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Stardock Declares Victory Over Demigod Piracy

Posted by Soulskill on from the power-of-optimism dept.

We recently got a look at some hard numbers related to the piracy of Demigod , a new game from Stardock and Gas Powered Games. Now, two weeks later, Stardock CEO Brad Wardell has essentially declared the game a success in spite of the piracy, and reaffirmed the company's stance that intrusive DRM is a bad thing. The game's sales figures seem to bear him out. Quoting: "Yep. Demigod is heavily pirated. And make no mistake, piracy pisses me off. If you're playing a pirated copy right now, if you're one of those people on Hamachi or GameRanger playing a pirated copy and have been for more than a few days, then you should either buy it or accept that you're a thief and quit rationalizing it any other way. The reality that most PC game publishers ignore is that there are people who buy games and people who don't buy games. The focus of a business is to increase its sales. My job, as CEO of Stardock, is not to fight worldwide piracy no matter how much it aggravates me personally. My job is to maximize the sales of my product and service and I do that by focusing on the people who pay my salary — our customers."

3 of 403 comments (clear)

  1. Useless to get angry about it by bzipitidoo · · Score: 0, Redundant

    So software piracy makes him mad? His anger is misplaced and irrational. Might as well be angry that the sun rises in the east, water flows downhill, and bears do their business in the woods. Copying is a fact of nature, and we will never get everyone to agree not to do it, nor would we want to. Seek out another business model, or suck it up and live with the current awful one.

    But he's so mad that he blunders and calls pirates thieves. Isn't there a single advocate of so-called intellectual property rights who doesn't make the "copying = theft" mistake? Speeding does not a thief make, and neither does copying. He should instead be ecstatic that there are enough people willing to donate to keep his business in the black.

    --
    Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
  2. Mod parent up by nyctopterus · · Score: 0, Redundant

    This is absolutely correct.

  3. Re:Not really accurate by DuckDodgers · · Score: 1, Redundant

    You can't steal a Mercedes because you think $50,000 is too much for a new car that will be worth $20,000 in five years. You can't steal a comic book from a store because you think $3 is too much for something you can read in twenty minutes.

    Games are no different. If it's not worth $50 for 8 hours of game play, don't play it.