entire div – so it stretches to the far-side (both of these helped by display:block).

The smaller spans, left and right (actual class names) are then fixed into being 5 pixels high and 5 pixels wide. This makes sure we don’t see more of the background image than intended. Then they are assigned their float individually, moving them into the correct place. Then we move onto dessert!

This is the use of CSS’ cascading ability I talked about earlier, without creating special classes I can make use of c-top or c-bottom to select their respective lefts and rights. All 4 of these retrieve the corners.png image, but start from different co-ordinates; the first is length-ways or across (x) and the second is height or down (y). There is some funky reasoning behind the use of minus (-) though I haven’t researched that yet.

Further Reading:

CSS Background Image Sprites: A Beginners Guide – Noobcube

Gestures vs. Point+Click

Matthew S. — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 17:10:05 +0000

That may seem like an odd post title, but it has its reasons – I have had the joy of playing two very different games, and this is just an opinion/pondering rather than any kind of review. The games of this discussion happen to be Borderlands, of which I have now spent over 50 hours with – and Call Of Juarez: Bound In Blood, of which I have probably spent about 3 hours with. This is no reflection on quality of game, I should point out… but more in their design choices.

Also what I mean by the topic title is Borderlands traditional “Point+Click” way of playing, you point at a foe, and click to shoot – that is the most basic mechanic. BiB though takes a different tact, it applies gestures in some situations (as well as the P+C as above); so for example you can hit a semi sort of bullet time, and depending on your character you make gestures to target/do certain things.

I’m just not sure which one I prefer, on one hand you get the satisfaction of killing multiple foes with only a few gestures – it also adds more movement to the mouse than aiming, but in the process this can get in the way of actual player skill. Borderlands on the other hand actually requires the player to aim in the traditional sense, theoretically making your skill as a player stand out above all else, although of course there are more factors than just skill, such as weapon damage, damage type, accuracy, etc.

I wouldn’t want to say I actually like one over the other, its a design choice – but really ought to be one considered very carefully… even Max Payne’s “Bullet Time” still had an element of player skill – it just slowed the enemies down and gave you a very Matrix feel (some mods took this element even further).

Anyway, you can expect a review of Borderlands soon – imagery is my main hold-up. Expect one of Call Of Juarez: Bound In Blood, Wolfenstein and Dragon Age: Origins in eventual time.

TeamSpeak 3 Server Setup

Matthew S. — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 21:23:56 +0000

For those who weren’t aware, the TeamSpeak 3 beta has started – infact there has been so much interest the TeamSpeak site ended up using a placeholder page with download links (and just the forum) because there was so much interest (according to their twitter feed, 70 million visitors).

I’ve already struggled and grappled with the server, it never helps matters that I often have to deal with the memory of setting up the Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars server – which needed both your local IP (NIC IP) and your external IP (from your ISP). But I have done it now, and feel quit pleased about that. So I’ll provide a quick run through of setting it up at the basic level for those who might still be having trouble (including wading through the forums).

This guide will be for those trying to set up a quick and dirty server, this assumes you will be using your desktop PC or one with some form of remote desktop connection. So I apologise for those with remote machines that may require telnet to use, though from what I gather there are plenty of guides (including a video guide) helping you set this up.

Step 1: Download & Installation

You can download both the server and client from this page. Once done install the client, and unpack the server into a location you can access.

Step 2: First Run

There are two very important things to take note of when you first start up your server, it will create a token in the first log file to give your server administrator access; this is one use only. Though you can generate more as the SA to hand out to other users. Secondly it will give you a username and password to access if you decide to use the telnet or ServerQuery; note it down (it appears in the console window on first run)… it doesn’t show up a second time.

