Ask almost any PC gamer from Asia to South America, and they will tell you the same thing: FitGirl is the one name in piracy that everyone recognises
@[email protected]
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18
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20d

Back in my day, we had RELOADED, Razor1911, DEViANCE! Haven’t pirated games in forever though, I mostly buy “indies” today and steam + gog facilitate that nicely.

Pyr
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219d

I only pirate games that I wouldn’t mind playing but also hate the publisher, or the publisher makes the games annoying to play despite steams easy UI and setup.

Games from EA, Ubisoft, Rockstar, etc I will pirate with no remorse and then place the launcher link in my steam library.

@[email protected]
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10921d

Yesterday I tried to mod persona 4 golden on Linux. After a couple hours of headaches and some help from the developer, I finally managed to fix the problem and launch persona aaaaand denuvo shut it down.

Denuvo literally shut down my legal version of P4G because I used one too many versions of proton. This is why I support fitgirl

@[email protected]
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3421d

Yeah, Denuvo registers every version of Proton as a different computer. So when you cycle through a bunch of different versions, Denuvo sees you booting it on a bunch of different computers back-to-back. IIRC Denuvo’s ToS allows for 5 different computers to boot a game within 24 hours. So it locks you out for 24h, as an anti-account-sharing measure. It has hit the spotlight a few times recently, because of the Steam Deck users needing to cycle through Proton versions.

@[email protected]
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120d

Euy even buy games anymore if you can’t play them?

If you paid, it’s not really yours.

Domi
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1920d

They still pay for Denuvo for Persona 4? What a waste of money.

@[email protected]
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20d

Atlus, like many Japanese companies, is very protective of their ips, for worse. There is no better

@[email protected]
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2221d

Same thing happened to me with Street fighter 6. I was just trying to get it to run and kept switching proton versions and it got locked.

@[email protected]
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120d

deleted by creator

@[email protected]
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2321d

God bless Fitgirl

Rentlar
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1221d

I’ve had a lot less of a desire to pirate games after moving to Linux full time a few years ago. But FitGirl has been the one reliable place for public torrents, compaed to chancing it on the third Google Link or scrolling through the Russian CS-Rin-Rulette forum to find links.

@[email protected]
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321d

I’ve never had a single problem with cs-rin and I’d be surprised if the average person ever would.

@[email protected]
mod
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521d

Why would you ever use google to find torrents?

Rentlar
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521d

It was 5-10 years ago, not too hard to find and a little before Google intentionally made things harder to find. I’ve used many public and private trackers, but it’s just that these days my interest in movies has disappeared almost completely, and I’m happy with most of the games I have.

@[email protected]
mod
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321d

If you ever get back into it, look into jackett. Consolidates a large number of trackers (some some setup) which makes life so much easier.

@[email protected]
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321d

I prefer Prowlarr personally but yes Jackett is great.

InfiniteGlitch
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25
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21d

The repacker* is great but there’s also ElAmigos and DODI.

@[email protected]
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1821d

They crack, she repacks

InfiniteGlitch
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2021d

They crack, she repacks

This is just not true. Both DODI and ElAmigos are Repackers.

Mugita Sokio
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221d

ElAmigos repacks are actually pretty good from my experience.

@[email protected]
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13
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21d

I only use DODI when there is no Fitgirl release. DODI torrents are always behind spam/scam link gates and the installer is horrible. In the DODI installer to start it for some reason you have to press the up arrow or something. Just… why? It’s like he saw that feature on his phone lock screen and decided to add it without asking himself what purpose it serves. The installer is also totally broken if you have changed windows scaling so every time I want to use it I have to go into the properties and disable scaling.

InfiniteGlitch
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421d

Ah, alright alright

DODI torrents are always behind spam/scam link gates

There’s a bypass script for this and should be on the DB0 megathread list (or at least in the PiratedGames megathread).

and the installer is horrible. In the DODI installer to start it for some reason you have to press the up arrow or something. Just… why?

Honestly, I never found this to be an issue. But can understand it could be a bit annoying.

