Too close for comfort? the revival?

[Estebang]

Where has Elixir ever actually said that he plays with "dolls" (which could be anything)?

[Ex-Cyber]

I'm so glad we have running commentary here! 'ppreciate it, it really makes up for the thread's lack of MAME emulation discussion!

Far out, man. You're, like, meta-complaining about your own threadshitting. I am seriously almost in awe (although a bit of indulgence in cheap gin has probably lowered my standards at the moment).

Anyway, it's sort of interesting how the original thread started with the 7-year-old Ketsui, then graduated to the 3-5-year-old CV-1000 library (Akai Katana notwithstanding; I don't even remember if it's dumped/emulated yet), and now we're up to someone being banned over an indie game released in 2010. I guess we finally have some idea how close is "too close for comfort". Or maybe it's only "too close" because the developers are members here. Fuck, another independent variable. Now you guys have wrecked the curve on my empirical model.

- Name me one stand out indie game that has become a success in this manner?

Sins of a Solar Empire is the poster child, more or less. Any definition of "indie" is going to be debatable, and by the very nature of warez it's going to be debatable how much of an effect it had since it's inherently undocumented (aside from ass-pulled numbers projected from tracker statistics or forum posts about "bugs" that are actually DRM failures). In any case, the game was directly notable for not having any invasive DRM in a market where such measures were ascendant. Indirectly, the effective disposition was that the warez dimension of distribution was tolerated and dispassionately analyzed (the soundbite summary being "I just don't count pirates in the first place.") instead of the developer/publisher taking a "kill it with fire" approach. If nothing else, the marketing value of being seen as "anti-anti-piracy" or at least "anti-DRM" counts for something.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Imo piracy can be a double edge sword when it comes to niche games and it depends on a case by case issue, depending on availability and difficulty of buying and playing it.

# Fast Striker: sold as a semi collectors item on Neo Geo and Dreamcast, mail order only, full price. Sure the pirated version will have given it more publicity, but most collectors and shmuppers already knew about it, also the pirated version allowed gamers to just download and play it on their emulators without having to go through the trouble of buying a DC.

# Doujin Games: Only really sold in Japan because there wasnt that much of an market for it, Most games are fan games with the authors not giving a shit about the west, theres a lot of low to mid quality stuff isnt worth the price of importing. Piracy has helped greatly for doujins as a whole as most folk would have never have known about them without piracy, its why we are now starting to see doujin games on Steam. That said pirating localised games is bad imo considering its niche demograph, plus steam gives a lot of publicity to indie games, also steam unlike xbla is (currently) a growth market for shmups and Japanese games as a whole as there isnt that many of them, which makes pirating the top tier doujins less of an helpful thing nowadays. Does importing strengthen a titles chance of localisation? Maybe so.

# CAVE: Their older titles on MAME are a good way to gain new fans who might buy their current titles on 360 and iphone. emulating their newer SH3 titles can damage this since there is less of a reason to do so, just like buying a J360 over a local 360 is nowadays. That said many of them dont run perfectly on everybody's PC, I can image ppl getting into say futari and then buying the 360 version because its a more perfect version plus has arrange modes, replays and leaderboards.

Also imo a fan who pirates a game is more of a "lost sale" than some average gamer as they are more likely to buy it.

EDIT, the TLDR version is that piracy is good for breaking entirely new markets and also allows devs & pubs to see if there is enough ppl who will buy their product. Fast Striker had almost zero chance of growing into other markets.

[Elixir]

Where has Elixir ever actually said that he plays with "dolls" (which could be anything)?

It's just some running gag that because I buy figures, I play with dolls.

Anyway, it's sort of interesting how the original thread started with the 7-year-old Ketsui, then graduated to the 3-5-year-old CV-1000 library (Akai Katana notwithstanding; I don't even remember if it's dumped/emulated yet), and now we're up to someone being banned over an indie game released in 2010. I guess we finally have some idea how close is "too close for comfort". Or maybe it's only "too close" because the developers are members here. Fuck, another independent variable. Now you guys have wrecked the curve on my empirical model.

Congrats on following the thread from the beginning, but that isn't really useful to the forum as a whole. Most people aren't willing to wade through pages and pages of bullshit for news about MAME emulation. Then again, that wouldn't be necessary if people didn't trail off with their own piracy beliefs, would it.

[burgerkingdiamond]

Why so much hate for Fast Striker? It's not Earth shattering, but it's decent enough.

[psoslayer]

What hate

Vamos is not liking the game. That's all.

[trap15]

Where has Elixir ever actually said that he plays with "dolls" (which could be anything)?

It's just some running gag that because I buy figures, I play with dolls.

You buy and play with dolls, stop kidding yourself.

