Piracy has its benefits, says Angry Birds studio

[xist]

Illegal copying nevertheless spreads brand awareness, claims Mikael Hed

The CEO of Rovio Mobile, the Finnish studio that built the trailblazing Angry Birds franchise, believes there is some value in games piracy.
Speaking at the Midem conference in Cannes this morning, Mikael Hed said the games industry could learn from “the rather terrible ways the music industry has tried to combat piracy".

“Rovio has some issues with piracy, not only in apps, but also especially in the consumer products,” Hed said, as quoted by The Guardian.
“There are tons and tons of merchandise out there, especially in Asia, which is not officially licensed products.”

But the answer is not brute force legislation, Hed claimed, believing that such practices are rather futile in combating piracy and can actually have a negative effect on brand awareness.
"We took something from the music industry, which was to stop treating the customers as users, and start treating them as fans,” he said.

“We do that today: we talk about how many fans we have. If we lose that fan base, our business is done, but if we can grow that fan base, our business will grow."
Hed said there were exceptions where Rovio would pursue pirates through the courts, such as knock-off products that are deemed harmful to the Angry Birds brand.

But otherwise the company isn’t edgy over piracy, he added.
“Piracy may not be a bad thing: it can get us more business at the end of the day."

http://www.develop-o...ry-Birds-studio

Now i've not been a fan of Angry Birds but this guy speaks wisely...

 

[the_randomizer]

Never thought I'd see a game develop admit that piracy has benefits. Weird indeed.

 

[The Catboy]

You know I never really thought about it that way. Then again because I pirated Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor, I found out how great the games are and actually went out bought the games.
EDIT: Come to think of it, I got most of my games that way

 

[wasim]

I pirated angry birds game.
I guess they doesn't mind.

 

[Pong20302000]

lol bet owner has flashcard and modded consoles

 

[Veho]

"We took something from the music industry, which was to stop treating the customers as users, and start treating them as fans"

But the music industry treats people as customers criminals.

Maybe that's what he meant by "took it". They took it, and the music industry doesn't have it any more

 

[jing90]

seems more publicity than something he really believes...
than again there's so much angry birds merchandise that they shouldn't care if the game sells...

 

[prowler]

Never thought I'd see a game develop admit that piracy has benefits. Weird indeed.

Mojang...

 

[xist]

Mojang...

Kapowie....
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/gjrf4/iama_indie_game_developer_who_made_a_commercially/c1o1s34

 

[prowler]

Mojang...

Kapowie....
http://www.reddit.co...rcially/c1o1s34

I know he's not pro piracy but he has said before piracy does have benefits, e.g if someone pirates it and a friend sees it, they might buy it and tell other friends about it.

 

[Ultymoo]

I've always held that piracy is useful. For instance, hack a console the manufacturer can update, they will work a bit harder to patch security holes on their products up.

 

[Hyro-Sama]

Maybe we should start calling "Piracy" what it really is. "Advertising".

 

[chartube12]

Angry birds who are not angry?, it's like a whopper w/o the meat!

 

[xist]

Maybe we should start calling "Piracy" what it really is. "Advertising".

It's not that simple though otherwise buying things would be called advertising too.

How about everyone acknowledges that Piracy is something that should be morally frowned upon if you're doing it without ever buying those things that you actually enjoy, and anyone who exclusively "Pirate"'s shall be shunned and Keelhauled. Piracy without Purchase isn't sustainable....if you like it, save up and buy it to send a message out that that's the sort of game you like. After all you're effectively helping to shape the future of gaming by doing that.

 

[Hyro-Sama]

Maybe we should start calling "Piracy" what it really is. "Advertising".

It's not that simple though otherwise buying things would be called advertising too.

How about everyone acknowledges that Piracy is something that should be morally frowned upon if you're doing it without ever buying those things that you actually enjoy, and anyone who exclusively "Pirate"'s shall be shunned and Keelhauled. Piracy without Purchase isn't sustainable....if you like it, save up and buy it to send a message out that that's the sort of game you like. After all you're effectively helping to shape the future of gaming by doing that.

That sounds great for gamers. Doesn't really work out for music. I usually only like one or two songs on an album and if I download the song off of a file sharing site I'm not going to buy it off of iTunes so the Musician makes some money. Moreover, sometimes you can only find older songs or certian versions through piracy.

 

[xist]

That sounds great for gamers. Doesn't really work out for music.

In the future hopefully things like Bandcamp will take hold and offer a more direct way to pay musicians.

 

[DJPlace]

look's like the makers for angry birds ate some angry turds!! saying that piracy has it kicks i mean come on... well at least there not suck ups.

 

[Foxi4]

It's easy for him to say.

Angry Birds is a squirt compared to games as massive as for example Skyrim. The making of Angry Birds didn't take nearly as much time nor money in comparison. Moreover - he's losing only a buck or two each pirated copy - bigger studios that make bigger, more expensive games lose 20-40 times the ammount.

Rovio can "afford" to have their game pirated. Studios that invest their time and money into making console/PC games often cannot - Cing is a prime example here. They made absolutelly stunning games like Hotel Dusk and Another Code and yet... they went bankrupt. Is it because of the lack of brand awareness? Hell, Another Code was released 2 months after the DS hit the shelves - it was almost a launch title and it sold like hotcakes. Everybody knew of Cing, at least in Japan. They should've stayed afloat just with those sales, and yet they did not.

Piracy has many faces, ladies and gentlemen. For some companies it may be beneficial, for some it may be the nail to the coffin. Keep that in mind.

 

[ForteGospel]

as long as they dont give their games free they cant talk about piracy being contributunal for their company...

take cave story for example, the game started as a free game which helped advertise the game, now you can get it with improved sprites/graphics and added content for the pc and some consoles...

 

[stab244]

Definitely an interesting take on this. Their costs are definitely lower so that probably helps.