On Linux Game Piracy
statement from Linux Game Publishing (thanks Ant and
LinuxGames) explains that
"exceptionally high levels of piracy of Linux games" is the reason they are
implementing copy protection going forward. Here's a bit:Over the last 6
years, we have resisted adding any kind of protection system to our games. We
believe that users are happier without them.
Unfortunately, many users have decided to ignore our polite requests to respect
our copyright and have simply placed our games for download. They seem to feel
that they are allowed to do so, or they just don't care. Either way, this kind
of action, and the downloading by many people, lead to a significant loss of
revenue, which in turn directly affects our ability to produce new games (we
arent about growing profits, we are talking about lower revenue directly
affecting which games can be licensed). It is estimated that many more pirated
copies of LGP games exist, than do original copies. We obtained this estimate by
seeding the download sites with a number of broken copies of our games, and
monitored the number of requests for technical support that referenced the known
bug we had inserted.
Adding copy protection will give us benefits as a company. Firstly, it will
allow us to recover some of the lost revenue, by means of additional license
sales, either via online vendors or direct through the copy protection system.
Secondly, it will allow LGP to show a solid revenue protection system that will
increase our credibility as a porting company in the eyes of licensors, allowing
us to attempt to obtain higher profile games.
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