In the Flash world, a developer can take Match 3, drop a new tileset on it, and that's all it takes to make easy cash at the local Flash portal.  In fact, that's probably the most lucrative strategy a Flash developer can follow.

Or put differently:  the most effective way to succeed financially with Flash-based casual games is the same as the way to succeed financially with huge mainstream commercial games:  make the same game over and over again, with different or improved graphics in each iteration.

And it scares the hell out of me that the same business model is so effective at both ends of the scale.  Because does that imply that Indie games (which typically inhabit the space in between casual games and commercial games) are doomed to the same fate;  endlessly re-releasing the same games with modified graphics, in the hope of re-selling the same game to the same audience over and over again?

In the end, are we just selling soap, and just add a new miracle ingredient each year, so that people will buy our new soap instead of using the old soap which, when we're being brutally honest with ourselves, actually worked just as well as the new stuff?

I suppose that maintaining retro graphics is one way to deny the ever-improving-visuals cycle that both casual and commercial games are stuck in at the moment.  But they also make most indie games become niche games, never experienced by the vast majority of people who play video games (in much the same way that interactive fiction is a niche genre;  most game-players find the interface to be unapproachable and unattractive).

So I don't know.   

I mean, yes, to continue the game the action was necessary, but you don't have to keep playing the game, so there is always an implicit choice involved.

This rationalisation only works if the game was acquired for free, I think.

God. Why is everybody a PC whore? Really, the accessibility on consoles is far greater than that of PCs. You have to boot up the computer, get everything ready, and then play the game. The Xbox is ready in seconds. Jeez 

Well, TIG is probably a bit of a biased crowd, seeing as we're on the web, and the XBox is the only modern console that inexplicably doesn't have a web browser and so can't actually get here.

I mean, even the PSP has a web browser built in.  Also, every mobile phone that's more recent than the ancient bricks my parents carry around (switched off, of course, because they don't like mobile phones, but have some inexplicable fondness for lumps of masonry).

 

By the way, what is the reasoning behind choosing MP3 for games? 2,5k$ per title may not be a large sum for bigger productions but you could have a great motivational team weekend to boost morale and productivity instead

The commercial point of view is that looking at employee salaries, $2500 will only fund your lead staff for about two days.  Maybe less, depending on how many of these key staff members are involved in the mp3 vs. something-else work and investigation. 

So from that point of view, it's probably overall cheaper to just buy the mp3 license than to let your staff spend the time and energy looking into alternatives or building tools or etc.

This is the link you want:

http://www.mp3licensing.com/royalty/games.html


It's a US $2500 patent license per game title, regardless of number of platforms that title is made for.  Or no charge, if fewer than 5,000 copies are distributed across all platforms.  And you don't get an exception from that if your game is free.


So yeah.  Go Ogg Vorbis instead.  Files are smaller, sound quality is better, Audacity support is better, and oh yeah, it's free. 

It's not like they're dispatching SWAT teams to our houses to brutally bring us down.

They don't dispatch SWAT teams to brutally bring down people who pirate music or movies, either.

But these people do get found and prosecuted.  Not everyone, of course, but there are obvious examples, and they do get hit with serious fines.

Bottom line:  It's illegal.  Everyone agrees it's illegal.  People do get prosecuted for it, and it's only likely to be more frequent.  It's counter-productive, as it only encourages companies to distrust their customers more and more.  And it makes creators of the stuff you like actively dislike you, the pirate.

But hey, if you're okay with all that, then that's your choice.  Just don't be surprised if I sue you when you pirate my work, or if I'm not overly polite to you in the forums.  

I reserve the right to be suprised if someone is excessively fined or imprisoned at all for non-commercial piracy.

Well, that's your right.  But it seems a little silly to me.

People have already been sued, fined, and imprisoned for non-commercial piracy of music and movies.  Do you really, honestly think that software makers can be far away from doing what authors of other forms of IP are already doing?


Especially after enduring the taunts of the people performing the illegal activities, in threads like this one.  Just saying.

I'm using XCode and vim, pretty much.

I also have a cross-platform CMake build, but I don't tend to use it.

It's simply copyright law.  You don't have the right to copy something created by someone else.  EULAs don't enter into it (unless you want to make a supplementary argument, making it about contracts instead of copyrights.  EULAs probably wouldn't count as contracts if seriously tested in a court of law, because they don't represent a meeting of minds, are entirely one-sided, are not presented to the end-user until after the purchase decision has been made and the shrink-wrap opened, and many/most software shops don't accept returns of software which has had the shrink-wrap removed.  But IANAL;  don't make important decisions based upon my amateur analysis)

If you don't accept copyright law, that's fine.  But you have to understand that virtually everyone else in the world does accept it.  And you have to not be surprised when the rest of the world doesn't condone your actions.  Especially those of us whose work you're illegally taking. 

