What happened to the PC games (or what happened to consoles)?

I got out of video game piracy for a while, but I’m coming back. One thing I have been absolutely SHOCKED by is how finding PC game torrents is actually kind of difficult from my normal sources. Now it’d be one thing if I just wasn’t seeing games, but for some reason Playstation and Switch have far more uploaders and seeders on the sites. This is something that would have been unthinkable when I was into piracy. But from a quick glance, it looks like the Switch has a bigger piracy scene than PCs do right now. This was so extreme I couldn’t find a torrent for Minecraft past 1.12. I found a download, but not a torrent. Or I couldn’t find any of the old versions of Five Nights At Freddy’s on PC, but could find them on other platforms. Things I’d consider true PC staples of the past decade with absolutely nothing popping up in my normal sources.

I’m not asking where to find PC torrents (although I certainly wouldn’t mind). Are consoles actually becoming more popular to pirate for?

Kolanaki,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

I only have problems finding PC games that use Denovu that haven’t been cracked. For obvious reasons. Even finding super niche indie content is relatively easy on most big trackers.

Pixelologist, (edited )

rentry.co/megathread-games

If you’re confused try dodi or fitgirl repacks. They are very trusted and straightforward to use. Just be sure you’re on the real site (Listed in megathread)

shirro, (edited )

All our PCs run linux which is the most unloved, unsupported platform for commercial software and media distribution companies. Can’t watch most streaming video better than 720p so the streaming services can get fucked raising their prices and delivering a shit service. Gabe gave us Steam and Steam sales and made shit just work and he can take my money. There are overpriced games on Steam and there are games that are not available there but that still leaves a lot of good stuff so I can understand why more people are willing to pay than pirate reducing torrent availability and seeders. Also PC hardware can be very expensive and if you can afford a high end GPU you can probably afford to support game development.

drunkensailor,
@drunkensailor@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

As I was reading the OP, I was wondering if there would be other comments along the lines of this. I love all the work Valve has done getting stuff to work on Linux and pretty much don’t pirate games bc I want to support them with my wallet whenever I can afford to.

Partly, this is me not wanting to deal with malware. But honestly, I’m well versed enough with security containers and virtual machinesthat I feel like if I put in a little effort, I could probably even run a game that I know has malware in a sandbox without much risk. So I think the fact that they put in an effort to support my platform is the much bigger factor. That said, I also really love GOG’s lack of DRM and downloadable offline installers. So if it’s something I’m confident will work outside of steam, I will buy there instead. But everything else, I get on steam.

seaturtle,

I really wish GOG made Galaxy for Linux already.

drunkensailor,
@drunkensailor@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

tbh, i never really used galaxy so i guess i have no idea what i’m missing. if it’s just an online install client kinda like steam but for gog content, that wouldn’t really interest me too much but if it lets me download offline installers as a batch job, that alone would be totally worth it (i have no idea if it does that already or not)

seaturtle,

Update: It looks like it’s handling the offline installers in game-by-game batches. I told it to download the offline installer for a game that if I used browser I’d have to download two files; it shows as just one item and one download in the client, and I verified that it actually does give me both files.

drunkensailor,
@drunkensailor@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

ok, you convinced me that I want Galaxy for Linux too 😁

the achievements, social, and install management stuff wasn’t too important for me but having it simplify offline installer downloads vs doing it from browser would be great.

Definitely agree that being able to control install location + whether or not to update is nice (compared to steam) but I was comparing vs what I can already do in the offline installers so I guess that’s why it didn’t matter to me if the client could do it. But some games you need to download a lot of files which is kind of a pain in the ass from the browser (especially when it’s something you need to run under wine since gog tends to split windows games into multiple pieces/.bin files more often than they do native linux ones from what i’ve seen).

seaturtle,

I thought the file splits are based on size? But maybe I’m wrong. The larger games I have also tend to be Windows-only anyway so maybe I just don’t know this stuff.

drunkensailor,
@drunkensailor@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

they are based on size but it’s only the windows versions. for example, if you buy witcher 2, it has windows and linux versions. linux version is a single ~20 GiB file while the windows version has a small exe + lots of bin files that are 1.5 GiB or less and you need all of them to install.

seaturtle,

Oh, I see. That’s quite interesting. And I noticed that the Mac version is only split into 4 parts, with one clocking in at 11.6 GB (though others are capped at 4 GB).

