Programmer from the UK makes an earnest attempt to learn what drives the trend with "zero ulterior motive."
Too often we see game developers have knee jerk reaction to piracy. Rather then try to learn what drives the trend and adjust their business model accordingly they instead resort to lawsuits like the recent effort by Atari, Topware Interactive, Reality Pump, Techland and Codemaster to sue as many as 25,000 accused game pirates in the UK.
Cliff Harris, a 38 yo Game Designer and programmer from the UK is trying to forge a different path by trying to make sense of it all.
"I want to know why people pirate my games," he writes in a post on his blog. "I honestly do."
He used to work for several other game companies in the past, but for the last few years has apparently worked from home for his own company - Positech Games, making self-professed "quirky and original strategy and simulation games."
He continues:
This is not some silly attempt to start a flamewar, it’s not at attempt to change anyones mind about anything. I don’t want to argue my side of it, and there is zero ulterior motive. I’m not looking to ‘catch’ anyone, or prove any points.
I know what I don’t know. And what I don’t know is WHY people pirate MY games. I might be able to get a general idea as to why people pirate stuff *in general* from reading warez forums, and every other story on digg, but I’m not interested in the general case. I want to improve my business, and ensure I stay afloat, and to do that, it would be mad to sit in the corner and ignore the opinions of that section of the public who pirate my games.
Is it 10%? is it 95%? I don’t know. Are they generally kids, or adults? I don’t know. And most vitally of all, WHY do they not buy them, but pirate them. This is what I want to be told. More information and insight is never a bad thing.
So this is a public, genuine, honest request for opinions. Preferably by email, or you can comment here, but wordpress isn’t known for handling that many comments well. You can email me at cliff AT positech dot co dot uk. It helps if you put ‘piracy’ at the email subject.
He received a flood of e-mails in response and has already compiled them into a series of categories.
Here they are:
The semi-political ones
I got a few people churning out long arguments about whether or not intellectual property is valid, and claiming that it was censorship, or fascism and other variations on this theme. I'm used to reading all this, and find it completely unconvincing, and to be honest, silly. The really interesting news was that this was a trivial proportion of the total replies.
Money
This *did* surprise me. A LOT of people cited the cost of games as a major reason for pirating. Many were kids with no cash and lots of time to play games, but many were not. I got a lot of peoples life stories, and a ton of them were my age. Even those who didn't cite cost as their main reason almost always mentioned it at some stage. A lot of anger was directed at the retail $60 games, and console games. People in Australia were especially annoyed about higher prices there. My games were $19-23, but for a lot of people, it was claimed this was far too high. People talked a lot about impulse buying games if they were much cheaper.
Game Quality
This was a big complaint too. And this also surprised me. I have a very low opinion of most new games, especially triple A ones, but it seems I'm not alone. Although there were many and varied complaints about tech support, game stability, bugs and system requirements, it was interesting to hear so many complaints about actual game design and gameplay. Not a single person said they had felt ripped off by a game due to substandard visuals or lack of content. The consensus was that games got boring too quickly, were too derivative, and had gameplay issues. Demos were widely considered to be too short and unrepresentative of the final product. People suspected that the full game was no better than the demo. Almost everyone had a tale of a game that was bought based on hype which turned out to be disappointing.
DRM
This was expected, but whereas many pirates who debate the issue online are often abusive and aggressive on the topic, most of the DRM complaints were reasonable and well put. People don't like DRM, we knew that, but the extent to which DRM is turning away people who have no other complaints is possibly misunderstood. If you wanted to change ONE thing to get more pirates to buy games, scrapping DRM is it. These gamers are the low hanging fruit of this whole debate.
Digital Distribution
Lots of people claimed to pirate because it was easier than going to shops. Many of them said they pirate everything that's not on Steam. Steam got a pretty universal thumbs up from everyone. I still don't get how buying from steam is any different to buying from me, other than you may already have an account on steam. For the record, I'd love to get my games on steam. I wish it was that easy.
Confessions
I got a few people, maybe 5% of the total, who basically said "I do it because I like free stuff and won't get caught. I'd do the same with anything if I knew I'd get away with it." This is depressing, but thankfully a small minority. I also got the occasional bit of abuse and sarcasm from hardcore pirates who have decided I am their enemy. Who would have thought that would happen? They give the other 99% of pirates a bad name, and are the reason people don't listen to pirates.
So what is he going to do about it?
"There was a point to all this, and it was partly to sell more (I have bills to pay!) as well as hopefully get more people to legitimately play my games," he continues. "I'd be very happy if some reduction of overall piracy happened too, as I love PC gaming and the current situation is only helping to kill it off. I've thought hard about everything people have said and I have decided to change a few things about my games."
1) No more DRM
He has now sworn off DRM
2) Longer demos
Some were pirating his games to see EXACTLY what they get instead of buying it.He hopes that by luring you in longer you'll be more inclined to buy it.
3) Price
Many complain games cost too much so he's halved the price of one of them and will see what kind of effect it has.
4) Quality
Many said what most of us feel as well, that people are willing to pay for good games. Just as pirates will pay to go see good movies in droves like "The Dark Knight" so too will they shell out for a quality game they truly enjoy.
"I don't think the whole exercise will have much effect on the wider industry," Harris concludes. "I wish this wasn't the case, and that the devs could listen more to their potential customers, and that the pirates could listen more to the devs rather than abusing them. I don't think that's going to happen."
I think he's right and it's a shame because they'd be forced to improve themselves just as Cliff Harris is now planning on doing. If only they would use the millions spent on lawyers fees suing POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS to instead develop better games or at the very least reduce their prices.
|
But the bottom line is that when something can be gotten for free, let's just say that more people than not will try to "maximize their opportunities".
