Why would I bother to buy Ricochet if any big freeware and abandonware archive can bring ten times more fun? I mean, I once applied a crack to a specimen of Ricochet series, got bored at about 15 levels of idiotic "look! the level completes itself!", realised that the thing has about a hundred more stages of the same, erased the game.
Same goes for numerous clones, each priced the same though obviously later ones are cheaper to produce and offer nothing new.
For some reason I actually enjoy seeing them lose so much...

I think fighting piracy is a waste of efforts. First, even the best DRM will be cracked one way or another; second, if a persion who tries to crack the game happens not to succeed, he will NOT then go and buy it.

About post-soviet countries. With average salaries of about $700 here, tell me, who will spend $20 for a game which is about to grow boring in a couple of hours? (funny enough, even those who would often simply cant — they've got no means to transfer money online, not even a Visa...)

I always crack casual games. In the whole casual industry there were only three games that I did REALLY love. And I cracked them, played them, and then I went to Reflexive and bought them. It was kinda token of appreciation for developer's talent, and it's the only way I agree to pay for the games. One trial hour isn't enough for me, you know.

I really think casual games MUST be donationware. The pirating problem would then disappear at once, but incomes could even rise. Casual industry is supposed to give people fun, not steal money from them.

This reminds me of how Radiohead offered their latest album _In Rainbows_ for download for whatever price, and even though a significant portion of people chose not to pay anything, some chose to pay something, and in the end they were still ahead (factoring in the cost of producing cd cases/covers/distribution, they made about the same amount of profit from the download that lacked those things)

(By that I mean, more people downloaded it because it was free in the first place)

But it seems because Fix 1 made sales go up 70%, the games industry might have a different consumer psychology.

Hi i talked on my blog on piracy as well.. http://www.g4g.it/2008/02/07/positive-aspects-of-piracy-file-sharing/

I think piracy is not a big problem at all, just 1 and not the most important, if tomorrow the piracy disappear, the 92% would become 0% and increase in sales would be 5% to be optimistic.. When i see on the internet talking about piracy i always see barely getting the point, which is price and quality, eansted they always talk about 'karma implications' or Drm or other useless things no1 cares of.. see ya

I think my comment wasn't taken by the system, if double post, please delete 1 of the 2. lol

Hi i talked on my blog on piracy as well.. http://www.g4g.it/2008/02/07/positive-aspects-of-piracy-file-sharing/

I think piracy is not a big problem at all, just 1 and not the most important, if tomorrow the piracy disappear, the 92% would become 0% and increase in sales would be 5% to be optimistic.. When i see on the internet talking about piracy i always see barely getting the point, which is price and quality, eansted they always talk about 'karma implications' or Drm or other useless things no1 cares of.. see ya

Do most people feel cheated for their time by the games industry, that they are so willing to pirate?

What do we expect from game manufacturers any more, that we will withold so much money?

Having so much success when combating piracy (70% sales increase) shows how much boring their games are. If the games were really good, the hackers wouldn't stop and would continue to create new keygens and cracks for them.

These guys already have the answer to their problem, even mentioned it in their article, but apparently don't know it: If the game has an online component, turn it into a service and monetize it. You can't pirate that.

Well, apparently under their current system you can, but the fact that they're allowing those 92% of players who are allegedly pirates to still play online tells me they may not be all that bright. And it's a story you hear time and again from different developers. Stick in a "Sorry, this is an unauthorized copy, access denied" screen with your contact info and besides getting rid of some pirates, you'll find out some of those pirated copies are paying customers who found it easier to google for a keygen than find the printout of their purchased key, just as I apply a no-CD crack to every retail game I ever buy.

Effective DRM is Moby Dick and companies still pining for it are Ahab. Any temporary success they enjoy is a measure of the market's apathy toward their product, not the efficacy of their copy protection. In this case it's especially distressing, because they developed their scheme in-house: did the two sales spikes corresponding to DRM upgrades even pay for the developer time spent implementing those upgrades? I doubt they did, though I'm sure the developer would be loath to admit it if it's just one or a few guys.

