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[jeb]

I agree, word of mouth is overrated. However, if you consider forums to be word of mouth, the value goes up.

[Business Bear]

I say do what you like to prevent piracy, but people will respect you when you put your game and its players first.  How much money do you really think you deserve anyway?

[Don Andy]

One of the best ways to fight (not prevent, that's pretty important) piracy is by simply not assuming that all of your customers are potential criminals outright and securing your game accordingly.

And there goes more to that than just saying "Oh hey guys, my game has no copy protection at all, because piracy", because that is just going to provoke people.

I think Ubisoft did that on Prince of Persia for the PC saying something like "So we'll see if taking copy protection out does reduce piracy, but we don't really expect it to, because you're all criminal scum" and then went all "Well, see?" when it really didn't (or maybe it did, I didn't see them submit any numbers).

This is not going to make customers your friends.

Public image, in my opinion, plays a big role in that. For example, the only way I'd ever play Bob's game would be by pirating it. Not because I can't afford it or some sort of DRM is pissing me off, but simply because I think Bob is an asshole and doesn't deserve the money (note that this is in no way rational, but still leads me to pirate the game).

Now this may sound a bit naive, but personally, I think the best way to keep piracy low is by being friendly to your customers and pretending there simply is no piracy. The more you try to fight it, the more you provoke it to happen. People who want to pirate the game WILL pirate the game, no matter what you do to prevent them and no matter what you try to appease them with. The people that count are those that would pirate them if the hassle of acquiring them legally would be too great.


Also I'm pretty sure that all of this has either been said in the article or in this thread, but I didn't really check, sorry.

[Radix]

It's always seemed to me that the only difference between a valued customer and a pirate is that the latter didn't pay. So you don't get their money, but whatever other reasons you have for valuing your customers are still there, potentially, if you don't go out of your way to show off your contempt. Obviously if you're selling a game then you'd really rather prefer to get paid and it's your prerogative to encourage people to do so, but you can't help an inevitable level of piracy so there's not really any need to get bitchy about it.

I think word of mouth is overestimated, even among indie games. I've only once or twice tried an indie game because a friend recommended it to me.

Classical word-of-mouth as in basing a purchase directly on the recommendation of a friend, sure, it doesn't happen much. But the broader sense in which any inclination that a person has to comment on a game lubricates your marketing and softens folks up for an eventual purpose is important (unless enough of them are only commenting to call you a dick, maybe).

[Craig Stern]

It's always seemed to me that the only difference between a valued customer and a pirate is that the latter didn't pay. So you don't get their money, but whatever other reasons you have for valuing your customers are still there, potentially, if you don't go out of your way to show off your contempt.

I'm not sure where you're getting words like "bitchy" and "contempt" from--I personally pirated some games when I was young. I think it's something most everyone does at some point in their lives. I don't have contempt for young folks that do that, and I don't think I've advocated being bitchy to them either. I do think, though, that it's fine to seed demos of your game on torrent sites to make it harder for people to pirate your game; not having contempt for or being bitchy to pirates does not require making it positively easy for them to take your work without paying.

Anyway, in another thread, some of us were talking about the impact it has on peoples' appreciation of your games if there is no barrier to entry. If this is true (and I'm not saying it necessarily is), then you have more to worry about from piracy than just not getting some peoples' money: even if you take Don Andy's "just ignore it" approach, you're then going to have a large class of people with no investment in the game, and who are therefore less likely to appreciate it, and consequently less likely to buy future games as well. If that's true, maybe that does reduce their value as customers, above and beyond the money you presumably lost from their not paying for that one game. Just throwing that out there.

[Radix]

Y'know, that point about appreciation may have some merit in and of itself. But the leap from that to a meaningful impact on future purchases (given that the usual alternative to piracy probably isn't, by default, payment) strikes me as a bit dubious.

not having contempt for or being bitchy to pirates does not require making it positively easy for them to take your work without paying.

I've been trying to make myself clear, so you can just read that as it's written. Nowhere have I said anything about making piracy "positively easy", in fact I said that what steps you take are are a developer's prerogative and that it's simply a good idea not to let anything that could be interpereted as contempt show (ie the example of doing something oh-so-clever as the p2p demo thing and then crowing about it).
Since you don't have any of that disdain I guess I must not be talking about you.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I guess the thing is that I don't see how it can even be interpreted as contempt. I don't doubt some will interpret it that way, but it's kind of a stretch. It's like saying that locking one's car shows contempt for car thieves. Making something difficult to do doesn't mean you hate the people who do it.

[Don Andy]

Making something difficult to do doesn't mean you hate the people who do it.

That's how they'll feel in the end, though.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I think only a small subset of them will. There are different kind of pirates -- there are the "religious" kind who think the people who run the pirate bay are heroes and see piracy as some kind of world-revolution. But the vast majority of them know it's wrong. So I agree that the religious type will interpret it as contempt -- but they'd interpret anything short of making all software freeware as contempt, so it's unavoidable. But I don't think the majority of pirates would interpret it as contempt.

[Aik]

I think uploading fake torrents (demo posing as real version) does show contempt - you're actively going out and breaking the rules of the site you're posting it to. Regardless of your intentions here, that's going well past locking your car type measures. Locking your car is having a serial or something on it, which I don't think anyone is going to dispute your right to do.

Your distinction between religious pirates and pirates that think what they're doing is wrong is bizarre. If most pirates thought piracy was wrong - they wouldn't do it. My guess is that most pirates are apathetic to the morality of it, with a large chunk who feel that it's morally right.