I’m very curious why these differences exist.

drunkensailor,
@drunkensailor@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Oh yeah, completely forgot about Mac version lol.

As for why, no way to know for sure without inside info, but best guess is that they are trying to account for maximum file size limits across all the various possible Windows/Mac filesystem types but whichever employee setup the Linux ones realized that most Linux users wouldn’t be using shitty Microsoft filesystems. FAT12 is fairly safe to ignore but they might have been considering FAT16 and HFS as the lowest common denominators.

That or possible that they were balancing by network loads (since Windows versions probably account for around 99% of all downloads) and that was somehow determined to be the sweet spot.

seaturtle, (edited )

In addition to installing and launching the games, there are cloud saves, achievements, time tracking, leaderboards for achievements (which integrates Steam achievements for anyone who’s linked their Steam profile), overlay, some multiplayer stuff, and more. In this respect it has social features and game management features similar to what Steam has.

GOG Galaxy is also meant to be a universal launcher so you can use “integrations” to have Galaxy launch other games through their respective clients and even have it close the client afterwards. You can also add your own independently-installed games, as long as they show up in a database of games that they use (I dunno where it’s from but these days it has pretty much everything I’ve looked for, aside from romhacks, but for that matter, I’m pretty sure you could make it launch any executable with any label and Galaxy wouldn’t question you). That said, I’m used to just launching things from game executables directly so I don’t use it for this anyway lol.

Also Galaxy offers more flexibility with managing game installs than the Steam client does. For one, you can set the install directory to anywhere, rather than being locked in Steam\steamapps\common\gamename. And pretty importantly IMO, there’s an easily accessible (though non-default, which is fine IMO) option to tell the game to not update, and the Galaxy client won’t try to force you to update (unlike the Steam client). (EDIT: there’s also a universal default for whether to auto-update games, in addition to per-game settings.) On top of this Galaxy also has more UI options than Steam does, e.g. having a List View option (which Steam unceremoniously junked several years ago in favor of their current mess).

I’m actually about to check out its ability to download standalone installers. I started a couple very big game downloads last night on my browser and they failed so I’m gonna see if the client can do better with stuff like resuming downloads.

Caligvla,
@Caligvla@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I feel like you’re searching in the wrong places, because I can find literally any PC game I want as long as its not using Denuvo.

LeylaLove,

Probably. It’s just odd to me that all the ones I use/used a lot have pretty much zero PC games. Torrentleach isn’t really a gaming tracker, still just odd that console piracy has grown so much in the past few years.

000999,

fmhy.pages.dev/gamingpiracyguide

Imprint9816,

Heres my take…

PC are being priced out for people who just want to game. GPU prices have skyrocketed since the pandemic and the quality of prebuilts, in terms of value and build quality, has plummeted.

This makes consoles a much more reliable and better value for the money option. Also handheld gaming has grown exponentially with the steam deck and switch being so good. Which in turn creates more demand for console piracy.

dangblingus,

GPUs are dirt cheap right now.

selokichtli,

Very recently, and “dirt cheap” is a stretch. Dirt cheap compared to the pandemic years, sure.

zabadoh,

And cryptocurrency mining. That drove a lot of GPU prices through the roof before the pandemic.

Also, most young kids play games on phones and tablets, because parents don’t need to buy an expensive console or PC.

Check this out this short by a game developer if you want to feel old…

youtube.com/shorts/h8ElOpITBjQ

zaknenou,
@zaknenou@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Check this out this short by a game developer if you want to feel old… Now this is surprising

LeylaLove,

That makes a lot of sense. I thought it was really odd that there were 50+ pages for Switch games but only like 3 for PC games. Reason would say that if you’re buying a $2000 PC, you’re less likely to have a desire to not pay for games. Even I’ve moved away from PCs and switched to Android emulation because of price.

I’d definitely be more likely to buy a Switch or PS4 than a new PC right now. And I’d probably be pirating on them

Imprint9816,

I still think building a pc using used last gen parts is probably still the best bang for your buck if your starting fresh but its also a huge hassle compared to just buying a steam deck

Phen,

On PCs (specially steam):

  • Games are often discounted, so you can buy them at lower prices
  • Games remain available in your account “forever” (as long as the service exist). You can upgrade to new PCs as many times as you want and the games will remain available.
  • You can play online for free, you can make cloud backups automatically, you get achievements, tradeable cards and items, extra visuals and fake points for karma.

