Once again, the gaming industry proves far more versatile than the music or movie industry in benefiting from forward thinking economics.

Covered by Slashdot, it seems the makers of the hit game World of Goo for Wii and PC have celebrated the close of their very successful year in an interesting way. They decided to make the game – which retails at $20 – available for whatever the buyer is willing to pay.

This is a great idea: make what money you can from initial launch at premium price, and then accept the fact that the game will lose value as both novelty and technology motor on. Then, in lieu of griping and moaning over the resell market and trying to circumvent the first-sale doctrine with install limitations and the like, you allow users to pay what they wish. This will likely be lower than you’d like in price per unit, but you’ll likely sell more than you’d hope for, as well. With intellectual property, this pans out just fine, particularly for digital delivery data like World of Goo, where you simply don’t have the same high overhead as you would for, say, the Thighmaster or the Sham-Wow.

The result: While the average sale price was about $2, more than 57,000 people purchased it. Quite certainly, these were customers who simply wouldn’t have bought the game otherwise or who – according to a 2D Boy poll – bought it again for another platform.

The developers were more than happy, and extended the special. Hopefully, this is an idea that others will follow. Surely, there are games out there that simply do not warrant the MSRP price tag, but that would garner slews of customers if they could pay what they wished. Such schemes have worked very well in the publishing industry, as well, though the industry at large is still very weary of taking that step – somehow convinced that ebooks should sell for the same as the physical book minus a buck or two.

A story covered in Slashdot refers to the eventual judgment (naturally) for the plaintiff – Wizards of the Coast – against defendant and popular ebook site Scribd. The charge was allowing a user to upload a copyrighted Dungeons & Dragons ebook, which was downloaded 2,600 times before Scribd pulled it from the site.

Wizards was awarded $125,000, which – par for course – was exorbitant considering that Scribd made no money from the ebook.

What’s worth noting here is that companies making ebooks should use the built-in abilities to market ebooks better than regular books to advertisers. Then, the economic backlash of the book being shared is largely or completely mitigated.

For example, there are various educational reports on all manner of subjects – from using Google AdSense to writing a killer blog. They make their money off affiliate marketing embedded in the links in the PDF, not off the sale of the report. Sure, these reports bear a price tag, but they are rife on p2p sites, and have long thrived without backlash.

Why? Because the bulk of their moneymaking model is about getting eyes on the product, not on the money generated from sales.

So couldn’t PDFs of WotC content operate in the same way? Instead, they waste time and effort trying to track down and sue companies such as Scribd for a consequence they didn’t intend.That’s not to say that Scribd shouldn’t be responsible for whatever is on their servers and site; it’s just a pretty poor model when the only way you’re going to address the inevitability of piracy is to file lawsuit after lawsuit. Instead, how about coming out with more innovative ways of selling your products?

After all, it’s very arguable that whoever would download an ebook of D&D is likely not going to and never would have bought the paper product. So how do you make money off of such potential customers? Perhaps in-book adverts aren’t the only answer, but I can tell you what certainly isn’t the answer: suing everyone and making yourself look like jerks.

The Business Software Alliance (BSA), which investigates copyright infringement and piracy for a slew of software clients, has been on the forefront of scare tactics for some time. As covered on Slashdot, they recently estimated that 41% of software on PCs is pirated, and attempt to make the corollary between piracy and malicious code.

This has been a scare tactic for some time now, and many people buy into the supposed direct relationship between piracy and malware, viruses, and other malicious code. BSA’s motivation is clear: if people believe that file-sharing is the culprit in “making their computer run really slow” then perhaps they’ll refuse pirated products. Though their stats on the growing percentage of pirated programs speaks differently.

All BSA’s assertions do is increase the fear that lay computer users feel regarding all things on their computers. They say: “I had a nephew visit for a weekend, and now I get warnings about viruses. I think he downloaded illegal stuff.” Or: “My son ripped a friend’s CD on my computer, and now I have windows popping up telling me I need an virus scan or I’ll lose my data!”

Alas, the only people benefiting from this paranoia are the companies selling “scareware” which gets computer greenhorns to buy completely superfluous security software. Such programs often don’t work at all, are universally overpriced, or do little more than further scare the buyer into getting the entire “suite ” of products and extorting even more money.