@[email protected]
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521d

DODI works better on Linux tho

Gary Ghost
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4721d

If you can afford it

https://isthereanydeal.com/

Might be a better option, or least send the devs some support while using repacks. It’s sort of like a thrift store when you find something you really wanted maybe a game you didn’t even know of, and it means a lot more because it feels like finding a treasure.

I actually didn’t know that the whole point of fitgirl was for compression, I’ve been blessed with massive hard drives. I think I took my 4tb ssd for granted. Not everyone has even an extra $5 .

@[email protected]
creator
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2721d

I actually didn’t know that the whole point of fitgirl was for compression

The whole point of view of the article is about people from countries that can’t afford the modern AAA price, internet bandwidth… and even PC capable to run the game decently (AAA the full price always take in account hardware that runs on “Ultra settings”; not the customers running it at very low).

As aside note, piracy isn’t even about piracy itself anymore: someone who buy an AAA videogame on “exclusivity store” (such as Epic)… soon or later will discover that’s easier to store a fitgirl copy of his purchase to run the same game seamelessly across all the PC in their household (good old: Install > Next > Next > Finish) … rather having set up those 2+3 launcher per PC.

Leon
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21d

If you can afford it. Might be a better option, or least send the devs some support while using repacks.

Honestly, I think this is a case-by-case basis. I don’t weep for EA losing money when people acquire The Sims for example. The people that did the heavy lifting already got paid, and the less money that’s going into the Trump Empire and Saudi Arabian pockets the better.

That’s almost besides the point, though. We’re living in a time where if you buy something you for the most part don’t own it. Buy an EV? Then the battery is rented. Buy an iPhone? You don’t get to choose what software or hardware to put in it, only Apple batteries are acceptable else your screen/camera/faceID array will magically stop working. Android phones are barking down the same route.

Buy an eBook/Audiobook from Amazon? Well they can edit and redact it whenever they please. A film from iTunes? DRMed, bound to die whenever Apple decides to no longer support your platform. Video game? You get a license to run the software, nothing more.

There are studios I feel happy supporting, ones that treat their customers and their workers right. Don’t think a single one of them is a AAA studio though. Like, why should I pay Bethesda when they don’t pay their musicians?

@[email protected]
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121d

My logic is buy the game, now you have a perpetual license. I bought Abe’s Oddysee on the PS1, I can now download any roms, any re-releases, any ports. Buy all new games, and if it gets taken off of steam, free reign to pirate.

@[email protected]
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821d

The best option is piracy. Do not engage in capitalism where you can avoid it.

Spaz
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421d

Excluding Indie devs, sure. Stardew Valley will always have my full support.

@[email protected]
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221d

I don’t know which stores exactly are listed there. But at least with some shady key resellers, piracy might actually be better than buying from them according to some indie devs: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-48908726

@[email protected]
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220d

Isthereanydeal don’t list those shady resellers.

@[email protected]
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1121d

It probably has the same deals as your website, but I use https://gg.deals/. It shows keyshops with the various risks that might be associated with them, too

@[email protected]
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12
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20d

Maybe fitgirl is the bbw porn actress named fitsidney or fitsid for short.

Both are girls.

One fucks on camera. One repackage games. Same thing probably.

Think about it.

Edit: I’m doing a thorough and deep investigation of her videos for any clues and I’ll report back on any findings.

Edit2: the results are inconclusive and I’ll need to perform more research. It’s worth mentioning that fitsid is adorable and very enthusiastic in what she does, and is also kind of adorable much like fitgirl’s photo of Amelie. But, like, with cum involved.

@[email protected]
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120d

For science to be accurate we need a peer-review, we need all hands on deck for this one.

@[email protected]
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3321d

I used fit girl for a game I didn’t know if my first pc build would run a game I wanted to buy. It didn’t work, I upgraded my pc and tried it again and then it worked.

I’m glad they are around now that I’m trying to learn about pc gaming.

Lemminary
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321d

Same here. The problem was that I needed more RAM. 🙃

Lvxferre [he/him]
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21d

Note plenty FitGirl repacks are lossless; as in, she isn’t taking less important files out of the game, she’s compressing it better. 90GB→35GB seems accurate; you often see ~1/3 of the original size, like this. And it shows plenty game devs

  1. do an extremely bad job at basic tasks like compression.
  2. give no flying fucks about players, who might have really slow connections.

