"association: a group of people organized for a joint purpose" (New Oxford American Dictionary) With the exception of cubytes I haven't seen anyone speaking constructively, and his post has been ignored so far. Let's put this pissing contest aside. I don't want to hear that piracy is bad, everyone knows that and those who disagree are unlikely to be swayed. So far you've only offered commentary on a situation. You say you want constructive, so here is my challenge: be constructive. What do you think causes piracy? How do you think it can be reduced without hurting customers? What are some concrete things that developers can walk away with right now and use to help reduce piracy of their games and apps?
Hello Exosyphen, this is a very honorable initiative. Spreading such an easy ranged message will have some impact, for sure. We should take your proposition very seriously. To an extent, you should directly contact every game reviewing/gamedev site and ask them for a review of WhatIsPiracy.com. They will give you valuable advices that will lead to a better and better quality message. Try to join Gamasutra.com, they are active on anti-piracy messages. For my instance, I would give my humble opinion : - A shorter message : basically, people don't care about how piracy is bad. Those who pay already know it, and those who hack are pissed off by such moralizing propagandas. The shortest, straightest message will be read even by those who don't want to further read. - Cut out any graphical design of it. The best way to make outlaws (yes, they're outlaws) to flee is to turn this into some kind of TV ad. Like "you should eat 5 fruits and 5 vegetables per day". Be straight. No colors, no pictures, just the strict minimum with a clear structure. Here, the most difficult part will be to make it look simple, but not cheap. This could be held over by a professional graphist, which is why spreading your initiative to other sites could attract one who would feel concerned. - Name domain is perfect. Hold it firmly. (I'm surprised it hasn't been already reserved, you really should keep it at warm, it will have great value over time) - Don't name anyone, even the author. If you name someone, people will feel like it's a niche. Being anonymous let the reader use his imagination about who is who, putting names of people he already knows, and therefore will make him feel a lot more concerned. - bigger font size. Even if the message has to be contained in a semi-screen sized browser page (most of internet users run their browser in 2/3 of their screen), font size has to be big enough not to make the impression of having a wall of text launched at your face. - Finally, and more generally : Target audience will be people who don't want to read it. This message has to be thought as a shot messenger. "Don't shoot the messenger" won't be able to apply here. This is why you have to concentrate in the very same small message the following feelings : friendship, professionalism, empathy, conviction. That's all I can think of at the moment. This is pure communication, and it has to be created as seriously as the most efficient visual campaign you have ever seen in your life, or it won't be read. Again, thank you for the awesome initiative.
@c0re: http://www.WhatIsPiracy.com is already up. Read it. If you look at the manifest text, it's a completely different approach. It doesn't accuse the consumers, it doesn't praise the developers. It simply tells you one giant truth nobody told so far, and most weren't even aware. I strongly advocate that the next step in fighting piracy, is fightin the sites that promote it. Not the users. And not in a legal way, but in a smart way. @jonlink: If you read my last posts, I have posted plenty of valuable and real information on piracy, which I have compiled in the past year. ---------------------- It requires a minor effort on our behalf to get people to read WhatIsPiracy.com ... but it can have a severe impact on the long run.
Perhaps I am wrong. But I think piracy is directly related to the degree of law-enforcement in the said country. This is and will continue to be, the single most important factor in combating piracy. Education doesn't work in the short run, and is unreliable even in the long run. (people still taking drugs aren't they? And murders do happen? There are still bank robbers. I remember reading about how wrong these are 20 years ago) Piracy spreads. That is the real danger. If the bread in the 7-11 is offered for free, with minimum/no risk, even though it "could be" an offense in law, would you buy another piece of bread ever? You might, for a while, until you see everyone else around you eating free bread. Offer a trial bread and hope the people will pay you if they like the taste of it, when they can get it for free and dump it if they don't like it anyway, together with the 10000 other brands of bread? Face it, it is easy to convert a buying customer into a pirate, it takes a lot more changing a pirate into a buying customer. Humans like free stuff. Eventually it'd be "cool" to jb and pirate, and "stupid" to pay for Apps. I say threaten to fine everyone found with a pirated copy, 10x the normal price. Will all the pirates now live on without ever buying a single new app at $1.99? I think not.