I do know someone who considers piracy wrong and pirates anyway, so they exist - but I just can't see there being that many people who disregard their morality willy-nilly.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Plenty of pirates dispute the right to use a serial -- using a serial is DRM, afterall.

I don't think it's true that if someone believes something is wrong they wouldn't do it. I do plenty of things that I think are wrong, so do most people. People are not moral saints, most everyone does things that they know are wrong. I don't know anyone who lives up to their morality. So I really do positively believe that most pirates know what they are doing is wrong, and do it anyway. The number who believe what they are doing is helpful to the developer is tiny.

You're right about it breaking the rules of a site, but it depends on how you do it. For instance, if you upload a fake version of Braid to The Pirate Bay, it would only be breaking the rules if you label it as the full version when it is not. It could just say "Braid". That's misleading, but it's not mislabeled: it really is the demo of Braid, it just doesn't say "demo".

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Another thing is, most pirates are in the third world, too -- and the "religious" type of pirate who sees piracy as a major change in how information works is mainly the internet pirate, not the guy in Russia or China or Brazil buying pirated CDs from their local store. I've a hard time believing that the people who pirate games in those countries believe what they're doing is helpful to the developer.

[Craig Stern]

Aik, do you believe pirates show contempt for the people who develop the games they play? After all, by taking the game without paying, they're violating the developer's rules of distribution (to say nothing of actual laws). I don't think contempt is generally the right word to describe it in either instance, myself.

[Radix]

Then call it whatever you like. I'm more interested in the topic than this hair-splitting.

[Leroy Frederick]

Sorry to bang on about piracy again, but I thought this was interesting because stardock (as you hopefully know) are well know for having liberal, gamer-centric approach to DRM. Unfortunately if this articles correct, they've been thanked for this by having their latest release pirated to such high levels that the it's network infrastructure was brought to its knees.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/91001-Demigod-Piracy-Running-High

According to the article, there's been over 120,000 connections but only around 18,000 are legit customers! This obviously resulted in a poor gaming performance for actual customers.

So, what do you think, is DRM free approach still the right one or is it simply the case that they should have had a check for legit user online access in the first place and nothing more?

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Only 5 out of 6 pirating something is actually very, very good. Most of the time it's measured it's 90%, 95% or higher with DRM. So having no DRM may be reducing their piracy rate from 95% to 83%, which doesn't seem like much, but that'd be a 3x+ increase in sales (5% to 17%).

[Leroy Frederick]

I guess (even if it's lower in comparison to other statistics) I kinda didn't expect it to be that high for stardock. But world of goo was like 90% if I remember rightly, so.

I do think online with username / account and server checks is the way to go as far as customer friendly and server load safe approach goes, assuming your game can use and implement it of course.

[Aik]

Aik, do you believe pirates show contempt for the people who develop the games they play? After all, by taking the game without paying, they're violating the developer's rules of distribution (to say nothing of actual laws). I don't think contempt is generally the right word to describe it in either instance, myself.

Hmm, I'm not sure. It might be, but in any case it's not that relevant, because pirates aren't trying to convince developers to give them money - it's the other way around. I'd say it's at least a slightly different thing - the pirates aren't actively trying to dick developers around by pirating their stuff, while certain DRM tactics are.

I don't think it's true that if someone believes something is wrong they wouldn't do it. I do plenty of things that I think are wrong, so do most people. People are not moral saints, most everyone does things that they know are wrong. I don't know anyone who lives up to their morality. So I really do positively believe that most pirates know what they are doing is wrong, and do it anyway. The number who believe what they are doing is helpful to the developer is tiny.

I'm sure I've seen more studies on this than what I can google - especially a recent one where some massive number (~80%) of young people in Sweden don't feel that piracy is morally wrong.

Here's what I found, anyway: http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/20/the-generational-divide-in-copyright-morality/ (purely anecdotal, but still interesting)
http://torrentfreak.com/piracy-has-become-mainstream-studies-show-090313/

And here's one that seems to basically say that the morality of the matter isn't relevant to most pirates:
http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2007/01/8703.ars

But then, even if people felt they were doing the wrong thing in pirating a game, I still don't think they'd be happy about misdirecting and time-wasting type tactics.

I don't think developers are under any obligation to help pirates get their work for free, but I think if you want them to give you money at any point - annoying them isn't the best way to go about it.


As for serials - I don't feel they're irritating or offensive enough to make a pirate dislike you - sometimes they're even beneficial, as with shareware. While I'm damn well never going to pay for another Atari game (fuck Securom), I'll buy Geneforge 5 when I have the money.

Basically, serials don't feel like a 'fuck you, criminal scum!' - active measures tend to.

I also don't think I'd ever buy a game made by cliffski based on the contempt he seems to have for me (not me personally, mind you - that would be weird because I've never spoken to the guy - but people who pirate things in general). Even if I thought that piracy was wrong, I doubt that would change my reaction to being insulted.

[deveah]

To completely get rid of piracy, make the game free. Then noone will illegally download it.

[Soulliard]

Here's what I found, anyway:
http://torrentfreak.com/piracy-has-become-mainstream-studies-show-090313/

I would be very skeptical of any survey conducted online. Online surveys are notorious for having very low response rates, compared to telephone surveys, and are therefore prone to being very inaccurate. Either way, the poll asked whether or not piracy should be punishable, not whether it was moral.

I'm afraid I don't understand the opposition to Cliffski's actions. The only people he's inconveniencing are pirates who would not have purchased his game anyways. It's the equivalent of installing a burglar alarm.