deals on games and piracy

Cliffski,

I’m all about supporting indie and artists but I don’t make much money above living costs so I have to be choosy about what I spend my money on. I used to buy every game I played and they always cost 19.99, but then there'd be off for buying more than one, like 2 would cost $30. I’d be more apt to buy 2 games at a time from your site if they were $30. The reasons I started pirating games though, first it seemed anytime there were technical difficulties it was so hard to get help. The last game I purchased before yours would open then crash, and no one could help me and they just kept dismissing me, I spent hours for about 3 nights trying to get these people to help me get the game working, finally I just said to give me my money back and I’d never purchase a game from them again. That’s when the prircay started.

Another reason why I started is because many of the games I purchased ended within an hour or two and they are the types of games that you can’t play again, well, you can but you know how to solve it so, it’s boring, games like Azada. Since I sometimes play games for many hours a night, depending on my mood, I could go through $60 of games in a night. You can’t really tell with the demo how long it will last.

But if it wasn’t for piracy, I wouldn’t have found you. I was on my usual bittorrent site and was looking for a new game, I was browsing through the list of one of the user’s ho usually has tons of good games and I saw Oval Office, and I became an addict, through that I found your site and now here I am ready to purchase. If I wasn’t looking to pirate a game that day, then I would never have found you, because I stopped going to gaming websites altogether after all of the bad or non-existent support.

I do have to say, when i became addicted to Oval Office and came to your site, I found out about Dem. 2 and Kudos, at that time, I didn’t have an extra $1 to spare and due to some medical problems taking up all of my money, I knew I wouldn’t have any extra money for games for a while, so I did pirate Kudos, Dem. 2 and Rock Legend, it came a s pack of all 3 games and have been playing them, but now today, finally I have some extra cash and I’m going to spend it here.

I was just hoping I could buy 2 games for $30 or 3 games for $70 or something like that. Though I can’t afford $70 right now, so I guess I wouldn’t be choosing that option. I deleted the pirated versions of Dem 2 and Kudos from my machine and am going to purchase one or two games today and will continue to do so each time I get paid.

As others have said at $20, I’ll buy one about 1 a week, if they were $10 each, I wouldn’t even think about buying them much more often. But you can’t just change the price and end up giving all your time away for free, you have to make sure you are making a decent profit, so I do understand that.

I do love indies though, watching the world being absorbed by huge companies is depressing, so I always do whatever I can to support indies. I’m impressed that you’ve come this far and wish you the best. I was even trying to think if there’s some way I could volunteer for you to help you, if there is, let me know, I’m a software person in my professional life (so I know both sides of big corps swallowing the little guys, I hope if it comes to that with you, you can resist, but hey, if they offer you the right price, you’d be a fool not to take it and run).

Daisy (let’s hope for better health so I don’t have to choose priacy over purchasing)

Hey, thanks for posting an being honest about it all.

I usually get them off a multi game site like reflexive and I pay for that. On some of those sites you can get deals, i am hoping cliff still makes a profit if I buy from a site which is selling his game? If I can not afford it I do not buy it, I realise other people out there need to make money, pay bills and etc. Do people condone stealing from a small business or shoplifiting from a shop? Because that is essentially what it is, these games are not essential to living they are a luxery surely we recognise that and buy them accordingly.
Big game companies however I feel are a different a ballgame. I do not personally pirate but my brother does for his daughter because her love of the Sims 2 games and there a million add ons because the way they pump them out its all about money and it wont affect them in anyway really.

Cliff,

I used to choose piracy over purchasing, but then I stopped. Not that big corporations like EA games or Ubisoft need my 19.99, but because of smaller makers like positech. I think your doing a great job fighting piracy. The only thing that doesnt make sence is that lots of people report you ‘lurking’ on pirating websites with multi-accounts trying to stop people from pirating your games. That is sort-of an effective way of reducing piracy, but if you just talked to pirates, and make them give you some respect, then maybe it might be better. I know you ran the “Talking to Pirates” article, that was brilliant, but from what I’ve read and seen on pirating boards is not in your favour.

Good luck Cliff, you have my support.

actually the vast majority of those accounts are not me. They are pirates claiming to be me, because it annoys them that I got their rapidshare links removed and they want to give me a bad reputation,.
It’s tragic isn’t it?

Ah, thats horrible.

I couldn’t agree more, apart from their main game, Its all a way to make 5 times more money on a game that they have slightly improved. Pirating Big companies is still wrong, but I would feel happier(I don’t pirate) since they have basically thought, “Whats the minimum we can get a way with and still sell millions of copies”