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Game Developer's Response To Pirates

Posted by samzenpus on from the scuttle-the-console dept.

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?"

31 of 734 comments (clear)

  1. First Post by narcberry · · Score: 5, Funny

    Most responses were, "we'd pay for your games if you'd remove the key protections"

    --
    Modding me -1 troll doesn't make me wrong.
    1. Re:First Post by master5o1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      i'd pay for games if they were native to Linux operating systems.

      --
      signature is pants
    2. Re:First Post by Cassius+Corodes · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I have to agree - I really hate a game or software I brought, require some other control software being installed. Especially if it requires an internet connection to work.

      --
      Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
    3. Re:First Post by B3ryllium · · Score: 5, Funny

      I've heard that wine, if used to excess, can not only cause depth perception issues, but also memory corruption and crashing.

      Usually only with the older builds, however.

    4. Re:First Post by erroneus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Being native to Linux is the answer for many Linux users, but certainly not all. I was using Nero + keygen for quite a while until two things coincided: 1) the quality of the product had risen making the product worth the money they were asking and 2) my income had risen to the point that I could afford the money they were asking.

      But the same goes for other software that I have actually contributed my money to support. (I choose those words intentionally because I don't truly believe that software is a product in the sense that other products are.) I pay for software as a form of expression of my appreciation. I have even been known to donate to various free software projects because I appreciated what they did. This perspective, of course, is likely to be shared by a rather small portion of people and I recognize that.

      But ultimately, there's a combination of what something is worth and what people can afford and when those two things intersect, you will find people more willing to buy or pay for something. I don't think it's all that mysterious and really doesn't need some sort of grand gesture like "ask the pirates." Hell, most of the coders and other software people have likely used software without paying for it at some point -- why did they do it? They should ask themselves and accept the answer is likely true for others as well. "Can't afford" is quite likely to be the most common reason closely followed by "not worth the price."

      The presence of DRM or other software locking/security mechanisms are the result of greedy software makers knowing that not everyone is willing to pay their prices and are attempting to punish those who want to use their software anyway. Make no mistake about it, software protection measures are punitive in nature and design. And people are right to be offended by it. Some people think of it as no different from locking your home up when you are away, but it's quite different in that you're locking your neighbor's door to keep him form stealing from you when you go visiting. Software publishers fail to appreciate that their software is an add-on to an operating system and collection of existing software and data and should try to coexist and cooperate within that environment as a guest should behave himself in your home. Coming to your home and behaving with paranoia, fear and distrust is likely to result in negative feelings and impressions. Worse, attempts of software writers to include destructive anti-piracy measures goes well beyond the concept of the well-behaved guest principle that software publishers should observe.

      People are willing to buy when it's worth buying... that's true of the majority of all people everywhere. There will ALWAYS be the element who will prefer something for nothing. Nothing will change their minds or influence their preferences on the matter. These software publishers generally need to come to terms with this aspect of human nature and factor it into their pricing models and business models. There will always be a certain amount of this, but when you price something properly, the people who behave badly are a small enough minority that they would be insignificant when compared to the people who pay.

    5. Re:First Post by ucblockhead · · Score: 5, Insightful

      DRM doesn't necessarily force someone to buy the game. It very often forces people to say "This is more trouble than it is worth. I'm going to buy a Wii, where the DRM is transparent, and won't annoy me". Note that people who say *that* have no need to rationalize anything.

      It's the side of the DRM equation that is generally ignored. Developers are so fixating in using DRM to force pirates to buy their games that they ignore the number of paying customers who don't buy their games *because* of the DRM. If the second outweighs the first, they lose money even though they've "stopped the nasty pirates".

      It's like getting upset about shoplifting, hiring an uzi carrying security guard for every aisle and then wondering why your sales go down.

      --
      The cake is a pie
    6. Re:First Post by theheadlessrabbit · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.-
    7. Re:First Post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If your DRM will EVER prevent a legit customer from using a legit product that they paid for, it is bad. That's a pretty binary decision to me. Were I to develop games and try to copy protect them, if there was even a 1% chance a legit customer couldn't use the software they paid for, I'd skip the option.

    8. Re:First Post by Belial6 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

    9. Re:First Post by Cassius+Corodes · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That's an area I would also stress: when I buy a game legit, I would like to get the manual as well as a proper cd case for it. I make an exception for the bargain bin games which one expects this sort of thing - but I'm talking about games that you pay $40+ for which don't have anything else but a cd-rom in a paper sleeve.

      P.S. Electronic copies of the manual on the cd is not a ok compromise.

      --
      Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
    10. Re:First Post by ozmanjusri · · Score: 5, Informative
      Wine is fine for apps that you need to run occasionally, but if you need performance or reliability it's right out.