I would seriously advise that you create a shortcut to your server (perhaps on your desktop), and tell it to create an ini file (configuration file) with existing settings like so (this will be on your shortcut – “right click -> properties -> Target”:

\ts3server_win64.exe createinifile=1

This will generate an ini file in your server’s install directory (wherever your installed it). This means when your server is run with this shortcut it will generate one of these ini files for use – it should look something like this:

machine_id=
default_voice_port=9987
voice_ip=0.0.0.0
licensepath=
filetransfer_port=30033
filetransfer_ip=0.0.0.0
query_port=10011
query_ip=0.0.0.0
dbplugin=ts3db_sqlite3
dbpluginparameter=
dbsqlpath=sql/
dbsqlcreatepath=create_sqlite/
logpath=logs
logquerycommands=0

You should alter all IPs to your Network Interface Card’s IP – this may also pose a problem regarding those with dynamic IPs on the local network, something I do not have experience with. You also have options to use your own custom database server, although I have opted to just keep it simple and use the one provided.

Once you have adjusted the configuration file, you need to get the shortcut to tell the server to use it, so as above you can remove the “createinifile=1″ and then place “inifile=ts3server.ini”.

You can always test the connection with your TS3 Client, try connecting to “localhost” (127.0.0.1) or your IP as entered above; if the latter fails then you have likely done something wrong. You do not attempt to bind the TS3 server to your external internet IP, it will likely fail this and an error will appear in the log files for that session.

Step 3: Port Forwarding

This can often be the bane of all server set up processes, external users will not be able to access your server unless you do all the port forwarding on any routers/hubs – and you will likely have to configure your firewall on your computer to allow the ports inbound, ports are as follows:

VoIP: 9987 (UDP)
ServerQuery: 10011 (TCP)
File Upload: 30033 (TCP)

If this succeeds, some routers (although this isn’t fool proof), should allow you to connect to your external IP address – but the most fail safe way of testing this is to get someone who is actually external to try connecting to you. Remember, your router (hardware) firewall and your computer’s (software) firewall will need to be configured properly.

Best of luck setting up your server, you can post any troubles you may be having here and I will attempt to answer them; but don’t forget there can be quite a lot of information over in the TeamSpeak Forums!

Other Information

Feeling 2 DiRTy

Matthew S. — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:55:45 +0000

Incase you were confused, its about Colin McRae’s DiRT2 – released for the PC only yesterday [4/12/09] over here in the EU and UK. Unfortunately the US have to wait until the 8th forum posts suggest.

While I could write most of what I have said on in that thread on here, I won’t – I spent quite a while in the early hours (somewhat sleep deprived I should note) writing a post over on the EGC site. It goes into a fair bit of depth, and really I only want to expand on a few key notes which I didn’t go into this morning – but please, read the post first.

One of my first gripes of the game was how it threw me into the racing – the last time I saw this was in the Need For Speed games, it has the unfortunate side effect of not letting you get used to the menus – and it stops you from configuring controls on a game which you have no manual as a reference. As well as this – the main menu is a little bit higgledy-piggledy, often making you navigate through multiple menus just to get to the options screen; which can be frustrating if you hit back too many times.

That said, its a minor gripe – and something I wish game developers would just stop doing, it is different – and looks nice… but just gets frustrating and lacks functionality/ease of use. The other issue, relating to this same area is when you finish an event – your character looks round in the same pattern, and it took me a while to get clued in that flags and billboards were changing to my recent events. Great puzzlement ensues as I have no idea why that’d actually happen… but safe to say the motion does get repetitive.

Bar those two problems, the game is fairly friendly – doesn’t always feel like its being a jerk when other (AI) players natter with you or others… even if that doesn’t seem realistic – or do they in the real thing? I really don’t get a chance to watch rally, so I’d have no idea… but it seems infeasible. Er, one last whine – I like the technical jargon attached to my co-driver… this proved a lucky find, as “left, easy” suggests I should slow down, rather than keep my speed up – and vice versa for “right, hard”. I was relieved to get “left 3, 40, crest, jump” again – reminds me heavily of the older rally games I used to play; it might be an arcade racer, but couldn’t we teach something the hard way? Notably understanding those commands?