And you have to not be surprised when you're fined or imprisoned for your illegal actions.

I don't understand this complaint. What problem can inserting the license into a credits screen cause?

Lots of people are very precious about their credits screens.

Personally, I figure that the credits screen is an awesome way to thank people, and it doesn't cost you a penny.  So I tend to credit early and credit often, whether or not crediting is a license requirement for something I've used.  That's why my freeware games tend to have credit scrolls that last for at least a minute or two. 

But lots of people feel differently, and make decisions about what libraries or assets to use based upon whether or not they'd have to give credit for them.

Hm.. Staying completely in character, I'm going to summarize that extremely long post as:

"Piracy is okay because I believe that anything which can be copied cannot be considered to be "property", and so morally shouldn't be protected.  Also, you shouldn't need my money to support your creation of this non-property anyway because we should be a more sharing community where you can get food and housing for free.  So I don't feel bad about not repaying you for the enjoyment I've taken from your work, because it's not like you're going to starve or anything.  Because food and housing should be free, remember?  I just finished saying that.  And now I'm going back into my happy place.  Aah, free pie.  Yum!"


 

Ah yes, that was also surely one of the earliest games to feature Fez's prominently?

(I never played the game, but I do remember reading several reviews back when I used to buy games magazines )

One of the playable characters was a living PEZ dispenser named "Uncle Fez" (and yes, he's wearing a fez).  His profile and photos are toward the end of that video I linked.

Ah yes. 

It's been used as a core game mechanic in both

and its sequel "Zhadnost:  The People's Party", which are arguably the first party games ever made for a video game console.  (Zhadnost made it a real-time affair, whereas in Twisted, players took turns.  In my opinion, the mechanic worked far better in its "taking turns" format)

I think the game Bad Company is a good example for that. Hey, you just bought the game, but to get all the content that you ALREADY BOUGHT you will have to pay us again. Moah money!

Means nothing to me;  I've neither bought nor played it.  Or for that matter, really paid much attention to it (I've become a bit bored with all the army games we've been bombarded with the last few years).  But for the sake of this reply, I'll assume that they've done something really scummy regarding their pricing.  I had a similar situation with PopCap about two years back, so I can totally understand your unhappiness.

Now, if I'm following your explanation correctly (please correct me if I've misunderstood you yet again), in this situation you're saying: "This company is behaving in a way which I personally find to be unethical.  I really want to be nice and fair to everyone, but this company has broken my trust and so I shall violate the law of virtually every nation on the earth in order to get what I want without paying their unfair prices, thus making me a criminal and them a victim." 

(okay, you probably didn't actually say that very last bit.  That was actually me stepping into your inner monologue and taking the thought to the logical conclusion.  Sorry about that.)

Whereas in my situation I said: "This company is behaving in a way which I personally find to be unethical.  Therefore, I will not buy or play or recommend any of their games.  After all, there are plenty of great games which have been made by companies who I do want to support, and so I shall give my custom to those other companies instead.  And additionally, I shall write an e-mail to their customer support group to let them know what I'm doing, and why." 

In the end, I had a lengthy e-mail discussion with one of PopCap's VPs.  I wasn't able to change their mind at the time, but they did offer me an 80% off coupon to keep me as a customer (no, I didn't take it).  I'm sure that someday they'll behave better again, and I'll be thrilled to return to them when they do.  Now that I mention it, they may have reformed already.. it's been at least a year since I last checked.

So yeah, my letter to PopCap may or may not have had an effect.  Maybe I'll check a little later on and find out whether they've re-thought their pricing policies.

But I can guarantee you that the only lesson EA has learned from your piracy is that they need more DRM on their titles in the future.


See the difference?  If enough people engage in my method of punishing a company, the company will change its behaviour.  If enough people engage in your method of punishing a company, the company will treat everyone worse.  And they'll be totally justified in doing so.

And as a bonus, I haven't made myself a criminal in the process.  Which may or may not matter to you.  I guess that's sort of a personal thing.

I said you are 'free' to pirate because, in the sense that it is an unpoliceable crime

You're using strong words like "free" pretty loosely there, friend. 

The word "free" has all sorts of big connotations to it, virtually none of which apply to your statement that one is physically capable of doing something that's immoral.

Perhaps a different phrasing would have gotten your meaning across better?  For example, I might suggest:  "You can often not receive fines and jail time for piracy because..."

Because that's what you really meant, yes?