[IseeThings]

# Fast Striker: sold as a semi collectors item on Neo Geo and Dreamcast, mail order only, full price. Sure the pirated version will have given it more publicity, but most collectors and shmuppers already knew about it, also the pirated version allowed gamers to just download and play it on their emulators without having to go through the trouble of buying a DC.

People who were going to shell out for the cost of a Neo cart aren't your average customer anyway, chance are they want the original for it's limited run value, physical product etc.

DC, well, if DC is your alternative platform then that's your problem* an awful lot of the people I know who still have DCs have found the drives have died by now, people picking them up 2nd hand are finding the same thing, get a month or two out of them and the drive is dead. GD-ROM drives are no longer produced, it's a dying platform which people are less and less likely to see as a worthwhile investment, unlike older more reliable cartridge based systems. Asking somebody to buy a DC just for your game is somewhat pretentious is it not?

* Well, it's actually an industry wide problem, everything being locked down so hard in the name of preventing piracy but actually screwing smaller developers over because they can't legitimately release their own software through their own channels. Can't have it both ways apparently, although it's more about having absolute control over the market and being able to take a cut of everything than preventing piracy anyway. I wonder at what point smaller developers will realise their real enemy are not the pirates, but the larger industry and console manufacturers as a whole. Had it been released as an independent, unlicensed CD/DVD based game for the 360/PS3 I guarantee you would have sold more, however, it wasn't, because you can't, lovely anti-competitive industry we have.

As for Fast Striker hate, I wouldn't call it hate, it might be a perfectly adequate game, but I haven't even bothered pirating it to find out because there are more appealing games available for less money, on more accessible platforms, and I have no real desire to pirate current software. That doesn't mean I'm just going to go out and buy it tho.

[Udderdude]

Well, it did get on iPhone eventually, but that market is so bloated and crowded it's near impossible to get noticed w/o buckets of cash to throw at reviewers and etc. as mentioned before.

[Nasirosuchus]

As far as removing control is concerned, there is no control. You can't control the internet, and you can't control peoples' buying habits. They pretty much already have their minds made up as far as what they want is concerned.

So you don't think people are entitled to create something, and then decide how it's distributed and sold (or taken)?

Think very carefully about that answer - put yourself in their shoes as people who make games/music/books or whatever else as a means to pay the rent and put food on the table.

Do you think you're entitled to the fruits of your labour?

What I'm saying is that developers, both big name and indie, have to be realistic.

This stuff is nothing new. Copyright infringement has been going on for hundreds of years, but creators have managed plenty of success during that time in paying the rent and putting food on the table. They did this by putting out a quality product that gives people their money's worth without telling them what they can and can't do with it. Your line of thought is what's lead to ridiculous ploys like DRM, one-time only downloads, region locking, etc. Implementing crap like this because you want control and then blaming unauthorized downloading when it doesn't work is what's going to fuck you up.

[Nasirosuchus]

I thought that IseeThings already explained it pretty well, so I'm just adding some other factors.

Those games that you listed are established titles which are backed by large developers and publishers with large advertising budgets and the ability to pay for good reviews that talk up the positive aspects and leave out the bad ones. Those games don't need p2p to be recognized. I don't know how else to explain that indie games don't have this going for them. People who come to this forum may know about it, but there have been plenty of people here who have stated that they were unaware of the game's existence before it was torrented. Besides, there's a whole world of gaming outside of this forum. Fast Striker is not Super Mario Galaxy or Call Of Duty and THE is not Nintendo or Activision. In order for a game from an indie developer to get that hype and recognition, people have to experience it. Those same people aren't going to spend money on unproven titles. So you see, without P2P, the game never builds any hype and remains relatively unknown.

That brings me to the other factor I've been talking about. Quality. This is especially important when you consider all of the other games that are available. There's also the fact that a lot of those other games are free. That being said, if the game isn't particularly good or at least not better than the competition, then you won't get any sales.

As far as removing control is concerned, there is no control. You can't control the internet, and you can't control peoples' buying habits. They pretty much already have their minds made up as far as what they want is concerned. The only thing that you can really control is making sure that your game offers quality and extras that make it better than the other ones and hence worth plunking down the cash.

You've not really explained anything... indie devs are poor, so instead of trailers and demos what they really need is a stranger to rip their game onto p2p services?

- Name me one stand out indie game that has become a success in this manner?

To the contrary; a promising trailer and a grass roots swell from igf or gdc or similar is in fact the path to indie success, don't you see? Because the rest of the world has, time and time again; with braid/flow/spelunky/frozen synapse/world of goo ...

The majority of people do not use p2p in order to discover or get value for money; some of the most easily available and highest thought of blockbuster games are the most taken - this is what the majority use such services for - people aren't taking these blockbusters to make difficult/mysterious value judgments or to see whats going on in an un-publicized niche.

