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Game Developer Asks To Hear From Pirates
cliffski writes "Indie game developer Cliff Harris has long waged war against games piracy, but has issued a call to pirates to tell him why he is wrong. Assuming that developers are missing out on potential sales from disgruntled pirates, Cliff wants to hear specifically from people who have pirated his games. Not to criticize or lecture them, but to answer a simple question. Why? The reasons people give for copyright infringement/piracy are many and varied, but much of the debate has centred around music and movies, with big 'Triple-A' games an occasional consideration. With specific application to the world of small budget 'indie' games like those Cliff makes, he wants to know the thought processes behind people pirating the games. What puts people off buying? Is it quality, cost, DRM, ease of access? Is there anything that can be done to convert those people to buyers? While many pirates often make good general points about the reasons for the widespread pirating of PC games, it's unusual to get a chance to address specific developers with specific reasons. If you knew 100% that the developer would read your email explaining why you pirated their game, what would you say?"
...and I will buy it, just like I have bought Sins of the Solar Empire, Galactic Civilizations II and Space Rangers 2.
Note that SR2 I originally passed as it was originally published - it had Securom copy protection, so I let it pass.
http://www.impulsedriven.com/ is Stardock's new system, looks very promising (and more friendly than Steam, which is also nice).
I think a lot of the true Pirates will avoid the contact because they'd be concerned about their anonimity. He'll hear from the part-time leechers and the 'try before buying' crowd, but the folks who do the actual work on cracking a game probably won't make a sound.
What if Slashdot did one of those 'ask-the-developer-a-question' forum, and they took the top reasons, then sent them in (with the understanding that the developer would get back with replies and/or rebuttals)?
"First things first, but not necessarily in that order."
- Doctor Who
That's been my experience as well -- the crackers who broke one of my games (in three days -- took me two weeks to do the protection) lived in my apartment complex and chatted with me about it.
They were just looking for a challenge. They had hundreds of games, and as near as I can tell they never really played them.
But of course they gave copies and compilations away to anyone who asked, often with a "cracked by (stupid hackerish name)" splash screen.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is insufficiently documented.
Not really for any specific reason, but here are some of them:
I earn money now. As a student buying that game was taking food/alcohol money.
I don't have less free time. I have to be more selective. I play less games and the cost to purchase is the least of my worries. In fact it probably saves me cash as if I was out doing something else, I'd undoubtedly be spending more money.
I like on-line a lot. I bought Battlefield 2 for the magic code that let me go online - and I've not chipped my 360 for the same reason.
Cracking stuff makes me feel guilty. I mean yes there's all the arguments about how paying for the game gives you a more restricted copy - but Oh I dunno. If it's a good game somebody has poured their heart and soul into it, and I don't want to make them sad.
Steam - I like steam. I go there, I buy a game (after playing a demo maybe) and there it is to play a few minutes later. I can't be arsed fiddling with CDs, I usally lose/scratch them. If I'd put my thinking cap on and designed my own online distribution system - it'd look like Steam.
I'm not involved in the scene. Getting a pre-Jap release of Metal Gear Solid through the post, complete with japanese stamps on the jiffy bag - that's exciting. Clicking on a torrent link or browsing usenet.. not really a challenge. Strange point this one, but I liked the days when stuff had to be posted, or tracked down to an obscure hidden FTP dir. Too easy now.
How to stop piracy? Well that's a tricky one as I think everybody has their own reasons. If you genuinely can't afford the game - then nothing's going to stop that person pirating it (and if there's been no sale to lose - who cares?). If anything it keeps somebody in the market for future releases and hey they might turn into me and start buying them when they can.
Possibly the other thing is to make the makers of games more important. If you've been reading the blog of somebody who is making something - or eagerly tracking the return of Sam and Max - then you're going to feel more inclined to show support and buy it. When some movie-tie-in appears on 9 formats the day of the films release from 'somewhere' - well I'm not feeling a great emotional attachment to the producers.
Final bit is that I think game makers are starting to be nice to us and understand what we want. We don't have it too bad. Compare what's happening with online distribution of music and movies..
you often just don't buy either... I know I never did. It was all about the money... I could get it for free so why pay for it?
