Squawk Box August 20 - Calliflower Online Meetings and Conference Call Services by iotum

My former boss Bobby Kotick is doing quite well

Ken Camp said:

I'll try to do so more often Alec

Mark Hewitt said:

Not all hackers do bad things for example look at the hack that uncovered government documents that disclosed the real age of the Chinese women's gymnastics team http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/20/1259253

Alec Saunders said:

thank you for coming back Ken!

Ken Camp said:

I have to drop off. Have a conference call in a few and need to get coffee. Nice to be able to join in here again this morning.

William Volk said:

I think I could live with WoW's diminished revenues

James Body said:

And the challenge of a locked iPhone - too tempting to resist

Dan Rockwell said:

Aug 20, 11:49 AM (GMT -04:00)

William, brings up a good point, what about going subscription based? while WoW has been exploited in various ways with hacks and virtual servers its pretty isolated

Alec Saunders said:

Aug 20, 11:49 AM (GMT -04:00)

those a re brutal Jim

William Volk said:

what about going to an online game model where purchase is a subscrition to play

Jim Courtney said:

Branching out on this issue, Dan York reports from SpeechTEK: At #SpeechTEK, Kevin Mitnick is demonstrating the incredibly scary databases out on the Internet for finding personal info like SSN's.

Dan Rockwell said:

theres a huge status and ego side of the scene

Alec Saunders said:

thanks Nick!

James Body said:

Olympic sport - now there is an idea!

Dan Rockwell said:

and you get status in uploading

Nick Desbarats said:

Many apologies, but I have to leave for a noon appointment. If anyone has any good or bad comments re MyChoiceBot, pls don't hesitate to contact me: nickd@choicebot.com . Cheers.

Dan Rockwell said:

Aug 20, 11:47 AM (GMT -04:00)

which begs the question, what is this pirate scene all about really, defeating games protection schemes, and moving files, moving newness

Alec Saunders said:

Aug 20, 11:47 AM (GMT -04:00)

there you go James

Dan Rockwell said:

Aug 20, 11:47 AM (GMT -04:00)

absolutely, everything gets cracked

James Body said:

So - crap games get hacked?

Dan Rockwell said:

heh

William Volk said:

(web based iPhone game we did)

William Volk said:

Like "Pigs A Popin"

William Volk said:

there are a lot of titles doing thousands of sales per month

James Body said:

Of course - HACKING/CRACKING is *BAD*

William Volk said:

our ROI on iPhone games, based on our sales, is a matter of a few months

Dan Rockwell said:

never too late to deliver a great experience

James Body said:

The fact that some individuals WANT to go to all the hassle of hacking a game is a sign of success - if the game was rubbish then no-one would be willing to put in the effort of hacking it

Dan Rockwell said:

gold rush is right :)

Mark Hewitt said:

and yet it make DOS a household name

William Volk said:

like XBox live arcade

William Volk said:

yep

Mark Hewitt said:

Remember how Gates became paranoid about software thief

Ken Camp said:

not sure either is better as both fail to support your income needs

Dan Rockwell said:

cliff are you considering getting into iphone games, or platform environments that affectively protect you against pirates?

Ken Camp said:

hammer vs screwdriver James. If you're out to make a living, both of those fail as a business model

James Body said:

Aug 20, 11:43 AM (GMT -04:00)

Which would you say is better - to have the fruits of your labour cracked/hacked and distributed - or to be totally ignored!

William Volk said:

Aug 20, 11:43 AM (GMT -04:00)

Very hard to get into retail

Ken Camp said:

Thanks Alec. I hadn't realized Cliff probably can't see the wall.

William Volk said:

or digital objects

Dan Rockwell said:

or go expansion pack model

William Volk said:

limited time of play

William Volk said:

in their PC titles

William Volk said:

BigFish has this nailed

William Volk said:

but you can do ONE-LEVEL lite versions

Dan Rockwell said:

i hate time limiters on software, expire in 14 days, it should be instance wise, if i use this app 5 times or something

William Volk said:

Apple will NOT allow time-limited versions of games in the app store

William Volk said:

the article on Labernith ... 80k downloads of the "one level" version in a day and therefore sales of the main version

Sheryl Breuker said:

plus imagine the number of games out there...if joey wants 50 titles a month...how much is the value in that?

William Volk said:

tons of 'lite' versions of games on iTunes

Sheryl Breuker said:

major titles get kids begging mommy and daddy whereas the others ones are harder to justify

Dan Rockwell said:

need a taste, now theres something i iphone app store needs, a taste of what the app is vs actually buying it :P

Alec Saunders said:

hehehe ; nice Frank

Sheryl Breuker said:

13-28 the least able to afford such a thing

William Volk said:

still, major titles like Bioshock etc. do quite well

Frank Abrams said:

Excuse me I'm off to McDonald's to steal my lunch

Ken Camp said:

Is making a living writing games like you do Cliff, as a solo guy, somewhat akin to making a living writing shareware ten years ago? It seems an exercise in trust knowing that your trust will often be violated?

Sheryl Breuker said:

I'm not sure they're so resentful as they simply can't afford it. Look at the demographic

William Volk said:

hence the move to online gaming ... STEAM etc.

Dan Rockwell said:

i've been curious at zero day warez people, most of which just seem to be into the art of moving files, fresh new file fast, vs actually playing the games they pirate and distrubute

William Volk said:

but much of this is "because we can"

William Volk said:

and the comments in the blog on quality are spot on

William Volk said:

in a way

Frank Abrams said:

stealing is stealing

William Volk said:

yep

Frank Abrams said:

sounds like they are really ripping off "The Man"

Alec Saunders said:

yeah - but Cliff is an independent who just cranks out games and makes a living from them

William Volk said:

4 or 5 titles are all the sales

William Volk said:

Aug 20, 11:37 AM (GMT -04:00)

The PC Game Market is pretty awful, if not for co's like PopCap and BigFish selling casual games online, it would be in decline. It's sort of World Of Warcraft and everything else

Dan Rockwell said:

Aug 20, 11:37 AM (GMT -04:00)

it would be interesting to comb through the comments and create some personas of pirates

Dan Rockwell said:

Aug 20, 11:36 AM (GMT -04:00)

anti DRM, copy right, the man, the organization etc

Dan Rockwell said:

Aug 20, 11:36 AM (GMT -04:00)

yep

Alec Saunders said:

Aug 20, 11:35 AM (GMT -04:00)

you continue to surprise Mr. Volk!

William Volk said:

Aug 20, 11:35 AM (GMT -04:00)

I started in the biz in '79 at Avalon Hill

William Volk said:

Aug 20, 11:35 AM (GMT -04:00)

I recall the first BBS discussion of this nature was between the Wizardry folks and the pirates in 1981 or so

Sheryl Breuker said:

n/p

James Body said:

Tnx

Sheryl Breuker said:

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/10/1553224

Dan Rockwell said:

surprising no one has done that really

James Body said:

Got a link to SlashDot article?

Sheryl Breuker said:

and...further look at the age of them and the cost of games. Most of the kids can't afford as much as adults could...and yeah mom and dad supply but again it's a challenge

William Volk said: