If there’s one name that’s come up each time in RPS’s perennial piracy comment threads, it’s Positech’s Cliffski. The moniker of PC developer, Cliff Harris, he’s ruffled feathers with, surprisingly, the anti-piracy position. As Kieron mentioned on Sunday, Cliff decided to run a survey via his blog, and then via every other website on the internet, asking people to tell him why they pirate his games. It’s a remarkably modest and reasonable question to ask, and now he’s back with an anecdotal presentation of the results.
Cliff Harris deserves applause for taking this approach. But he deserves carrying aloft the shoulders of those who have loudly disagreed with him in the comments (me included) for his response to his broad survey. He’s changing how he develops games as a consequence.
First of all, he’s ditching DRM. (And the crowds cheered). None for Kudos 2, and he’s removed it from Democracy 2. He’s changing his demos, so they’re “much better, and longer, and will retrospectively change this when I get around to it for some of my older games.” He’s lowering prices, and has lowered the price of Kudos to $10 (a smart promotional move for the forthcoming Kudos 2, of course), and is thinking about lowering future prices. He’s attempting to make it more convenient to buy his games. And most interestingly, he’s found fresh enthusiasm to invest himself into making better games, ignoring the previous demoralising doom of knowing people would pirate his previous hard work.
“I get the impression that if I make Kudos 2 not just lots better than the original, but hugely, overwhelmingly, massively better, well polished, designed and balanced, that a lot of would-be pirates will actually buy it.”
Each of these points could sustain extensive dissection, and inevitably the cursed P-word will ensure that happens below, but I’d like to make a couple of comments. Firstly, I hope that Cliff’s getting rid of DRM might cause ripples. I hope developers notice this, give it some thought. It’s a significant demonstration of respecting people’s rights.
But I wonder if the decision over lowering prices is correct. Well, that’s not quite right. I think going under the $19.99 will cause his game to stand out. But it doesn’t address the larger issue of that ridiculous price having taken root as the apparent default no matter what shovelware shit is being churned out. This price point has woefully blurred the market, devaluing any sense of what we might be getting for our money. Cliff’s games have tended to score marks in the 70s, sometimes low 80s – a quality where twenty bucks seems very fair. But when every quarter-arsed match-3 or Diner Dash clone gets slapped with the same price, it just seems demeaning that distinct, original gaming needs to undercut it to get bought. Part of me wonders if the solution is to price over those games – indicate that you’re quality, and not a bloody overgrown mini-game – but then maybe that part of me is mad. Clearly the results Cliff received suggested that a huge proportion of those pirating did so because the games were already too expensive for them.
I’d be fascinated to see someone emulate the model a few musicians have tried, letting people name their price (Girl Talk, and the rather weak Radiohead attempt, that they’ve now canned), with advantages for those choosing to pay over a certain amount. I’m not certain Cliffski is in a position to try this, but surely one of the less pisspoor match-3-alikes could give it a go.
Er, I rambled. Go visit Cliff Harris’ results to see his thoughts. And hopefully he’ll soon be putting up some raw data for others to study.
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I will now make the point of buying at least one of his games now that he is going to remove DRM. I bought two Stardock games for this very reason, and you know what? They were really good, I liked them and will buy more. I hope I have the same experience with Cliff’s games :)
Just a note to everybody cliffski’s efforts have been slashdotted so perhaps just perhaps the industry big players might read the damned thing. – Well done cliffski
p.s. no offense RPS but I think slashdot has a few more readers than yourselves :)
@Zarniwoop: This article comments that the album was downloaded off torrent trackers more than it was downloaded off their site.
@Walkertron: You didn’t mention Nine Inch Nails’ last two albums. The first, Ghosts, was a 36-track behemoth. Reznor released the first nine tracks for free on several bit-torrent sites. For more info, Wiki is your friend.
The latest album, The Slip, was released for free in multiple formats. For more info, once more, Wiki is your friend.
With regard to the original subject matter… I’ve commented to people about buying nice, cheap games like Peggle or the like. Their reponse? “Oh, it’s not worth the €5.”
