Would a Thief Pay?

[soniCron]

Previously, on RE: your first game sales.... (http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=4565)...

Ok Sonicron, what do you think.. throwing facts and evidence (which arent being discussed here) out the window.. What does your intuition tell you? What does common sense tell you? First of all, what facts and evidence are being thrown out the window? I have yet to see any numbers at all! Even in another thread (http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=3786) where I challenged developers to show me the benefit of using superior copy protection, nobody was able to accurately assess the situation because there was absolutely zero data to make any judgment!

But, throwing away this imaginary evidence and these imaginary facts, my intuition tells me that people are generally good. I've got a question in response:

What stops you from pushing a person on the sidewalk into the street in front of an oncoming bus?

[papillon]

(Okay, which one of us came up with that? I know *I've* said that to people, but I can't remember if I've been saying it here or I heard it here. About pushing people, I mean.)

[Savant]

What stops you from pushing a person on the sidewalk into the street in front of an oncoming bus?
Witnesses.


;)

[Leper]

Previously, on RE: your first game sales.... (http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=4565)...

First of all, what facts and evidence are being thrown out the window? I have yet to see any numbers at all! Even in another thread (http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=3786) where I challenged developers to show me the benefit of using superior copy protection, nobody was able to accurately assess the situation because there was absolutely zero data to make any judgment!

But, throwing away this imaginary evidence and these imaginary facts, my intuition tells me that people are generally good. I've got a question in response:

What stops you from pushing a person on the sidewalk into the street in front of an oncoming bus?


Yep, I totally agree.. people are generally good, and I dont think that everyone is just going to steal a game..

and I can cite something as "fact"

look at iTunes.. they sell music in the millions. Yet people can download free music all day long..

[soniCron]

look at iTunes.. they sell music in the millions. Yet people can download free music all day long.. Your point shows nothing more than what we already know: People have an opportunity to buy something, and they also have the opportunity to get it without paying for it. It doesn't prove that people who steal music aren't going to buy music. In fact, the majority of studies show that P2P music sharers are more likely to purchase music!*

*Of course, there are many factors this doesn't consider. Obviously, people who spend time making available and downloading music over a peer to peer network have more of an interest in music, thus are more likely to buy more music. We may also find a correlation between people who make quilts and cancer. Not because making quilts causes cancer, but rather, the majority of people who make quilts may be of an greater age and have an elevated risk of cancer.

[Savant]

look at iTunes.. they sell music in the millions. Yet people can download free music all day long..
Actually, that's not a great example. I forget where I saw it now, but there was an informal study done at one point that showed that ratio of purchased music to actual music on people's iPods was something like 30:1 in favor of unpurchased.

Piracy comes down to convenience. When it becomes easier to buy than to steal, you'll come out ahead. It's really that simple.

[soniCron]

Piracy comes down to convenience. When it becomes easier to buy than to steal, you'll come out ahead. It's really that simple. I assume you're not saying the only thing stopping people from stealing is convenience, right?

[Jack Norton]

Piracy comes down to convenience. When it becomes easier to buy than to steal, you'll come out ahead. It's really that simple.
It might be a particular case: however some years ago (was 2001 I think) I showed Everquest to a friend of mine I knew since childhood (for more than 10 years, at times of C64). This friend NEVER had a original game, never.
Well he bought and played EQ for 3 years (that game require monthly subscriptions), and stopped playing it only because now had to go to work and couldn't play it anymore properly.
I think this shows that there's a big part of people who will pay IF they like something in particular and IF there's really no way to get it for free :D

[Martoon]

look at iTunes.. they sell music in the millions. Yet people can download free music all day long..
Your point shows nothing more than what we already know: People have an opportunity to buy something, and they also have the opportunity to get it without paying for it. It doesn't prove that people who steal music aren't going to buy music. In fact, the majority of studies show that P2P music sharers are more likely to purchase music!*

Uh, soniCron, I believe he was agreeing with you (in fact, he said so in that same post). He's saying that iTunes sells music in the millions, despite the fact that people can download free music all day long.

