Angry Birds Boss Credits Piracy For Popularity Boost

An anonymous reader writes "Mikael Hed is the CEO of Rovio Mobile, the company behind popular mobile puzzle game Angry Birds. At the Midem conference Monday, Hed had some interesting things to say about how piracy has affected the gaming industry, and Rovio's games in particular: '"We could learn a lot from the music industry, and the rather terrible ways the music industry has tried to combat piracy." Hed explained that Rovio sees it as "futile" to pursue pirates through the courts, except in cases where it feels the products they are selling are harmful to the Angry Birds brand, or ripping off its fans. When that's not the case, Rovio sees it as a way to attract more fans, even if it is not making money from the products. "Piracy may not be a bad thing: it can get us more business at the end of the day." ... "We took something from the music industry, which was to stop treating the customers as users, and start treating them as fans. We do that today: we talk about how many fans we have," he said. "If we lose that fanbase, our business is done, but if we can grow that fanbase, our business will grow."'"

Comments

Tomorrow's Headline

[TemperedAlchemist]

Rovio Mobile indicted for taking part in the Mega Upload conspiracy.

Re:Tomorrow's Headline

[davester666]

Once his company goes public, and the stock price takes a tiny little dip, suddenly at the next investors meeting it becomes "Piracy is the devil's works!"

Re:Tomorrow's Headline

[rylin]

Except they already declined a buyout for billions.
They're not hurting.

Re:Tomorrow's Headline

[Jafafa Hots]

Desperate for cash seems to be the standard business model these days though.

They can have billions, but they're still desperate for more.

Piracy: Free Advertising

[kainosnous]

Piracy is one of the greatest forms of advertising. In some businesses, it's called "word of mouth". Growing up, many of the products I was introduced to, and subsequently became loyal customers of, was thanks to "piracy" of one sort or another. Back then, nobody saw it as a bad thing. The rule of thumb was copy all that you want as long as you don't try to make a profit from it or pass it off as your own.

When I was younger and still listened to mainstream music, my favorite band was Metallica. I heard them on the radio a few times, but I didn't know who they were. That is, until one of my friends loaned me a cassette tape. Then, a series of them. I was hooked. I bought every CD I could find (even though I already had the tapes), and I tuned into every radio station that played them. From what I understand, they owe a lot of their success to piracy. It's a shame that they attacked Napster. By the way, has anybody heard anything from them lately? I wonder how their anti-piracy campaign is working?

It wasn't just music. Everything from software and video games to free food came along my way, and I often rewarded the company with my business. I was always more loyal to companies that treated me like I was a prize to be one, and not a resource to be manipulated. I hope that the media companies realize this before we lose too many of our rights. As for me, I've already given up on them.

Re:Piracy: Free Advertising

[Wattos]

It is.

Once you enter the professional world (e.g. get a job in that business) you become part of the decision process on which software the company should purchase. Since you will have already gathered experience in photoshop, the company might be more inclined to go with that instead of GIMP.

Simalarly, it is easier to find people with the relevant skills. E.g. if it becomes hard to find people with photoshop skills, the business which change their applications, so that it is easier to find people with the correct skillset.

So you see, it does benefit them in one way or another.

Re:Piracy: Free Advertising

[Stormwatch]

Home users are not Adobe's clientele: who would ever pay $2600 for a software suite? Well, if you work with graphics, you probably will. Mainly because their stuff is pretty good, but also because you're used to it. That piracy was ultimately good for them.

Re:Piracy: Free Advertising

[Tastecicles]

They didn't just attack Napster, they called everybody who listened to music, thieves. That was the drummer Ulrich who said that.

At which point I made a public event of incinerating hundreds of Pounds worth of Metallica merchandise just to make a statement:

YOU DO NOT SHIT WHERE YOU EAT.

Re:Piracy: Free Advertising

[benengel]

I have been a web and graphic designer for over 10 years and have pirated countless copies of photoshop, dreamweaver, flash etc over the years for personal use beginning in the days when i was at uni. Since I started working in the industry every position I have ever worked has always had fully licenced software and I have been involved in several purchasing decisions where I strongly advocated buying new licences for the business for new staff etc. If I had never pirated photoshop in my earlier poor uni days I would never have had the skills to get a job as a web designer. Since then both I and Adobe have benefited from that initial piracy monetarily and continue to benefit.

