I did a quick search to see if this was posted yet, and nothing came up, so I'm now posting it. In case there is already a topic about it, my apologies.

Now, Indy-developer Cliff Harris is asking the pirates why they are pirating his games. Piracy and the reasons for it is, depending on your viewpoint, a very complex issues with lots of things to consider, or really amazingly simple (why paying if you can get it for free!). The thing is, he is asking them directly, and now, the first results are in. He has posted his article on numerous sites, including slashdot and the Penny Arcade-forums. There are more links on the "results"-page, if you want them.

So... what do you think? What causes piracy? Was the experiment worthwile? Do you think it can be stopped, or that maybe other questions should be asked first (i.e. who uploads these things? who develops cracks, etc.?).
Since piracy is a sensitive issue, I suppose it'd be a good idea not to give any links or information on where to find illegal software.

However, we as indy developers might be affected to, one day, when we finish our new kickass MMORPG (it's gonna be awesome, definately better than WoW!). Maybe some of you were already?


I hope this thread is not against the rules, but I really find this experiment interesting and wanted others to know about it, too.

Thank you Error014.

I read the results page and a few of the linked forum posts. I found it interesting the effort that Cliff Harris put into analyzing, categorizing, and summarizing the results. I hope that the results make there way to developers beyond the indie level.

For anyone that doesn't like long posts, I will apologize now. For those that don't mind a bit of a read, here are my thoughts. I have had many discussions with people on this subject (more related to music, movies, and television content). As with the deductions that Harris made, my thoughts have revolved around three points: cost; quality; accessibility.

Cost - Market the product at a cost that is suited to the consumers. I recall a magazine article I read many years ago when I was in my teen years, claiming that the majority of disposable income is in the hands of teenagers. Although that was written over three decades ago I still believe that to be true. This same group however is timid to spend too much on one thing. I remember buying record albums and feeling really bad about spending $20, especially when there were only three or four songs that I liked. This has been somewhat resolved by companies like PureTracks that allows for the purchase of individual tracks for a reasonable cost. The danger is that distributors will increase prices defeating the benefit in this form of marketing.

Quality - Too much of the entertainment industry is driven by the volume of product moved and speed to market regardless of the value of the content. In one of the management courses I attended, we examined new product marketing. The statistics presented were that 15% of consumers will buy a product because it's 'new', 50% of consumers will migrate to a product over time with sufficient advertising (whether through media or 'word-of-mouth'), 30% may eventually buy a product when it has become established, and 5% will never buy it. The pay-back for investing quality into the product is that less money is required to promote that product to the second-tier as word-of-mouth is based on satisfaction. Potentially, a high quality product will reach 65% of the available consumers. High quality product generates consumer satisfaction. This builds a reputation or branding that will influence consumer acceptance to the next product marketed of that brand.

Accessibility - The simpler you make it for people to get something, the more likely they will get it. For me, it would be a bit of an adventure to drive to an orchard to pick a basket of apples however it's a minor task to go to my local store.

Again, sorry for the long post. I get carried away sometimes.

cause of the price(even idiots know that)!

and it seems we found one to give us that answer thanks bomber

Piracy has been introduced and made 80% of the time by the people selling that item, usually as a benchmark to get to bigger rewards. Once what seemed as a good idea of selling cd + dvd writers, being able to play copied games on a PS1 by using a match and spring (sorry if people didn't know that), playing copied and imported games by pressing a sequence of buttons on the PS2, and writing games and movies to memory sticks on the PSP has now been made slightly more difficult and challenging for console gamers.

After the dreamcast lost sales because it was harder to chip (and sh*t in some opinions), GameCube with noway of accessing their discs and has since failed and then the Wii taking over the market by storm, as piracy for it could be achieved copying games.

Although this isn't the only answer, piracy is driven by accessibility.
If things weren't accessible to be tampered with, they wouldn't be tampered with.

And if it were the price that was the only answer, then why is piracy on PC games higher than on console games, when console game sales outweigh pc game sale 5-1

Just my thoughts on it all... someones turn to tell me I'm wrong now

well you have to take into consideration that some people like to do certian things just because they know there not supposed to do them , for instance tell a child "dont touch this cigarette lighter its dangerous" after saying this , all the child is going to want to do is to touch the lighter . there's my two cents

Whats wrong with touching the cigarette lighter?

well nothing , if you want your child to burn down your house ,
or start smoking i geuss , but the point is certian people want to do things simply because thier not supposed to.

cause more ppl own pcs,console game sales outweigh pc game sale 5-1 is because a lot of ppl use pirated pc game discs

If we'll take Russia about 5-10 years ago, when i was a kid, i thought that every game or program costs about 2 dollars and installing a crack or a patch is a required step of installation. Even the idea that a piece of software can cost several thousand dollars seemed crazy to me(and still some people think the same). Now things are starting to change, and i see less pirated games and software in the shops. Sometimes funny things occur - i remember i saw a licenced dvd of some film that was CHEAPER than pirated to attract customers I suppose piracy won't be stopped completely, but it can be reduced(lower prices, stricter laws)

It's the same in China, we have ppl sellin pirated games everywhere(but u wont be able 2 find 3dgs there, I guess there's 1 thing good about being small)