Piracy Isn't Such a Bad Thing, Says Maker of Angry Birds
In many cases, piracy reels in more "fans" -- or potential customers -- which will eventually bring in a profit.
Angry Birds developer Rovio believes that piracy may not be a bad thing after all, and that the media industries can attract new "fans" -- or rather potential paying customers -- by actually embracing those that steal from them. Rovio chief executive Mikael Hed made this revelation during the Midem conference in Cannes on Monday, claiming that fighting pirates is simply "futile."
"Piracy may not be a bad thing: it can get us more business at the end of the day," he said.
But that doesn't mean Rovio won't stand up for its rights. In some cases, the company will pursue pirates through the courts if the products they are selling are harmful yo the Angry Birds brand, or ripping off its fans. Otherwise, Rovio doesn't plan to take the music industry's route by suing everyone under the sun, even those who are dead and buried.
"We have some issues with piracy, not only in apps, but also especially in the consumer products," Hed told the audience. "There is tons and tons of merchandise out there, especially in Asia, which is not officially licensed products. We could learn a lot from the music industry, and the rather terrible ways the music industry has tried to combat piracy."
Hed said the music industry's actions have changed Rovio's view on consumers. Instead of users, they are now fans -- even those who pirate Rovio's popular Angry Birds apps.
"We took something from the music industry, which was to stop treating the customers as users, and start treating them as fans," he said. "We do that today: we talk about how many fans we have. If we lose that fanbase, our business is done, but if we can grow that fanbase, our business will grow."
Rovio now considers its Angry Birds apps as "channels" instead of games, as consumers are reportedly spending so much time flinging birds with a slingshot, that the apps are actually competing with the most popular TV shows here in the States in terms of time spent. That said, pirated Rovio apps can still make revenue for the company by channeling additional content to those naughty "fans" much like Zynga did with Lady Gaga and Michael Buble in its Facebook games.
"Already our apps are becoming channels, and we can use that channel to cross-promote – to sell further content," he said. "The content itself has transformed into the channel, and the traditional distribution channels are no longer the kingmakers."
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Rovio has a very, very positive view about piracy and how to elegantly solve it. Respect to you, Rovio.
like, yo.
A brain.
Because they make their money off advertising. Duh. Their games are nothing, its like a month's worth of work from a small team.
If they started spending 8-9 figures to create real games, and rely solely on the money from sales to recoup their investment they would change their opinion overnight.
That's the way everyone should see piracy. Me? I'm a pirate. Do I purchase games, music and movies? Yes, the ones I liked. How else am I gonna decide whether or not to buy a game that lacks a demo?
If you go to a car dealership and ask to have a test drive they won't call the cops on you, calling you a thief. Instead, you actually get to have a feel of how it drives, and then make an informed decision.
Same thing with games, go for a spin and buckle up the credit card. Or erase the whole damn thing and torch it so it doesn't come back to haunt you in case it was horrible.
Not all pirates are the pillage and burn them type, some of us just want to find a sweet game and then show our gratitude by actually purchasing it.
im gonna go pirate angry birds...
Because they make their money off advertising. Duh. Their games are nothing, its like a month's worth of work from a small team. If they started spending 8-9 figures to create real games, and rely solely on the money from sales to recoup their investment they would change their opinion overnight.
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume we're not talking US dollars here.
Just to point it out, there is a typo in this article. Says yo instead of to.
Of course they're pro-piracy. They completely ripped off and made millions from Crush the Castle's design.
I pirate things that I'm unsure about. I'll use something for a few hours and if I don't like it (like the shitty mouse control in Skyrim)... gone! Glad I didn't waste $60 on something I hate.. On the other hand, I'm glad I spent the $1500 on Visual Studio Ultimate because I like the HUGE feature difference between the Express edition and the retail edition...