If effective restrictive DRM has been in place or criminal penalties highly draconian when I was considering whether to pirate photoshop I would instead have trained myself on Corel (an inferior but similar product) and would be working at places where they had corel licences not photoshop. I would be trained in a crappier product and Adobe would have much less money as a result.

Re:Piracy: Free Advertising

[dejanc]

Today, I still pirate Photoshop.

This, clearly, is good for Adobe. (Unless, more likely, it's not...)

I live in freelance web development world where many people across the globe are included in making a website. The designer designs the site using Photoshop. This is later sent to HTML/CSS cutter who provides bare templates, which are worked into a CMS by programmers.

Often enough, the designer has a licensed copy of Photoshop. HTML/CSS cutter and most other people in the assembly line don't and they use pirated software if they need it.

If it were not possible to pirate Photoshop, project managers would demand all designs in a format which can be opened (without any issues) using free software. This way though, we are all locked into PSD's because we are used to it, so it easily maintains it's industry standard position.

For what's it worth, I've seen excellent designs using Inkscape and GIMP. As much as I would love to be able to move everybody in the process to open source software, it's not going to happen as long as Photoshop is "freely available".

Re:Piracy: Free Advertising

[engun]

It is.

Once you enter the professional world (e.g. get a job in that business) you become part of the decision process on which software the company should purchase. Since you will have already gathered experience in photoshop, the company might be more inclined to go with that instead of GIMP.

This argument might apply to software used in the industry like photoshop, but how will it apply to something like games, intended for personal use?

That's why I think the "piracy is good" argument makes no sense. Piracy is the act of using something without giving money for it. Let's not try to kid ourselves into thinking it's a virtue.

Personally, I think that the way to stop piracy is for industries to stop being greedy. It's just not reasonable to expect the massive prices that are demanded for every song, movie, game etc. etc. on the market. People consume a lot of media. The daily bombardments of advertising is to ensure that this happens. For people to be "in" on the scene, they need to consume this stuff. But who has the money to pay $80 per game? or $20 per "3D" movie ticket? Companies need to sell items cheap and make money on volume. And they can!

High prices or high volume, pick 1. If you charge a high price, expect to cater to a niche market and for the masses to pirate. If you want high volume, charge a low price.

Instead, these guys want to charge a high price and have volume to boot. Greedy bastards.

Re:Piracy: Free Advertising

[Anonymous Coward]

Regarding Metallica:

They actually did learn from their experience. Death Magnetic was leaked on youtube days before the album came out. Metallica was so blown away by the positive reaction that they didnt DMCA any of the songs(the studio lawyers did for the first few uploads, but Metallica put a stop to it and let the leak continue). Death Magnetic went on to sell very well, and Metallica acknowledged the leak was a good thing and that they look at things differently now.

Re:Piracy: Free Advertising

[ciderbrew]

Same with 3D products. They can't count any kid using a pirate copy as a lost sale. The sale is impossible. They should mark it as training to potential sale. Have people sign up to download the crippled training copy They should be giving the software away with decent documentation and training. I know you can get student copies; but the price can still be a months worth of food. I see Lighwave3D 10 costs £150 for the student copy. I'd buy and have it sat on the shelf never used at that price. No spare hobby time these days!

Re:Piracy: Free Advertising

[silentcoder]

>If Gimp was a viable alternative to Photoshop for professional users they would be using it. I use Gimp for my small modificationos of private pictures, but I sure as hell miss the more advanced plugins from Photoshop.

Did you try installing the advanced plugins for GIMP ? This argument is 5 years out of date and I'm getting sick of it.
PS. I'm a professional art photographer (as in published in international magazines including Marie Claire) who uses exclusively free software on Linux. And I have never had an editing task or post-processing idea that UFRaw+Gimp couldn't handle with incredible ease and exceptional power. Photoshop hasn't been better than gimp in many, many years - it has ONE advantage only: familiarity. People like you know where the plugins ARE - and you expect it all to come shipped with the main program. Gimp ships the core functionality with the main program - the advanced plugins are shipped separately - so users doing website logos don't need to muddle through menus of plugins only useful to photographers (and vice versa).
Name ANY photoshop plugin and then type it's name +gimp alternative into google and I guarantee you'll find it.

