Bad Sector said,

Way to ignore the rest of the thread (and other people who are also successful – see CasualInsider for example, according to whom, btw, the game in question was far from flawless) by focusing only on what Cliffski said 😛

9x% (where “x” has a big margin of error) of piracy is something known for years now. If you notice, it was even mentioned in Masters of Doom about the sales id made in early 90s (something like “one out of 100” would buy the game, etc). This “9x%” is mentioned in every “piracy stat”. And in fact it was only a couple of days ago that i saw it mentioned on Reddit by some 18yo making an iPhone game (i think). At this point you *have* to factor that in your calculations (assuming you make calculation :-P) or at least expectations when making decisions.

Yeah, it sucks that the piracy is so high, but it is part of the medium. I don’t think that if an answer this issue wasn’t found the last 30 years it will be found any time soon. At least not without locking platforms and hardware down and even then it isn’t bulletproof. Also personally i prefer my platforms open because the positives outweigh the negatives.

Enry said,

Well, to be fair the guy that said your title quote in that thread also said:

“Making it really awkward and inconvenient for pirates to get a working, legit full copy of your game is pretty easy. All pirate sites allow anonymous membership, and anonymous uploads. Why make it easy for people to pirate your work?”

Which shows he knows exactly _nothing_ about how pirate sites or piracy works.

Even with as little respect as I carry for Jeff Vogel as a person in general, he actually has real-world experience, as opposed to cloudy theoretical musings, and I would listen to him before I listen to that other guy.

BellosTheMighty said,

So in other words:

1) Everyone gets pirated.
2) Some games are successful despite piracy.
3) Some games aren’t.

Seems reasonable. Solution: take a look at the games and the figures, find out what distinguishes games that are successful from those that aren’t, and don’t make games that aren’t going to be successful. (Or, if you have to make them for the aaaaaahrt, do so understanding that you’ll probably be releasing them freeware.)

Working hypothesis: games that aren’t successful despite piracy aren’t very good games.

Max said,

TL:DR version – USE STEAM

Just some perspective from long standing ,semi reformed pirate ( I only pirate music and movies now). I grew up in USSR and then in Russia -100% of all our software everywhere was pirated at my time. There was some mythical “boxed software” no one saw and no one could imagine paying $40 (or more ) for something which only cost 50c (cost of media)

When I moved to US I kept pirating for 3 reasons
1) Pirate software is easier to download (just one click)
2) Pirate software is better quality ( DRM removed) – I dont need CDs in drive etc
3) Pirate software comes at reasonable cost ($40 ? -get real, I used to make that much in month in Russia)

Nowdays I try to buy most games on Steam ( I boycott buying stuff from EA and from few others for political reasons). Why? -main reason to support devs and feel better about it. But other reasons steam is good in 1) and to lesser degree 2). And it gets close on 3) when on sale . I bought witcher 1 on d2d and I still use pirate copy of witcher ,because d2d drm is obnoxious. I swear nothing pisses me off than DRM -if I am determined I would find way to run it without paying you a dime.

I ran all starforce games (harders one to run typically) – I probably spent a week finding ways to do it but I did it. Just in spite ( and it was a great game). During my 15 years of pirating I only found one game I couldnt run (was one of the splinter cell’s ) – and it mostly cause I didnt care enough. Most of cracks and mini-images are ready to download of sites like gamecopyworld .

I wrote my own cracks for obscure indie games and beta versions (sins of solar empire I cracked myself) . You will not stop piracy by DRM. When I was teen I would try crack stuff just for fun and there will be always people like me.

Now make it simple . Make the cost reasonable. make it hassle free. Don’t try to challenge one’s intelligence with DRM. If you do – one guy will find the way and make it easy for 99.9% on other to get it from piratebay

Enry said,

Well he sure didn’t show it on that post is all I can say.

Implying you can complicate piracy by getting on pirate sites yourself and uploading bad versions of your own game is absolutely ridiculous and amounts to nothing more than a newbie’s wishful thinking – as anybody who has spent even 5 minutes looking at how that stuff works could tell you.

