[OT]Talking to Pirates

[Nick Sabalausky]

"JMNorris" <nospam at nospam.com> wrote in message 
news:g8chqd$1nmj$1 at digitalmars.com...
> Robert Fraser <fraserofthenight at gmail.com> wrote in news:g8a0lo$2nn8$1
> @digitalmars.com:
>
>> That sounds about right for the casual games space. The space is filled
>> with a lot of products and besides one or two "must-plays", they
>> generally feel like perfect substitutes for me (the only "must-play" PC
>> casual game I've encountered is Peggle, though I bought Aquaria - big
>> letdown IMO - and will definitely buy World of Goo).
>
> I hadn't realized that all work and no play made me such a dull boy.  I 
> had
> no idea that there was casual game space and have no idea what a casual
> game is.  I suppose I can guess what an indie game is, but don't know who
> the non-indie companies are.  To me, computer games are Solitaire,
> Minefield, Adventure (the original with twisty little passages going
> everywhere), Pac-Man, and Asteroids.  I confess, I am REALLY boring and 
> out
> of touch.  :-D


Solitaire, Minefield: Casual Games

Adventure (Atari VCS/2600), Pac-Man, Asteroids: Retro Games

Non-Indie Game Company: EA, Activision, Ubisoft, Take 2, and all of the 
companies that makes games for those companies to publish.

Indie Game Developer: Self-funded (Rather than big-publisher-funded), and 
often self-published. Small teams, low budget, "garage" developers, etc.

>
> 10 or 20 percent piracy is good advertising.  At 90% and more piracy, you
> wonder how folks stay in buisness.
>

It's not quite as clear-cut as that. For one thing, very little of that is 
actually lost sales, for various reasons, many of which were mentioned in 
the articles and comments. And of course there's also the issue of "How 
accurate is that 92% figure?" There's too many things that are impossible to 
measure for it to be possible to get a truely accurate ratio of legit copies 
vs. pirated copies.

I'm not saying that 92% paints a rosy picture, of course, but there are a 
lot of non-obvious nuances that make it not likely as bad as that number 
makes it sound.