In fact, I actually tried photoshop the other day since I was not at home and wanted to do a quick edit on a friend's pc which had windows and photoshop but no gimp. After half an hour of fruitlessly searching for the feature I wanted in the unfamiliar menu structure I gave up and downloaded gimp for windows and the plugin I needed.

You learned photoshop, you haven't learned gimp. And if like me, you had done the opposite, you would be saying the opposite. The difference is just that there are a lot more people like you . There is no real difference in quality between the programs - but if I had to wager one and with my clearly stated bias I would say gimp is the higher quality one.

Re:Piracy: Free Advertising

[psiclops]

because no sane IT department allows anyone in the company to use software without a license (unless of course it doesn't need one)

Re:Piracy: Free Advertising

[Riceballsan]

Because companies are subject to random audits by BSA etc... As well in a company environment no half way inteligent company would bootleg software because they know all it takes is 1 person to turn them in to destroy the company. Turnover is inevitable in a company, and it is equally inevitable that every few years you will have 1-2 people who left the company and aren't on friendly terms with it. Photoshop I believe is one of the best examples of software that is more or less intended to be pirated by the individual users. It is barely useful at all until you are an expert in it, you can't become an expert in it without using it for a long time, and it's price point is well above what any sane home user can afford to pay without high confidence that they are going to recoup the investment.

Uh oh

[Anonymous Coward]

We took something from the music industry

Incoming lawsuit?

Really?

[brit74]

Really? A company that sells their product for a dollar finds it's uneconomical to drag pirates into court? Besides, it's easy for people to buy Angry Birds since it's easily searchable in the AppStore, and most people would find it way more trouble than it's worth to try to pirate it and save themselves a few bucks. They have a huge convenience advantage over pirates.

Re:Really?

[Sqr(twg)]

This is exactly the situation the music industry was in. If they only had created an easy way to buy and instantly download songs for a dollar a piece, piracy and sites like napster would not have become so popular. Alas, they chose to rely on lawsuits instead, probably costing them billions in lost revenue, untlil Apple more or less forced them to join the iTunes store.

Re:Really?

[DZign]

True.
And their business model isn't a perfect analogy with the music industry, so their comparison doesn't hold true.
Btw I know I'm playing devils advocate here.

But the music industry are in fact middlemen between consumers and the artists themselves, and their product (revenue) comes from the music itself (songs, on cd, downloaded, ..) but not tshirts, posters, concerts, .. as usually the artist benefits most of that.

Rovio can be compared to the artists (who also sell themselves). Their main product are downloads of their games. Anything else that is copied (tshirts, posters, toy dolls, ..) can indeed be seen as free publicity, which will help make their brand stronger, which in the end results in more sales of their core product: downloads of their games.
And those producers that pay for a license to make related products, are seen as additional income streams, but licensing the Angry Birds brand is not their core business.
If enough illegal dowloads of their full games become available, or other people will make clones of their games (think angry owls/bad birds/..) and this causes a significant drop in sales of their own games, they'll also have to react (by legal means) to survive as a company, as their main income stream is treatened.

If you want to compare to the music industry, then compare them to artists. Most (small) bands don't earn a lot from cd sales, getting known is better for them, even if it's by illegal downloads, as this will mean they'll become more popular, do more and bigger concerts, sells related things (posters, tshirts, ..) and so on, and these are things that increase their income.

He is right

[future assassin]

Photoshop anyone?

Re:He is right

[dropadrop]

Photoshop anyone?

This 5x

Most people would easily get their problems solved with Gimp, and if there was a huge user base of simple users they might even make an easier "Lite" version out of it. Adobe knows, so they don't put meaningful copy protection in their applications. They know their target customers are corporations since normal people won't have 500-1000€ to throw into such an application, so they just try to ensure that people are accustomed to their products already before working anywhere. This way once they get a job they'll be asking for photoshop instead of permission to download Gimp.