Here's what I plan to do (if ever I get my arse in gear and actually finish something):
1) NO protection. Period. "Protection" has never once in history worked, and has quite often frustrated the legitimate users. What kind of business model is that?
I believe people with money who want to recompense for their entertainment will do so, and those who don't have money or aren't willing to part with it won't do so no matter what stance I take.
2) License is to include permission to give a copy to your mates. Games are always more fun with someone to compare scores with -- convincing your mates to buy a game you like is less than fun.

Why my comment were deleted?

I think the game are also too expensive for the profile of casual gamers.
I know some in my friends, and they'll never pay 20$ for a casual game. Sometimes, they like the demo. So they ask me to help them have the full version free. If I can't find it, they just switch to another game, until they find an other one they like and ask me again if its possible to unlock it.
For my part, I'm not really a casual gamer, but I'll never buy a casual game for 20$. But maybe I'll buy 4 for 5$ each. I'm not doing any difference between a casual game and a normal one, some deserve their price, some other, no.
I buy Mount & Blade a long time ago, 20$, and I'm pretty happy of my buy. But it's not a casual game, and I know there's replayability.
I think the french culture isn't ready for casual gaming and game buying online, but maybe I'm wrong. (I'm french, as my english can show...)

What 9572AD proposes a few indie developers currently do actually; Puppy Games is one, and I'm another. I don't use DRM of any kind and if someone wants to let their brother or roommate or son play their copy of the game after they bought it that's fine by me.

The problem with charging like $5 is that the way e-commerce works is that with all the fees due to credit card transactions and file hosting and such $5 in effect is like $1 to the developer, whereas $20 is more like $15 to the developer. If that problem didn't exist I'd be happy to charge $5-$10 per game instead, but it does. But even so, I think that anyone who can afford a PC can afford $20 for a game they like. People who make only $700 a year typically don't own PCs.

However, I still think that piracy is a bad idea and I don't do it myself. I don't think it should be illegal, I don't think it's theft, but it's at least rude and immature.

Still no answer...

WHY MY COMMENT WAS DELETED?
What is this? You censor opininons that disagree?

Paul Eres: It's $700 per month, not year. I, for one, earn $300 for a half-time job.

FireSword:

Your comment (and the second attempt to post it as well) are currently stuck in the spam filter (I think because you included a link in them). I don't have the ability to restore automatically junked comments on other people's posts though, so you'll have to wait for Tim to check it out and decide what to do it.

Sorry for the delay in reply as well. We keep on top of things as best we can but since all of the editors are volunteers the site sometimes goes for a while without anybody checking it from the backend.

Paul Eres, I was talking about post-soviet countries, not middle-African ones :D $700 bucks is, of course, per month.

Ok. thanks for the reply oranda, i had no idea you couldn 't edit my comment, sorry for the 'why my comment was deleted' posts but i had the feeling i was censored (which is as bad as if not much as piracy lol).. if posible delete the posts, edit the links as you want just keep my opinion.. see ya. ;)

the last post was me xD

Ah, sorry for the mistake. Still, $700 is more than I make per month, and I live in the US. There are a number of people in the US that make less than $10,000 per year, particularly in inner cities. And I could still afford to buy Aquaria, at $30 (it's the only indie game I bought this year however).

Correction: by 'this year' I actually meant 2007 -- it was the only game I bought in 2007 in fact, not just the only indie game.

LOL. I just downloaded that game off the torrent sites. LMAO. No need to pay for software anymore. Games are free!

But Rekr the real point is, if you couldn't download that game, did u have bought it or not? According to gamasutra article "Though that doesn’t make a 92% piracy rate of one of our banner products any less distressing, knowing that eliminating 50,000 pirated copies might only produce 50 additional legal copies does help put things in perspective." so clearly the point is not the piracy with average joe downloading, it's the quality let's face it.. :)

Yeah, but this applies only to one game, and it's risky extrapolating it to other games because this game is relatively easy to pirate, so cutting off one way of pirating it from one site has little effect.

