Taxes and pirates!
Two links to share today. First, some more of my writing at a place other than www.krupo.ca - I was invited by Nancy Zimmerman to write a guest post on taxes and was happy to share some tips. Go here to check it out.
Another interesting article is this essay from the CEO of Stardock on piracy. One of his most clever points is a stark admonishment of the pirates running amok in China and other countries where intellectual property laws are a complete failure. A quote:
We also don't make games targeting the Chinese market
When you make a game for a target market, you have to look at how
many people will actually buy your game combined with how much it will
cost to make a game for that target market. What good is a large number
of users if they're not going to buy your game? And what good is a
market where the minimal commitment to make a game for it is $10
million if the target audience isn't likely to pay for the game?
If the target demographic for your game is full of pirates who won't
buy your game, then why support them? That's one of the things I have a
hard time understanding. It's irrelevant how many people will play
your game ... . It's
only relevant how many people are likely to buy your game.
Stardock doesn't make games targeting the Chinese market. If we
spent $10 million on a PC game explicitly for the Chinese market and we
lost our shirts, would you really feel that much sympathy for us? Or
would you think "Duh."
How long before this actually begins to affect what gets published, though? I wonder.
Galactic Civilizations II is well worth the money. And when I have time, I should really check out Sins of a Solar Empire. But I have quite a backlog of games to catch up on, including GCII!
The developers, aside from knowing how to make a smart game, have the Right Attitude on how to work with their customers - as opposed to "dealing with" customers. Another quote:
The reason why we don't put copy protection on our games isn't because
we're nice guys. We do it because the people who actually buy
games don't like to mess with it. Our customers make the rules, not the
pirates. Pirates don't count. We know our customers could pirate our
games if they want but choose to support our efforts. So we return the
favor - we make the games they want and deliver them how they want it.
This is also known as operating like every other industry outside the
PC game industry.
Kudos to them for identifying the fact that users don't like being treated like criminals, and are rewarding a company that delivers what they want.