I even see this at work. Somebody who's only need for editing graphics is resizing a logo from 250*120 pixels to 125*60 pixels will be running photoshop to do it...

Ripping Off

[cosm]

...Angry Birds brand, or ripping off its fans.

Because Rovio brought us the first of this wonderful concept of projectile-tower crushing. No ripping off there. Never been done. Glad people pay for it. **puts on old and bitter smug-cap, goes back to Crush the Castle 3**

Well, well.

[mykos]

Paulo Coelho would tend to agree with them, even taking it a step further. He's joined up with Pirate Bay as part of an arts promotion program.

Gotta Test Drive A Car Too!

[EETech1]

My friend downloaded a cracked and pirated copy of angry birds, and he liked it so much (as did his wife) that they both purchased the full copy of the game. He sent it to me, and I purchased it also (having tried the free version and went Meh...) but probably would not have, had I not gotten a chance to see all of the levels, and really appreciate the game!

Probably 75 percent of the games that I have ever purchased, I have played a pirated version first not the demo. Especially when you can get all of the levels or vehicles unlocked and use all of the different weapons and just give it a good run through to be sure it's really worth having.

If it's not worth buying, it's not worth keeping the pirated version around either!

Cheers:)

Microsoft has been doing it for years

[Anonymous Coward]

Even though they would probably never admit it, IMHO this is how Windows and MS Office got so popular.
I do not believe MS would not be able to come with a better way of protecting against illegal copying. It is just that allowing people to copy windows without much effort created a very nice near-monopoly on OS for them.

Re:Microsoft has been doing it for years

[hcs_$reboot]

Even though they would probably never admit it

They did it involuntarily.

Re:Microsoft has been doing it for years

[GreatBunzinni]

They did it involuntarily.

Not quite. They did it voluntarily, and in a very explicit way. Bill Gates himself has said the following:

"Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, people don't pay for the software. Someday they will, though," Gates told an audience at the University of Washington. "And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."

Even the founder of Microsoft stated that the unauthorized (and free) distribution of Microsoft products is benefitial for a company such as his own. The totalitarian copyright enforcement crap only comes in as useful if a product already attained a reasonable market share, and therefore there is a copyright to enforce. Until there isn't a copyright to enforce, they simply turn a blind eye for convenience and due to business sense.

Re:Microsoft has been doing it for years

[devent]

That is why copyright should be never used against the private use of a work. Also it should not invade the privacy of the homes of citizens. Sadly, it is doing both and the new harder laws to protect copyright will destroy our culture.

the sw is just small part of the piracy

[gl4ss]

..one of the "pirated" products was a fucking theme park.

If Beethoven is alive today ...

[Taco Cowboy]

... he would be filthy rich - and his offspring will be forever filthy rich as well, thanks to our "perpetual copyright laws"

Unfortunately, he ain't

That is why Beethoven died dirt poor

But on the other hand, the world is far more richer because no one could monopolize the wonderful music of Beethoven

Re:If Beethoven is alive today ...

[sjames]

A good story, but not what happened. He described himself as penniless for a while due to the costs of caring for his sick brother (there's something many in the U.S. can relate to) and his lack of output during that time, but he wasn't exactly out on the streets (in fact, he was still able to appear as a nobleman). Several bouts of personal illness and a protracted legal battle didn't help either. However, he left an estate when he died.

Re:If Beethoven is alive today ...

[crutchy]

in the US, it only depends on how good your lawyer is

Re:If Beethoven is alive today ...

[houghi]

You could say the same for Rubens Oh wait, not only was he filthy rich, he also put his name on the work of his students, thus pirating his own students.

Also Beethoven might have been rich today, that would not mean his offspring would be as well. His record producer would be and most likely he still would be dirt poor.

There are plenty of musicians today that are not rich. Some just like music more then they like money, just like some would never work for a specific company, no matter how much they like coding.

It is a pity that money is seen as the only proof of success.

Re:If Beethoven is alive today ...

