'Hackers and pirates are a parasite on everything'

In last week's mailbox feature Dan Marshasked when Microsoft planned to release a real game made specifically for the core Xbox 360 crowd as well as providing his thoughts on the Kinect hardware and launch line-up.

This week Pete e-mailed Games Master and let them know exactly what he thinks of hackers. Do you agree? Let us know in the comments below.

To have your letter featured on CVG's Mailbox, drop us a line.


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I read an article about some guy hacking the PS3. Who the hell does he think he is? What right does he have?

These hackers and pirates are a parasite on everything. Don't these people realise that it will only make the prices worse for everybody as Sony try to block them out?

It's stealing whichever way you cut it - they're taking money from the people that earned it. The sad reality is that they will always be around.<./i>

GM says: Piracy (like violence in games) is such a massive debate for the small space we have here. But we don't condone it, so we agree.

And arguments like 'it gets gamers playing things they wouldn't normally' or that 'pirates buy more games per year than other gamers so compensate for the impact stealing games has on the industry' just don't wash with us.

CVG says: This is a touchy subject. Piracy is bad, regardless of how you spin it, putting it simply it allows people to use and enjoy products without giving their creators their fair do's. And we can all agree that's not on.

The problem is that the overall issue is far more complex than most of us would care to think about. Hackers argue they aren't doing it to make piracy easy, they're doing it to understand the system, provide additional features that could benefit the users and often invoke freedom of information as their driving purpose.

On the flip side platform holders, developers and publishers retort by saying regardless of the intentions it makes piracy possible and accessible, which not only prevents creators from benefiting from their work but breaches terms of use agreements and damages the health of the industry.

We don't see this Harvey Dent/Two-Face conundrum resolving itself any time soon.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...VG-General-RSS

Normally i would agree but i feel sony have bought this upon them selves,

I bought a pspgo on day of release and it did not take me long to realize that a most games are released on UMD first and i have to wait months for them to come to the psn store, then one of the biggest and best psp games comes out "kingdom hearts: birth by sleep"
and it's UMD only?

I felt totally screwed by sony, i had the latest version of their hand held yet they restrict me from playing this game, when other people that were not willing to pay for game like myself could just download them and play them for free....... i read forum posts from people playing the game saying how great it was, then pro cfw came out and gave me the option to play the games that all other psp users had been allowed to play, now i can afford to buy games and i'm quite happy to buy games but my only choice to play these games is to download them, i do only download games that are not available for me to purchase on the psn store & if something i download comes to the psn store at a later date that i've already downloaded i buy it, but i think a lot of legitimate pspgo owners like myself have been turned to "piracy" because of restrictions

I feel the ps3 is going in the same direction if they keep taking things away legitimate customers will be turned to the darkside also