It is about money, and about a person's perception of their money. If money is just "what you use to get stuff" then there is little reason to buy. However if money is "a tool to effect the world around you" then there is a solid reason to pay for a game that you enjoy, regardless of if that money goes to a big corp, an indy developer, or shareware donation. Now I don't have a good study to point to but I imagine that thinking of money as a tool of influence is more a trait of the wealthy, as the acquisition of material goods reaches saturation but there is still money to be spent. Conversely, when material needs can't be met money isn't likely to be spent on idealogical matters. I wonder if there is a relationship between disposable income and piracy?
We are all just people.
Why waste your time playing a game that isn't worth your money?
Hey Cliff,
This is going to get modded flame bait but this is probably one of the reasons why your games in particular are getting pirated and not so much bought: people are downloading the pirated version, trying it a couple times, but because the game play is boring and repetitive, they are deleting it.
Your games are all the same with different graphics, they're all the "tycoon" style simulations with minor variations. I know this is probably not what you want to hear, but most people are generally good in that if they play a game a lot they will buy it.
Your games are niche and your intended market isn't going to be going online and downloading them, they won't be that savvy. Your market is looking for them on the shelf at bestbuy and getting roller coaster tycoon instead.
If it is good, and I've got a pirated copy working, I still 'buy' a copy, but never bother installing it (if the cracked version works fine).
that way, I'm supporting the devs and I've got a working game.
Here's my reasons why I do not buy most games - and why I go out of my way to buy some..
1. Copy protection - There should be nothing in a game preventing me from making a copy. There should be nothing in a game that installs 3rd party bullshit on my computer. I would rather not even enter a unique code. Face it, no matter how great of anti-piracy software there is, if I buy the game it inconveniences me - while the pirated version that is easily downloadable on the Internet will not have those inconveniences. If I want to loan the game to a friend, and let him play it a few days, LET ME FUCKING DO IT. I BOUGHT THE DAMN GAME.
- THINK ABOUT THIS: Anti-piracy efforts typically only affect the people that bought and paid for the game. They are always an inconvenience. In all circumstances, the pirated version on the Internet (and it will exist no matter what game, no matter what copy protection), has most of those inconveniences removed - though the game may be missing material, have new bugs due to anti-anti-piracy, and generally have less value to the opinion of the game.
2. Pricing - Every damn PC game comes out at a ridiculous price - $60, $65, even $75.. and every damn PC game is $19.99 bargain bin after 3 months. How about make the price somewhere in the middle and keep it there. I'll buy games on release date if I knew the price wasn't gonna fall by 2/3 in a month. I think $25-30 pricing for games makes it almost more convenient to buy it - provided my other points are considered.
3. Community support - Let the community mod the games - and support them! Nothing is better than a game being released and the community taking over and creating unlimited amounts of new maps/levels.. unless the developer puts some of their own resources back into the community.
4. Pirates buy games - Yes, many pirates also buy games. When I actually had time to play PC games, I pirated many and bought many - and I definitely bought more games that the average person. Consider that. I don't like being called nasty names when I feel perfectly fine with my reasons for pirating - usually too much copy protection.
5. Don't make me have to insert a damn CD when I play the game!!! I bought the game. The pirated version doesn't make me insert a CD, why should the bought-and-paid-for version? My cd player is in my computer on the floor at the corner of my desk - and I'm a lazy gamer that doesn't want to have to open my book of cds, find the right one, and insert it! oh wait.. my cd is scratched. fuck me.
6. Stop being so goddamn confusing with the patches! I have 'pirated' games I bought just because installing the original cds, downloading the patches, installing them in order were so annoying and time-consuming. Here's how you do it. Release a game. It is version 1.0. Patch it. It is called patch 1. Now the version is 1.1. Every new patch should not require the older patch. There should never be a game version like "Awesome Game 1.01.07.0003 p004 with Nvidia enhanced drivers". WTF is that.. That makes me wanna turn my brain off and play Xbox.
7. Offer refunds. Yes, risky.. BUT DO IT. I bought X3 Reunion and was not able to play it for a long-ass time because I only had an external cd burner due to their fucked up copy protection. I posted on their forums. I was told everything was my fault and nothing was their fault. Think I'm ever gonna buy an Egosoft game again? Fuck no. Note: You would most likely have to offer 1/10 as many refunds if the game did not have copy protection. And, 'this game sucks' is not a valid refund request. The reviews are everywhere. If someone buys a game rated at 44%, they deserve to be out the money.