And then those same developers get amazed at the fact FitGirl is so popular. “Maybe we’re doing something wrong? …nah.”

[object Object]
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1321d

do an extremely bad job at basic tasks like compression

I’ve installed one game from FitGirl so far. It took three hours to unpack while hammering all the cpu cores, failed, and required another three-hour go to install properly.

So you’re saying that all games should install like this?

@[email protected]
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020d

You’re meant to check the CRCs before you extract to verify that you actually fully downloaded the file. Otherwise yes, people like myself will mock you online for this trivial anecdote

[object Object]
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320d

Oh really? How come it installed fine the second time from the same file?

It’s well-known that installation of FitGirl’s repacks can fail, and the recommendation is exactly that one don’t touch the computer while it’s going on, and retry again if it fails. Mock yourself for not knowing this, as this very thread contains more ‘anecdotes’ about the same.

It’s some kinda super wonky compression that gives extreme space savings but is so fragile that the result isn’t guaranteed, which is precisely why it isn’t widely used.

@[email protected]
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-120d

it’s well-known that …

alright

[object Object]
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320d

Great rejoinder there. “I didn’t research how stuff works, but I have an irrelevant rebuttal, and when people point out that it’s not how stuff works, I will reply ‘alright’, that will really put them in their place.”

@[email protected]
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320d

(Sorry, I just wanted to come back and say my response wasn’t very friendly or constructive but I think took issue with your (perceived) tone mostly.)

I have had your issue once before in the past, but I genuinely don’t think it is such a pain point that it’s a frequent issue to prevent further use.

I can imagine from a consumer point of view that there will always be faster way to pack data so that people can start playing instantly and leave the problem of storage to online game libraries. But from an archivist point of view I genuinely believe that the format she has chosen for those of us who want to replay a game every now and then and can suffer the hour long unpack is efficient for the storage/playing tradeoff

[object Object]
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20d

don’t think it is such a pain point that it’s a frequent issue to prevent further use

I don’t have statistics, but:

  • I myself didn’t do any research specifically on this matter, and only learned of these problems through osmosis by randomly reading various threads on Reddit’s r/all

  • I installed one single game from a repack by FitGirl

  • my experience right away exactly mirrored that of which I’ve read previously

I don’t have problems with FitGirl using this compression, in fact I find it fascinating that such an algorithm exists. However, it obviously doesn’t meet standards to which a commercial publisher or storefront are held.

Lvxferre [he/him]
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-1021d

So you’re saying that all games should install like this?

Given other people addressed the same point, but unlike you they aren’t disingenuously assuming words into my mouth, I think it’s pretty safe to block you as dead weight.

[object Object]
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1121d

Wow, very mature.

“Developers should do compression like FitGirl does.”

“Oh no I didn’t mean developers should do compression like FitGirl does.”

@[email protected]
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5
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20d

The EA/Ubisoft/Rockstar servers are so shit and their games so large that it’s actually near impossible to download their games on a slow internet connection, because they would just timeout after 3~4 hours.

Downloading a cracked, compressed FitGirl repack over P2P and just ignoring the crack was unironically the only viable way to legally enjoy the games I had purchased back when I had slow internet.

The repacks are windows .exes, yet even work flawlessly via wine. FitGirl truly GOATed.

Fiestorra
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7221d

I wouldn’t really say that. The kind of extreme compression Fitgirl does comes with the tradeoff of really long decompression times. Depending on which games, nearly 45 minutes (with a 7800x3D)

Some games lack compression but I would not want those long install times by default, if you have a speedy internet connection they usually take longer to install than to download. Don’t get me wrong, for people with really slow internet those repacks are a godsend but they are not “better” on every aspect.

@[email protected]
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421d

Honestly I can’t remember the last time a fitgirl release took longer to install than an ‘official’ copy.

And pretty much as long as I’ve had a computer it’s been “bottom of the barrel” hardware.

@[email protected]
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420d

The downside of the compression is the install can take way longer than the download. But if you’re on a slower connection the smaller download would be a big benefit.

@[email protected]
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721d

No it’s making a choice. Faster decompress times. Considering a lot of their customers have fast speeds it doesn’t really matter.

