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Piracy is not theft according to Minecraft creator

By on March 7, 2011

Minecraft creator Markus “Notch” Persson told the closing session at GDC’s Indie Games Summit some days ago that the notion of piracy as theft is false.

“Piracy is not theft,” he said. Referencing the most common anti-piracy argument, he said: “If you steal a car, the original is lost. If you copy a game, there are simply more of them in the world.”

“There is no such thing as a ‘lost sale’,” he said, debunking another popular myth. “Is a bad review a lost sale? What about a missed ship date?”

Noting that most people want to do what is far and right, he suggests developers see pirates not as inherently evil, but as potential customers. He echoes a familiar theme for this year’s GDC, one that was mentioned on Monday by Rovio, countering Nintendo’s assertion that cheap, disposable games give the impression that all games should be cheap and disposable: the notion of games as services.

Like Rovio’s Angry Birds, Notch’s Minecraft is constantly updated. The game was put on sale in its alpha state, and at one point sold 350,000 copies in a single day; when the game entered beta and he raised the price by 50 per cent, sales doubled. “Treat game development as a service,” he says. “Make a game last longer than a week. You can’t pirate an online account. ”

About David Scarpitta

I am a critical guy, and love to review and give my professional opinion on just about anything. Though have a love for tech/gaming and music alongside the cinema. You can catch me consulting and developing the net any day of the week.