Software piracy hurts
A couple days ago, Brighter Minds Media reported that it was filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy. The news of a game company hurting in these financial times isn’t unexpected; however, what is surprising is that Brighter Minds Media is the publisher of the World of Goo, which cracked the US top 10 best selling PC games list. Brighter Minds isn’t Activation Blizzard or Electronic Arts, it’s one of the little guys, an independent game publisher in the shadow of giants. So the timing of its sales success and its chapter 11 announcement is particularly bittersweet.
This gets to the issue of software piracy. There’s no escaping the fact that piracy hurt this small game publisher. Joystiq reported that World of Goo had a staggering 90% piracy rate, that only 1 copy out of 10 out in the public were legitimately purchased copies. For a small independent game publisher, that must have stung, and stung hard enough to cause a chapter 11 filing. Read more







