Software developer opens a dialog with pirates
primesuspect
Beepin n' BoopinDetroit, MI Icrontian
The other day Cliff Harris, an independent developer of games such as Democracy 2, Kudos, and Starship Tycoon, asked an honest question on his blog: Why do you pirate my games?
He got a flood of earnest and insightful responses.
Answers ranged from "I'm poor and can't afford games but I love them" to quasi-political rants about the philosophy of intellectual property. He also got some answers that gave him immediately actionable items to address, such as removing DRM from his games, lowering the price, and making his demos longer.
It's a very interesting approach that makes one step back and say "Why don't the big companies do that?"
Mr. Harris closed his report with an equally honest prediction of the effect his experiment has on the larger industry.
[blockquote]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.[/blockquote]
He got a flood of earnest and insightful responses.
Answers ranged from "I'm poor and can't afford games but I love them" to quasi-political rants about the philosophy of intellectual property. He also got some answers that gave him immediately actionable items to address, such as removing DRM from his games, lowering the price, and making his demos longer.
It's a very interesting approach that makes one step back and say "Why don't the big companies do that?"
Mr. Harris closed his report with an equally honest prediction of the effect his experiment has on the larger industry.
[blockquote]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.[/blockquote]
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