Jeff Vogel talks about piracy

[Jack Norton]

http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2010/...-my-games.html

loved this phrase:

And pirating PC games is wrong because, were it not for that minority of worthy souls who actually chip in, the industry that makes the games we love would descend into a shadow realm of tiny ad-supported Flash games and Farmville. Some people would be cool with that, but I'm looking forward to playing Starcraft 2, thanks.

and:

The way the economics of the business work right now, if you want good PC games, someone has to pay for them. You can't support a project like Starcraft 2 with ads. The money just isn't there.

I think he's right, if things continues this way, we won't see many single-player offline games anymore on PC...

[ragdollsoft]

Either ignore piracy or do something about it.

Complaining about it is stupid.

[Jack Norton]

He's not complaining, he is just trying to explain what might happen soon to the PC gaming scene (or maybe is already happening?).

[papillon]

Either ignore piracy or do something about it.

Complaining about it is stupid.

Complaining about it on a blog that people read which might therefore reach a player / potential pirate and maybe, maybe, turn them towards buying a game once in a while IS doing something.

Certainly more productive than whining about it on an industry forum.

[Sifu]

I read this earlier and thought it was interesting. The problem is the complete diffusion of responsibility as it relates to paying for content. Sure someone has to support the development of these titles but, with no way to issue a specific, targeted call to action, the likelyhood of achieving any result is low. Milgram tells us it's not gonna work.

[Jack Norton]

Well unless his sales figures dropped by 99% this year, considering 100k for one of his games is an average result (figures posted last year in his own blog), it seems that SOMEONE is indeed paying

[cliffski]

He has more than 1 member of staff.
Assume just 2, thats $50k each
assume 10% in payment provider + hosting
$45k each
Assume 20% corporate tax
thats roughly
$37k each

$100k is not a lot for an indie dev. Not a fulltime one.
That assumes no marketing budget and 1 successful game every year.

[Jack Norton]

Well, 100k was for 6 months (if I remember well) for one of his least successful games. I believe also his oldest games won't stop selling overnight.
But yes, if you think about it, is scary. One of the top indies (I guess nobody can argue about it) and it's not really "rich".

I wonder if he'll keep doing offline games or make some move to different technologies/platforms...

[Indinera]

One of the top indies (I guess nobody can argue about it) and it's not really "rich".

I would say most people don't disclose their numbers.

[JarkkoL]

I think it's very short sighted to think that pirating a game under any circumstrance would be the right option for the developer. If you want the kid who asks you for a free key to pirate game, he gets into the habbit of pirating all his games, yours and others. Give him/her a free key and maybe he/she saves enough money to buy your next game because you want to support his legitimately way of playing games. Or maybe it's a signal for you to provide your games at different price points to those 3rd world countries? Or maybe it's an opportunity to gain good publicity and _donate_ your games to poor? Anyway, giving piracy a go under any circumstrances is just wrong, and this blog post didn't make me thing otherwise.

[Spore Man]

Complaining about it on a blog that people read which might therefore reach a player / potential pirate and maybe, maybe, turn them towards buying a game once in a while IS doing something.

Just one?! PFFFFT!

[Vino]

Just one?! PFFFFT!

Hey man we don't need your elitist attitude in here, why don't you fuck off.

[PoV]

Amazing! This discussion has become a smaller version of the Cliffski vs. Rein ordeal.

[berserker]

I think he's right, if things continues this way, we won't see many single-player offline games anymore on PC...

But what's the religion about making single-player offline games? I bet logic of most games of people on these boards can be relatively well transfered to server resulting in 100% protection against piracy plus some other nice bonuses like seing HOW people play your game and what they do - invaluable experience if you decide to improve on concept.

I am not talking about MMO features like microtransactions, not to trigger a flame war, but even as piracy-beating concept, this is extremely viable option.

[Jack Norton]

Yes you're right and I'm thinking to do exactly that for my next game. Problem is that with online stuff you need to be more careful (I've already made a simple mistake in my alpha version that was preventing people from update).
But if you followed that Ubisoft mess about the DRM requiring people to play online you know that doing that could gather some bad publicity.
Then again maybe is just a minority of people being vocal...

[berserker]

(I've already made a simple mistake in my alpha version that was preventing people from update).

After you make a decent bug-free updater, you can pretty much solve any mistake easily due to ability to roll-up updates that everyone will download before he can play..

[Jack Norton]

Yes I know, indeed will do that in future.
I am a bit more concerned about making online-only or online-enabled a "standard offline game". Even if as I said probably the one more complaining are pirates

[Vatina]

Hmm I don't know. While the option of going online with your game for extra bonuses can be nice, I do like to play my games sometimes when the net isn't working. (Maybe it just went down again, or I'm on the ferry or other such place.)

So I definitely hope offline games will stick around for a while.

[Bad Sector]

I hope the offline games will stick around as long as there are computers which can operate offline :-).

[princec]

I hope the offline games will stick around as long as there are computers which can operate offline :-).

Bugger that, Revenge is the last offline title we make.

Cas

[Jack Norton]

I hope the offline games will stick around as long as there are computers which can operate offline :-).

Oh, it could be worse! We could all turn to make Titanville, Animeville, GSBVille, etc...

[cliffski]

GSBVille is not meant to be announced yet...

[Grey Alien]

Progressville: http://greyaliengames.com/blog/progr...facebook-game/

[electronicStar]

Cow clicker