[JoKa]

There's an other thread discussing if casual games should be playable with only one mouse button or if the modern gamer is able to handle even 2 buttons...I can't believe this main target group will be able to do something really complicated like stealing, so I don't care about thieves ;)

[Black Hydra]

This may sound off-topic, but just listen...

Have any of you read the book Freakonomics (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/006073132X/qid=1127512922/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-5567150-5637413?v=glance&s=books&n=507846)


While it goes into depth about many different practical uses for economics, the one important point we can take home is simple. People are basically driven by incentives.

One example in the book is that a day-care was having too many late pickups. So they charged a 3$ pickup fee if the person was more than 10 minutes late. What happened? The late pickups tripled! This is because the social incentive of feeling guilt was replaced by the economic incentive of paying the fee. And the economic incentive was much weaker.

If there is a social pressure that some act is wrong, then people will avoid doing it. Most of society sees software piracy in the very low spectrum of guilt (compared to other forms of theft), so most people will take a free version that is illegal over a 20$ version of a game.

But if getting the illegal version is harder to a perspective buyer than is worth the 20$ they will buy it.

Now, I don't have any numbers but all this makes sense. Seeing as we can't change social stigma, but we can change the incentives to make purchasing a more attractive option.

So, no, there will probably be a lot of people that don't buy games that would use cracks. But what about the percentage of those people that would buy the game, but the social incentive of piracy was lower than the economic incentive of 20$. They would steal it.

No numbers, but this is how economics work. The real question is. What is that %

[papillon]

Where I've mentioned the bus-shoving mostly recently was when talking about full download links. Because a pirate COULD just give the download link to all and sundry to come download your full game. But... they don't! I have given out completely unprotected download links to people I *know* are pirate scum, and they STILL don't share the link. Weird.

It's not that all people understand that draining my bandwidth costs me money and is therefore a more 'direct' crime than just putting my game onto fileshare would be.... people don't understand why hotlinking pictures (and SCRIPTS, ARGH) is bad at all, they do it all the time unless you stop them.

People pirate for a lot of reasons. Some will buy even though they pirated; some will never buy even if they can't crack, some will buy because they can't crack. And many of them have their own weird moral justifications for what they're doing and their own personal boundaries. "Only from those who deserve it" or "Never from the Little Guys" or "Only if it's not available for sale" or "Only if it's not licensed for sale in my country." (I am not passing judgement on any of these positions, please note. I am just saying that positions like these exist.)

I've been watching a hilarious argument on a board elsewhere where a fellow posted a link to a site with a game for sale (for $10) and asked if anyone could give him a copy. This forum is full of quasi-legal content being passed around openly, but the way this one particular question was asked, everyone just stopped and stared at him. "Dude. It's ten bucks. If you want it, BUY IT. Don't ask us to steal it for you." And he keeps stubbornly bumping the post and asking again for someone to post the game, and more and more people keep showing up to mock him for it. It's a board FULL of thieves and no one would really have batted an eyelid if he'd shown up WITH the game and offered it around for free, but the way he demanded someone provide it for him irked everybody. It's okay to share things with your fellows, but it's rude to demand someone steal for you. Social structures are strange.

[Robert Cummings]

But, throwing away this imaginary evidence and these imaginary facts, my intuition tells me that people are generally good. I've got a question in response:

The reasons people do things usually have nothing to with goodness, or even the absence of badness, but more to do with necessity.

If I was hungry I would steal a loaf of bread and eat it. There is some risk there, but it is necessary.

If I was poor and I wanted to play a game and it was easy to obtain for free I would save my money for a loaf of bread. But as it is so easy to obtain a pirate game risk free I will take it.

I am obviously not saying I steal bread or games, but figuratively speaking. There's no argument to the contrary, it's human nature. You don't need to figure out this or "honesty" or all that crap.

$20 is actually a lot to anyone who is a minor or out of work. These people are not your customers. Stop worrying about them, take sensible precautions and finish your game.

