Pirates as a Marketplace 214
John Riccitiello, the CEO of Electronic Arts, made some revealing comments in an interview with Kotaku about how the company's attitudes are shifting with regard to software piracy. Quoting:
"Some of the people buying this DLC are not people who bought the game in a new shrink-wrapped box. That could be seen as a dark cloud, a mass of gamers who play a game without contributing a penny to EA. But around that cloud Riccitiello identified a silver lining: 'There's a sizable pirate market and a sizable second sale market and we want to try to generate revenue in that marketplace,' he said, pointing to DLC as a way to do it. The EA boss would prefer people bought their games, of course. 'I don't think anybody should pirate anything,' he said. 'I believe in the artistry of the people who build [the games industry.] I profoundly believe that. And when you steal from us, you steal from them. Having said that, there's a lot of people who do.' So encourage those pirates to pay for something, he figures. Riccitiello explained that EA's download services aren't perfect at distinguishing between used copies of games and pirated copies. As a result, he suggested, EA sells DLC to both communities of gamers. And that's how a pirate can turn into a paying customer."
Thanks buddy (Score:5, Informative)
And that's how a pirate can turn into a paying customer.
And why I, a legitimate customer, can't play Dragon Age if my net connection is down, because the game checks if I'm really entitled to start that savegame with DLC content in it.
In other news, the amount of legitimate Dragon Age + DLC owners planning on getting a pirate copy of Mass Effect just increased by 1.
Article (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Half a game? (Score:2, Informative)
What's a DLC?
Re:Half a game? (Score:3, Informative)
Downloadable Content
You want a new map in you FPS, you buy it and download it. At least thats how it started, as add-on content smaller than an expansion pack would be.
These days it can be really small trivial stuff, like a new hair style for your characters, or a better weapon. Personaly I have no problem with it when dealing with non-competitive add-ons such as image tweaks. I have a much bigger problem with it for items which offer a competitive advantage over other players - especially in player vs player games such as FPS.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downloadable_content
Re:Half a game? (Score:3, Informative)
It already is. For example, a quick search for "Sims" on Pirate Bay turned up multiple Sims DLC torrents.
Re:I don't think anybody should pirate anything (Score:3, Informative)
A video game has inherently more information than a book or a record. It's closer to a movie, but while a movie lasts two hours and is completely linear, a video game lasts tens of hours and has plenty of interaction with a reactive world, which requires realtime AI of some sort.
Video games can be made very cheaply; 3D action games with photorealistic graphics, voice acting and RPG elements, however, require an enormous amount of work to create, and that translates directly to costs.
Amateur games tend to be pretty small, precisely because large games require a lot of work. There are exceptions, but those typically leverage an already-existing game (total conversions).
Re:!Piracy (Score:3, Informative)
You might want to read this [etymonline.com] - 'Meaning "one who takes another's work without permission" first recorded 1701'
It was first used in this way 300 years ago. Like it or not, "pirate" has two meanings, and one of them is "copyright infringer".
Re:I don't think anybody should pirate anything (Score:3, Informative)
What are you going to replace copyright with so that large projects are still undertaken?
Bounties [wikipedia.org].