Seriously, no more rants! I love it, even with its small problems – especially the rally, trailblazer and gatecrasher events (as they are fairly similar)… and that is really what I would love to see more of. Did they ever take a vote on peoples enjoyment of the 4×4 and buggy events? Where they ever as popular as rally? I’d be curious to know.

A couple videos I took, mainly to test my video settings – but they turned out quite well… some rubbish/miniscule editing with Windows Movie Maker, but they are mostly still as recorded (half resolution, 25fps… but they do drop below that, hence the odd stuttery section).

You Missed A Spot

Matthew S. — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:16:55 +0000

Ever had that strange feeling that if you could just mash two or three games together they’d be perfect? I know I have, and a number of other people I have had the pleasure of gaming with online. Regardless of technical limitations there is no harm in dreaming, perhaps someone will be inspired to do it – perhaps not. It seems a damn shame that no one is willing to take a gamble on an ambitious project, probably because the likes of STALKER, or what it was initially promised to be – it ended up cut back and not what it was when initially announced.

Its a regular thing, playing a game and I get this little itchy feeling – I still enjoy the game, but it could be so much more. For example, Test Drive Unlimited – it features an open world that you can drive around in with 8 other players, with well over 100 cars. We’ve had barrels of fun, but where does it miss? The roads aren’t smooth, that is one thing – there is limited customisation, that is another. I’d love to be able to mix GRID, TDU and the NFS Underground games – they are far apart, graphically and technically – and the way they play.

GRID has a fantastic damage engine, and arguably graphics – it also has closed tracks, which TDU doesn’t have (aside from one) the likes of Donington Park and Nürburgring as examples.
Test Drive Unlimited has a huge car number, basic tuning packs and limited customisation (paint, interior, character) but does have a large area to explore and drive around in without being competitive (cruising if you will).
Need For Speed Shift – of course it did have racing around the town, but it did lack multiplayer exploration such as TDU – though it did have some fantastic customisation.

Beyond this, co-op has become quite a rage in the FPS ring – why not do something similar, there are competitive league tables of course in most – but why not have two players start a team up and race together against the AI (or allow player teams to replace the AI as much as wanted, like having bots in Counter Strike or numerous other FPS games). At least in racing games, its then possible for players to not be affected by going singleplayer as much as players are by doing the same in an FPS (look at Left 4 Dead or Borderlands as an example of poor ally AI).

Unfortunately I can see the technical restraints, particularly in processing power if it becomes multi-platform. It is highly likely GRID went closed track circuits to allow for more details in a small area, TDU lost detail and road smoothness for more players – also dropping customisation to keep bandwidth usage down. I have never been sure with the NFS games, it seems they don’t have enough development time to be innovative in between releases – not to say they are bad quality games, its just a different development cycle to most.

Driving games (I’d say racing, but the likes of TDU weren’t all about the lap times) unfortunately seem to be a small percentage when compared to FPS franchises, not to say they can’t be successful… they are just more riskier than a pretty safe FPS. A similar thing happens with space games, one of the few ever remotely near to being popular is EVE Online – yet once again it misses the mark for me, as do many more.

Games like GTAIV with its free-roam offer nothing but the basics: cars, guns, other players and the odd NPC to shoot. We’ve had our fun on them, but eventually the player generated fun starts to run out – the problem? Players have their fun and don’t say much more – I’d like some miniature missions, comparable to non-storyline quests of the MMORPG genre – do the odd drug run, perhaps with police, assassinate a mobster… heck, they even missed a bank robbery option (yes, all criminal acts and morally wrong, but its a blasted game!).

No harm in dreaming.

All geeked up and ready to go!

