Many developers and publishers fight piracy and make life difficult for fans of “free software.” However, there is another way – cooperation.
Recently, id Software co-founder and one of the creators of DOOM, John Romero, spoke about a specific approach to distributing the shooter in an era when the Internet and digital distribution were not yet so developed.
Players could try a shareware version of DOOM, which did not feature all the content. However, it was difficult to download it in those years, and pirates began to appear on the market selling this trial version.
The developers decided not to fight those who distributed “pirated copies,” but used it to their advantage. For example, Romero explains, id Software knew that DOOM was actively pirated in Taiwan, that was the market. So they decided to contact local pirates and negotiate a deal – they offered them to buy official boxes:
We knew that in Taiwan [DOOM] was being copied: 100%, that was the market then. So we contacted the biggest pirates there and asked, “Can you buy boxes from us? Very cheap. Very, very cheap.” And they bought a bunch of boxes from us to make it look legitimate.
This way, the creators of DOOM were able to distribute the trial “shareware version” of the shooter among players. The developers received profit from selling the full version of the shooter.
Romero also spoke about game “protection.” id Software understood that if a person set out to do it, the game would be copied, so they did not spend resources on protection:
You can never win the war against copy protection, and we didn't want to spend time on it. If people want to copy the game, they will copy it. Maybe they'll buy it later, but... we ourselves didn't have money for everything we played, so we decided: we won't make copy protection. If people want to play, they'll find a way anyway.