Piracy is not theft, Lost sales don't exist, says Minecraft creator (2011)
As a game developer, there are two conflicting stories I have heard about game piracy for multiple decades.<p>From the consumers: Piracy doesn&#x27;t matter.  Pirates were never going to buy anyway.<p>From the AAA producers:  &gt;50% of lifetime revenue for a game is made in the first 3-6 months after release.  During that time, they sit and wait in dread for &quot;Crack Day&quot;.  The exact day the DRM crack is released, revenue permanently drops hard.<p>I&#x27;ve read similar stories from small non-game desktop ISVs here on Hacker News.  That they can clearly see on their revenue graphs the release dates of updates that contain DRM changes.  Of course, most people on HN work on web-based software.  Web based software has pretty much completely overtaken desktop software because of it&#x27;s many advantages --such as being impossible to pirate.<p>I wonder how many people here have actually worked on a pirate-able product?  Phone apps are technically pirate-able.  But, like console games, pirating is such an inconvenience (compared to desktop piracy) that it is relatively rarely done.  But, even on phones, most of the revenue is to unlock server-based features.  I can say from experience that app hacking for client-side features in phone apps happens quite a lot despite the inconvenience.<p>Meanwhile, Minecraft was a story of someone in exactly the opposite situation from a AAA developer.  Having zero reputation and zero marketing budget, it made complete sense for Notch to give away his game for free at first and slowly increase the price as consumer awareness and confidence grew.  At all points Minecraft was the Indie Dream Story of starting as a nobody and gradually growing an audience who hands you money out of respect for your product rather than as a requirement of transacting with you to attain it.