I am a developer. Having said that, I am unhappy when my apps get pirated. However, many always say "IF those people who get the pirated version buy my app instead, I'd be making millions!" The fact is, big percentage of pirated app downloaders won't buy your app, even it is 0.00001cent, because that is what they are, pirates. App buyers will continue to buy apps. And pirates will continue to get pirated versions. For me, I don't look at it as negative. Sure am unhappy, but just hoping the pirates will in a way, help spread about my app, and eventually a genuine app buyer came across it, and actually buys it.
I respectfully disagree. While pirates will and do tell others about how good your app is, they do also tell many many others how easy it is to get it for free rather than pay for it. And no, buyers do not remain buyers forever, or the music industry will never have suffered at all. Though, on the other hand, it is possible to convert pirates into customers...though I don't really know how, and have not seen many, as compared to those who turn from paying to pirating. Well, you can't really download a nice 3-course dinner, or a shiny new handphone, but you can afford more of those if you don't have to pay for any digital content. That tells you why people even bothered to pirate $0.99 stuff.
I have never have and never will Jailbreak to illegally pirate apps. For me, that is what lite versions are for. With music I occasionally do pirate an album if it's not on Grooveshark to give it a lite try. If I like the cd I buy it and if not I delete the music so I feel better about it. Some people pirate just because they can't give an ass about someone who isn't getting their sales. I'd like to believe that some use it as a means to test the game out and therefore buy it. There has been evidence of app sales rising if a developers tells the pirated copy that you must buy the game to continue playing partly through the game. I'm sure some do buy the game or just delete if they don't like it. If Apple let us have the option of a 5 min preview of each game before we decided to buy or not I'm sure piracy would decrease immensely. These are just my views and opinions anyway EDIT: Thinking upon this further I have some wrong and just greedy versions of piracy for those who had no intention of buying. The greedy version are Teenage kids who maybe don't have a job yet or the money needed to buy the clothes and music at the same time, so digital material suffers as they can get that free with no real idea how it's affecting the artists or devs. The other are adults who know the affect it's taking, may or may not have the money to afford the apps or music yet choose to do it anyway. Sadly it's become a part of growing up for kids with LimeWire, Kazaa etc. But adults are thwarting the system.
As an avid gamer and part of a two-man development team about to release our first game on the iPhone, I share Exosyphen's sentiments exactly. Piracy sucks, but raging against it won't pay the bills. Truly understanding the problem and working around it will. That's why his first hand behind the scenes account is so valuable. Thanks for all the great advice on dealing with the problem. I've bought your Rail Adventures game as a tiny way to say thanks. Linh
HAHAHAHA. Music =/= apps. You realize the people who pirate music buy more than people who don't, right?
Nice job, exosyphen! Here is my contribution into the German language (changeable everytime depending on other opinions): Was ist Piraterie? 1. Potentielle Kunden werden von der Idee zur Erlangung von kostenloser Software und Spielen angezogen. 2. Software- und Spiele-Entwickler programmieren, um ihren Lebensunterhalt zu verdienen. Piraterie-Webseiten (Webseiten, die Dir kostenlos Raubkopien von Spielen und Software anbieten) nutzen die 2 oben genannten Tatsachen. Sie bieten Dir eine wundervolle Erklärung, dass ihre Handlungen legal sind und Dir als Kunden das Leben erleichtern. Das ist nicht mehr als eine ungeheuerliche Lüge. Für Piraten sind die Verbraucher und Entwickler wertlose Menschen, die sie nutzen, um riesige Mengen an Geld durch die Werbung auf ihren Webseiten zu verdienen. Sie werden behaupten, dass sie das Geld zum Betrieb der Webseite brauchen. Wir betreiben diese Webseite hier für Dich - nur für den Preis einer Tasse Kaffee pro Monat. Während der Zeit, in der ich den Text für diese Webseite schrieb, gab es 4.136.050 registrierte Benutzer auf der größten Torrent-Webseite der Welt. Bei einem schlichten Dollar, den die Torrentseiten durch jeden einzelnen von Euch aus der Werbung, die Ihr auf den Torrentseiten konsumiert, verdienen, wären das 4.136.050 Dollar; also mehr als 3 Millionen Euro. Und diese Summe kann von ihnen im nächsten Monat wieder verdient werden. Das ist also das Minimum an Geld, welches eine Torrent-Seite in einem Monat verdienen kann, auf dem Rücken der Verbraucher und Entwickler. Warum wird andererseits dieser Reichtum nicht mit den Entwicklern und auch Euch geteilt? Bitte übersdenke die oben genannten Fakten das nächste Mal, wenn Du auf einer Torrent-Webseite bist und auf ein Werbebanner klickst, während Du Deinen gecrackten Lieblingstitel herunterlädst. Vielen Dank für Deine Zeit. Bitte hilf uns, verbreite dieses Manifest. Sende diesen Link an Deine Freunde per E-Mail, Twitter, Facebook, etc. XX Personen haben dieses Manifest gelesen.