In my eyes, the only currently viable model is the one offered by NetFlix and the current Napster. Everyone pays a monthly fee for unlimited access. The host tracks which movies are watched, which songs are downloaded, games played, etc., and pays royalties accordingly. BUT THIS ONLY FOR NEW RELEASES. There is no reason to expect a 50 year old movie or song to generate much in the way of royalties, as every day there are more movies made and songs released. No one can enjoy every single one of them in a lifetime. And the Disney/Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act is a farce.
I agree,I think that's why he's trying out $9.99 for Kudos ....
@OU
I know, say what u will, but at least the guy is trying to improve himself....
He sees it as a chance to improve himself..........
"But actually talking to the pirates has revealed a huge group of people who really appreciate genuinely good games. Some of the criticisms of my games hit home. I get the impression that if I make Kudos 2 not just lots better than the original, but hugely, overwhelmingly, massively better, well polished, designed and balanced, that a lot of would-be pirates will actually buy it. I've gone from being demoralized by pirates to actually inspired by them, and I'm working harder than ever before on making my games fun and polished."
Games giant Ubisoft has filed a lawsuit against Optical Experts Manufacturing (OEM), a US replicator based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Ubisoft alleges that an OEM employee took home a copy of Assassin's Creed PC and leaked it onto the internet six weeks prior to the game's launch in April, leading to over 700,000 illegal downloads of the game and millions of dollars in lost sales.
The official court document states: "Ubisoft is one of the largest independent publishers and developers of video games in the world. One of its most successful games is Assassin's Creed. As a result of an extraordinary breach of trust and gross negligence by Defendant Optical Experts Manufacturing ("OEM"), one of OEM's employees leaked onto the worldwide web the PC version of Assassin's Creed (the "Game") six weeks prior to its release. This leak resulted in over 700,000 illegal internet downloads of the Game, which caused Ubisoft to lose millions of dollars in sales. OEM should be held accountable for that loss."
Research figures from NPD indicate that the PC version of Assassin's Creed sold only some 40,000 copies through June; negligible compared with the sales on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. According to Ubisoft, what makes matters worse is that the earlier version of the game contained a bug, for security reasons, that would make the game crash halfway through. While the bug was not supposed to be on the final release, the company claims that the mix of reviews based on the 'buggy' release and those based on the retail version "created customer confusion and caused irreparable harm" to its reputation.
The bottom line is that Ubisoft is suing OEM for copyright infringement, breach of contract, and negligence. For the breach of contract and negligence, the publisher is looking for at least $10 million in damages.
Yawn....as soon as somebody buys a copy it'll hit the net then.........700,000 illegal downloads wouldnt have translated into 700,000 unit sales.
Let Ubisoft sue OEM and they should IMHO considering they have an obligation to protect the product of a client.
However, it won't change anything. It'll only delay the inevitable, that the game will be pirated and made freely available to all. Who will Ubisoft sue then? The entire world?
I am going to show your response to some friends of mine at ubisoft
I am sure they will be contacting you shortly
Copyright-infringing music site shut down in Italy
Tuesday, 15 July 2008
Four alleged operators of a popular copyright-infringing music forum face heavy fines and potential prison sentences after Italian police shut down the site and seized servers and thousands of illegal files and discs. Downrevolution.net was one of the biggest forum sites in Italy, providing links which 30,000 registered subscribers used to illegally swap music and film. Content was being made available via known locker services, such as Rapidshare.com and megaupload.com, which resulted in some half a million downloads.
Jeremy Banks, IFPI's head of internet anti-piracy unit, says: "This shows a real commitment by the authorities to stopping online copyright theft, and it also highlights that forums such as these are anything but immune to the law."
The four people believed to be the operators of the site, which was founded in 2007 and was also earning revenues from banner advertising, have been prosecuted for violating Italian copyright law. They face potential imprisonment of up to three years, a fine of €15,000 and administrative sanctions running into hundreds of thousands of euros.
Despite improvements in piracy levels in many countries during 2007, those nations with the highest rates caused PC software losses to rise by $8 billion to nearly $48 billion.
That's according to the annual global PC software piracy study from Business Software Alliance (BSA), Washington, DC. Of the 108 countries included in the report, use of pirated software dropped in 67, and rose in only eight. However, because the worldwide PC market grew fastest in high-piracy countries, the worldwide PC software piracy rate increased by three percentage points to 38% in 2007.
The three lowest piracy countries were the US (20%). Luxembourg (21%) and New Zealand (22%). The three highest piracy countries were Armenia 993%), Bangladesh (92%) and Azerbaijan (92%).
"By the end of 2007, there were more than 1 billion PCs installed around the world, and close to half had pirated, unlicensed software on them," said John Gantz, chief research officer at IDC.
BSA's "blueprint" for reducing software piracy includes:
* increasing public education and awareness
* updating national copyright laws to implement World Intellectual Property Organization obligations
* Creating strong enforcement mechanisms
* Dedicating significant government resources to the problem
* Leading by example by implementing software management policies and requiring the public sector to sue only legitimate software
Read post #7 above. That sounds like more than just an "alternative view".
you cannot blame me, although yes I am super rich but still, for every dollar I lose to piracy it is starting to cause cracks in the business
to press up 700k copies only to sell 40k copies that has got to hurt
if a company knew they could only sell 40,000 copies on an open market, well they would have closed down long ago
ubi soft is one of the biggest gaming companies on the planet with close to a billion players, they were planing on selling 7 MM copies of their game not 700k copies
the rule of thumb is that you press up 10 percent of projected sales and as sales rise you press up more to meet demand
I know that kid got fired from OEM and I know he, his parents will be broke for the rest of their lives paying back for his very stupid mistake, OEM is going to pass on the judgement against him for millions, and I believe he is truly sorry for what he did
just so you know at these manufacturing plants they have all types of detection equipment to prevent these types of problems from happening
the kid lost a 100k a year job and is in debt for life for what ?
giving away a game for free on the net ?
brilliant
I heard he was a MIT graduate, he sure showed them whose boss
We have not pressed up anything since last year when we found out our hard copies by the millions were still sitting in our warehouses
and they are going to the garbage islands at some point which will add to more pollution and more global warming
for what it is worth oil is used in the manufacturing process to make cd's dvd's, packaging and for it to end up in their by the millions is now another extremely negative by product of file sharing
No offense intended, but look at the fellow's demographics that he displayed here, the least amount of pirates are the ones who just jack stuff for free because they can, the main reasons are money and quality checking, stop shipping crap and maybe your sales will go up again, it's not rocket science after all, people are sick of being burned by hype, so they take steps to reduce the burn that they receive by playtesting.