I've heard from other non-casual indie developers that reducing piracy increased sales by 35% or so, so in that case about one out of three people who pirate it would have bought it if they couldn't pirate it.

Correction again -- A 35% increase in sales doesn't necessarily mean that 1/3rd of those that pirate it would buy it, unless there is exactly 1 pirated copy for every sold copy (which isn't likely). But you get the gist of what I mean, different games vary in their rates of who would buy it or not, because different games have different audiences.

There seem to be several comments that made me think a couple of things are worth mentioning in regards to this piece.

First, the numbers were figured across all Reflexive games. This wasn't a Ricochet Infinity case study. The numbers stating the impact of our fixes were calculated from our whole catalog of games, it is true that some games will likely do better than others, the article was looking more generally to show what we'd seen so we could have a baseline for looking at particulars. Sorry for the confusion on that.

Second, Ricochet is a multimillion dollar franchise. The statements that the game isn't good enough to purchase don't bear out well against how well it has sold. It may not be the right game for you, but then, not everyone is you :). (and I'd strongly suggest checking the game out if you haven't, the in-game board uploading/downloading set-up I think is really amazing...)

I see several people indicating that 'quality' games are pirated less than 'low quality' games. I don't have any numbers that show that. I can show that quality games sell better than low quality games (if you term quality by sales). However, the piracy rate among the games that we have data for is pretty constant as a percentage of the overall downloads across all games regardless of quality/sales :).

If you want people to perceive your games as worth more money and thus buy it, don't make ones that are dime-a-dozen. So I would think, at least.

"But Rekr the real point is, if you couldn't download that game, did u have bought it or not?"
Recently a friend recommended me a game called "Galactic Assault: Prisoner of Power". Not exactly an indie game (it's made by wargaming.net, authors of Massive Assault series). Here it published by 1C, who recently raised the price on their games from $8 to $12. And for me it made the difference between bying and not buying. Guess what it means for me and Aquaria ($30).

Whooops, sorry. Galactic Assault is published by Akella, not 1C. Doesen't matter, all the price considerations are the same.
And about Aquaria - I know we discuss a different game, I used it just as an example. Buying casual games is completely out of question for me.

I think arguments in favor of piracy are plainly wrong. Console business was once prosperous in Brazil during 8-16 bits era, but game market was destroyed by Playstation piracy afterwards. Check out:

http://texpine.com/2008/02/15/how-piracy-can-break-an-industry-the-brazilian-case/

Also, "give games to poor people" arguments are unrealistic. In Brazilian main cities, illegal street vendors concentrate around rich districts like Ipanema in Rio.

I assure you, it's not the poor buying there.

@FireSword : It would've been better if your posts had been in fact deleted.

It's not a matter of opinions, you are just way off the track.

Pollution? We are talking about downloadable games here, and even if we weren't, most games available in brick and mortar stores can be bought legally through various online services these days.

Bad games wont pass? Won't pass what? There is thousands of review sites out there. If a game is no good, piracy is not the reason why they get bad rating, and "real" consumers check those sites, they don't download pirated copies to "evaluate" games.

Poor people? Thats one I wont even touch, it's so damn lame...

And then you go with the old and tired argument of "hardware sales", and even more preposterously, that "bandwidth sales" is good for the economy or something.

Really, unless you can back up any of those claims with numbers, don't go posting shit like that.

And then, you confuse "saving old game from oblivion" with piracy. If you want to save old games, start a legit database and ask the IP owner's permission. Compare Mobygame with "abandonware" sites that just "save" old game to drive traffic and increase ad click trough.

Yeah I did pirate some music and some games in my life. Do I feel the need to justify it? No... I know fully well what I am doing. And so should you.

