I remember when I was fresh in school and Electronic Arts came by to do some recruiting way way long ago. They said that the way they measure the size of the pirate community is by using the same metric as to those who steal cable TV. Then came the internet and everyone didn't bother getting on it until Napster, no one had a real reason too. Now some years later I would say the way to gauge the amount of piracy in the FS community is directly related to how many people actually steal music. It's the same people if they don't care in one case, they're probably not going to care in the FS case. So take that into consideration the next time you want to start an addon company or get into the music industry, things are not going to be any different for you then it is for Electronic Arts or Sony for that matter. The key to success in this industry is to make a product that everybody wants and that way you'll make enough regardless of what percentage of the sales you lose since that is FIXED!I've had a lot of experience in this so called Entertainment industry and I've even been apart of a project where we've taken something 20 year old products and resold it for 3-5x price to the same original customers! You have to think differently like Peter says... and the #1 thing is VALUE.

Did you see his group?

No I did not see what group he was in... I didn't notice because it does not happen very often fortunately.

Furthermore, comments like "Piracy and/or file sharing is killing the FS addon industry" are total bs. What IS killing the industry is an overload of sub-par products, lazy fs9 to fsx ports, and developers who generally just do not care. You know who you are...

But wouldn't you agree that piracy is at least doing some damage to the FS industry?Sure, innovation is important but if people don't pay for that innovative product, it sure does hurt the devs. You guys might have already read this letter over at FTX forums but have a look: HERESpecially in these hard economic times, I believe piracy mixed with the bad economy is having a devastating effect on the developers.

While not of a flight sim product, a Would-be Modern Warfare 2 pirate busted for selling pirated versions of Activision's Modern Warfare 2. I would like to see more pirates busted and sent to jail.

I honestly am baffled at how this topic can endlessly be kicked around. If I were to go into a store and walk out the door with something I did not pay for it is considered theft.Going to one of those sites to download a product that you are supposed to pay for is no different.Is it really that hard to understand?I'm curious to know how many of you have lost money on a product that was pirated.

This is of course is the black and white approach and is one of the reasons the subject does get 'endlessly kicked around'. Developers have been quick to take advantage of the reduced cost of distribution and wider market share that digital technology offers, but like to remind us that if we walked into their store and stole some software off their shelf it would be stealing. It's almost as if they're oblivious to the market they are now in. They are happy to accept the extra benefits of the global internet market but are not so keen to adapt to its disadvantages. They should take a lesson from the street entertainer.We are all familiar with the street performer. He/she encourages us to gather around by doing small tricks until there are enough people to start the main performance. This is equivalent to offering trial software. It gives us a good indication of the performers quality. If you walk away now it is acceptable, but we all know what happens if we stay to the end. The performer will challenge us to pay for what we have just seen. A lot of people just slink off into the crowd. These people are equivalent to the downloaders of illegal software. But many will have their consciences pricked and reward the entertainer with a living. The entertainer knows and accepts that some people will always try to get something for free including having their act shared on You Tube (the uploaders), but most reasonable people will pay for quality and the aim is to improve the quality of the performance and thereby increase the number of people who want to feel honestly associated with that peformance. "It was a great show mate. It was well worth paying you a couple of bucks!" Street entertainers have been living with 'piracy' in this sense for a very long time. Although, another street performer who 'steals their act' had better watch out!!! See the difference? Now how many people in this thread can say they have always paid the enterntainer what he is due? I suspect many who decry the current state of affairs regarding software piracy have watched a fair percentage of a street performers act and then walked away before the performer started asking for money. Developers need to forget about their bricks and mortar stores and people stealing off their shelves. They are now street entertainers and have to ...well..entertain! To do this they must provide a good product (with good support) and make your customers like you. Make it easier for them to download and activate your product. How many people would go inside a tent to see a street entertainer? The entertainer accepts his product will be taken for free by some. Of course he/she has every right to protest, shout at and embarass those who slink off, but he/she doesn't lock them in a tent. Give your potential customers a decent demo, not a video. I use FTX as a good example of how this should be done. IMHO a lot of small developers out there simply don't have products or polished performances of a level that would be expected of a street performer. They don't provide demo's because that would kill the sale outright. Instead, they offer doctored videos. They try to overcome their lack of sales by blaming piracy then lock down their software and make their few customers go through all sorts of hoops to access the product they have paid for. But, the fact is that it's not piracy thats killing this developer, its that most people are walking away before the show is finished. Finally, I mentioned FTX before. I think they are the best street performers in the small developers world at the moment. They shout loudly and embarass people who slink away without paying but they put on a good show. Judging by their almost evangelistic forum, there are plenty of people out there more than happy to pay upfront not just for this performance but for future performances as well! They have captured and are protecting with outstanding on-going support their target market. Great demos and simple activation. They have adapted to the global markets disadvantages. I would be surprised if they weren't reaping the benefits. Disclaimer: I have an FTX product and am a member of the forums but are not affiliated or associated with FTX in any other way.

