Thats the positive side of piracy for a developer -> market penetration.
(And making people get used to and depend on this product)
Yes I know there are some exceptions with even quite big companies to use pirated SW. In one case it was some specific tool they could easily afford (not cheap, it was about 10k EUR, but no brainer money for that company and being quite important tool for them), but for some reason they didn’t. And more interestingly the SW authors knew about that particular company that they’re using pirated copy (we’ve been in contact with both the offending company and the dealer for the SW as we as much smaller company bought it, the dealer told us about it), don’t know how it ended, but they rather tried to encourage them to purchase it from time to time, than just suing them. Probably they don’t think it would be worth it.
But in majority of other companies we met they had legal SW, especially when the company is bigger.
There are also people who are so used to warez, so they use tools like Photoshop and Illustrator for their (even within company for some non-core stuff, like creating some graphics design of their products) while they could very easily use free tools like Inkscape or GIMP, or cheap shareware. I really don’t count these as lost sale, because if they couldn’t use pirated version they would just use a free tool. They don’t use any extra professional feature of the tools. Still they do it from some habit or something. Still using these unnecessary tools in company is just risk for nothing, but that’s their problem 
Mark Leung posted many many gamplay videos of his game on youtube. On each and every one, as well as on other promo articles, there were torrent links to pirate the game.
The game was also reviewed on “WTF is…”
So, as far as getting your game out there and known, it can be a pretty good move and overall may very well increase sales.
Especially if you increase your fanbase.
It must be interesting to be a sociologist and to observe the acrobatics people go through to reinforce their positive self image.
Just because someone points out that piracy isn’t all 100% evil, doesn’t mean they’re condoning piracy. What you just said could equally be applied to the contortions you’re going through trying to interpret the ‘shades of grey’ arguments as all black! =)
The silly thing with this approach is that I think we’re fairly close in view (except for how words should be used!) I think people who can afford to pay for games should do so. I mind piracy less when it’s people who couldn’t pay, or the software is exorbitant priced (think Photoshop). Note - I personally choose The Gimp, because I’d rather use legal, free tools.
The controversy rages between the ratios between could:would:should when it comes to paying for things.
Cas
ho ho.
Cas
I personally need experience in Photoshop to get a job which gives me money to pay exorbitant prices of adobe products…
@kaffiene: I think it should be clear I wouldn’t use the word ‘evil’. And what exact “shades of grey” into black am I doing?
By calling it “illegal coping” you’re basically saying: “Weeeellll it’s, ya know, technically wrong (wink wink, nudge nudge)”. So you are in effect implicitly condoning because people hear that they want to hear.
I’m, on the other hand, saying: “Hey, steal shit if you want to, but do you really have to be such a little sissy about it? Oh yeah, and don’t be a totally loser and tell me you’re really doing me a favor in the process. Or here’s a better idea, be like most pirates and just keep your mouth shut.”
No I’m not. That’s explicitly NOT what I’m saying
That’s offensive. If you’re going to deliberately not listen to what I’m saying and just make up your own interpretation of what I’m saying - knock yourself out. I’m done with this.
To be honesty, my position is intended to be offensive to people that self-justify themselves for pirating software. I’m hoping to kick their brain in gear enough to actually think about the validity of their position.
Now, there’s no reason for you to get pissed off. You don’t agree that “illegal copying” is milder than “stealing”? You don’t agree that it’s human nature for people to hear what they want to hear?
Everyone likes to hear what they’re doing isn’t wrong, and nothing better than having a bunch of other people also doing something wrong to justify themselves to make you feel good about it. I can fully see how Roquen here is not specifically saying that the phrases you use mean you condone anything; just that the actual meaning of the phrases you are using is very easily interpreted by someone else as being Not Anywhere Near As Bad As Theft. Your words canliterally be taken from you and mean something completely different to a reader who will then feel all righteous and self-justified.
Again… philosophical arguments over semantics. Never did anyone any good.
Cas
That’s pretty much what I intended to say…and if my english mastery is failing today and it can across as something else: opps. sorry.
Hey I bet if we keep lobbing rhetorical grenades at each other, we’ll solve the whole problem once and for all.
I’m gonna lob my grenades from atop the giant mound of money I’ll amass making free-to-play games 8)
Cas
Well, I think we have pretty much figured out that pirating is bad, and there is no way it is going to stop. Anyone with enough determination can potentially become a hacker, and start pirating. Whether they would be successful or not is another story. Seriously, this topic just reminding me about “How to keep kids from stealing cookies out of the cookie jar.”
Honestly, since we know we can’t beat the pirates, is there a way that developers can use pirating to their advantage?