Calibrator said,

Oh noes! Another piracy debate!!!1

More seriously, though, if something isn’t protected it will get pirated *instantly*. Fact. Dedicated groups exist for several *decades* now that have nothing else on their agenda than to crack quicker than their “competition”. They don’t care who’s distributing the cracks to whom and which profits (and companies) get annihilited in the process. For those deranged individuals it’s about “honor” and “respect”.
If there is some sort of protection it gets cracked, whatever the cost and whatever remains of the product (no video? pah! no single-player campaign? who cares?). If there is no protection (to support the paying customer): Great! A round on the house!
They crack and distribute what’s available. If nothing is available then nothing will be cracked and they’ll turn their worthless existence to something else.
The moment a games company supplies some product again they’ll be back and doing their “work”.

This and nothing else is fact.

But what about the “playing side” of this mess? The guys who should be paying customers?
The majority of those won’t pay unless forced to. And I don’t speak about more or less poor people from countries traditionally fucking the software industry.
Yes some of those are pupils and students with next to no income like I was back then (I got games mostly as birthday and xmas presents but I imagine that todays teens rather prefer cellphones and other status objects).

I bet the rest of my teeth that the majority of users of pirated software is solvent enough to pay for a few games per month but think they are clever by avoiding that!

Don’t believe the posting Jay linked to? Well, read up some postings by shareware authors then. Remember, these are the guys who relied on the honor of the player to pay after he got a (full) product and was able to ascertain its quality.
The reality is, practically nobody paid for shareware which is why this business model is practically dead.

What to do then? Where to draw the line between *reducing* piracy (you won’t prevent it!) and “hurting” the paying customer (the one who still pays your rent) by enforcing more or less brutal restrictions?

Well, I was the first person to shun Ubisoft for providing their online copy protection and a lot of things still don’t add up.
However, I admit that I began to symphatize with such measures like that or at least with an *ideal* connection between publisher and player which will benefit both.

But – and this is a big one – it’s also a fact that today’s big publishers rather fuck their customers and squeeze every penny out of them instead giving them real incentives to stay a – for example – Ubisoft customer who buys the next installments of their franchises, which, given the nature of the whole sequel business, would make a lot of sense, wouldn’t it? Jeff Vogel lives on returning customers, too, and he is churning out sequel after sequel, too. I mean, this guy even pays you your money back if you don’t like his games!

But speaking about the mainstream:
– Why no free online content for paying customers? A sucky little bonus weapon for a limited edition buyer?
– Why costly expansion packs that are often a joke, content-wise? Bethesda, I hope you hear me!
– Why $1,99 for a measly avatar costume?
Because it cashes in big time: Next to no expenses but thousands of players buying that online (the network provider gets a cut of course). We have discussed this to death here.

So, yes, while offline single-player games still make sense all mainstream publishers may eventually turn itself into software services that sends you a runtime.exe that loads everything on the fly as needed.

Don’t like this idea, having paid for a Quadcored, Geforced, 16GB machine and no money for software?
Well, you asked for it, dude.

Menigal said,

Ah, I see the Coyote’s already linked to one of the bits of research that actually talked to pirates.

Rampant Coyote said,

I didn’t really intend this article to be about piracy, but about the odds being stacked against offline PC games. Rampant and casual piracy being an apparently major factor in this.

Maybe I’m acting a little like a dinosaur, but I feel the “change your business model” cry is, at this point (for digitally distributed indie-created games) more of a cry to “make a different kind of game.” I reject that notion, though I acknowledge that the approach to making those kinds of games may have to change.

The problem is that digitally distributed games are not immune to the law of supply and demand. The real root of the problem is that games (and music, and videos) freed from technological ties to a limited physical resource, are effectively in infinite supply.

Infinite supply means that perceived value with a finite demand is going to trend towards zero. That’s economics. And that’s a big problem with something that takes a really significant effort (and cost) to create.

The approach that seems to working, now, is to change games from being a product to a service. A game is more of a living vehicle for the suppliers to keep selling you stuff. Like being in a restaurant. The analogy grows thin quickly, but that’s at least a part of the approach.

I’m just exploring (as I do, periodically) the problems inherent in the model. People really get up in arms when you say something like, “Piracy is bad.” It is, but it’s not a winnable war for the developers. Escalating with more and more draconian DRM is not the answer. But it’s stupid to ignore the truth that piracy has gotten to the point where people consider it “normal.” And where the massive undertaking that is a game is expected to be priced below the price of a fast-food combo meal.

That’s the landscape. It is actively hostile to game developers – at least makers of single-player games on the PC. Period.I don’t even think that’s a point worthy of debate.

