Suggestion on how to still make money from piracy

[XerxesQ]

We all know piracy will happen. Fortunately, most piracy isn't a lost sale, as the pirate wouldn't have bought the game anyway. In addition, there are many pirates who will gladly purchase a game that they stole and loved.

Then there's the middle ground of pirates who enjoyed the game, want to support the developers, but money's tight and $30 is too much right now, maybe they'll wait till the next paycheck, and by that time they've forgotten. Or going through a purchase is inconvenient somehow due to taxes or not liking Steam or it feels weird to buy something and not download it or I don't know. Whatever the reason, some people who want to pay for their pirated copy of Overgrowth might not get around to it.

Solution: accept donations. Take after Jonathan Coulton and put the donate button under an "Already Stole It?" header. Allow people the option to pay less than $30 if they feel like it, because that's still money. If you sell 10,000 copies and there's a 90% piracy ratio, and every pirate donates five dollars, you have an extra $450,000 that you might not have seen otherwise.

Piracy is easy, fast, and convenient, so people will do it. But pirates are aware of the strange phenomenon that People Buy Things, and they themselves are often interested in throwing money at the people who make them happy. Make that easy, fast, and convenient, and it will happen.

[Wilbefast]

Yes

[nutcracker]

yes :O

[WingedWolf93]

GENIUS!

[Glabbit]

Genius indeed!
It sounds like a brilliant plan. Easily done, probably will work either with or without guilt, and random donations could come from anywhere, not just from pirates.

If I was a pirate and had the money and the means to support a game even remotely like this after I'd already pirated it, I'm sure I would.

[Skofo]

Another suggestion: Make the online features (i.e. multiplayer, official mod server, etc.) awesome enough to convince people to buy the game. You can't pirate online features.

[BlackHole]

Also, make it easy to transform a pirated copy into a legit one.

In quite some cases, people download a pirated version of the game first to find out if they like it, because in many cases the demo versions are very limited. So making it easy to legalize a pirated copy (no reinstalling and stuff like that) will probably make more people actually buy it, just because they don't have to bother reinstalling the game.

[Endoperez]

I'm not sure Wolfire team is comfortable with supporting pirates, in any way. I know I'd be wary of that, if I were making a game. Every "Hey, they're EXPECTING people to pirate it, right? So it won't hurt if I try, and I might throw in few bucks as well, if I like the game." won't be a lost sale, true, but I still think it'd give out the wrong message.

Besides, it's not like it's that hard to pay for a PC game. Work, get paid, buy game.

I wouldn't really mind if Wolfire team did this, but it's not as clear choice as you make it sound.

[Glabbit]

Also, make it easy to transform a pirated copy into a legit one.

In quite some cases, people download a pirated version of the game first to find out if they like it, because in many cases the demo versions are very limited. So making it easy to legalize a pirated copy (no reinstalling and stuff like that) will probably make more people actually buy it, just because they don't have to bother reinstalling the game.

That's actually also a great idea!
It'll turn piracy more into a great word-of-mouth advertisement campaign than actual piracy! =D

[Akien]

I'm not sure Wolfire team is comfortable with supporting pirates, in any way. I know I'd be wary of that, if I were making a game. Every "Hey, they're EXPECTING people to pirate it, right? So it won't hurt if I try, and I might throw in few bucks as well, if I like the game." won't be a lost sale, true, but I still think it'd give out the wrong message.

Besides, it's not like it's that hard to pay for a PC game. Work, get paid, buy game.

I wouldn't really mind if Wolfire team did this, but it's not as clear choice as you make it sound.

Well, I think Wolfire has many goals to achieve economically :
1) Spread Overgrowth widely; it would be very naive not to consider piracy. Without supporting it, noone can deny how fast it can spread a game, make it known.
2) Make Wolfire known.
3) Craft the most awesome game ever.

Fact, some pirates do buy games they stole. At least, I did with Darwinia. I wanted to try. I found the game awesome, I bought it. Why not just download a demo? I wanted to play it entirely if it was just "not bad". I found it great, though.
Being 14 at that time, I couldn't afford a $30 game plus import fees without being sure the game would please me. And OG's player will situate mainly between 12 and 25 I think, so I'm not sure the triptych "Work, get paid, buy game" will apply to every possible pirate.

Still, I don't think that if Wolfire gives an opportunity to pay for the game after you've stolen it, it will increase piracy and "justify" it. If a pirate steals a game, wether he can donate or not, he doesn't care. He just wants to play a good-looking game. Condemning piracy won't eradicate it, nor lower the number of stolen OG copies. If money can be made out of it, why not?
And I'm sure that pirates who stole OG first, loved it and then paied for it, even $10, will pay for Wolfire's next game and won't steal it.

[geokes]

What'll make pirates donate? And if you dont have a credit card you cant donate, and lots of people who pirate are to young to have a credit card.
My solution is SUE THEM!!! Piracy is just wrong, especially for indie game. I know a couple of people will hate me for saying that but they're probably downloading five games on bittorrent now.
And make sure to have lots of good multiplayer features.

[Jeff]

That is a cool idea, but I think instead of getting 100% of pirates donating $5 (which would make us more money than legit customers), it would be more like 0% of pirates donating $0.

We actually used to accept donations, but no one donated, so we removed the button.

[Richie Rabbit]

Really no one at all? xD

[Glabbit]

Put the button back up, Jeff! The community's much larger now, and once OG comes out there's going to be people pouring in from all over the place.
There's no reason not to have a donate button.

[BlackHole]

We actually used to accept donations, but no one donated, so we removed the button.

In Holland we have a nice proverb about that: "Niet geschoten is altijd mis." It means something like "if you never try, you'll never succeed".
Placing that button costs nothing (okay, except that few bytes of diskspace ), but there's always a chance of someone donating.

- Black