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[Schoq]

The above post describes the main reason I've just felt more disappointed with the indie games scene the longer I've followed it.
back in 2006 it really felt like it'd show the way to donation and crowdfunding models, but it turns out everyone's highest goal is to have a hit game on the distribution platforms of Apple and Microsoft.

[Garthy]

but at the end of the day, most of the folks seeking root access on a console or smartphone just want shit for free

It seems that you've made your made up about this particular issue (root equals piracy), even after I've gone over the negative consequences that come about from making this kind of assumption, and shown the problems in the argument based on your own example (Android). I've taken the time to try to find the middle ground on which we agree, which I suspect is fairly close to the guess I made (significant barriers equals less infringement). I think we agree to roughly that point.

Personally, I believe the position you are arguing is flawed and there are actually rather significant negative consequences from you doing so, but who knows really, I could just be full of crap. I hate to see the erosion over time of device access being a fundamental assumption to something actively discouraged and fought by device manufacturers. I would hope people kick up and complain about this blatantly customer-hostile behaviour.

In any case, I think I've made the point I was looking to make, as best I as I was able, which was essentially blocking root access is just a crappy solution with nasty consequences that is typically defeated and provides a minor impediment at best. It would have been neat to persuade you of this as well, but hey, thems the breaks. Perhaps someone else reading my comments was swayed a little. Perhaps two people. That'll have to do for now.

 

[seanw]

Pirating games for Android (you don't even need root access to do this) and PC is already easy and yet developers keep making games and profiting on both platforms. I'm not understanding why ease of piracy is a focal point here.

My feelings are there are lots of users on Android that just aren't interested in the hassle of pirating apps i.e. it requires more steps than using the app store,  you don't get automatic updates, there are security risks and you're only saving a couple of dollars. In terms of DRM, I think making it a little less convenient to pirate compared to getting a legitimate copy is as good as you should try to do as you're only ever going to stop the easily discouraged. You certainly want to avoid anything that has the potential to annoy a paying customer.

I see people pirating my apps and it doesn't bother me much. I accept piracy is something that's probably never going to be eliminated and if someone is willing to pirate a $1 app they probably wouldn't pay for it anyway no matter what you did. On the plus side, the technology that has made file sharing easy also gives developers access to a huge base of potential customers.

[VDZ]

It causes games to sell less when people who would have purchased the game don't because it's convenient & free to pirate. I predict the latter of these two countervailing forces will dominate on Ouya, due to its peculiarities.

It doesn't cause games to sell less. People who pirate your games are likely that they are people who won't buy your game anyway. Now that they have tried your game, if they really like it, they will still buy it.

Emphasis added to the key word. The second sentence contradicts the first. All pirated copies not representing lost sales is as ridiculous as the publishing industry idea that all such copies are lost sales. Try-before-you-buy is mainly a pirate's excuse that holds particularly little water on a system with forced demos.

It only seems to contradict the sentence, but it's actually true: Piracy can convert a non-interested customer into a paying customer.

Just like there's an entry barrier for piracy, there's also a barrier people need to overcome to buy things. As a visual novel fan, you become painfully aware of this: with new prices being twice the price of new games here, rereleases being priced at what's considered 'full price' over here, it being necessary to import the game from Japan, and the games often being hard to find on sites shipping to the West, the barrier for buying Japanese VNs is one of the highest there is. By default, I will NOT import a visual novel regardless of circumstances; it's just too costly and too hard to risk buying something I'm not 100% sure I'd enjoy.

However, I still have a couple of imported VNs lying around here, all of them still fully sealed. I originally pirated them, played them through to the end, then loved them so much I wanted to support the creators and imported the games despite their price and difficulty to purchase. Piracy has made me buy games I otherwise would not have bought under any circumstance. (I could also go on about how I wouldn't even have gotten into VNs without piracy, but you should get the idea now.)

The real trick to fighting piracy is making the barrier for purchase lower than the barrier for piracy. Steam is a great example of this; you can just browse their catalogue, find an interesting-looking game, press the 'buy' button, click next a couple of times, wait a couple minutes and play the game. As an added advantage, Steam automatically updates your games whenever necessary. To most, this is a whole lot easier than searching for a torrent of the game, installing and cracking the pirated game, finding out you need a newer version for multiplayer, installing the version update patch, having to find a new crack because the patch made the crack not work anymore, etc.

