Because there's no such thing as Internet Ninjas

Piracy on the internet is really rampant. I'm sure everyone is saying 'no, really?' but the rampant growth of internet piracy is important for today's topic.

I'm not going to talk about something boring like whether software piracy is a moral thing or not. I'm sure you have your own views on it. I'm pretty sure that if you guessed, you could figure mine out too.

What I am going to talk about is the impact of piracy on content providers.

The bottom line on content such as music or literature or software is that someone has to pay for it to get produced. It costs money to put CDs or books on the shelves, and it takes time to write books or make music. If they don't make a return on that time and money, they come out at a loss. So if we don't buy their stuff, they lose money, right?

This is seemingly not actually the case for many content providers though. Blame Society Productions has nearly all of their content available for free, either on their website or on youtube. It's pretty hard to pirate it when it is already free! However, Blame Society also sells DVDs and merchandise, and they make fairly good money even though the DVDs contain material you can already get on the internet for free without needing to pirate.

Other small-time content providers are also following this trend - all of their music, videos, or whatever can be seen online for free. They sell CDs and MP3s of their stuff and they still make enough money to live off of, and continue making music. Many of them do exceptionally well using this model.

Contrast this with Adobe Photoshop. PS is a very detailed and expensive program, but the development time for PS is laudable compared to the development time for most video games. Still, PS costs way too much money - far out of the reach of most internet artists. Although there are cheaper alternatives, PS is frequently pirated because the price is so out of reach for normal people that it's clear Adobe does not actually care about their product being pirated.

From my observations, I can see that the main people who are 'hurt' by piracy are bloated corporations who abused the existing marketing system and are too invested in the current marketing system to change. Big name bands have a lot to be hurt by piracy, because they already have all the publicity they need (who hasn't heard of Metallica?) and any money lost dips into their ability to live completely extravagant lifestyles.

We may lose a lot from big name companies not being able to make products, though. For instance, if movie companies could not put millions of dollars into movie production and make money, the overall quality of product may drop. Obviously this means nothing for the music industry or for books, but games and movies could drop in quality if we don't pay for their products.

Somehow, I don't see that happening though. The console gaming market is going very strong, and even PC game sales are steadily rising even in our garbage economy. Movies are also having strong increases in profit so I doubt that movie quality is going to drop anytime soon.

I think it's worth noting that a lot of content providers that aren't free, like gootecks, advocates free sharing of his content if you buy it. He's just looking to get by and he wants his information to be heard. I think, again, that is pretty awesome.

I don't think piracy or the internet are going to ruin the economy in any way. I do think it will continue to do damage to big music artists, but really, that market is so lacking in real talent right now that it deserves to be flipped. And honestly, there is not a lot we can do about it either way.

Again, this is nothing about the morality of piracy. You can draw your own conclusions on that.

The Gaming Industry, Q1 2009

I'm kind of at a loss to post about things today, but I can at least bring up some boring business stuff going on in the gaming world and my thoughts.

Despite the economy in America basically being awful, the gaming industry sure couldn't tell. We've experienced around a 15% overall growth in sales since last year, and the trends show no sign of stopping, which is pretty great for everyone.

The gaming market is, as pretty much everyone knows, really leaning towards the casual side of things. The Wii is kicking serious ass in the market right now. February was one of the biggest non-holiday sales months for video games in, well, forever. The big killers in the market have been the Wii and DS. The Wii literally sold over twice as many units as the 360 last month.

770 thousand Wiis in one month. I'm sure that Nintendo wasn't necessarily shooting for this big of a market share, but they have the market by the throat now. It's all because the Wii is made for everyone. Even my 60+ year old aunt has a Wii and plays Wii Fit. She's never even heard of Street Fighter or Metroid Prime, but she loves playing the Wii. That's some crazy stuff.

So I gotta ask, what's the secret? What's the trick to making games that are this successful? Nintendo isn't using anywhere near the same model as World of Warcraft, and yet their sales figures put Blizzard's to shame, at least when it comes to number of installed users.

I'll tell you guys what I think. Gamers like me (and maybe some of you guys too) are becoming a minority. Even though it might be a little scary that the hardcore market might shrink a lot in the next decade or so, I think it's great that we are getting tons of new blood. It's getting easier and easier to understand video games, and that means that we'll get a lot of new buyers of all types of games, not just casual ones. After all, parents that play the Wii will foster kids who play 360, and kids will fuel the hardcore market just like they always have.

I mean, Street Fighter 4 is making a killing in stores right now (it's already platinum, lol) and SF4 is a hella hardcore game.

As the expert nerds that we are, it's up to us to set a good example for newer casual gamers. I can't stress enough that if we want to survive we're going to have to learn to get along with the new guys that don't know what the differences between Mortal Strike and Shadow Bolt are, or for the more reasonable, Sap and Gouge.

Casuals are just nerds waiting to happen. So if you see some casual noob asking what's the difference between a hex and a condition is, help them out. They're our future! Eventually we can get them hooked on 25-man raids and standing roundhouses into Ultras.

As I mention all the time, it's a good idea to put the right ideas in the head of our casuals too. Politeness and courtesy are the best ways to make sure that we get fewer 14-year-olds shouting obscenities into the mic on XBL.

I can dream, right?

PS: I don't actually play WoW, but I know a ton about it because I'm nerdy like that