[soniCron]

The reasons people do things usually have nothing to with goodness, or even the absence of badness, but more to do with necessity... $20 is actually a lot to anyone who is a minor or out of work. These people are not your customers. Stop worrying about them, take sensible precautions and finish your game.
Nobody's expressly worrying about minors or out of work adults. In fact, we're covering a broad range of people and why they may, or may not, steal. (For example, a group of office workers casually sharing a serial number.)
When there's no threat of necessity or sacrifice (like said office workers), most people are left to decide with guidance from their morals. And if we're to ignore minors and out of work adults in this discussion, then where does this idea of necessity dominating decisions fit in, anyway?
Until you have a title under your belt you're willing to share with the group, quit dismissing me to "finish your game." Finish yours.

[TimS]

So far as I've seen there are only two surefire ways to pirate-proof your game:

1.) Make it free

2.) Prominently display the word "WildTangent" all over the game and its website.

These methods have been used in combination to great effect.

As for people being generally good... I hate to be "that guy"... but "good" is a societally defined term... Those millions of ipod people with 30:1 pirated to purchased ratios of music are redefining the notion of "good" by the very fact that they don't consider themselves "evil"... Most of their friends and family don't consider them evil either, and as you start pulling in the masses, the nature of good and evil conceptually changes. I'm not siding with the pirates here, (hell I don't even own an MP3 player) but it is good to keep a 50,000 ft view of the scope of the issue if you're going to argue about it.

[Robert Cummings]

Until you have a title under your belt you're willing to share with the group, quit dismissing me to "finish your game." Finish yours.
I hope you don't mean arcade snooker that I finished five years ago? look in my sig.

How about you finish your game then?

[soniCron]

However, that doesn't change the essence at all. The point is very simply that people tend not to do things they view as wrong. While society has been restructuring what is "good" in the realm of digital copyright infringement, that doesn't mean there aren't other methods of leveraging the spectrum of morality to benefit developers. Imagine, the third time of checking your online high-scores with an illegally registered game, a notices appears:

Congratulations! Because you were using an illegal copy of this game, we have killed a kitten!

[image of frightened kitten]

Every time you illegally run this game, we will brutally slay another kitten!


This is an entirely horrible idea, but the point is the same. A soccer mom sees this warning after casually copying Janet's serial number "Because you should check it out! It's fun!" and she doesn't feel so good about playing this game anymore. (Nor will she ever try any products from a kitten-murdering software company.) Of course, this threat is by and large bad for the company's image. But instead of entirely lock out a user, we make them feel bad about stealing, and a potential sale could be gained. (Again, the kitten thing is a nasty example!)

[soniCron]

I hope you don't mean arcade snooker that I finished five years ago? look in my sig. Curious, who published your Beta 0.5 Arcade Snooker? (Which, incidentally, shouldn't be confused with, nor infringe upon, Team 17's Arcade Snooker (http://www.mobygames.com/game/arcade-snooker). Is the "& Pool" is supposed to clarify things?)

[Savant]

Freakonomics was a good citing. It really is about societal/peer pressure and convenience.

And please try to stay on topic, Sonicron. Trading snipes with Rob is going to drown out any possible discussion.

[Black Hydra]

Another mention from the book was that a man started a business where he would leave bagels and cream cheese in office buildings with a box for money to buy the bagels. Because no one was there to enforce it, if you wanted to steal a bagel, you could.

This, inadvertantly allowed him to measure what percentage of people were honest even though, in all practicality they couldn't be caught.

Turns out most people are honest as about 85-95% of people paid. But I really think this is because people view stealing a bagel, something that is tangible, as wrong, where as stealing software is not as bad. People also don't see downloading or using cracks as stealing because they aren't actually stealing it, they are simply accepting stolen goods (which is percieved as a lesser injustice than stealing itself).

The real problem is, we can't change peoples perceptions of stealing software, so the only thing we can do is make it a bigger hassle to steal. But beyond a certain minimum amount of anti-piracy protection, most efforts are generally insignifigant.... ah well...

[Omega]

--You know what--I don't want to be a part of this stupid thread.

