Persson: ‘Piracy is not theft’

In a fascinating statement at GDC’s Indie Games Summit, the Swedish creator of indie PC hit Minecraft has lashed out at some of the ‘myths’ commonly perpetuated about games piracy.

Piracy is not theft,” Markus Persson is reported by Edge as saying. 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’. Is a bad review a lost sale? What about a missed ship date?”

Persson went on to claim that instead of regarding them as criminals, he sees a user who pirated one of his games as a potential customer. How is he trying to capitalise on this? By working hard to constantly update his software.

Treat game development as a service,” he added.