On Consoles (specially nintendo):

  • Games pretty much never get any discount, even after a sequel is released.
  • Once you replace it with a new console, you likely won’t have access to games you bought on previous iterations (up until recently you would lose games even by buying the same console).
  • You need to pay extra to play online, or to backup your saves, and there’s no extra useless goodies.

So in short: There’s hardly any reason to pirate something on PC other than to avoid paying for it. There’s several benefits to getting the game legitimately. On consoles, getting games from the high seas is actually more convenient. Sometimes people will even buy the game but still play a pirate copy instead.

Imprint9816,

There’s hardly any reason to pirate something on PC other than to avoid paying for it.

This is literally the most common reason for any type of piracy.

Phen,

Yeah, but the difference is on the PC it’s easy and comfortable to buy games if you have the money for it, so piracy is a choice. On consoles it’s often a hassle and the services are shit.

min_fapper,

To quote the mighty GabeN: “Piracy is a service issue, not a price issue”

umbrella,
@umbrella@lemmy.ml avatar

what looks cheap to you in the USA certainly isnt at all in the rest of the planet

seaturtle,

And there’s also kids who don’t have credit cards yet too.

SchizoDenji,

Except when publishers don’t opt for regional pricing and games cost absurd amount of money because of poor exchange rates

watcher,

I tend to see this pretty frequently, games on consoles too not getting any discount.

Based on what do people say this? I use dekudeals and games get discounts on a pretty regular basis. Permanent price reduction more scarce, but definitely discounted (some more some less).

jvrava9,

Why torrent Minecraft? Use UltimMC (based on MultiMC) if you want a cracked launcher.

LeylaLove,

Recently became an unexpected foster parent. I have my old account, don’t have the money to buy a 2nd copy right now.

jvrava9,

As I said, you can use UltimMC, its cracked, meaning that you have everything, but you cant join servers, only cracked ones. Good luck!

LeylaLove,

The prebuilt binaries are down :/

jvrava9, (edited )

You can build it using the instructions here or download the artifact from Github actions here (You need a Github account).

Astaroth,

How does it compare to PollyMC? It was super easy to use and you can play both offline without an account but also online with a Mojang Account. (Java versions)

Admittedly I didn’t actually try to play it online since I just looked it up for a nephew.

I used the Linux AppImage, just download and run it and you’re good (might have to install new java runtime depending on what you have already), but there’s also Windows and Mac versions.

p.s. I’m not really into Minecraft and don’t know what’s up, but apparently there’s some drama or something and PollyMC (with 2 'L’s) is not to be confused with PolyMC (one ‘L’).

jvrava9, (edited )

Its as easy if not easier. Download it from github and check it out. Its all the feautures of MultiMC with support for cracked. PolyMC is based on MultiMC so it might have a bit more feautures.

PolyMC is safe. If you read anything else, it’s simply political bullshit.

WarmApplePieShrek,

PolyMC (one L) is not safe, not with a crazy schizo in charge. PrismLauncher is the decrazied fork of PolyMC.

jvrava9,

The owner is a schizo depending on your politcal views and principals.

WarmApplePieShrek,

The owner is a schizo regardless.

Kuori,
@Kuori@hexbear.net avatar

for anyone curious, the owner seems to be a right-wing shithead

(see how easy that was to say without being ableist and weird about it?)

LeylaLove,

Yeah, OP of this thread (me) actually has schizophrenia. Being a right wing shithead isn’t the same as being schizophrenic. Schizo is just the new way people have of calling people “autistic” like people did a decade ago.

Kuori,
@Kuori@hexbear.net avatar

meow-hug sorry you had to see people being shitty about it. i really wish folks would understand that mental illness does not make you a bad person, and that our enemies are bad people because they choose to be hateful bigots, not bc they’re born with spicy brain.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
  • DreamBathrooms
  • everett
  • tacticalgear
  • magazineikmin
  • thenastyranch
  • rosin
  • tester
  • Youngstown
  • khanakhh
  • slotface
  • ngwrru68w68
  • kavyap
  • mdbf
  • InstantRegret
  • megavids
  • osvaldo12
  • GTA5RPClips
  • ethstaker
  • normalnudes
  • Durango
  • cisconetworking
  • anitta
  • modclub
  • cubers
  • Leos
  • provamag3
  • JUstTest
  • lostlight
  • All magazines
    •