Prove your point. Otherwise, I assume that you're talking crap. I met nearly a dozend people in the last 6 months, who pirate music and never bought a single cd oder paid for a download at that time. I don't pirate music and buy everything. Same with two of my best buddies. Yout turn, Mr. Smartalecky.
@bingbingbiangbiang: Fighting piracy through law-enforcement is highly impossible. It works against major piracy, such as entities making millions of CDs to sell. Who is going to pay the cost of huge police task forces to sweep every computer and device in every home? @swiftest: Thank you! @Vovin: Putting up the german version shortly. Fellow developers who speak other languages, please make a translation to your language if possible. ---- @everybody else: You are making a WRONG assumption by trying to define a general pirate profile. There are a few large categories and each one has it's reasons. Some of the reasons can be worked against and eliminated (ex: crripled demo, no demo, price affordability, etc). Piracy as an industry exists because people that operate the piracy networks make huge amounts of money. Piracy is similar to the drugs industry. There is a lot of money to be made, so it exists. But trying to fine each drug consumer instead of eliminating the drug dealers, doesn't work. This is the reason I have put up that manifest. We should fight against those that operate the network. Raising awareness among consumers will work. And this will work, because people pirating software have a decent IQ. A drug consumer is defined by a person with low education, and a low IQ. Being able to jailbreak an iPhone and go through some technical steps to install cracked apps, demands that one has a high enough IQ and will understand that manifest. And they will figure it's easy to perhaps continue downloading some cracked apps, but don't click on their ads anymore, as a way of slighlty balancing things out.
My english is not that good, so I hope you can understand what I'm going to write here .. I want to share something that might help .. I remember getting all the trouble to get a legit copy of Leisure Suit Larry VII .. this game is banned in my country, so I have to sort of smuggle it via friend who went studying in US .. during that time, piracy of PC games is very common here in my country .. you can get a copy of pirate floppies on street mall .. easily .. in contrast to get legit copy of game is very difficult, the no of legit games retailer is less than 10 in the whole nation .. so why do I went through all the troubles just to get my hands on LSL7? Simple, it because of the Cybersniff 2000 and the coloured manual .. Cybersniff 2000 is a nice touch to LSL7, it is a scratch and sniff paper, where you can actually smell the area in corresponding of the area on the game .. My point is, developer might want to think a differiantator factor of their product .. sure, people can crack the game itself, no matter how secure the system .. but people can never efficiently copy something that tangible like in above example the Cybersniff 2000 .. in appstore, maybe what dev can do is to award registered customer with something that add a value to their copy of game .. registration of course required a proof of purchase from the buyer .. take any RPG for example, for every copy of legit game, if user register, developer might consider to send a copy of walkthrough, strategy guide etc to the registered consumer .. or maybe for a more casual game like line drawing game for example, registered consumer will get an actual copy of postcard (imitation) that they can relate to the game .. or maybe a poster, keychain .. there is a lot of possibilities there .. sure, the running cost might be increased a bit .. but I wouldn't mind paying double for a copy of let say, DOOM RESURRECTION provided that I can get a big poster that I can put in my room .. to combat piracy in my pov is neither to fight the pirate or win their respect .. instead you have to win the consumer from them .. just my 2 cents .. apologized for the grammar ..
