Interview : CEO of Stamp Out Piracy, Anti-Piracy site for Indie Games.

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This time, Pig-Min did an interview with CEO of Stamp Out Piracy, which is Anti-Piracy site for Indie Games. He prefers to be anonymous not uses his real name, due to 'nature of Piracy'.

This site was opened last August, 2007/08, and worked A LOT to counter-attack Piracy of Indie Games, closed over 6,500 cases until now.

Official Site of Stamp Out Piracy
Korean Version of this Interview

Yes. Stamp Out Piracy.

1. First of all, please let us know HOW SERIOUS is 'Piracy' of Indie Game, with some examples.

Piracy of Indie games is very serious.

Every day we trawl the gaming warez sites and find hundreds of links to Indie games. Many people think that it is only AAA titles that are cracked but we see far more indie game related links.

New releases of indie games are cracked on the day of release so it is a very serious problem. For example, if a new game is released on a gaming portal like BigFish Games/Reflexive etc you can guarantee that within a couple of hours it is already available on a large number of warez sites.

2. Many people might suffer from 'Piracy', but not everyone made union against that crime. Please let us know how come to make such an Union & website, and brief history?

We set up StampOutPiracy.com as we are Indie Game Developers ourselves.

We have seen pirated versions of our own games on the Internet as well as the majority of other Indie titles. It's becoming more common for developers to discuss piracy on forums and this seems to have increased a lot over the last year.

There also doesn't seem to be any anti-piracy companies who are going out and trying to get these illegal piracy links removed on behalf of Indie Devs.

3. How do you counter-attack for'Piracy'? There are too many of them to handle, as I know.

We go through a large number of warez sites on a daily basis and get any links on filesharing accounts such as Rapidshare.com, Mediafire.com etc removed, usually within about 4 hours. We also report any blogs, Ebay Listings and whole warez sites.

There are a lot of sites and some people would say there's too many, but we are making a dent as our statistics show. Taking out pirate links/sites isn't our only objective. We also want to educate people as to why piracy is wrong.

4. How many 'Piracy' acts were found & ceased by your homepage? From the first time until now, and monthly estimated counts.

Currently our statistics show that we have closed over 6500 links/sites. The figure represents whole warez sites, file sharing accounts/links, blogs, forums and even Ebay listings.

StampOutPiracy.com was only setup in August this year so we are pleased with the results. Each month we remove approx 1500-2000 links/sites.

5. There might be some 'Anti-Piracy' deeds, which plain people could do. Please let us know how to.

One of the main things people can do if they run a website is to educate their visitors/customers by maybe writing an article about piracy, linking to one of our articles at http://www.stampoutpiracy.com/moreinfo.htm , inform your newsletter signups about the dangers of piracy, report piracy to us by using our form at http://www.stampoutpiracy.com/reportpiracy.htm - there's lots that can be done. A recent post on the Indie Gamer forums at http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=12262 has much more information.

6. Maybe there are some other 'Anti-Piracy' union or homepages like yours, not only for Game, but also for Music / Movie / ... etc. Do you have some plan, to associate with them in the future?

Yes, we already link to a good few anti-piracy sites at http://www.stampoutpiracy.com/links.htm

Some have returned the link, others haven't. We'd like to get more involved with them which is what we're aiming for early next year. We'd also like to get some of the bigger casual gaming portals involved too as a large amount of their games are cracked and made available each day.

7. Please recommend good 5 Indie Games, and the reason why.

I love old school style games, so . . .

Scavenger (http://www.pieyegames.com/Scavenger/Info.htm)
It has a lovely old-school feel to it and kept me busy for hours. Great atmosphere too.

Knytt Stories (http://nifflas.ni2.se/index.php?main=02Knytt_Stories)
Wonderfully simple with excellent design.

Hap Hazard (http://www.raptisoft.com/games/Hap-Hazard/783/)
I love retro style platformers. Brilliant fun!

Jets'n'Guns (http://jng.rakeingrass.com/)
This is a really tough shooter but it keeps you coming back for more. Beautiful graphics and thumping soundtrack.

Repton 1 (http://www.superiorinteractive.com/repton/)
Takes me back to my childhood :)

8. Did you try some Korean games, or even heard or experienced about them? If so, please share your thoughts about that.

Heard about them, but haven't tried any - sorry!

9. Please leave some message for Pig-Min readers.

What can I say apart from help to support Indie game developers by purchasing their games.

Official Site of Stamp Out Piracy
Korean Version of this Interview

Interview : CEO of Stamp Out Piracy, Anti-Piracy site for Indie Games.

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