Personally, I disagree with that opinion. The fact that they’re making it cheaper doesn’t necessarily mean it’s lower quality: just means it’s cheaper.
I’ll be getting a nice new copy of Puzzle Quest once I find out if I can use my shiny new debit card on Steam.
On the demo thing, make sure that the demo is very easy to obtain, get it onto free hosting sites, with pretty good speed. Nobody is going to bother downloading a demo for a game, if they can just as easily (or more easily) download the entire game. Make the path of least resistance, the legitimate one and you will see an decrease in piracy.
I’ve pirated a couple of games, only because I was having trouble retail. I would probably have trouble buying Democracy 2 in retail but I’ll try, certainly if you throw out a proper good demo I’ll have a look and see if it interests me, personally I don’t bother with demo’s that much anymore, unless a demo is hosted on gamershell I probably won’t even click the link. I buy based mostly off what pcg might say, or off recommendations from others.
It would be interesting to look at current PC sales of “Alone in the Dark 5″ – to my knowledge the only current 3A title to not be successfully pirated yet after two months on the market.
Implementing DRM is easy. Making good games people will want to buy is not. It’s impossible to span that disconnect for most titles, Stardock’s success notwithstanding.
Maybe no-one tried to pirate Alone in the Dark?
Valentin Galea: Er… Cliff didn’t make End of the World.
KG
Did he make sure to also ask people if they would buy his next game if he remedied some of the discussed issues? Because I’d hate to see him come out of Kudos 2’s release all bitter realising there was no increase in sales (though I imagine there’d be no increase in piracy either, aside from extra exposure gained by these stunts).
Personally, I’ve never been that interested to his offerings (and I never pirated any) but I guess he has his audience so hopefully his next games will do better, maybe someday he’ll develop something for me too.
It’s nice to see such an advocate of the “devil” change his mind or at least his practices, but I’d hate to see him come full circle after a potential bad experience with his next games. I hope all those people who e-mailed were being honest.
(giggles)
All he actually needs is some cretin at starforce to link to a torrent of one of his games whilst yelling about how foolish he was to have not used their copy protection….
Viola! Instant herodom and a flood of sales.
I’m surprised that no one thus far has mentioned the fact that in a lot of cases Hardcore pirates simply don’t like people telling them what they can and cannot do.
Worked in the past and made Stardock heroes.
Worked for me too even though I’m not a pirate.
I’ll buy what Stardock produce just because they arn’t being dicks about the whole thing.
(Ohh, OK then, someone might have said it before but I’m in work and don’t have time to read everything)
So, can someone explain why it’s so hard to get onto STEAM for us mere mortals? Is Valve making it difficult or is it too expensive (assuming it costs money)… what’s the deal, umm, daddio.
@Tikey, Lh’owon: I had the impression that options 1, 2 and 3 were meant to be alternatives.
wow. this is the most backwards ass Q/A joke i have ever read. people pirate because its easily available for free. end of story. half the responses are laughable since theyre irrelevant if you were to ask “why pirate a movie or album or software” (all digital medium) and because drm and digital distribution are relatively new while pirating has been around since software has. 15000 dollar Catia software or 10 dollar Lil Wayne. free is the attraction. anything else is just a time wasting debate.
the money is being made on console live sales where you cant pirate and housewife casual games where they dont even know what it is. this is what Cliff should be focusing on.
I’m wondering about this too – especially if a.. perhaps less than great.. game like Eternity’s Child can get on there..
John W.- Perhaps in comparison to a handful of fairly small indie bands you could say it is, but for a band as popular as them to do it was unprecedented (at least until NIN did something similar). Although yeah, I see where you’re coming from with this one. All bands being equal, it was weak. (To be fair on them though, they could’ve just released it online for a fiver or something if all they cared about was it not leaking.)
KBKarma- Well yeah, but do you honestly think that releasing it online made it any more available on the bittorrent servers than any other album?
