Humble Bundle Piracy

The Humble Bundle was a way of donating money to charities and getting 5 great indie games.

The downside is that even with the ability to pay as little as a cent, the games are still be pirated.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/05/humble-bundle-gives-pirates-what-they-want-gets-ripped-off.ars

But two quotes of note from the article:

Rosen lays out these reasons, saying that Wolfire doesn't plan on doing anything to thwart those who pirate the games. "When considering any kind of DRM, we have to ask ourselves, 'How many legitimate users is it OK to inconvenience in order to reduce piracy?' The answer should be none."

Jeffery Rosen understands that games are a service, a luxury.  Inconveniencing paying customers should not be the solution.

"A lot of these people don't just pirate the game, they take pleasure in spreading the pirated links to their friends or anonymous buddies for fun," Rosen told Ars. "They just don't care, and if you can't get someone to pay a penny in this case—will they really pay full price for a game?"


And here we have a the key point.  Piracy isn't about the game, it's about the meta-game of distribution.  When looking at Game Theory, a key thing to consider is Utility, the motivation of the player.  In this case, the player is the consumer, and the motivation is to distribute the game, as opposed to acquiring the game.

It's like looking at griefers in games, whose motivation is not playing the game, it's in aggravating the opposing players.