[Gription]

Actually it depends on how good your lobbyist is...

And while you are at it you should incorporate because Washington recognizes that the rights of individuals are subordinate to the rights of corporations. Don't go in groveling. If you go in as a corporation they are already trained to do whatever you ask.

Re:If Beethoven is alive today ...

[postbigbang]

Add to this, the fact that the current installs of Angry Birds on many Android mobiles (can't speak for iOS) ask to be allowed to do everything but perform a DNA analysis on you. They want to have your phone traffic info, GPS info, network connection info.

And for what, using a free game? No, no, I'm sure they're using that information for good, just like Google does.....

Re:If Beethoven is alive today ...

[hairyfeet]

Nice strawman you have there, don't mind the match...WHOOSH! One has exactly fuck all to do with the other, you might as well have said 'Welll...instead of playing with your iPhone you should go out and catch kiddie fiddlers". And most of us had NO problem with copyrights as the founding fathers intended, but the simple fact that Walt Disney, a man whose been dead longer than most of us have been alive, has most of his first works, works made when planes were made of cloth and antibiotics were just a dream, they are STILL under copyright? i'm sorry clueless but that is just fucked up. You have a right to make money from your works, you do NOT have a right to eternal profits, either make NEW things, which was the whole point of copyrights, to give the artist the money to continue working, or kindly GTFO.

Re:If Beethoven is alive today ...

[muindaur]

Every time a movie is released on DVD or shown in the theaters it's copyright date is extended. This is part of the reason, other than making more money, DIsney does it's "Before it goes back in the vault" marketing: probably the second part of CD box sets too. Before copyright law was changed to allow home movie releases to extend copyright, they would release the film in theaters about every ten years. Like I said, it's the second part to the reason other than making more money. A convenience they lobbied congress for.

Re:If Beethoven is alive today ...

[Hatta]

If Beethoven were alive today, he'd be making tiny residuals while the recording industry made millions off of the rerelease of his works on BluRay.

Re:If Beethoven is alive today ...

[mcgrew]

You could say the same for Rubens Oh wait, not only was he filthy rich, he also put his name on the work of his students, thus pirating his own students.

That's not pirating, that's plagarism. Plagiarism helps nobody but the plagiarist. Piracy helps the artist. Roger McGuinn's career died when the labels decided he was too old for rock and roll, and it was resurected with Napster, who he said brought his music to a whole new generation. Speaking of McGuinn and The Byrds, the lyrics to "Turn, Turn, Turn" are in the public domain -- they come straight from the King James bible.

Cory Doctorow came to the same conclusion as Mikael Hed a long time ago. As he says, nobody ever went broke from piracy, but many artists have starved from obscurity (Van Gogh comes to mind). He credits the fact that he publishes under a GPL license, gives his books away as ebooks on boingboing, and encourages sharing for his status as a New York Times best seller.

I credit the free public libraries for the fact that I have a couple dozen Asimov titles on my bookshelf; were I not to have been able to read him for free, I'd never have bought any of his books.

There are plenty of musicians today that are not rich. Some just like music more then they like money, just like some would never work for a specific company, no matter how much they like coding.

I know quite a few musicians, and none of them are rich. Most do it as a second job simply because, as you say, they love music and love playing. None of them would touch an RIAA contract with a ten foot pole.

Re:If Beethoven is alive today ...

[dave420]

It doesn't, though. No GPS, just course network-base location (for their ads, no doubt), phone info for personalisation. So yes, they're using it for the adverts that make the game free to have. Don't want it? Don't click "install".

Exactly.

[MrEricSir]

That's why I always use the bathroom in the restaurant next door.

Probably

[Greyfox]

That's why MS DOS, Windows, etc did so well back in the 90's. All you needed to clone a DOS system was a floppy disk. I don't know if I ever saw legitimate MS install media. Of course, once they got well-established, they started cracking down...

Re:That's unpossible!

[Moheeheeko]

And of course, with our luck it happens to be the one who produces shit as a product.

Re:In before...

[unkiereamus]

In before someone justifies their piracy by saying they help with advertising.

