Game Design, Programming and running a one-man games business…

Category: business

BLOG MELTDOWN

It looks like my conversation with web pirates has drawn in an amazing amount of replies, many of them very interesting.

It also looks like the number of comments knocked by blog out too. Oh well, to be expected in some ways.

I was also interviewed by the business part of CNET, and the link for that feature is here:

http://industry.bnet.com/technology/2008/08/11/cliff-harris-qa-why-do-you-pirate-my-games/#comments

I’ll be posting a full article in a day or two about what people said, what I’ve learned, and what I intend to do about it all. A big thanks to everyone who emailed me (even the bastards who stole my games!). There are just too many of you to reply to by email I’m afraid. I am supposed to be working on my new game (kudos 2)

Genuine call for emails from pirates

Having read the Rock paper Shotgun coverage of this (different prices for games on PC vs Console) and the recent complaining about the price of braid, best characterised here…  added to the torrent of blog comments I get from people annoyed at my attitude to piracy, I thought it was about time to do this:

I want to know why people pirate my games. I honestly do.

This is not some silly attempt to start a flamewar, it’s not at attempt to change anyones mind about anything. I don’t want to argue my side of it, and there is zero ulterior motive. I’m not looking to ‘catch’ anyone, or prove any points.

I know what I don’t know. And what I don’t know is WHY people pirate MY games. I might be able to get a general idea as to why people pirate stuff *in general* from reading warez forums, and every other story on digg, but I’m not interested in the general case. I want to improve my business, and ensure I stay afloat, and to do that, it would be mad to sit in the corner and ignore the opinions of that section of the public who pirate my games.

Is it 10%? is it 95%? I don’t know. Are they generally kids, or adults? I don’t know. And most vitally of all, WHY do they not buy them, but pirate them. This is what I want to be told. More information and insight is never a bad thing.

So this is a public, genuine, honest request for opinions. Preferably by email, or you can comment here, but wordpress isn’t known for handling that many comments well. You can email me at cliff AT positech dot co dot uk. It helps if you put ‘piracy’ at the email subject.

What I will NOT do:

I won’t publicise who emailed me, or even store the addresses, share them, tell anyone them, or make any use of them whatsoever. I’ll just read them, nothing else. It will be entirely off-the-record and effectively anonymous. I won’t hand any email addresses to the RIAA, MPAA, BSA or anyone at all under any circumstances ever.

What I WILL do:

I will read every single one, and keep an open mind. I will listen to what you have to say, and how I can use that to make games that sell more, sell more copies of what I have, convert more people to become buyers, and generally make everyone happy

I will post a summary of the emails I got, without identifying anyone.

I will give genuine thought to what I could or should change about my business, me, my games, everything, in order to address the issues raised.

Please email me, and please be honest. Don’t try and use any justifications you think may just be self-justifications that you know aren’t true. If you did it just because you knew you wouldn’t get caught, say so. if you did it because you think the games crap, say so. This is only helpful if everyone is 100% honest. It would be nice to know how you made the decision to pirate. Did you look at the price? did you consider buying it? under what circumstances would your choice have been different etc etc. Please make sure its about MY games. If you pirate photoshop because of X, that’s no help. if you hate the MPAA and RIAA, and you pirate music, but haven’t pirated my games, that’s no help.

if you are one of the thousands of people reading this who bought my games. THANKYOU. I really appreciate it. without you, I’d be working as a boat builder, an IT support engineer, an guitar teacher, or something else that I wasn’t very good at. Thankfully I get to do what I love, which is design games. My company would not exist without you, and the last 4 games would definitely never have got made (Democracy, Kudos, Rock legend, Democracy 2).

Final note:

Please don’t post any links, suggestions or hints as to WHERE to pirate my games in any comments. Despite being genuinely interested to hear from you, I do NOT think it’s acceptable, and for obvious reasons (not least rising fuel and food bills in the UK) I want people to BUY the games, not pirate them.

If you came here from a link and think What games? Look here.

Thanks

DIGG this story

Students, piracy and HITLER (yes really)

I read about a law going through in the USA that attempts to cut down on student piracy on US college campuses.

