View from the Road: When I Was a Pirate

[yoyo13rom]

This thread has DEATH debate written all over it.
So I'll just say: "I'm glad to see a nicely written article, with a different perspective on things. Job well done John!"
and remain neutral.

 

[DuX1112]

*snip*

Go through the last few pages and read the replies - it's a lot of "faceless corporations don't need my money", "copyright means that, somehow, the creator thinks they own the things they made!" and "it's data, it's free anyway!".

All of these arguments essentially boil down to the idea that the time and energy spent making a game are worthless - the final product has no physical structure and can be copied at will, so everything that the designers, artists, animators, composers, writers, modellers and even the PR and marketting guys did for several years is worthless to these people. I don't care about the money, it's the utter lack of empathy and respect that pirates have that gets to me.

Also, I'm currently still under the banner of "indie". I don't get a salary making my games, beyond what I get temping in offices and working in supermarkets. It's not as if just being indie (therefore not being a big, evil, faceless corporation) get a free defence against pirates - in fact, they're hurt more by them (just look at stuff like World of Goo and the Humble Indie Bundle). Again, pirating a game is telling the people that worked on it that their time was worthless, which is disgusting.

Chippers, in the post you snipped I believe I made it clear that I don't neglect the human factor in making games. On the contrary, I'd love to make games too, but regrettably there wasn't much incentive in my country to either educate myself to do it or just do some self-learning (heck, we had only dial-up Internet over here until 7-8 years ago).

If you go back to my last long post actually, you'll encounter this statement of mine:
"I love it how their arrogance costs them money."

And I still stand by it. Now don't get me wrong: the "arrogant" ones are big companies' CEO's, directors, various executive boards etc. These guys, the "bosses" are the ones almost every gamer dislikes. Those are the arrogant people, who, let me make myself clear: don't enter markets like my country wisely, but do so greedily (imposing Hollywood prices on us), and (understandably) get nothing in return. Except revolt, anger, and much, much piracy.

To boil it down: pirates (i.e. The People) are angry at the big companies policies, not at the staff that does their job honestly (unless they're a greedy, arguably dishonest CEO, eh).

In other words, all the "designers, artists, animators, composers, writers, modellers and even the PR and marketting guys" that YOU mentioned, should voice their opinion to their BOSSES, and make them adapt to new markets! The employees in the gaming industry should voice their opinion on the subject, and demand their companies adapt to new, poorer markets, instead of just complacently watching and supporting their bosses' policies (which hit their employees' pockets eventually).

In other words, it's not the poor man's fault that he cannot afford a company's product - but it IS the company's fault if it cannot sell the product to the poor man!

If the "faceless big companies" (and as greedy as they act, they sure don't deserve a human face) would follow what I stated above, no loss would be generated. There would be no one to complain, let alone pirate. Big business needs a touch, no, a smack of reality.

Otherwise, they're doing just well. They're making hundreds of millions. Oh, but they "lost" 10 million to third-world pirating? Wait: how can they lose if they don't sell there? Nevermind...

Anyways, yes, I do agree that indies get hit harder (they're poorer, can't counteract financial loss), but something has to be done about it. I'm thinking some decent protection, and a competitive price would do the trick. A decent game notwithstanding.

Greetings to you then - i do hope you'll make a great game. And if I can't purchase it somewhere where I live - I can't promise that I won't pirate it. But even if I do, I'll share it with my friends. And if we enjoy it, we'll thank you. Maybe even make a donation of some kind. I know it's not funny, but that's the reality of things, dammit.

 

[DuX1112]

If you make a great, original game, play the market wisely, and sell it cheaply - people will buy it.

Yeah, I'm sure nobody thought of that before...

Just out of curiosity, what do you do for a living?

I have a university degree on English Language and Literature. I've done some teaching, much translation, subtitling, captioning, etc. At the moment, I'm employed at a government cultural institution. Local pay. $250 a month. There you go.

 

[DuX1112]

Ah yes, China, 'tis a odd country...