Jean-Sebastien please take a big breath. I never said i hold the truth i just wrote some thinking, an opinion. You know even if i think that the real 'shit' is your reply i am not gonna to tell you lol. Keep Breathing dude, relax then talk. ;)

We're not talking about piracy in general. We're talking about downloading a demo of a run-of-the-mill clone "with a twist" and then either paying for it or cracking it. Most do whichever is simpler... Partly because they don't feel the game is worthy of such sum of money. I mean, for me 20$ is not "just 20$ ". It is nearly half the price I paid for Sins of a Solar Empire or Bioshock - both bought online, btw.

/"save" old game to drive traffic and increase ad click trough./
The only ones who get lots of traffic from abandonware nowadays are various rapidshare-likes. And for a number of abandonware sites banners are the only way to keep the thing alive. Mobygames keeps only names - places like HotU let touch the legends released before some of us were even born.

You can't fight piracy and win. No one has ever prevented a game from being cracked (look at Halo 2 for XP) and probably, no one will.

The remaining question is "How much can we annoy paying customers to prevent piracy?" Well, i think that the answer is "not at all".

If you include a DRM system that prevents me from using the game I payed for in two computers at the same time, I'll crack it, and if I'm going to crack it anyway, why would I buy it in the first place? (same applies to music, books, etc)

Of course, as a developer, you don't want to give your work away for free (I make advertgames, so I don't face that problem) but, the truth is that there is nothing you can do to stop piracy. All that effort should be focused on improving the game, then that players would buy it, just because they think they should (for example, I never cracked HL2 or Doom, I just can't).

I think both sides of the argument are full of it. On one side are the crackers opining, "we're doing this for the poor starving Russian computer users, and if I or several hundred other well-off Americans get the game for free, too, that's just a small price to pay!" while ignoring the fact that video games are a LUXURY GOOD whose only purpose is to waste time, as well as all the starving Russian programmers making indie shareware games.

On the flipside, I never pirate and I love indie games, but I avoid anything by Reflexive or Chronic Logic like the plague because I wipe my hard drive once a semester and I remember the shock of being told that I had installed Gish the maximum number of allowable times. I know in this age of steam my tastes are anachronistic, but when I buy a game and burn the installer onto a CD, I want that game to be mine forever. Don't get me started on the disaster that was "Devil Whiskey."

I believe there are forms of DRM that don't limit the number of installs -- for instance Aquaria used a simple key code and (or so I hear) there's no limit on the number of times you can install it. I don't use even that form of DRM myself because I feel the effort spent setting that up wouldn't be worth the time right now for me, but I'm not philosophically against that form of it because it isn't very intrusive.

Point is, why buy when you can get it for free? Seems pretty simple to me. Most games suck anyways. Remember kiddies...free is better.

"Point is, why buy when you can get it for free? Seems pretty simple to me. Most games suck anyways. Remember kiddies...free is better."

Contrary to popular belief, game developers can't conjure up large sums of money at will. No money to make games -> no games for you to pirate.

No money to make games -> no games for you to pirate
What about all the freeware games? They are not made by rich people.

What about game developers going to the US for this event, then to there for another event, and spending their time and money on that instead of making games to get money from which they apparently aren't getting anyways due to the pirating? Does not seem like they need it, as they have both the time and money to travel more than people with a fulltime job.

Not all indie developers are going to that event, most aren't. There are thousands of indie developers and perhaps twenty or thirty that are going there.

[i]I'd strongly suggest checking the game [Ricochet] out if you haven't, the in-game board uploading/downloading set-up I think is really amazing...[/i]

