Anti-copyright movement is THE way to go!
Jeff,
Given your views on this issues, I wonder why you don’t have an optional monthly donation service on Stackoverflow?
I’d personally give you 5-10 a month for a reduced number of ads.
I subscribed to Slashdot for years to support their efforts.
Not all of us are take, take, take. With the economy tanking, I wonder if you’ll suffer from a loss of ad revenue that could compromise the project.
The ad model shouldn’t be the only way to support a web-site.
I think the general sentiment here is about the same as mine. When publishers stop infesting the games (and software) with stupid DRM - which is circumvented by Copyright Violators almost immediately - then the illegal versions of games will become less necessary.
As it is, I see little reason to buy new titles. That new Prince of Persia sounds interesting (even MORE so since there is no cripple-ware DRM embedded in it).
Short of that, I can sum up the game publishers problems in a simple sentence: Stop treating honest customers as criminals, and stop trying to blame unsuccessful junk that doesn’t sell as criminally replicated.
Back when I sold software (StatView, $500 stats program), we had a saying: We rather the user stole our software then our competitor’s. We figured our user base was actually 3x the number of sold copies, and those stolen copies were in our camp rather than the competition.
Many of the illegal copies will convert. We found conversion happened when OS update broke old software. Mac System 9.0 broke our 1986 version of StatView and resulted in a very nice quarter.
With all that said, server based software is the only way to go today. You get revenue from the leeches, and software updates are painless. Plus you get ironclad user counts and can track how the users access the software, allowing focused development on what people actually use.
I always found that quote of Bill Gates amusing.
The richest man in the world (well, sometimes) complaining about not making enough money from his software.
I always protect my softweare with Microsoft SLPS, CyrpKey, or HASP and completely disagree with a few comments above that state your software will always be cracked.
I always use at least 2 methods of protection on a single software title and my titles have not been cracked yet.
If you do the work you want to be paid. If you want to be paid protect yourself.
Buy dongles.
aion kina in the Aion if you are planning on playing in the game, then this is the portion you should read.
Yup. Hasn’t been out a week yet and there’s already people cracking it. What’s really bugging me is a chinese warez site that’s linking directly to my file hosted by, well, my host. Those damnned pirates also tried linking a screenshot of the app directly off my site but I replaced that image with a certian image of a “goat that sees” and a girl in a bathtub.
http://www.ordercomputer.com
I’m a pirate, but my up/down ratios are 1/1 and i treat all the illegal copies as demos. I loved my copy of World of Goo and so I bought it (didn’t realize there was a demo, so I guess I should look harder). Piracy also makes games that aren’t available in stores anymore yet companies still hold the rights accessible. Just something to think about.