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I've been doing a lot of thinking recently. I know it's rather dangerous but I’m at the stage where I’m starting to firm up some thoughts, figure out plans of attack etc. One of the issues is piracy and how to combat it's effects / is it worthwhile spending that time. You all have heard the arguments for and against so that isn't the point of this column. I'm looking at another impact of piracy currently unseen. So to begin let me tell you what I overheard yesterday.
I was in a major chain store, one of those ones with the incredible discounts and with a toy sale on the games were even cheaper than usual. In fact here in Australia you can grab Rhythm Heaven for $30! That's $40 off retail! A wide majority of the titles are priced between $20 to $40 with the shovelware for kids being at the lower end and Pokémon being the higher, but that's still at least a $20 discount for platinum. So right now is the best time to purchase those DS games you have been putting off, right?
Well what horrified me was a mother with her four young girls looking at the DS games, all of the girls looked between six and fourteen. Now a couple of the girls were running up to their mother going "I want this one", nothing unusual there. However what horrified me was the line that came next, the very next words out of the mother's mouth in response to purchasing some damn cheap games was
"No, I won't buy the Nintendo games, Daddy will download what you want when we get home"
I was dumbfounded, shocked and it took every bone in my body to resist walking over to the lady and giving her a piece of my mind. More violent thoughts also raged through my mind, but I just kept to myself and continued to walk, ashamed to be anywhere near the lady with the bad ideas. Piracy is not a victimless crime, it's just that when you do it all you see is a line on a screen and an option to download. But that isn't the issue here, the issue is "what does that teach the children?"
Now I’ll be the first to admit that I have done piracy in the past, when my family got our first PC (a 386dx, we quickly upgraded to 486 with math co-processor!) my father "borrowed" software from friends at work on 3 1/4" floppies. Jill of the Jungle, Worms, Duke Nukem, Commander Keen 4/5/6 etc etc. Hell when Pokémon came out I didn't have a Game Boy so I grabbed a emulator and played on that, not quite the same but it was still fun. But when I did that I made those decisions myself and when I got my Game Boy and later my N64 I was constantly saving and hunting down gaming bargains to play on my system.
But in terms of those four girls, what message does it send that they can goto daddy and he'll download the game onto a piracy cart so they can play what they want on their DS without putting out cash? Isn't saving and purchasing one of the earliest and easiest lessons for parents to teach their children? Isn't stealing wrong?
I don't know about you but I'm feeling that this is disappointing, if parents will not encourage their children to save their money and purchase even the cheapest of games aimed at them, what hope do we have for the future. Do we need to start educating people that there is real people they are harming with the blasé attitude towards piracy?
I have always been of the opinion that you should only make the actions that you are prepared to accept the consequences for. If the kids can figure out how to get a R4 to work, where to download the ROMs from and can explain to me what they're doing? I'll give them that. But there is a better solution for raising gamers with a cheap wallet.
And that solution is my uncle. He has brought up his kids rather awesome, he's taught them about ratings, went with a N64 rather than a current gen console and been cheap ass gamer the entire time. The kids still enjoy the games and can play to their hearts content. Hell he bet his son on swimming lessons that if he completed to a certain level he would purchase a Xbox 360 (and is now eating his words after his son completed two courses in three weeks) but the major difference is there. His kids save and scrimp to buy the games they want, they recognize things beyond them and hell, they are excellent gamers.
The morale of all this? Piracy is robbing more than the developers, it's also hurting your kids too. Can you really afford it?
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@ Author: I admire your restraint.
You were 'dumbfounded, shocked' to here this? Wha? - Seriously.
DS-Piracy is new to you? What point are you making: that it's bad for developers? that it is taking food away from their table? steals the college money from their kids?
Yeah. That's kinda the reality since the first floppies swapped in the schools.
"The morale of all this? Piracy is robbing more than the developers, it's also hurting your kids too. Can you really afford it?"
Can who afford it? Is it the developers fault or responsibility or in his/her power to change that???
I don't think so.
If you want to teach your own kids proper values - please do so. But the reality is that parents and children don't learn the lessons we all here learned in life and learned to value: that things cost money. That stealing is bad. Beyond markets and sales. The Ethical Ground and moral outrage won't help you in this fight.
I know developers who started numerous projects with stolen 3D Max and Adobe Software etc... we all are hardened by the facts of life and are cynical to the edge of our (remaining) hair.
You will fight piracy only when you give people the chance to buy your games in an easier and cheaper way, than it would take them to torrent it. Online Authentification and customized exe's for all games will do in the future. I hope, at least.
