Diary of an up and coming sociopath

Let me share with you all this article on a subject that is very close to my heart. The BBC reports: Software Piracy ’seen as normal’

Campaigns to persuade people to stop downloading pirated games [..] are not working

Is this a surprise to anyone, when the campaigns aren’t actually based around the reasons people download games (to try them out, to find out if they’re worth buying, and obviously, because they’re ludicrously overpriced) and instead around suggestions that piracy probably funds terrorism or something, and assertations that it’s quite clearly killing the industry, which, of course, it has been doing for the last twenty years, except this time THEY MEAN IT.

Two UK university researchers found that people did not see downloading copyrighted material as theft.

As Ian points out, that’s because, by definition, it isn’t. Copyright infringement is not theft. That’s why people don’t see it as theft, you see? I don’t think many people see downloading copyrighted material as assault and battery either, but that’s more or less the comparison they’re making here.

“People are more accepting of it, even if they didn’t engage it in themselves,” said Dr Bryce. “They don’t see it as a great problem on a social or economic level.

That’s because it isn’t. The games industry has survived piracy for decades. I have personally bought plenty of games which I’d downloaded in order to try. The trick is, as with music, to make the game actually worth owning, instead of disposable rubbish that people aren’t willing to pay for if they can avoid it. I’ll return to this idea in a moment, because first there’s athe amusing comment:

“Teenagers are being tactical spenders,” said Dr Bryce. “The money saved lets them spend more on mobile phones, going to the cinema or eating out.”

If that guy’s right, then the real threat to the gaming industry is the film industry’s anti-piracy campaign! We need to stop those bastards before they get film piracy under control.

Michael Rawlinson, deputy head of Elspa, remained confident that attitudes towards pirated software could be changed.

“It is possible to effect a change in young people’s behaviour once you explain the process of creation in bringing these products to market,” he said.

“The government has spent millions of pounds to change public awareness of drink-driving and smoking.

“As a society, we need to go through a similar process for creativity and intellectual property.”

Now this is where it just gets sad. ELSPA is an organisation representative of games publishers. It is well understood to anyone with a brain that publishers don’t actually like innovation and creativity. They’d much rather see a game that’s near-identical to the last big thing so that they can cash in on its success without risking their own money by trying something new. I’ve had some limited experience inside the games industry, and I’ve thus seen first hand the ridiculous requests that publishers are prone to impose upon the development process. Publishers don’t care about creativity, and they certainly don’t respect intellectual property, since they tend to be asking for things produced as work for hire, which leaves all the work of the developers in the hands of the company, come the layoffs.

I would go so far as to say that I hate games publishers. And music publishers. They basically take money out of the pocket of the artists and creators, impose their will on the end result, and then, when their marketing campaign (or lack thereof) fails to sell a game, the developers and artists get the blame and are fired or dropped, or whatever. The best thing a publisher can do is provide a budget, and that’s usually at the cost of the freedom a developer or artist needs.

I would be so glad if the entire game and music publishing industry collapsed tomorrow, because I think it’d force everything back to the grass-roots style that serves indie games and music well already. Self-publishing on the internet should be the future, where products are created for the love of the medium rather than motivated by money. It’s a difficult path, but it’s a proven one. I think people would be far more willing to pay for games if they knew the developer was actually getting a fair share of what he did for his product. I know I would be. It’s just a ridiculously over-simplified pipe dream of mine, and that’s why articles like this piss me off. Do the games industry a favour, and pirate their crappy products instead of buying them, because maybe that way they’ll actually realise people won’t part with their cash for things that aren’t actually worth buying..