Hi Kimari.

Before you shout expletives at me, let me take a moment to set you straight, because you seem to have gotten the wrong impression. You seem to think I’m American, yes? I’m not. I live in South Africa. If a $60 game costs you 220 pesos then the dollar-peso exchange rate is around 1:3.6, yes?

The dollar-rand exchange rate is 1:10. A $60 dollar game costs us R600. Console games are R600-R800.

For reference, so you can see what R600 means, a movie ticket costs R45, or R20 if I go on half-price Tuesday. Which is $2-$4. So please don’t think I am just being unsympathetic to your countries plight, in fact it’s the same or worse here in SA.

That being said, everyone I know, every single person who is computer literate, is a pirate or has been in the past, myself included. Even if they can afford otherwise. They all have differing abilities to buy their games, but let us be clear, everyone pirates even if they could afford to buy. It’s simply the fact that :

1) It’s easy.
2) It’s economically advantageous. You can play that game and still spend the money on something else too.

The reason people pirate in your country isn’t because they can’t afford it. It’s because they can. If “because we can’t afford it” was an acceptable justification, people would simple steal Porches. It’s because we can get away with it, that’s all. It annoys me when people aren’t honest enough to at least admit that much. If people could photocopy Porches everyone would be driving one.

This statement is telling :

“Nobody even thinks of buying the original anymore because we all know that nobody can pay it, and if someone does then he/she is stupid.”

The second part is the significant one. If no-one could afford it, there would be no need for the qualifier. The reality is that some people can, but the standard economic mechanisms are simply being circumvented because it’s an electronic good and can be copied easily and without punishment. It’s the same here. That’s the only real difference between games and any other expensive good that is beyond your budget, yes, they fact that you have another avenue to acquire it?

“We’ve been in this state since 2001″

We’ve been in this state since I was old enough to remember.

“Everybody pirates, it’s part of our culture now.”

Same here. But it only works because some other part of the world is paying enough to support the creators. If everyone pirates, not simply Argentina, then there is no reason for the creative types to make these products that they cannot benefit from and no more will get made. That’s the core problem with piracy. It bites the hand that feeds. If everyone does it, no one will be able to because the source of the product will dry up. It is an unsustainable model.

“Granted, there are some decent people left who buy the originals whenever they enjoy the game, but they still pirate.”

Yeah, but this relies on people being White Knights. The majority aren’t. If people got to decide on whether to pay for a movie only after they saw the movie, the cinemas would go under from lack of profit. The desire to pay for entertainment drops way down after you’ve already received that entertainment.

“We are a lost market to the gaming world but somehow our downloads are considered as lost sales. Give me a break.”

Give me a break too. No one forces you to pirate, or me. If we do, it’s because we at least wanted to try the product and we didn’t want to pay. It’s the same as watching a movie, or going to a restaurant. If you didn’t like the movie or didn’t like the food, you don’t get your money back in those cases. Most people can understand why that would be a foolhardy business model. The only difference with electronic entertainment is that people can get away with it, so they do.

A fine idea, Gareth, I have often thought that it was time that most companies admitted that people without net access were holding back the inevitable development path of said companies.

Well, it’s not that I don’t want to support the net-restricted. For the a few dollars and the cost of shipping I’d be willing to burn a CD with updates and ship it to people.

do you mean to tell me that you will have the time to add further, and consistent, SoW development into your schedule? As it stands now, it almost seems like you need 8 more hours every day, just to chase your existing goals. What am I missing here?

You’re missing how much easier it is to develop a mini-expansion when you already have all the art assets and a complete engine, as well as being the person who created that engine. At worst I can see a mini-expansion requiring a few new art assets on top of the scripting. If you read my post about project management you must have seen the part where I said that 75% of my time is going to making new art assets, yes? Seriously, it is whole orders of magnitude easier and less time consuming for me to simply write a new adventure and do some scripting/area layout than it is to make a new game, with all that entails.

And if it saw a sales spike like Valves, well, ,who knows. Perhaps I could hire someone to do that art. Or perhaps I could turn this into a full time job sooner than anticipated.

People have priorities. Maybe it’s a cultural thing.

No, it isn’t a cultural thing. People value “having the game + keeping their money” over “having the game + not having their money”, universally. Like I said, most people aren’t White Knights and will do what gets them the most advantage, so long as it fits their moral framework. The problem is that people have convinced themselves piracy is a minor thing, so it’s no problem to do it. The human mind has a wonderful ability to convince itself that the most beneficial path is also the right one.

they pirate because it’s practically the only option available.

