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Pirates as a Marketplace
John Riccitiello, the CEO of Electronic Arts, made some revealing comments in an interview with Kotaku about how the company's attitudes are shifting with regard to software piracy. Quoting:
"Some of the people buying this DLC are not people who bought the game in a new shrink-wrapped box. That could be seen as a dark cloud, a mass of gamers who play a game without contributing a penny to EA. But around that cloud Riccitiello identified a silver lining: 'There's a sizable pirate market and a sizable second sale market and we want to try to generate revenue in that marketplace,' he said, pointing to DLC as a way to do it. The EA boss would prefer people bought their games, of course. 'I don't think anybody should pirate anything,' he said. 'I believe in the artistry of the people who build [the games industry.] I profoundly believe that. And when you steal from us, you steal from them. Having said that, there's a lot of people who do.' So encourage those pirates to pay for something, he figures. Riccitiello explained that EA's download services aren't perfect at distinguishing between used copies of games and pirated copies. As a result, he suggested, EA sells DLC to both communities of gamers. And that's how a pirate can turn into a paying customer."
Really? Funny old world, isn't it
I distinctly remember EA being sued a while ago for copyright infringement.
They used a piece of music in their games without permission from the composer
Anyway...
FWIW, my bro bought a pirate version of GTA3 from the local "unauthorized distributor". Yes he didn't download it, it's just more convenient to just buy it.
:).
:).
:).
So after playing many hours of it, he decides that the GTA bunch (Rockstar/Take Two Interactive) deserve some money, so he tries to buy a legit copy of GTA3 but it was banned (in this country) so there was no legit copy around to buy.
So when he was in another country, he tried buy it, but it was banned there too
I figure if the GTA bunch had made it easier to pay them, they'd have the money.
We preferably don't want to pay for shipping, distribution, shop's margin and all the other crap - the pirate shop has already done that for us, just let us pay the difference? That's fair right? They get what they'd normally get from the sale, and we get what we want (the game).
It'll be interesting if list price from pirate + GTA bunch's normal cut < list price from legit shop.
Of course that could be because the pirate shop sells more than a legit shop (cheper) and people don't necessarily pay the normal cut to the game makers. BUT, if it turns out to be much cheaper, perhaps the game makers might make more by working better with the pirate shops and other "unauthorized distributors"
Many of the "pirates" are already happy users of the software. Just make it easy for them to pay, and don't make it annoying - just have the link present on the main menu - obvious but not annoying. For example have something that says "If this game is a nonlegit copy, but you really like it, click here to pay us a discounted price". Not all will pay, but the more they play the game, the more likely many of them will just go "this game is great, I guess they deserve X bucks (which should be a _lower_ price than RRP).
Years ago, one of the Microsoft bosses in my country scolded subordinates for going hard on people that were using pirated Microsoft Software (reporting them to BSA/courts _immediately_). Told them in effect "These people are already happy Microsoft users, all you have to do is get them to pay". And it's an easy sale - just go to the users and say, pay us "$$$"/copy now or have the court tell you to pay far more per copy. I'm sure they did give some discounts/special payment terms in some cases (many businesses just don't have all that cash available to go legit immediately). But they've already got all the software installed and configured - no cost to Microsoft, get the money, give them the license keys. Pure profit. No need for sales talks, presentations and "expense account spending". In contrast I've heard some cases in USA where Microsoft went hard on companies and those companies just completely stopped using Microsoft as a result (and as long as the CEOs are still around their companies will never buy Microsoft).
Do it right and it's an opportunity for you, do it wrong and it's an opportunity for someone else