Outrage - not so much;-)
Adding some: Make good games that worth paying for. If you reach the perfection of piracy blocking, people who was gonna download it, or anything, just won't play. or if they save their hard worked money to buy some games, it's probably be a very little number of titles, those ones they think are worth, if it still happens.
What has to be done is make cheaper and better games and creative ways of distribution. Don't try to win a lost war. Find a way around it.
Far from the solution and not for all kinds of games, but still a thought: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/LuisGuimares/20090425/1253/The_Game_Design_Labora
tory_Virtual_Console__Thinking_of_New_Models_of_Game_Developing_and_Distribution
.php
The other thing to keep in mind though, is that while $20 or $30 for a new game seems like almost nothing to people who are used to paying $60 or $70 for games, it's still a lot of money for many people. I've definitely had periods of my life where a $30 greatest hits game was a major purchase because money has been tight. So I'd be interested in knowing if the mother in question wouldn't buy the games because she didn't want to, or if they genuinely just don't have spending money for things like games. I'm not trying to validate her behaviour, but I think it's a question worth asking, and it is worth keeping in mind that games are actually a really huge expense for a lot of people.
Technically, yes there IS a model to make money off those folk: you make the legit product "better than free".
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/kelly08/kelly08_index.html
That's my favourite article on the subject. The basic idea is that anything that can be copied freely is effectively worthless... limited demand for an infinite supply. In such a scenario, the things that can't be copied (convenience, for instance) are the only things that retain value.
It's definitly food for thought. Doesn't help DS games, though, and it certainly doesn't excuse the absolutely horrible parenting this article describeds...
Video games are a fantastic way to teach this, in fact! Most RTSs, RPGs and MMOs have abundant lessons in this principle. One of my sons plays WoW and has evolved from a beggar to a spender to a saver to an entrepreneur. Another is into RTS games particularly and we talk about how you need to grind resources before you spend them, and that you probably don't want to use more than half your resources at a time so that you have a buffer of reserves for emergencies.
Great post, and an interesting take on the subject... thanks!
If you could give that mother a piece of your mind, what would you say? That piracy is wrong, and hurts developers? That it's sending the kids the wrong message? They still wanted their mother to buy the game anyway, even though they knew they could have any game for free, didn't they? And no matter what argument you could have used, it doesn't change the fact that the mother has four kids and needs to skimp on money, or else she wouldn't have been shopping inside a discount store in the first place.
Copyright infringement is going to a national gallery and taking a digital photograph of a painting, then going home and printing it for placement on your wall.
Yea, that's kinda what I've been saying forever (the stuff in that link). Except I take a different stance. I take the stance that infinite copies don't devalue to zero although it does devalue. There is still money to be made even with the existence of free infinite copies because there will always be demand. New people are born everyday so old copies can be recopied and resold to new people forever, for the same one time work. There will be some free copies pirated then there will be some that will gladly pay for the same infinite supply of copies for one time work that was sold 10 years earlier originally, money gain from that one time work will never reach zero. If companies can profit forever off of one time work then I don't see the problem with some people pirating. $Infinity - $60 = $Infinity.
People who say "I stole it because it was $60, but I would have bought it if it was $20!" are, without exceptions, liars. Thieves steal because they can, and someone who is willing to steal a $60 title is just as willing (if not moreso) to steal a $20 title. It defines who they are, and the price of what they steal is no more a factor than the color of the package. If the game is $20, they steal it anyway, and then claim the damage is one third less. But I bet they'd buy it if it was $10! Or 5!
DRM sucks. Thieves suck more. Thieves are why there is DRM. Don't like DRM? Go complain to your "friend" who has terabytes of torrents. And watch you wallet while you do, because if your "friend" can get away with it, you will walk away lighter.
Very interesting article that one, even inspirated me...
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/LuisGuimares/20090714/2404/War_Against_Piracy_Aga
in.php
In counter point to the, "maybe she can't afford it" argument. a) Why is she in a game store in the first place, most sensible mothers would come up with a reason to not go into a place with thier children when they can't afford anything b) why doesn't she say no to her children or say, if they work for it she'll get it for them , then go home, have daddy dl the games, make the children work for it, and present the games to her children without saying where they came from?? In this way she gets the best of both worlds, she gets the game for nothing AND teaches her children a valuable lesson.
