What happened to my post that included a simple link to a professional British games journalist and developer analysing the statistics in the story? Is this place such a witch-hunt you're not even allowed to acknowledge that there are different points of view? http://wosblog.wordpress.com/2010/01/15/the-most-spurious-piracy-figures-ever/ EDIT: I've just been told that you can't post links to your own website. But since it's NOT my own website that's not much of a reason.
In all these studies/numbers/oppinions/etc, there is ONE THING everybody refuses to do, and just blindly stick to a random oppinion. Why don't you ask developers about it? They will give you facts, numbers, and reliable information. As a developer for the past 10 years, I was approached on countless ocassions on the issue of piracy, by various entities trying to conduct a study. Those studies were based on facts and real figures. And one thing is sure. Their outcome and results is nowhere near that hype article from which this entire thread has started. @Snaggleteeth: How dare you challenge the oppinion of one developer that didn't get rich quick from one small app? /sarcasm off
Let's assume I buy 100 AAPL shares at $50. I pay $5000 Shares soar to $500. My shares now worth $50000 Shares plummet to $10. My shares now worth $1000 I HAVE LOST $49.000 ($50000 - $1000) I HAVE LOST $49.000 I HAVE LOST $49.000 OMG! But wait. I paid $5000 and now I have $1000. I have actually lost $4000 Nobody will read the real fineprint below. Headlines will print that I have lost $49.000 --------------- Now to get to the point. Did that $450 million ever existed in the pocket of those pirates, and because they could pirate their games, they instead spent that money on booze and hookers.
It seems that if you ask developers about it, and their informed opinion is "Piracy really isn't a big deal", people around here vow to boycott that developer's past, present and future games forever. People on this very thread have said that exact thing, which I find absolutely incredible.
Picking cherries again? Ngmoco quotes launch week piracy of 50-90%, Fishlabs quotes launch week piracy of 95%, one developer on TA thread says he enjoys seeing his game torrented in exchange for random sales. "Piracy isn't a big deal" is a rather sweeping statement to make.
"Piracy really isn't a big deal". This is my statement. I don't endorse piracy. I don't like it. Yes, I lose money due to it. But what can I do about it? You as a GAMER, what would preffer me to do most of the day: - spend my time reducing piracy from 59.8% to 59.6%, or - spend my time developing new features, content and updates for the game you purchased from us? For the past 8 years, our fan base has been more than happy with the second choice. Here is some nice lecture: http://www.exosyphen.com/site-forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=51&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=piracy A guy came to our forums and posted a torrent link for one of our games. And a whole discussion started from there, between us a company and our customers/users. Read on...
It's great if your company has found a sustainable living with a revenue stream enabled by piracy. I'd like to point out though, that if it is you posting on the forums, quote: "I happen to live in a country where 99% of people pirate their software, don't pay their taxes and try to steal everything they can for free." that your developer profile is vastly different from studios and publishers living in western countries. Large studios do not survive on trickle streams, but instead depend on the major sales of the launch weeks for the majority of their revenue. Piracy hurts this revenue the most, and in some cases kills the entire revenue potential of a game if it never reaches the top charts because of lost launch week sales. Development studios have closed down due to piracy. Game consoles have died due to piracy. Activision quoted the majority of CoD4 players on their PC servers to be pirates. EA will probably not die out of piracy, but will cut down its number of employees to survive with less revenues. I find it ridiculous for anyone to stand up and say this is not problem. You as a developer can at the very least educate people to the effects of piracy. Patting pirates on the back and calling them your marketing team doesn't help anyone in the long run.
Oh... is that so? Maybe complete Touch Arcade should convert to piracy quickly, if it really isn't the big deal. Why should we spend money then? If it isn't the big deal, this statement would count for everybody. Why should we continue this discussion - we've got better to do! JB our devices and start looking for the best pirate and torrent sites, that is... And I really, really wonder why the governments are so stupid to call copyright infringement a "crime". To people, which organise and stand up against software piracy, which want to discuss it, try to convince people to actually buy the apps, to clarify what software piracy really is, how much work developement is - like me -, your opinion feels both wrong and a little disrespectful, like a friendly slap in my face. And just by saying: "what can I do about it?", you solve nothing, I think. No, it is correct: you alone can't stand against software piracy. But you are not alone. There is no quick standard solution to piracy, but there are ways to work against software piracy. If you like, check my signature. There is a link to a social group "TAer against software piracy". By clicking it, you should read: "This is a group with the goal of supporting developers by members taking an oath to never use a cracked app. Members of this group feel that piracy on the iDevices is wrong and harms developers unduly." This group has 272 members now. That are 272 potential customers who refuse to use cracked apps on their iDevices. I am a member and proud to neglect the antisocial behaviour of pirates. But - why should I bother about copyright infringements in the future? As you stated: it is no big deal.