I've told you before what I do and why, reiterating it is pointless, but if you're going to ignore the proof -in the post that you're responding in- you are either being intentionally blind, or ignorant, it's a sad story for the fellow who leaked Assassin's creed, as that baseline of pirates got ahold of it and aren't going to buy it anymore, but how many sales did they rake in -REGARDLESS- of the leak? How many of those people do you think bought it after play testing it for those few weeks before the release date?
I don't blame you for being rich, I just find you arrogant for the fact that you have the gall to tell people what-for when you've made your money off their backs, it's like the aristocracy in the 1600s when the peasantry would revolt the nobles had no idea why because they had their heads stuffed so far up their arse that they couldn't tell north from pudding!
Thier recourse: Off with their heads
I'm sure you can see the similarities between that and your own posts Sarge, you call for every last pirate, old woman or hardcore, to be rounded up and locked down like the children of Satan that they are, I'm surprised you aren't holding the Guillotine string...
I just surfed their site, Starship Tycoon, Lux, and Kudos look interesting, may pick up but I'll demo it first, I'd never even heard of these guys before :/
A distinct lack of TBS or RTS action but he might not be that type of game programmer, either way I'll also have to see if it'll work on an x64 base architecture...
If you guys can't spot a troll when you see one......
but
I came from money and I put my own money into businesses, you can think of my as a howard hughes
If I had started off now instead of 15 years ago I would be homeless and penniless
I know of many that has happened to and no one cares
I am not making money off of your back, I make money off a button on your shirts, my share is is very very very small per sale
and when the sales are in the tens of millions of units I do well and I am able to hire more talent and put out more product to meet demand
when they are below a million I have to fire most of the work force as the overhead would bankrupt me in a New York second
peacefully I hope but I highly doubt that will happen
their site
At the rate this is going, I highly doubt they will be around in the next 2 years imagine how much of an impact this will have on the workforce when they close their doors forever
when they go out of business
"soulxtc I cannot wait for the day when the FBI shows up at your place and they will find you and even if you do not get thrown into the clink, you will still have to pay thousands in fines fees and that lesson will change your ways and you will tell others and so on and so on.
I am going to show your response to some friends of mine at ubisoft.
I am sure they will be contacting you shortly"
I'm not holding my breath....I do admit that Im starting to love your role as a pseudo Lex Luthor/antagonist role here....to bad irs mired in drivel.
For one Ubisoft blows...
Secondly, I'd hope the FBI has more pressing concerns than whether or not I grabbed a new screener copy of the "The Mummy p3." (which I didn't BTW).
And tell others what exactly? That I was dumb enough to use Limewire for a change? Right.
Actually, I plan on being gone soon anyways, the Army has finally submitted my package for formal review.
he told me about far bigger cases that are currently under investigation, ie video store owners that have their own multi million dollar burn factories burning and packaging hundreds of thousands of dvd's and cd's of current movies and charting artists partnered up with meth and pot labs all in the same buildings
there are far bigger fish to fry
so................
file share away :))
I am at a loss for words
I mean
comments like yours on blogs everywhere so they have pretty much given up for now
my conclusion is that they have far bigger fish to fry and
in time file sharing will stop or it will continue
only the public can determine it's fate
I give up
good day
so.........
I do have a final question here
where would I need to set my prices for
artists cd's
action games
role playing games
office software
for direct download ?
retail store (I have to give them 50% of the retail price)
direct mail order ?
I apologize for my harsh and arrogant remarks and I would rather try to salvage this and win than sink in millions into lawsuits and maybe lose
Thank you for your insight
so tell me should I shut down ?
or is there a price that I can sell my products that that will make it worth my while ?
How much would I pay per your last question?
A CD, maybe $5. For a single song, 25 cents and only if it has no DRM. 99 cents for a crippled song on iTunes is unacceptable. Office software, maybe $20-50 depending on features, and it better be damn good because there is already excellent open source office software.
As for the future, your industry better think of something otherwise pretty soon or what happened to the music industry will also happen to the gaming industry.
The last comment was mostly for music, well this comment will be for movies. Use allot more cg, rather than expensive models. Find locations that have everything you need for the entire movie rather than flying around the globe. Use undiscovered actors, there is allot of talent out there willing to work for much less than most Hollywood actors. With that said, cheaper production should be cheaper ticket prices in theaters. Start making low budget movies at a low budget cost to consumers. Give people choice and they may pick the cheaper movie over the blockbusters.
Software is a tough cookie to crack at this point, you are competing with free, opensource software. It is not at the same level as commercial software, but some people would use it to get by without having to pay. You need to find a way to make consumers feel like there is value in buying you're product. Especially if you are expecting to charge 80$ or more, I still don't know how Microsoft can sell so many copies when OpenOffice is nearly identical.
Videogames I already gave examples in other threads. The industry is starting to tighten the belt by reusing engines, building simple fun games, using real time cut scenes rather than cg. If Nintendo has proven anything with the Wii, its that the best graphics and most cutting edge technology is not the end all be all. Make fun games no matter the graphics and it will sell.
okay so
5 bucks for a cd how many song ?
25 cents for a single (will not happen, we might as well not press up singles at that price)
20-50 for office software
for office software how many programs should it have for that price
any price for a good action game ? role playing game ?