8. Bump up the minimum requirements. Don't say the game will run on a P3 1ghz with 128mb ram if it needs a Core 2 duo at 2.6ghz with a Radeon 4850 just to look decent! Why? Because Joe-dumbass will buy the game and try to run it on his son's shitty laptop with Intel integrated graphics. After doing that once or twice, guarantee he will becom
--- We need more Ron Paul!
The problem with this is that the industry is moving towards digital distribution, and obviously indie games are already nearly always distributed in this way. If all it takes is a few minutes online to get your money back then it will be abused heavily. As for holding on to the money of customers for a month, the developer would actually be losing money through processing fees, in addition I don't know if it costs the seller to issue a credit card refund. I just don't see how a refund model could work with digital distribution.
It also doesnt mean they would not have bought it either.
This was certainly the case in college for me. The only (PC) games that I played were freeware/shareware or pirated copies that other students had. If the pirated copies didn't exist, it's not as if $50 would suddenly materialize in my pocket - and if it did, I'd probably go out on the town rather than buy a game. I didn't even buy new console games - just played what I went to college with.
I'm sure there were other kids with different priorities (and more money), though. But you can't get blood (money) from a stone (college student).
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
"All About the Money"
Yeah, that's pretty much it. I don't make too much, and as I'm sure this will play into most peoples moral calculations of me: I don't plan on making too much, at least before I'm responsible for someone other than myself.
My limited entertainment dollar is spent on social activities. I rent movies at a local shop. I see live music. I go to cheap bars. At very small concerts, I donate money to bands. I use my local library. If I were buying commercial records and video games, that money would be coming directly out of my more primary entertainment expenses. The decision to pirate a game or album comes down to "pirate this or read / play / listen to someting I already have / go to the library." It isn't priate vs. buy. I'm not really much of a fan. There's very seldom something coming out that I just HAVE to be a part of, and I don't really understand that kind of behavior. It's pirate vs. do something else that would be free or almost free.
If mainstream commercial pop culture were to become inaccessible except at the kind of fees they seem to believe they deserve, I'd largely stop consuming it. I don't hate the stuff or consider myself above it, but I could do without it. It seems like only a recent development that large numbers of people spend over $100 a month on consuming pop culture. I think people from the 70s would think we're insane.
The argument could certainly be made that if I want to have that many albums on my ipod I should just go get some job I'd hate and make a bunch more money. OK. Sure. Whatever. I'm not.
I know this is about independent games specifically, and I can't say I play any. I'd probably pay for those. I'm a big believer in the little guy.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
It is if you use wine. Often the demo works fine, but due to some change to the final game or copy protection the real game does not run. I need to know if it works in wine before I waste money on it. If you do not make a linux version, expect me to test your game this way.
yes. as a high school student with no disposable income and no (legal) way to purchase things on the net, pirating tv shows is my TiVo (I *could* have seen it for free at some point in time), pirating music is my radio, and [irating games is just because as long as I'm getting it illegally, stealing something has a much lower penalty than fraud (e.g. having an underaged paypal account)
You are quite correct to apply supply and demand economics to this problem. The "intellectual property" industries (movies, music, and computer software) rely on the artificial legal construct of copyright in order to extract profit from an activity that produces a "product" that, once produced, has an infinite supply and near-zero cost of distribution.
The natural state of affairs is to eliminate the artificial legal construct of "copyright" and just accept that anything that can be rendered digitally is free to copy.
The usual objection is "well then how do artists/writers/producers make money without copyright backing them up"?
The first response to that question is to point out that it is not the responsibility of the state or society at large to see that any industry remains profitable. Once upon a time there was a thriving buggy whip industry, but there was no legal construct erected to protect buggy whip manufacturers from being obsoleted by the forward march of technological development.
Notwithstanding, the question of "how can an artist make a living without copyright?" is a valid one. Happily, there is a historical answer - patronage.
Not so very long ago, it was practically impossible to distribute artistic product at all. Without any form of recording device, the only way to hear Mozart was to go see Mozart. Want to see Shakespeare? Go to the Globe Theatre. Want to read Ovid? Pay the enormous costs of finding a copy and then having a monk copy it by hand.
The flip side to this is that as an artist, given that the costs of producing your art were so very high, the only way to make a living doing art was to find a rich man who would hire you to produce the art - a patron.
