91–100 of 102 posts
Time and time again, all these big publishers keep putting out big name titles with only 8-16 hours of gameplay for 60$. No wonder their games get pirated...
"I can offer online-only services that actually add to the game experience." It doesn't matter what they are, what they do, or whether or not the network aspect of these services/features is integral to them - pirates and consumers who insist that any features not on the disc at install-time are an inconvenience will still cry DRM. Are these "online services" integral to the game? If they are, then what happens when…
Imagine an alternate dimension in which StarCraft shipped with LAN support but never supported online play over Battle.net. The StarCraft community would be based on gamer-oriented VPNs, and would likely be about as healthy as it has become in our dimension. If, when StarCraft II was announced, players learned that LAN play would still be supported, but play over Battle.net had been added, I don't think very many people would complain that the product had been deliberately crippled.
In our world, StarCraft supported LAN play and Battle.net play, while StarCraft II does not support any type of multiplayer other than over Battle.net. Battle.net play has resulted in half-second latency for all players and several days of downtime since release. Additionally, it is known that a "Professional" version of StarCraft II exists that supports LAN play - the feature has simply been removed from the retail version.
I think it is pretty clear which of these is a feature and which is not.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Put it online and downloading the client lets you pirate the game like downloading Firefox lets you pirate Basecamp.
What if it doesn't really make sense to add online or multiplayer support to the app/game? Then isn't it just the typical DRM anti-feature? I'd be pretty annoyed if I couldn't play my fun new game on a plane because it needs to constantly connect to the internet to prove I didn't steal it.
Sadly, pirates don't actually convince their friends to buy it. They help them pirate it. He's right about doing what he can to provide features that pirates can't take advantage of, though. That's the only way to actually combat piracy.
> Sadly, pirates don't actually convince their friends to buy it. They help them pirate it. Pirating software is often a pain - find a proper release, install, replace a binary, generate a key, avoid online services, seek out cracked updates (or go without them). If your time has value, it's hardly free. Do you really think everyone pirating anything is going through this process for every Tom, Dick and Harry they kn…
> Pirating software is often a pain
I agree with the first part. The second line is also true, but the cash value must be low. I am a student, and I will very often see students (pirates) helping their friends pirate Cadence Orcad. Sure, it's a pain, but it's not THAT much of a pain and a single license is several thousand dollars. (Heck, it might even be more- they don't list prices, because they don't sell to individuals!)
Orcad is a fantastic piece of software by the way. I'd happily give them lots of money if they'd sell it to me, and I had lots of money. (call me cheap, but I am guessing my annual income is probably on par with only a small handful of licences)
Perhaps then the goal is to have a mutable pricing structure that responds to market pressure. If it really doesn't cost anything to produce 1 additional electronic copy, something like this might work. At launch date / first to market, there is a high price tag for the digital good (whether it be music, game, movie, etc). This is so that the vendor/author can make sure that they can sell at a high price to those "fi…
They're also examples of developers who have declared 90%+ piracy, so I'm not sure that this anecdotal evidence has any value.
I hate this argument.
People who want to pirate games or music frequently say that by pirating, they are actually providing a benefit to the author by giving him exposure. That's true sometimes, but I don't think it's always true.
In general, with any creative product, you want to try to turn some portion of it into exposure and some portion into money. You might divide things up 10/90 or 50/50 or 70/30 or even 100/0-but-I-charge-for-support, depending on what you think is optimum for your goals.
But pirates presume to make that decision for you.
(Though I agree that smart authors will embrace the fact that copying is free and easy rather than trying to fight it. The piece of your product you want to use for exposure can be copyable, but the piece you want to sell shouldn't be. Or if it is, you should be honest about your income being from donations or exceptionally honest people.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I helped my friends pirate the first 10 audiobooks of a series I love, by handing them a flash drive with the MP3s on it, and the condition that if they liked the series they should buy the new ones as they come out. Now 6 of my friends (who never would have been hooked on the series otherwise) own legal versions of the two most recent novels starring our favorite wizard-detective. Those sales would not have been mad…
as a huge fan of audibooks myself: Can you tell me what series you are talking about? (see? Another chance to hook somebody)
The Night Angel trilogy by Brent Weeks is good in GraphicAudio, as is Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson. Warbreaker is stand-alone, so it may be a good starting point.
There are a few rough bits, but there always are; some sections with awkward musical choices, some re-used recognizable sound effects, but they're no more common than errors in standard audiobooks.
(Disclaimer: GraphicAudio books are abridged, but functionally unabridged. If it's raining, they play the sound of rain instead of having the narrator say "it was raining". By definition, that makes them abridged, despite no loss of content.)
Perhaps then the goal is to have a mutable pricing structure that responds to market pressure. If it really doesn't cost anything to produce 1 additional electronic copy, something like this might work. At launch date / first to market, there is a high price tag for the digital good (whether it be music, game, movie, etc). This is so that the vendor/author can make sure that they can sell at a high price to those "fi…
Alternatively, what if the price went down for previous customers—retroactively, as you've said–but not for new customers? Then, customer N - 1 gets paid back a bit of money when customers N and greater purchase your product. There is a name for customer N - 1 in this case: an investor.
I've had the hypothesis for a while that the future of artistic economics is microinvestment: your fans purchase, through a completely streamlined process (e.g. iTMS), tiny amounts of the right to steer your career around—and the actual digital goods come for free with those investments. The "collector edition" becomes the "investor edition." Polls on your fan-site—in est a virtual shareholder meeting—hold real legal sway over your publisher/studio/firm. Etc.
Perhaps then the goal is to have a mutable pricing structure that responds to market pressure. If it really doesn't cost anything to produce 1 additional electronic copy, something like this might work. At launch date / first to market, there is a high price tag for the digital good (whether it be music, game, movie, etc). This is so that the vendor/author can make sure that they can sell at a high price to those "fi…
You, the customer, obviously wouldn't name a price higher than you were willing to pay (the product is not worth that much to you), but you also wouldn't have an incentive to undercut too badly - if you do so, I'll simply pick a higher cutoff than your price, and you won't get the product. There's really no gaming this system, if I'm not happy to sell at a price, I don't sell to you; if you bid fairly high, though, you'll never get screwed by me, all purchasers will be "filled" at the same price every month.
Chargebacks are the main problem with this - you'd have to make sure that you could retroactively adjust prices in order to avoid possible gaming of the system via fraudulent charges, and I have no idea how that would square with the CC companies.
Bonus points for somehow arranging things so that you can profit off of the interest on the committed-but-not-yet-spent money that people commit to spend on your product...
Perhaps then the goal is to have a mutable pricing structure that responds to market pressure. If it really doesn't cost anything to produce 1 additional electronic copy, something like this might work. At launch date / first to market, there is a high price tag for the digital good (whether it be music, game, movie, etc). This is so that the vendor/author can make sure that they can sell at a high price to those "fi…
A single statement from my merchant account includes 26 different types of credit card processing fees. And this is my third processor, the most transparent so far, which prices me only by a fixed percentage markup over the fees they're charged by Visa/MC.