Hahaha, that would be awesome!

The updates will be similar to NWN premiums modules, standalone adventures. All released fro free, so certainly not to milk anyone. The idea is simply to make it more attractive to own the original game by adding further content for those who bought the original to enjoy at regular intervals.

Imagine you bought a novel, and doing so gave you access to sign up to the author’s newsletter. And every few months, that author sent out a short story he’d written to everyone on the newsletter mailing list. Essentially the same idea.

Maybe I should include it as an easter egg in SoW!

I will travel across the web
Googling far and wide
Each developer to understand
that I don’t want to go outside.

Videogames! Gotta down ‘em all
If you ask me, they have no destiny
Videogames,
Oh, you know there’s no end,
In a world we must offend,
Videogames, gotta down ‘em all,
A heart so rude
Our diplomacy will pull us through,

You supply me, and I’ll moon you,
Videogames,
Gotta down ‘em all,
Gotta down ‘em all, Videogames.

(I think I’m going to make a post out of this song xD)

Here in Canada a $60 game is a mere 4-6 movie tickets compared to your 14 in Argentina and South Africa. I _still_ pirate most games. Like Gareth says, getting the product and keeping your cash is *always* a good deal, no matter how cheap the product is.

I do try to White Knight a fair bit as well, however. I acknowledge that piracy has very real consequences for developers and producers, and I don’t believe that theft from bug companies is “noble” in any form.

As to the topic at hand — I agree that “strategy two” for curtailing piracy is viable. A choice between a lesser product/experience for free or a superior product/experience for some money at least gives the consumer a choice to make!

I am. People are jerks. I’m a jerk. It comes with being a “people”. I try not to be such a jerk in areas where it bothers me, and accept that I’m a jerk in areas that it does not. Stealing your game would make me feel like a jerk; making copies of Sacred 2 and giving them to everyone in the world that I dislike- would not. I would say that people are complex this way, but, in truth, we’re most likely not complex enough Most people just need to get over themselves. But, I digress.

Actually, some of my friends already pirate some of them, but at the same time, they also buy some of them. They are inexpensive enough that it becomes a matter of convenience more than a matter of money.

“Do they buy software in your country? You’re coming across like I’m being unfair, but you yourself said piracy is completely rampant in your country. If everyone’s standard of living jumped to triple what it currently is, would piracy magically evaporate and everyone start buying software again? I doubt it. Hard to beat “free” for value for money eh?”

Yes, they buy software. There are still stores with not-so-recent games and just plainly old games that you can buy, and people do! They wouldn’t still be here if they didn’t.
Even some of the stores that sell pirated goods have a few originals. Granted, they don’t sell much of them, so they don’t carry many titles, but they do, because there’s still some people that buy them.

I already said that piracy will never fade away, especially in a country which now has it as a main cultural characteristic. We all pirate, we know how to do it, and we don’t feel sorry about it. We see nothing wrong with it (I say all of this not including me, I mean “we” as a society).
You can never beat zero in price, but that’s not to say that you can offer a better product than a pirated copy, and you said it yourself. I’m not going to say all pirates, but a part of them are plausible consumers, they are part of your audience and are willing to do “the right thing” in certain ocassions. Sometimes all it takes is a lower price, sometimes all it takes is not shafting them with intrusive DRM, etc.
People have shades of gray, people pirate for different reasons, not just money.