@exosyphen : I'm afraid that focusing on how big servers make money on piracy will only affect a very, very small portion of pirates. A lot of torrent sites don't require to click on an ad at all. Plus, in order to have a great game for free, people won't care to just do a simple click on a big button. Also, kids and teens don't care if their favorite server is doing quick money thanks to them. They might even be happy with it. This message is too specific, imho. But well ... @gelas_plastik : As a dev, I refuse the necessity to work twice the time in order to be paid half of it
Hi Core, As I say, I wouldn't mind to pay double the actual price to get the 'poster' .. and actually, for the 'poster', you can even sub con it to other company that is specializing in that .. i believe MERCHANDIZING is the term here .. or maybe BRANDING .. I don't know, but it just a though that I think it might help .. well, it does make me bought a legit copy of LSL7 in an area surrounding by pirate who offer cheaper, and exact same copy of the game ..
Gelas, the only relevant point to your story is that you bought LSL7 because you *couldn't* pirate it. A heck of a lot of iphone pirates would buy games if they couldn't pirate them. Only apple can really fix that and even they can't really stop it; they could only make it much more difficult. Raising awareness like this thread does can help I believe. There will be some that read this and think twice about pirating their next game. I don't think it will be a world changing percentage of people but its worth putting the message out anyway.
nope .. I bought LSL7 is not because I couldn't pirate it .. as I mentioned earlier, in my country it is very easy to get a pirate games during that time .. I could just simply go to the nearest street mall and bought it for 5 bucks (in my currency which is equivalent to 1.5 dollar) the reason I bought LSL7 is because of Cybersniff 2000 .. the tangible item that come with the legit copy of it .. I've also bought legit copy of numerous local music CD's because of the poster and T-Shirt that comes with it .. some of it at premium price .. if you get what I mean ..
I know I'm being a pedant, but I think you meant to ask him to back it up. Here it is: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/apr/21/study-finds-pirates-buy-more-music Not that this report matters. Like every report on piracy, it is all smoke and mirrors. You can't create reliable findings based on a series of dubious estimates. Both sides do this, there is no exception. As I've said before, anger isn't the way to improve this situation. Sending a "message" to pirates that you hate them is not going to bridge the gap needed to have them reconsider their actions. If someone on this site says they pirate games talk to them calm, be a friend and mentor. If you scream nasty names and tell them they are awful people you aren't going to get the results you are looking for. On the other hand, whatispiracy.com probably isn't effective either. Do you think a person pirating music, movies, and software is going to have a change of heart by reading this? Piracy is generally a selfish act. Different people have different reasons, but I don't think this will sway any of them. @exosyphen I don't mean to belittle what you are trying to do, but I don't think your message works. For one, it is way too long. Try something more simple. Maybe some rotating messages with "Is that ok?" as the theme. "Is that ok?" "Piracy websites make lots of money, developers make lots less." "Torrent websites are a business, which business are you supporting?" etc. etc. etc. That's off the top of my head, not so great, but you get the point. Short, simple, not belligerent. Doesn't that make sense, folks? I've yet to meet a bellicose person I'd agree with. EDIT: "Piracy as an industry exists because people that operate the piracy networks make huge amounts of money." This the simple kind of message you should have on the site. Big letters, then if you want add a _short_ explanation. Don't use numbers, it damages your credibility. We've all seen what a game piracy numbers are while they were being manipulated by organizations like the RIAA who have massively blundered their way into a bad PR black hole. You don't want to echo their actions in anyway for that reason alone.
To scorn inappropriate behavior can be effective. As far as I can tell, I was the only one called a name in this thread. Of course there can't be a 100% solution, any reduction helps. You put developers in an impossible position. If they don't look like they combat(or at least try) piracy, they could alienate their paying base. This they can not do.