Nor are they doing this to discover indie games - they go to p2p after they know of their existence, probably after you tubing it. They want them, they're there, they take them. There may well be a number of decent people who choose to opt in after this and purchase, but this cycle is not an incentive to pay. I also highly doubt the p2p communities are as proactive and supportive as the myriad indie gaming communities.

You can't control people; but that's different from what I was stressing - respecting an author's control over his/her creation.

Don't care about the control/can't control the internet? - This is the attitude you're asking developers to trust/respect to pay them if/when they release new products/services? These are the attitudes that give you a penny even for quality games.

Within this narrow thread - it wasn't the actual torrent that got fast striker noticed it was the banning of a well known user that alerted people to the existence of the torrent and therefore the game [for the relative few that had not bothered to check out ng dev in the past year or so].

You're completely missing the point here. People simply aren't going to pay money for a game that they've never heard of/has no hype. Big name devs don't have this problem because they have huge advertising budgets and because their titles are already established. Until people experience your game and have the idea that it's actually good and worth paying for, it's going to stay under the radar.

This is why a small business that's just starting up might give out free samples. Those free samples aren't lost sales, they generate hype for the product.

I'm asking developers to be realistic. Like I said in my previous post, the attitude that they need to control every aspect of the flow of information is what leads to things like DRM, one-time only downloads, and region locking. That causes more lost sales than p2p ever will because it pisses people off by telling them what they can and can't do with it and it makes the p2p version better than the original because it doesn't involve all of the hassle and inconvenience.

[cools]

Except in this case the developer hasn't implemented any nasty copy protection schemes, in fact the smaller developers normally don't bother with anything harder than a serial number.

Who do you propose recieve the free samples? It used to be the games press. If this wasn't done in the case of Fast Striker then it's not entirely surprising it didn't receive (any) mainstream coverage - but how many mainstream sites cover Dreamcast releases nowadays?

A demo version of the first level should have been released, I agree wholeheartedly with this.

DC, well, if DC is your alternative platform then that's your problem* an awful lot of the people I know who still have DCs have found the drives have died by now, people picking them up 2nd hand are finding the same thing, get a month or two out of them and the drive is dead. GD-ROM drives are no longer produced, it's a dying platform which people are less and less likely to see as a worthwhile investment, unlike older more reliable cartridge based systems. Asking somebody to buy a DC just for your game is somewhat pretentious is it not?

* Well, it's actually an industry wide problem, everything being locked down so hard in the name of preventing piracy but actually screwing smaller developers over because they can't legitimately release their own software through their own channels. Can't have it both ways apparently, although it's more about having absolute control over the market and being able to take a cut of everything than preventing piracy anyway. I wonder at what point smaller developers will realise their real enemy are not the pirates, but the larger industry and console manufacturers as a whole. Had it been released as an independent, unlicensed CD/DVD based game for the 360/PS3 I guarantee you would have sold more, however, it wasn't, because you can't, lovely anti-competitive industry we have.

This, with bells on. Released on XBLA or XBLIG, or as an unlicensed disc (is that even possible on retail consoles nowadays?) would've seen it get far more coverage and potential sales than the DC.

[system11]

As far as removing control is concerned, there is no control. You can't control the internet, and you can't control peoples' buying habits. They pretty much already have their minds made up as far as what they want is concerned.

So you don't think people are entitled to create something, and then decide how it's distributed and sold (or taken)?

Think very carefully about that answer - put yourself in their shoes as people who make games/music/books or whatever else as a means to pay the rent and put food on the table.

Do you think you're entitled to the fruits of your labour?

What I'm saying is that developers, both big name and indie, have to be realistic.

This stuff is nothing new. Copyright infringement has been going on for hundreds of years, but creators have managed plenty of success during that time in paying the rent and putting food on the table. They did this by putting out a quality product that gives people their money's worth without telling them what they can and can't do with it. Your line of thought is what's lead to ridiculous ploys like DRM, one-time only downloads, region locking, etc. Implementing crap like this because you want control and then blaming unauthorized downloading when it doesn't work is what's going to fuck you up.

You didn't really answer my question. Are you entitled to the fruits of your labour, or is everyone else entitled to just take it?

I don't care what's going to happen here, this is not a question of realism but morals - the vast majority of pirates (generally, rather than specific to this forum) represent lost potential sales whether people try to dress it up or not. I know a lot of people who do it, (unauthorised) downloading has become their standard method for getting anything. I've asked why, when for example music is now available cheaply online with no DRM restrictions - "why pay when you can get it for free?" and "I ripped it so nobody else would have to pay for it". Straight away we see that overpricing or quality has little to do with it - people are taking what they want because they can and it's free.