I know all of you are file sharers and that is why I am asking you
if I can price my products right and have tens of millions of units in sales then this could work
and of course no DRM, we get complaints about it all the time
your prices are going to force me to do direct mail order or direct downloads, no retail, retail charges me 45-50% to put my merchandise in their stores.
So I take it that you are not really into going to best buy, walmart and buying software or music ?
again thanks for your insight
and on the games so I take it that if we make wii games we will have a better year in sales
I understand
but the problem is that we have tens of millions of units of boxed up software now in our warehouses, and we would like to unload them now rather than have them hauled out to a garbage island
any ideas on where I can set buy it now prices to sell software that is anywhere from a year to 3 years old ?
and sample loop dvd's for hiphop, urban, dirty south, producers 4GB, construction kits, we sell those as well
what is a buy now price ?
We sold them for 100 retail but sales have tanked in the last year and 90% of them were recently returned
magesy caused us millions in losses, we are currently suing them in Russia, they are shut down now, our products have been downloaded over 300 thousand times, our most popular downloads on magesy were the loop dvd's
thanks
so if I price the following
games 20
cd's 5
office software 20
royalty free loop dvd's 50
am I going to see a dramatic increase in sales ?
We have a p2p site ready to go online so that is no problem but how do we keep from getting ripped,
with low prices do you think at least 90% will buy ?
do you think it is better if we have hard copy goods to sell rather than instant downloads ?
thank you
You ask will you see a dramatic increase in sales? I think embracing p2p is essential, but every p2p download will never always equal a share, but maybe if you get your product out there and more people sample it you might get some more sales.
only now has it dropped by 90% in sales but they all still have the latest versions
I do not want to say what products or artists they are, it would be unprofessional on my part
that is why I am trying out a new approach
I can price these products at any price
what I would like to know is what is the buy now today price ?
hard copy
download
retail
factory direct
again thank you
merchandise and band info. Heck you could even start developing simple, streamline recording studios, with an easy to use interface. No sound engineer, just the artist paying to use the studio for an hour and tinker a little with the sound.
Maybe what we all should have done early on is help Sarge here figure out what to do........
I am going to show your response to some friends of mine at ubisoft
I am sure they will be contacting you shortly"
Sarge, I personally advocate free speech regardless of whether or not I agree with it. I believe that even if you lick the boots of the RIAA, you shouldn't be censored because other people disagree with you. I am saddened to see you saying such things - especially to a reporter. While I don't agree with everything that was said against you, I also do not agree that people should be jailed because they advocate certain views as you so clearly advocate here.
Besides, I don't think a large company would even consider intervening here. Why should they intervene in a squabble on the comment section of a well-read news site anyway when they have a multi-billion dollar lobby efforts to take care of in Washington right now?
first off the artists we have are proven they have sold millions of records in the past, done concerts worldwide in stadiums, pavillions and so forth
the software model is proven as well so we have millions of users and fans, problem is that the fan and user base is not matching up to the sales and obviously I cannot harass any clients, users or fans as I would alienate them and possibly everyone else from buying from me
all I want to know if possible is
what "buy today now price" I need to put my products at so that I can sell tens of millions vs a few hundred thousand units
if I put the cd's out there for 5 a cd how many songs should be on there, how many units do you think I will sell at 5 a cd
or can I ask for more if I put 20 songs on the cd instead of 12 ? and if so how much more ?
you the file sharers are my buyers, my audience and I have to accept that, so I am listening now more than ever against my colleagues and lawyers wishes but I would rather find a solution on here than as I mentioned before, spend millions on my lawyers only to lose, which could happen, I have come to realize there is that possibility, at least I am out of my anger,denial state and I am now in my cooperative, passive state
what did encourage me was that only 5% of the pirate rippers were adamant about free, everyone else just wanted the prices to come down, way down, so I can make that happen with my merchandise, I cannot speak for anyone else but myself
so
again
Thank you for your input
My advice for companies is to put value to your product, give people a reason to want to buy it. Give them incentives.
For the Music industry:
-Forget about DRM.
-Stop suing
-open the entire library for download, charge a small fee, like mentioned above.
-Now, the incentive. The more you buy, the persons account could for eg. be given points, points that could be used for a free download of a new album? A free concert ticket to their favorite artist? A Tshirt or whatever. Give them a reason to want to buy the songs!
Games/Software industry.
-Cheaper prices
-less quantity, more quality!
-Maybe also look into the download option with incentives, a points system for future releases at discount prices, or again, tshirts, stickers or whatever. Just give people a reason to want to pay.
I think this would work, and would be great P.R on the companies part.
There will always be a small number though that will continue to pirate, and I honestly think it would be for the reasons of too much choice, and not the money to buy it all, particularly in the music scene.
That's just my 2 cents, hope the lawyer happy companies take atleast some of it onboard and think about turning around public opinion, because at the moment, the record labels are hated almost more than politicians, and that's bad.
@ Sarge:
I have a slightly different perspective on downloads than what soul and MR have been offering. A lot of my piracy comes from principals. I will not buy a CD while I know that a gross portion of my money goes to the RIAA. I WILL buy a CD if its retardedly cheap, or has some extra entertainment value like a Weird Al album. To me, music has very little to ZERO value. The rates that each song goes for is insane for some one like me who just doesn't care about music.
I will not buy any movie. I WILL buy any good movie. I also will buy movies if they are good enough and reach the $5 price point, sometimes $10. I will also buy new releases if the movie is REALLY good, or just seems like it deserves being owned. It's very subjective, so I don't know what can be done in general to make me buy more movies than what I download. One thing is certain: any movie is worth the $.40 burnable. There have been only a few times I regretted burning a movie. One thing that MUST be mentioned is that every time I break down and buy a movie, I regret it. ALL my copied movies will allow me to skip previews and the fucking FBI warnings. My honestly bought DVDs do not allow me this luxury. It feels like I'm being punished for being honest.