It's not just China.

It's also Russia, almost all of Africa, almost all of Central and South America, almost all of Asia too. Then, almost half of Europe is doing piracy at large, especially Eastern Europe, countries like Bulgaria, Macedonia, Albania, Greece, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Romania, Moldavia, Ukraine, Estonia, Turkey, etc., - they all do piracy, to a GREAT extent.

Heck, even half the USA, Western Europe, GBR and Canada have it too. From what I've read here, Americans, Maltese, and many Europeans also do it.

When you boil it down, it's like... what, 90% of the world's population is either doing or acquiring videogames via "pirating".

 

[insanelich]

So, the anti-pirate argument is...

... "Copyright infringement is wrong and stealing because I say so."

This won't convince anyone not already agreeing with you. If your aim is to inspire fanboy fervor, well done, otherwise your argument is worth nothing. Sorry Funk.

The pro-pirate argument is...

... "It's not wrong because I'm not hurting anyone."

You probably agree with drug legalization, abortion and euthanasia too. Which, again, isn't necessarily wrong, but you can see how a lot of people will disagree.


In D&D terms, the arguing sides aren't Evil versus Good, it's Lawful versus Chaotic.

 

[Chipperz]

*Again, massive snip*

Greetings to you then - i do hope you'll make a great game. And if I can't purchase it somewhere where I live - I can't promise that I won't pirate it. But even if I do, I'll share it with my friends. And if we enjoy it, we'll thank you. Maybe even make a donation of some kind. I know it's not funny, but that's the reality of things, dammit.

On the massive snipped part - I'll admit that you have clearly stated that you don't discount the human factor, but my point was less that you do, and more that a lot of pirates do, and then make frankly moronic justifications to themselves, many of which are on this thread. It's worth noting that, about once per thread on piracy, one person comes out with "but I was a student and would have had to have saved to get new games!" like that excuses him stealing from companies full of people that used to be in his position. As someone that desperately wants to degenerate himself for baying packs of ingrates and whiners, it just... Gets to me that so many people just don't seem to care about the people behind the game.

On the bit I haven't snipped - I've made a commitment to myself to try to get my game released to as many people as I can, for as affordably as I can, and then to include luxury DLC and other non essential payments for people who want to support it. I have a feeling it's why the game as a whole hasn't been recieved too well by publishers - I am firm in my belief that my game is great (if I didn't, I wouldn't have put so much into it), but it's got a lot of new ideas that would be risky for a new developer to put out there with no promise that it would succeed.

At the end of the day, if my game isn't released somewhere and people are forced to pirate it to play it, then I'll accept that thanks and the knowledge that people will steal to play it is enough payment, but I'd like to think that most countries could have an actual release (even if it has to make a loss to be recouped on DLC) rather than leaving it to the pirates.

Also, if it proves popular, one of the planned expansions is Greece - I might see about getting Macedonia in there, too Just... Don't take it too personally if your particular home is destroyed - a lot of my mates have taken it far too personally so far

 

[ShadowKatt]

In D&D terms, the arguing sides aren't Evil versus Good, it's Lawful versus Chaotic.

Oooo, I like that. I don't think I've ever heard anyone describe it quite as perfectly as that right there.

I was always Chaotic Good, I feel ashamed for actually not making that connection earlier.

 

[VanBasten]

I have a university degree on English Language and Literature. I've done some teaching, much translation, subtitling, captioning, etc. At the moment, I'm employed at a government cultural institution. Local pay. $250 a month. There you go.

This is going to stretch an analogy quite thin, but here it goes: Imagine you had a steady job translating, and you just translated a particularly long and difficult book and it's ready to be published, the prints have gone to the bookstores, but the day before it hits the shelves somehow your translation ends up on the internet. A lot of people download it, nobody buys the book, publisher goes out of business, you get fired.

That sort of thing happens all the time to developers, especially game developers. A surprisingly small percentage of software produced actually becomes profitable, and that's even truer for games.

