Pixel Piracy Makers Offer Pirates Pirated Pirate Game
from the doint-it-right dept
More and more we see stories of content producers recognizing piracy as the opportunity it actually represents. It isn't universal, but these stories tend to happen in the following way. Upstart or established producer releases content, realizes it's being pirated, and then finds some way to make use of that admittedly non-paying interest. The Angry Birds people did it, as have independent filmmakers and entire music markets. The idea here is to push emotion to the side when you find your work being pirated and attempt to make use of the piracy.
It's an entirely different matter, however, when a producer proactively attempts to slingshot themselves to success on the backs of "piracy" they themselves create. It's not an entirely new concept by any means, but they're far too rare. That's what makes it worth highlighting it when such stories come up, such as this latest example of two game producers who created the Pixel Piracy side-scroller and then offered up a torrent of the game on their own website.
Here is a direct torrent link that we will personally seed to our currently available version of the game. We aren't idiots, we aren't high. We believe that anyone who wants to pirate our game will do so anyways, and feel it's a much safer bet to offer those people the official link to our game in hopes that they keep their computer's virus free.Now, I imagine we'll get the usual unimaginative arguments from the usual sources, typically centered on the idea that Kirpu and Poysky aren't Sid Meier, so it doesn't count, or how they somehow have nothing to lose or whatever. Unfortunately for those detractors, results count, and their decision to behave in an awesome fashion is causing many to support their efforts to be "greenlit" on Steam. And, in the meantime, the word of mouth campaign is putting their game in spotlights all over the place.
If you LIKE the game you can support us in a number of ways besides purchasing the title outright. Steam greenlight is very important to us right now, and a vote for it DOES make a difference, and your warm reception on our IndieDB review page is what pushed us to initially take this decision. Not everything is about money, and we want to thank those that pirate our title and actually give them the opportunity to do so with our blessing, while giving them an opportunity to actually make good on the piracy itself. Tell your friends about us, share the link around IF and only IF you enjoy the game, and if you DON'T enjoy it at least you didn't have to pay for it!
Vitali Kirpu and Alexander Poysky
Now, they would have been well within their rights to keep their creation locked up behind the official barriers instead. And they could have been pissed off should their game be pirated afterwards. Going this route, however, they instead get a ton of exposure for their games, themselves, and they get to leave all the anger and angst by the wayside. Bravo.
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Filed Under: copyright, piracy, pixel piracy, video games
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Ya ever heard of shareware? Same idea. Not new.
Anyhoo, yawn. The usual unimaginative assertions that can give away products yet be showered with money. -- As shareware showed, free distribution can work IF popular, low price, and easy to pay with a couple clicks. So long as goal is reasonable profit not ruthlessly maximized, and more importantly so long as the moral force of copyright (of rewarding the producers) remains in effect this notion can work fine. It has done so. Won't work if everyone doesn't pay. (I'll assume we're agreed there; no advertising revenue seems mentioned.) So as business plan for the coming era as freetards proliferate, it stinks! You can't compete with free unless get some income, right?
Summary:
) Need a cheaply duplicable item people want, priced low. Video game for kids who don't work to pay for it is perfect. Does not apply to real products.
) The moral suasion of copyright must remain as is. If everyone feels free to take without paying, NO income.
) As number of freetards with the above opinion increase, this fails, rapidly gets unsustainable even for cheap games.
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Re: Ya ever heard of shareware? Same idea. Not new.
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Re: Re: Ya ever heard of shareware? Same idea. Not new.
Since Tim never claims that his notions are overpowering the dinosaurs, Blue managed to cram a straw man attack right into his mistaken accusation of Tim proposing a straw man.
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Re: Ya ever heard of shareware? Same idea. Not new.
Yeah, not even close. This is an example of someone circumventing copyright entirely. Nice try, though....
"Won't work if everyone doesn't pay."
Also wrong. It won't work unless ENOUGH people pay. That's the entire point of viewing pirates as a promotional tool for the wider market. WHOOSH!
"Need a cheaply duplicable item people want, priced low. Video game for kids who don't work to pay for it is perfect. Does not apply to real products."
So entertainment isn't a product now? Interesting. I now fully trust you in the realm of economics!
"The moral suasion of copyright must remain as is."
Summary: Hi! I didn't read the post again, or maybe I didn't understand it. Who can tell, what with all this drool on my chin?
"As number of freetards with the above opinion increase, this fails, rapidly gets unsustainable even for cheap games."
Strange, since this hasn't happened yet. Freetards sure are taking their time destroying all that is right and holy in the world. They're probably lazy. Yeah, that must be it....
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Re: Re: Ya ever heard of shareware? Same idea. Not new.
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Re: Re: Ya ever heard of shareware? Same idea. Not new.
no, entertainment is NOT A PRODUCT, I cant buy or sell 'entertainment' if I buy a football to play with in the park, I have not purchased "entertainment" yet I entertain myself anyway!!
I can also buy products (such as games) that I find not entertaining at all, so yes, entertainment is not a product now, or ever.
You can be entertained by products, just as you can be entertained by planting a garden, or cooking a meal or walking your dog, entertainment but not a product.
A product is something that is produced, entertainment is something that is experienced.
So entertainment is NOT A PRODUCT, and a product is not entertainment.
"I now fully trust you in the realm of economics!"
I certainly don't trust you in the realm of economics you cant even differentiate between a product and a emotion or experience (entertainment).
You might find using products you don't pay for to be entertaining, I guess you do, you might find that the 'economics of theft' is a form of entertainment.
You might even find that you can pay for products that provide you with entertainment, and you might even find that you are paid to provide entertainment for others (as TD does).
But entertainment and product and profit and theft are not the same things.
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Advertising in the form of free mixtapes/samples/songs may not directly get an artist money, but such actions help deal with something far, far more important: obscurity, which is a greater threat and challenge to creators being successful than any other factor out there.
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I am sure there are lots of rappers who gave away lots of free tapes that never got rich and famous and never will.
there is no causal effect of 'giving away mix tapes' and being rich and famous.
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Just because you are too useless,lazy and stupid to work out how free promotion works, does not mean that others are.
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Re: Ya ever heard of shareware? Same idea. Not new.
"The usual unimaginative assertions that can give away products yet be showered with money."
You're missing the 'you' in between 'that' and 'can'.
"can work IF popular..." you're missing 'it is'. Also, that there is describing Steam's business model which plenty of copyright infringers (like yours truly) pay into quite regularly.
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Re: Ya ever heard of shareware? Same idea. Not new.
I'm not going to refute the rest, I'm just going to point out you are 100% wrong from the start and not even read the rest. Why should it be worth my time if you're willing to misconstrue basic facts?
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Fair enough. Easily backed-up MP3s aren't real products either.
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Re: Ya ever heard of shareware? Same idea. Not new.
Neither do copyrights.
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That's great news, and I wish them all the success they can get. Doing it right in so many ways simply deserves the huge response they got from their (I imagine) now vastly enlarged fan base.
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This is a non-dtory. The only thing worth highlighting in this story is how Techdirt was duped into giving them free publicity because they used the magic word "piracy".
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Arrrrrrr!
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MEH, its just shareware
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Re: MEH, its just shareware
'Nothing to see here people, move along. I said there's nothing here, why are you still looking? Stop looking I said!'
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