If you can find a definitive way of telling how much it costs you then go ahead and share. And before you ask, taking stats of how many copies were downloaded and multiplying it by 50$ is not a definitive way.

People think that I am crazy when I talk about piracy having a positive effect. But then people dont look at Music industry, PSP and Anime industry. If it wasnt for piracy we would never have itunes and an ability to download songs that we want to have instead of paying for a cd on which 10 out of 12 songs are filler. Every single anime that ever comes out in United States gets fansubbed beforehand and yet there was not a single big case in which a licensing company stopped fansubbers because PIRACY GAVE THEM FREE PUBLICITY.

Every good game that doesnt sell well has lack of advertisement to blame, mainly because developers cant afford it, but with piracy you can have huge word of mouth effect.

Don't corrupt the save game.

Make bars that covers parts of the screen with "this game is pirated". The longer they play the bigger the bars get.

The save game is still there and thus they still have their time investment in the game. This way to countiune they need to buy the real game.

I already answered this in my post by naming the cost for my company....

Oh noooo !!

You know that all 10% of those customers would of paid for it? 

You are taking the same flawed approach to piracy.  Looking at every pirated copy you can find and treating it as a lost sale.

That's exactly why you don't know what your talking about.  You aren't taking an actual researched look on it.

It's like saying that anyone who would except a free pizza given out on the street would in fact have purchased that pizza.

Haven't you ever eaten somewhere before you didn't perfer or didn't usually eat at because you got a really good deal?  Or because a party was being held there and the food was free?  Etc.

At most you could argue that by eating that Pizza, they aren't buying another piece of food they would perfer.

Even that analogy falls apart because people NEED food.  They don't need Warcraft 3.  Which is why a direct "Downloads = lost sales" or "People we caught" methodology is about as far from correct as one could get.

Or got a gift from someone you would of never bought yourself but later liked and kept... or liekd but would of never bought for the price they sold for?

You've never gotten something for free you had no intention of buying?

That woudn't work.

The issue right now is that DRM or any other piracy protection is easy to crack because you can keep trying until you see if it is done or not.  Software doesn't include time bombs so pirate can see by launching the game and see if their crack works or not, there's no smart software that knows it has been cracked but act as if it hasn't waiting for a later date to actually react to it........

What you need is smart software that realizes it has been cracked but acts normally, waiting for the right time to go wrong so as to fool the pirate and let him believe his work is done and he can distribute the pirated copy......

And when the time comes, only harm stuff related to the software itself  ( corrupt the save or just stop saving for example).Corrupting being a better idea as if you stopped saving 2 months after being pirated for example the pirate would just crack the version that now fails to save and fix it. Mess up the save game itself however and you really did waste some of the time of those people playing the pirated version....

@Twesterm

Putting virus infected torrent on website doesn't work, you think you are the first with that idea? The website just remove them. That why anti-piracy organisation and other company aren't able to floud torrent website with fake and virus to discourage pirate, like they can do with program such as Limewire.

DRM doesn't work either, the best way for a PC game to minimize piracy is to offer an experience based around online play. The diminution of sale you get by not selling to people who lack an internet connection is more than offset by the diminution in piracy.

I remember an interesting post by the CEO of Stardock who explained why he didnt use DRM in its game. He simply didn't take pirate into account, they aren't consumer, so putting DRM to affect there behavior serve no purpose. In contrast to putting DRM which purpose is to try to transform the pirate into a consumer to the detrimant of the actual consumers. Certainly not the most mainstream point of view but an interesting one none the less.

Sure I know because once we caught them they started paying............( they all settled out of court and are now paying royalties for their real use of the software..)

Why did they start paying?  Because they were afraid of legal threats?

Even if they did pay because they liked the product.  Do you have any proof they liked the product that much before they pirated?

Microsoft for example wants people to pirate there work because they recognize the fact that having your software pirated is an advantage that creates new customers that later may transition into paying customers.

Haven't you ever gotten something for free that you thought you wouldn't like... and then it grew on you?  Where you later realized the value of the product and how much it was worth?

Or gotten something cheap and then realized why it was worth the full price?

Here is an example.  Have you ever rented a videogame before buying it to see if it was worth your 60 dollars. (Not going with the "rental defense" just illustrating a point.)

In this method, you are unsure of wheter you would buy the game... and the rental decides it for you.  In otherwords you may not of bought the game without the rental first.

So say... your iffy about Too Human because of the rating... and probably won't get it... but are still curious about the game.  Rent it... and find out you like it.

Had it been impossible to rent the game... would you have later bought Too Human?  Unlikely.

Why would a pirate now buy said software?  Because they're familiar with it.  They don't want to learn another $200+ office tool.

Example, I used SAS and SPSS in school for statistical training through there agreements with the companies.  Had I not had free access to these programs i would of never considered buying them and likely went with a free stats program or one i was more familiar with outside of college use... like Excel (despite excel sucking.)

Even better, the mayority of the US citizens don't know the US legal system better than the non US citizens... I practically live in 2 countries because of work, one of them is the US but i am also a non-US citizen...

You must know some of the "wonders" of the US legal system, one of them is that not everything is based on the written law, most of them are based in precedents, jurisprudence, and if it is a jury trial, is not even about the law, if you convince those 12 people then you win the case, and sometimes the case doesn't even get to court not because of the law, it's because of avoiding bad publicity and court expenses...

So if the pirate sues you with a great lawyer and definitive proof that the malware was put by your company, who losses the most? your company or the pirate? your company, because even when the guy was a pirate, your company is supposed to be serious and if that case get to the media, no one will trust your software and BAM, your company lose money, if it is a judge, he'll rule according how the law applies to the charges of the lawsuit, if it's a jury they'll rule according to the lawyer that convinced them, and in both cases the charges are against your company... Last there is the settlement option, where the case doesn't get out to the media and you lose the amount accorded between both sides.

The best way is before doing that, consult with good lawyers what is the best way to protect your software and your behind at the same time in case of a lawsuit... One form is taking away the online play...

I put this post on the previous page but i'm not sure if it was read...