You mean it’s the only option if they want to play the game without paying. Not playing the game is always an option, like not owning a Porche is. The difference is mainly one of enforcement.

Oh, and about the exchange rate: Yes, it’s 3.6. A month ago it was 3.5. The most optimistic forecasts say that it will be 4:1 by november and 7:1 in the worst case scenario.

My point was here in SA it’s quite a lot worse already (10:1), so I know exactly the type of mindset you’re talking about and don’t buy it at all. People don’t have the right to own something just because it exists.

Let’s not equate piracy with stealing shall we? It isn’t, and you know it. It’s copyright infringement. It’s less morally reprehensible since “nothing is lost” and to top it all off, everybody does it and nobody get’s caught (at least here).

Let’s not get to that tired argument shall we? It’s the modern age, property rights have been extended to include “intellectual property”, theft has been extended to include “intellectual property theft”. Information is a commodity, taking information you don’t have a right to is theft. Saying “no one is hurt cause nothing is lost” is silly, you’ve taken the right of another person to profit from their ideas, which is harmful to the people who generate ideas. When you put a piece of software on a torrent with 20 thousand other users you aren’t simply “sharing”, you’re mass-producing a good.

The only part that really matters is the “won’t get caught and punished” part.

What I meant by “and if someone does then he/she is stupid.” was that piracy became the only option and buying the original was an enourmus waste of money to most, it became common-sense to pirate, it became ingrained in our culture.

Free market economics determines what is an enormous waste of time and helps to counter it by creating price pressue. Piracy doesn’t help because it circumvents a natural mechanism which would result in downwards price pressure. It’s self-fulfilling.

What I was trying to say is that our industry should try and find out where the most pirates come from. My guess is that 80% or more come from China, Latin America and Russia.

Let me state again, even though SA has twice the shitty exchange rate of your own country, every person I know who could afford otherwise still pirates. Blaming it on “well, they just can’t afford it” is bull, every IT person I know (and I know a lot) proves otherwise. It’s not that we don’t have the money to spend, it’s that it is easy, convenient and beneficial not to. And we won’t get punished. That’s really the heart of the matter.

Making very broad statements about how people are jerks doesn’t help your cause.

Meh, I have no cause. Anyone who would pirate my products will do so because they can and it’s economically beneficial, regardless of what I write. I have no illusions. The ways to counter it are either via some enforcement technique or to offer something for sale which cannot easily be replicated via piracy.

Wanting is not enough, you have to have the money for it, and if you don’t have it, then that’s a lost sale

Convince me that Argentinians cannot afford it. At a 10:1 exchange rate, I know plenty of SA people who pirate even though they could afford otherwise. They are lost sales.

u’ve seen the effect that price-drops have on sales

Temporary price drops, temporary sales increases. I don’t know that it would apply if the price was permanently 50%, people buy more when they think they are getting a special offer or sale. If that was the price from the start it may not have that effect.

As an aside, think for a second about what you are saying here mate. I don’t want to be harsh but really, think about it. If you say you cannot afford games then I don’t know how you will afford SoW. I aim to price it at $25, which is $5-$10 dollars below standard mainstream PC titles. Are you telling me that you cannot afford SoW but will simply pirate it because you want it? Do you think my price too high? Do you consider it “stupid” to pay full price for SoW? Am I being unfair to people in your part of the world?

I’m sorry, it’s worse here than in Latin America and I still just don’t buy it.

@ Kimari :

The only original PS2 games I’ve ever seen IN MY LIFE are from people that bought them outside of the country or imported them at a very high cost

But which came first, the chicken or the egg? Did piracy arise because no PS2 games existed in your country, or do no PS2 games exist in your country because it’s impossible to make a profit given the excessively high piracy rate?

You say cellphone games are flourishing in your country? Well, wait till the pirates figure out how to distribute them easily. Cause cheap they may be, but nothing is cheaper than 0.

I never said I’ll buy it, but I’ll probably will since I like your game design thoughts.

I appreciate the sentiment, thanks. The problem with relying on this kind of concept to generate income though is what happens when a person has a bad month, or the economy is tight? Normally, a person then has to weigh the value of each good they want to buy and determine whether he wants it over something else of similar value (should I buy those new shoes, or go to that fancy restaurant? I can only afford one this month…). The problem with software is it can easily be replicated for free. So the person maximizes their personal benefit by paying for the good that he cannot get easily for free, and pirating the software. (I can get the new shoes AND free movies/music/games, yay!)