Comparing piracy now with piracy 20-30 years ago is beyond ridiculous. I remember those times well, people making copies with VCRs or datasettes chained together and double tape decks with 'high speed dubbing' in flashy italics on the front. Even then you'd see skull and crossbones on the inlay card saying 'PIRACY KILLS MUSIC' - obviously because no producer of content makes it to give away for free. Pretty much everyone was doing it, but at least the distribution was very small scale. This was happening between people who know eachother, a few kids at school perhaps, a few adults at work - and after a few generations of copy the end result degraded quite noticeably. So you've got a slow distribution system coupled with a finite lifespan of the duplicates. Not only that, while it was commonplace, everyone knew what they were doing was a bit shady, you wouldn't often find people openly discussing it.

The situation now is ... different. Copies of work appear online and worldwide, often before it reaches the shop shelves. Iinstead of one sale being copied by 2-3 people over a series of weeks and months, you have one non-sale being duplicated tens of thousands of times (probably an underestimate) before your product even hits the shelves. It's little surprise that content companies are absolutely pissed about piracy in a way they never were before. What's worse is that every copy is perfect, which removed the old incentive to convert from pirated to bought which some people had.

I feel really sorry for small scale producers, I'm happy that's not my line of work - it must be soul destroying to see 'That Game You Spent A Year Making.torrent' appear in a matter of days with 54 seeds and 500 leechers. The actual media companies will certainly have lost revenue too - revenue they were actually entitled to. I can understand the 'sticking it to the man' mindset when pirating music and games from big faceless corporates, but pirating from small independants - seems less like Robin Hood and more like taking from your fellow man. That's too close for comfort in my mind.

This thread is majorly derailed and will be locked, but since there's an interesting debate going on I'll wait until the worthwhile replies dry up before doing so.

[TransatlanticFoe]

My sentiments exactly. Just because you can do something, it doesn't follow that you must. There is a widespread believe that people are entitled to take something for free "just because you can get it for free". This makes me very sad.

[moozooh]

I can understand the 'sticking it to the man' mindset when pirating music and games from big faceless corporates, but pirating from small independants - seems less like Robin Hood and more like taking from your fellow man. That's too close for comfort in my mind.

I would also like to add to this that, while slow old distribution systems that have lead to ongoing software/media piracy disaster have indeed outlived themselves, the most basic question to consider when you're about to release something coming from a fellow member, or any person you admire or wish success in any way, "would they want that to happen?" If the answer is negative, it means that, however you're justifying that action, it isn't the right thing to do. And all the power of statistics, or lack thereof, will not change that. If the author has chosen an uneffective way to promote and distribute their product, it's their decision, but you don't have to mess it up even further. Whether it is expected or not you don't have to be the man who does it.

Cave has voiced their disapproval to MAME devs, and they complied. That is respectful. Silently uploading a still-new release without approval of the author, as well as being a jerk about it, as well as to MAME devs for respecting Cave, isn't respectful. (If this were anything other than software piracy, you wouldn't have second guesses about its shamefulness.) And to those who haven't been around long enough, please consider that torrenting Fast Striker wasn't mjclark's silly one-off venture, but rather an illustration of his normal behavior with regards to our common hobby—while at the same time the man had no problems paying for cookie-cutter NFS games and whatnot.

[shmuppyLove]

I can understand the 'sticking it to the man' mindset when pirating music and games from big faceless corporates, but pirating from small independants - seems less like Robin Hood and more like taking from your fellow man.

Well, except "the man" is not deliberately trying to screw you, as was the case with Robin Hood. People pirate because:

- It's easy
- They don't think they will get caught
- They don't want to pay for something they can get for free

I don't see it being any more complicated than that.

[trap15]

I can understand the 'sticking it to the man' mindset when pirating music and games from big faceless corporates, but pirating from small independants - seems less like Robin Hood and more like taking from your fellow man.

Well, except "the man" is not deliberately trying to screw you, as was the case with Robin Hood. People pirate because:

- It's easy
- They don't think they will get caught
- They don't want to pay for something they can get for free

I don't see it being any more complicated than that.

I'd say that's mostly false. The reasons are closer to:

- It's easier than actually purchasing
- The product costs too much
- The purchased product is inferior to a pirated version

Adding DRM to things only makes #1 more relevant, as DRM can be a complete pain (Oh yeah, let's install all the content to my hard-drive, then force me to grab the CD every time I want to play).
What you see with DVD releases of movies is a very good case of #3, as illustrated here:

And usually music is a case of #2, and occasionally #3. Digital downloading for music (via iTunes, etc.) has mostly eliminated #1 as a reason.