But who’s at fault here? Are pirated apps really full of viruses, or are p2p networks teaming with malware posing as pirated apps? And more importantly, who put it there to begin with?

The fact is, the only people suffering from this fear are those who don’t know how to navigate p2p apps appropriately, and who have no understanding of what constitutes copyright infringement. No such scare tactics deter pirates in the least. All malicious code is easily avoided with experience and – God forbid – with learning some general knowledge about computer science and your operating system, whether you share files or not.

I’m not condoning piracy, but I also do not condone BSA’s fear campaign that surreptitiously sidesteps the force that created the market for scareware to begin with – companies like BSA.

Slashdot just posted a story about a representative of Massive named JJ Richards vying for in-game advertisements as adding to a gamer’s experience. His argument is sound enough: if a game takes a player somewhere he should expect to see adverts (like Times Square) then it adds to the immersion to have those ads be current, realistic, and updated in real time. It would indeed be interesting to play a game you’d put down two years ago, only to find that all of the background noise like billboards, newspapers, televisions, and the like were updated to current times, but this is not without a very resounding caveat.

While in-game adverts as described above could prove valuable for game-play, they’re also making money. And anytime there’s a chance for media to make more money, there’s little stopping bad ideas from ruining good ones. In this case, my main fear is seeing in-game adverts where there shouldn’t be any at all – dated or current. After all, look at 3-D movies. Some treat 3-D technology as a twist and a draw to get you to see the film in theaters, but most of these films revolve around the technology, not a strong story, good acting, or solid directing. Films such as My Bloody Valentine are horrid movies without 3-D because that became the point of the movie, not an added feature to heighten immersion. Sound familiar? It’s the same thing that could happen with in-game adverts.

Too, this is the sort of thing that will add too little value to garner loyalty to the store-bought version of the game. Those who would pirate the game will be more than happy to bypass updated billboards or modern songs playing on the in-game radios. In fact, pirates might very well make it a point to avoid games which “phone home” – even if it’s only to upload more adverts. For many, it could smack of a privacy issue. It would – at the very least – communicate to someone how and how often you play your games. That alone is enough to make some gamers wary.

Last week began a case that could spell trouble not only for media owners, but for the resell market as well. It’s between Timothy Vernor and the software company Autodesk (who sells mostly drafting software). It seems Autodesk petitioned eBay to remove not only Vernor’s auctions of Autodesk products but to boot him off eBay for good.

Since eBay is akin to a chihuahua who rolls over at the first sign of dominance, they obliged. The only problem? Vernor wasn’t selling pirated copies of Autodesk: he was selling legally-owned, used copies.

This has long been protected by copyright law by what’s called the “first-sale doctrine”. However, Autodesk is trying to get around this by saying they merely lease the software, not sell a copy of it. Tomato, tomAto…

This debate is nothing new: the rights we have to resell products is the very reason that DRM and tricky EULAs about “leasing” software exist. But this is a slippery slope. The moment you control how someone can resell software – even something as expensive as Autodesk – what’s to stop the RIAA from using the case as precedent for outlawing the sale of secondhand CDs? How about DVDs or even VHS tapes?

This is the bread and butter of companies such as EB Games, but the industries have always loathed resell and have looked to ban it for years. It’s not because resale is illegal: it’s simply to make more money – nothing more. However, if I am not allowed to buy a secondhand copy of any media, and can’t afford the newest version, I’d be more prone to pirate, wouldn’t I?

Hopefully, the judge will see this as more industry hair-splitting rhetoric and semantic balderdash. It’s still a legal copy, and the guy has a right to sell it. Let Autodesk do what other companies such as Blizzard are doing, and limit the number of times it can be installed, suffer the inevitable consumer backlash, and then reverse their tactics like any other company trying to defy the after-market. Letting law interfere with something that is perfectly regulated by consumer spending would be a grave mistake. It would hurt consumers and many companies making a living off resale, and only make a handful of companies more wealthy than they already are.

