Angry Birds Creator Pro-Piracy

[CaseAgainstFaith]

Hed explained that contrary to the way things work in the music industry, Rovio only takes legal action against pirates when it feels they are selling unlicensed products that are harmful to the Rovio brand or doing things that hurt Angry Birds' giant fanbase.

"Piracy may not be a bad thing: it can get us more business at the end of the day," Hed said.

"We took something from the music industry, which was to stop treating the customers as users, and start treating them as fans. We do that today: talk about how many fans we have," he continued. "If we lose that fanbase, our business is done, but if we can grow that fanbase, our business will grow.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2399532,00.asp

Well at least finally someone is smart enough to understand how to do business.  DRM and other anti-pirate measures only serve to piss off the legal consumer of the product and doesn't actually hinder pirates or piracy.  It is good to know that Rovio understands this.  Hopefully more companies follow suite though that is probably a long shot.  Though they did gain me now as a new fan.

[TheL]

Not to mention that Angry Birds also sells TONS of adorable, if overpriced, merch.

The Bird is the word, indeed.

[GLaDOS]

Just for this, I am going to buy every angry birds game to prove them right.

[N. De Plume]

Not to mention that Angry Birds also sells TONS of adorable, if overpriced, merch.

Spaceballs had it right: That is where the real money is made!

I wonder how many people who have never even played the game have some of the merchandise anyways.

[deusmalusest]

You know this has actually been shown to be a pretty savvy business model. Good Old Games (run by Polish game developer company CDProjekt) sells a slew of vintage games with NO DRM, as well as their own Witcher series with no DRM.

On the release of Witcher 2, one of the execs did an interview on how there ended up being a ratio of about 1:4.5 legal copies sold vs pirated torrents downloads. And was totally cool with that, because while there were 4.5 million copies downloaded illegally, there were (I think this was only shortly after release) 1 million legal copies sold, and the GOG site is thriving in selling those vintage games that are often available in some manner through torrents (like Planescape: Torment).

And on a more anecdotal side, the only reason I purchased the iPad version of Angry Birds is because the version available for Android OS is free. If I'd have had to pay for the product on both platforms, I never would have.

[GLaDOS]

(click to show/hide)

Inb4 Vee calls the MAFIAA on us

[Witchyjoshy]

(click to show/hide)

Inb4 Vee calls the MAFIAA on us

+1

[Captain Jack Harkness]

Not to mention that Angry Birds also sells TONS of adorable, if overpriced, merch.

Spaceballs had it right: That is where the real money is made!

I wonder how many people who have never even played the game have some of the merchandise anyways.

G.I Joe, My Little Pony, and Transformers were created based on this ideal.  Also, a soft line on copyright is what allowed Friendship is Magic to become so incredibly popular.

I think that companies should be the ones with the full prerogative over their copyright, as that's kind of the point.  Why the hell should government get involved except for maybe when a company takes someone to court over harming a company with copyright infringement (i.e. pretending to represent the company).

Twilight Sparkle Laptop

Pinkie Pie Mouse

Yeah, those are cached versions.  The actual account is now gone, because it's a hoax.  I don't think you should EVER impersonate a company.  Ever.

[Sigmaleph]

Not to mention that Angry Birds also sells TONS of adorable, if overpriced, merch.

Spaceballs had it right: That is where the real money is made!

I wonder how many people who have never even played the game have some of the merchandise anyways.

G.I Joe, My Little Pony, and Transformers were created based on this ideal.

Also, most webcomics that make money. (admittedly a tiny proportion of all webcomics)

[Captain Jack Harkness]

Not to mention that Angry Birds also sells TONS of adorable, if overpriced, merch.

Spaceballs had it right: That is where the real money is made!

I wonder how many people who have never even played the game have some of the merchandise anyways.

G.I Joe, My Little Pony, and Transformers were created based on this ideal.

Also, most webcomics that make money. (admittedly a tiny proportion of all webcomics)

Not to derail this thread, but could you link to a few example?  I'm always game for some webcomics!

[Eniliad]

It sounds like their policy is less "we're ok with piracy" and more "we believe in not pissing off our legitimate customers enough that we're not going to go apeshit on DRM."

Minecraft follows the same policy. And I love them for it.

[Cerim Treascair]

Not to mention that Angry Birds also sells TONS of adorable, if overpriced, merch.

Spaceballs had it right: That is where the real money is made!

I wonder how many people who have never even played the game have some of the merchandise anyways.

