myxa

Your arguments are laughable. Do you actually think there are people out there who don't know how torrent? Maybe grandmas (they probably only know how to eMule) I'll play along. Say there are Honest people and Pirates. Do you think they gang up and only talk to their own? "Third rule of Pirates: We don't talk to Honest people" looool

Secular, Dix, StellarRat, Do you see the difference between Stealing and copying? Why people are being so retarded? Is every photographer a thief? You know they copy shit IRL and some of them even make money on it!! OMG OMG. I will also suggest you to research the difference between "Cut" and "Copy". StellarRat, Read about WOM marketing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word-of-mouth_marketing Even if none of the pirate buy the product there is still benefit. Pirating can help game industry by cutting down on ad marketing and using WOM marketing instead.

Good post. Agree with almost everything here. We are yet to see if kickstarter (or something similar that will come after it) is a replacement or not. So far it's looking promising with games you listed. I'm also intrigued to see how far the Greenlight will go.

A sequel does not exclude experimentation. Releasing an isometric game nowadays is experimentation. Any step from the mainstream is experimentation because today everything is mainstream. I dare you to find so called AAA title on kickstarter. Thank you for the English lesson. I almost shed a tear when actually went and researched the word "enforce". You also made a spectacular exit calling me naive and ill informed. Simply shows your intelligence level. You can go now.

Also to anyone thinking a publisher is just a way to get money - you are wrong. Publishers don't just give you money, they also hijack your IP, they feel entitled to tell you what you can program and what not. They also influence the game dev in general (they want it as mainstream as possible). Finally, when their quarterly reports are due they will force you to release a half-assed product and cut out the experimental features. This is not how Kickstarter functions because there is no "big boss" to tell you what to do. Kickstarter enforces experimentation.

We are going in circles. I'll just say that if I see Witcher 3, Jagged alliance 3 (from original devs), new dune from westwood (or any other game from this awesome studio) I, as much of a pirate I am, will throw money at them. I don't fool myself into thinking that I'm all that original and I'm sure there are many more people out there like me. We are the silent crowd that don't post on forums. I just went out of my way because I thought this game and developers have good intentions in mind and I tried to contribute.

With Kickstarter it is reputation that counts. You can't pirate a game that was not developed. If you really like the game and you want continuation of the series then you have to contribute to make sure it sees the light of day. If you don't want the game then sure, you can pirate. But keep in mind that you won't get any money of that person anyways and that is example of that sort of pirate that is "not a lost sale". At least he might mention how good the game is to someone else.

Well this is General Goldhawk Discussion branch. As far as I know there aren't any plans for Goldhawk to release an Android version of the game. I'm not here to talk about piracy as a whole. Do you want to discuss music piracy too? Maybe you are a Pirates of the Caribbean fan and want to share some thoughts? I followed your links but I am not familiar with those people. Comments on how stressful and hard it is to release a game amaze me. Yes it is hard, did you expect it to be easy?? Is starting any sort of business easy? Just like any other business you should spend some money initially (out of your own pocket) to get the "game" going. I think Kickstarter is a HUGE leap forward in gamedev. without it we had "we dev what we want and you can buy it if you want", with kickstarter it's "tell us what you want and we'll dev it for you". I also hope it will eliminate publisher (read monkey on your back) which should lead to lower cost and higher quality of games. Keep in mind that it's still new so real potential is yet unknown.

I'm not going to comment on Android theme simply because it's off-topic. F2P is just a bigger cash cow. They can try and make it look like it's all piracy but all they want is more money.. for less..seeing that people are good for it. Don't make it look like they are trying to survive there. Yes, I hate the lay-offs. That's why I hope Kickstarter can eliminate the need for the publisher.

Think of this scenario: I buy the game. I like it so I SHARE it with my friend. What was stolen here? Did my friend steal the copy? No, I gave it to him voluntarily. The question here is how far does the ownership of the author stretch. If I bought the copy do I own it? If I own it why can't I share it? If I can't own it why am I buying it? Just shows the faulty mechanism of distribution and that's why I welcome Kickstarter as a new approach to the problem.

To me DLC (the storyline DLC) is usualy ~ 1-2 hours long. Full blown expansion is as long as the original ( 8+ hrs) and has a lot of content too. Think of the Half-life:opposing force, Heroes of might and magic: Armageddon blade, Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries. Expansion does not take away from the original simply because its developed afterwards. (do you like day 1 DLCs?) In my opinion, storyline DLC are never good. They are usually some out of nowhere short story that end right after they start. I'm thinking about Fallout NV DLCs now.

This was directed at me? Ok I'll answer with a question. Why do you think I would pirate gameNumber2 if gameNumber1 was crap? Seriously, do you think pirates just download everything? I have a job to go to you know..lol All reviews are subjective. I have played a good low rating game and played bad high rating game. Not to mention it is a known fact that publishers buy reviews.

Thank you. I'm glad that you saw some positive side effects. Now seeing how active you are and decrease in overall rage level in this topic I would like to ask why do you think points 1 and 3 are "extremely bad advice"? Especially number 3.

