Says it allows them to "grow a market for future titles."
Much has been made about software piracy over the years, especially by copyright holder groups like the Business Software Alliance (BSA), which represents a number of the world’s largest software developers. However, none have ever come forward to acknowledge the benefits of piracy until recently.
Randy Stude, president of the PC Gaming Alliance, a non-profit organization of hardware manufacturers, game developers, game publishers and others, with the goal of promoting and advancing the PC as a gaming platform, recently gave an interview with Big Download in which he noted how piracy of some game titles actually contributed to the success of some game developer startups.
From the interview:
Some people, like Valve’s Gabe Newell and Stardock’s Brad Wardell, have come down hard on current DRM practices in games and both developers sell a lot of PC titles. Isn’t this proof enough that publishers should at least think about eliminating such set-ups for games?
If you ask both of the publishers that you mentioned here about the rate of piracy for their games you may find that one has rampant piracy and the other has almost none. The PC Gaming Industry’s history is littered with examples of startups (including Stardock and Valve) that actually benefited from wide spread piracy to grow a market for their future titles. Don’t get me wrong, I am not advocating piracy… However, how would Quake, Doom, Starcraft, Counter-Strike, or Half-Life have been able to grow widespread brand recognition without a widespread network of gamers openly sharing these games. These titles (and many more) defined the industry. Personally, my first experience with a first person shooter was with Doom (back in the day) and I did not pay for it. Id Software turned the corner and has a very successful business built on the back of the early free/open source exchange of their games…
Now Stude isn’t saying that piracy is good for all game developers, but he does at least note that it CAN be good. Hopefully the PC Gaming Alliance, which was created just last year, will craft a more sensible approach to piracy than other trade organizations being that its president has such sentiments.
With the world of technology fast evolving, it will best suit them to adapt to their business model, i.e. subscription-based or fees for in-game goods, rather then fighting trying to fight technology itself.
jared@zeropaid.com
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