Point of fact, I highly doubt there are media manufacturers out there closing their doors due to the resale market, but if such outfits are allowed to bypass the first-sale doctrine, you can expect to see plenty of other companies doing just that – hanging the going-out-of-business sign.

A story on Slashdot tells of a watershed moment in the fight between athletes and game manufacturers who use their likenesses. A district court judge considered the digital representations “expressive works” comparable to paintings and photos of celebrities and athletes, which are protected and require no payment to the athlete or celebrity.

On one hand, the game company playing defense in footballer Samuel Keller’s class action lawsuit is Electronic Arts, not some one-man band just trying to eek out a living writing games. While EA didn’t use the players’ names, other features such as style of play, haircut, skin color, and facial features so closely resembles the athletes that there’s little question it was intentional. This – in the long game – could persuade gamers who want to play with famous atheletes to opt for EA Sports’ titles, even though EA paid nothing for the celebrity status.

On the other hand, we’re not talking about a group of people that otherwise makes no money. Athletes are paid to play a sport, not build star power enough to market their likeness. They already get pretty substantial payouts for acting gigs, endorsements, and special appearances, on top of what is almost universally considered inordinately large salaries and signing bonuses.

Too, let’s not forget ’90s singer Deee-Lite, who tried suing Sega over her supposed likeness in Space Channel 5 for the Dreamcast, lost, and then had to pay $600,000 in court costs. Not an easy fiscal pill for a has-been to swallow. With older players such as Jim Brown hopping on Keller’s coattails, they’d better keep in mind that any lawsuit bears a chance of not only failure, but significant losses.

The rise of video game profits, popularity, and prestige means that this is a market for celebrities and athletes alike, and not one that should be ignored so that giants like EA can make money off another’s celebrity. However, I applaud the ruling because the line has to be drawn somewhere on how ridiculous lawsuits about likeness can be. After all, if all game manufacturers caved and settled in cases like this, you’d have everyone from Miley Cyrus to PDiddy looking for any chance to sue, claiming that any singer with extensions and cut off jean skirts must be Cyrus’ likeness, or that any character with cornrows and bling must be PDiddy.

In the end, this whole affair may not matter, since the moment that gamers realize that 99% of sports games are slapped together regurgitation of last year’s code, maybe they’ll pass for a decent game instead.

There is so much wrong with the current patent system, that this post will do little to even scratch the surface. However, a recent story by The Wall Street Journal posted on Slashdot illustrates that patent trolling may be reaching ludicrous speed. It seems Microsoft is selling patents to Linux in order to protect them from patent trolls.

While I’ll not get into the gory details here, this act alone shows how horrid and restrictive the patent system has become. It should be obvious by now that when Microsoft plays ball with a competitor, either the sky is indeed falling or patents are clearly out of control (I’ll let you guess which).

For those just joining us, a patent troll is one who buys up patents in order to sue companies that violate those patents later – knowingly or unknowingly. The only criteria seem to be that the company being sued has the money to settle. Picture if the RIAA sued only rich, white, trust-fund babies for file-sharing – you get the idea.

The fundamental harm here should be obvious: the troll contributes nothing, and only stops (or stalls) those who are contributing. This goes against everything our constitution stands for when reading that such laws are to “ensure the progress of science and the useful arts”. Many would argue that what can be patented has simply grown too wide for its purposes. To receive a patent, something must be: 1. New 2. Useful 3. Not obvious. Sure, there are whole textbooks detailing this, but the point being that when trolls can patent such broad concepts only to trap other businesses later, there’s something wrong.

Perhaps the answer is that the patent owner has so many months to actually attempt creating something with his patent or else sell it or have it fall back into public domain. What good is a patent when the person filing it is not the same person creating the patented design or object? This would still allow failed companies to reap some rewards for having pioneered what some other company perfected, but would discourage companies whose only operating model is leeching off an imperfect intellectual property system.

Though the answer is likely not so obvious as I’ve suggested, I can certainly tell you what isn’t working: our current system. If someone has other ideas, leave a comment.

The issue of net neutrality – the inability for ISPs to discriminate between information packets on the Internet – is back in congress for review. Don’t quote me on the Time-Warner figures, but my message is clear: prioritized packets means more money from consumers and for big business. That is all.

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