Oh wait, only six posts as I type this and already too late.

I'm going to go ahead and abandon modding on this article, because I can't believe no one has called you on this crap.

Specifically, TFS and TFA both defend piracy by saying they help with advertising, specifically quoting people who are (massively successful) content creators, you know, the folks who are financially impacted by piracy...

Look, I can see both sides of the argument (well, in detail it's more than 2) about piracy, I can see how they both have valid points, and am unwilling to come down firmly on either side.

What I can't support is someone who is so much a zealot that they resort to this sort of attack by ignoring basic facts.

I really wanted to watch Van Helsing the other day

[Idimmu Xul]

I really wanted to watch Van Helsing the other day. I just wanted to watch it, not own it. I've recently had a cleanse and sold all my DVDs to a second hand store, only keeping my wild life documentary Blu-Rays as I got a bit fed up with having hundreds of DVDs cluttering up the flat.

After scouting around, on Amazon it is about £8 for the Van Helsing Blu-Ray, on iTunes it is about £8 to buy/download forever Van Helsing.

I'm not a fan of buying movies to keep like that, I just wanted to watch it once, not keep it on a HDD for the rest of my life, i figured to me it's worth £1 to download/stream and view once.

Lovefilms do PPV at £3.49 for most films, Van Helsing wasn't available and that's more than I wanted to pay anyway. They also do unlimited streaming for £5pm.

Netflix do unlimited streaming for £6pm but their site didn't seem to show Van Helsing and there wasn't a one off option.

iTunes only lets you buy, not one off stream and that's the same price as the Blu-Ray.

BitTorrent on the other hand had it readily available for free, but I don't pirate so watched my copy of Planet Earth instead.

Am I unreasonable in wanting to watch once an 8 year old film that had a budget of $160 million and broke $300 million in the box office for £1?

Is it unreasonable to not want to pay monthly subscriptions to a service that doesn't have the film I want to watch anyway which forces me to watch more films than I want in order to get value for my money?

Is it me that's broken, or their business model?

Re:I stole a car the other day ...

[mwvdlee]

Could you please explain how you stole a car without the owner losing it?
You know, like the digital copies this article is about.

Appstore economics.

[Half-pint HAL]

Rovio's attitude stinks, because it just runs on the same lines as all appstore economics.

Rovio have made millions, but they're the exception -- most mobile apps get few or no sales. The profits in mobile apps, spread across all writers, would amount to a pretty pitiful wage. Losses to lower-order app developers mean loss of (already rubbish) income. Losses to Rovio mean little or nothing, considering the scale they're on.

Advertising? Well, three things:

1) It's well established that piracy tends to favour known and popular materials over unknown and unpopular, in all media. It therefore serves to further entrench the established players -- so it's great for Rovio, not much use for John A B Smith Software.

2) The entrenched players in mobile apps are supported by their appstore ratings, compiled from legal downloads. Even 100,000,000 downloads of a pirated game wouldn't get it above Angry Birds in the appstore charts, so it wouldn't get commercial discovery and success.

3) Angry Birds is a brand, and the toys and cartoons make lots of money. Most apps aren't merchandisable. PocketPlayPool -- are you going to market branded balls? GTCarsXXVII -- the manufacturers retain all likeness rights to their own models, so there's nothing to market. Same goes for EAProSportofchoice20xx and sports personalities/teams.

So what Rovio is supporting is market conditions that favour their particular product, which is very different from market conditions that ensure a robust and healthy competitive environment, or that ensure innovation and development.

Re:Appstore economics.

[ghostdoc]

If your customers aren't buying your products, please stop whining about customer behaviour and change your products to suit the market.

If your business model doesn't make money in the market you've chosen, please stop whining about the market and change your business model.

So what Rovio is supporting is market conditions that favour their particular product, which is very different from market conditions that ensure a robust and healthy competitive environment, or that ensure innovation and development.

The market is fixed. Your business model and product is flexible (or should be). So change your product so it suits the market conditions.

