Warez - What's a developer to do?

[Michael Y]

[noco]

[randall]

I have already cited some of this a while ago, and I completely agree. Developers are quick to find a culprit to blame sagging sales and WAREZ is the easiest target.

Truth is, 99% of devs do not have the marketing sense to push their product. That isn't their job, nor their expertise yet they decide to take it upon themselves. Then when sales don't hit where expected, somehow it isn't their fault.

If you take the job, then you are accountable. Thats all there is to it. The current mindset it assinine- It would be like me doing the music and sound for Snails, and then when everyone hated it I'd blame the apps I used to compose, or FMOD, or the poor sound quality of the device.

Snails, Chopper Alley, and Strategic Assault are successful because we worked hard to drive the product forward. If you sit on your ass and wait for things to happen, you might end up with a massive butt-cramp and thats all. Sven and Simon have the marketing sense, and it is proven with a strong track record.

All other devs need a designated Marketing Rep. If the Rep takes 5%-20% so what? REAL Marketing certainly can't drive your numbers any lower.

Now, as far as Warez goes- who can deny that its honerable intentions haven't decayed? Justification has turned into mindless blather, as the same stupid arguments are spewed without an iota of common sense. I hope those arguments are the results of the wannabes that can only get into the scene by supplying a paltry site of broken links and porn banners, because the hackers, crackers and phreaks are much smarter than that.

Distribute my game, but you better follow the same fucking rules that apply to my other distributors: supply me with real numbers and feedback. Otherwise you aren't helping me a bit. Hell, hold a goddam conference and vote on the best WAREZ'd game of all time. Under those circumstances, Nutcracker is is still in the running since the number of units sold isn't a big factor.

[Hosed]

Randall,

When did anyone here blame their sales numbers on Warez? That's not even part of the debate. As has been said, noone knows just how much is lost to warez, we're just irked that people think they're morally righteous in being warez users and distros. That's wrong no matter what the case/software/sales numbers/whatever.

If I release a piece of software and I don't want anyone using it that hasn't paid me $100 to use it, that's my decision. It might be a stupid decision, but it's mine and noone has the right to say/do otherwise. Likewise, if I decide to release the whole product for free to the world noone has the right to charge for it. Everyone would agree to the second, but for some crackpot reason noone sees that the first case is the exact same thing.

[randall]

Oh is that what I said?

At no time did I say that the dev doesn't have the right to control their distribution. But explain how they can maintain absolute control in a software market. The device we use with these apps and games have the built in capability of mass producing as many quantities as we need- simply copy the file(s). And they are exact duplicates in every way- unlike copying a video tape, book or cartridge. Even a 1000th generation copy of a file is just as perfect as the original.

It would be nice if devs put half as much effort into marketing, as they do piddling around with protections schemes that don't work and arguing in a thread like this.

Warez'ers aren't off the hook. There is absolutely no accountability within the community, and moral issues are ignored. Legalities and loopholes are their friend, and at this time there aren't enforceable laws. The lack of law does not make it right, yet many hide behind this facade. This is their only defense and we have yet to break it down.

Citing Yahoo.com as a warez portal in order to justify your pitiful site is just laughable. Yahoo is a search engine for information, first and foremost. A Warez portal is a central hub for... Warez. Thats the difference between a Pharmacy and a dope dealer. You can debate which is more valuable and versatile.

[Ben E.]

Wow ! What a thread. Here's my take on things:

I have visited Spams site for quite a while now on about a monthly basis. Even though, I'm not so much into warez(PPC stuff is cheap enough), I love the Surgery section. It btw, seems to be the part with most hits (-should that tell you devs something ?).

One of the mods there (sorrry can't remember the name ?) posted an article of how to run a webserver on a PPC about a year ago, and I was amazed as back then you couldn't find info like that on sites like Brighthand etc.

So for me personally this whole issue is not just as black and white as some people try to make it.

To sum up, I believe this site has certainly helped me in my understanding of PPC's a lot and that out of purely selfish reasons is good enough for me.

Ben E.

Post Scriptum: Slightly unrelated but conerning the whole "morality" issue: I personaly (again) think it is much more immoral that the US refuses to sign Kyoto or plan on introducing forced fingerprinting and phtographing of entering foraign nationals etc. than downloading a mp3, song or indeed a software.

[Ben E.]

Oh, and for all you statistics junkies: I'm 31, married, no kids, work in IT , the only games I have on my PPC and PC is Solitaire and the other built in stuff. I paid for Photoshop 6 and Flash MX etc., have a warezed version of Autocad 2002 and "bypassed" my XP activation.

hope that helps,

Ben E.

[simonjacobs]

[Dave]

[brendan]

[James S]

[Pocket Matrix]

[BS[214]]

brendan - Here's a trouth for you, if you had even bothered to read the thread you would know the answer to those questions is YES! please start at page 1 and continue through page 15. If you have anything intelegent to add to the conversation at that time I'm sure everyone will be glade to include you.

MooseMaster - Agian, someone that can't read. If you had checked out what this whole thing is about or even visited Spam's then you would know Spam's is not a Warez board, it is a PPC news site and forum. Many people refer to it as a warez board because we don't hide what everyone is doing there like they do here. Hell, there is a nice long discustion in your general forum about how to download PPC2002 for the iPaq from Kazaa, and whether or not it could contain a trojen. the guy that started this whole thread (Techmage) has a page listing Warez versions of Castle Wolfenstein and Beyond Castle Wolfenstein (he calls them abandonware to justify this), and we are not talking about links to the files, he's hosting the files on his angelfire account!

Pocket Matrix - Visitors from Spam's have purposly left out our URL (although one or two PM members hav listed it to prove they were tech savy). I'm sure the developers know it or can find it easy enough, but we don't feel like putting up with a bunch of leachers looking for a quick score.

[James S]

[fzammetti]