      Debunking Wine Myths

      for those applications that do work and from a purely subjective point of view, performance is good. There is no obvious performance loss

      http://www.winehq.org/site/myths#slow

      --
      "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
    11. Re:First Post by cheater512 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The interesting question is whether you would have paid for it if you hadnt pirated it first.

    12. Re:First Post by i_b_don · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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!
    13. Re:First Post by Menkhaf · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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).

      --
      A proud member of the Onion-in-Hand alliance
    14. Re:First Post by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The answer in my life would have been "No".

      I'm a VFX artist. I got into the business in JrHi through pirating. I wanted to use the software but there was 0% chance I was going to afford $12,000 for Maya or $3,500 for Max. Since then prices have plummeted in some areas (Some versions of Maya are now in line with reality around $3,000). And now I have a home copy of Max and my studio pays for a license for work.

      Educational software is dramatically more affordable than it used to be. But even then piracy offers a 0 risk point of entry for people to dabble without investment. I think most people who have a copy of Photoshop fall into this camp. It's the pirates who later 'settle down' and actually decide they want to use it for real who are most of their customers.

      I wouldn't say $3,500 for software is unreasonable. I think it's probably about right for what you get. It's just unreasonable for someone who isn't making an income from it. And I don't mean a profit I mean an income.

      3D Studio Max is still outsells just about every other piece of 3D software by 2-3x I believe. And I suspect a suspiciously large number of customers at some point in their lives dabbled in illicit copies.

      That's why I applaud companies like Splutterfish who offer professional tools with very few limitations to the masses for free. They understand that there are lots of people who might want to play with something but not badly enough to actually spend any money. And as soon as the crack gets installed you've lost a customer. This is the point of inflection that has to be fought at all costs. As soon as someone has cracked their software they're not dramatically less likely to convert to a customer. You need to keep them using your software but not get comfortable pirating your work. Even if it means giving away more than you would like for free you want to keep them inside your sanctioned legitimate fence so that when the time comes that they do want limitless access they don't look to the Pirate Bay.

      If you're under 18 I think these companies should be handing out their software like political buttons. You want customers who think your product is *the* product so that employers buy your product because it's *what people use*. It'll also broaden the horizons of people who might not even consider your category of software something they would want or need.

    15. Re:First Post by Loibisch · · Score: 5, Informative

      As we're talking about games here let's just say that

      for those applications that do work and from a purely subjective point of view, performance is good. There is no obvious performance loss

      is total bullshit.

      Yes I know it's a wonder and everything that I can play selected DirectX games under Linux at all. But those people claiming they run Half-Life 2 (or any source based game) through wine and it runs "the same as in Windows" kinda piss me off.

      Personally if I run Team Fortress 2 in wine I see a huge performance loss. I play with DX9, FSAA and full details in Vista and get about 80-100 frames average. Using wine the game will only allow DX8.1, medium detail levels and using FSAA is right out...and it still runs with less than 60 frames most of the time. All this at 1680x1050 with an 8800GTS and a Q6600.

      If we're talking about apps then yes, performance loss is minimal. Or at least performance loss is not apparent since modern machines are overpowered for most applications anyway...
      But games still run like shit a good deal of the time.

  2. I use the tools... by binaryspiral · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:I use the tools... by Cyberax · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You might notice, that since the days of floppies copy protection IS NOT STOPPING PIRACY.

    2. Re:I use the tools... by flyingsquid · · Score: 5, Funny

      Personally, I think the major reason that pirates steal games is that gold-laden Spanish galleons are now awful hard to come by.

    3. Re:I use the tools... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It doesn't have to stop piracy. It just has to stop enough piracy to be worth more to developers and the game industry as a whole than the losses due to the annoyance factor.

    4. Re:I use the tools... by lord_sarpedon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Lose the DRM and use Steam huh?

      Mutually exclusive. Steam is an implementation of DRM. Moreso than requiring a CD in the drive, to be sure. It might be a good implementation. Okay, maybe instead acceptable

      Let's not mistake Steam as merely some tool of our own convenience. It is a means of access control as well as distribution and handy middleware features. Yes, the community features, automatic updates, achievements, and ease of getting your games (both buying and redownloading) are delightful. To a large degree, it fills a niche similar to that of Xbox Live, for the PC.

      But Steam is the gatekeeper. By some effort you can play offline, but for the most part you are dependent on Valve to not take away your pretties or otherwise poof out of existence. You know that familiar delay before you are deemed worthy to launch the game? It's the same issue that we bitch about near daily here on slashdot, but it's damn convenient in this case.