Ultimately, I don’t think that this way of doing it is a sensible long-term business model. Perhaps if singles were released for free, but you had to pay for an album? To get back to games, the equivalent of this is obviously the demo, which apparently aren’t very popular. But I think that’s a reflection of how rubbish most demos are, more than anything. How about devs pumping money spent on DRM creation instead into doing them properly, eh?
yeah its a shame that someone like cliffski is having trouble even getting in touch with valve. his games are way better than the shovelware steam has been pushing lately. maybe you rps guys can help with your valve contacts to get cliffski in touch with them?
cliffski had any thoughts of adding some of the steamworks features to your games? like achievements? maybe that would help?
wow. this is the most backwards ass Q/A joke i have ever read. people pirate because its easily available for free. end of story. half the responses are laughable since theyre irrelevant if you were to ask “why pirate a movie or album or software” (all digital medium) and because drm and digital distribution are relatively new while pirating has been around since software has. 15000 dollar Catia software or 10 dollar Lil Wayne. free is the attraction. anything else is just a time wasting debate.
the money is being made on console live sales where you cant pirate and housewife casual games where they dont even know what it is. this is what Cliff should be focusing on.
That’s just not true. A lot of people pirate for a lot of different ways, but I’d imagine the two most common being cost and convenience. Looking at movies, I’m considering pirating the Dark Knight, I’ve seen it 3 times, but now I’d like to have it on my PC to watch when I like until the DVD comes out. That is just a question of convenience.
The only games I’ve ever pirated, I did so because I could not get them retail, so again convenience, the only music I have ever pirated is music I could not get retail. Many many people would have the same issue. I don’t have a credit card so I can’t actually get a lot of the buy a lot of the things I would like. Generally I would do without, but with games, or music, I pirate and then buy if I get the opportunity.
For other people it is purely about cost, people are far more inclined to make an impulse purchase for 10 over 20 dollars. Some people may not actually have an income, these people couldn’t buy the game if they wanted, so in that instance, Dev’s can only be bitter that people who can’t afford their product are getting it for free, they have actually lost nothing.
DRM is a big deal as well though, I refuse to buy any game which requires online activation for singleplayer use, excluding steam games. I don’t pirate these games either, but that’s me, many other do pirate the game in a stick to the man kind of way.
The reasons for piracy are varied and everyone has different ideas on how wrong it is. I always took exception at Cliffski’s arguments against pirates before, but I am glad to see him attempting to understand the market that is there, not just to be anice guy, but as well to be a prudent business man.
His particular form of DRM however was so minor I doubt it would be a problem, and I would say in general, initial, local cd authentication is not enough to put anyone off, but as well it’s so easily cracked, it is hardly worth the effort.
I’m also curious about the barrier to entrance for Steam. If Kudos was $10-15 on Steam, I’d have bought a copy months ago. I’ll probably buy a copy at $10. $20 got over my buy on a whim level.
@DSX
Alone in the dark is an interesting case. AFAIK Atari are requiring that users activate online so they can download some missing files to make the game work – basically what the poster quite a few posts ago suggested and then got shouted down for.
Of course its easier to take such a hard line when the game in question is a 2/5!
So maybe the ideal formula for beating piracy is very strong DRM plus crappy games?
The irony of course is that, if your a pirate, AitD is probably *more* visible on your radar because you have been made to wait so long in anticipation of an eventual crack, whereas the people who pay money for games probably didn’t really register it beyond Atari threatening to sue websites for bad reviews.
$20 is right at my impulse purchase limit – anything more, I have to ponder it a bit. Since I’m European, the dollar is worth half as much to me as it is to the average American. Of course, Scrivener was an easy purchase, even at $40..
Steam examines each game that applies on a case-by-case stance, and it seems that publisher and reknown/media buzz DEFINITELY play a role- Eternity’s Child never wouild’ve gotten on steam without Destructoid’s attention on it really.
For the average game you’ve gotta have something really substantial and presentable when you make an appeal to Valve.
For the slighted indie team, there’s always Greenhouse and Impulse. ;)
And the winner in all this? Cliffski, for getting a lot of significant press coverage (Arstechnica and Slashdot that I’ve seen, and uh, here :D) thus giving his name and games a lot of new exposure.
Probably unintentional (unless Cliffski is some secret marketing genious :D) but I think Cliffski is going to get some sales just from the coverage, DRM issue aside.