“Hostile” doesn’t imply “impossible.” But games – and game developers – need to adapt to survive, and so I go through this exercise on a regular basis to try and figure out a better way to make it work. I take a look at what other (successful) game developers are saying and doing, but I don’t necessarily want to ape their approaches. In some cases, I couldn’t if I wanted to – in many cases they succeed mainly by being the first out of the gate or the biggest one to try it, thereby drawing attention to their approach that a smaller johnny-come-lately can’t hope to achieve.

But it’s something we have to keep exploring. ‘Cuz, as a gamer, I still want the kinds of games only indies make anymore, And I want them to keep making them – voting with my wallet and my efforts to draw attention to their creations.

Fumarole said,

This is about books and not games, but it is interesting nonetheless that free online copies of books can increase sales.

getter77 said,

Piracy has been a thing the world over in all realms of software, just one of those things.

My own plan is straightforward, if a roll of the dice same as many other potential ways to go about it: Can’t afford DRM stuff, can’t be bothered, aim to make as best a game I can with little to no budget while keeping it lively and courting as much of an enthusiastic audience as I can reasonably wrangle in the long haul.

Maybe some other Indies will start to actually try to take GoG up on their offer to do more stuff with Newer games and such so long as all is up to snuff with the usual content level of a Gog release? While they didn’t scream it from the mountaintops in one of there FAQ videos a few months back, I’m rather certain it was thrown out there as an “If only people would come to us in good faith and try…”

skavenhorde said,

Sorry, I forgot to include the second part of the interview where N’gaia did the sales model for Armageddon Emprires (it’s at the bottom): http://web.archive.org/web/20080517151728/http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/levelup/archive/2008/05/13/180-degrees-the-secret-of-armageddon-empires-indie-success-part-ii.aspx

Rampant Coyote said,

I hate to only speak to a tiny section of your comment, LWR, but if only 10% of the pirated copies were lost sales, then the above quoted over 99% piracy rate would have potentially sold 10x as many copies of the game.

The rumors I have heard is that the increasingly draconian, customer-punishing DRM schemes these mainstream games are adopting do seem to work by the best metrics they can use, which is why they keep going back to that well, which I personally feel may be sacrificing the long-term health of the industry for short term sales, but what do I know?

I do think 90% piracy rate is pretty much the default and has to be assumed. But it’s not the actual piracy rate that’s the concerning issue… it’s the effect piracy has on devaluing games. You’ve got loud-mouthed jerks already saying things like, “$20 is too much to pay for this game, I’ll just pirate it.” If a game is too expensive, fine, don’t buy it. But the entitlement mentality seems to be spreading — “I want to play it, but don’t want to pay for it.” It’s not as stigmatized even as much as it was 10 years ago (and things were bad then).

So yeah – that’s gotta be built into the business model, which is the point Cliffski was making, IMO. Sure, you can try and fight it head-on, as they are doing with DRM, but that’s ultimately a losing battle. Or you can abandon the field entirely, and go make the kinds of games that are far less vulnerable to piracy (online, mainly). Or… what?

I think there’s a lot of room for “what,” but it’s going to be a lot of work.

LateWhiteRabbit said,

@Skavenhorde

Minecraft has indeed been pirated. As have all the Ubisoft games that require a constant connection to play.

You probably DO want at least a little DRM, but probably nothing more than requiring a serial key. This will deter casual pirates, but not unduly inconvenience paying customers.

But yes, games without DRM can do extremely well – see the Witcher 2, Galactic Civ 2, any Stardock game really.

It goes back to my argument that a great game will be okay and do well, even with piracy. The 10% or so of actual “lost-sells piracy” has less and less effect on the life or death of the game the more copies it sells.

@Rampant

10x WHAT though? How razor thin does your margin have to be before 10% lost sales are fatal to your business? Again, figure 10-15% rates of actual lost sells into your business model. If that doesn’t happen, you’ve gotten a 10-15% bonus. If it does, you’ll survive just fine.

I mean, everytime I read about the 90% plus piracy figure and how it has killed some indie developer, I see figures like “less than a hundred games sold” or “just a couple hundred games sold”. That means those games weren’t going to be a success or make back their money anyway.

It is far easier to blame pirates than the fact that your game may not have been very good or your marketing non-existent.

The very fact that we see a lot of successful indie games means it can be done, piracy be damned, because you can believe they are getting pirated just as much or more than you.

I think a market like Steam or GOG.com is ideal – Steam has built in DRM that is unobtrusive, and both have something invaluable – built in marketing.

