More Game Developers Realizing 'Piracy' Isn't Necessarily A Bad Thing
from the depends-on-what-you-do-about-it dept
We’ve written in the past about Minecraft’s developer, Notch (Markus Persson), and how he’s been quite vocal in arguing that game developers are making a huge mistake in worrying about “piracy” and he’s still making bucketloads of money by treating his fans right and giving them reasons to buy. It appears that some other video game developers are recognizing the same basic truth. HothMonster was the first of a few of you to send in the story of “Team Meat,” developers of Super Meat Boy and The Binding of Isaac. It appears that the two guys behind Team Meat are pretty clear that they’re happy when their games get pirated. In fact, they hope they get “pirated” more, because, in the end, it seems to lead to them getting more money. As one of the guys, Edmund McMillen notes:
“If the game gets pirated heavily, if it’s a good game that people really like, they’re going to either buy it eventually or they’re going to tell other people about it. Either way it’s just going to come back to a sale.”
He later noted his disappointment in it not being seen higher on the charts on The Pirate Bay:
“When Meat Boy came out on PC and torrents started going up on Pirate Bay, I would check, I had a friend of mine who said, ‘congratulations, I just saw your game in the top 50 on Pirate Bay for games,’ and I checked and we were 30th and I was depressed because it wasn’t higher, because that’s a measure of success.”
There’s also a fun rant in there about the “old way” of thinking:
“The dinosaurs of marketing are really upset by piracy. They think it’s literally stealing… They’re old. That’s really the reason. They’re old and their ideas are old. They don’t understand where we are now. They don’t understand the mentality of people who are pirating things. They see them as thieves, the same people who go and shoplift. I don’t f*@#ing shoplift but I have pirated sh@%-loads of stuff. Like it’s just not the same, it’s not the same thing at all.”
There are more quotes along those lines. While I like the attitude, they do still seem to take something of a “give it away and pray” attitude. I would think that there could be more effective ways to monetize what they’ve done beyond that, but I’m sure their general attitude wins fans… and at least makes lots of folks willing to test out their games to see what they’re like.
Filed Under: copyright, developers, games, infringement, marketing, piracy
Comments on “More Game Developers Realizing 'Piracy' Isn't Necessarily A Bad Thing”
“While I like the attitude, they do still seem to take something of a “give it away and pray” attitude.”
I don’t think piracy is part of their business model, more just something they consider a fact of life. They do a good amount of promotion for the game: ads, contests, free updates, twitter, facebook ect. I think piracy is just another form of advertising to them, also a potential end point for people who see their other advertising. They know that if people who pirate it like it they will buy it later or encourage a friend(s) to buy it.
So less give it away and pray and more sell it and know some people wont pay(right away or ever). But they could certainly do a more Notch style bonuses for paid customers route. I just don’t think they think its necessary, they think their product is good and the money will come in from fans.
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It seems to me more that they consider infringement to help with marketting, but still rely on the fact that there are buyers as well as infringers. He says a lot of casual infringers still buy when they are impressed, and/or spread the word to others who do buy.
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Word of mouth is the absolute best form of marketing that you can get for a product, and it’s something that you literally cannot buy.
Ponder for a second that a game catches your eye, the genre/storyline/etc all line up with what you’re interested in but all you see in ‘marketing’ are the oh-so-classic CGI with stuff blowing up left and right and maybe a few oneliners tossed in for good measure.
Based on that would you buy or hold off ?
More and more people are holding off because who hasn’t been sorely disappointed over the actual game not lining up at all with that flashy CGI clip they used to promote it ?
Now, on the other end of the scale, for free (yes, i used the F word trolls, come at me.) we have piracy and word of mouth walking hand in hand.
If a friend downloads a game, tries it and tells you how good it is – you’ll be more likely to buy it.
And that is a whopping $0.0 in marketing costs.
Product endorsement from someone you know is a far more deciding factor for more and more people.