[Garthy]

The real trick to fighting piracy is making the barrier for purchase lower than the barrier for piracy. Steam is a great example of this

I couldn't agree more. Heck, I'd say Steam basically proved the concept actually works, when it's done right. Most people would rather flick a five or so to get their game fix and know that they won't have to mess about finding a crack, getting it working, dealing with malware, and all of the associated messing about. They can also easily get updates and extra goodies on demand. If enough people flick their fives this way, a good amount of money can be made. I'm not saying that low game prices are a good thing (well, they are for customers!), but it's something that works in the face of zero-cost low-effort cracked versions.

Now, with Ouya trying to go down a similar path- free game demos/segments to get you hooked, and a cheap buy to upgrade- I'd say there's a chance this could catch on as well, for similar reasons.

I'm assuming they're not planning to go toe-to-toe with the big players of course. Low-end hardware isn't the domain of the big boys anyway.

Until the Valve-box materialises, anyway. The Ouya would be dead if Valve decided to get into the console market. Valve have the distribution system down and I doubt the Ouya would survive this. But we're talking hypotheticals here.

[Faust06]

I'm somewhat skeptical about the Ouya. It doesn't seem to be meeting any significant demand, but what it entails is certainly attractive. Arguments against it tend to sound not unlike arguments against consoles altogether, and we know how those hold up. A sizable demographic jailbreaks and tinkers with consoles already, though the motivations would not be the same for an already open console. That, and not everyone wants a PC hooked up to a giant tv screen.

The outcome might be difficult to predict, but I think those who miss golden-era console gaming and want unhindered access/creation to old-school or indie games will support it. This generation of console gaming absolutely sucked, and those games I enjoyed the most could have just as well existed last gen.

The real trick to fighting piracy is making the barrier for purchase lower than the barrier for piracy. Steam is a great example of this

Completely agree.

The so-called "moral" fight against piracy will continue to fail, because in reality we have two freedoms (and interests) in conflict. Consumers like the freedom to do absolutely anything they want to a product they purchase, whether that be destroying it, or creating back-up copies they can share with anyone. Producers feel entitled to compensation for every extra individual experiencing their product so as to maximize revenue, and clearly want their pound of flesh. Due to the obscene measures taken by groups such as the RIAA and implementations like DRM, consumers will opt for a "fuck you" and choose convenience, because they can, and feel justified (nothing can change that). In free-market-fantasy-land with no barriers to entry, another producer would swoop in offering products with no DRM and thus grabbing greater market share. In reality, we have an oligopoly, with no one particularly bothered to give back to consumers, with the exception of Steam, which is winning out, for good reasons.

As for sales, it's been shown time and time again that piracy has little to no impact.

Also, I don't believe in intellectual property. We like to believe it protects the little guy, but it only really helps the man. Lets say someone devised a way to make near-perfect copies (save for the branding) of high-end clothing and musical instruments, and sell them at a discount. This already exists; they're called knockoffs (though they do range from perfect to mediocre in quality). The courts have ruled that you can't copyright clothing, but it seems the same holds true for guitar design. The idea is that the target demographics are entirely different, so sales aren't negatively affected. These are, practically, the same items, and yet monopolies aren't granted the privilege to extract more money through copyright. The difference with filesharing I suppose is that the items are exactly the same, perfect copies, which makes things problematic.

[rek]

I see a lot of lengthy replies below, so apologies for any duplication of what's already been said – I still have to reply.

The studies:

Skimmed the first three, no relevance there.

If you say so. Most people acknowledge that movies, music, and video games are cut from the same entertainment cloth, but OK. The Swiss/Dutch studies corroborate the findings of piracy's effect on the other two and show the trend is consistent for games. But, sure, whatever.

You're drawing extremely broad conclusions here.

I didn't draw any conclusions other than the phenomena would hold true for Ouya.

In any case, it doesn't contradict the notion that higher market penetration is necessary to compensate for more piracy. Clearly they're correct that consumers have a fixed entertainment budget, and piracy is complementary- but Ouya owners can allocate that budget towards products other than Ouya games.

Actually it does contradict that notion. The Swiss/Dutch studies found that lesser-known (small/new/local/indie) musicians benefited even more than the established names. And Ouya owners are no different from Wii or XB360 owners in that respect.

If piracy is a boon to the console game market, then why do the manufacturers try so hard to prevent it?

Because they didn't bother to study it first? (Or did and suppressed the findings/completely fabricated them, just as the MPAA did.) And just assumed, as the movie and music industry has since the advent of Betamax and cassette radios, that any illicit download was a lost sale (which it isn't).

A rooted/hacked PS2 can still play legit store-bought copies of games. There is absolutely no reason to assume that because someone got Linux running on their Xbox that they stopped paying for games.