Of course, there still are those people who pirate just because they don't want to spend money on something they can get for free, but those people are actually a lot smaller of a group than you'd think.

[Udderdude]

Good read: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/vi ... ce-Problem

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I'd agree that bad DRM is probably a large reason for software piracy; I know I've downloaded a number of no-cd patches and such in order to bypass always having to have the CD in the drive for games I own. In a lot of cases like music it's not really up to the artist how DRM is implemented it seems, so I still think it's important to support the artist (or programmers) by actually purchasing a copy of the software, even if you then go and download a more convenient version with DRM/internet connection checking removed from a torrent. I also think there's some benefit to torrenting in that you can actually try out a game before buying it, especially if the game doesn't have a demo version. Ideally, people should purchase games in order to support the people who make them, even if they got the game originally via a torrent, although obviously there are people who use them simply to get games for free, but I suspect many of them wouldn't have bought/played the game anyways.

In this case, I think it's kind of lame to post a torrent for an indie game from a small developer that was released fairly recently without at least having some kind of link to their website with a "if you enjoyed this please buy and support the game!" sort of thing. Big difference from emulating a game released decades ago for an old console (and even then I try to buy a copy of games I have on emulators, love my local flea market <3).

[IseeThings]

DC, well, if DC is your alternative platform then that's your problem* an awful lot of the people I know who still have DCs have found the drives have died by now, people picking them up 2nd hand are finding the same thing, get a month or two out of them and the drive is dead. GD-ROM drives are no longer produced, it's a dying platform which people are less and less likely to see as a worthwhile investment, unlike older more reliable cartridge based systems. Asking somebody to buy a DC just for your game is somewhat pretentious is it not?

* Well, it's actually an industry wide problem, everything being locked down so hard in the name of preventing piracy but actually screwing smaller developers over because they can't legitimately release their own software through their own channels. Can't have it both ways apparently, although it's more about having absolute control over the market and being able to take a cut of everything than preventing piracy anyway. I wonder at what point smaller developers will realise their real enemy are not the pirates, but the larger industry and console manufacturers as a whole. Had it been released as an independent, unlicensed CD/DVD based game for the 360/PS3 I guarantee you would have sold more, however, it wasn't, because you can't, lovely anti-competitive industry we have.

This, with bells on. Released on XBLA or XBLIG, or as an unlicensed disc (is that even possible on retail consoles nowadays?) would've seen it get far more coverage and potential sales than the DC.

Nope, that's my point.

To do XBLA you have to be an established developer (and there are a limited number of monthly slots) you have to pay huge fees to Microsoft for the dev kits, testing process etc. and can't release anything except on *their* terms.

For PS3 there was the Linux option, which would have done for a NeoGeo quality game (you had no 3d acceleration or the like for more) but Sony stripped that away, and it was never as convenient as being able to put in a Memcard / CD and boot it. Now your only option again is to be an established developer, get a license from Sony and pay fees high enough to bankrupt a small developer and make their project completely not viable.

Nintendo, same. Apple / iPhone / Android is easier to get into but it's not a serious platform, and you've got no physical media + have to compete in an overcrowded online market on their terms, with risk of your application being pulled at a whim, and again Apple will take a significant cut of your profits for the privilege.

There's the Xbox indie stuff, but that requires you to rewrite your entire game in sandboxed C#, which is a significant amount of work and locks you to a market not visible to the mainstream. There's also no option of a physical product.

Now compare that to music, I've helped sell CDs for my friends, £5 each, sold over 500 of the things at gigs etc. People hear the music, they buy the CD right there and then. It's an open market because any CD player will play that CD. That's £2500 just for burning some discs of their music and them doing what they enjoy. For small bands / developers that's GOOD. If you could go to tradeshows / game events with a pile of game CDs or memory cards with your game on and sell them to people while demonstrating your game then you'd sell a bucketload because people would see the game running, see an attractive priced product and buy it, on the spot, impulsively.

But you can't, because the modern gaming machines are completely locked down. By claiming they need all this security under the false pretense that it's to prevent piracy the industry has been brainwashed into giving absolute control of the distribution channels to the console manufacturers and it's only going to get worse, not better. As I've said, the small developers need to take a strong hard look at who their real enemies are, your regular retail outlets are already being squeezed out of the business more and more each year too due to the way they're being cut out of the distribution. GAME look to be in serious trouble here for instance.

The only way indie developers can release their own software without going through the official channels and somebody else taking a cut is if they (ironically) also give people instructions on how to hack and mod their consoles so the software will run, enabling piracy at the same time, and most people won't want to do that even if they have no intention of actually pirating *anything*.

[trap15]

Good read: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/vi ... ce-Problem

Yes, that's exactly what I mean. As the article says, look at how they took Russia by storm and won.