Matthew S. — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:59:08 +0000

Wow – that was a hectic two weeks, and two especially hectic days. I have installed Windows 7 nearly two weeks ago now, pretty much got it to the state I want it in now, using RocketDock as a sort-of sidebar – hiding when I do not need it, appearing when I do – wonderful little application. I have realised one memory gobbler happens to be SpyBot S&D’s TeaTimer (the resident shield protecting my system) – shame really.

Only yesterday did I want to start getting into PHP but needed a local development environment – while I could have easily used XAMPP or WAMP servers, I wanted… if not insisted on getting my hands dirty and going with the full Apache, PHP and MySQL install each one being separate. Certainly an interesting experience – would have helped if I had read the PHP website instructions much earlier, that caused some tiny headaches. But all is well and it works wonderfully!

Then this morning I take a quick glance at my room (I normally avoid doing so), noticing piles of clothes, a rather dusty and crumb-scattered desk – plus paper which has been on my floor far too long. I end up cleaning the whole lot, not quite done but now its just an issue of putting stuff where it belongs.

I forgot to mention my wonderful new keyboard, the Saitek Eclipse II – being one of the cheaper and basic options for the Eclipse range, my z-board had broken (one key had stopped functioning, the connection on the membrane had broken). There are a few issues with it, such as the right-arrow key not working mid-press… I hardly use it anyway, and I just have to tap it harder if it doesn’t work.

So all-in-all a pretty busy time – looking forward to Left 4 Dead 2 later this month (I have been sceptical about it, but the preview demo has given me some assurances about characters and quality (and fun)). New computer case for Christmas, rearranging my desk for that and for a slight change – fun times!

I’m currently working on my own personal little library for PHP, I haven’t touched it in far too long amount of time – I’ve also had project ideas so going to be quite busy if gaming doesn’t have anything to say about that (and it probably will to some degree).

ZOOM PCI Modem (3025-72-00CF) Windows 7 64bit Help

Matthew S. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:46:06 +0000

Credit to my father for this, if you have any additional questions ask in the comments and I shall forward them to him for you!

A little help for people who may be using a ZOOM PCI Modem (3025-72-00CF) in Windows 7 64bit – it is possible to use the Windows Vista 64bit drivers for Caller ID (UK). Follow the instructions below:

Vista 64 bit drivers work on windows 7 64 bit for UK caller ID with the following mod:

To get UK Caller ID to work before (or after) installing drivers.

1) Download from zoom.com the driver package V92PCI_VISTAv173047-64bit.exe

2) Unpack this package. (See Additional Resources for tool)

3) In the unpacked folder go into the Vista64 folder & edit Cxt10b46.inf.

In the [CID] section replace

HKR, Responses, “DATE = “,        1, 93, 00, 00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00

with:
HKR, Responses, “TYPE = “,        1, 93, 00, 00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00
HKR, Responses, “DATE = “,                1, 93, 00, 00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00

To Give:

[CID]
HKR, EnableCallerID,1,,”at+vcid=1”
HKR,,CallerIDPrivate,,P
HKR,,CallerIDOutSide,,O
HKR,,VariableTerminator,,
HKR, Responses, “TYPE = “,        1, 93, 00, 00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00
HKR, Responses, “DATE = “,                1, 93, 00, 00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00
HKR, Responses, “TIME = “,                1, 94, 00, 00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00
HKR, Responses, “NMBR = “,                1, 95, 00, 00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00
HKR, Responses, “NAME = “,                1, 96, 00, 00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00
HKR, Responses, “MESG = “,                1, 97, 00, 00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00

4) Now run the zoom setup64 program in the Vista64 folder & REBOOT.

Caller ID now should work (I Use PhoneTrayFree).

NOTE(S): this should work for 32 bit also, but file name may differ.
Tried only on Windows 7 64 bit but should work on Vista.
(You cannot edit the .inf file directly in the window 7’s driver repository).

Additional Resources:

uniextract - for unpacking the .exe to modify the files.