Admittedly piracy is not the only way to this, demos work if you do them well enough but fewer and fewer companies do, presumably in the interests of ‘streamlining’ and ‘profit maximising’.
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That’s actually why I haven’t played the Tron: Legacy game. I’m hesitant that it would be worth the price (even the used-game price), but they don’t have a demo of it for the 360. Maybe I can find a copy to borrow to try (like I did for Dragon Age I…. didn’t buy it because I wasn’t impressed). Until then, no sale from me!
It certainly happens
One of the only games I’ve ever downloaded a cracked/illegal version of was Need For Speed: Most Wanted on PC, sort-of-long ago. After playing through it (and deleting it), I ended up buying the collector’s (“Black”) edition for Xbox and then the regular edition for Xbox 360. I would never have purchased add-ons for my illicit PC version. Sometimes you really will have better luck with conversions than trying to sell side-things, especially with such transient culture as video games.
My experience with piracy:
I saw some YouTube videos for Just Cause 2, and it looked pretty fun. I downloaded the demo on steam, and it was a different story, you just get dropped in the middle of nowhere with no idea what to do, and only half an hour to use it, you don’t even get the beginning of the story. If it weren’t for a pirated version I downloaded, which I had a much better time with. I wouldn’t even be trying to get my parents to let me buy this game.
Re: My experience with piracy:
Every content producer that fights/fears/hates piracy or infringement should study the above post. When you understand it it you will be successful beyond your wildest dream.
Game publishers’ [purported] focus on piracy is what has driven me away from video gaming. I was always a paying customer and therefore always got the short end of any anti-piracy stick. They tell me I’m buying a game, but I’m also buying a restricted and therefore defective product when their prevention methods fail and render my purchased game unplayable or needing to be cracked to avoid problems that they CHOSE to inflict ONLY on the paying customer base.
I notated ‘purported’ because that is only a surface, sympathy ploy for implementing technology that serves other more profit-generating purposes, like info mining and killing resale.
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And don’t forget that because of the over-paranoia of piracy, PC games are one of the only industries where you are not allowed to return your product for a refund if you are unsatisfied in any way after attempting to use it, up to and including a non-functional product(unless the media is physically damaged beyond readability).
If, due to the developers’ own actions, the product you purchased is rendered unplayable on your machine, you’ve literally flushed your money right into their maws and you’re not ever getting it back.
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Not my case. I download it from [insert p2p option here] before buying =)
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It doesn’t count if you don’t buy it to begin with! That’s cheating!
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I managed to return a copy of Overlord, for a replacement game of equal value, after I pointed out that the bloody DVD would NOT read on a certain brand of DVD drive (Yep, DRM). I couldn’t get my money back though…
Incidentally, Overlord was hilariously good fun once I’d downloaded it instead…
If attitudes of people keep changing...
then this will no longer be the case:
‘McMillen explains, “The majority of emails that we get that revolve around piracy are people saying, ‘I just want to get this off my chest, I stole your game when it came out because I wasn’t sure about it and I really, really, really love it and so I bought it because I feel really guilty.’ This is a common email.”‘
So sales depend on GUILT. — Soon as “pirates” are over the guilt trip, the bottom falls out!
See, business practices rely on most people being honest. Tom Peters wrote a couple of books on “Excellence” in the 80’s based on businesses being honest and more importantly, having honest customers. But that’s changed (besides that all the manufacturing has been moved to China). Wal-Mart, for example, has taken back their easy refund policy because too many people abused it. No, I’m not saying that people are irredeemably thieves, BUT as the attitude of “go ahead and steal it” becomes more common — simplisticly promoted as here — then as a business practice, it will cease to work.
So, go ahead and STEAL the products from these guys! They encourage it! Take them literally, and DON’T feel that you owe them a damn cent!
Re: If attitudes of people keep changing...
You nailed it. Right now there is still a little of the moral standards left that leave these people feeling guilty, but once they manage to get over that, it’s all over.