[TLB]

Good read: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/vi ... ce-Problem

Yes, that's exactly what I mean. As the article says, look at how they took Russia by storm and won.

Since this exact thing happens to have come up...

I actually prefer to buy a game on Steam over stealing it. Poor white kid buys things because Steam isn't a piece of shit (somewhat the contrary).

If Steam took over my life, ceteris paribus, I'd win the battle with myself and love Big Gabe. It's just good fucking service.

[gray117]

Good read: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/vi ... ce-Problem

Yes, that's exactly what I mean. As the article says, look at how they took Russia by storm and won.

... oh dear ... perhaps you forget the origins of steam? At the time one of the most unique forms of drm, created part in a bid to wrest control back for the authors of some marvelous work, part to solidfy the old/circumventable won network.

... Valve nearly brought down by pirated hl2, possibly only saved by the fact counter strike was so popular.

Teams of people gutted, upset and fearful after years of hard work despite all the M$ bucks. Any of this sound familiar?

Yes steam is not like it was back then, and as a service it has matured extremely sensitively to both community and publishers alike, it is to be rightly applauded - but it wasn't a gracious start, and valve is not crediting p2p in anyway they're combating it, and people still take the piss...

* Well, it's actually an industry wide problem, everything being locked down so hard in the name of preventing piracy but actually screwing smaller developers over because they can't legitimately release their own software through their own channels. Can't have it both ways apparently, although it's more about having absolute control over the market and being able to take a cut of everything than preventing piracy anyway. I wonder at what point smaller developers will realise their real enemy are not the pirates, but the larger industry and console manufacturers as a whole. Had it been released as an independent, unlicensed CD/DVD based game for the 360/PS3 I guarantee you would have sold more, however, it wasn't, because you can't, lovely anti-competitive industry we have.

What are you talking about? They're perfectly able to if the p2p would let them?

Oh I see, you want the benefits of a closed system but not any of the hassle that goes into securing that?

Of course it's not possible for unlicensed games to be created ad hoc consoles;

Want virus protection to be a part of your console experience? Fancy getting a bit of malware off your console, how you doing that? Who is responsible for sorting that out?

How about responsibly securing yourself against bad press or law suits as a result of someone else's code on your system/service?

Do you know how inexpensive it is to develop for ios, steam or 360 indie - it's a hell of a lot less that the cost in time that goes into even many a bad indie game...

You now expect hardware manufacturers to research and fabricate low cost machines for nothing and then let people distribute and run any code they want on it?

Ever wondered why pc gamers paid so much for the something like the equal hardware in a laptop that you get in 360 back in 2004? Yes they slipped up over stupid eu laws that meant hardware had to be manufactured without lead in the solder... just like batches of video cards and motherboards around the same time... plenty a lower spec'd/higher priced laptop burnt back then...

Sins of a Solar Empire is the poster child, more or less. Any definition of "indie" is going to be debatable...

Yeah the original game cost about $1million to develop by experienced game developers at a limited company. It was released drm free as a sign of good faith. It did well in response to being a good game and receiving publicity from legitimate sources particularly in the light of other games such as Bioshock and later Spore muddling their stances/solutions. Stardock has since come to rue lack of drm. Sins of a dark age will adopt a free to play model with micro transactions instead of drm free releases. If it went on p2p then that was people disrespecting the developers good faith; the arguement was never that drm has been a significant impingement to p2p, but that it was bad for genuine consumers who bought the game - punishing the good customer... So they took it out to make a better quality product for the purchaser, not to make it any easier to share.

Ever wondered why shmup developers are few and far between? - probably not the genre best suited to online/streaming play that many free-to-play models depend upon ...

... I wonder how much an arcade title at cave costs to develop...

[Ed Oscuro]

Where has Elixir ever actually said that he plays with "dolls" (which could be anything)?

It's just some running gag that because I buy figures, I play with dolls.

You buy and play with dolls, stop kidding yourself.

Elixir plays with us



Elixir: Sorry the Forum gets unmanageable at times due to its popularity...join the club. If you want to have an easy-to-follow thread view, you'd probably have to blog it yourself.

[Ed Oscuro]

Most people had never even heard of Fast Striker until the torrent became available.

That is irrelevant.

Shmups Forum is a community, and we can expect more from our members.

We were given the opportunity to speak with (and even openly criticize) the developer, who is a member of these boards, and ask whatever questions we wished.

Like I've said before, I'm not going to discuss what anyone thinks it's morally right or wrong for people to do or what kind of behavior they should or shouldn't exhibit. What people decide to do outside of this message board is their business.

The fact that people had a chance to speak with the developer here doesn't change the fact that most people had never heard of the game and it certainly doesn't change the fact that game wasn't very good. Once again, this board doesn't encompass all of shmupdom.