Lvxferre [he/him]
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221d

Bingo. And this means they’re effectively choosing who their games are for. And then complaining the ones they didn’t choose decided to pirate it.

lastweakness
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3
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20d

I’m curious, are there countries where fast internet is way too expensive but video games are priced well?

Edit: I mean priced well on launch, btw, not on sale

I Cast Fist
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720d

A lot of devs stopped giving a flying fuck to disk space and performance a long time ago. “32GB of RAM and 500GB of disk space? Don’t mind if I do!” - for a pixel art 2D platformer

@[email protected]
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320d

It’s so infuriating I’ve either got 3 brand new games or 30 older games installed on to my device.

Even mobile gaming is getting out of hand

Cethin
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26
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21d

The thing about compression is you have to process it to decompress it. It may be benificial to people with limited bandwidth, or for peer-to-peer sharing, but it’s probably better for most users for someone like Valve to share the uncompressed version. Bandwidth isn’t the issue it used to be.

It also makes progressive updates harder. The best you can do is compress each update individually, not the whole package.

Lvxferre [he/him]
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12
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21d

I’m aware that compression rates are a trade-off between space and processing time, and that there’s some balance to be had. However, I don’t see this balance from plenty commercial games; what I see instead is disregard.

Here’s a made up example. Suppose you have a choice between compressing a game:

  • to 10 GiB, and it takes 2min to unpack it in a certain machine
  • to 3 GiB, and it takes 8min to unpack it in a certain machine

FitGirl will consistently pick the later option. And it would be fine if devs picked the former, or a middle ground… but they don’t. Instead, often you get a 10 GiB file that takes 10 min to unpack, the worst of both worlds.

And it isn’t just a matter of the compression algorithm. The developers also have the freedom to choose how they split files; but they often create 9001 files the size of an ant, that is going to hurt decompression times. (Paradox Interactive, I’m looking at you.)

Tagging @[email protected], as it addresses what they said too.

Cethin
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421d

I don’t know any that take a long time to unpack from developers. They do have to pre-compile shaders, but that’s different. Maybe I just don’t pay enough attention, or maybe it’s just because I don’t play many big budget games.

Lvxferre [he/him]
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7
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21d

From the top of my mind, Europa Universalis 4. Even the base game takes ages to install, and I don’t think it’s just the Linux version.

Incidentally, I checked it in FitGirl’s site, found EU5 instead, and she’s complaining about the exact same thing:

Installation takes 5-12 minutes (depending on your system, mostly on your drive speed – the game has more than 49000 small files, Paradox never learn from their mistakes)

Cethin
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521d

I did play EU5 (and 4 ages ago) and didn’t notice the issue. I guess I just don’t pay attention to it.

Lvxferre [he/him]
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521d

I did because my older computer was a potato, so it was kind of obvious the game took a bit too long to install.

@[email protected]
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2
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20d

Here’s a made up example. Suppose you have a choice between compressing a game:

  • to 10 GiB, and it takes 2min to unpack it in a certain machine
  • to 3 GiB, and it takes 8min to unpack it in a certain machine

The download size difference of 7 GiB only costs me another 60-80s to download as long as the Steam servers are serving well. So funny enough the first option would be better for me.

@[email protected]
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8721d

It’s more likely that the devs are not being given the time or resources to do this kind of thing properly. Their bosses are too concerned with what will save money and generate shareholder value.

Lvxferre [he/him]
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4421d

Fair point. I guess it would be more accurate to say “development studios” (you know, the organisation… including the bloody boss) instead of “game devs”.

@[email protected]
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120d

absolutely this.

@[email protected]
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520d

Gamedev is notorious for basically having permacrunch so this is the most likely reason

@[email protected]
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921d

This implies fitgirl is doing it properly. Which it’s trade off faster download longer install times or vice versa.

@[email protected]
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1221d

Decompression during install is generally less of a bottleneck than network bandwidth, so fitgirl is doing it properly.

@[email protected]
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220d

It’s basic math for these executives, the cost of bandwidth is magnitudes less than than the cost to pay someone to reduce it. They do not care about the cost to gamers.

@[email protected]
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2520d

Piracy is the response when companies refuse to serve market needs.

