I got one of those Robert Hackerman calls once at my job. I deal with government benefits debit cards, things like food stamps, social security, unimployment, etc. Had some one call up, telling me he was with some IT firm, and wanted me to go to some website to test my encryption. Then paused to yell at his barking dog in the backyard, and came back to me. He hung up once I explained the internet is heavily filtered (can't access anything except the sites used to do my job, and official government websites such as NASA's site).
We have our own IT department, there's no need to outsource to some other company when we have our own department. Even if we did, such a thing would go through our IT department, not through the agents. Barking dog in the back yard kind of gave away he's not really at an IT place, he's at his house. Encryption can be tested just fine with out needing to access a special website for the purpose. So many problems with his claim, and that's just off the top of my head. It's a good thing the internet is indeed filtered, or some one with Hollywood knowledge of computing might have fallen for it.
Yes. Exactly. In order to compete in that marketplace (offering the content to make piracy a non-issue) they would have to price low enough to make obtaining it legally seem like a good option.
Last I checked, Aquafina and their ilk aren't charging such small amounts themselves, and seem to be doing fine. Steam certainly sells games at similar values to what you would see in a retail store, and yet still thrives.
Steam, who actually stated that "Piracy is a non-issue", competes with free constantly, and does so successfully. They moved into Russia, after being told by many sources that this place is bad for business, because no one legitimately purchases anything, and all their works will just be pirated. It's one of their best markets outside the US now.
Competing profitably against "free" can be done. These studios merely need to look at those who have done so successfully, see how they did it, look at what the consumers responded to best, figure out what things they have in common, and incorporate that into their business strategies.
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I got one too
I got one of those Robert Hackerman calls once at my job. I deal with government benefits debit cards, things like food stamps, social security, unimployment, etc. Had some one call up, telling me he was with some IT firm, and wanted me to go to some website to test my encryption. Then paused to yell at his barking dog in the backyard, and came back to me. He hung up once I explained the internet is heavily filtered (can't access anything except the sites used to do my job, and official government websites such as NASA's site).
We have our own IT department, there's no need to outsource to some other company when we have our own department. Even if we did, such a thing would go through our IT department, not through the agents. Barking dog in the back yard kind of gave away he's not really at an IT place, he's at his house. Encryption can be tested just fine with out needing to access a special website for the purpose. So many problems with his claim, and that's just off the top of my head. It's a good thing the internet is indeed filtered, or some one with Hollywood knowledge of computing might have fallen for it.