On Windows

Matthew S. — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:14:50 +0000

It has arrived faster than I was expecting, the release date for Windows 7 is so very close now – although our boxed copies are in the snail-mail now. Its a strange one, I have not been particularly over-hyped for it – and for a year now (thereabouts) I have been using Vista pretty much exclusively. I’ve had and still got the W7 release candidate 1 installed, though that had some problems in it to begin with. Plus I was so entrenched in Vista with various apps, games and settings I really didn’t want to clog my hard-drive up more.

So with W7 I plan to reformat my hard-drive and re-partition it, afterall I won’t need some of the multi-boot Operating Systems anymore. Although I may consider trying out a Linux distribution at some point. Starting pretty much fresh… now I just need to sift through the years-worth of junk and only take what I want I hate moving OS.

Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising (PC)

Matthew S. — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:24:59 +0000

I have followed this game for a while, and have been under no disillusion about its namesake and past events. The first Operation Flashpoint (OFP) at the time was developed by Bohemia Interactive (developers of Armed Assault and Armed Assault II (2)), yet it was published by Codemasters (CM). It seems there was a falling out of sorts, and the developer got to keep the engine – but CM got to keep the rights to the name.

Hence I think where a problem starts, they initially marketed and hyped the game as the sequel to OFP – but in all reality a game made with consoles in mind probably will not get that close. So if you are or will likely be disappointed with the game, is if you buy it expecting it to be just like OFP – when in reality ArmA and ArmA2 are the ‘true’ sequels… in more than just style (the engine is heavily reminiscent of OFP – launch bugs included).

So I would probably liken this game nearer to Call Of Duty (Activision), or Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Vegas 1/2 (Ubisoft) – except the magic healing is non-existent in OFPDR, for this you do rely on a medic and your own bandages (the latter used to stop bleeding, the former used to cure wounds). Although any blood spilled on your character remains (graphically) until your mission is complete. It is also possible to bleed out if you do not get to cover and bandage up quick enough. Not the most realistic, but a step up from magic-regeneration.

If you love your graphics then this game is not particularly challenging to any modern cards – my HD4850 runs it at highest settings with shadows turned down a couple of notches to smooth it out. Its probably the first game I have noticed ripping – causing me to enable v-sync, a rare occurrence. The PC graphics are vastly improved on over the consoles – grass goes as far as 200m to 300m and proves to be quite thick (obstructive at times). Though you will notice bushes and rocks popping onto the landscape if you are moving fast enough (usually in a helo).

One of my biggest worries was the sound department, I don’t want to hear helicopters if they are 3km away – the same goes for ground vehicles. This never happened – in fact CM seem to have surpassed my expectation, explosions in particular have a speed-of-sound applied to them. Bullets zipping overhead and hitting the wall you are sheltering behind – even on one occasion I was the Fireteam leader in multiplayer (as host), the character I played was talking away only for me to hear a *zip – thump* and he cut out. I had been hit by a very precise round while traversing a hill… it hurt, and was in a crazy way my epic death.

This brings me neatly to atmosphere, the missions in the campaign are well made and well structured – events such as smoke screens, artillery pounding enemy positions and having your armour rolling in cannons firing; they all add to the feeling of being in a battle that means something, yet you mean so little. If this was what Codies meant by realism, then they succeeded – but there can be deal breakers, the AI in particular.

Artificial Intelligence in this game can be quite lacking, no doubt your troops move in and cover each other as they move from rock to rock and rock to tree. But when you are trying to get a bead on a machine-gunner entrenched, only to have a fellow squad member (not of the same fireteam) pop one in the back of your head… it is not pleasant. Furthermore smoke screens rather than stop the AI from seeing you and shooting at you, increases your chances of not being hit through the smokescreen. Though that can be forgiven if you look at it as above, more like a very interactive Saving Private Ryan or Black Hawk Down than a game trying to simulate realism.