I will not buy shitty games. If their reviews are low, $60 is just insane to ask. Hell, even good games $60 is too much to ask. Games have not gotten better over this generation, so why should we pay more for them? There are so many ancient gems to play that I can avoid buying the new games. The market is becoming over-saturated with games, and charging more for them isn't going to help. As it is right now, with the slew of $60 games on the 360 and PS3, releasing a $50 game will catch a lot of attention. Every $10 price point drop makes a HUGE difference. I WILL buy good games. I WILL NOT buy good games with DRM though. I did not buy Bioshock because of the DRM in it, even though it was the best game I played in years. I bought Mass Effect because I knew it was a game I was going to love, and regretted it to the point I don't feel like playing it at all because of the DRM in it. DRM HAS TO GO. THERE IS NO REASON FOR ITS EXISTENCE. IT HURTS SALES MORE THAN IT HELPS THEM. I do buy as many games as I possibly can though. I have one of those cursed R4 cartridges for my DS, and that has caused me to buy several games because they are good. I will buy games that are worth my money even if I never get to play them. The gaming industry isn't run by a bunch of cock gobblers, I still have no problem giving them my money. EA is reaching the point of being the Evil Empire though. I don't know how many more EA games I will buy with the way they are working.
As for why I download games? It's convenient. Even if I know I'm buying a game, I'll still download it so I can get a head start on it while I wait for my chance to go buy it properly. Even right now as I type this, I'm downloading Tron 2.0. I have the box sitting 5 feet away from me. But it has Starforce protection, so I'm just going to get the cracked version. It's safer.
I would love to see a digital download model that allows me to download games for a greatly reduced price from retail, with an option to get the box and disk mailed to me if I want to pay a few extra bucks. That wont stop my Try-before-I-buy downloads, but it feels "more with the times" than what I have to go through to be honest.
I probably have more to say, but I have work, and I'm going to be late from typing this.
So I am handing out the olive branch
I would like to go back to the old school way press up hard copies that buyers, users, fans can own and call it their own
no DRM (Is it the DRM that sank this industry further and further into the abyss ?)
I would have to take your word that 99.9% of you will not share freely and remain loyal to the artist, software programmer
I will also make sure the artists do not go on MTV cribs, they remain low key so that you are loving them for their music and not hating their lifestyle or their wealth, I can see on how MTV cribs would piss and alienate a lot of fans
so again
I press up hard copies by the millions
what prices are the buy it now prices ? how many songs on a cd is fair ?
what is a buy it now price if I have the cd loaded up with 20 singles ?
subscription service will not work and the reason is that there are over a 100,000 artists with an average of 5 to a team attached to that artist, you would be talking about 500k people that have to agree to this service, itunes in itself was a miracle, and after everyone saw how bad of a disaster it was most of them want to go back to selling hard copies in a nice package you can call your own.
I can do
mail order direct
direct downloads
retail (you can buy the hard copies at best buy, walmart, sams, barnes and noble, target ect)
so again
what is the buy it now price ? lets start off with artists for now.
thank you
Obviously, if I'm in the minority, you can charge a lot more for music.
and my change of heart is from hopelessness
Music and software industries are at the file sharers mercy you all have us by the nut sack and you are doing a great job of squeezing it putting us in agonizing pain
I would rather spend my money on real estate and artist development marketing than very costly lawsuits
I am staying away from software until the software industry really turns around
Artists cost a million to create, produce and market to the masses
Software starts at 20MM and goes up from there
I imagine many software companies are going to file for bankruptcy very soon from poor sales
If I can get $5 a cd and sell millions I would rather price them at that than sell it for $14 risk very low sales
my demographics is teens and adults 14-28 that is the best demographic market to sell to, we sell house, techno, progressive house cd's worldwide, like I said sales used to be great, now not so great
What can I say I was just at the hilton waikiloa village resort that I swear is the garden of eden in Hawaii, I decompressed and now I am very relaxed
again I my apologies for my harsh attitude, I understand where you are all coming from now, I really do
so again
a good rule of thumb is 50 cents a song on a cd correct ?
so if I put 20 songs on a cd can I sell it for 10 ? or 5 still and if it is 5 still maybe I should only have 10 songs on a cd ?
thank you
The only way for record companies to survive is to openly discuss what people want. They have given themselves a very bad reputation now, and it would take quite a turn around for people to accept them again.
I think you should maybe setup some kind of open forum to have a discussion on a viable alternative. Maybe the ZP guys can help here? but, the suing is causing a massive problem. People resent the labels for what they've done and what they are doing.
Piracy will always be around, so you have to accept it. Now, you need to compete with piracy. I still like the idea of giving people an incentive. If people have a choice of free or pay, they would usually choose the free, unless there is some reason the paid one has something special about it. This would be different for a favorite artist though, as people tend to want to support the artist.
Sarge, I'm not familiar on how difficult an online store, like iTunes would be to setup. From what you've said, it sounds difficult to co-ordinate royalties etc. Maybe this needs to be looked into to, how royalties are divided up? Simplified.
Here's a question though. If people have the option to buy an album online, DRM free, covers and all. Would they if you can get it free elsewhere? There still needs to be a incentive where the free option gives you the songs only, but if you bought it, you get something special that you can't just download.
Finally, all this suing not only hurts the labels, but also the artist. Look at Metellica for eg. and now Guns 'n' Roses. What if Guns 'n' Roses says, hey, download all you like, but for the people that pay for it, you get something special, and that may be a concert ticket discounted or special interviews or other things fans may want that you can't just download.
It's just ideas, and the more ideas that are thrown about the better. Thanks Sarge for standing up to the challenge and trying to do something rather than digging yourself into a bigger hole like the other guys.
