Piracy has always been something that interests me. In the past I have been heavily involved with the piracy of software and games, simply because it’s accessible and I really didn’t have the money to play what all of my friends were playing. Or as it pertains to software, some basic utilities were egregiously expensive. As I grew up, got a job and had some spending money, piracy faded. I now run legit copies of all of my software and games, so much so that if I can’t get it and it’s reasonably priced, I will consciously use a free alternative that is lesser in quality (much of the time, but not always lesser in quality).
Jeff Atwood made a great claim which I wholly believe to be true:
In fact, the most effective anti-piracy software development strategy is the simplest one of all:
- Have a great freaking product.
- Charge a fair price for it.
I love how every year there are obligatory crappy game remake with graphics slightly tweaked, or one small feature updated to existing games, and the developers/published get so outraged because nobody wants to buy their games. Moreover, the fact that games have gone up to $60 or more is beyond ludicrous. I have purchased many games in the past, and I’ve found that the lower in price they become, the more likely I am to buy them. Case in point: Team Fortress 2 was $20 when it came out on Steam and I bought it, easily one of the most fun games I’ve played. Definitely worth the money.
And on virtual console games: I owned your game on the original NES/Genesis/Turbografx, why should I pay you money to play the same game with the same graphics on the new console?!? Samesies for Xbox Live Arcade. And on remakes for newer consoles (like every Final Fantasy pre 7 it seems, at least twice now), the game looks different, sure, but the story is exactly the same. Do. Not. Want.
As Vista is gaining popularity, I’ve found myself switching to using Linux more and more. I never bought Windows XP, it was gifted to me by the University of Portland, a perk for being an underpaid student employee I guess. Same goes for Microsoft Office 2003. Since the same luxury is not available to me, I guess I will not be buying Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Office 20XX ever. I will instead rely on Windows XP for gaming and Linux for workstation use, and OpenOffice. Photoshop has been a prime example of piracy because they offer software that everyone uses and is so overpriced that nobody but the professionals can afford it. I will be using Gimp from now on.
And if there is a game released on both console and PC, don’t make me buy it twice to play with all of my friends, especially when the game is 99% the same.
With regards to the console piracy, I have purchased more console games this past year than any year previous. There was a time when I was stoked about the availability of “free console games”, so much so that I would grab them from the “cloud of availability” even though I knew they were rubbish, I wouldn’t play them, I absolutely wouldn’t purchase them. I still remember burning through my 2 100-pack spindles of Dreamcast games, only to find that maybe 3 or 4 were not lame. Now I will only grab a game if it’s worthy to purchase, and evaluate it on quality and price. If it is worth it, I absolutely will.