Multiplayer on the other hand, the online aspect has proven quite a flop thanks to some server problems from their partner Quazal. They still appear to be existent and not much new is being said – the most surefire way is to join a LAN match – which works over the internet, at the loss of rankings but the benefit of low pings and connectivity (dependent on hosts bandwidth). I can’t say much for the versus type modes, it really wasn’t my interest – but the co-op on the otherhand I have enjoyed immensely so far – proving for me that the AI isn’t quite up to scratch.

Summary: while this game has its problems, both in the engine and bugs area – as well as its rough launch of multiplayer – it has quite the potential. With more coming from Codemasters in the coming months such as DLC and patches, this could prove to be quite the shiney gem of a game. Just don’t go in expecting a perfect military simulator, or the bestest next gen graphics – but a smooth game engine with some fantastic co-op playability is currently offered, and with some ironing it can only get better. The added Mission Editor on the PC really helps sell it a little, just be prepared to learn scripting to make things work.

Piracy… and why I just hate it.

Matthew S. — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 20:55:45 +0000

Game piracy, or indeed any other electronic entertainment piracy… I have never really been fond of it – preferring where I can to purchase something legally. The only thing I can hate just as much is extremely intrusive anti-piracy which does not appear to actually change anything. I heard of a pirate-Steam at one point, though I never researched it or looked into it further… and recent trends of using an online database to track installations just frustrates me (though a CD key rarely bothers me on itself).

I was never really sure what kind of numbers you often see on piracy, and what makes developers decide “we won’t produce for the PC much, its full of pirates”… and to that degree I as an honest PC gamer get a little worried, will this series I enjoy now (whatever it be) continue on the PC? I certainly hope so, apart from the deterioration of PC quality thanks to the whole console porting. A recent game to come out trying something different (although it seems standard practice for the company in question) is Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising (OFPDR), released by Codemasters.

OFPDR is a tactical game to some extent (go for cover or terrain, because running through the meadow will see you shot), and I love it – when the multiplayer servers aren’t being a pain. I noticed there was no CD key on the manual, or box or for that matter on the CD (strangest of places, but I have seen it done). So how do they protect the game? Good old securom, without a CD key – so you still need the disc in. Apart from those pirates – who have a cracked version and can play online completely legally as far as the game knows!

It was also claimed this was the most pirated game of recent times – something to investigate I thought, and investigate I did. Sure enough, it has a number of cracked versions, a large number of seeds (3,572) and an even larger number of leechers (13,384)… ouch. That is £240,778.16 not going to someones pockets, that is based on a retail price of £17.99 (what I paid for it from play.com) – no doubt there were many more seeds and downloaders throughout the week and weekend, probably before the release.

Now I have no doubt the legal copies sales surpass that (if they don’t get returned for various negative reasons*) – but I still find it somewhat disgusting, I’ve heard reasoning such as “I just want to demo it” – and I don’t always disbelieve that, I seriously hope the person doing this has the honesty and integrity to go and purchase the game if they like it, or indeed delete it if they do not. But others, often a protest to something like DRM really do not add any positive light to the PC userbase as customers.

* I would just like to mention these points are a lack of SADS (Dedicated Servers) for PC users, and the persistent online connectivity issues. The latter is being worked on, no word on the former.

Piracy case studies/examples:

World Of Goo – 90% Piracy rates (small percentage go on to buy the real game).
Various – Indepth Study on Piracy, including consoles (p4). Dec ‘08, Updated Regularly.

Those case studies alone, and with my little shocking discovery (probably more if I’d jumped earlier and checked it out nearer release) – I really have become a proponent of anti-piracy. I see the reasons for and against, but overall anyone who pirates pushes the idea that the PC is a dead platform for game development – your best bet is wait for a demo, or at the rate games devalue these recent years (often around 12months) you’d be better off waiting for a lower price mark and buying it legally cheap; a number of games recently also have their installation limits removed after a year or two… so it is not all that bad.