I will try $5 per an album with 10 songs for instant download, I will sell it as an album and not break it up, maybe from that new business model over the next year there will be something to talk about
I have a itunes type of a site that I will get online very soon and I will spend my lawyer money on marketing instead, I hope this works
again thank you
I guess it's time for me to eat crow eh Sarge?
Now that it seems you're listening for a change, I'm sorry for my comment earlier about the Jackhammers at midnight bit.
My suggestion, there will always be collectors, the average joe has an MP3 player, but DRM makes it so that he can't use it with legit music, take my RCA lyra for example, I can't use Itunes songs on it because of the protections on it to keep it on pods only (not without a little bit of re-encoding but I'm talking a vanilla song.) What happens is that people will go for what's easiest in that scenario, just hit the net for the nearest DRM free alternative.
Anyways back to my point, what I would do in your shoes, is first go to online marketing and sales, there's no retail overhead, so you can bring the prices in line, but there will always be guys who want a hardcopy, that's where 'Special Editions' come in, you can have 3 stages of sale, Low Cost ($0.50 per song or $5.00 - $10.00 per album set) with a moderate bitrate on the music itself (this will be your staple-seller because unless you're an audiophile, you aren't going to notice the quality difference), High Quality ($1 per song or $20-$30 per album set), and Special Editions (the key is to make these limited in stock so that they feel special to those who want to buy these, release them at about 5 at a time or so, cost would probably be about $40.00-$50.00 plus shipping as it would be the hardcopy with maybe a booklet or t-shirt or whatever knicknacks come with the special edition.)
Right now, I will admit it, I'm a bit of a sucker for Special Editions of my favorite shows and such, why can't that work for music too? Most of the time you see rows upon rows of the same jewel case with a different picture in it, but few and far between are there special editions of the music that include fancy swag that makes the owner feel like they purchased something special.
Another fourth option is letting customers pre-screen the tunes, put a Poor Quality version of the song that's able to be played online through an encoded flash player, the only way someone can rip it out is by decompiling the flash program, however if they're so hard up to do that, odds are they aren't likely to buy the song anyways, and a word from a web designer, don't bother trying those tricks that disable right-clicking with javascript, it's a waste of time because they'll just disable it and do it anyways, it just annoys the users of the site that aren't trying to snipe anything. :P
But the fourth is optional, people do like to pre-screen, I'm one of those types, so I know what I'm going to buy, another method is have an online radio station on your site featuring your own artists in the queue, you'll have to have a lot of them to fill a full day, make sure that you state the title and name of the artist before and after each song so that people know what it is.
And finally, for the love of pete, as an IT guy talking to an exec, do not use mass-mailing, it drives everyone nuts, if you're aiming for the 14-24 use RSS feeds, they are a newer means of sending information to people who subscribe to your newsletter or alerts or whatever and you don't need their email, if they wish to cancel they just delete the feed XML, if you're curious about how many people read your RSS, put in an image that's ONLY used on the RSS feed and see how many times it's downloaded, but mailing lists are a pain in the kiester to maintain and odds are you're sending to a few people at least that don't want the mail because someone else signed them up for it.
Anyways, that's my two and a half bits.
I seriously don't know why this hasn't been discussed a long time ago. If they would have done this 10 years ago, it would be a much different environment.
Good luck sarge. I think you are on the right track. Just don't let your lawyers get too sue happy with your best customers!
and yes again no DRM I agree it was a bad element to have added in and I can see how it had frustrated the loyal buyers
I just read an article that microsoft is cutting their prices overseas to stop priracy
from 170 to 90 for their software programs so I think many others will soon follow suit
Time will tell for us all
again thank you
these are very helpful words of encouragement
question
If I had the albums with 320 bit rate and sold them for $5 each how many songs do I need to have on there for you to want to buy them ?
$10 ?
$20 ?
$30 ?
what is the highest price you or your friends would be willing to pay ?
thank you
so a better definition for it would be dance music, club music
Your question. 320kbps is good. I personally do v0 rips, but whatever I'm no audiophile. I'd like to see 10-20 tracks for $5. It could be less than 10 tracks if I know the artist well.
our songs are 4-6 minutes, some are even 8 minutes long but the average is 4 minutes
my partners want to charge $10
how many songs for $10 ?
and again no DRM, with a bitrate of 320 which is CD quality
thank you
when did that change ?
Good Luck and ciao !
Microsoft reduces Office price to combat Kenyan piracy
Microsoft East Africa announced a 40 percent reduction in cost of its home and student office suite amid complaints of rampant software piracy in the Kenya.
"This special offer for Africa will enable more tools that will help them work more productively and accomplish more in developing presentations," said Ian Joule, Microsoft channel manager for East and Central Africa.
Download the latest Network World Executive Guide - Executive Guide: Storage Heats Up
Microsoft reduced the price from 11,700 Kenya shillings (US$177.47) to 6,300 shillings. The price is only applicable to Africa and other emerging markets. The suite includes Microsoft Office Word 2007, Microsoft Office Excel 2007, Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 and Microsoft Office One Note 2007, among other features.
"Piracy has affected the market; Microsoft is working with the government and the Kenya Copyright Board to create awareness on copyright registration and piracy," said Laura Chite, Microsoft public relations manager.
I will take that into consideration, of course I will have someone that works for me post the blog
again thank you
I'll keep an eye out for a blog if you decide to make one. I'm sure it would b big news, and i'd like to offer advice on it if i could.
Well done, congrats on the change of heart and good luck!
and they are going to the garbage islands at some point which will add to more pollution and more global warming"
You're talking about video games I presume? Sell them off as part of the "Greatest Hits" line for their respective systems, which are 20 - 30 dollars a copy in stores.
Another reason is the cost. Now its not so much that the prices themselves are unreasonable per se (although sometimes they are). Its that they are usually unreasonable to the demographic that they are being marketed to. If you want to market a game to High School students, hype it up as the greatest thing ever, and then charge $50-$60 for it, don't be surprised when you have a large # of 13-16 year olds getting copies off Bittorent.