Give it away a pray soon to become give it away and go broke.
Re: Re: If attitudes of people keep changing...
yeah, because ‘piracy’ has only been around for a short time… those morals and feelings of guilt just happen to be running out now. Not like morals have been around along with piracy since… oh, I don’t know… the 1700-1800’s when sheet music was being ‘pirated’. Or, more contemporarily, the days of cassette tapes. You’re right… totally a modern problem, these morals.
I was wondering when those pesky morals would dry up and it would free stuff for all!!!
/sarc
Re: Re: Re: If attitudes of people keep changing...
“I was wondering when those pesky morals would dry up and it would free stuff for all!!! “
Without copyright on morals what incentive do we have to make more?
Re: Re: Re:2 If attitudes of people keep changing...
Matt Damon’s answer:
Quote:
Quote:
Source: http://boingboing.net/2011/08/02/matt-damon-explains-non-financial-motivations-and-the-education-sector.html
Re: Re: Re: If attitudes of people keep changing...
The part that always rings false to me is the concept that unless people are forced otherwise, they will all naturally tend toward infringing on copyright all the time. The entire “crackdown on piracy” seems to hang on this, and from my personal experience it is just plain wrong.
Re: Re: Re:2 If attitudes of people keep changing...
I agree, but why bring ‘reality’ into it when rhetoric and poorly-interpreted, questionably-run research will help slake greed SO much better (and quicker, in the short run)?
Re: Re: If attitudes of people keep changing...
Open Source give it all away and people still pay.
Re: Re: If attitudes of people keep changing...
I don’t feel any guilt over copying, because copying is not a moral issue.
I do, however, pay developers out of pure self-interest: I enjoy their work and I want them to continue to be able to develop it, so I pitch in.
Re: Re: Re: If attitudes of people keep changing...
Bang on. I pay for patronage and for the scarcity of yet-to-be-produced future games.
Re: Re: If attitudes of people keep changing...
You forgot to mention all the corporations and their super duper moral fiber. It is just unbelievable that consumers sink so low when the corporations have been nothing but nice and generous. /sarc
Re: If attitudes of people keep changing...
Because they are smart enough to know it isn’t stealing. It isn’t rocket science. Stealing is one thing and infringing is another, and they don’t have the same consequences so treating them as the same thing is stupid. Really. not rocket science.
Re: Re: If attitudes of people keep changing...
nah, taking possession of something without permission is stealing.
Sorry.
Re: Re: Re: If attitudes of people keep changing...
Stealing is taking something away from someone dipstick.
Playing with semantics is really not important, though, whats important is the effect that infringing has is different than the effect that stealing has. You can’t use stealing for marketting like these guys are doing because you are actually losing the stuff you are supposed to sell. With infringing, all you lose is a “potential sale”, and you also gain a potential sale, or maybe more than one. The net effect may be debatable, but it is most definately not the same effect as stealing. To claim it is is completely disingenuous.
Re: Re: Re: If attitudes of people keep changing...
Well, I just stole your idea now. I can’t give back, it’s imprinted in my brain. Not that I agree 😉
You can parrot all you want, won’t make your point valid 😉
Re: Re: Re: If attitudes of people keep changing...
Oh good, you don’t know what “take possession of” means either.
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Yes it but that no what he was talk. He was talk about unauthorized copying. Making two of something without permission and take something without permission are two completely different things.
Re: If attitudes of people keep changing...
I think you missed the source of ‘guilt’ here… the fan he was talking about felt guilty because he wanted to support the game and its creators and didn’t initially do so. The driving force behind the guilt was his desire to support the creators, not some sense of right versus wrong.
As long as game/music/movie/whatever creators give fans something the fans like, the desire to support them is there. Not sure how you figured this ‘guilt trip’ is a new thing or that the ‘pirates’ are going to ‘get over it’ after some magical expiration date.
