It's Official, I Love Rovio

Nevermind.

 

That's an easy position to take when you've risen brand awareness to the point selling themed playground equipment is a possibility. The actual Angry Birds game is free to $5 depending on the platform while associated Angry Birds merchandise goes for a metric crap-ton of money. How many lost sales equal the profits from one Mighty Eagle plush?

 

I'm with Spamcan on this one. Give me a few million dollars and I'll let you pirate every game, book, movie and album I ever create.

 

Agreed. It's nice they embrace it, but if you went back in time before they became the iOS equivalent of Solitaire and they were struggling to find their way, they might have responded differently.

I picture the lot of them going home after a hard day of work and rolling around naked in piles of money. They probably have a vault, Scrooge McDuck style.

 

I don't even care for Angry Birds, but it's obvious that they've created a successful product and they've marketed it very well, even to the point where complete non-gamers know the name. That being said, they just strike me as very "high and mighty" whenever they make over-generalizing statements about the gaming industry (re: publishers, or in this case, piracy). Sure, pirating isn't such a big deal when you're raking in millions and a lot of your revenue comes from tangible merchandise. But unfortunately for the other 99% of developers out there, that doesn't apply to them and piracy is likely to hurt them much more. Likewise, if you're able to luckbox into a one-hit-wonder, of course you don't need a publisher. But for the rest of the indie devs out there, I think many would consider using a publisher to be a viable option. To me, Rovio seems very blinded by their success, to the point where they don't recognize that most success stories (including their own) involve some degree of luck.

 

I hate Angry Birds. The Angry Birds-ification of the video game industry has done far more harm then good. The combined efforts of Rovio and Zynga have created a monster for which I despise. All that has gone wrong with the gaming industry is personified by those two companies.

Rovio has created a culture of consumer entitlement that is as distorted as it is infuriating, while Zynga has created a culture of unethical greed. Together they have poisoned the proverbial waters. Just because you can create a system that allows you fleece as much money as you can out of people doesn't mean you should. Zynga is out to screw the consumer, Rovio is out to screw the dev community, and, because of their antics, we all get screwed.

The thing about pirates is, they pirate stuff they have no interest in owning, simply because they can. The adage is true. Pirates would not buy the vast majority of things that they pirate. If pirating a certain game is not an option, then a pirate will forget about said game and simply move on with their lives. Pirating doesn't necessarily have a profound effect on sales.

A dev will, however, see pirating numbers and become discouraged. They will lose confidence in the gaming platform and stop investing in it. This is what killed the PSP. Not the actually pirating, but the perception of developers regarding the piracy. Developers can't stop equating piracy to loss of sales. I'm telling you, the amount of sales being lost to piracy is minimal.

I'm not saying that makes piracy right. The morality of piracy and the practical impact of piracy are two different things.

 

I'm pretty sure pirates also steal stuff they do have an interest in owning. A kid who steal games does so because he's interested in games. He comes to this website, browses around for games he'd gladly pay for if only he didn't have an alternate method... then takes it. Works both ways really.

 

This logic does not follow. Of course people would download more games for the cost of $0 than they would for $50. That doesn't imply that they had no interest in the game to begin with.

 

I think there is a tangible amount lost from piracy, more than what you, and many others, echo in your sentiment dumaz. No, it's not enough to sink much energy into, but game devs who simply toss server side checks block a lot of pirates.

And I also do believe that people who want a game may look to try and pirate it first, but if they really want it and are unable TO do so... I honestly believe there is a decent portion who will turn around and buy it.

It is true, though, that app developers will see massive spikes in pirated games, thinking ""zOMG!?!!! Lost sales!!!"" when in reality it's more that people will just download everything as soon as it is cracked, just because. I remember seeing an education app developer posting that they saw a massive spike of people pirating their app, equating that to lost sales. But, really, this isn't angry birds, and VERY few educational apps have significant pull to create massive money.

Sure, some of the big names might get a fair penny if they are well done AND have luck on their side, but Jimmy's Mazeatic Awesome Adventure might have loads of pirates, 75% who wouldn't actually play the game even at free. But you're right, people see pirates and all they see is lost revenue.

Ugh, anyway. This whole discussion is pointless. It's been rehashed over 9000 times (squared times infinity).

 

Remember that home taping is killing music so don't copy that floppy or else the VCR will kill the film industry by the late 1980s. You don't need to justify piracy, it's a force of nature that's co-existed with media as long as recordable media has been around.