G.I Joe, My Little Pony, and Transformers were created based on this ideal.

Also, most webcomics that make money. (admittedly a tiny proportion of all webcomics)

Not to derail this thread, but could you link to a few example?  I'm always game for some webcomics!

Notably:  Penny Arcade (www.pennyarcade.com) and Megatokyo (www.megatokyo.com) for gaming-related things
Dungeons and Denizens (dungeond.com) and Looking For Group (lfgcomic.com) for fun pokes at RPG's
I'm fond of Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures (missmab.com), Misfile (misfile.com), Gene Catlow (genecatlow.com), Gunnerkrigg Court (Tom Siddell is a GOD with his work, also www.gunnerkriggcourt.com), General Protection Fault (gpf-comics.com), Friendship is Dragons (Taking the first two episodes of FiM as a D&D campaign, also friendshipisdragons.thecomicseries.com)
Freefall (freefall.com), Sabrina Online (sabrina-online.com) and Kevin and Kell (kevinandkell.com) are long-runners that you can archive-binge on for days each, Boomer Express (boomerexpress.com) is a fun one, Brentalfloss has a small webcomic he does when he's not doing video game music (brentalfloss.com/comic).
Jolly Jack does several (I'm particularly fond of Sequential Art, it's fairly hefty itself, collectedcurios.com/index.html)
Code Name Hunter is very pretty (codenamehunter.com)


That's all I can think of off the top of my head.  See you in a couple weeks :3

[Captain Jack Harkness]

Not to mention that Angry Birds also sells TONS of adorable, if overpriced, merch.

Spaceballs had it right: That is where the real money is made!

I wonder how many people who have never even played the game have some of the merchandise anyways.

G.I Joe, My Little Pony, and Transformers were created based on this ideal.

Also, most webcomics that make money. (admittedly a tiny proportion of all webcomics)

Not to derail this thread, but could you link to a few example?  I'm always game for some webcomics!

<long ass list of webcomics>

That's all I can think of off the top of my head.  See you in a couple weeks :3

Thanks.  I'll totally check those out when I have time.  Tonight I should probably be going to bed shortly, though.

[Sylvana]

This is the correct response to piracy. By treating their customers as fans they strongly encourage legitimate purchases. It is a proven business model that fans will buy things they are a fan about. Look at things like star wars and star trek, a huge chunk of their revenue comes from people being fans and buying associated merchandise.

Unfortunately though I do understand the film and music industries concern. In the music industry allowing fans free access to the new music does increase other sales such as concerts and shirts and such, however in today's electronic age people do not like buying CDs. Even with the spike in other sales the loss of their main revenue stream is an issue. However tailoring their market for a fanbase is still possible and viable. The film industry is a different story. They rely on one hit wonders and have a very small fan support base. They might drag a movie on through a painful number of sequels, but even so it will not encourage people to buy products related to the movies. Most watch a movie and then forget about it. This is a serious problem for film studios as their only form of revenue is basically destroyed by piracy. Then again, people who pirate early editions of the movie generally help in building hype which can encourage people to go watch it, but in most cases I find people prefer to just wait for the DVD and then download a ripped copy.

[Captain Jack Harkness]

This is the correct response to piracy. By treating their customers as fans they strongly encourage legitimate purchases. It is a proven business model that fans will buy things they are a fan about. Look at things like star wars and star trek, a huge chunk of their revenue comes from people being fans and buying associated merchandise.

Unfortunately though I do understand the film and music industries concern. In the music industry allowing fans free access to the new music does increase other sales such as concerts and shirts and such, however in today's electronic age people do not like buying CDs. Even with the spike in other sales the loss of their main revenue stream is an issue. However tailoring their market for a fanbase is still possible and viable. The film industry is a different story. They rely on one hit wonders and have a very small fan support base. They might drag a movie on through a painful number of sequels, but even so it will not encourage people to buy products related to the movies. Most watch a movie and then forget about it. This is a serious problem for film studios as their only form of revenue is basically destroyed by piracy. Then again, people who pirate early editions of the movie generally help in building hype which can encourage people to go watch it, but in most cases I find people prefer to just wait for the DVD and then download a ripped copy.

I'm not sure if it is, but bonus content needs to be unrippable, with permission or ownership changes impossible.  Hell, if they could do that for the movie, then all the better.  I just mention the extras for the sake of stalwart fans, if that's not already the case.

Yeah, movies suffer from the lack of new content.  Of course, if they're related to or part of a TV series, the effects are mitigated, I would imagine.