Rovio understood that the market they chose to operate in has a large amount of piracy. Instead of trying to change the market to suit their products, they chose the eminently more profitable option of working out how they could make piracy work for them. As you've pointed out, one of the ways they did this was by launching merch to go with their game that allowed them to take advantage of the fanbase generated by pirate players. As another poster pointed out, the game they created is not unique and the Castle version doesn't have the merch potential, which is possibly why Angry Birds made a lot more money from the same game.

Pirating software is going to happen regardless of any action you take. It's a fact of life in the market. So you can choose to view pirated copies as lost sales and let your business plan get broken by it, or you can choose to view it as free marketing and incorporate it into your business plan.

Re:Appstore economics.

[nomaddamon]

I'm a hobby developer for WP7 with 2 of my friends. The first thing we do on every release is upload our app to various torrent sites and seed the hell out of it.

If someone has jailbroken their phone and is capable of and interested in finding, downloading and installing a pirated app on their phone, they are lost revenue for us anyway.
Our only hope of revenue from these users is to provide them with good enough app so that they keep using it and might buy it (and advertise the app within their circle of friends, who might not be competent enough to pirate the app)

If it is easier to buy the app on appstore than to pirate it, then pirates are good for you

I can't say for sure that we wouldn't have made it without piracy, but currently we have 5 simple apps out and with total cost of 2000$ for launch advertising (and "free" work for 2-3 weeks at nights, after our daily jobs) per app, we gross around 6500$ every month

Since we seed our apps ourselves, we see that approximately 20% of installations are pirated (~2000 torrent downloads vs ~10000 sales via store every month) but we are sure that without the 20% "lost" sales, we wouldn't make the top charts of legal downloads... ever....

Grep this

[wreakyhavoc]

The music industry cries foul about file sharing, but you can find almost any music track on Youtube.

Music execs are finally getting wise to the benefits of try-before-you-buy. Artists certainly have been for a while.

What exactly is the difference between listening to a new album - or even watching full videos - on Youtube, and downloading them from peers to listen to before buying? They know it increases sales, yet insist on draconian measures to the contrary. I smell a rat.

I listen to a lot of stuff. When I find something that really excites me I want to buy it. I want to support the artist(s). It makes me feel good to give them direct feedback that what they've created is worthwhile and they should do more. It's as much a gift to me as to them. You know, like charity or volunteering, giving is the greatest gift, own reward, etc. Music that makes my heart sing is *really* worth something.

It doesn't matter if they're some kids from the ghetto, or dinosaur rockers who got it together to put out something that cooks like they used to, before they sold out to the cookie cutter pop machine. Even though I can listen to it already.

I'm sure the music industry gets this. It seems to me that these sopa/pipa/acta type laws are more about censorship and consolidation of power than lost sales.

--------

"Do what I say when I tell you to do it."

Re:That's unpossible!

[rb12345]

can I get angry birds for linux?

http://chrome.angrybirds.com/ seems to work fine.

Re:That's unpossible!

[Pikoro]

http://chrome.angrybirds.com/

Your welcome. Your wife has already thanked me :)

Re:That's unpossible!

[tehcyder]

And of course, with our luck it happens to be the one who produces shit as a product.

What precisely is wrong with Angry Birds as a game? (Other than the fact that it is popular and therefore non-1337, and is played by people who aren't "gamers" on machines that don't require $1000 graphics cards).

Re:That's unpossible!

[TheRaven64]

The fact that it's basically identical to 100 other throw-a-thing-to-knock-over-other-things games? The first 10 or so I played were all fun, but after a while they got a bit repetitive. Then Angry Birds was released and everyone talks about it as if it's the best game ever and totally new and original. It's a competent implementation of an old idea - not the best I've played, but not the worst either - but the public reaction to it is completely over the top. Angry Birds fans are like people encountering Doom 3 as the first FPS that they've ever seen and saying how amazing it is.

Re:That's unpossible!

[psiclops]

welcome???
geee thanks, what i really needed was another distraction to prevent me from doing the work i was supposed to already have finished.

i'm blaming you in advance for this not being finished on time. (i wish i could backdate this blame, it was seriously due november last year, then skyrim happened)

they took something from the music industry?!

[Cyko_01]

We took something from the music industry...