The nice thing about zero-cost duplication and distribution of artistic content in the modern age is that it allows the cost of patronage to be spread across a very much wider audience, meaning that the cost of being a patron is very much smaller.
In effect, erect a means where your customers/fans can get money to you, and then let it be known that if they wish to see future product, then they need to contribute to the pool, or development will cease.
Yes, many people will just download the game/song/whatever and never pay. So it goes. But if the product is good enough, enough people will contribute to allow you to continue developing more product - and that's a win. How many of us get to make a living at their passion?
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Ahhh - I guess we interpreted that differently. I read it as:
1. Get crappy game
2. Play crappy game
3. Realize game is crappy
And you see #3 before either 1 or 2, which changes things...
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
What information can someone gather about you when you're playing a game
Great question. Really depends on the game, doesn't it? Other than the obvious determination of how much time you spend playing games, which is an important piece of data to game developers, and your contact info, there's possible connections with other players through a friends list, ip can usually narrow you down to a zip code or at very least a city. A game that was designed with collecting data in mind could gather all sorts of interesting data on how you make your decisions in game... whether this has any bearing on real life is a separate question entirely I suppose. But say you have name, age, gender, email, zipcode, a score for how much time you spend playing, and, perhaps from location and time they can project your income bracket. what more would marketers really want?
This comment is fully compliant with RFC 527.
Actually, they DO need to consider returns. If you buy a game, and it just plain won't work on a PC due to some problem or another (and yes, it happens!), then the company needs to take that into account, and take the damn game back.
If I buy a DVD, and it doesn't work in my player, you can guarantee I'll take it back. And I'll make sure the shop refunds me the money. And you know what? They do.
Now, I've taken a game back in the past, where the install CD was absolutely blank. No tracks burned on it.. Nada. I took it back to the store, and they simply said "We don't do refunds on games". I had to drag that right back to their head office with a legal threat under the consumer protection legislation before they deigned to offer me a refund.
I've also had games that plain just bombed out as soon as I started to run them. Not playable.
And you try getting a shop to take them back.
Software is the one product these days that shops will absolutely refuse to take back and refund for. Which for me, makes me far less likely to buy, as I have no faith in their need to produce something of quality.
If they're not confident that something will work, then I'm not going to part with hard earned money in faith that I'll be getting something of merchantable quality.
Put DRM into the mix too.. Which I consider breaks a product, then I'm really not going to buy.
This business of impulse purchasing has a lot of (ironic in the case of this developer) truth to it.
I just bought three of the developer's games (Kudos, Democracy 2, and Rock Legend). And now I want to pirate the games.
Why?
Because his order fulfillment processor tells me I have to wait up to 48 hours to be able to get access to digitally download the games I've purchased.
That's just madness. I'm left with a bitter taste in my mouth and quite annoyed. I've never seen an online order system like that.
I will not only go look for copies of the games I bought to download (technically illegally), but I will probably not purchase games again from him, because I now know he uses an order processor that wishes to play games with customers rather than sell games to customers.
(I won't cancel my order, or download games of his that I haven't purchased, but I certainly won't go through a system where I have to wait days to get access to a digital download).
Petty on my part? Perhaps. But I work hard during the week and have limited gaming time -- and that only on weekends. If I can't play for some hours on a Sunday, that delays things a week or more for me.
So much for an 'impulse' purchase.
That's my take.
Let's say you create a game on the assumption that 500,000 people will want to play the game, based on demographics and popularity of similar games. You want to sell it for $50 each so that's a $25,000,000 budget - pretty good!
This is exactly where most games lose me. I work full time, have a family, etc. There isn't much between minesweeper and Unreal for non-dedicated PC gamers. Nintendo game found this market wide open with easy to learn games that doesn't require complex manuals and a large dedication of time to enjoy. Much of the piracy is simply limited time and money budgets and wanting to try lots of games. They are not priced for casual gamers. I've never spent over $20 for a single game. I sometimes pick up recycled games as I don't need the latest and greatest. With online registration and failure of right of first sale, even this has died.
Now days, I stick to older games, Linux games, and other mindless time wasters. (the demo games are fun)
Often the demo is almost playable to encourage you to buy the full version, but the full version is priced for hardcore gamers.
The truth shall set you free!