Someone as entitled as this fellow, who thinks he should basically be able to pay whatever he wants without taking into account development costs, market factors, desired profits from the people that actually did the work, etc... will probably never provide you much of a profit.
Disclaimer: Not arguing 'for' DRM or copyright or anything of that nature, just don't like this guy or his flimsy arguments.
Valve increased their revenue x12 (twelvefold) in Team Fortress by going free to play route and letting basically their players pay whatever they want.
All the other previous experiments show that this guy is onto something.
Fuck his entitlement, he is not arguing that he is entitled to anything. Merely that he follows a certain pattern and that there are ways to profit off this pattern.
So it would seem that your argument points towards publishers, who seem to not care about production costs since they show no interest in expanding their market and utilizing these powerful behavioral patterns embedded in all of us.
I certainly could very much identify with what he is saying. I respect IP, I live off my and other peoples IP. But this medieval view of IP has to go away.
Whenever I read a comment like yours I get this feeling that people like you are: A) Either Astroturfing on behalf of content publishers OR B) You are taking a moralistic stance that is completely unrealistic not unlike a grown man chastising another for watching Porn and/or going to a strip club, by preaching about sanctity of love/marriage.
Whenever I read a comment like yours I get this feeling that people like you are: A) Either Astroturfing on behalf of content publishers OR B) You are taking a moralistic stance that is completely unrealistic not unlike a grown man chastising another for watching Porn and/or going to a strip club, by preaching about sanctity of love/marriage.
And whenever I read comments like yours, I facepalm. Accusations of astroturfing? Preaching about 'love and marriage' at a strip club? Really? Was there a sale on straw men?
His argument and examples are flimsy, and his sense of entitlement is implicit to the argument because he pirates what he could afford but doesn't feel like paying for. I'm not alone in having pointed out the problems with his argument and the petulant nature of his tone which leads to these conclusions.
I'm only saying that considering the tone of the post, I would never expect to make much money off of this kind of 'potential consumer'. I'm fairly convinced he'll find another excuse to pirate or another demand to make even if I met all of his. He basically admits to pirating 'World of Goo', a DRM free indie game, because 'It is not worth 20 dollars'.
Let me reiterate this a different way - a game that took a team of two indie devs[1] just under a year worth of effort to create, which they released without DRM[2], is not worth the price of a decent dinner to this guy. Nevermind that it will provide several hours of entertainment, it's not worth the price of a few starbucks coffees. But the devs understood that, so they went and had a 'Pay What You Want' sale[3] wherein you could have paid them as little as $0.01. About 17k did. It seems if this guy was allowed to set his own price, he'd be in that demographic, meaning that entire market would have been catered to for a net profit of about $170 dollars.
There are better target demographics than people with his level of entitlement - I won't waste my time. What I learned from their sale is that a periodic sale at a price point around 10 - 25% of standard will result in a lot of sales to people that might not have purchased otherwise. That is who I would try and target.
Also, Valve increased revenue twelvefold with their free to play route because they implemented a system that got people who had already bought the game to continue spending money on it - and the serious fan base already built up around the game ensured that they had people that would. The initial run of people who were willing to pay for the game as it stood was mostly over. They are not really comparable cases, and to try and make such a case apply to all games is a generalization that does not apply.
I'm not apologizing neither myself and even less the author.
However a world where everybody respects IP 100% all the time is either full of virtuous men such as you (if you are not a hypocrite) or an incredibly sad place due to all the repression.
Intellectual endeavors map to property poorly. Fashion industry has learned this lesson long ago.
And "entitlement" is as much a straw man as any other. No matter how correct and virtuous your outlook is. I don't event know what you are advocating, but whatever it is you are not very practical about it.
I'm too pragmatic about these things to try and advocate anything for the consumer other than ask that they pay for their games. I'm not asking the FBI to kick down their door. I'm asking consumers to understand exactly what it is they are doing when they pirate. After all, it's not like the internet just generated a random bytestream that happened to be a game they like - a group of developers took years hand crafting that data. Respect that, or don't, but don't claim moral high ground, or even equal footing.
My goal as a game developer is to make games that people will want to play and then make them available to as many people as possible who are willing to pay something reasonable for it as a means of compensating me for my efforts and helping to ensure I might be able to make more games in the future. That is all.
I may have played games you built or not, I may have payed for them or not.
For what its worth I respect and support you and wish that you get fairly compensated by me if I come across your games.
The whole argument is really about publishing industry. Between the industry and consumers, the developer be it indie or corporate is always the one to get the short end.
Disclaimer: Not arguing 'for' DRM or copyright or anything of that nature, just don't like this guy or his flimsy arguments.