Of course you think it's "[i]amazing[/i]," you’re part of Reflexive, d’oh! You know why people pirate games? Because they think some are simply not worth the money. And if there's a way to get it for free, why the heck not? It doesn't matter if the game sucks, so long as it's free, lemme have it. Like someone pointed-out, most casual games (especially those published by Reflexive) are just remakes of old classics. Ricochet, a remake of Arkanoid "with a twist" – come and get it for only $20! Uhm, no thanks... I'll find a crack or keygen for it instead. If you didn't ask for such a high price for a REMAKE with 20 other clones released in the same year, then pirates might even take it easy on that game. Even though Ricochet is only a remake “with a twist and an amazing uploading/downloading set-up for the in-game board” and has hundreds of clones, a number of people are bound to GENUINELY like the game and actually pay for it. And those who are willing to give up $10 for a game like Ricochet are finally going to be able to actually pay for the game instead of resorting to cracking it because $20 bucks for them is just too much. Now, when it comes to games like Aquaria, Wik, Gumboy, Gish, Eets and the like, it’s a different story. These are the types of games that you can actually tag $20-$30 bucks. A whole mass of people love those titles, and I’m one of them (but I only paid for some of those titles; I cracked the others). Even if they cracked the game (because in some cases a 60-minute trial just isn’t enough, especially for games like Wik), if they loved it they’ll eventually pay for it. How about this, Mr. Russell, how did Wik do during those fixes? How were the numbers? And, do you know the ratio of those who purchased it and those who pirated it (but then again, there’s the slight problem about some consumers choosing to crack it first before deciding to buy it)? If I were to assume, based on the quality of the game, I’d say more people paid for it (the ones who cracked it probably even purchased it afterwards). The problem with asking for $20 bucks for every game, remakes “with a twist” and new/original titles alike, is that the people who were actually willing to pay $20 bucks for Wik end up cracking it instead because they think someone is being greedy by giving every game (the fairly new ones) a price tag of $20. “Reflexive is already getting enough from all those other $20 remakes –with a twist– they offer. Sooo…..meh!”

Hmm, it's a pretty one-sided debate on this site because of the sort of gamer that this site attracts (I'm generalising here, but bear with me). This site mainly has free games on it and retro games (it's a great site), and thus a large percent of the audience isn't the target market for $20 casual games.

However, there is a large section of the population that will pay $20 and that's why I have a job making games! Thank God I don't have to rely on people who think it's their "right" to be able to pirate games, otherwise I'd still be writing business software for a living.

Sure I pirated games as a teenager but as soon as I got a job, I paid for them. I checked reviews and played demos to make sure that I only bought good ones so I was never disappointed. I like playing casual game demos and if the game is good I'll buy it because I understand there are people out there like me, who have a family and kids who will appreciate my money.

I see it like this: in life it's good to give and receive - so I'll pay for a game and the developer is encouraged to make more. If however all you ever do is take and never give, where does this leave you spiritually? If a whole generation grows up who never creates "value" (and by that I mean something useful, helpful or nice that others can enjoy) then society will be messed up, just full of greedy people who think the world and its resources are there for the taking. Frankly some people's attitude stinks - I hope for their sakes it will improve over time before they reach old age and realise all they did was take and never give...

;-)

"I see it like this: in life it's good to give and receive - so I'll pay for a game and the developer is encouraged to make more. If however all you ever do is take and never give, where does this leave you spiritually? If a whole generation grows up who never creates "value" (and by that I mean something useful, helpful or nice that others can enjoy) then society will be messed up, just full of greedy people who think the world and its resources are there for the taking. Frankly some people's attitude stinks - I hope for their sakes it will improve over time before they reach old age and realise all they did was take and never give..."

I agree with that. What's funny is that it's usually pirates who call the people who make games greedy for pricing their games so high and similar reasons, but as you point out, isn't it equally greedy to refuse to pay for games (or music or movies)?

It's not many products where people use the argument "it's not very good anyway, not worth its price, so it's alright to get it for nothing". Imagine if people applied that to food or clothes or whatever else. Does a good bottle of wine or a new pair of jeans really give you more value than a game you enjoy? They're all similarly priced.

"Does a good bottle of wine or a new pair of jeans really give you more value than a game you enjoy? They're all similarly priced."