It?s something I see all over ?pirate communities?? they want to support the artists and game creators. I?ve seen many-a torrent descriptors that say ?if you like this, please buy a copy and support the artist/creator!?
Re: If attitudes of people keep changing...
“So, go ahead and STEAL the products from these guys! They encourage it! Take them literally, and DON’T feel that you owe them a damn cent!” Shame on you for thinking like that. But fortunately you can’t get more than a copy so they are safe. You should be ashamed.
On a side note, there’s so much news and hype around this game that I might go and try it. And then maybe I’ll buy it. Whatever these guys think about file sharing their marketing strategy is pure win 😉
What makes you think it’s a give it away and pray attitude? As far as I can tell, their plan is to rely on sales from copyright for their income and are just happy to allow infringers to help with marketting.
Give it away and pray works!
The trick is you have to be really good at praying!
“The monastery has no regular source of income and no bank account. We do not sollicit donations, publicize the monastery’s financial needs or receive financial support from any organization. And yet, when the monastery’s needs are put before God in our communal prayers, donations are received daily, miraculously meeting our needs exactly. “
The one thing the industry has never, ever understood is that they are not competing against piracy. The are competing against themselves.
After 25 years of buying music I have close to 1,000 albums and about 16,000 songs. I have more than enough music – all legally purchaded – to be able to find something I want to listen to at any given time (and much of it I consider far, far superior to some of the “big name” hits being pedaled today). So what is my motivation to buy your new CD when I can pull up/pop in Linkin Park’s Meteora or Metallica’s Master of Puppets?
I have several hundred movies on dvd. At one point I watched V for Vendetta every single day for a month. I’ve seen Wargames maybe 50 times over the years. Why should I go see your newest movie (or even buy it on dvd) when I can just pop in Star Wars or the Matrix?
One of my first computer games was a game called Panzer General. It was released in 1994 and was pretty much a computer version of old Avalon Hill board games like Panzer Blitz and Panzer Leader. It was one of the earlier games to have a mod community and even 17 years later it still has an active modding community (in fact the lead developer of Civilization V even admitted Panzer General was the game he bit his teeth on, and used as inspiration for the new combat system in Civ V). Speaking of which I have the complete versions of Civ III and Civ IV. All three are still very entertaining games, and the online modding community for all three can help keep them fresh. So why, exactly do I need to go out and buy your new game (although I do admit I’m going to buy Civ V at some point)?
But the point still stands that the entertainment industry’s biggest handicap is not piracy, but everything that has already come out of the industry over the past 20-100 years.
Minecraft actually has some strong anti piracy controls.
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To wit, you can’t play as a verified player online.
There are many servers, and it’s free to setup your own, that don’t require verified players.
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Minecraft has a version with strong anti-piracy controls. It also has a pirate version. The paid version gets a few extras and the two are designed not to be able to intermingle in online play, so pay customers will not see pirates in multiplayer and vice versa.
but Notch is aware of the pirate version and pirate servers and has spoken towards the merits of piracy many times(although he of course wants people to pay), check out his blog. Example post :http://notch.tumblr.com/post/1121596044/how-piracy-works
Developers and Marketers aren't as clueless as you think
Most of them realize that the “try before you buy” aspect of piracy leads to greater sales and increased profits for an excellently designed, highly playable, very enjoyable game. All of them realize that the vast majority of games fall flat on on or more of these categories.
Games are just like the products you see in infomercials, they’re all hyped to be the next best thing since sliced bread, but most turn out to be throw-aways and wastes of money and time. Sure, piracy may lead to increased profit on the best of games, but it’ll lead to lost sales on the rest (the majority).
Re: Developers and Marketers aren't as clueless as you think
I recall reading something many years ago (7 or 8?) that pirate popularity was being used as a metric. No one believed me…wish I’d saved the article (I swear I read it in print media, paper or mag).
