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When I was growing up, the Wasatch Front in Utah was one of the major hubs of game development. A highly technical populance, fueled by two world-class computer science programs at the University of Utah and Brigham Young University, coupled by the repression that accompanies any dominant religious culture, built a bevy of homegrown game developers. Back then, it was easy enough for one person to make a game in a couple of months in his spare time, and software was still rare enough that you could make a decent second living buying 5 1/4" floppies from Radio Shack for $2 each, duplicating your software, dropping your wares in a ZipLoc baggie and selling them over BBS's or at your local computer store. Game development wasn't done to get rich, but to entertain. The money was secondary.
I belonged to an eight-bit users group during this nascent period of game development for personal computing platforms, and was quite pleased to learn that one of the members (who had been sharing his games with the group for some time) had just signed a deal with Electronic Arts to develop one of his earlier prototypes into a commercially packaged game. (He's the one who gave me my alias nearly 20 years ago...) So that he could make his deadline for EA, he took a sabbatical from his position at Unisys and spent the next three months working day and night to refine his code, his art, his vision.
His game sold decently. It sold well enough that his royalties paid for the down payment on his home, and a second contract was signed for another title. With his wages from Unisys, he could afford the house payment and still be able to feed his game development hobby.
Unable to take another sabbatical, my friend left his job at Unisys after sixteen years. For the next four months, he lived off of his vacation time payout and what savings remained from his first title. I remember his first visit to the user's group after sending off his master copy...he seemed so calm and relaxed. He confided in me that he felt that he had finally gotten the best of both worlds, for he could not only entertain the world, but make a living while doing it. At that time, I didn't expect I'd get to see his heart shatter into pieces and his world fall apart.
At the next month's meeting, we walked in to find his latest and greatest being played on the small 13" color TV hooked up to the club's Atari 800XL. He asked which local store got their copies in, because he wanted to go down and sign the boxes. When he was told that the local stores wouldn't get their copies in for at least three more weeks and that this copy had been downloaded off of a BBS, it was like the blood drained from his face.
He contacted Electronic Arts who did their own internal investigation. Turns out one of the line workers had taken one of the copies and sold it for $10 to a friend, who then decided to distribute it to the world a full month ahead of release. Over that month it spread from BBS to BBS so quickly that it was available to most people for free before they even had a chance to buy it. He still felt proud of his work, but he felt violated.
The earnings from that title were less than a quarter what his previous title was, so he tried to go back to work. Unfortunately, Unisys wouldn't hire him back and he ended up having to take a position at the University of Utah for half the pay. With that much money cut from his monthly income, he had to give up his home that his first game had brought him. After I helped him clean his home after he moved out, I didn't see him again for over a decade.
I ran into him shortly after I started working at Access Software. We caught up over a few lunches, and one day during lunch we were discussing how the "Links" community had little qualms about pirating the actual game, but piracy of the courses was deemed verboten by the community. His expression changed over the course of the conversation to one of pained reminiscence. He started talking about the games he's tried to write over the last decade, with "tried" being the operative word.
Every artist knows about the "hump," the point at which your project will either congeal into a semblance of its final form and show the way to the finish line, or collapse into a heap of failure never to see the light of day. He had lost that spark...that drive...to move himself past the hump. His last experience cost him his inspiration...his soul.
I didn't think that would ever happen to me, because my drive wasn't to get rich or to make a name for myself...it was to serve the customers. Unfortunately, my experiences over the last eight months have taught me that any direct contact with the effects of piracy drain the energy that drives you to complete your art. It's the psychological equivalent of staring into the unending void of space and coming to the realization that yes, you really are that alone. It isolates you from your friends, your family, and your very reason for being.
So I've said my piece here regarding piracy, and doubt I'll ever discuss it outside of the industry again. Just as people learned that the addictive taste of the fictional "Soylent Green" was derived from people, eventually people will learn that the sweet taste of their pirated wares was derived from the smashed and broken dreams of those who felt that creating entertainment was a valid way of not only sating their desires to create joy, but also support themselves. It is unfortunate that by then, the subtle flavors that drew them to their feast will have faded into obscurity...
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