One of the aspects of all this which makes me despair a bit is the attitude of the students that they are somehow entitled to free everything, music, movies, games etc… Be warned, I’m about to sound like an old man…

I think this is part of a general trend in the west, and I think it’s because of adolf hitler. Here is why…

My grandfathers generation, and to some extent my fathers, lived through World War 2. My Grandfather was a soldier fighting in Africa and Burma. They put up with a serious lack of everything. No cod during the war, no decent meat during the war, no bloody anything basically. You ate what you were given, and you were thankful. People put up with a lot, make-do-and-mend etc etc.

That kind of attitude sticks with you for life, and when that generation had kids, they drilled it into their kids too. The value of a hard days work, respect for the law, making do with what you have etc etc.

But that next generation grew up without any disasters or wars to speak of. They lived relatively happy, prosperous lives, without fear of invasion, war, or serious food shortages or poverty. People got used to enjoying entertainment without seeing it as a luxury, but part of life. When it was time for them to have kids, they stopped drilling the military drill-sergeant attitudes into their kids.

Those are the kids now at college.

I noticed it recently whilst food shopping. There was a woman with her young kid (maybe 6? 8?) accompanying her on the weekly grocery shop. The mother was constantly subservient to the child. “would you eat this?” “do you want one of these?” “what would you like to eat?”. I couldn’t help but want to vomit. Maybe *we was poor but honest* when I was young, but I never had all that crap. I ate the food that was available. My parents bought it, so it was up to them. The idea that everyone else would work around my desires, when *they* were paying would seem farcical.

Yet this is how families operate now. Kids are the decision makers. They get to eat what they like, watch what they like, play what games they want, listen to what they want, and it’s all paid for by someone else. If mommy has to get into credit card debt to buy little jimmys xbox 360, she does it. End result: Kids who know the value of nothing, and expect everything to be given to them.

Complete bollocks? Who knows, but I certainly think there is a grain of truth here. Part of me does worry that if and when the current generation gets a serious shock (world war 3, or severe climate disaster), we just aren’t cut out to deal with it. Rather than all coming together with ‘the blitz spirit’ we will become feral and confrontational, hating to consider even the tiniest sacrifice in our own standards, regardless of how much it is needed. Just looks at how people resist even changing a light-bulb to literally save the planet. We live amongst the ‘everything for nothing’ generation, and I’m pretty sure it’s a bad thing.

Cue summaries of this post that say “game developer links piracy to hitler”. Feel free, It’s all publicity for me :D

Sticking to our corner

They say that there are 800 million people on the web, and google claims to have indexed over a trillion pages now. Anyway you look at it, the web is a BIG place, with tons to offer, lots to do, and bags of opportunity. The web is the very first real worldwide marketplace, where anyone (even a guy in his bedroom in England) can sell something he creates all over the world, to an audience in the hundreds of millions. Surely there is a catch?

Yes.

The catch is, that those 800 million people aren’t looking for what me or you makes, and even if they did, it’s not easy to find us. I think part of the problem is that as human beings, we haven’t really adapted our brains or our attitudes to the web. We are still thinking like apes, clustered together in our own little social groups.

Think of the last time you read the world news online. Think of the time before that, and the time before that. I’m 95% likely it was the same sites all three times. Right? I know I get my news from the same place (BBC news), despite the fact that I could just as easily read it here or here or here. And that’s just the Uk take on the world news. Maybe I want a US view? or maybe Australian? How about a totally different point of view?

I don’t go to any of those sites often at all. I stick with what I know. So do most people, for news, stock market information, travel information, the weather, and for entertainment.

If people get their games news from a site that doesn’t ever feature indie games, they may never hear of my games. If they buy their games from Steam, I’m invisible to them. If the maybe 0.01% of games sites that i advertise with arent on their radar, I am invisible. Obviously that’s bad for me, but it’s also bad for them.

When was the last time you went to a totally new website that you haven’t visited before? and what percentage of your surfing is truly exploring what’s new, as opposed to rechecking the same 20 URLS in your bookmarks? And most relevantly to me, where do YOU get your games news, reviews and demos?