Its an unrestricted demo, in my opinion.
hehe i remember i got this game on my n8 frue not to leagal terms and i did enjoy it alot, played for 2 hours before i got bored and for a mobile game its alot for me. headed ower to get it on ovi and for some reason its gotten free for my n8 cristmas give away from nokia. im still not sure howe to solve that. and btw nokia i do not forgive fucking up n8 to point of no return only cuss you gave me a few games. me and my friends will not go back to you ewer agen.
finaly a company that gets it... even pirates buy games that they like, and the people that dont buy but pirate were never gonna be customers in the first place.
the only people that suffer in the long run are the people who buy games with highly intrusive drm... they cant play there games when the drm servers go down while pirates are laughing at em for wasting there money...
better not to be overly protective and give your paying customers the credit they deserve rather than treating every 1 not just the pirates as potential criminals...
Well Played Rovio... at least some 1 is taking the rite approach...
Glad to finally see a company that realizes there is pretty much nothing that can be done to stop piracy. Even better they use a business model that can tolerate and even be benefited by pirates. Why do so few companies allow people in power to care about their customers and make money? I guarantee that those greedy companies would do even better if they did something similar.
See Rovio is quite pleased with themselves, they turned Angry Birds into a nationally recognized name. Almost like Obama's voice; when you hear it, you know it's him, even without seeing anything.
Naughty Birds
They have a very good point. I would have never bought Battlefield 3 if I had never played a pirated copy of Battlefield 2. I used to never like FPS on a PC and would have never tried them if it wasn't for that. So EA, because I pirated a game to test out, you got a customer. WHAT A CONCEPT.
Hold on guys, I think there's someone at the do-
Not only that make it easy, I use iTunes cause relatively it's easy and 2 clicks to buy, Shaalan plus iTunes is the greatet thing ever. Yes I know I could YouTube to mp3, but it's not on the go, and it's not linked to shaxam. The point make it easy and friendly and we will buy and don't try to gouge us.
I have to disagree. Piracy is stealing. What was described however is demoing. I've done my share op pirating/copying games in the past. Diablo turned into a full retail disc with music and movies from the soundless version that I had. Diablo 2 was played so much that I needed to buy it. Starcraft got a battlechest with manuals and game guides that I just wanted to have.
I don't condone piracy (unless you release a piece of crap like mw3 where the dev needs to wake up and smell the technology and gameplay) but I can see how a pirated product can advance sales if it is so good that you MUST own it. I know a few people however that don't buy the games they pirate. They finish the game which I see as taking it too far. It shouldn't go beyond the first 2-3 hours then you should have made up your mind on buying it or leaving it.
If you like it, buy it. If you dont, get rid of it.
Because they make their money off advertising. Duh. Their games are nothing, its like a month's worth of work from a small team. If they started spending 8-9 figures to create real games, and rely solely on the money from sales to recoup their investment they would change their opinion overnight.
Perhaps what you are talking about is an outdated business model then? I think what Rovio is trying to say is that you can't hit piracy head on like a bull because you'll lose your 'fanbase' - so why not change a business model to work with or alongside piracy through adverts.
For example, there could be a free version full of adverts and a full version with none? Just an example; i'm sure this could go much more indepth.
Most pirates "pirate" gigantic amounts of games, way more than they would even consider actually playing. Most of them are not real customers that would otherwise have bought. There is still some advertising to be gained, people although not paying customer that get excited about a game and talk about it may lead others to buy it. It helps create excitement, which is good as developers want to sell their game at release, not from a bargain bin a year later.
Saying piracy is only bad thing is ignoring some historical facts about historical success. Think of Microsoft, where they would have been if the whole world would not have pirated their software from day 1? I think Rovio got the point of how the richest man of the world got at that position.
10% of iPhones are jailbroken.
Guys with those generate so much "piracy" traffic, that it goes to "oh, 90% of apple apps are pirated".
For some greedy guys with little brains in management it translates into "oh, our profits could be 10 times bigger than they are, if not piracy, let's add moar DRM!!!". No, idiots, it would only harm your sales.