"Again"? I've made two posts. And nobody made any sweeping statement. I said if AN INDIVIDUAL developer said such a thing, they faced being boycotted by people such as those on this thread, for the terrible crime of not conforming to their prejudices about piracy. Which is perhaps why you don't hear more developers expressing that opinion.
Prejudices against piracy? Did you just say "prejudices against piracy"? Ever heard of something like "law"? How can an opinion against something illegal be a "prejudice"? This is getting more and more absurd.
@Frand: Isn't it a wonderful thing to look smart by quoting certain portions from my post, which look good from a certain perspective, and alter the reality accordingly? I have made my statement "Piracy isn't a big deal" but your forgot to read further. How convenient! Let me write this up again. "Piracy isn't a big deal", for me, because I have found both a technical and logistical solution to cope with it. If a water floods my city, I can't do anything to STOP IT. I can find technical and logistical solutions to deal with it, and be able to say: "It all turned out fine, BECAUSE I spent my time figuring out a proper solution for it, instead of posting on forums to look smart". Further on Frand if you would have BOTHERED to read the discussion on my studio's forum, you would find out why certain people who downloaded a pirated copy, did eventually purchase our game. It's right there in their own words. But again, it's very convenient to miss-quote me and look smart on TA. I focus on those aspects that made people eventually buy the game. That is how I fight against piracy, and not by miss-quoting people on TA. Further on, profiling me based on the country I live in, language I speak, etc, it's nothing but the LOWEST INSULT. What is next? Blame everything on afro-american developers? Muslims? Catholics? ... Is there anything else on your low level supremacist agenda? @Vovin: I have givenyou a real link to a real discussion where people explain why they abbandoned their pirated copy and decided to purchase the game instead. Reading that, can give you as a developer, a real insight to the problem and what you can do to address it. --------------------------------------------- I am opening a new paragraph here, for people interested in some indepth information on how piracy works and what can be done to reduce it's levels. @Frand and @Vovin, please skip this part. Feel free to miss-quote again what I have stated above. 1. Piracy levels in indie games (or smaller studios) is a lot smaller than for big developers (as a percentage, not units, so it's irrelevant who sells the most). Having a smaller customer base, often allows an indie studio to offer a more personal service. Fast reply to emails. No copy & paste BS. Perhaps a little side conversation. It makes gamers feel like being your friends. Well, in our case, we consider them so. They feel completely different about you, when they see you online on IM and can shot a question: "Hey guys! When is the new update coming out?" Treating your gamers as people, and not revenue generating entities, increase the level of respect they have for you and for your work. They share this oppinion on your forums and other public places. Real facts that made me draw these conclussions: 1. See the discussion on our forums, to which I have provided the link. 2. People being active on our forums for the past 7 years!!! We have people who grow up on our forums. Keep in mind that I am talking about a game/studio/support oriented forum. It's not TA where you come daily to check out the newest games. What keeps them there? 3. Having people buy your latest game and state: "I am not sure if I will be able to play the new game anywhere in the next 3 months, but I bought it to support you". 2. I have implemented a very simple DRM solution for our PC games. It requires a one-time online activation using the serial number provided. No tech issues, no crippleware, etc. Nobody complained because it's simple. It's also simple to crack. BUT, there is a user area where they can login with that serial number to download "stuff". This creates a huge curiosity for "pirates". But there is also a disclaimer. DO NOT SHARE your serial number as their usage is monitored and will result in an instant ban. Up to date, there isn't one single serial number that has been shared. Everyone guards his/her serial number like a precious gem. They know that it entitles them to a lot of goodies (free expansion packs, huge discounts on other products and a lot more). Make a social experiment where you work/live. Put a simple white box in a public place (water cooler, etc) and write this note on it: "DO NOT OPEN. CLASSIFIED SECRET DOCUMENTS CONTAINED INSIDE". and put a note: But you can take a peek inside, if you are willing to pay $1 (or whatever currency there is available). You will find some interesting results. Make sure there is always a little bit of extra something given with your product, which is only available to the valued group of people who paid for it. On a psychological level, it will make people want to be part of that special group.