 

[was]

Weeell, technically "Pirating games is like stealing a car" is even less plausible than the oranges thing. Eating oranges in your bath tub is forbidden by law. Nobody who does gives a damn. Pirating is forbidden by law. Nobody who does gives a damn either.

Yes, that's true.  Of course, your "nobody who does it gives a damn" criteria applies to virtually every crime in history, so as a criteria for drawing comparisons between things, it's kind of useless.   

Or if you insist, then I can draw a comparison between stealing a car and stealing software, because nobody who does either of those things gives a damn.  You were satisfied with that to equate piracy with orange-eating, and so now with this logical deduction you must logically equate piracy with car-stealing, for I have logically proven it within the framework of your own logic.  And so I charge you yield, sirrah!   

Also, logic!

The "I'm too nice for this world" "argument" was actually made by me (as you're well aware) and blatantly pulled out of context.
Seeing that I already explained it back then already (which you blatantly ignored) I'm not going to do it again.
In essence, that argument wasn't even referring to piracy and belonged to the sub-discussion about morals in todays world, that you apparently missed.

Apologies.  I thought that the sub-discussion about morals in today's world was leading up and supporting why you felt that you were morally justified in pirating.  If it was completely unconnected, then I'll happily withdraw that point.

As you could've well observed in my explanation however, it is applicable to piracy too (although probably just in my personal case).

Oh, wait, so it was explaining why it's okay for you to pirate stuff after all?  Okay then, I'll withdraw my withdrawl of that point.  But just this once, and only because I like you. 

If you really, really want though, I'll add links when I get back home. Just for you

Nah, no worries.  I can easily imagine someone having said that.  Might even have been me, for all I know.

 

Also don't forget to include the "Pirating games is like stealing a car" analogy.

Aw, come on.  I spent the time to add a link to every one of the silly claims I referenced, so that we could all go back and giggle at them again.  At least show the same courtesy to us.   

But you have to admit that "It's like stealing a car" is at least vaguely within the realms of plausibility.  I mean, it's not even in the same galaxy as silliness like "Piracy is okay because CDs are made of oil".  Or "I'm too nice for this world and so I'm going to steal stuff whenever I think I can get away with it."   :D

No, he wasn't saying people 'should be allowed to' do anything. He was saying, whether or not someone 'allows' you to pirate, you can do it. Just like you can eat an orange in your bathtub. Don't compare crimes which are policed to crimes which are not.

Eating an orange in your bathtub hurts no one, and is a stupid law that only exists in one tiny part of the world (and there only because the legislature has better things to spend its time doing than striking down silly old laws which are still on the book).

Pirating software hurts someone, and is against the laws of virtually every nation on the Earth.

I don't think your "piracy is like eating an orange in your bathtub" analogy is a reasonable one.

And Derek, I want to see this reasoning in your thread summary post as well.  Piracy is okay because it's like eating an orange in your bathtub.


I mean, honestly.

Derek, who has a somewhat objective view on these things, should write an ACTUAL summary of this thread and then just close it.

Yes, please.

Be sure to include in the summary that the pro-piracy people declared that the creators of content are being unreasonably selfish for wanting a modicum of control over the distribution of their creations.

Also, that their piracy is okay because people who make games are all stupendously rich, and so don't need money anyway.

Also, that the pro-piracy people declared that piracy is okay because CDs are made from petroleum products.

Also, that their piracy is okay because if they didn't pirate, they wouldn't be getting something for nothing.

So yes, let's do have an official, objective record of the arguments put forward by the "Pro-Piracy" crowd, and advertise them on the front page of TIGSource for all the world to see.  I heartily agree.

 

[Pirates]

Guys, guys, I think we've pretty much already settled this "is piracy okay or is it a bad thing" debate as much as it's going to get settled.

To recap for those who don't want to trudge through the 20-ish pages of posts again:

Pirates are selfish dicks who are "too nice for this world" and so don't have to actually obey conventional laws or ethics, but can take and do whatever they want because to do otherwise would "just put (them) on the losing end of the stick."

Those who don't pirate, on the other hand, are "brain-washed corporative(sic) drone(s)" who "babble (their) stupid imbecile mouth(s)" when they talk about moral rights, ethics, and respect for international law.  And what's worse, they are "so convinced that pirates are evil (that they) manage to deceive (themselves)" and discount the many legitimate reasons that breaking international law is actually a good thing for everyone.  Such as, for example, making it possible for pirates to so effectively demonstrate how they are "too nice for this world". 

And they have a pretty compelling point, there.


See?  Plain and simple, all conclusions that nobody could argue with.  Now can we let it lie and all just get along again, please?

 

edit:  Fixed my hyperlinks