Developers have ridiculously volatile jobs and it's unbelievably stressful. You can do everything right and still get fired because the stars don't align.

So it's really annoying when people try to justify piracy using the stereotypical "greedy publishers" as an excuse. If you really hate the greedy publishers, fine, buy self-published games, support the developers who are trying to go around the publishers.

But most people who swear on putting an end to the injustices and overcharging don't do that, they just enjoy playing AAA titles that cost $20 million to produce for free, and indie games that people invest all their time and money(as little as they have of each) they generally laugh off as crap(and still pirate them).

Baisicaly, they're just full of shit.

And those kind of comments annoy the hell out of anyone who's working as a developer.

By the way, most of that isn't directed at you, but at other people who live with far more income but still pirate games and like to pretend they're "sticking it to the man", when mostly they're sticking average guys with average income out of a job.

 

[DuX1112]

SNIP-SNIP-SNIP.

I have a feeling it's why the game as a whole hasn't been recieved too well by publishers - I am firm in my belief that my game is great (if I didn't, I wouldn't have put so much into it), but it's got a lot of new ideas that would be risky for a new developer to put out there with no promise that it would succeed.

At the end of the day, if my game isn't released somewhere and people are forced to pirate it to play it, then I'll accept that thanks and the knowledge that people will steal to play it is enough payment, but I'd like to think that most countries could have an actual release (even if it has to make a loss to be recouped on DLC) rather than leaving it to the pirates.

Also, if it proves popular, one of the planned expansions is Greece - I might see about getting Macedonia in there, too Just... Don't take it too personally if your particular home is destroyed - a lot of my mates have taken it far too personally so far

Hah, now you've got me intrigued! My home, destroyed? Hell, can I, perhaps, promote your game in Macedonia? =P

Anyways, do you have a working title? And, have you publicly announced your game? I'd love to take a look at what you're working on.

Anyways, sure, if it gets released in Greece it will surely make its way here, up north, but, as I stated, it's the pricey-pricey-ishness of games that makes them unappealing to people here, not that they don't get imported and sold here. It's just that almost no one buys them.

Gahh... the best of luck bro', once again! =)

 

[DuX1112]

In D&D terms, the arguing sides aren't Evil versus Good, it's Lawful versus Chaotic.

Oooo, I like that. I don't think I've ever heard anyone describe it quite as perfectly as that right there.

I was always Chaotic Good, I feel ashamed for actually not making that connection earlier.

Same here, Chaotic Good.

 

[Chipperz]

SNIP-SNIP-SNIP.

I have a feeling it's why the game as a whole hasn't been recieved too well by publishers - I am firm in my belief that my game is great (if I didn't, I wouldn't have put so much into it), but it's got a lot of new ideas that would be risky for a new developer to put out there with no promise that it would succeed.

At the end of the day, if my game isn't released somewhere and people are forced to pirate it to play it, then I'll accept that thanks and the knowledge that people will steal to play it is enough payment, but I'd like to think that most countries could have an actual release (even if it has to make a loss to be recouped on DLC) rather than leaving it to the pirates.

Also, if it proves popular, one of the planned expansions is Greece - I might see about getting Macedonia in there, too Just... Don't take it too personally if your particular home is destroyed - a lot of my mates have taken it far too personally so far

Hah, now you've got me intrigued! My home, destroyed? Hell, can I, perhaps, promote your game in Macedonia? =P

Anyways, do you have a working title? And, have you publicly announced your game? I'd love to take a look at what you're working on.

Anyways, sure, if it gets released in Greece it will surely make its way here, up north, but, as I stated, it's the pricey-pricey-ishness of games that makes them unappealing to people here, not that they don't get imported and sold here. It's just that almost no one buys them.

