"Don’t sue your potential customers" argues Paradox Development Studio's Johan Andersson

"99% of people who pirate movies, music, games are not criminal people"

PCGMedia interviews Johan Andersson, Paradox Development Studio's Studio Manager about piracy, the tablet gaming market, and working within a niche.

[SilentNegotiator]

I didn't realize that digital theft wasn't criminal...

[Yi-Long]

It might be against the law, but that doesn't make you a criminal.

Just like jaywalking or littering is against the law, but doesn't make you a criminal.

Many of us 30+ gamers started out as 'pirates' when we were 'trading' games in the schoolyard for our C64, Amiga, PC, SNES, whatever.

That turned us into gamers, and into paying consumers. We pirated because at that age, we didn't have the money, nor parents who would fund that hobby.

It's always a question of budget, value, and quality.

Most people are more than willing to pay for quality content when it's priced reasonably. And sometimes people pirate stuff to check out, or even pirate stuff they already paid for (maybe in a different format, maybe for a different system, or just to have a digital copy for easy access, when you want all your stuff on an HDD for your media-player).

Just like many people around the world don't have access to American broadcasting channels, but will download tv-shows like Breaking Bad or whatever.

And just like many people around the world simply don't have a budget to allow them to spend money on (expensive foreign) entertainment. Or many students don't have money to spend on an official copy of Photoshop. Or whatever.

It's not as black/white as some people try to make it out to be.

Not to mention the fact that 'piracy' has been shown in numerous studies to INCREASE official sales, not harm them.

[SilentNegotiator]

No one gets robbed of 2 years of work by jaywalking.

[Philaroni]

Well a law is only a law if it is enforced. You can Jaywalk all day but 99% of the cops could care less since it is a waste of taxpayer dollars and their time to enforce it. But you have a good point just because something is law does not make you a criminal if you break it. Speeding ticket for example.

I think part of the issue is for media content is that if a person cannot afford your product and they torrent it for example they are still consuming it and talking about it which 'could' get others intersted in the product. TV rating systmes are very broken and don't really accuretly represent viewership. If they where smart they would track "Torrents" and other downloads and count that as viewership but maybe compromose with the consumer and have adds inculded in the torrent (Since that is where they get most of there $$).

There is a consumer sentric deal to be made here just no one has been willing to try to make it yet.

[KonsoruMasuta]

Actually....

crim·i·nal
ˈkrimənl/
noun
1.
a person who has committed a crime.

That does make you a criminal

[SilentNegotiator]

" If they where smart they would track "Torrents" and other downloads and count that as viewership but maybe compromose with the consumer and have adds inculded in the torrent (Since that is where they get most of there $$)"

That's just another way of having F2P games and most of those suck.

Besides, no one should be EXPECTED to give away their games for ad viewership. That model isn't viable for most games.

[SilentNegotiator]

@Yi

I'm not talking about raiding school yards or suing people that have a hardcopy. I'm sure more than 99% of the people pirating aren't one of those two things. By a wide margin.

And "It doesn't fit my budget" is not a valid excuse. Having a demo or F2P version is the choice of the developer. No one is owed a free copy for any reason.

[Irishguy95]

99.9% of people on this site have likely pirated something at some point.

Be it a song, tv show, movie or game. Even looking at a vid on youtube is downloading a song temporarily. Thus we are all criminals. :)

Off I go to download Cod ghosts just so I rage delete it and talk about how shit it is.

@ Yi, piracy can work both ways, it's definitely not black or white. Piracy as you say can actually have the opposite affect of what the general population believe(specially the majority of idiots on this website). Alot of the time a dev isn't actually losing any sales due to a pirate, the pirate wouldn't buy the game in the first place. I have pirated alot of games as a kid too, only to buy them years later. Back then, I simply wouldn't have played them at all. I never would have bought at a later date either.

[Philaroni]

He makes a good point, I have always felt that there is quite a difference between the person that steals a DVD from a Walmart vs a person who downloads it online. Just from personal exp in retail people who steal 'can' tend to be violent and do tend to have a kind of stereotype around them.

I think everyone will agree that since the turn of the digital age we have not done a good job of defining and enforcing what it means to 'pirate' I really is not stealing in the tangable sence.

I could go on forever, I'd love to hear N4G's users thoghts on it as it is something we talk about all the time at work since our next game will be digital only. Everyone here is divided on the issue. Might need to do a ARA soon on the issue. (Ask Redit Anything.) new term just came up with it!

[Yi-Long]

I might be in the minority on this, but I've always felt that piracy is a good thing, not a bad thing.

There are tons of examples where we see how 'piracy' has grown into value, like the anime/manga industry, which is pretty much completely due to piracy, thus publishers finally figuring out that YES, there is a market for this. And guess what!? Many of those who have 'pirated' fansubbed anime-content and manga, end up spreading excellent word-of-mouth about what they're watching and reading, creating interest, and often also end up buying the official releases when it's available for a reasonable price.

This also goes for some foreigh cinema, for example Asian Cinema. Shaolin Soccer was picked up because of millions of people were downloading it.

When it comes to games, I already mentioned in my first comments that most of the gamers who are now older than 30, started out as 'pirates', and are now (mostly) paying consumers. Being able to experience all those great games as a kid, turned them into 'gamers' for life.

And they will buy games for themselves, for friends, for their kids, etc etc. They'll buy the magazines, they'll buy the hardware, they'll buy the online subscriptions, they'll buy the strategy guides, etc etc.

And sometimes you 'check out' a game you're not sure about by downloading it, and when you end up loving it, there's a big chance you'll buy the game in a sale, or you'll buy the sequel, or whatever.

Again, studies have shown piracy doesn't harm sales (unless your product sucks), and it's all very 'grey', instead of a simple matter of 'bad' or 'good'.

I'll be buying the Breaking Bad BR box-set this December, even though I've already watched it all. Twice. In HD. WHy!? Because it's quality. The box-set offers value for money. And I WANT to support the makers.

[badkolo]

it isnt so easy to explain but yi-lonmg is partially correct, the same way we go to youtube anbd listen to music instead of buying albums, just look at mp3's who hasnt downloaded a mp3 at one point or another, now its expected to be on youtube, so those artists work for far less the before, are we all criminals?

[SirBradders]

My argument has always been try before you buy and most AAA movies these days are absolute dog shit so they deserve to be pirated.

[monkeyfox]

I'm sorry silent negotiator your view is very short sighted... Do you not see that the piracy committed by children of the 80s and 90s helped grow the consumer base to what is today. Also f2p can be a viable model IF the actual game is decent (tribes ascend). Make a great game and people Will want to spend money on it and the market is so large now it can support that. Too many games released by large publishers are sub standard or "unfinished" and they still expect us to pay 30-40 quid for them.

The market now is so large I find it ridiculous when publishers go on about lost sales of films when some films make over a billion dollars now and that's just box office takings.. They then sell dvds/blurays and then sell it to tv companies around the world after that. The mpaa still go on about how they are being hard done by with regards to piracy. The market for games is almost as large albeit without the "3 tierd" payment model.. Let me ask you all though... If there was no money to be made in games, film or music do think people would still make them? The answer is yes. Musicians would still make music, devs would still make games and film makers would still make films... Because they are artists and to some the love is worth more than all the money in the world... Wow I've really gone off the subject! I don't think I even have a point anymore.. Apologies