I know people shout about how Steam is not an open market, but really it just looks like they are very picky about quality. The whole package has to work for them – gameplay, graphics, etc. And why shouldn’t they be picky? It is what keeps them on top, and they offer invaluable services, namely free advertising. The first day your game releases, and probably for the next few days, you are guaranteed 4 million+ eyes on and aware of your game A DAY. Even a 1% buy-rate off that figure is a massive windfall for indies.

And people rail against Steam’s sales of indie titles, but it puts those titles back in the spotlight when they have faded. More sales.

Steam makes buying and playing indie titles mandatory for unlocking it own big AAA title releases early, or for earning hats in Team Fortress 2. So indies get to ride in the wake of big title marketing.

I don’t know the specifics of the deal developers make with Steam, since that is private, but I’ve never heard anyone speak badly about those deals except for those that COULDN’T get a deal.

In case you haven’t guessed it, my suggestion for success is massive, huge exposure marketing. You do that and your game is great, it will get the sales it deserves. Sites like Steam and GOG.com are potential avenues to do that.

Big Triple A titles sell so well not necessarily due to quality, but because HALF their budget is often marketing. Indie developers often miss that or don’t do it well.

It doesn’t matter if your game is the next best thing to sex and chocolate if no one hears about it.

Silent said,

I’d probably have a lot to say about piracy, as both a pirate and a buyer (I do not think these things oppose, not even for one same product : I’ve often bought copies of things I had already stolen, and stolen copies of things I had already bought – language localisation being one huge factor in that, as original versions are extremely difficult to find in a foreign country, and localized versions can be irritatingly awful). Most people I’ve seen pirating a certain kind of marchandise were also the people I’ve seen buying the biggest amount of it, and I -naively?- suspect that the pirated quantity of one product has mostly to be added rather than substracted to the quantity of sold copies. But to be honest, I feel all this and all the rest on this subject has already been said too many times, here and in many other places.

However, I’m always interested in the borderline question of second-hand acquisitions, and people’s stances on it. Many of the games -and most of other things, books, films, etc- that I buy, I buy in second hand shops. This is getting increasingly difficult for PC games (steam in particular forbids this), and that evolution seems to be supported by moral argument that don’t seem to be applied to other kinds of products (cars, furniture, litterature…). I’m interested to understand why. Especially, as I’m myself uncertain about the moral status of second-hand acquisition (which I’ve often used as a way to buy a game cheaper without remorse, not being quite sure why I felt so).

I suspect that the paradoxes of second-hand can shed a light on the question of piracy, but it is seldom discussed. And I wouldn’t be surprised if some interesting points about it were to be raised on this specific website, given, I must say, the general quality of local discussions.

Silent said,

Did you manage to pinpoint the reason why you don’t feel you’re cheating an author as much as if you were pirating the game ? Is it because you reward another person (the re-seller), or because you purify yourself by punishing your wallet (almost) all the same ? Or because you feel it only concerns one copy as opposed to the numerous ones that are implicated in pirate networks (even though you’d also pirate only one), or is it a matter of simultaneity versus politely-waiting-in-line, or a mix of both (the acquired copy won’t “grow back” without people investing more in the source, even though, very theorically, a tiny number of copies could be re-sold ad infinitam) ? Or do you still feel you’re cheating someone ? Are we second-hand clients just unsupportive hypocrites, closer to piracy than we’d like to think ?

I for one never managed to solve this conflict, I only (used to) push it aside. Could this be a zone where the universes of self-defined pirates and self-defined legitimate buyers overlap ?

Am I asking awfully bad questions ?

WhineAboutGames said,

The existence of a secondhand market makes it easier for some people to buy the games new, knowing they can resell them if they don’t like them or need the money.

The existence of cheap used copies also helps keep people in the habit of buying games legally, even people whose funds are limited and might be tempted to just take them. A lot of people buy games cheap/used if they’re low on cash or uncertain if they’ll like the title, but will pay full new price for something they like a lot.

If Alice buys the game for $50 and then sells it to Bob for $25, it’s not substantially different from Alice and Bob having gone halves on buying the game in the first place. Sure, that breaks down a bit if the game is passed on to its twentieth owner, but how often does that really happen?

Some grumbling starts when you have used copies that aren’t being sold directly but are instead passing back to a middleman who makes progressively more money off the same copy every time it’s resold, while the original dev doesn’t. Then it’s not sharing, and it does start to feel a little more like loophole abuse, but, well, shrug.