Still (purposely, at this point) missing the point when you shouldn't; "most people" aren't Shmups Forum members.

There is an old saying - "don't shit where your trough" - and it rings true.

You're not fooling anybody with your talk hinting that the evil Shmup Forums overlords are trying to lord it over the rest of Shmupdom. Who cares if other places don't have standards?

[Never_Scurred]

Where has Elixir ever actually said that he plays with "dolls" (which could be anything)?

It's just some running gag that because I buy figures, I play with dolls.

You buy and play with dolls, stop kidding yourself.

But he's twice the man that you will ever be. Believe me, I know this.

[IseeThings]

* Well, it's actually an industry wide problem, everything being locked down so hard in the name of preventing piracy but actually screwing smaller developers over because they can't legitimately release their own software through their own channels. Can't have it both ways apparently, although it's more about having absolute control over the market and being able to take a cut of everything than preventing piracy anyway. I wonder at what point smaller developers will realise their real enemy are not the pirates, but the larger industry and console manufacturers as a whole. Had it been released as an independent, unlicensed CD/DVD based game for the 360/PS3 I guarantee you would have sold more, however, it wasn't, because you can't, lovely anti-competitive industry we have.

What are you talking about? They're perfectly able to if the p2p would let them?

Oh I see, you want the benefits of a closed system but not any of the hassle that goes into securing that?

Of course it's not possible for unlicensed games to be created ad hoc consoles;

Want virus protection to be a part of your console experience? Fancy getting a bit of malware off your console, how you doing that? Who is responsible for sorting that out?

How about responsibly securing yourself against bad press or law suits as a result of someone else's code on your system/service?

Do you know how inexpensive it is to develop for ios, steam or 360 indie - it's a hell of a lot less that the cost in time that goes into even many a bad indie game...

You now expect hardware manufacturers to research and fabricate low cost machines for nothing and then let people distribute and run any code they want on it?

Ever wondered why pc gamers paid so much for the something like the equal hardware in a laptop that you get in 360 back in 2004? Yes they slipped up over stupid eu laws that meant hardware had to be manufactured without lead in the solder... just like batches of video cards and motherboards around the same time... plenty a lower spec'd/higher priced laptop burnt back then...

I grew up with such systems, and it was good, so um, yes. Stop trotting out the usual industry BS.

There's a great irony that the likes of EA got off the ground on open systems, and even made unlicensed MD carts and the like just to avoid going through Sega, yet now come out with the same BS as everybody else because they don't want real competition from indie developers.

I know the cost of XBox Indie, but you have to code in C#, which means rewriting your entire project in a Microsoft-centric language, non-starter for anybody wanting to create something they can reuse in the future. PC is a poor target for other reasons, endless compatibiltiy issues, a console you're guaranteed everything is the same and will work. iPhones are just toys with a terrible input device when it comes to serious games.

A well designed system doesn't need all this updatable stuff and complex operating systems which causes problems in the first place, so viruses would be a non-issue. I'm a programmer, a developer, I understand how these things work yet all I see are excuses to maintain a status-quo and lock out competition.

Industry attitudes like this make it a LOT easier for me to sympathise with people hacking the systems, and I doubt I'm alone in that.

[hzt]

But he's twice the man that you will ever be. Believe me, I know this.

explains the avatar?

[moozooh]

There's a great irony that the likes of EA got off the ground on open systems, and even made unlicensed MD carts and the like just to avoid going through Sega, yet now come out with the same BS as everybody else because they don't want real competition from indie developers.

Reminds me of this scene.

[Nasirosuchus]

You didn't really answer my question. Are you entitled to the fruits of your labour, or is everyone else entitled to just take it?

I did answer your question. We're not talking about civil rights, here. If the fruits of your labor are what the public wants, then you'll get paid. If not, then you won't. Going on and on about what control you should and shouldn't have is just ignoring reality.

I don't care what's going to happen here, this is not a question of realism but morals - the vast majority of pirates (generally, rather than specific to this forum) represent lost potential sales whether people try to dress it up or not. I know a lot of people who do it, (unauthorised) downloading has become their standard method for getting anything. I've asked why, when for example music is now available cheaply online with no DRM restrictions - "why pay when you can get it for free?" and "I ripped it so nobody else would have to pay for it". Straight away we see that overpricing or quality has little to do with it - people are taking what they want because they can and it's free.

Again, arguing morals is pointless because it's subjective, and I'm not going to get into it. You're entitled to your opinion and I'm entitled to mine, so I'll leave it at that because it's clear that neither of us are going to change our minds and there's no point in trying to ram our ideas of what's right and wrong down each others' throats.