NOBODY takes ANYTHING from the music industry without paying for it! I'm sure they will have RIAA lawyers on there doorstep within a few hours.

...which was to stop treating the customers as users, and start treating them as fans

oh, they were just kidding - the music industry has yet to learn this lesson.

Re:I stole a car the other day ...

[psiclops]

you know, if you'd just pirate your movies like a normal person you wouldn't have to see all those silly "you wouldn't steal a car" ads at the start, and then you probably wouldn't think that stealing a car is the same thing as pirating software.

Or your PR dept. (Rovio is lying)

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that Rovio is lying, they specifically told XDA to remove modded versions of their games that block ads and remove copyright protection. They did this several times. This is a PR stunt, pure and simple. They are saying "PIRACY IS GOOD" while mumbling under their breath "for our competitors hahaha"

Or, more specifically they are saying piracy is fine as long as their in-app purchases, advertising, and merchandising are all making money. Basically they are saying they aren't concerned about their game being a loss leader. What they have essentially just admitted is their games have little to no value other than as a method to pull a consumer into their other product bases. He's pretending that he's pro-piracy when really they have just shifted strategy towards the MMO "freemium" model.

Some proof: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=838184 (there are several cases of this happening, with XDA mods openly admitting they had been asked not to let these apps out there)

Ok guys, I said I would look into improving Angry Birds and I did All ads are gone, and I optimized the app for better performance! Enjoy everyone, let me know what you think of it!!!! Also, please vote in the poll if you can! Thank you

Thanks to: Creators of the game!

Link down as requested by developers

Piracy may cause publicity, but it doesn't come free. Anyone who says it's free PR is either deluding themselves or an idiot. Was some piracy good for their bottom line? Sure, probably. But they put the kibosh on it when it stopped being PR, and started cutting into ad sales.

FWIW I am not a game dev, so dont bother painting the naysayers as disgruntled devs with inferior products. That's as presumptuous BS as the RIAA saying they lose 100 trillion to piracy.

Re:Or your PR dept. (Rovio is lying)

[Stewie241]

I think you're saying more or less what the summary says:
See:
"Hed explained that Rovio sees it as "futile" to pursue pirates through the courts, except in cases where it feels the products they are selling are harmful to the Angry Birds brand, or ripping off its fans."
and
" When that's not the case, Rovio sees it as a way to attract more fans, even if it is not making money from the products. "Piracy may not be a bad thing: it can get us more business at the end of the day.""

Your point is obvious - piracy doesn't make you money. On the other hand, piracy can lead to a growing customer base. The point Hed is making is more that suing customers is more likely to lead to reducing your customer base rather than growing it. This is perhaps particularly applicable when it comes to small games like Angry Birds where there is money to be made off of merchandising.

In Rovio's case, as you seem to inadvertently point out, Rovio makes money both on the sale of the game and on the generated advertising revenue. If people pirate the game, they still make the advertising revenue.

Wrapped up in this is the idea that Rovio's business model doesn't just depend on game sales, but also on advertising revenue and merchandising. This should be obvious as Angry Birds is free on Android anyway.

I think what they recognize is that for their particular product, there is a large portion of users who would not pay for the game. The choice for them is play the game for free or don't play it at all - they might as well have these users playing the game and generating hype than going and playing some other game and making it popular instead.

Re:Or your PR dept. (Rovio is lying)

[Luckyo]

I find that their POV is rather similar to that of microsoft. "We don't like piracy, but if you're going to pirate, we prefer you pirate our stuff then that of our competitors, because we will still make money on publicity, adaptation numbers and so on".

Re:Or your PR dept. (Rovio is lying)

[eineerg]

And a and supported free version on android as well. Instead of fighting the market they're catering to it.
strange how that's working out for them

Order of the Stick

[sckeener]

People seem to be focused on the piracy aspect of the story and I focused on the 'fan' aspect. Something that is going on with Kickstarter as of this week is Order of the Stick, a free online web comic, that has blown away its goals multiple times in the first week of the kickstarter. That is the power of fans. The product is free on the web, but yet fans are tripping over themselves to get out of print material back in stores.