Talking to Pirates

Ex-Lionhead Cliff “Cliffski” Harris’ indie gaming company Positech does not produce games we follow, but his Talking to Pirates experiment is of much interest to us. Summed up shortly, Harris asked “Why do people pirate my games?” on his blog and several large sites/forums.

People cite reasons we’ve all heard before (DRM, cost, digital download is easier, “I’m just lazy and greedy”), but the interesting part is where Harris explains how he is going to react to this information – a novel approach to say the least.

What I’m 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. 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

I only used DRM for one game (Democracy 2) and it’s trivial. It’s a one-time only internet code lookup for the full version. I’ve read enough otherwise honest people complain about DRM to see that its probably hurting more than it help’s. I had planned on using the same system for Kudos 2, but I’ve changed my mind on that. I have also removed it from Democracy 2 today. I now use no DRM at all.

2) Demos

People think demos are too short. My demos *are* short, because the marketing man in me sees that you can’t give away too much. I’ve wanted people to feel a bit annoyed when the demo cuts out, so they buy the game to keep playing. Too many people are put off by this and pirate games so they can see exactly what they are getting. I’ll be making my demos much better, and longer, and will retrospectively change this when I get around to it for some of my older games. (I’m swamped with work right now)

3) Price

I think my games are priced right, and was considering charging more for Kudos 2 (which is my biggest and best ever game). I sometimes play casual games for $20 which seem to have maybe a tenth of the effort I put into mine. However, enough people out there see price as a factor to change my mind. I halved the price of Kudos 1 a few days ago, to $9.95. I’ll keep an eye on how it does. I’m also strongly inclined to price Kudos 2 lower than I originally planned to.

4) Quality

My games aren’t as good as they could be. Ironically, one of the things that reduces your enthusiasm to really go the extra mile in making games is the thought that thousands of ungrateful gits will swipe the whole thing on day one for nothing. It’s very demoralizing. 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.

A final note is trying to make it easier for people to buy my games. I’m really hassling my payment provider to support amazons one-click method. For me, I think that’s even more convenient than steam. I’m always doing what I can to make buying them as quick and easy as possible.

One of the reasons listed by pirates is that they only use Steam to purchase games, and pirate everything else. I’ll admit I’ve also grown used to Steam (or alternatively GamersGate), but I also understand Harris’ own note that getting your game on Steam isn’t easy – it’s cost-prohibitive, for one.

Discuss.

Spotted on Rock, Paper, Shotgun.