[INTERESTING ARTICLE; See Page 8] Discussion: Thoughts on Piracy

[Kreekakon]

1) Indies should never be pirated. They are working solely off purchases as their game designing does not necessary involve a steady income. Buying a game could feed them for a week, you know? It means a lot. Now, I'm not saying pirating company games is okay, I'm just saying it doesn't have such a personal impact on their life as it does for indies.

I disagree with this a bit in terms of the loss of profit. I believe that piracy helps and encourages profit. I think that piracy can actually lead to a more fruitful and expanded industry. One common example is an album. Imagine an artist releases an album in a world where piracy doesn't exist. The people who are going to buy this album are going to be those who either know the artist previously and know that they will enjoy the music or know someone who likes them and they encourage the purchase of this album. Everyone else though, regardless if they would enjoy it or not, would rather not risk their money on what might be a sour purchase.

Now have this album released in a world with piracy. There is now no 'risk' or perceived 'punishment' (A bit though as YC suggests, though I wouldn't think it is too much) for trying something new and unknown. Sharing this album freely on the internet has basically inflated the 'word of mouth' demographic to include nearly the entire population. So now you have people who are very finicky and afraid of spending their money actually being able to listen to the album and realizing "Hey, this music is in fact worth my money!" So now instead of limiting your profits to your main demographic and their friends, you have now included everyone with an ear drum.

This being said though, the world still will require people who are very much willing to support the software/music they love after discovering it is so good, otherwise you'll just have a lot of people who love the thing, and use a pirated version of it.