You started with: And now it's: I usually refer to the above as generalization, also known as a sweeping statement
Yes, this is definately a solution I can live with. To give honest people a little bit of extra stuff is always nice and - I am sure - appreciated also. But otherwise - why is it neccessary to give people extra stuff? Because a big mass of users has no common sense of fairness. I think that it just shouldn't be neccessary to give out stuff by that means, then it gets a feeling like "bribing" them for their honesty. And I don't mean to offend you and it is nothing personal, my rantings should not target you in first line, but I heard opinions like these more than once and they feel ignorant somehow. It's just that software piracy makes me mad, because people simply don't think and care about fairness - sometimes in a way they don't recognize that software piracy is doing something wrong. Software piracy is something that went common and normal. It became ordinary. This is the main problem. It is good to hear that you have developed a way to deal with software piracy to a point where you can live with. But there are other stories. A good friend of mine was employed at a small games developing company and got fired because they weren't selling enough games - due to piracy. They had online highscore tables in one game which showed for every 100 users that have bought the game, another 800 illegal copies were played. In the first week, they sold 7.000 copies, but there were over 50.000 different users in that highscore tables. I can't prove that the other 50.000 gamer would have bought the game - but I also can't prove that they wouldn't have.
I meant all PSP and DS games in general. In fact, all PS2, Xbox, Xbox 360, Wii and Mac and Windows softwares all have piracy problem. I only mentioned PSP and DS as I used to follow those devices closely (owner) and know that you can get pirated games very easily. Any games. Fishlab said piracy in Symbian is much worse. In just several hours from launch, it's available on internet forums. It's way worse than AppStore's piracy and the sales are pretty weak compared to AppStore too. I thought it's been effective so far? Why not use it? All those pirates have been crying everytime a DLC comes out. In your case, for example, you can give Zen Bound lite as the free base package. If they want the full game, they must pay the full price and it'll unlock all levels. Similar with Pacman CE. @exosyphen: It's easy when you have several customer friends who nag about update. But when the pre-launch thread of one's game reached more than 1,000 posts asking similar question of 'when will it be out?', maybe Frand might reconsider that option That said, I agree with your bigger point that there can be a solution to all problem. That applies to everything. But your example might not be the applied in everyone's problems as they might have slightly different condition and situation. Say, for a team of 10+ people, creating a project without thinking much about income is a non-sense. It's fine if they're all doing it as pet project in their lunch time, but not fine if it's their fulltime job and they have mouth to feed.
I apologize if you've misinterpreted my reply. I first congratulated you because your company has made a living with the situation you quote. After that I acknowledged that your situation wouldn't work in western countries. There should be nothing insulting about these facts: - Average salary in Romania in 2009 is 323 Euros ($465) - Average salary in Finland in 2009 is 2800 Euros ($4027) Which means your ability to survive high piracy rates is over 10X that of a developer over here. You can survive on 100 sales per month. Over here we would go bankrupt. So pardon me for pointing out that your view on piracy is influenced by your country of residence.
This is incredible. So, since I pay for my apps, I must be a fool. Why should I bother. After all, if paying for a product or not is simply a matter of one's own prejudices, then I clearly have been wasteing my money. Sizzla.. is absolutely within his right to boycott developers who don't understand the value of a dollar. Why should the customer do this for dev? It's his money. I'm sure he finds it valuable, as he probably works damn hard for it. He's a customer, and from the sounds of it a honest one(paying). Clearly, some people(developers) are not cut out for business.
He's entitled to boycott anyone he wants. But let's be clear and honest about why he's doing it - he's doing it because the developer refuses to play along with his ill-informed witch-hunting. Personally I don't think I ought to be telling a developer how his business works, since I presume he knows it rather better than I do, so if the developer doesn't think piracy is damaging him then I'm not going to form a baying lynch mob and persecute him for it. And here's the funny part: Amount of money that developer makes from Sizzly: 0 Amount of money that developer makes from a pirate: 0
Fine, now we all take that view and no one pays. Sounds good to me. It takes balls to insult an essential component of business. Make no mistake, when you defend piracy, that is exactly what your doing. Witchhunt? What on god's green earth are you talking about. No one has hauled you away since your still typing on you device. We are not advocating lynching him. However, I agree with Sizzla.... I don't have to subsidize developers who don't value our money.