I’m not speaking of the obvious ways such as “free marketing”, because “free” is pulling money away from our pockets. I am speaking about ways in where developers are actually getting a productive use out of people stealing. The major thing to notice here is that people who pirate usually are not getting anything out of the deal, and if they are… I can pretty much say it isn’t enough to make an honest living. (Even Robin Hood does better than that.) Maybe it is just better to think, “people will break laws, live with it.”
I think I understand what can hold ppl from piracy,
developers need give them something more then simple game(that can be easily copied),
like unlimited access to download game that they buy(steam, minecraft …)
online achievements like in L4D, or even characters like in MMO,
that’s force ppl to use official games – they will know that they game result (played time) not disappear in any moment
(not all want lose achievements 1000 wins, and lose time to receive it again ;)),
give them hope in next day.
p.s And yes Cas free to play games give more income then simple MMO =)
umm…mmo games that are monthly fees make $$$ p2w also make craps loads of money. You cannot make and real form of living by making FREE games. Where does the money come from?
Look at WoW over 10mil subscribers. umm…that is 100mil a month if the fee is only 10$ which it is closer to 15$. I know that in Runes of Magic their pay to win system is ridiculously successful.
Most people who pirate shit don’t give a rats ass about achievements unless they give you something in the game.
Unlimited access to download a game bought from steam…can’t you do that? Blizzard lets you do that. If you have a keycode registered to your account you can download the game anytime anywhere.
The ONLY way to force people to use legitimate copies of the game, is to make it so they HAVE to play online. That is why you don’t pirate WoW or D3 and even then the games that are not all server side have been hacked.
How to take advantage of piracy…the only thing I can think of would be to not have some crap DRM and to just let it happen. You will get exposure so more will hear about the game. Supporting mods is a absolute must if you want your game to last longer then a week and many pirates are really into mods so that will help exposure.
[quote]Honestly, since we know we can’t beat the pirates, is there a way that developers can use pirating to their advantage?
[/quote]
Are you familiar with this quote: “If you are not paying for something, you’re not the customer, you’re the product being sold.” I came across it in the book “The Filter Bubble” at the start of chapter 1. It’s attributed to someone named Andrew Lewis under the alias Blue_beetle on the Web site MetaFilter.
Perhaps this is also too difficult to manage, unless the game is online. There are lots of products that automatically search online for updates, though. Can that be part of the information channel that either helps with identifying and stopping a pirate copy, or if not that, packages “interesting” information to sell to marketers?
The book (chapter 4) cites a person named Dean Eckles who is doing research on “persuasion profiles” who claims if you understand a person responds to different kinds of pitches, and simply avoid the one’s that are most likely to turn a person off, tailored marketing material can be 30% - 40% more effective. So, if a game (in which the player reveals a good deal about how they think and go about problem solving, or how they handle various scenarios) can deliver information that can be shown to correlate to ANY sort of marketing advantage when trying to sell something to the player, then you could have yourself an income stream.
How much less evil than pirating is that sort of thing? The extent to which information about each and every one of us is compiled and marketed is stupefying.
The “evil” of software piracy is very simple: Someone has built a program, and you copy it and enjoy it without compensating them.
It is pretty much indefensible, except maybe by people who like it when someone swoops in on their jobs and takes the result of their efforts without paying. :
I personally think the big problem with software piracy is how the industry sees it. The usual argument is that DRM is necessary because if piracy was impossible, all those pirates would end up buying the games (or movies, or musics…). I think it is the other way around. I think it is the ease of piracy which has resulted in the self-entitlement attitude so many people have regarding software, and if those people couldn’t pirate the content easily, most wouldn’t bother, because, in the end, they just don’t really care for the content, they only care it is easy to come by.
Or, in other words, the percentage of pirates who would turn into customers is probably very small. The point then is to evaluate if the hassle (to producers and legit consumers) of DRM is worth that tiny increase in sales.
The bottom line is that the audience for a given piece of entertainment is not the sum of legit plus pirate users, but rather just the legit users (Who care enough to actually buy the product), and it is those who should be the focus of the developers.
Of course, this is just my opinion based on my observations (Like how Ubisoft’s always-on DRM didn’t make Assasin’s Creed 2 sales soar, despite it remaining uncracked during the launch period… In fact they were worse).
As for using non-paying customers for profit, freemium games do that. F2P MMOs benefit from freeloaders because they create a community, which is an essential element for that sort of game, and, in general, free-to-play games get the chance to market to users and try to sell them stuff.
Of course the dark side of freemium games are the digital-beggars, games designed to have the player pay constantly to progress in the game (See: EA’s Facebook games).