I know when I was in High School I pirated alot of stuff mainly because I didn't have the cash to buy it. Sure I eventually had an after school job, but I wasn't raking in all that much. When I was at a store I would buy media that I knew to be good and that I wanted. I didn't have the margins to be screwed over with a bad purchase. Often I would download a song or movie or game just to try it out. My rule of thumb was if I found my self playing it alot over a decent period of time it was worth buying. Many people will tell you that you can try a demo of a game instead of pirating, but honestly demos are rarely representative of the quality of the whole game. Its like saying you can judge if a movie is worth seeing by watching the trailer. Demos, trailers, previews, etc. are all just advertising for a product. They will always contain what the company considers the best part of the product, and more often then not a consumer will be screwed over by making a purchase after playing a demo.
If you want a good business model to go on then I say go traditional. Many companies try to hedge their investments by producing too many different products. They get involved in so many fields that they can never be good at any of them. My advice: Focus! Quality is #1. For example Blizzard has 3 big brands they focus on (Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo). They work really hard and put a tremendous amount of quality into each of the titles. It may be putting your all your eggs into only a few baskets, but they make sure that the quaility of each title is so great that over a decade latter their games are still fun (Warcraft I[1994], Starcraft I [1998], and Diablo I [1996]) are still amazing titles. And who can doubt that World of Warcraft is a cash cow that still has plenty of milk in her teats?
Another tip. Create a culture around your brand. See Apple on this one. They have gone from a joke of a company in the mid-90's to a social phenomenon. They have become trendy, and have associated themselves with an elite status. Combine that with the quality of their products (again quality is #1) and they have turned out to be one of the biggest economic success stories of the new millennium.
Finally, DICH DRM!!! DRM devalues your product to the consumer anywhere from 25%-75% (rough estimates based on anecdotes that I have read). If you make the end product a hassle for the legitimate consumer then they will turn into illegitimate consumer. At the end of the day the consumer doesn't care about the companies bottom line, they only care about the experience they get with a product. If the product is of high quality and doesn't hassle them then most people will rather pay a fair price for a legitimate product than get an illegitimate product for free. People like being honest, but if they feel like they are being treated like criminals, or that the free download is a higher quality product they'll just go the free route.
If you wish to encourage physical purchases consider including things that are difficult to digitize. The box art could be made exciting, booklets and small pewter extras could be included. Discounts for live performances, movie tickets, or discounts for official merchandise on an associated website would also be good ideas. Even something as simple and cheap as a "certificate of Authenticity" in collectors additions can spur the demand for physical sales.
For online sales consider making whole songs available for free at low quality. Let it be ripped and distributed. The people that really love the songs will comeback and buy the whole album and the ones that don't have just been exposed to it and may have even used some of their bandwidth to help distribute it. Marketing is a very big deal today. You need to get noticed, and if you want you can write off the pirated amount as advertising.
There will always be people that just want to get what they can for free. However most people are honest and like having official stuff that has been legitimately purchased.
Sarge, if you could give me more information about the products you deal with I might be able to help with an idea of price (at least from the demand end).
Without specifics I will try to estimate a price:
Productivity software: $100-200 (Since this is normally used for business, people will most likely expect a higher price, but don't price it out of the range for people that want to manage their households not a business).
Game Software: $30-50. (While some games take a lot of creativity and skill to put together, I don't want to pay $60+ in this day and age for a Doom-clone with little more than a better physics engine, extra shiny graphics. Many games I'm playing these days are old ones [Warcaft, Wing Commander, Doom, etc.])
Single Movie DVDs: $5-15 (If all you have on their is the movie itself and no real extras [cinematic trailers and optional Dolby sound don't count] there is no reason for the $25,40,50+ price tag).
TV series DVDs: $1.00-1.25 per episode (TV shows can run into hundreds of episodes sometimes [especially some of the bigger Anime titles] many people refuse to pay $6-10 per episode because they know a show goes on for over 200+ eps. and they don't have the $1,200-2,000+ to spend on a show they were watching for fee on TV).
Songs (Albums-online): $5-10
Songs (Single-online): $0.50-$0.75
Songs (Albums-offline) $8-15 (maybe more for collectors editions with special extras.)
Songs (Single-offline) $2-3
Sorry if I missed anything, but from what little information I have these are the best estimates I can give right now.
if a price is set very cheap for an album at
$5 for 10 songs
$10 for 20 songs
We could sell millions off of the net
bitrate will be 320 HD quality, no drm, no anti piracy measures of any kind
available for direct download
We have an online music store
we have electronica and techno artists
we will spend $$$$$ in marketing to let the world know of our new price changes, we will advertise on MYSPACE, Magazines, TV, Youtube and yes the albums are hot, we have already spent millions in making them, these artists already tour the globe and play in front of 40,000 at a time
we will have 4 snippets per album on the site so you can hear what is on the album
when you buy it you can make as many copies as you want, play it anywhere you want, but we are
hoping that at that cheap price you will tell you friends to buy their own
so what do you think ?
we would rather try this approach than get on the sue happy band wagon
we were going to print up 2MM copies and get them into stores but I have been told that is a waste of time and money
The consensus was that direct easy hassle free downloading is the way to go
again
albums not singles
$5 10 songs 4 minutes in length
$10 20 songs 4 minutes in length
no singles will be for sale
downloading specs
$5 album will be 120MB
$10 album will be 250MB
will the large size be a problem for downloading ?
can we sell millions with this new plan ?
thank you for your input
Mr. Goldberg
Most people are accustomed to larger file sizes these days, heck HDDs have gotten to the terabyte level already, a couple hundred meg isn't going to make much of a difference to most people.
Larger files tend to be accelerated / torrented so you might want to build your own music download torrent client that activates when someone purchases your content (World of Warcraft does this already with it's updater software, it's a modified basic Bit Torrent client.) rather than have physical torrent files transferred all over the place.
