Article on Piracy
I found an article on software piracy which translates a lot of my views on the matter. It’s worth a read.
Sort of related to this matter: as someone who buys the occasional movie DVD when I find a nice and decently priced one at the store, I can say that there’s nothing that annoys me more than the crappy anti-piracy video clip that you can’t skip and which lasts an eternity to end. Hello, Anti-Piracy people? If I’d pirated the damned movie I wouldn’t be watching this. If I am it’s because I purchased the movie at hand and if I did, I DON’T WANT TO HAVE TO WATCH THAT CRAP. Mkay? I’m not the person you should be aiming for.
BioWare’s approach to fight piracy is one I agree with. It’s the people making the games, movies, music and other means of entertainment that need to make the effort to make a product so good that people will want to buy it for the price it’s tagged.
It totally blows my mind why companies keep putting that supper annoying anti-piracy clip that you just can’t freaking fast forward it!!!!!(and full of stupid comparisons! I mean you don’t steal a car BUT YOU CAN TEST DRIVE IT! You don’t rob a house BUT YOU CAN VISIT IT BEFORE MOVING IN!… and a good number of times that people download games is to see what’s all the fuss about, if it’s actually worth the €50 [which, by the way is nearly US$75... and they only pay $40/$50 in the States!]…so you should also be able to try out a game before buying it, and you don’t have that opportunity most of the times)
Great article you found there.
One of the main ideas from the article is something that most companies fail to grasp: you should entice your clients!
One thing I disagree is this “The brick and mortar, boxed copy version of the game is on its way out, we all hope” part… Years ago games came in those boxes full of goodies and maps and whatnot that were totally worth the buying the original instead of asking a friend for the disk (and oh it was so easier than nowadays) and today when publishers bet on the “extra” or “collector editions” they sell it well. We, consumers, like that stuff, but I’ve seen some publishers trying to sell those editions with few if any extras besides a couple of multiplayer maps… now that’s just robbing/false publicity.
Just a note, BioWare tried to go in a different direction with Mass Effect (like the guys at 2K Games had done with BioShock… a very low limit of installations for each cd-key or something like that) but backed down after Mass Complaining from fans.