‘Fight piracy with good services’ says indie

Offering customers good value for money is key to limiting piracy, says Seamless Entertainment’s studio director.

Speaking to The Sydney Morning Herald, Dan Mahaga said that creating a game that has a high-perceived value means that consumers are more likely to purchase a game.

"The argument most of us make is let’s try to make it inexpensive and let’s try to make it such a good value and so much fun that they go, ‘You know, I want to support these guys, and I want to buy a copy’," said Magaha.

He added that the studio’s space combat simulator SOL: Exodus, had been pirated numerous times after being made available on Steam, with people even posting links to illegal downloads of the game on social networking site Twitter.

Magaha said to overcome this, it is important for studios to engage with their customer base and respond quickly to any in-game issues that may arise.

He admitted however that there will always be people who illegaly download games regardless, but it is important not to distance legitimate customers.

"I think that’s really the goal, to get to that point," he said.

"You don’t want to worry about the people who were never going to pay you ever, you worry about the people who were going pay you, but they were unhappy because there was something standing in the way of that deal."