Gahh... the best of luck bro', once again! =)

Nothing's been publicly announced as it's still in the pitch stage, but it's called Shatterpoint - it's a (rather appropriately, for the Escapist's general theme this week) post-apocalyptic MMO/CO RPG - I've heard it described as a mix between Gears of War and the Sims The basic idea is that it'll start in England and, if it proves popular, expansions will move East through Europe, Russia and China. I've been generally using it as an excuse to explore counter-culture, political movements and the varying concepts of an anarchist state across the world, and incorporating them into a world of ultraviolence and mutant monsters

To bring this back into something resembling on topic, I've recently been considering varying ways of fighting piracy by using carrots rather than sticks. My current idea is to give people who buy the game firsthand access to a special server that actually dictates the story of the game by player actions, but where you only have one life (you die in the game, you die in... The game, but you lose your character) kind of deal, but have it so anyone with the game (and let's face it, may as well let pirates give us SOMETHING) can buy in later for a small fee - almost a subscription fee based on player skill.

It's actually very, very hard to think of ways to reward people who actually buy your game rather than attempt to punish pirates, but publishers/developers won't even look at a pitch unless you can do one or the other, and "slap DRM on it" clearly isn't the answer.

 

[DuX1112]

This is going to stretch an analogy quite thin, but here it goes: Imagine you had a steady job translating, and you just translated a particularly long and difficult book and it's ready to be published, the prints have gone to the bookstores, but the day before it hits the shelves somehow your translation ends up on the internet. A lot of people download it, nobody buys the book, publisher goes out of business, you get fired.

Sure, it's a thin analogy. And I understand it pretty well. But you're missing one crucial factor - the market. Namely, say, we'll take an American publisher. Now these guys publish almost worldwide. They do USA, Canada, the EU, Russia, Japan... You name it.

Now, I translate the book, people finish the project, and we publish it. Now, if the book is good, do you seriously think that my company will have to suffer a fatal blow just because someone copied it? Like, in order for my company to go bankrupt, 99% out of ~1.000.000.000 (billion), would have to copy my book in order not to buy it, for me to make a loss. It's virtually impossible that so many people won't buy my GOOD book, you know.

(For example: The Twilight Saga (the books) are extremely popular. They've been copied into oblivion, (the movies too) but still, people are BUYING the books, no matter what. They're just crazy about them. Its author, publisher, and movie studio are making huge profits. Not that I like Twilight though...).

Now, if it's a BAD book, videogame, magazine, movie, album, whatever - of course people won't buy it. Of course my company would go bankrupt, and even less people will buy it when they copy it.

Sure, there are cases when a good studio goes down (the ones who did StarTopia, for example), but that doesn't necessariily relate to the quality of their product. Maybe it was a marketing flop, maybe competition from other games that squeezed it out. But piracy sure didn't do it. And thanks to piracy, I now know and love the game, have played it for years, and successfully made another StarTopia fan (my friend).

I'd say the same applies to the game industry too. Game studios get shut down and become bankrupt chiefly because of their internal fiscal problems, or market competition, or wrong steps, or whatever. They do get maybe a bit damaged by piracy in their legal, official markets, but that's not so serious. Heck, Modern Warfare 2 topped $1 billion in sales ([link]http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jan/14/business/la-fi-warfare-game14-2010jan14[/link]). And yet, here, and in a large portion of the world, it's being vastly pirated. So, pirates =/= death of gaming industry. Not by a long shot. Not even a danger.

That sort of thing happens all the time to developers, especially game developers. A surprisingly small percentage of software produced actually becomes profitable, and that's even truer for games.

Developers have ridiculously volatile jobs and it's unbelievably stressful. You can do everything right and still get fired because the stars don't align.

I agree. But I fail to see the corellation between the alignement of the stars and piracy. Or of piracy and game developers losing their jobs all of a sudden. Sure, this could be the case with >50% piracy (of people that WOULD buy the game) and a small market (that wouldn't create a great turnout), but that's a bit off. That doesn't happen. Those who buy - buy it, those who "steal" - steal it, and that's it. The big idea is how to make more people WANT to buy games. Key words: price and quality. Not to try to extort money from those who wouldn't buy them in the first place. It won't work.

