4 ms·

> Sadly, pirates don't actually convince their friends to buy it. They help them pirate it. Pirating software is often a pain - find a proper release, install,

by storm 16y ago

> Sadly, pirates don't actually convince their friends to buy it. They help them pirate it. Pirating software is often a pain - find a proper release, install, replace a binary, generate a key, avoid online services, seek out cracked updates (or go without them). If your time has value, it's hardly free. Do you really think everyone pirating anything is going through this process for every Tom, Dick and Harry they know, as opposed to just saying, "Yeah, it's $50 at Gamestop..."? What the author is talking about sounds like the far more common scenario -- friends will see a pirated game being played (or just hear it being praised), and make a purchase later if they so desire (perhaps on services like Steam, where hordes of people who used to exclusive pirate games now periodically pay for the simple conveniences of being legit). And the pirates themselves are occasionally 'turned' by the kind of value-adds that the author is taking about. How many people who really liked the single-player modes in their pirate copy of MW2 didn't go legit so that they could play multiplayer? Piracy can unquestionably lead to expanded mindshare and buzz, it's silly to assert that it merely spawns more piracy. Piracy of Photoshop isn't destroying Adobe's profit, it's securing it. How many legions of designers and photographers cut their teeth on a pirated version, in the process trained themselves to all its concepts, quirks and idioms, and later became a paid seat in a professional context (where using a pirated version is astonishingly stupid behaviour)? Edit: This is clearly an emotional issue. Parent is getting a steady stream of upvotes for blithely making a generalization about how all pirates behave, whereas I saw a downvote faster than what I've wrote could even have been read.

lhnz 16y ago
I agree with others that the OP really over-promised by saying that pirates will convince friends to buy. However, you don't deserve to be down-voted. A large number of people pirating something often causes it to become popular enough to get many sales. Word-of-mouth is not always a pirate explaining to others how to get something for free, it's often them just saying something is 'good' (which for many people implies worth buying).
- _delirium 16y ago
  It's especially true in the indie-game sphere, where people get their recommendations from random reviews on blogs, mailing lists, wikis, forums, whatever. Lots of those reviews are not by people who paid for the game, but some people who read them might pay. Maybe not most of them, but often non-zero. It's useful enough that some indie-game devs are pretty liberal with their "review copies"; if you're going to write up even a blog blurb on a medium-traffic blog, they'll just send you a free copy and save you the hassle of pirating it. Really the biggest likely pitfall facing indie-game developers is that they release their game and nobody notices or cares, not even enough to pirate it. There are a ton of indie games that come out every year that never rise out of obscurity, which is the main thing publicity attempts have to overcome, at least early on. Enough people pirating it to generate some forum/blog buzz is one possible way, like underground musicians who get their initial publicity via people trading mix tapes.
gaius 16y ago
Do you really think everyone pirating anything is going through this process for every Tom, Dick and Harry they know Probably, yes. They're trading their time for social capital.
sliverstorm 16y ago
> Sadly, pirates don't actually convince their friends to buy it. They help them pirate it. > Pirating software is often a pain I agree with the first part. The second line is also true, but the cash value must be low. I am a student, and I will very often see students (pirates) helping their friends pirate Cadence Orcad. Sure, it's a pain, but it's not THAT much of a pain and a single license is several thousand dollars. (Heck, it might even be more- they don't list prices, because they don't sell to individuals!) Orcad is a fantastic piece of software by the way. I'd happily give them lots of money if they'd sell it to me, and I had lots of money. (call me cheap, but I am guessing my annual income is probably on par with only a small handful of licences)

by storm 16y ago

lhnz 16y ago

I agree with others that the OP really over-promised by saying that pirates will convince friends to buy. However, you don't deserve to be down-voted. A large number of people pirating something often causes it to become popular enough to get many sales. Word-of-mouth is not always a pirate explaining to others how to get something for free, it's often them just saying something is 'good' (which for many people implies worth buying).

_delirium 16y ago
It's especially true in the indie-game sphere, where people get their recommendations from random reviews on blogs, mailing lists, wikis, forums, whatever. Lots of those reviews are not by people who paid for the game, but some people who read them might pay. Maybe not most of them, but often non-zero. It's useful enough that some indie-game devs are pretty liberal with their "review copies"; if you're going to write up even a blog blurb on a medium-traffic blog, they'll just send you a free copy and save you the hassle of pirating it. Really the biggest likely pitfall facing indie-game developers is that they release their game and nobody notices or cares, not even enough to pirate it. There are a ton of indie games that come out every year that never rise out of obscurity, which is the main thing publicity attempts have to overcome, at least early on. Enough people pirating it to generate some forum/blog buzz is one possible way, like underground musicians who get their initial publicity via people trading mix tapes.

gaius 16y ago

Do you really think everyone pirating anything is going through this process for every Tom, Dick and Harry they know Probably, yes. They're trading their time for social capital.

sliverstorm 16y ago

> Sadly, pirates don't actually convince their friends to buy it. They help them pirate it. > Pirating software is often a pain I agree with the first part. The second line is also true, but the cash value must be low. I am a student, and I will very often see students (pirates) helping their friends pirate Cadence Orcad. Sure, it's a pain, but it's not THAT much of a pain and a single license is several thousand dollars. (Heck, it might even be more- they don't list prices, because they don't sell to individuals!) Orcad is a fantastic piece of software by the way. I'd happily give them lots of money if they'd sell it to me, and I had lots of money. (call me cheap, but I am guessing my annual income is probably on par with only a small handful of licences)