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Game Developer's Response To Pirates
cliffski writes "A few days ago, indie PC games developer Positech publicly called for people pirating their games to explain why, in an open and honest attempt to see what the causes of gaming piracy were. Hundreds of blog posts, hundreds more emails and several server-reboots later, the developer's reply is up on their site. The pirates had a lot to say, on subjects such as price, DRM, demos and the overall quality of PC games, and Positech owner Cliffski explains how this developer at least will be changing their approach to selling PC games as a result. Is this the start of a change for the wider industry? Or is this the only developer actively listening to the pirates point of view?"
When a no-cd crack or hacked exe for a game I purchased is released, I usually use it instead of carrying the CDs around with my laptop.
Kudos to Valve's Steam letting me download and install the game on multiple machines without treating me like a frickin' crook.
And the occasional time I've actually downloaded and ran a pirate game just to see if it was worth buying. I've been burned on way too many awesome demos and lackluster final games to drop $50 on a whim.
1. Lose the damn copy protection.
2. Use Steam or develop a system where people aren't chained to a CD or Jewel case with a cryptic serial number on it.
3. Release honest demos.
4. Don't get bought by EA, they have no honor.
i'd pay for games if they were native to Linux operating systems.
signature is pants
i have done something similar. i used to pirate everything. hell, i used to brag that my computer (which was given to me for free) had over $10,000 of software on it, none of which i had paid for.
i was in school, i had no money, and i needed these programs for assignments (art school-video, photography, sound, etc...these apps aren't cheep)
i have no problem using cracked goods as a student. but im not a students anymore. they day i graduated, i formatted the hard drive and went for a fresh start. but now im a poor college grad.
no more stolen photoshop, now i use the gimp (while i save up for photoshop). no more audition, now i use audacity. no more stolen ms office, now i use open office. no more stolen windows, now i use ubuntu, and a free copy of winXP work gave me.
its hard to describe, but it feels good not being a pirate. it feels good to know that i am a legitimate user of quality software, and that i am supporting the makers of that software.
i think i'm always going to pirate software 1st to try it out before buying, i've been burned in the past. but now that i am employed, i do buy it when i find it to be useful. premier is garbage, sony vegas is amazing, and worth the money, (even though i hate to support evil sony, this one is worth the money)
although, after buying the legit copy, i rarely actually install the legit version.
-I only code in BASIC.-
Well, part of the big joke is that a game, once cracked, a game effectively has no DRM, no nag screens, no internet phoning home, no CD-ROM checks, etc. A legally purchased game continues to require these things, and over the long run, is more annoying than a cracked copy. This has been a problem with music, too, because an MP3 with no DRM will play on any device (which is a lot more than an encrypted AAC file).
A cat can't teach a dog to bark.
DRM stopped me from 'pirating' games. I used to 'pirate' about 80% of the games I would play, and buy about 20%. Which lead to me buying about 4 games a year. DRM has become enough of a pain that I just don't play games anymore. I have found new toys that are less of a hassle. So, while it is true that the DRM stopped ~16 cases of 'piracy' a year, it has not improved the game industries profits at all.
Of course, the continuing crappier and crappier packaging didn't help. Here is a hint. Put the game in a gem case. If you must put it in a paper sleeve, then at least include the proper art work so that when the customer puts the game in a gem case themselves, they have proper professionally printed spines that they can read. I know that if I have to do the manufacturing myself, I am far less inclined to pay someone else for it.
The interesting question is whether you would have paid for it if you hadnt pirated it first.
hello everyone, I'm a pirate.
I pirate software and i enjoy the feeling of freedom I get when I want to do something (video editing, photo editing, burning a DVD, or creating something cool) and I can do it without that agonizing over the question "am i buying the right product?" and that depressing feeling I get watching money flow from my wallet without knowing if i'm spending it in the right place.
However I *want* to pay money for the products that I like. About 25% off the software i use I want to pay money for BECAUSE I think it rocks. Unfortunately some software, even though I like, I won't pay for becuase the cost is too high (i'm looking at you photoshop)... so they get bubkis.
I started pirating when i was a kid and never stopped and I'm a professional engineer now so i can afford just about anything i want software wise (with the exception of some professional tools like solidworks or something).
So for now, I think for now I'll stick with my current model. If a company writes good software and charges a reasonable fee, and I'll gladly pay for it after the fact.
(BTW, PC games are actually a completely different story. Their cost is almost never outside of my budget and I want to support the PC gaming industry so it doesn't go away and get taken over by the console gaming industry. It's rare that I pirate a game.)
d
all language nazi's will burne in heil!
I could say the exact same thing about music CDs. Tool's 10,000 Days did just that. The CD has some awesome artwork in the form of a booklet filled with stereograms, complete with glasses.
I do pirate music, but I tend to buy it if I feel it's worth my money. I stumbled upon Japanese post-rock band Mono a few years ago, and pirated their music.
After listening to it for a while, I decided that it was worth a buy, so I went and bougth almost all of their CDs.
They played in Copenhagen last year, and a few weeks before, I introduced their music to some of my friends to try to get them to tag along to the concert. I was successful in just that, and I brought 5 friends to their show.
To sum it all up, my act of piracy actually got them a lot of new fans. I bought almost all their albums, will buy their newest when I have some money to spare, and I brougth 5 people to their concert -- all because of piracy.
If you're interested in hearing what they sound like, I suggest going to their MySpace. Wikipedia has an article about them here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_(Japanese_band).
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