The only problem is it forces them to download your 'downloader software' but you can put ads in it for other artists and whatnot based on what they are purchasing at the time of download :P
Just thinkin' 'ere.
We can do everything in house, we already have a room full of servers, so I am curious why would I need my own musical torrent client ?
when I can have you come to the site and directly download the music from there ?
with your idea are you trying to save me bandwidth ? money ? time ? both ?
thank you
1000
10000
1000000
10000000 ?
majors are full of red tape and I highly doubt you will ever see your favorite artists for $5 an album
now if I prove it can be done then they will listen, but until then............
for what it is worth my artists did sell millions of albums years ago, recently sales have dropped off and they are no longer with us
we are putting out a new slate of artists genre is electronica, dance, techno, they all sing and again the vibe is tiesto, dj sasha, digweed, okenfold, moby and so on
so I am asking if I do a direct download service mass marketing ect
cut prices, will I see great numbers in sales ?
I will have hits on the radio soon but if the sales do not follow the hits then that would mean that cutting prices to acceptable levels
and the marketing campaign was a waste of time and money
I could hire so called experts for this advice as I have in the past but
A. They are pompous asses telling me I do not know shit from shinola
B. They refuse to admit there needs to be change and they keep telling me that in a few years it will all be back to normal, let the lawyers handle it, well I do not have 3 years to see if they are right
this is why I am on here trying to figure out a way to make this all work
my colleagues think I am nuts but I see hope here
and yes 320 bit rate, which is the highest bit rate for mp3, each song is 10MB or more and the quality is pristine
thank you again for your input
you will be contacted and compensated
I for one do not believe in free
but I will not pay for ideas that are unproven
again
thank you
You mean there are people that think this is a FAD?! and you PAY them to tell you this?! Let me guess, these are also the guys that are telling you that the copy of Tron 2.0 I just downloaded was another lost sale too. (remember, I have the box 5 feet from me)
they have mba's phd's they are very bright people, they work very well in other aspects of the business
the problem is not them, the problem is that we are now in a foreign universe where certain laws of physics no longer apply
also I have to convince another 200 people in my organization that this is the path to pursue, not to mention the artists, their managers and the list goes on
that is why I have to start off small
the ads will feature 1 artist
that artist will have his her own website with a link back to the company or other artists websites
I know this is very primative
but I also know that if I have hundreds of artists on one site the focus will get lost quickly as the synergy is depleted
at $5 an album, if I am selling it on my own site, with my own servers I can pay the overhead, no problem
if I sell a million per artist per album this new model could work
any less and it can't
btw other labels are selling their albums at $7 a record and their sales are still under a million
so there you go
thank you
You really came off to this community as a member of the highest possible echelon in the American entertainment industry. A true "Wizard of Oz" so to speak. But I suppose those that come from money (as you claim) are born with a monarchial mentality. Have you considered merging with eMusic, or is that under your thumb as well?
I am starting off with lets say
1MM for marketing for the first month for 10 artists and see what the response is
if sales are over the top then I will drop more products and money in the pipeline under this new business model
You move fast! I've just read Indiana Greg and her hubby are planning a similar type of download site. This is definitely the way forward. There will be a bit of a battle on your hands as his is new territory now and there will be many sites and only the best will prosper. I for one would like to see yours be the one that becomes the shining example of a music download service, since you've been so upfront and honest of late.
I'm not sure if you would like to go down the torrent path, the advantage of that would be a much lower cost (bandwidth) and load on your servers.
Keep us informed! I'm really intrigued with this, i'd love to see what you've come up with. Remember, you'll be cometing with free, so we all need the thinking caps on for the incentive to come to your site.
I'm all for helping you out, you seem to be a descent guy and you're taking a risk (like any business decision i guess).
I'm sure I speak for all of us here. We are all happy to help with ideas. I think this will work, but will take a bit of work.
Try without the torrent option first, see how it all goes. If your traffic picks up a lot, consider then moving to torrents to ease the bandwidth.
Any hints on artist the will be available ? :) Guys, lets help Mr. Goldberg here, he's genuine here I think and this is what we've all wanted to see isn't it?
however I just got off the phone with my guy from Sony Europe as some of our artists are through Sony Europe
He said
A. No way I will sell millions of downloads without their name or any other major label name on the artists site
B. No way they will associate with me if I sell the albums for $5 or 3 euros, I have to stick to the standards that are already set up
so if I do all of the marketing, promotion, airplay, artists plays the shows
do I still need a major label icon on my artists sites, will having a major label as a partner really help out sales ? I still have to do a 50/50 with them and all I get is the icon
I also have to have the artists on their sites on their online stores and so on
Christian contemporary ?
is that who they are ?
Are you serious about the Hawaii thing? How much money do you have? lol. I barely have enough to buy a meal at Mac Donalds let alone consider flying. Mortgages suck.
I'll help you out in any way I can Sarge. I don't expect anything in return. once your sites up, i'll help passing the word around.
I can understand non christians
but christians ? they believe that god is always watching them everywhere and they never steal as far as I know
and all I want to know is if I put out a great products, massive marketing ect ect
what do you and others think I will sell
1000
10000
100000
1000000
10000000
or anywhere between if fine
I would like to have an idea
and again do you think I need the major label icon to gain confidence with fans for them to buy the music at $5 an album
thank you
I meant anywhere else between those sales numbers is fine
Anyway Sarge. Good Luck, seriously. I want to see this work for you, you're sticking your neck out here so to speak.
I'd love to keep in contact with you along the way as this takes off! I'm sure it will in time. Forgive me for saying so but i'm not going to give away my email address to you just yet :) I'm sure you understand.
But' I'd like to play a role in helping you out. Because, I'm tired of the legal squabbling going on and fighting, I think there could be a balance reached with the community and the labels.