I mean, there will always be people trying to get something for free when they normally have no problem affording it or obtaining it personally. It’s why the Parasite Class continue to drive down wages while raising prices for that sweet labour-free profit margin, even though they already have obscene amounts of wealth. Their boundless greed demands they squeeze even more out of the Working Class whose labour is the source of all wealth.

So yeah, there we’ll always be some people who will pirate purely for the fish.

But in the end, any significant piracy is 100% the fault of those very companies that complain about it.

@[email protected]
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020d

I am in the process of moving to pc from ps. I wont buy the same games again, it doesnt make sense to me. Where it is cheap and easy I have done but I feel I bought the right to buy them and also I hate some of the features with logins and always on connections.

@[email protected]
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3420d

I suspect FitGirl is a morbidly obese 58 year old man with a twisted sense of humor.

@[email protected]
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219d

Nah its a Russian women.

@[email protected]
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220d

Hopefully less old. We want him to keep them repacks coming

@[email protected]
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720d

Omg He’s just like me fr fr

BurgerBaron
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2121d

As a Loonix enjoyer I prefer a pre-installed game folder compressed in a 7z archive or whatever instead from cs.rin.ru, it just werks. In Lutris.

@[email protected]
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021d

I have zero trust installing pirated software, especially when they go out of their way to break it when using wine on Linux or running it in a vm.

@[email protected]
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421d

You must’ve stumbled on some bad sources I’m afraid.

@[email protected]
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1221d

They don’t go out of their way to break it, they just don’t pay attention to it (yet). There was an interesting interview here a few months ago: https://lemmy.world/post/32441387

@[email protected]
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7421d

Folks here are like “everyone uses it. Eventually all gamers realize it’s better”

Me, having never even heard of this in my 30 years of gaming: 🫣

@[email protected]
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1421d

Same. I had no idea what the title meant at all. Interesting though.

@[email protected]
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1721d

It’s a catch 22. If everyone uses it, game companies get it shut down, and then it doesn’t exist, and then nobody uses it. The only existing methods of piracy are little known. That you’ve never heard of it is expected.

BeeegScaaawyCripple
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520d

I was so upset when the vault got dmca’d

I Cast Fist
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320d

Huh, the site isn’t opening for me at all, DNS_PROBE_ERROR or ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED on my browsers. I wonder if it’s a country-wide block in Brazil? I saw some news yesterday on the police raiding pirate servers

@[email protected]
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220d

the IP address is 103.224.182.241 if you want to try adding it to your hosts file to circumvent what appears to be a solely DNS-based block. or just change your DNS lookup server I guess.

I Cast Fist
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220d

ping 103.224.182.241 gives me a “general failure”. At least I can still find stuff via qbittorrent’s builtin search

Lemminary
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3
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21d

Yaaarggh! Fuck you auto mod, I’m trying to be helpful. >:(

Just FYI: Links to such sites are a liability for the instance operators.

@[email protected]
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920d

Come sail the seas at dbzero where we dont give a fuck

@[email protected]
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220d

Ahh man that makes so much more sense than deebeezer zero, sometimes I’m slow

@[email protected]
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120d

Stands for ‘divide by zero’ as far as I know, if that helps

@[email protected]
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1
edit-2
20d

Wouldn’t they at most have to comply with a DMCA takedown request within a reasonable amount of time? At least that seems to be what major platforms do. Not actually sure what happens for smaller platforms and many lemmy instances are hosted and owned outside the US too.

djsoren19
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1120d

I mean, do you pirate games? If you’ve never gone to a torrent site in your life it’s not surprising, but FitGirl’s repacks are so numerous that it’s hard not to notice them if you do pirate.

@[email protected]
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220d

I used to torrent frequently, but rarely software.
Since I graduated and started making adult money I haven’t really at all. When I want to vote with my wallet, I just don’t play it at all (usually these are live service games anyways).

Although I’m going to start torrenting music and video again on principle.

@[email protected]
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320d

vote with my wallet

Lol

@[email protected]
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420d

Yeah, I know, it doesn’t actually work, because capitalism is a joke. But you get the idea, I think

@[email protected]
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120d

I am so wary of downloading them though, exe files are scary for fools like me

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