      Do we *really* object to DRM on moral grounds? Or only the kind that gets in the way? Steam does work for you most of the time - your 'rights' being 'managed' in this case in such a way that redownload anywhere is permissible. I think we do object. We're praising Steam now because it's many steps up from our other options - just ignoring for the moment all the times my game list is empty for no apparent reason.

      I think what you meant to say was to lose the annoying implementations of copy protection. The kind that inexplicably fails on certain configurations, requires you to download CD-cracks from unofficial channels to keep your sanity, and type in the CD key that you lost 4 years ago when reinstalling.

      --
      "Strangers have the best candy" -Me
    5. Re:I use the tools... by Annymouse+Cowherd · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You use backups of the floppies, mounted virtually or burned onto an alternate medium.

  3. Thanks by Kamineko · · Score: 5, Funny

    Nice to hear from you chris, and I wish you luck with that puzzley-platformer of yours!

  4. DRM is killing PC gaming for me. by wangmaster · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I used to find it amusing that people are willing to live with Steam's DRM, but complain about DRM in general. I've personally resisted Steam for years and years before I finally decided that Steam's DRM is actually palatable compared to some of the shit that's out there (securom).

    What's disappointing is how badly the large shops are butchering the PC gaming market with DRM that absolutely sucks. Bioshock, Mass Effect and Spore are all games I wanted to play but at this point I will not dump the money down for them. Even the Steam version of Bioshock contains securom. How screwed up is that?

    I'm at the point now where I'm slowly turning towards indie developers for most of my gaming neads (Stardock) and I'm really really glad that Positech has made it to slashdot or I'd never have heard of this company. I'll have to look at their games more closely.

  5. About time by chuckymonkey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This developer needs to be modded up. I wrote and told them that I used to pirate games after I bought them because the pirate editions were generally easier to use and I didn't have to have a disk laying around to play it. I then explained that due to my limited time as a father messing around with any of it was crap and that I pretty much quit playing PC games in general. If this whole asking our customers what they want thing catches on maybe I'll finally be able to get what I want, when I want it, and the way I want it. Perhaps I could get back into video games on the PC again.

    --
    "Some books contain the machinery required to create and sustain universes."-Tycho
  6. Back in the day.... by domatic · · Score: 5, Informative

    As far as having a good "taster", Id did pretty well with this. With say DOOM, you knew up front that the game would have a total of three episodes. Id let you play pretty much the first third of the game free. Hell, their demos even had some replay value. As it turned out, their clueful use of shareware pretty much made them back then.

    Of course, not all games are as episodic but it you could draw some rules of thumb from it. A first time player casually making his way through DOOM's first 9 levels will take about 1.5 to 3 hours to do it. So it seems you have to give a quality experience for at least that amount of time to start some buzz going and of course the paid portion of the game has to maintain that quality so you'll tell your friends and blogs that the rest of the game is worth paying for.

    I'd also suggest not continually have the player running into physical barriers and what not that aren't present in the payware version. Just structure the demo such that the game can be experienced for that critically addictive amount of time. Building in nags and frustrations will keep your prospective customer from getting hooked and wanting more. Rather you need an end that takes some period of time to encounter whether it be "level 9" or a decently far extent of a game universe. A game using the hub and spoke system should supply a quest or two say.

    We can draw a parallel from the serialized stories of yesteryear. A good solid first installment is what is needed to get the reader caring about the story and characters. The "gotta know" sets in so the rest are bought.

  7. Seriously... by Ariastis · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I like that guy's attitude.

    Instead of corporate PR bullshit, he's honest, open and willing to discuss with his potential clients.

    My answer to his question would most likely have been : I just fucking hate big games companies who are run by corporate idiots.

    I'll probably give one of his games a try, just to encourage this kind of behavior.

  8. Re:Mod parent fallacious! by piojo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.
  9. Re:Mod parent fallacious! by prockcore · · Score: 5, Insightful

    DRM causes issues in legit copies a LOT. I have a lot of games that worked when I bought them but don't work on my new hardware.

    My solution wasn't to pirate... my solution was to stop buying PC games altogether. I have no hidden agenda when I say DRM prevents me from buying software.

    I now have dozens of 360 and Wii games.. all paid for. I'm never going back to PC gaming.

  10. Ironic by Manfre · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Did anyone else notice the 2 copyrighted images from "Pirates of the Caribbean" on the article. For some reason, I doubt he properly licensed those, but I'm sure that is completely different than pirating a game.

  11. Real World Goodies by caranha · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Indeed. Including a cloth map, a moonstone and an ankh in the packaging (Rest in Peace, Origin :~( ) will make more people buy the actual game instead of copying than any DRM ever will.