[rkalla]

In other piracy discussions I've always viewed piracy as organic-marketing.

Meaning if you wanted to nurture the piracy (e.g. no DRM, easier install paths, etc.) you would probably get your software in the hands of more people and just redirect what you would have spent on marketing to keeping it in the bank and track the piracy as marketing costs.

I'll admit that is a rosy way to look at it, but I'm definitely one of those "The people that pirate your software, never would have bought it in the first place" believers.

Look at Windows, remember when 95/XP had 96% domination of the world's computers? That only started to come down when they got draconian with their DRM/activation/genuine windows/etc. I saw about half my friends move to Mac/Linux in that move (techie crowd) and I have to imagine they likely moved friends/family to their new platform of choice in the process.

The people that were never going to be their customers went looking elsewhere for alternatives.

Imagine how many of those pirated copies of Windows ran legit copies of Office or IIS (or any Windows-specific software) that were paid for as the result of the machine operating in a Windows-only environment.

Them Microsoft clamped down on those users and squeezed them all out of the eco-system completely. No ancillary sales anymore from those folks; they are now permanent customers of other platforms.

It seems to me that if you can accept that your software will be pirated up-front, you can get some mileage out of it.

Put a mechanism in your game to check for announcements on a web server and display them. Maybe your game is 90% pirated, but when you released your NEXT game (or piece of software) you are suddenly announcing the release to 9x the audience you would have had if it wasn't pirated so heavily.

You suddenly have direct access to all those customers that didn't cost you Google Adwords money or SEO to find. They already like what you do, they pirated your game.

I really see this as an opportunity for this guy (and anyone facing the issue) if you stop thinking about every pirated copy as a lost sale... just like I wouldn't think of every egg I eat in the morning as a chicken I murdered.

They were never your customers and those eggs were never full-grown chickens.

[teamonkey]

> I'm definitely one of those "The people that pirate your software, never would have bought it in the first place" believers.

I think that's only true for X% of the people who pirate. Pro-piracy groups like to assume X=100% (that people who pirate would never be persuaded to purchase a copy), anti-piracy groups assume that X=0% (that every pirate can be persuaded to purchase a copy). The truth is that X is probably somewhere in between.

Unfortunately there's no public data about what X really is, or even anything that could narrow down the range a little bit.

[Vitaly]

There are lots of cases when it was documented for piracy to bring positive change.

This guys problem? Patience ;) Come on. The game was mass pirated like yesturday? Does he really expect the positive loop back to kick in that fast?

People that pirated it will take time to play it, like it, mention it to someone that might buy it, blog it, show off to friends etc, etc, etc. it takes time. but eventually those 500 pirated copies will translate into some sales.

the question is therefore whether number-of-pirates-that-would-buy-it-if-it-were-not-cracked bigger or less then number-of-sales-that-will-result-from-pirate-marketing ;)

the jury is still out.

[erik]

I find this to be an interesting data point: http://www.indiegames.com/2008/02/opinion_casual_games_and_p...

A casual game developer dramatically increased their sales by improving the effectiveness of their DRM.

I strongly dislike DRM in games, and will avoid games that push it to far. But it's hard to argue against the sales numbers quoted in the linked article.

[frooxie]

Well, it says that "For every 1,000 pirated copies we eliminated, we created 1 additional sale", suggesting that piracy isn't anything to worry about, as 99.9% of pirates wouldn't have bought a copy anyway.

[SoftwareMaven]

And with this numbers, you have to have a lot of sales/would-have-been-pirates to cover the cost of implementing and maintaining the DRM.

[teamonkey]

> Fix 1 – Existing Exploits & Keygens made obsolete – Sales up 70%

A 70% increase in sales should be enough to justify it, no?

Honestly, I think the monetary cost of implementing DRM is vastly overstated.

[Vitaly]

if you make pirating harder you will undeniably get some of the would be pirates buying instead. and of course you can measure it easily on you sales.

but.

they say the conversion is 1000 pirates vs. one sale. Which only convinces me that im right. think about it. 999 people less will be using the program. yes, you will sell one more copy, but how many future sales you loos because those 999 people are not going around talking about your program, playing it in public, recommending it to friends...

Their sales rose short term but I think the've lost long term for sure.

[Goladus]

> The truth is that X is probably somewhere in between.

X depends a lot on the particular piece of software, the target market, and the context in which it's available. There won't ever be any generalized data.

One interesting test would be to offer an app for a ridiculously low price, like $0.01 and see how many people don't bother to pay even that.

[SoftwareMaven]

The major friction point is not the $1 cost, it is the effort involved in pilling out the wallet at all. Apple/Google/Amazon/etc have lowered that friction with purchasing through one click purchasing, but the majority of it is still "do I want to buy this".

I would put money on sales at $1 not being statistically different from $0.01.

[Vivtek]

A dollar is a ridiculously low price, really. (Not that you're wrong.)

[Goladus]

I would say that depends on the App. And of course, my point is that from the point of a consumer $1 is still enough to be perceived as being worth something (a snack or a bottled drink, perhaps).

[bruceboughton]

Isn't this the ad-supported model? ;)

[Goladus]

Heh, basically, the main difference being that ads almost always reduce app quality.

[Vitaly]

this guy just gave you the X. its 0.1%

[vladd]

>> Look at Windows, remember when 95/XP had 96% domination of the world's computers? That only started to come down when they got draconian with their DRM/activation/genuine windows/etc. I saw about half my friends move to Mac/Linux in that move <<

The graph at http://marketshare.hitslink.com/os-market-share.aspx?qprid=9... seems to disagree; the Mac/Linux market share remained constant around 5%/1% respectively. What caused the drop of Windows in the last 2 years from 93% down to 88% seems to be the iOS and Other(Android?) platforms.

[BasDirks]

I YARRR before $.