Those people who use unauthorized downloading as their modus operandi were never customers to begin with. They are not lost sales no matter how much YOU or the industry tries to dress it up. It's not about getting something for free, it's about getting their money's worth. Again, let's go back to music. The same people who won't pay $20 for a CD have no problem paying in upwards of 100 dollars for a concert ticket. Some 733t asian raver with a 1TB anime collection that he downloaded via Utorrent has no problem ponying up the cash to go to Otakon or to buy toys, posters, and various other merchandise from his favorite series. *SHOCKER*

Comparing piracy now with piracy 20-30 years ago is beyond ridiculous. I remember those times well, people making copies with VCRs or datasettes chained together and double tape decks with 'high speed dubbing' in flashy italics on the front. Even then you'd see skull and crossbones on the inlay card saying 'PIRACY KILLS MUSIC' - obviously because no producer of content makes it to give away for free. Pretty much everyone was doing it, but at least the distribution was very small scale. This was happening between people who know eachother, a few kids at school perhaps, a few adults at work - and after a few generations of copy the end result degraded quite noticeably. So you've got a slow distribution system coupled with a finite lifespan of the duplicates. Not only that, while it was commonplace, everyone knew what they were doing was a bit shady, you wouldn't often find people openly discussing it.

Small scale? I don't know what world you were living in, but 20 years ago, using dual tape decks and dual VCR heads to copy cassettes, VHS tapes (mostly that people had rented), and to tape movies from the tv and songs off of the radio was pretty damn common and well known. I don't why you have this idea that it only took place in underground societies. For chrissakes, my grandparents and their friends used to do it. 75% of their VHS collections were stuff that they had tapped off of the tv. When I was in school, everyone was walking around with portable cassette players and tapes that they had copied from their friends using dual tape decks, and this was in the 90's well before online distribution had taken off.

The situation now is ... different. Copies of work appear online and worldwide, often before it reaches the shop shelves. Iinstead of one sale being copied by 2-3 people over a series of weeks and months, you have one non-sale being duplicated tens of thousands of times (probably an underestimate) before your product even hits the shelves. It's little surprise that content companies are absolutely pissed about piracy in a way they never were before. What's worse is that every copy is perfect, which removed the old incentive to convert from pirated to bought which some people had.

Every copy is not perfect. You don't get things like the case, artwork, online gameplay, access to DLC, promotions, and that's just the beginning. HD content like Blu-Ray rips are too big to download due to bandwidth caps, and there are other associated risks with playing bootleg games on consoles because in most cases you have to risk destroying them by modifying the hardware, and even if you do it right, you void your warranty.

What companies are absolutely pissed about is that they can no longer control every medium of advertising and distribution, put out crap and have people buy it because there's no other choice, nickel and dime people for content that should have been included, and push out the same stuff and have people buy it over and over again ( How many people have bought their music on vinyl, cassette, and cd? People have bought their movies on VHS, DVD, and now they want you to buy it AGAIN on Blu-Ray? How many different damn versions of Star Wars and the Little Mermaid are they going to release????) It's gotten so utterly stupid that they're now trying their damndest to get rid of used game sales because the fools see THOSE as lost sales. If they had their way, they'd charge you money every time you listened to a song, watched a movie, played a game, or used a software title.

If they want the culprit for lost sales, they need look no further than their own foolhardy and mad obsession with controlling every aspect of the market from distribution down to the way people use it once they've bought it as well as their branding of the public as thieving, pirating ingrates.

Well, I've got news for them. Those days are over, and they've got two choices. They can either A) Get with the program and adapt to the new market and give people the quality that they want, which means that they'll prosper, or B) They can try in vain to maintain an archaic business model where they pump out out crap and throw temper tantrums when people don't buy it, which means that they'll fail. The choice is theirs.

I feel really sorry for small scale producers, I'm happy that's not my line of work - it must be soul destroying to see 'That Game You Spent A Year Making.torrent' appear in a matter of days with 54 seeds and 500 leechers. The actual media companies will certainly have lost revenue too - revenue they were actually entitled to. I can understand the 'sticking it to the man' mindset when pirating music and games from big faceless corporates, but pirating from small independants - seems less like Robin Hood and more like taking from your fellow man. That's too close for comfort in my mind.

Are you kidding me?

First of all, people bootlegging your stuff is a part of the business. It happens to everyone. If you can't handle it, then you need to find another profession.

This is the best time to be a small developer. You can make anything you want and get it out there without having to go through a big name distributor. This would not have been possible 20 years ago when the internet and p2p weren't around. Of course, this doesn't change the fact that your product still has to please the buying public and give them their money's worth. If you don't do this and instead decide to obsess over control and blame p2p, then you will fail.