"A wise man does not cower from knowledge. Instead, he uses it to guide him."

Another BBC report.
Apparently, Dead Space is a computer game that costs £40 and people can choose to pay extra for acquiring equipment sooner than you are meant to. And people found workarounds to make sure they get the equipment without paying EA for it. These workarounds are extremely simple, basically going to resource-laden locations more than once to see that all they have taken with them has reappeared.


However, some people deem it unethical or illegal to use such cunning... trickery to avoid payment. It allegedly borders on piracy - getting stuff you are supposed to pay for for free. However, since there is no actual foul play here, the game files are not being edited, no third party tool is being used, I see no problem. What people are doing is allowed in the game, it is a 'feature', not a 'hack'. If the software allows you to do it, and you have paid for the software, then you should be allowed to use the software in every way it is possible.

What bugs me is that the in-game money-hunting is even there. If you pay for something, you expect to get it. The whole thing. Not most of it, all of it. You should not be asked at every turn to buy additional features. Yes, I read the article, and realize it was made to discourage piracy - even if you already have the game, you still need to pay for it. Even more troubling, the things that are sold are equipment, and I assume they are game-specific. By that I mean that when you finish the game and decide to have an another go at it, and start a new game on a higher difficulty setting, you would have to shell out even more cash for the same thing that you have already bought.

Quite frankly, in this case, I have more of a problem with the option to spend money in a bought game rather than people bypassing it using bugs or features in the game. After all, if the option is there, why not use it?