Interesting stuff. To add my bit of feedback, I’ve never pirated one of his games, but I probably would have bought Democracy 2, since I’m a politics junkie and enjoyed Democracy quite a lot, if he’d let me play more than one turn in the demo. I mean, c’mon cliffski. At least let me get some feel for what’s changed. I’ve no idea what someone who’ve never played the game would have made of the demo.
There’s leaving the audience wanting more, and then there’s leaving too early to hook them at all.
His notes were a really great read, I like how he actually went out with them and I hope other developers take note.
I don’t pirate anything(anymore) but there’s a lot of stuff I still won’t buy on PC today because of DRM, I just don’t want to deal with it.
@Cooper didn’t I cover that already?:
“Although valve have constantly said it’s 0 day piracy free (Which is true) and isn’t really designed to fully prevent piracy.”
I am impressed both by the gesture, and by the willingness to question his practices and opinions.
Likewise. I didn’t really have time earlier to stress this enough. I’ve disagreed quite strongly with Cliffski on this very site in the past, but it takes real courage and humility to invite a load of people to potentially prove oneself totally wrong (or indeed, to prove yourself right by calling their bluff). The fact that he’s gone so far as to change some of his business practices in response to some of the criticism is commendable, even if you think it’s just a clever PR trick.
It’s nice to see such an advocate of the “devil” change his mind or at least his practices, but I’d hate to see him come full circle after a potential bad experience with his next games. I hope all those people who e-mailed were being honest.
This also. I would like to address people who regularly pirate games for any reason other than outright refusal to ever pay for anything, ever, if I may:
Buy a load of Cliffski’s games now. Seriously. Whether you like them or not, think they’re any good or not, or even if you have a personal vendetta against him. Even if you cynically think that all this is just a PR move – buy a load of them anyway.
This move of his is arguably unprecedented (yes, some musicians and programmers have made games free, but who’s outright asked pirates to give reasons and responded to them in turn?), and a surge in his sales after this move will prove that your reasons are not in fact just bullshit rationalisation and that a lot of piracy genuinely is the fault of poor practices by the industry.
Sending a fairly clear message to that industry and possibly setting a precedent that will make at least some developers produce better games at a lower price and without all the shite is well worth a tenner – and you’ll get a quite unique game or two into the bargain as well.
I’d like to see a payment model where the developer states how much revenue they’d like to generate, and when the goal is reached, they’ll make it downloadable and free. Also, make it free from the start, and let people decide wether they want to support this company and their creative vision. That way you know, the only money you get are from aware customers, the only customers that should actually matter. Not very capitalistic, I know… But I like to keep my money and my art separate, if that’s even possible. Revenue shouldn’t be the benchmark of a creative effort.
“I’d like to see a payment model where the developer states how much revenue they’d like to generate, and when the goal is reached, they’ll make it downloadable and free.”
Eh, what? So that the average pirate can just claim he’s legal and does nothing wrong after a few months, even though he’ll probably have pirated the game on day one anyway?
I’m sorry but I don’t like the sound of my money being used to the advantage of pirates, it’s bad enough it’s so often to the advantage of crappy publishers and retailers instead of hard working developers, let’s not add more bullshit on that… Heck, it’s already to the advantage of pirates since if people didn’t buy games period, then the pirates would have nothing to pirate, but still, helping make them legal with my own work and sweat would just suck…
And what about developers who manage to produce something really special, it’s not like they can know its potential appeal prior to the release (if it’s not something marketable they plan to push hard, like say Wii Fit), so why should they limit their success by abstractly stating how much they’d like to make prior to seeing the actual public’s response? Personally, the more any good title sells (especially if it’s indie or if I know the actual developer gets a lot of the benefit), the happier I am. Measuring it in free downloads just wouldn’t be the same for anyone involved.
*sigh* It’s all very easy. Most people pirate because they -can-. I mean, I know a guy who insists on downloading games while he has plenty of money.
To me it’s morally wrong and cheap. And mostly just excuses to ease their minds.