Very constructive post. Thank you. I just used the word "annoyed" because you used it when talking about Eurogamer article. And again. I do not take. I mean no disrespect. Do you think taking a photo of a car in the parking lot is disrespectful? I did not mean to justify. I merely tried to deliver my point on the piracy subject and why it exists. Also I shared my thoughts on how to USE the piracy to your gain and how to minimize its impact. Just trying to help. They don't put the big "capped at 30 FPS and plays like shit" sticker on the box now, do they? It seems that you are under the impression that I don't buy the games I like. I have a collection of my favorites and quite a few games on steam. Demo. I've seen the games before that try and exploit it. They have this one very cool and detailed level that they stick into demo and... well you know the rest. I do not disregard morality. If you read carefully I only tried to avoid that subject because what you think is immoral I do not. My post was not intended to argue with you. PS. I'm from Canada and pirating is a shady area. Copying a software for private use is legal. I understand now that we are looking at this from two different angles. Your cup is half-full and mine is half-empty. You look at the subject from good games perspective. You think the piracy is caused by greedy customers while I think it's caused by greedy publishers. Maybe the truth is somewhere in between.

I have read the article on the main page and it made me annoyed. I don't want to discuss the "moral" part of the discussion simply because I disagree with all parts of it. What I want to talk about, or rather add to the article are the sides of the piracy what were missed or left out. 1. People pirate at the principle. Now I believe that's a big chunk of pirates (me included) that do this. Lately we are continually lied and misled by big publishers and developers. "This is a great game adapted for PC" and you get 30 FPS capped blurred out, negative acceleration crap that is simple unplayable. How many times did that happen to you? Not to mention publishers nowadays will promise you anything just to sell the game. Another example would be XCOM Enemy unknown that just came out. "S.H.I.V can't shoot in battle? No problem, this is an older build and it was fixed in the latest version of the game" ..right. 2. People are dissatisfied with the quality and support of the game. XCOM EU example again. When did you visit their support forum last time? There are NO officials on the forum. Just visited the forum and one of the top post is "Has anyone seen a response to any thread in this forum?". I want to go back to that car analogy developers always bring out. I don't want to argue with "copy against stealing" point. That has been done to death. I'd like to bring out that when you get a car you also get WARRANTY. With a game you don't get money back or any kind of warranty what so ever. Would you buy a car without warranty? Retail price that is? A TV? Shoes? Let's even assume you said yes. What if 4 out of 5 pairs of shoes you bought previously were unsatisfactory? You know, one shoe was shorter than the other, the 100% Italian leather turned out to be artificial and the shoe laces had to be untied at all times or the shoe wouldn't even be wearable. 3. People don't buy into DLC business. Nobody wants to get the game and find out that you have to pay additional price to make the game complete. I bet the publishers took this concept out of the poker game. You know the situation when you put down a huge pot and the opponent makes a "gay bet" (very small bet). Even if you have bad cards you will call. This is called being committed. You paid $60 for the game already, additional 5 bucks is nothing, right? In most cases publishers will not let you know if the game will be DLC based or not. So pirates just get the game free, get DLCs, and then, if they like the game they buy GOTY release on sale. Now I was very surprised to see your stance on piracy. You seem to fail to see the bright side of it. Yes, the piracy hurts the big dogs out there who try to blindly sell crap to the customers. But piracy is a great tool for indie devs. Here is where I think piracy does good. a) Piracy is a QA tool on the PC market. It drives out big companies with bad product out of business creating opening for indie market. b) Piracy is great marketing tool if used correctly for indie companies. (big dogs have big budget for commercials and ads) This allows your game to get known without spending millions. In the last part of this post I'd like to show you how you can use piracy for greater good and minimize lost sales. 1. Release the game with DRM. I've said it. I want the game to come out with DRM. Why? This will protect the game leaks and some premature release. But mainly, this will get your game cracked by Pirate Scene and it will be posted on THOUSAND of sites where MILLIONS of users will see it. I cannot overstate the importance of this step. You can strip out the DRM in couple of weeks after release (and after the game gets cracked). Just imagine the happy posts on the forum. Example of this on the market: CD Projekt RED (The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings). 2. Release patches for at least a year after release, be active on the forum. CD Projekt RED does good at this and that's why I bought the game. Another honorable mention is Tripwire (Red Orchestra). I would also propose a simple CD key authenticity check when checking for updates to inconvenience pirates and simple "Update check and install at start up" mechanism. Believe me, nothing makes a pirate rage like having to download the new crack every week. (not to mention you have to wait for it to be cracked and released) 3. Provide the hosting for mods, manuals, other material for the game. Not sure if your game will support mods but if you make hosting options (user content section on the main-site?) then you will be able to not only control the content and make people happy but can also enforce "Valid CD-KEY needed to download the content" feature. Bandwidth is cheeeeeaaap today. Examples: Egosoft, Stardock Entertainment (sins of solar empire) I'd also like to point out that this is your first game. Just like in any other business, first you need to make a name and then the name will work for you. The sales figures might not be off the chart right away which leads me to 4. Don't switch engines for your second game. This is not really related to piracy but I still would like to point this out. Don't follow the trend. Release an Expansion. Same engine, new story line, new content. Old fans will be happy and it will cost you less to produce. Also require the original game to play and release a bundle deal sometime in future. (people are suckers for bundle deals). This is it. I hope I helped out a bit.