Game Publisher Following Pirates To Find a Market 30
RossR writes "A Chinese multiplayer online game company is taking note of the success of 'private servers' running pirated and altered versions. In moves that show some common sense, when a pirate server is taken down Shanda Games sees it as a sign of a underserved market. Properly licensed servers are occasionally installed for the geographic location previously covered by the unlicensed servers. Shanda is taking it a step further by developing a new platform that would allow for the flexible rule changes favored in the hacked versions. Also of interest is the article's reference to the escalation of cyber attacks between private server providers."
At the same time... (Score:5, Insightful)
And at the same time US companies are removing dedicated servers completely, applying heavy DRM instead of rethinking their business model, making it impossible to create mods and in general do everything they can to hinder players ability to enjoy games how they want.
It really looks like US is going downhill and fast while other countries do things correctly and will enjoy the results.