There’s been a bit of a furore this week instigated by EA planning to charge $10 for an online pass for their EA Sports titles. Newly bought games will come with a code covering it, but anyone buying pre-owned will have to pay the $10 to access online services.
Predictably, it’s suffering quite a backlash from [...]

The argument goes that piracy is killing games/music/film, and the counterargument goes that pirates wouldn’t pay full price, so it’s not as big a dent in profits as entertainment industries like to make out. However, that’s not exactly an easy thing to measure.
Wolfire has some back-of-fag-packet workings, but with an interesting point: estimates are that [...]

Lewie Proctor pulls in a variety of opinions on piracy over at Savy Gamer, including CEO of TIGA Richard Wilson, indie developer Cliff Harris, and Dmitry Guseff from DRM provider StarForce.
All kinds of new platforms are habituating people to buying downloadable titles, but it’s new territory and there have been a lot of screw ups. [...]

A furious commotion has developed in the past few days over game piracy. Since I posted about an indie developer’s efforts to talk to pirates, a file sharer has been ordered to pay £16,000 in damages and costs, and five publishers have announced combined legal action against 25,000 people.
It’s unlikely that many of these will [...]

Indie developer Cliff Harris posted a request for comments on his blog last week: “I want to know why people pirate my games. I honestly do.”, and the response is both fascinating and important. He’s collated the responses and his conclusions here. The whole thing is worth reading, but one of the most important things [...]