GenGenners said:
To those playing the "it's your property" card, I raise you the "you agreed to the TOS" and "developers don't get paid for pirated content" cards.
In all seriousness, I actually wouldn't mind if they kept it to themselves, because then it really is just affecting their own property. It's a shame a stupid money-grabbing group forced their hand.
TOS, like EULA can be ruled unconsionable. Basically, the layperson usually can't understand it, and the contract is too one-sided for consent to be seen as binding, and the consumer is not informed of all the terms of the terms prior to purchase, except in fine print on the back, and the terms are not elucidated at the time of transaction. They're bullshit. Some of them have been ruled worthless, and excluding the legality of the contract, it's a disgusting and amoral business practice to extort the customer in such a way.
Also, the developer includes in their TOS, the ability to update the TOS, and remove functionality, like the OtherOS system on the PS3. So they're already using blackmail in changing the TOS to force the users to accept their new terms, and take away features the users paid for.
At which point I feel, you get what you deserve when people start hacking your system and taking back what's theirs, and everything else besides.
ResonanceSD said:
That's such a cop out answer these days. The pirated version is free. What do you need to provide, as a new developer, to be able to beat that? People pirate INDIE games, for fucks sake, they aren't going to come over all moral because "WE NOW DECIDED THE PRODUCT WAS WORTH PAYING FOR ALL OF A SUDDEN BECAUSE REASONS, AND SUCH".
You can provide content easily which pirates aren't. Piracy isn't so easy, to the newcomer, and if you can avoid driving more casual users to piracy, then you can increase your revenue dramatically. For some titles, pirates are running 90% of the games, so if you can encourage just 1/9th of that, you'll double your profits. (I'm basically summarising a post from Shamus Young's blog, which I don't have time to find).
You'll never beat the pirate version for price, but you can beat it for convenience. You can add content on a regular basis through updates, which rewards the customer, and makes piracy more of a hassle to get the same quality game. You can reward users of your systems with previews of upcoming titles and discounts on them. Yes, this takes extra effort. But a minor bit of extra effort gives a large result: Whilst pirated versions are more common than bought versions, every successful conversion is worth more, comparitively.
There's no way to completely stop the pirates from getting it, and the extra stuff you offer. They can and will get their hands on anything you put out there. But if you make your version a little more enticing, and make piracy a hassle (By releasing new content etc, not by putting DRM on it), then users will be more inclined to buy your product. Whereas at the moment, if you want the simplest, best copy, piracy may be the best option, which is exactly what publishers don't want.
