Putting morality aside, I think that, as forward-thinking as Frogboy is, he and many other posters on this thread are getting left behind in social and economic development because they're letting their emotions get the better of them.
In terms of traditional morality, it is, in fact, quite true that ideas and such were not considered property until very recently in history, and in many parts of the world, it's STILL not considered property, but something that's meant to be to distributed freely.
The problem with comparing it to stealing comes not from how different ideas and software is from normal items of ownership. The problem is that your morals keep getting in the way of good business.
Frogboy here speaks about getting incensed about having people play his game. Why? Those people aren't stealing your house. They would never have bought the game in the first place, and they're improving word of mouth and game visibility because they like the game and endorse it to their friends. In fact, I'd go out on a limb and say that neither Demigod, nor GalCiv II, nor Sins would have performed as well as they have if it were not for piracy - piracy is like free advertising.
Of course there is the business side of things; but again, I think that all this morality based entitlement to pay and monetary returns is clouding your thinking. Does Facebook charge its users? NO. But despite that, Zuckerberg seems incredibly happy that they're using HIS SOFTWARE anyway.
This underlies a point I'm making. Software cannot and should not be equated to traditional IPs like books and poems, not because it's morally correct, but because doing so hurts us more than it helps. That includes you, Frogboy.
All those people who logged in with pirated copies are potential customers. They may live somewhere in the Philippines with no more than $5 to spare on a game, but you have their complete and undivided attention. That is worth something. The only question you have to ask yourself is, how do I best go about monetizing this influence?
If that Filipino can spare no more than $5 on his hobby or his children starve, then asking him for $10 gets you nothing - he'll pirate the game. However, asking for $5 gets you $5, which is more than nothing.
In Piracy and PC Gaming, Draginol makes a reference about making a game for the Chinese market, implying that the rampant piracy makes it impossible to make a game for the East Asian sphere. That is, in fact, untrue. Level Up Games is raking in money hand over fist in a region of the world where many people live well below Western salary standards and where piracy is rampant.
How?
They do this by focusing on monetizing their influence rather than on protecting their IP. Most of Level Up's games aren't only free to download, they freely tell you to download it for free off their own servers and occasonally ask you to seed it on torrents. They are essentially taking advantage of pirate technology and distribution channels to dominate the market through near 100% saturation.
But distributing a game for free doesn't mean that they skimp on quality nor does it mean that they don't make a buck - in fact, they do.
Level Up's market structure is based on microtransactions - allowing the user to tailor his experience according to what he can afford and what he likes. Most people aren't only willing to pay up - they're HAPPY to pay up, because they like the game they're playing.
I realize that releasing a game for free in the US, say, is actually bad for business - it makes people think that your game is crap. But what if, say, you released Demigod for $10? That's so cheap that anyone who wants it can probably afford it, but not so cheap that people will think you're ripping them off or are shipping a bad game.
I'm not talking a sub-Demigod product here. I'm talking the real deal - the full Demigod experience you can have right now.
The point of this release is to spawn awareness and to develop interest and influence. You can monetize that influence later on by selling maps for $2 apiece and new Demigods for $5 apiece.
If, over the course of a year, your customers buy 4 new Demigods and 5 new maps (which is reasonable for a year's consumption), you will have essentially sold your game for $40!
But isn't that the same as retailing it for $40?
No.
There are people who won't be willing to buy the retail for that much - you can convince them to buy because of the lower price point, and once they're hooked on the game, $5 for a new Demigod becomes a LOT easier to sell. Even if they don't buy anything, you will have made $10 where you would have made nothing. And it's not like Stardock doesn't ALREADY deal in add-on software for existing programs.
My takeaway message here is this: piracy is a reality. However, people playing YOUR pirated game reflects a level of influence outside your sales model that you are NOT monetizing. Forget the morality. Show me the money!
PS: on a more technical note, most hackers hack games for two reasons: profit or interest. Whole games are attractive targets because they offer a single concrete and discrete challenge with a substantial reward. One Demigod application add-on as a discrete code does not offer either kind of pirate as much of a return for his effort and discourages it on the most fundamental level - economic.
