I rarely start my own threads, but with all the discussion about piracy, and the Psychonaut's return, and adventure game Kickstart thing, I wanted to make a point about one of the benefits of piracy despite my general disapproval.
Piracy gets people's work out there, and it's a point game developers don't consider. There is a corperate trend to only look at short term interest in a game and how much money it makes right then and there. When something relatively new and experimental comes out the game industry assumes if people don't jump on it immediatly and spend millions of dollars in a leap of faith, that the product failed. They fail to realize that with the prices of games, people are less likely to take risks with experimental ideas, in part because even with established ideas the game industry is so steeped in deception and trying to polish up turds to see returns on an investment at any cost (and when people buy a substandard game it leads to hard feelings and increased wariness).
Something like Psychonauts is by definition an experimental game, starting with it's graphics style and the way the artwork looks, it's not something anyone should have expected millions of people to immediatly want to buy, especially with it's relatively limited exposure. It was however a quality game, and when it disappeared as a failure and went into the hands of the underground and pirates it generated a lot of hype and word of mouth, something the game industry seems to be oblivious to. If people are talking about a game years later, that's a sign that maybe there is more to it than what the initial sales showed. One benefit of piracy is that it allows this kind of thing to happen, and really I think it's a point the gaming industry, and piracy critics, might want to consider. Even if I'm hardly pro-pirate in general it's a thought that I keep coming back to. It's one of the reasons why I occasionally mention that the gaming industry might want to embrace abandonware a bit more, and instead of hording IPs, cast a lot of their apparently "failed" works into the wild and then see what kind of attention they garner.
Now, some of you might be wondering why I mentioned Fallout in the title. I did this, because it's arguably the poster child for this entire phenomena. Fallout is the descendant of a game called "Wasteland" which was at the time an experimental answer to computer fantasy games, this was in the era of systems like the Apple II, and Commodore 64. Wasteland by all accounts was not a very successful game, despite seemingly everyone having played it. I remember at one point there being an "10 year anniversary" set including the game along with others by the publisher, and interviews mentioning that the game didn't sell well and the developers being surprised when people mentioned it.
A ridiculous amount of time later, we saw the release of "Fallout" which even mentioned "Remember Wasteland" on the back of the box. Someone bothered to pay attention to how years after the fact people were keeping "Wasteland" alive and still talking about the game... to the point of it being used for hype purposes. Something you would apparently never get from a failed product that never saw a sequel. To say that "Fallout" became something of a phenomena would be an understatement, it's one of those products that actually outlived the group that resurrected it, to become an IP which has people fighting over multi-million dollar liscensing rights to MMOs and such right now....
Shin Megami Tensei is another example, where despite apparent failures in bringing the series to the US, the underground/pirate community distributed the game and kept it alive, and years later people were still talking about it and we saw the return of the series to the western market as a successful series.
The point I'm getting on here is that video games do not always succeed in one massive splash, a lot of them gradually become successes as a slow burn, and it's because of piracy and underground sharing that a lot of this has been able to happen.
Just some thoughts. To be honest I think the gaming industry might want to consider this. Making failed games public domain could probably turn many "failed" franchises into successful properties in a way hording them never will. If it doesn't work and a game wasn't selling, it's not like the industry winds up losing anything. The current system is why things like "Wasteland" disappeared entirely when it probably could have been successful long before Fallout, and why you might very well be about to see a successful return of Psychonauts.
Piracy gets people's work out there, and it's a point game developers don't consider. There is a corperate trend to only look at short term interest in a game and how much money it makes right then and there. When something relatively new and experimental comes out the game industry assumes if people don't jump on it immediatly and spend millions of dollars in a leap of faith, that the product failed. They fail to realize that with the prices of games, people are less likely to take risks with experimental ideas, in part because even with established ideas the game industry is so steeped in deception and trying to polish up turds to see returns on an investment at any cost (and when people buy a substandard game it leads to hard feelings and increased wariness).
Something like Psychonauts is by definition an experimental game, starting with it's graphics style and the way the artwork looks, it's not something anyone should have expected millions of people to immediatly want to buy, especially with it's relatively limited exposure. It was however a quality game, and when it disappeared as a failure and went into the hands of the underground and pirates it generated a lot of hype and word of mouth, something the game industry seems to be oblivious to. If people are talking about a game years later, that's a sign that maybe there is more to it than what the initial sales showed. One benefit of piracy is that it allows this kind of thing to happen, and really I think it's a point the gaming industry, and piracy critics, might want to consider. Even if I'm hardly pro-pirate in general it's a thought that I keep coming back to. It's one of the reasons why I occasionally mention that the gaming industry might want to embrace abandonware a bit more, and instead of hording IPs, cast a lot of their apparently "failed" works into the wild and then see what kind of attention they garner.
Now, some of you might be wondering why I mentioned Fallout in the title. I did this, because it's arguably the poster child for this entire phenomena. Fallout is the descendant of a game called "Wasteland" which was at the time an experimental answer to computer fantasy games, this was in the era of systems like the Apple II, and Commodore 64. Wasteland by all accounts was not a very successful game, despite seemingly everyone having played it. I remember at one point there being an "10 year anniversary" set including the game along with others by the publisher, and interviews mentioning that the game didn't sell well and the developers being surprised when people mentioned it.
A ridiculous amount of time later, we saw the release of "Fallout" which even mentioned "Remember Wasteland" on the back of the box. Someone bothered to pay attention to how years after the fact people were keeping "Wasteland" alive and still talking about the game... to the point of it being used for hype purposes. Something you would apparently never get from a failed product that never saw a sequel. To say that "Fallout" became something of a phenomena would be an understatement, it's one of those products that actually outlived the group that resurrected it, to become an IP which has people fighting over multi-million dollar liscensing rights to MMOs and such right now....
Shin Megami Tensei is another example, where despite apparent failures in bringing the series to the US, the underground/pirate community distributed the game and kept it alive, and years later people were still talking about it and we saw the return of the series to the western market as a successful series.
The point I'm getting on here is that video games do not always succeed in one massive splash, a lot of them gradually become successes as a slow burn, and it's because of piracy and underground sharing that a lot of this has been able to happen.
Just some thoughts. To be honest I think the gaming industry might want to consider this. Making failed games public domain could probably turn many "failed" franchises into successful properties in a way hording them never will. If it doesn't work and a game wasn't selling, it's not like the industry winds up losing anything. The current system is why things like "Wasteland" disappeared entirely when it probably could have been successful long before Fallout, and why you might very well be about to see a successful return of Psychonauts.