In truth that mother's actions are inexcusable, no matter how you word it there was a better way of dealing with the situation. Perhaps the mother was frazzled at being badgered by her 4 children, that makes her actions understandable, but not excusable. Perhaps the mother hasn't the money, that explains the want to pirate, but not the reason she told her children such. I mean what's changed? I remember the first time my mother caught me downloading music, I was read the riot act. Now that I'm older she doesn't mind so much, even if she disagree's with the act. When I was young if I begged my mum for something, she'd put it on laybuy, then make me earn it in some way, perhaps by doing a certain chore for the next 3 months. I remember my dad pirating some computer software, and he told me to never do it because it was wrong (in that stern tone he always used during a lecture)...and to not tell my mother :P . These things aren't so hard to do and instil a lasting impression on a child, not doing such is lazy, or plain bad parenting.
More money for Nintendo, since all four girls have or will have soon a DS and we know they make money on each piece of hardware they sell, unlike other companies who haven't been as successful in designing their business models. Moreover, the girls will always have the power to force the parents into buying a console and an R4 for each one of them since they don't have to pay for the games. Admittedly they could buy 2nd hand DSs so this can be a weak link.
More people who will grow up to be gamers rather than not because "games were too expensive when I was a kid so I never got into them". This is another of Nintendo's strengths: reaching and enticing "non gamer" segments of the public.
More women gamers.
More gaming families: obviously the dad is a gamer and happy to raise gamers.
Wider gaming culture imbued in young people since early on: imagine all the different game genres these girls will experiment and test, since they do not need to pay for them. They may grow to become game creators. Maybe one of them will become the first female game producer to craft a multimillion hit (hopefully that happens earlier than that).
More gaming industry growth and revenue since casual gamers move on to bigger systems where pirating is not possible or is much more difficult.
So yes, piracy is bad, but there is a big "BUT" when we talk about piracy and how bad it is to the industry as a whole.
It's just a fobbing off tactic. By the time Dad comes home, they'll have forgotten what they wanted anyway. Saves her spending money on something the kids didn't really want anyway without it being a stand-up argument in a public place...
@Luis Alis Ferrer: That would be wonderful if that would actually happen and can totally see that aspect as being "justifiable" (in the same sense stowaways trying to get a free ride to get to a better life), "BUT" that won't happen till it happens.
For now, at the very least, if they truly loved a game as it is then I would hope that they would take the effort to pay for it in any way they can.
If the next generation of "gamers" is made up of people who not only can't control, but don't understand the values in games then I'd be weary to see the state of health of this hobby of ours.
@Luis Guimarães and Ian: I have lots of counter points to touch with you here. No doubt that I understand if not agree on a few of your ideas, but since this probably isn't the proper place to discuss it (and if there is I'd be glad to be there!), but I'll leave you a quote from a film that deserved more credit than it initially received:
"A world without string is chaos."
Ummm yes, yes they will get them downloaded. Firstly it's a grouping of 4 young girls, they won't forget, and I don't doubt that the combined nagging ability of all 4 (hell the nagging of just 1 drives many mothers up the wall, and causes fathers to run and hide), will indeed, result in the game being downloaded. Exhibit two, considering the mother mentioning the dl of the game so offhandedly, demonstrates that they actually do this on a regular basis, in addition, the fact that this "fobbing" tactic worked, also demonstrates the likelihood of it having been done before on more than one occasion.
If it hasn't got a precedence, the (note young) girls, would act more amazed that such could be done, with an amazed question (really?! Will he really??!!) etc. If it hadn't been delivered on in the past, would leave (especially the older, note 14ish), would say something along the lines of "you always say that", and pout.
Ultimately while I disagree that this is merely a diversionary tactic, it's irrelevant anyway, the message the mother sends is exactly the same, regardless of the truth of her statement, as the children believe it to be true. Also note, that such a tactic could only work so many times before being worthless, and the girls will then get the games anyway...
In a couple of years (rather sooner than later) this discussion will be obsolete. No more copies. Every game will be an unlockable one-time service from the cloud to the device of your choice.
Another article mention the fact that PC gamers tend to research there purchases for longer then a console player, PC gamers have far more to loose on a purchase.
Demo's are not just sales tools but also part of an step in a cost conscious buyer. They can also hurt sales if the game is all eye candy and no substance. Back in my console days I had a rule: if I can finish the game in under 24hrs it got returned to the store for credit.
I have downloaded a ill gotten copy when I could not otherwise find a working demo, and later on purchased the game. If a title is good enough for me to keep playing then I go out and buy it. if its bad I remove the software and I just saved myself $50. That being said, there are titles and producers out there that can produce content that is trusted to be good. I pre-ordered Spore without ever checking to see if it will run on my system because I could trust the developer. Valve is another trusted developer. Why? Because they go that extra mile to make there software compatible to a broader base of hardware.
I hope I don't end up working with you. I don't care if you're in with the right ethics, you come across as unwavering zealot who judges anyone to their full characiturish potential.