[soniCron]

Omega, I can understand your frustration. But I think what Black Hydra was implying was that society doesn't seem to have any beef with digital thievery, and because of this there's no societal pressure. Without any moral obligation to do the "right thing," nothing stops them from doing the "wrong thing." If you'd like, I wrote an extensive essay in my blog about this matter, and I'd appreciate your thoughts. (Provided they're more thoughtful than "idiot." ;))

Read the essay here. (http://sonicron.solaristudios.com/2005/09/to-catch-thief.html)

EDIT: I'm not quite sure why you edited your post three times, but this was in response to the following, previous version:
There are people who DO have customers because they HAVE released something. Those people do not use 'logic' or miss-applied 'quotes' from books, such as reading a quote from a book about 'bagels' and explaining how this means that software is stolen because it is not physical. What part of the book said that? Why quote something if you're going to say something completely unrelated to the quote?

Don't take offense--just finish what you are doing! YOU ARE DRIVING YOURSELVES INSANE!!

[soniCron]

Robert is certainly not wrong. There are plenty of people who we won't ever see a dime from. And so, trying to prevent them from obtaining an illegal copy is largely pointless. However, there is rampant casual thievery ocurring on the Internet, as is evidenced by the music sharing trend. A significant portion of these people buy music as well, but feel no societal incentive to refrain from stealing it in a digital form. We're mainly discussing the folks that have the means to purchase the software, yet feel no remorse for stealing a digital medium.

EDIT: It appears you've edited your post again! :) Here's what I was responding to:
The second point is that, **not everybody would be able to afford it.** Only a small percent of the 6 billion people in the world would pay for your game even if they all had computers, internet access, your game demo, and liked it. Very few would be able to pay for it. You are NOT TARGETTING THOSE 6 BILLION PEOPLE. You are targetting the people who are going to pay for it, such as middle-class and upper-class citizens of the US, UK, Canada, etc. And by targetting those people who would pay for it, you can ignore what those people who don't have computers, don't have money, don't download your demo, don't hear about your game, or don't speak English do. Even if 5 billion people do not want to buy your game, but downloaded a warez version instead, it doesn't matter because they weren't going to buy it anyway.

[Black Hydra]

Little late to respond on that one but I will explain my quote.

The reason I made the quote about bagels is because:

If nobody could possibly catch you, would people still do things that were wrong?

And the book says, that about 85% of the time, people were honest. So, no, my point wasn't to infer specific information from that book, but rather to point out that the reason people steal software isn't just because it is easier to steal software than it is to steal packaged goods. Because as was shown, most people wouldn't steal the tangible bagel even if there was virtually no chance of repercussions (as is the case with software).

Isn't this the general chat forum? I didn't realize I needed permission and a record of sales to post fairly inspecific information without being flamed... I think you must be misinterpretting my statements.

Omega: Does it sound like I am trying to act like I know more than the veteran indies here? I really am not intending that, but that is the only justification I can see for such an outburst. I am still working on my game, but I didn't realize that prohibits me from engaging in discussions which are clearly relevant to me.

EDIT: Oh and you are absolutely right that most people can't afford games. I remember hearing something about how Steve Pavlina blocked certain countries based on their IP's simply because there was so much piracy. If the average person in China can't afford your game and is more likely to steal it, then perhaps it is best to try to avoid dealing with them altogether...

[Savant]

And the book says, that about 85% of the time, people were honest.
There are, however, other factors at work there. The people are in an office environment and someone may walk in as they are walking out with their stolen bagel. There may be peer pressure at work to pay for bagels. There may be any number of other influences present there.

A person on the internet looking at a download link has none of those influences and is free to act entirely on their natural will. I don't think that will is nearly as honest as people may want to believe.

[Black Hydra]

@Savant - I guess it also begs the question, what % of people steal your game?

[Escapee]

I too cant believe Real did not take Dr Germ , There are probably hundred of reasons why they rejected Prodigious escapee , but i could only find one reason why they did not take Dr Germ . I think there are too many Bejeweled clone in the market already . I for one wouldnt consider DL a match 3 sort of puzzle game if i know beforehand the genre type, the feeling should be the same for the majority of others who had played Chuzzle or bejeweled until total burn-out.