The whole argument is moot anyway. No matter what Ouya might implement to prevent rooting and hacking, the console would still be rooted and hacked by someone. It doesn't matter if they're making it easier or harder, at all.

[indietom]

free to play games are generally always bad. a console with exclusively free to play games? no thanks.

Developers can offer a free demo with a full-game upgrade, in-game items or powers, or ask you to subscribe.

[Nix]

I worked every day with engineering, product design, industrial design, operations, supply chain, and QA teams.

Sounds like management

[Richard Kain]

Well, that is encouraging. Muffi sounds like an appropriate choice for working on a console like this. Since the device is essentially portable tech repurposed into a set-top box, it makes sense to have someone familiar with portable development and on-line systems. An Amazon veteran is reassuring.

[Richard Kain]

There is a particular reason why I'm so hopeful for the Ouya. For quite some time, I've dreamed of developing and promoting affordable and networked arcades.

One of the primary concerns I had with this idea was hardware standards. It would be necessary to use some variation on Linux, in order to avoid paying an extra $200+ to install a copy of Windows or OSX on each unit. But off-the-shelf components would not have consistent performance, and even a very modest rig would still run most users $250+ per unit. Keeping the costs of individual arcade rigs low is essential. Home console's couldn't be used due to their closed nature, as well as the manufacturers' continued efforts to keep the average cost high.

The Ouya solves most of these problems. $100 per unit makes it even more affordable than custom-built computer hardware. And such a device would contain everything I would need for basic arcade game development.

[TomHunt]

I worked every day with engineering, product design, industrial design, operations, supply chain, and QA teams.

Sounds like management

Herds of cats require skilled cat-herders

[J-Snake]

"What IS innovative is the beautiful design from Yves Behar, and our model for working with game developers."

Muffi

[Ant]

Live Q and A going on right now...

http://kotaku.com/5927416/the-mastermind-behind-the-ouya-console-is-answering-your-best-questions-right-here

[J-Snake]

I recently sent the tech-team a suggestion how to improve the controller by adding a "2 in one shoulder button" for more simultaneous interaction-depth. We all know the problem with so many games requiring both thumbsticks: You just have 2 fingers left for simultaneous actions. So if each finger can press 2 buttons simultaneously the game-design doesn't have to account for the limitations otherwise.

Hope it will be addressed. That would be for sure one thing that makes a difference.

[Danmark]

"Ultimately, pirates refuse to compensate authors for their work" -- Gotcha.  Blam, dead. That's a bogus argument. You don't blame Eskimos for not buying ice.  If your business model is selling ice to Eskimos, then there's no real argument -- The model will eventually fail.  The sooner the better.

Not once have I supported the old model. You're responding here to an aside about the moral character of pirates, which is low in a way characteristic of our times. If they haven't purchased a game, they shouldn't believe they've a right to it. Yet they do. Even if games are absurd products (I agree for the most part), it doesn't make piracy good, unless as part of some utilitarian, ends-justify-the-means, "break some eggs to make an omlette" madness you're supporting.

Crowdfunding may replace the current model, but it'll be a long time. Note that most game projects funded this way are commercial, whether they're asking for a little or a lot of money. What you're proposing would require all such projects to be free. Nice, ideal even. However, millions upon millions more people are needed to jump on the crowdfunding bandwagon, to make up the difference between revenue from sales and patronage before release.

Until then, stick it to the publishers, whatever. I shed no tears for them. But piracy affects independent developers as well. If games truly have zero value, everyone who buys them when they have the opportunity to pirate at equal convenience is a common sucker. That's not true, though, because the idea that developers should be compensated for their work gives games value. "I'm just helping knock down a broken system [and getting free shit]!" is a self-excuse.

Regardless of whether piracy in general for a title causes a net increase in revenue, the individual act of piracy is still wrong. BTW I've pirated ~10x more games than I've bought.

(root equals piracy)...
Personally, I believe the position you are arguing is flawed and there are actually rather significant negative consequences from you doing so, but who knows really, I could just be full of crap. I hate to see the erosion over time of device access being a fundamental assumption to something actively discouraged and fought by device manufacturers. I would hope people kick up and complain about this blatantly customer-hostile behaviour.

The point I've made is that Ouya will have massively higher piracy rates than contemporary consoles. There's undeniably some tension between easy root access and supporting commercial software under the current model, although root access is "good".