I have to say, that's the best analogy for the current situation that I have seen yet... It hits the nail right on the head regarding the situation of payware in general.

Interestingly, this thread is reminding me of a talk on management that I heard at a leadership conference by Gary Hamel. One of the concepts he kicked around was, "Are our businesses models changing as fast as the world is? Or are our businesses atrophying as as our model becomes outdated?" In reading the article, that was the main thing I was picking up on it. The game is changing rapidly in just about every market in the world, but most are holding to age old concepts that for the most part are showing they no longer apply. More innovative companies are beginning to beat out long standing ones. Just look at what Southwest has done to the airline industry, and most of the industry is still doing business as they always have and are dying while Southwest somehow manages to thrive.Most of the posters here don't sound like they're trying to legitimize piracy, but to point out that the playing field is changing and it requires game plans to change. As Peter said, piracy is, unfortunately, here to stay. How do you either work with it or try to minimize it's impact? The article mentioned the author's way, which I agree with a few, wouldn't work in the Flight Sim market, but certainly there are places innovation can take root. I've enjoy a lot of the payware products that you guys develop and it would be a shame to see any of you fail because you failed to find a way to adapt to an ever-changing landscape.

LF, In this new world order are all engineers street performers? What about lawyers? ;)As I see it, street performers voluntarily perform for donations. And, people sometimes choose to work pro bono

Lord Farringdon & Peter Clemenko, you guys nailed it! True Entrepreneur/CEO type of thinking and problem analysis! I love it! You guys actually understand the situation unlike others who just want to complain and blame. I've been in the game/film industry for almost 13 years now and have worked on some very big projects (Gears of War, Command and Conquer, Transformers the Movie, etc). And everything i've worked on ends up on TPB on the day of release. This NEVER have bugged me because if the product is good, then it'll sell. The paying public is much bigger than the people who pirate. I've never worked on a project where the exec. producer says "would our game/film fail because of piracy?" We never even think about it. Instead, we focus on making the product as good as we can, and the people will pay and the fan base will grow. In fact, I've worked on games where the studio uploads their own games to TPB; because it's a form of viral marketing. Let me explain below:The analogy of "stealing an item" from the store vs digital piracy doesn't hold up. In the real world, products are made of materials. It costs actual money when items are stolen. In the digital word, there is no such thing. It costs nothing to make a perfect copy. Thus, when we release a game, it doesn't cost us anything to upload a perfect copy to torrent sites. And if the product is good, it'll start climbing up the ranking and be seen by a lot of people. Due to the size of games these days (average is about 4-6 Gigs), some people will just rather go buy it. And even if they download it, a lot of them will show the game to their friends and spread the word - the true power of the internet. In fact, i love it when i see games/films i've worked on ranked high on TBP; because it means it's popular! By having your product ranked high, it's free marketing for us and it doesn't cost us a cent. Meanwhile, the real product is sitting inside stores, sold legally to customers and making profits. Some people here are saying that piracy brought down their business. This just makes no sense. If that were the case, then wouldn't every product that's on TBP be out of business? I see RealAir, PMDG, etc all over pirate sites, and yet, these companies are doing just fine. Why? Because they make good products and have a strong community of loyal customers. They are constantly improving their products and supporting their releases. Btw, i'm not condoning piracy here (I spend 10K+ on software for every employee i hire - Adobe Suite, 3D MAX, etc adds up quick!). I have a policy in my studios to never use pirated software. If the employee wants something, we'll just buy it for them. Why? Because we need the support and relationships from these software companies.Anyways, it's a tough topic for the hardliners to swallow. You guys raised some excellent points and suggestions.But for those hardliners, don't worry. In about 3-5 years, most digital products (especially games), will all be server based (think of Steam 3.0 or something). Everyone will need an account to login and play. All the core content is on the server side. This will reduce piracy greatly for the bigger products. MMO games are essentially there. Rise of Flight is another example. This will ###### off some people at first, but they'll all get used to it. Think of it as Cable TV. You pay a monthly fee and watch whatever you want. However, you don't own a single show. Games will be one of the first to go this route. Notice Microsoft inserting the word "LIVE" into all their products? They are slowly getting their customers to think "all products are server based." And if you check the recent patents filed by Microsoft, you'll notice a lot of "leasing of software and hardware" clauses... :)-feng

Argh...What a sad thought that everything will be sever based. I'm all for new tech, but to have to rely on a sever for somthing as simple as a game? I don't care for Steam. It just makes things more complicated. A little less "Big Brother", please.Bob

I suggest that everyone who claims that piracy is left refer to the following court case:http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getc...us/473/207.htmlBasically it says that copyright infringement is different from theft, because no physical items are lost by the act.This isn't an attempt to justify piracy, but in order to make arguments against it, it is probably a good idea to stand on a legal footing, which claiming it is theft is not. Copyright infringement is illegal, so saying that piracy isn't theft doesn't mean it is legal. It just means it is a different crime, with different levels of seriousness in the eyes of the law.