 

I don't even know where to start with what's wrong with your logic, but it all boils down to one thing, you're basing it on opinion and not fact. That sense of entitlement you mention, has ALWAYS been around, whether with video games, bands, movie studios, etc. They start small playing in a pub, then when they get recognition and move to stadiums and charge higher prices fans get pissed because they're selling out, or not giving a shit about the fans. It only seems this way to you because everything is so instantaneous and information so overwhelming, it's easy to have a scapegoat. You think Rovio/Zynga are to blame-did it ever occur to your simple mind that were it not for the huge success of Rovio a lot of indie devs may not have ever decided to try their hand at it as well? You need to get your head out of your ass and look at reality.

Gaming is a business, and they'll do what they can to make a buck, it's always been that way-even way back when ID give away the first episode of Doom away for free as shareware. I get so sick and tired of this type of thinking because if you had any sense of business or history you'd know you were full of shit.

As for Rovio's stance, it sounds a bit too much like, "If rape is inevitable, lay back and enjoy it," to me.

 

Yup. It's official, I hate Rovio.

 

I remember trying to copy Aladdin VHS to VHS when I was a young boy. The copy protection they used superimposed this warbled color over top. But I was, what, 15 at the time and I didn't care, I freaking loved the show. But to buy it then was, what, $100+? Not like these days where you can nab a new Disney Blu for under $20 with a digital copy, a DVD with the Bluray.

The thing is, back then there wasn't the Internet. I couldn't easily go online and download a terabyte of movies, TV shows and games in the span of half a day.

The reason piracy is so much more difficult now is because it's SO easy. A monkey could download basically anything they wanted.

So it has been around for a very long time, but it's never been THIS easy.

The nice thing now, though, is the pirates aren't making money like they used to. Before you'd have to go to one of those shops with the poorly copied cover, crappy quality movie inside... I know they're still out there, and a lot of people still do it, but not like before. That's something, right?

 

Woah! $100 for a VHS tape? I remember new VHS tapes being $10-20 in the 90's. I used to own a ton of them and I helped my parents dump two garbage bags full of 80's and 90's movies a few years ago.

People are always going to find a route to pirate and it's always been easy just not this accessible. It was nearly impossible to live during the 70's through the 90's without knowing at least one person that copied tapes and those people could easily create and distribute dozens of copies if they wanted. If all the SOPA and ACTA crap were to pass it wouldn't change anything because people would resort to local networks and portable drives if they had to. As long as media exists in any form people will find a way to share and copy it.

 

Maybe in the mid 90s, but mid to late 80s my mom worked at a video store and they printed new catalogs of upcoming movies and their prices, street were between $70 - $100 on a lot of things. Looking at Disney, their movies stayed around $80 Until Sleeping Beauty was released, then they stuck around at about $30ish.

But I remember, Total recall cost a fortune to buy and at 13 or 14 when it came out on VHS, I wanted it BAD. Rented it many, many times.

Looking back, seems Aladdin was only $30, but as I was poor and didn't have a job, but did have 2 pos VHS players that I got from garage sales sitting around, and some spare VHS tapes (99% of our movies were either recorded from TV or gotten through Columbia House... 'fore they required credit cards... Sigh, my mother).

Anyway, I do think SOPA and its ilk WOULD have a visible impact on piracy. Things got much harder when some of the larger services died (napster, mininova, the searching on tpb, isohunt's filtering) so if they took that 5 steps further with these horrible things, it would start limiting pirating to the true hardcore people. There would be a decrease... But the whole point then is, at what cost?

And that is the point. Sure, less piracy will happen but we will become like China with their filtering. Just the thought of that. Bleh.

 

Also, OT: movies stayed in theaters for eons back in the day, too. A Clockwork Orange, if I remember correctly watching the making of, lasted for almost a year in theaters. Where else were people going to see it back then?

Now, it's what... 3-4 months for most things?

No wonder we are so friggin impatient and want it now now now now now (I am no exception to that rule, I know.)

My poor children, I hang my head in shame for the NOWNOWNOW world I've brought them into, and the fact that I don't do enough to discourage it.

 

Yeah, the other thing about piracy is that you would have to be pretty stupid and/or clueless in this day and age to pay for it. My sense is that there are still a fair share of stupid, or perhaps lazy, people to go around. People are, if nothing else, too lazy to figure it out for themselves. Some market for profiteer piracy still exists. You'd be surprised at the amount of people who don't know jack about p2p. Plenty of people don't know the specifics of where to go and what to do. Or how to find a ripper, if you're looking to copy DVDs.

But, again, less piracy doesn't equate to drastically increased sells. The act of piracy is illegal, so I understand why you'd want to stop it. But pirates aren't going to buy those games if you stop them from pirating. Pirates pirate because they can, and if they can't, they'll live without.