There you have it right there. If it's a game I enjoy, I'll be more than happy to pay for it. If it sucks (most remade games suck, in my opinion), there's no way I'm paying for it. If there's a way to get it for free, why not. From what I understand, the point of "battling piracy" is to increase the number of buyers. Do you really believe that? If a pirate fails to crack a sucky game, he'll most likely just forget about it. THIS is exactly why battling with piracy is pointless. No matter what you do, no matter how much you upgrade your "protection" for them games, it WILL eventually get cracked. There are just as many talented pirates out there as there are many talented game developers. And, this so-called "protection" most usually drives away a number of honest customers for so many reasons.

Not to mention that, if a bottle of wine turns out to be bad, you already spent your money on it and cannot return it. If a pair of jeans is bad and you rip through it or so, you can't return it either. You cannot try those before you buy them any more than that a demo gives you a full feeling of the game.

I myself prefer to try a game out first, but not through a demo, as that can be just what the publishers want you to see of the game. There is a chance it is a concentrated version of the game, and the actual game feels like a watered down version of the demo. Playing the full, actual game for a bit is the best way to see if it is worth my money. I test-played some games at shops before, thinking: "wow, this is amazing!" and after playing it for an hour at home, they turned out to be crap. That is not the right way. I also pirated Civilization 4, saw how great it was and went out to buy the game. I got the game as CD, a box, a manual and a tech tree poster that way, which is more value for my money than I was inclined to spend it on.

To avoid the demo and shop test-play issues, I think the concept of Shareware is better than DRM (which always makes me skip buying the product, as I rented a couple of DVDs at the DVD rental place once and about 2/3rd of them had DRM on it and wanted to install stuff on my comp that would "enhance my viewing experiences", but which I think will just spy on me, use my bandwidth and clog my PC) I do not need such shit, so I do not buy something that comes with that.

I am the same. Forgot to say this:

I think DRM only hurts the actual buyers. If you buy a DVD, you have to sit through a lengthy anti-piracy ad which you simply cannot skip. If you download the movie, you can watch the movie without that, and often still have the extras, menu and all the rest. It is just punishing those that buy the product and getting them to pirate instead.

I don't know what stores you shop at, but the ones I do allow me to return jeans or wine. Similarly I expect most game developers offer refunds if you bought a game and didn't like it after all.

And pirating a game just to see if you like the full game and want to buy it seems okay to me, it's just that a lot of people like a game (or music or movies or applications etc.), keep it for years and get a lot of use out of it, and still don't buy it. The people who buy the things they like after they pirate it are the exceptions. I know a lot of people who use, say, Photoshop every day yet would never consider buying it.

Ever seen the pricetag of Photoshop? That is out of the affordable for everybody.

I agree with 10:05. Also, what keeps those who have the budget from buying Photoshop is the release of another "more enhanced" version with new features almost immediately right after a recent release. They shouldn't price something so frequently "enhanced" so high because the actual potential buyers are likely to have second thoughts about buying something they need (or want) because they know for certain another version is going to come out shortly after, and there's a possibility they might want THAT one instead (and then everything cycles again, from having second-thoughts, to waiting for the next release). This sort of thing makes them resort to piracy. What Adobe should do is offer free updates, or maybe even with a small fee. Like, say, one bought Photoshop CS more than a year ago. Since he owns it (and it cost quite a lot), Adobe should just give him the option to upgrade it to CS3 with a small fee (regardless of how big the file size is), as opposed to HAVING to buy Photoshop again, which should be fine because it's incredibly cheap, right?

I think some of the pro piracy arguments on here are pretty pathetic. If you think something isn't that great, why would you want it for free anyway? So you can experience hours of so-so gameplay? That just makes no sense and seems like an absolute waste of time. I wouldn't bother going to the trouble personally - my time would be better spent making a wise purchasing choice.

As far as the Relexive Arkanoid clones go.. it's apparent from the first few minutes of the game that it isn't going to serve up anything particularly breathtaking.. so in fact, I think a 60 minute trial is probably more than I could stand. I played the demo a long time ago and remember thinking after around 5 minutes how it just didn't have a solid feel to it and wasn't even remotely in the spirit of games such as Arkanoid anyways so I just exited out of it and left it at that.

