It seems a useless maneuver to me, but not to one Cliff Harris, an indie game developer.
Assuming that developers are missing out on potential sales from disgruntled pirates, Cliff wants to hear specifically from people who have pirated his games. Not to criticize or lecture them, but to answer a simple question. Why?
I’m sure I could come up with a host of reasons as to why, the easiest being because it’s free and pretty easy. I don’t know why you’d ask though. Yeah, you want to understand the other side, but nothing they say will get you any closer to them buying your game. Pirates aren’t potential customers for the most part. It’s not similar to the recording industry in that many PC games come with demos already. Sure, some of the ‘pirates’ could be in it for the see if I like it experience, but most are just in it because it’s easy and free. And a fair amount are in it because they can get things faster that way.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for knowing the mind of the enemy, but I think we already know it. *shrugs* To each their own, but this seems an effort in futility to me at best and a way to attract the wrong kind of attention at worst.
He does do one thing right though, his approach is pretty much gathering information, or he says it is, instead of just asking a question into thin air with no forethought on how it will work out.
I will read every single one, and keep an open mind. I will listen to what you have to say, and how I can use that to make games that sell more, sell more copies of what I have, convert more people to become buyers, and generally make everyone happy
I will post a summary of the emails I got, without identifying anyone.
I will give genuine thought to what I could or should change about my business, me, my games, everything, in order to address the issues raised.
What Would Matt Do: Concentrate more on knowing the customers and the pirates in the markets I make games in, work on not having my game out there before it’s for sale (Ubisoft style), make the game easy to purchase (Steam like system) and have at least some rudimentary system to slow down piracy (like no patches unless it’s a legitimately registered copy, etc). None of it is going to stop piracy, but with any luck, it will slow down enough to help your game out.