Developer to Software Pirates - "Why are you stealing my games?"

by Rob Walker | August 11, 2008 at 10:49 am

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An independent game developer wants to know "why people pirate my games,"

He's not angry or anything, he just really wants to know why it happens. The reasoning, the logic behind it. He promises pirates to not divulge any information, he's just curious about why people think it's ok to do so.

It's an interesting question, since the computer gaming industry is one that is theoretically hit hardest by software piracy.

As someone who has reviewed games for a long time, I was usually lucky enough to get mine for free. The vast majority of people I know, however, would download or pirate games. Only very rarely was the excuse 'I couldn't afford it'.

Instead, they placed value on their money, and wanted to see if the game was worth the hefty price tag. Games have gone for as much as $90 new in Canada, and as such people aren't likely to shell that out lightly. They want to test it out and see if it's any good. Renting is possible, but it's always likely the game is rented or simply not available in that area.

Part of the problem lies with publishers who have shoveled a veritable pile of terrible, b-list products down gamers throats since they realized the huge appetite for *good* games.

In short, gamers don't trust publishers with their money, and since the ability is there to so easily do so, many gamers will download them and play them. I would bet good money that the vast majority of gamers who download the games and really enjoy them will eventually end up buying them (much like dvd box set sales).

Maybe the problem is that once they download it, it's not good enough to buy?

"What I don't know is why people pirate my games," Harris wrote on his website, where he made the open call for e-mails. "I might be able to get a general idea as to why people pirate stuff *in general* from reading warez forums, and every other story on digg, but I'm not interested in the general case. I want to improve my business, and ensure I stay afloat, and to do that, it would be mad to sit in the corner and ignore the opinions of that section of the public who pirate my games."

Harris promises not to publicly out any pirates for the sake of trying to get to the bottom of the issue. "I won't publicise who e-mailed me, or even store the addresses, share them, tell anyone them, or make any use of them whatsoever. I'll just read them, nothing else. It will be entirely off-the-record and effectively anonymous. I won't hand any email addresses to the RIAA, MPAA, BSA or anyone at all under any circumstances ever." What he will do, however, is read every e-mail in an attempt to understand why pirates pirate and what developers can do to change the way that PC gaming is going.

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Advaita 8

at 02:13 on August 12th, 2008

I am from a country where pirated game software of any kind is available for less than 1 USD. Glad to be of some microscopic help in fighting something unethical.

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Guy Tyler

at 22:52 on August 12th, 2008

Didn't intend to publish and comment - I was asked to sign up in order to give Chowdawg permission to use this photo of my son, but I think I pressed the wrong button - sorry!

Guy Tyler has contributed a photo to this story.