Hi,
I have joined this forum to put my 2 cents in, after hearing about this on the Razor1911 irc channel. I dont actually have a Wii, but I have been a contributing member of the 'scene' for around 15 years, starting in a group most of you probably have never heard of 'Paradigm' or 'PDM' for short, then proceeded to 'Class', then 'MYTH' and finally 'Razor1911'. I know my resume is pretty irrelevant for the Wii, and I am guessing a lot of people have no idea what i am talking about when I name those groups, but anyway, for the few that do recognise those names and truly understand what we stand for in the scene, I hope you at least understand my point.
Ok, thats a bit about my history, now to my thoughts. Over the years of I have coded many 'intro's' for the Amiga (back in 95 woo!!) and onto the early years of the PC, and then I went into cracking and hav done that ever since, releasing, at my last count, over 2000 PC cracks, and throughout my .. career?.. there have been many come and gone that have sought to profit from the scene, and then there have been the devoted ones, in groups like I named above, that do this for something more, because we were sick of being ripped of by big companies. It is obviously a lot more complex than that, and believe it or not, myself and all my 'colleagues' buy every game we reverse engineer, and every title we play is an original, we just believe we should be able to fully test something before forking out our hard earned cash for it.
As such, I think this is an example of that, you have the majority of people in this thread saying it is acceptable for Crediar (sorry if I got the name wrong, but I think it is right) to ask for lots of money before his program is released, but in reality those people just want the program and will say anything that they think Crediar wants to hear to get it. Personally I think it is sad, dont get me wrong, when it is releaed if it is a benefit to the Wii scene (which by the sounds of it, it is) then I do think everyone who uses this regular, should pay what they can comfortably afford as a donation, to say thanks, we appreciate the hard work, as that is obviously how Crediar values his time, but to ask for lots of donations before the title is even released ?!? Its just sad, and a form of exploitation. if he really does love what he's doing so much, money would not be a factor at all, and if any came after, bonus.
I just think this, along with the hundreds of P2P sites (HTTP), is a perfect example of how the scene as fallen. Those values the key members hold dear, are no longer valid to the mass market, and unfortunately it is what as caused the proper scene (Distro's, Couriers, FTPS, FXPing, etc) to go underground, and is why it is so difficult for people to find us now, and even more to join one of the big groups. Believe it or not, Torrent sites are dying and will be obsolete in only a few years, the governments are already cracking down on siteops, and now the users who merely leech too. There is a huge drive in Europe and the US on P2P sites, from the government, as I am sure a lot of people here already know and many will do so in time. At that time, it will be very difficult to get the movies, music, games & apps that the majority of users have come to see as 'normal', it is unfortunate the scene as gone this way.
Anyway, i did not mean to ramble on so much, but this is debate hovers near a subject very close to my heart, one which I have given 15 years of my life to, and have never expected anything in return. I am positive I will get flamed here, even though the majority of users here have downloaded my work and that of my freinds in the aforementioned groups (even if they deny it here), but I am hoping I am wrong, but I doubt it, because regardless of what people have already gotten from us and will continue to get through P2P sites or even FTP (for those few I know are here, that belong to the 'proper' scene) they will simply deny it here and hope the freebies keep coming, saying what they think the person they want to please at that moment, wants to hear. It is sad. Thats my 2 cents .. flame away. I just hope those few that fully read this post, and post here flaming me, remember it in a year or two. Good luck all, i really do mean that, especially to the 'scene' members who read this and understand my words.
Moonlord
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xtremegamer:
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Skelletonike:
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