Positech developer Cliff Harris made big headlines on SlashDot when he wrote an open letter to pirates asking why would they steal from a small indie developer. He got some surprisingly frank answers and posted them on his blog. He took many responses to heart and made some changes to see how the pirate community would better receive and actually buy his product.

Unsurprisingly, many pirates didn’t.

After all that trouble, I certainly hope that he makes some gratuitous amounts of money with this beautiful game.

Personally, I see this as a good move because so much money is wasted on piracy protection that proves ineffective.  However, my hope is that this does not embolden more blatant theft because of how much easier it will be to pirate software.

While I believe that smaller indie studios such as 2D Boy shouldn’t have DRM, the big studios suffer from the “stick it to the man” mentality that many pirates espouse.  So a piece of me thinks that this may be a bad move.

While draconian measures of DRM are a bit much, some level of copy protection should be in place.  As a consumer, this gives me a good feeling that the big corporation out there is protecting the money I spent on investing in their product rather than feeling like a fool because everyone else got it for free.  As an indie, I believe that DRM is a bad idea.  But as a big publisher, I think that some DRM is a good idea, because it gives me, the consumer, a feeling of due diligence put in by the publisher.

Also, I believe that DRM is good against having the product being resold on the market by GameStop.  I believe that the creative minds behind the game should get the money due to them, rather than the middleman who is good at recycling used games.  But hey, it’s still a free market and people are willing to shell out their money “gently used” games.

The key, I believe is that the price is too high for most AAA games.  Once that price is brought down for a new game, revenues will go up and there will be more new games bought than used games at a discount.

Signs of Recovery?

“Even in the face of a down economy, entertainment remains a popular spending category,” says NPD analyst Russ Crupnick.

“Most consumers say they’ll continue to purchase at least the same amount of many entertainment categories in the coming year.”

This makes me wonder if the bursting economy was just an excuse for the big-AAA gaming industry companies to “right-size” its projects because all signs show that the entertainment industry would not be affected by the economy. Well… Except for the massive “adjustment” the stock market made in the last few months. But even then, the creators of Grand Theft Auto IV who sold over 13 million copies, still took major losses, so why wouldn’t their stock fall in the open market?

A Somali "Merchant Marine Organizer" - ARRR!

The amount of effort it takes to create high-quality game content versus the payoff it makes is getting more and more marginal as technology increases and there is a significant shift to DLC and multiplayer experiences to create a “long tail” effect on keeping a game alive in the market and making money.

The other factor to consider is that the  NPD study seemed only to focus on the US market.  The world economy in general is in deeper trouble, and more than likely there will be a dramatic spike in piracy in the coming year.

Strike Eagle V 0.13

Now the level is fully fleshed out.  It is decently challenging.  The first time I played it, I died on the last volley of missiles.  And it is very fun to simply hold down the spacebar to clear the air with a missile swarm.  The challenge is getting the highest score, which means taking risks and not moving the plane too much because it tilts the horizon.

Now I have to round out the Briefing so that the player has more information that their mission is to take out the enemy air support, and a mention of the game’s controls with the keyboard and mouse.

Last is the adding the MochiAds leaderboards and MochiAds pre-loader instead of mine so your score becomes relevant to other people.

Check it out!

On a sad note…

Originally, I was contemplating on removing “Counterpunch Games” in favor of “Game Devigner.”  But today, the beloved cat, Louie “The Count” died today due to complications with diabetes.  So, in honor of “The Count”, I’ll be keeping the logo for this game to honor him and how much he meant to me, my family, and to all my friends.

I think this bodes very well for the indie gaming market because people are more likely to spend more time seeking quality gaming experiences for less money than using the normal channels.  Unfortunately, this also means an increase in piracy, but I believe that with the right pricing strategy, you can serve the market well and still get enough return on investment.

More than ever, it looks like the time is ripe for indies to really reap the whirlwind.  And if enough people find more meaningful experiences through their games, it could mean a whole new era of gaming, game distribution and pricing strategies.