In general I must admit that I don't really agree with timed demoes though.. demo'ing a small portion of a game is one thing.. timing it is taking it a little too far.

I believe Adobe *does* offer updates at a discount if you own previous versions; of course a discount usually means the price is only $100 instead of $500, which is still more than most software, so I see your point about it being too pricey.

But to me, if something is out of my price range, I don't try to get it for free. If I prefer to drive a new Lexus over a used Volvo, I don't get a Lexus for free if I can only afford the used Volvo. There are plenty of reasonably priced paint programs which a person could use instead of Photoshop which are almost as good. There are even free ones which are almost as good.

And I agree about timed demos, I don't like them. What I do is what Doom and Commander Keen (and many others) did -- give the first third of the game away for free and hope that's enough to give them a good impression of the game. They disguised it as three "separate" episodes but the separate episodes were really just the same game with different levels.

That's the concept of shareware, that :P

As for Photoshop, if every job asking people who know Photoshop mean "any random picture editing software", life would be alot better, but sadly, they always mean Photoshop Photoshop. Tough luck if you are a master in the Gimp then. When a job ad asks for people with a drivers licence, they do not ask for people with a Lexus. Those two things are different.

Shareware (non-timed demo) and Donation ware make way less money that the timed demo model (in current times - it was different in the Doom days). I know people that have compared the two and donationware was just plain unviable, they couldn't even afford to host the software. As soon as it was not donationware, the income went up a whole magnitude. Basically if you trust people to pay out of kindness, most won't.

I'm not going to talk about Donationware because I think it has very little to do with this but as far as non-timed demos vs. timed demos go.. it may be true that the timed demo is a better money maker. However, I also believe that a timed demo would be more likely to encourage piracy.

We live in an age were many millions of people get away with stealing (6 million in the UK alone) . And they think nothing of it. They get all their entertainment for free. They download games, music and films at will.

'We live in an age were many millions of people get away with stealing (6 million in the UK alone) . And they think nothing of it. They get all their entertainment for free. They download games, music and films at will.'

Come on Bruce, you're an intelligent and clever man (I bought Pedro on the back of the marketing campaign, and lord knows how many "absolutely brilliant" games) but that's sensationalist rubbish.

Lets turn that around.

"The UK has a population of 60.6 million, and 54.6 million alone don't pirate games".

Not quite as scary now, is it? Lies, damn lies and statistics etc...

I'm not doubting the impact of piracy here, but trotting out lines like that and, I quote, "Quite simply, if you are a publisher of PC games, it is best to regard all potential customers as thieves. Not just ordinary thieves, but skilled and crafty thieves who will apply a lot of knowledge and work to stealing your game." paints a very poor picture of the industry and its attitude towards those who pay towards and sustain the industry.

Distrust breeds distrust and I don't believe in punishing legitimate customers for the sins of others.

I know the industry likes to play the big numbers game (see the recent R4 fiasco's from The Sunday Times and The Sunday Post respectively - the latter with comments hastily denied and/or retracted depending upon how suspicious you are) and ignore little things like, well, facts - hey, RCA used to pull that sort of thing in the 30's with their anti FM lobbying so little changes) but it doesn't make it any less disappointing when an industry that relies on customers and honest people to survive opts to paint everyone as a criminal and then sits there saying "What? What? we did no wrong here!" as their model falls apart.

I guess the one consistent thing from industries that never seems to be a lesson that gets learnt is you can't fight the tide of change, only hold it back for a while.

Instead of criminalising everyone - you need to adapt. Step one would be to not just focus on the big figures (like the 92%) and take note on the rest of Mr Carrolls informative post - like the 1 in 1000 conversion.

The problem is, it's always easier to sit there and say "people are pirating our games" and point the finger than it is to look at what you're doing and ask "what can we do to bring this people under our wing and make them legitimate customers?".