Unless the point of DRM is to kill used games market claiming it is "anti-piracy" measure. This is what works. (go buy or sell Starcraft 2 for instance). Oh and LAN was removed from Starcraft not because of "piracy" but because Blizzard wanted to get money from Korean Starcraft shows (they have 2 channels (!) dedicated to it in South Korea)
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume we're not talking US dollars here.
Nope, that's US dollars. The budget for The Witcher 2 was ~$11,000,000 and Battlefield 3's budget for just its marketing alone was ~$100,000,000 (I think they only spent $50,000,000 though, but that doesn't include development costs).
The average cost to produce a modern, multiplatform game is $25,000,000
Piracy is illegal and developers lose money because of it!
Nope, that's US dollars. The budget for The Witcher 2 was ~$11,000,000 and Battlefield 3's budget for just its marketing alone was ~$100,000,000 (I think they only spent $50,000,000 though, but that doesn't include development costs).The average cost to produce a modern, multiplatform game is $25,000,000
You are adding too many zeros
Nope, that's US dollars. The budget for The Witcher 2 was ~$11,000,000 and Battlefield 3's budget for just its marketing alone was ~$100,000,000 (I think they only spent $50,000,000 though, but that doesn't include development costs).The average cost to produce a modern, multiplatform game is $25,000,000
Does marketing budget have anything to do with the actual development of the game? Where did you get your numbers?
That's the way everyone should see piracy. Me? I'm a pirate. Do I purchase games, music and movies? Yes, the ones I liked. How else am I gonna decide whether or not to buy a game that lacks a demo?If you go to a car dealership and ask to have a test drive they won't call the cops on you, calling you a thief. Instead, you actually get to have a feel of how it drives, and then make an informed decision.Same thing with games, go for a spin and buckle up the credit card. Or erase the whole damn thing and torch it so it doesn't come back to haunt you in case it was horrible.Not all pirates are the pillage and burn them type, some of us just want to find a sweet game and then show our gratitude by actually purchasing it.
I'm sure you're one of those people who plays the entire game, then either decides that you don't like it, or asks themselves, what's the point of paying for it now?
People pirate stuff they can buy in store (I'm not talking about really old shows from another country) because they want a free lunch. Stop trying to justify it through arguments such as piracy isn't theft, or I only pirate to test.
Come on.
I'm sure you're one of those people who plays the entire game, then either decides that you don't like it, or asks themselves, what's the point of paying for it now?People pirate stuff they can buy in store (I'm not talking about really old shows from another country) because they want a free lunch. Stop trying to justify it through arguments such as piracy isn't theft, or I only pirate to test. Come on.
You're wrong. Don't say you know why a person does something. Sure, some pirates don't just pirate as a feature-full demo and play the whole game, but some do use it as that. Besides, if you wouldn't have bought it in the first place and you do buy it after pirating it the company gets money because you pirated it.
I wouldn't want to pay for something just to find it I don't like it. If I like it I'll buy it, if not I won't want to keep it anyway so I'll delete it. This doesn't take any money away from anyone so I don't see the problem. This way I'm more likely to give them my money.
Even the people whom keep what they pirate instead of buying it afterwards aren't costing the company money if they wouldn't have bought it anyway and those people probably wouldn't have bought it anyway. I won't condone what they do but my method would give these people more money because I won't make a gamble out of buying games on the off chance it might not be to my liking. If I couldn't test it before purchasing then I wouldn't purchase it, that would be the end of that.
Even the people whom keep what they pirate instead of buying it afterwards aren't costing the company money if they wouldn't have bought it anyway and those people probably wouldn't have bought it anyway.
Well they wouldn't have had it either.
Pirating something is against the law, whether or not you agree with a business not giving you a full copy to try. Everyone wants to bend the rules to their liking.
I used to pirate games, now I don't because I buy everything on Steam when it's on sale for $10 or less. Granted, the game companies probably hate me as much as they hate pirates, but that's their problem, not mine.
Piracy is illegal and developers lose money because of it!
DRM is legal, and developers lose money because of it!