T w e n t y S i d e d

Maybe you thought this was just going to be a two part rant, but this time around I have some real, practical advice on combating software piracy. But first:

I am always grateful when publishers remain steadfast in their support for the untamed, savage jungle that is the PC. Twenty years of Darwinian attrition has made it clear that this is not the platform for the meek. If you’re not sucked dry by warez leeches, you’ll most likely be devoured by something far larger and higher up on the foodchain. If you manage to avoid being consumed, there is always the chance that your efforts will be found wanting, and natural selection will cull your team in favor of something that is smarter, lives longer, or is better at replicating itself.

It is also true that at any moment you may simply exit the jungle and take up residence in the greener pastures named Nintendo, Sony, and (strangely enough) Microsoft. Places where there is enough for everyone and you earn a living by farming money. So if you stick with the PC, you have my thanks.

But if you’re set on staying in the PC realm then you need to be at peace with the idea that anyone who wants to play your game without paying you is going to be able to do so. In PC gaming, there has never been an unbreakable DRM scheme. Not once, ever. Most DRM systems have a lifespan measured in days. A small handful might live a fortnight. No matter how convoluted the system you devise, it just takes one guy to wedge it open and let everyone else through.

Michael Fitch can rant against the people who rip off his company, and he’s justified in doing so. While people argue about the degree to which damage has been done, the fact that damage has been incurred is manifest. But as I said last time, piracy is a social problem, not a technological one. The solution is therefore going to be social in nature, not a new DRM scheme. You can’t convert all of the pirates into customers, but – as Fitch noted – you don’t need to:

So the goal here should not be eliminating piracy, which is absurd and impossible. Instead, work on converting as many of those pirates into customers. Here are five ways to get people to pay for your stuff. Again, these are social changes – this has nothing to do with building a better DRM system. As a bonus, a lot of these things are free. Continue reading ⟩⟩ “The Publishers vs. The Pirates, Part 2”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Yesterday I mentioned the thing that Michael Fitch wrote without going into any detail. The original forum thread is up to 20 pages as of this writing, and numerous other people have picked up the discussion in other forums and on their own blogs. If I’m very lucky what I have to say here will only have been repeated a dozen times already.

He begins by talking about piracy, and uses the copy protection of Titans Quest as an example:

This is remarkably brazen, to pirate a game and then march into the official forums and demand support for your downloaded copy. But then, piracy itself is sort of asinine to begin with, so I don’t know that we should look to pirates as a source of polite circumspection.

When I first began writing here, I assumed that I was more or less the “average” gamer. I pay for games, take them home, and bitch about them. It’s a grand tradition and I’m proud to be part of it. I’ve assumed that pirates were a small minority of the larger picture. As I read more and more about the extent of piracy I’m quickly realizing that it isn’t just a few semiliterate, unemployed punks hiding out in their parents’ basement. More and more it looks like piracy is widespread, socially acceptable, and hassle-free, practiced by people of all ages and income levels. From the comments, emails, and forum posts I’ve read over the years, saying you pirate a game seems to be about as controversial as giving someone the finger in traffic. The best that can be said of it is that it’s a good thing not everyone does it. Continue reading ⟩⟩ “The Publishers vs. The Pirates, Part 1”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.