If you don’t have the money, save it. If you don’t think the game’s worth it, don’t buy it (but why pirate it then, eh? If you -do- pirate it you find the game worthwhile enough to do that..). These people worked to make their product. If you appreciate it enough then buy it. It’s not that hard to comprehend.
And that includes DRM nonsense. Sure I may not agree with all DRM practices, but if you really don’t want a game with DRM for that alone.. you shouldn’t pirate it either.
It’s normal to pay for goods/products you wish to use. Or am I crazy?
He’s certainly sticking to his guns. Just popped onto the Game Giveaway of the Day and whats up for today but Rock Legend.
http://game.giveawayoftheday.com/rock-legend/
@EyeMessiah: I agree. It’s my experience, as someone who used to pirate games back on his C64 and Amiga 500 (someone hold my zimmer frame!), that piracy occurs because it is cheaper (price) and often easier (convenience) than buying the full priced game. There might be legitimate reasons for piracy, but the bulk of the time it is because people want to play a game without paying for it.
I agree with the concept of video game DRM, if not the execution to date. BioShock had a limited number of activations and it appears to have held the pirates off for 3 weeks on the PC. So that appears to have worked for 2K in stopping Day 0 piracy.
A lot of people are also against even basic online activation for their games in case the servers are down during times they want to play. Obviously none of these people play MMOs, where you pay the box cost plus the sub fee and the servers can be full / down for maintenace (or even shut down forever) at any time.
Hopefully Cliff Harris will keep everyone updated about how well his new policies work. As an indie who develops for a niche, I’m sure it will work a lot better for him than a large studio who is developing a AAA title… and even then it might not work out so well.
A lot of people are also against even basic online activation for their games in case the servers are down during times they want to play.
Or simply on principle, because doing so is no different to demanding that you phone up a bookshop every time you want to read a book just to prove to them that you didn’t steal it. Its’ demeaning, insulting and pointless – a pirated copy would have circumvented the copy protection anyway.
Obviously none of these people play MMOs, where you pay the box cost plus the sub fee and the servers can be full / down for maintenace (or even shut down forever) at any time.
I don’t speak for everyone, but nope, I don’t play MMOs. Partly because I’ve yet to come across one that wasn’t more boring than counting my eyelashes, and partly because of the costs.
I don’t think 10 pounds ($20) for a high 70, low 80 is cheap. For me, I have the patience to wait for price falls, so 10 pounds for any game is reasonable, 5 is cheap, and paying more than 15 for a game is close to a rip-off and the game better be worth it. Asking me for 30 pounds is silly. But that’s only me, I like to be thrifty, and I only mention this so that you’ve got a wider base to draw on in piracy discussions.
Personally, I wouldn’t need to pirate if all old games were available for budget prices, would work on my system, and are ‘as new’ ie I’d pay a fiver for System Shock II or Planetscape, but I’m not getting some tatty copy off ebay. Steam-’em-up and you’d have a deal, especially if I’d then be able to access them on multiple systems, ie when I’m overseas.
I don’t think 10 pounds ($20) for a high 70, low 80 is cheap. For me, I have the patience to wait for price falls, so 10 pounds for any game is reasonable, 5 is cheap, and paying more than 15 for a game is close to a rip-off and the game better be worth it. Asking me for 30 pounds is silly. But that’s only me, I like to be thrifty, and I only mention this so that you’ve got a wider base to draw on in piracy discussions.
Personally, I wouldn’t need to pirate if all old games were available for budget prices, would work on my system, and are ‘as new’ ie I’d pay a fiver for System Shock II or Planetscape, but I’m not getting some tatty copy off ebay.
Pretty much exactly what I’d say, too (although if any reviewers were capable of using percentage scales remotely sensibly, a 70/80 game would be a good one, not a slightly rubbish one, but hey ho). I’ve bought one or two games from ebay that were in good nick though. Of course, were I able to buy them in a shop for a similar price (just under a fiver for a game that was several years old), the industry would have got my money instead of some ebay bloke or other.
cliff i bought this game a few years back with my mums address please can you mail the actervation code i lost it but want to play and you dont replie to mails please do something about this