I hear that DRM in hardware is starting to be introduced in some Android phones. Short of such measures (which the Ouya team can't even afford given the platform/funding model), it'd be as easy to root Ouya as any smartphone or tablet anyway, so there'd be nothing to be gained, nor anything lost in just providing root access. Barely anything isn't better than nothing, so it's no wonder mainstream console manufacturers go to great lengths to secure their systems from their own customers. It is customer-hostile, just like 99% of what the mainstream game industry does, yet if they didn't do it, they'd have a harder time keeping their systems aflot.

In any case, root access is sufficient but not typically necessary for console piracy. It's not clear that we disagree at all.

Pirating games for Android (you don't even need root access to do this) and PC is already easy and yet developers keep making games and profiting on both platforms. I'm not understanding why ease of piracy is a focal point here.

For better or worse, it's one of the peculiarities of the Ouya. Not the paramount one, but people have some crazy ideas on this emotionally-charged topic.

It only seems to contradict the sentence, but it's actually true: Piracy can convert a non-interested customer into a paying customer.

I've acknowledged that already. The countervailing forces. I've experienced it personally.

The real trick to fighting piracy is making the barrier for purchase lower than the barrier for piracy...

Agreed. Unfortunately, lowering the bar for purchase and raising the bar for piracy (& shafting consumers in the process) are both viable for major industry players. Piracy is very closely related to convenience & opportunity, an idea vindicated by Steam's massive success in an otherwise ailing PC game market.

We all agree (I hope) that DRM is bad, though it's only stupid when it hobbles the product so much for consumers that they refuse to purchase it (such as always-online in SP games), while allowing crackers to provide a much better product for pirates.

[Danmark]

I see a lot of lengthy replies below, so apologies for any duplication of what's already been said – I still have to reply.

Everyone posts, noone reads. You just have to interject & defend your honor.

If you say so. Most people acknowledge that movies, music, and video games are cut from the same entertainment cloth, but OK. The Swiss/Dutch studies corroborate the findings of piracy's effect on the other two and show the trend is consistent for games. But, sure, whatever.

Mhmm. Yep.  Movies, music, video games, it's all the same. Okay. Sure thing, buddy. Gotcha. If you insist on a breakdown of the first 3 studies:

1) the sole mechanism by which album piracy can increase sales is greater exposure, but all Ouya games already have exposure by having demos/trials/whatever on a centralized service
2) exposure again, and tangential crap about release dates & local availability, doesn't apply to Ouya
3) EXPOSURE AGAIN

1, 2, and 3) cases where the commercial product, with its packaging & art & higher quality video/audio is vastly superior to one nabbed on the Internet; all Ouya products are digital downloads

It's moot that these instances say nothing about Ouya piracy in general, because what you were asked to come up with is support for your claim that "reducing DRM-like barriers reduces piracy". Again, not having followed the thread, you may be forgiven for not comprehending what this implies in context: if you could just burn an Xbox 360 game to a DVD, shove it in the unmolested drive, and play merrily, 360 piracy would drop. If you could just download a PSP game, stick it on yer stick, then play, PSP piracy would drop.
Ridiculous.

Actually it does contradict [the notion that higher market penetaration is necessary to compensate for more piracy].

Market penetration of a console. Christ on a Christcycle. Look- Ouya make 30% on each sale. When a copy is pirated instead of purchased, they make nothing. That means if people pirate games they might have bought if it wasn't so easy to pirate, Ouya makes less money, and can't produce as many consoles. Ouya also needs to ship consoles to customers who want them, a demand stimulated by piracy, but not actually aided by it.

Demand for Ouyas is stimulated also by commercial games appealing to paying customers. Developer confidence, reflected in the production of commercial games, lowers when piracy increases, meaning more legit purchases are needed to compensate. Ouya owners need to direct a decent chunk of their entertainment budget towards Ouya games. They're less likely to do so when it's easier to get paid games for free, so more paying customers are needed to make up for & support the freeloaders.

Add in a low price-point for games. And Ouya's marketing budget. All this reduces to the fact that Ouya needs good market penetration right off the bat, even compared to mainstream consoles. The take-away isn't that Ouya is a doomed system because of piracy, but that the current pre-order figures are slightly misleading as far as Ouya's success is concerned.

The whole argument is moot anyway. No matter what Ouya might implement to prevent rooting and hacking, the console would still be rooted and hacked by someone. It doesn't matter if they're making it easier or harder, at all.

You're a funny guy. I like you.

[s_l_m]

How about everyone who wants one buys one and everyone who doesn't doesn't?

[VDZ]

How about everyone who wants one buys one and everyone who doesn't doesn't?

[Garthy]

How about everyone who wants one buys one and everyone who doesn't doesn't?

Oi! You! Get out, and take your common sense with you.