By the way, most of that isn't directed at you, but at other people who live with far more income but still pirate games and like to pretend they're "sticking it to the man", when mostly they're sticking average guys with average income out of a job.

Some wise ass once said: "Stereotypes exist because they are real." I.e. reality supports them.

Nevertheless, I agree. I recognize the unjust stereotypes, and I do understand you, and I also do NOT understand rich people not buying games legally. They should be criticized. I, for one, wouldn't think twice of buying an original product if I could afford it. And from what I know, MANY people would do the same, had they had the means to do so.

Gotta go now, take care!
D.

 

[DuX1112]

I've been generally using it as an excuse to explore counter-culture, political movements and the varying concepts of an anarchist state across the world, and incorporating them into a world of ultraviolence and mutant monsters

Huh, nice. Sounds weird enough. I like weird stuff.

To bring this back into something resembling on topic, I've recently been considering varying ways of fighting piracy by using carrots rather than sticks. My current idea is to give people who buy the game firsthand access to a special server that actually dictates the story of the game by player actions, but where you only have one life (you die in the game, you die in... The game, but you lose your character) kind of deal, but have it so anyone with the game (and let's face it, may as well let pirates give us SOMETHING) can buy in later for a small fee - almost a subscription fee based on player skill.

Hmm, how about, say, affecting the in-game system of customizing/combining the player's items or weapons? For example, I find a BFG in a crate somewhere, but if I pirated your game, I couldn't upgrade it or change the ammo type on it? (Whereas people who subscribed/bought it could do this). This could in turn make pirates ultimately buy the game, because they'd be outgunned by those who paid to play it, eh.

Or they'd simply quit playing it. But... It's worth a shot.

It's actually very, very hard to think of ways to reward people who actually buy your game rather than attempt to punish pirates, but publishers/developers won't even look at a pitch unless you can do one or the other, and "slap DRM on it" clearly isn't the answer.

Yeah, I agree. More thought should be put on this... Maybe a new thread on the Esapist could help.

 

[veloper]

The solution to 3rd world piracy is very simple and pretty much what studios and publishers have always done: cater only the the West and Japan.

The industry should worry less about the pirates and be more concearned with keeping close the fans who can spend the money to fund the development.

 

[Chipperz]

I've been generally using it as an excuse to explore counter-culture, political movements and the varying concepts of an anarchist state across the world, and incorporating them into a world of ultraviolence and mutant monsters

Huh, nice. Sounds weird enough. I like weird stuff.

To bring this back into something resembling on topic, I've recently been considering varying ways of fighting piracy by using carrots rather than sticks. My current idea is to give people who buy the game firsthand access to a special server that actually dictates the story of the game by player actions, but where you only have one life (you die in the game, you die in... The game, but you lose your character) kind of deal, but have it so anyone with the game (and let's face it, may as well let pirates give us SOMETHING) can buy in later for a small fee - almost a subscription fee based on player skill.

Hmm, how about, say, affecting the in-game system of customizing/combining the player's items or weapons? For example, I find a BFG in a crate somewhere, but if I pirated your game, I couldn't upgrade it or change the ammo type on it? (Whereas people who subscribed/bought it could do this). This could in turn make pirates ultimately buy the game, because they'd be outgunned by those who paid to play it, eh.

Or they'd simply quit playing it. But... It's worth a shot.

It's actually very, very hard to think of ways to reward people who actually buy your game rather than attempt to punish pirates, but publishers/developers won't even look at a pitch unless you can do one or the other, and "slap DRM on it" clearly isn't the answer.

Yeah, I agree. More thought should be put on this... Maybe a new thread on the Esapist could help.

See, the problem with not letting non-payers upgrade weapons is that it's punishing the non-payers instead of rewarding the payers. I do agree that this should be taken to another thread, I'll go make it now and let the pirates/non pirates keep taking chunks out of each other here (Sorry Mr Funk!)

EDIT - Moved this discussion here [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.202277-Practical-ways-to-encourage-buying-games].

 

[psychic psycho]

So, the anti-pirate argument is...