Because software is easily copied it ends up being the thing the consumer chooses not to pay for in that case. It’s not that people are jerks, it’s that most people are simply trying to maximize the benefit they receive from their income, and they can’t see any direct consequences for their actions. It’s not evil, it’s plain old self-interest.

All I’m saying is that people pirate because games are too expensive here

Are you saying that they literally couldn’t afford a single game if it wasn’t for pirated copies, or that they simply could afford fewer games? Cause here in SA it’s the latter. You said a $10 dollar game costs the price of two movies? Can people not afford to watch movies twice in a month? If piracy didn’t exist, maybe those platinum edition games would flourish in your country, you know the ones which are a year or two old but a fraction of the price? That could become a valid business model for producers in poorer parts of the world. But piracy prevents the economic mechanisms from working properly. It gives nothing back to the creators at all.

I try to avoid saying “you” statements since it’s always detrimental to the discussion, so forgive me for this one:

Forgive me if I seem to be picking on you as well

You generalize too much. You put every single pirate inside the big bag of jerks and don’t even admit that there are shades of gray in this whole issue.

Lol, every single person I call a friend is a pirate, and I don’t consider them jerks Kimari. But piracy is, in my opinion, simply a matter of convenience, lack of enforcement and self interest. Games are luxury goods, we don’t need them to live. There are plenty of other ways to be entertained, many of them free. If we can’t afford them, we don’t thus gain the right to acquire them anyway just because they are expensive, not so? We do it because we want it and we don’t want to pay the asking price and there is no consequence for doing it except that we get to keep our money. I get annoyed with all the justification that flies around the net where people point the finger of blame for piracy at someone else. It’s the producers fault for charging too much, or DRM, or something else. If people just own up and say “I do it because I want to” I respect them far more.

Paraphrasing: “The only reason people pirate is because people are jerks and want everything free.”
That’s a really grim way to look at the world.

Call it healthy skepticism. You seem to be taking this a bit personally. I’m not saying people are jerks. But, look at it this way. If someone is selling hotdogs and right next to them someone else is giving away free hotdogs, what do you think most people will do? What will happen to the guy selling the hotdogs, with his product on offer for free right there next to him? Would the fact that he is going to be unable to support his family affect people’s choice to go for a free hotdog?

One has to wonder why people still buy software.

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?

@ Kris :

Aren’t new art assets most of the excitement of new content? Perhaps I am, again, missing the point. If the D2 expansion just had two new char classes, and no new zones, I very much doubt that I would have purchased it. Now, I know that you are talking about free added content, but the concept is the same.

I think you are thinking about a full-blown expansion rather than a module. Think the NWN modules people created, but more professional. Essentially a new adventure or scenario re-using assets. You aren’t asking people to pay for something extra, you are simply adding value to the original product. You’re saying “buy the original and it comes with 3 extra adventures…wait, 4 extra adventures…wait, 5 extra adventures…” etc.

Call me naive, but I also think that your blog, your interactions, interviews, and anything you can do to humanize yourself, prevents people from pirating your work.

I don’t think you naive. But I already covered that with this : “offer something for sale which cannot easily be replicated via piracy.””. Community interaction and personal involvement aren’t easy to replicate by piracy and add “personal value” to a product for a customer. I do it because I enjoy it, but luckily it’s also good for business.

Although I have to question how many people can you transform from pirate to legitimate user by doing this.

I don’t believe that people are either pirates or legit users. I think people just make rational decisions based on the most benefit to themselves. Remember, intangibles still count as personal benefit. Supporting a cause or person you believe in provides warm fuzzies.

@ Jack :

“Intellectual property” should be separated from physical property because you cannot guarantee what you are paying for.

Not so. You cannot guarantee what you are paying for with physical property either. Many, many people find out about problems with the new car, electronic device or property they’ve bought only after paying. You can read reviews and compare customer opinions etc, but the same statement applies to software and physical property. If you’re saying that software should always have demos, I competely agree. I’ve been burned before buying games which didn’t have a demo.

Hoo boy but this is too long a comment.

Lol!

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

What Collywobbles said. SoW will be released complete, no paying for content that should have been in the game.

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.