Your last sentence, however – a crap game is a crap game, pirated or not. It’s the crap part that leads to lost sales, not the piracy part. That might be exactly what you’re saying, sorry if I misconstrue. The term “lost sales” has become loaded.
But really – games have been pirated for at least 20 years now. What’s happened in the meantime? Multi-billion dollar industry.
Oh, woe?
Piracy helps to expand the ‘plate’ of the product, beacause it puts a 0$ price. How to convert it into sales is mostly dependent on the way presented to potential customers.
The pay-what-you-want scheme seems to be one of the best if you’re not trying to confront piracy, but few seems to aknowledge it, even among indy developpers.
Everyone on the world cannot necesseraly pay 60$. Some can pay 59, some 58, some… 0. By putting up this kind of way to monetize, sure you’ll loose part of the people who would’ve paid the 60, and could pay less.
But you’ll gain the potential inifity of people who can pay around 10/20$ but not would’ve bought it, and you’ll gain people who are willing to pay 100$ too!
All of these business models are still in the developping stages, but it’s interesting to see how its evolving, even though Blizzard or CCP’s way of things (EVE AUR and D3’s legal goldfarms) represents what where this should’nt be going.
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“EVE AUR….[is an example of the way things shouldn’t be going]
I don’t see an issue with cash transactions within a game as long as they do not effect game play (purely aesthetic or cosmetic (non-combat pets, clothes, skins)). I do prefer the Valve way, cash OR time will buy the items (some years i have more cash than time and vice-versa). But really things like the AUR store allow for people who spend a ton of time in the game to pay a little more, if they want, and it doesn’t give them an advantage over players unwilling to pay. Certainly their pricing is a little off but the idea of the vanity store itself isn’t bad, its simply a way for the hardcore to show a little $love$, and maybe rub their epeen.
Legal gold farms are good because it prevents illegal gold farms. The way Eve has done it is imo fantastic. I’m unaware of what Blizz has planned for D3 specifically, I stopped paying attention when they said no modding.
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Eve was this close to implement a turbulence in the game by implementing more than paid goodies. The way it is for now is good yes, the way they wanted to do it, was absolutely not.
I do think for now Eve have a good compromise, but is pointing towards the wrong direction.
As for D3, they simply want to implement a sell-your-ingame-goods-for-RL-cash system, wich is certainly a thing that, though I can understand the reason, I really am uneasy with.
Other thing is, since the items drop randomly, if we can sell them for RL cash, ain’t that close to a “game of chance”? I don’t know if there’s anything that could be in a grey area but…
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“Eve was this close to implement a turbulence in the game by implementing more than paid goodies.”
The paper that got passed around that had mention of paid game-changing items was not the intention of the devs. If you believe their statement, that was a company newsletter in which people were suppose to take extreme examples, play devils advocate and develop ideas that they did not necessarily believe in. Someone wrote some paragraphs that discussed having special ammo or weapons available only for cash but, if you believe the devs, that was not even the authors point of view and they never seriously considered implementing it, they were only discussing it as a way to see the extremes and possibilities this system allowed.
I believe them when they say this, you may not. But seeing as how the player base rioted(literal in-game riots) about over priced vanity goods, I don’t think they would have survived implementing a pay for upgrade system.
But surely the pay for upgrades model is alive in the F2P market and it frightens me that it may some day leak into paid games. Though I think the idea still sickens enough people that it won’t get any traction.
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“Though I think the idea still sickens enough people that it won’t get any traction”
I hope it stays that way.
As for the Eve policy, my statement was a bit overzealous, I’ll give you that. Now zould you think that the developpers would stand for such an idea with all the agitation that it brought in a single hour?
Politicians do this a lot, they leak insane policies in order to pass just-a-little-less insane ones. it’s human 😡
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There are rumors of an in-game items-for-cash feature where one user can sell a tradeable item to another user for real world money. It would be P2P sales only (Blizz would not have their own item store). Of course they also will have an auction house a-la WoW.