... "Copyright infringement is wrong and stealing because I say so."

This won't convince anyone not already agreeing with you. If your aim is to inspire fanboy fervor, well done, otherwise your argument is worth nothing. Sorry Funk.

The pro-pirate argument is...

... "It's not wrong because I'm not hurting anyone."

You probably agree with drug legalization, abortion and euthanasia too. Which, again, isn't necessarily wrong, but you can see how a lot of people will disagree.


In D&D terms, the arguing sides aren't Evil versus Good, it's Lawful versus Chaotic.

Wow this is brilliant. I was gonna say how I was indifferent to the whole thing, and both sides of the argument were terrible at convincing me to side with one. But, what you said makes so much sense.

 

[klipton]

Jaja. Excuse my laugh but this article only point the obvious to anybody here in argentina.
This is nothing new, ¿have you heard of "Family game"? Is the pirated version of the famicon. It was moderately popular here. Then came the songa. But everything just exploded when the playstation came out. Everybody bought those (everybody who could afford it), ¿Do you know how many original playstation games i have seen so far? Zero. Nobody invest a single penny on my poor third world country. And, before saying "damn sudaca thief" (or whatever), ¿Have you heard of "el uno a uno"? It means than a peso from argentina worth the same than a dollar. It was a national policy in the 90´s (that didn´t work out for reasons beyond the subject). ¿Do you understand what that means? A videogame would have similar price tag here than in USA. Take your own conclussions, im tired of writing.
Another thing: ¿Aren´t videogames suposed to be art? Well, they are my favourite art. But i can´t legally enjoy them because i don´t have the money. (ironic mode on) I have an idea, ¿Why don´t we ban photographs of paintings? it´s piracy, if you want to see them, travel to the museum where they got them. Oh, you don´t have the money, i´m sorry, i´m afraid ill have to ask you to keep your ignorance intact.(ironic mode off)
Oh, almost forgot, Sony style brought some playstation games. They cost $500. That´s about 125 dollars. And they just bring some of the blockbusters. ¿What if i like more obscure games? More "arty" games. And don´t make me start about the consoles price tag, that don´t even come officially.

 

[BanZeus]

Prometheus steals fire from the gods and gives it to man. Now the gods are angry because man can make as much fire as he wants for free.

This story is older than dirt and it's probably not going to change anytime soon.

 

[xunjez]

A) I steal because I deserve this yet I can't afford it.
B) I commit a victimless crime, the copies are endless and I don't sell it.
C) I steal because I would have never have purchased the product anyway.
D) I steal with the intent to judge the product's worth and if I find it acceptable I will pay full value.
E) I steal to prove a point, I steal to hurt large companies with policies I find unacceptable.

F) I steal because I don't a damn about other people and their morals. ie, if I could steal a car and get away with it, I would.

I think a lot of people are F. If I didn't like arguing then I'd go with F, but it's boring.

C doesn't have a victim. B does if he would have bought it without the option to pirate.

In the end all pirates must fall on the fight that they hurt no one.

No they don't.

There would just be no games

Do you know how many free games there are?

G) I believe that the traditional concept of copyright is outdated, and creators should move on to find other sources of income.

I'm not a moral relativist, I believe that piracy is right and copyright is wrong.
I don't care if I hurt the industry, because I want to see it destroyed.

I think both of those reasons are totally spot on as well. i think F applies to the concept of theft in general because it is not a rationalization that it is OK in anyway. It is simply "I steal and I admit it". Where G is something I hadn't thought of, that some people do this with the intent to show that they take knowing it hurts the industry and do it because they want a total overhaul of the system. I do still stand by the idea that there would be far less self-justification out there if pirates didn't have the idea of victimless crime to fall on though. You would just have the F option like you do in every other aspect of society when it comes to stealing.
And of course I know about free games. I'm talking about games that are pirated, games you would normally have to pay for. My point of the post was that the whole world can't be China and there still be a game industry. I know some nice people might still give things away.