Talking to Pirates

[RoyGBiv]

I found this interesting. The conclusions Cliff Harris drew match pretty closely much of what I've been saying for years about piracy in general, not just of games. A lengthy discussion of that would be off-topic here and probably annoying, so I'll leave it at this. I've always preferred to acquire things legally. It's both a moral and a philosophical issue. I don't want someone stealing my labor or the product of it either, and that's the way it seems to be with most people. Groups like RIAA, the BSA, etc. just don't get it and aren't listening. They'd rather demonize others rather than fix their inherent problems or change their cherished business models to fit what the customers they supposedly serve want and need. Pirates, for the most part, have been saying this all along. I'm glad someone is actually listening.

A few days ago I posted a simple question on my blog. "Why do people pirate my games?". It was an honest attempt to get real answers to an important question. I submitted the bog entry to slashdot and the penny arcade forums, and from there it made it to arstechnica, then digg, then bnet and probably a few other places. The response was massive. This is what I found:

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So it was all very worthwhile, for me. I don't think the whole exercise will have much effect on the wider industry. Doubtless there will be more FPS games requiring mainframes to run them, more games with securom, games with no demos, or games with all glitz and no gameplay. I wish this wasn't the case, and that the devs could listen more to their potential customers, and that the pirates could listen more to the devs rather than abusing them. I don't think that's going to happen.
But I gave it a go, and I know my games will be better as a result. I'll never make millions from them, but I think now I know more about why pirates do what they do, I'll be in a better position to keep doing what I wanted, which is making games for the PC.
Thanks for reading.

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