That's a lawyer's thoughts... which have little to do with right versus wrong. :(If you have something, that has to be paid for to obtain, and you didn't pay for it.... in my opinion, that's theft. I don't care what the 'item' is.

Argh...What a sad thought that everything will be sever based. I'm all for new tech, but to have to rely on a sever for somthing as simple as a game? I don't care for Steam. It just makes things more complicated. A little less "Big Brother", please.Bob

I HATED steam when it first came out, but the current version of it is awesome! I buy everything off of steam now. It's not what you think. Steam allows you to buy a game and start playing as soon as finish downloading. It also keeps all the games updated w/ the latest patch, etc. The entire system is very efficient. Plus, you can have Steam backup all the files to your harddrive, so you don't ever need to re-download. The best part is that games you bought on steam are forever your's. You don't need to keep CDs around. Just login and retrieve anything you want, and as many times as you want.Steam is the start of how a lot of studios will eventually go. It's the right business model for digital media.I don't understand why people get so worked up about server based stuff. Most of you guys watch TV right? do you guys own the shows? No. But you can record them and watch it as many times as you want right? The "i don't own" it part never comes into play when it comes to Television shows. In fact, as a consumer, you will benefit.The same can be applied to games. For example, instead of buying one game, a "smart" company will allow you to play all their games. Take Microsoft for example. Maybe you sign up for a 29.95$/month "Live account." But now you have access to EVERY game MS makes. Play them anytime you want and try out new products. This benefits the publisher since it can expose all their titles to the consumer, and for the consumer, they are paying a much lower rate for games. The math makes sense. Anyways, this system doesn't exist yet in the US (only a few studios are doing it), but it is behind all the multi-billion dollar studios in Asia....they are way ahead of the curve when it comes to this business model....just read interviews by CEOs of EA, Activision, etc...and they all agree it is the future of games....and they are studying Asian game studios like crazy. -feng

I HATED steam when it first came out, but the current version of it is awesome! I buy everything off of steam now. It's not what you think. Steam allows you to buy a game and start playing as soon as finish downloading. It also keeps all the games updated w/ the latest patch, etc. The entire system is very efficient. Plus, you can have Steam backup all the files to your harddrive, so you don't ever need to re-download. The best part is that games you bought on steam are forever your's. You don't need to keep CDs around. Just login and retrieve anything you want, and as many times as you want.Steam is the start of how a lot of studios will eventually go. It's the right business model for digital media.I don't understand why people get so worked up about server based stuff. Most of you guys watch TV right? do you guys own the shows? No. But you can record them and watch it as many times as you want right? The "i don't own" it part never comes into play when it comes to Television shows. In fact, as a consumer, you will benefit.The same can be applied to games. For example, instead of buying one game, a "smart" company will allow you to play all their games. Take Microsoft for example. Maybe you sign up for a 29.95$/month "Live account." But now you have access to EVERY game MS makes. Play them anytime you want and try out new products. This benefits the publisher since it can expose all their titles to the consumer, and for the consumer, they are paying a much lower rate for games. The math makes sense. Anyways, this system doesn't exist yet in the US (only a few studios are doing it), but it is behind all the multi-billion dollar studios in Asia....they are way ahead of the curve when it comes to this business model....just read interviews by CEOs of EA, Activision, etc...and they all agree it is the future of games....and they are studying Asian game studios like crazy. -feng

How about those of us whose internet connections are still unrealiable-even though spending the big bucks on services like Comcast-or worse those who can only get dial up or nothing?

How about those of us whose internet connections are still unrealiable-even though spending the big bucks on services like Comcast-or worse those who can only get dial up or nothing?

yup, this is a problem with the US. This is also why the server-based business model has not taken off....yet. In Asia, there is no such thing as dial-up. They skipped it and went straight to broadband. Even in China (i lived in Beijing for 2 years), you get great broadband service (but minus the hardcore censoring...hahah). Thus, the server-based business model just took off like wild-fire over there. Companies literally went from 30-employees to a company worth 3-4 billion within a few years (look up Perfect World, Giant, Net-Ease). This type of results is what all the major publishers in the US want. However, because of the above reason, it's hard to put into play (and also the "i must own it" mentally a lot of people in the states have). Until the broadband issue is resolved in the states, Box products will still be the dominate way people purchase digital media. However, it'll change over time. Or studios will just "loose the sale" of those who can't connect to broadband. The majority who can will make up the loss. For example, World of Warcraft isn't hurting one bit and neither is Steam. Yes, it's unfair some customers can't use these products, but the high profit margins offset this need in the eyes of the CEOs/CFOs. Also, by going server based, your products are instantly "global." You don't need to be inside Walmart or Game Shop. Steam's customers are world wide. I'm a US citizen living in Singapore, but that doesn't stop me from using Steam. This is the beauty of digital media. -feng