I can’t speak for everyone, but out of the of dozen of so games I’ve ever pirated, only one of them I didn’t end up buying later. For me, at least, piracy is simply a way to try the game before I plop down 20, 40, 60 dollars for something I might not like.
Heck, some games I liked so much I’ve bought them multiple times. For example, I pirated Torchlight and loved it. Bought it soon after so I could install new patches for it. When it was ported to xbox 360 I bought it on that system too. I also torrented Oblivion, a month later I bought the pc Game of the Year edition so I could get the dlc. Then I bought the xbox 360 version cause i prefer controllers to keyboards, and I ended up buying it a third time when it went on sale on steam!
But hey, forget all that, I’m a pirate so I’m just a dirty thief right?
While I applaud his overall sentiment I wonder how being pro-piracy would effect their sales in the long term. I mean the main factor keeping piracy in check is the desire to reward the creators and help them be able to support your product or make more. If you know that they consider piracy an acceptable way of getting the game and in fact get a kick out of substantial piracy stats you might be more inclined to do so since they are tacitly supporting it.
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they support it as a means to make more people aware of their game and rope in customers. They certainly want to get paid and make more video games. They just hope/know that if people like the game they will want the dev to make another and support them. Some people do this by telling all their friends, some buy the game, some pre-order their next game.
So by all means pirate their game, but if you like it support them so they can make you another or extra content.
Piracy as a measure of success
Not the worst method out there, I would think it measures popularity a bit more, If I make a game and sell it for a million dollar, I just need one sucker billionare to buy it, or I could try to sell a million games $1 a piece. My sales would be drastically different, for digital, my profit wouldn’t be much different. If it’s a good game, It could more consistant to judge how good the game is based on piracy.
Anyways, I wonder if it is still piracy when I already own the game? But then I don’t really OWN the game, I just own the licence, but since I have a licence to that game, is it ok again? Oh well.
Re: Piracy as a measure of success
In order to keep a certain version of Securom from infesting a brand new computer, I downloaded a crack for the very first time for a single-player game I was into.
I bought the game. I didn’t want to crack it but no way would I put my personal property in jeopardy. I was given no other option if I wanted use of what I bought.
I dare a publisher to come after me for that. Seriously, bring it.
Blizzard just lost a sale to me when I read that Diablo 3 will be online play only. They provide a few utterly transparent and fallacious reasons for this but it amounts to fear of piracy.
So, since I refuse to support this kind of DRM with a sale, I will now be forced to pirate the game if I want to play it.
Anyone who thinks it won’t be cracked 5 ways from Sunday within 30 days is deluded. There will armies of crackers working on this in competition to be first. UBIsoft learned this with their own always-on connection DRM and AC2 didn’t have anywhere near the interest and anticipation that D3 does.
It's Not Stealing...
…it’s a pre-purchase home trial. 🙂
Not as much give it away and pray anymore
They’re releasing some physical editions with art books, and a rare edition in the UK that comes with a t-shirt and some other stuff.
So… they’re working on adding value.
Update on this story...
Piraters Pay Up in Light of Team Meat Interview
http://au.pc.ign.com/articles/118/1186501p1.html
Kudos to them. 🙂
Steam and all the other BS
Honestly, I have over thirty new titles as of 2011 that I bought retail. Being and old school rpg pc gamer I like the experience of buying new games in the retail stores, that’s what I am use to doing after all. All this anti piracy, running steam, have to have internet to have access to these companys games… etc.etc. I can honestly say if these companys continue to operate in this fashion I will follow suit to never buy anymore of their games and continue to pirate them because it’s alot less problematic both from a money stand point and a personal one. I dont like having to use steam, or any other means to have access to a game I buy retail. All their doing is losing out of big time customers like myself by operating in this sense. I spend more than a few hundred dollars a year just in games so why should I have to shoulder this burden? WHY!