The end of the month is near....again!  Time goes by so fast these days, and it seems hard to keep up with all the skins coming in.  Good thing you have TWiS to look forward to every week.

Speaking of the skins on WinCustomize, be sure to check out the latest article and screencast on navigating the WinCustomize galleries.

Now for this weeks picks!

	Federation for Bootskins by Grilka A Star Trek bootskin.  Need I say more?
	Chip Circuit for CursorFX by TOMPCpl TTOMPCpl is really turning out some fantastic cursors.  His latest has a "computer" feel to it.
	Weather Lab 6.0 for Vista in DesktopX by Vad_M This is an incredible gadget.  There is just too much to explain to make sure to check this one out.
	Poubel Vista in Dreams by brenopoubel I can always count on brenopoubel to come up with some fantastic landscape based .dreams.  Great work on this one.
	Dark Shine for IconPackager by sunx This was an entry in the '06 GUI Champs.  This icon pack has a beautiful, detailed design that will go great with many WindowBlinds skins.
	No Load Limit Backgrounds for ObjectDock by WebGizmos Here is a perfect set of matching dock backgrounds, both tabbed and side docks, for the new "No Load Limit" WindowBlinds skin.
	Unearthly Reality in Wallpapers by PhoeniXLengenda This is a really stunning wallpaper.  Great job.
	Summer nights in Wallpapers by Richard Mohler Another beautiful wallpaper from Richard Mohler.  It's a real nice scene, which should make some of you in colder environments a bit warmer.
	iPhonix for WindowBlinds by othersnow This is a real nice and simple skins for Vista.  It works well, and is pretty simple on the eyes.  Nice work.

Another great feature week!  This weeks wallpaper gallery was especially full this week, and there were so many more I wanted to feature.  Take some time and take a quick browse through there, I'm sure you will find something awesome.  See you next week!

WinCustomize gets an incredible amount of visitors each month, and a great many of them are new or first time users along with the regular community members.  Now whether you are a new member or a long time member, navigating through the galleries of WinCustomize might not be fully known by our users.

With that being said, I wanted to give an overview on how to navigate the galleries here on WinCustomize.  We have a wide range of galleries from wallpapers, cursors, WindowBlinds skins, and much more.  We also have categories for these galleries that can make finding what you are looking for a bit easier, but not everyone is aware of how to do this.

Gallery Navigation

Clicking the Gallery button in the main navigation header will take you to the gallery page.  Obviously, you can go directly to your gallery of choice by clicking the specific gallery on right, but we will get started in the main gallery page to show off some of its features.

At the top of this page we have more links to common pages like cursors, visual styles, etc.  Below that we have some other sections where users can get a better view of certain skins.

• Newest: This section will show the latest skins submitted to the public gallery.  A preview is shown of the latest six skins, and clicking the newest skins link will take you to a full gallery page showing the latest skins.
  
• Most Popular Skins: Here you will find the most popular skins by downloads.  At the top of this page you can sort by specific library, and from the last 30 days, the "hall of fame" or from yesterdays count.
  
• Recently Featured:  Skins are often featured on the front page of WinCustomize.  This section allows you to sort through the skins that have been featured.
  
• Recently Updated Skins:  Skins that were recently updated are displayed here.
  
• Top Skinners:  Clicking here will show you the top skinners in various categories, and you can select different viewing options from the menu at the top.
  
• Top Master Skins:   Master Skinners on WinCustomize can sell their skins.  This section shows off some of the most popular Master skins.

Navigating through Categories

One library that this will be very useful for is the ObjectDock gallery, so I will use this as the example, but the other galleries function the same way.  Under the main site navigation you will see the breadcrumb links.  You will see these in all the galleries on WinCustomize.

Next to each text link you will notice the arrow buttons.  Clicking one of these will open a menu allowing your a variety of sub-category choices depending on which you click.  Lets say you are looking in the ObjectDock gallery, and want to find a nice set of tabbed dock backgrounds for ObjectDock Plus.  Clicking the arrow next to "ObjectDock" will give me the menu seen below.

By selecting the "Tabbed Backgrounds" link, it will filter the gallery to show only tabbed backgrounds.

You don't have to stop there either.  You can filter it even more with settings like amount of downloads, newest, ratings, etc. 

Sorting Galleries

So we have gone through how to navigate through the different sub-categories in the gallery sections, and now we will cover just sorting through the galleries.  By default, when you enter any of the galleries on WinCustomize you will see the skins in order of the newest first.  This is great, but clicking the drop-down menu above the gallery will give you more sorting choices.

You can sort the galleries by:

• Downloads Overall
• Downloads Today
• Featured Skins
• Last Updated
• Newest Skins
• Skin Name
• Skin Rating

WindowBlinds Advanced Filters

With the addition of WindowBlinds 6 and Windows Vista skinning, the WindowBlinds gallery has an added filter that will show WB skins that are WindowBlinds 6 ready, Vista ready, or both.  Clicking one of these three links will filter the galleries appropriately.

You can also know which WindowBlinds skins are WB6 or Vista ready by looking for the icons as seen below.

Edit Displayed Libraries

On the right side navigation of WinCustomize, you will see links to some of the various galleries.  By clicking "edit" you can easily add or remove galleries from that list so you can see only the galleries you are interested in.

Simply select or deselect the check buttons for the gallery you want to change.

Conclusion

Hopefully this guide will help you navigate through WinCustomize more easily, and help you find the skins you are looking for.  If you still have questions or suggestions, please feel free to visit the forums.  More guides on other parts of WinCustomize will also be available soon.

Navigating WinCustomize Screencast

Version 6

I have to admit, I'm pretty excited about SkinStudio 6. Which is surprising in some respects because I was deeply involved in the design of SkinStudio 1 through 5.  With SkinStudio 6, the WindowBlinds team wrote it with my part being mostly that of providing input rather than design direction. 

SkinStudio 1 through 5 was designed to provide a quasi-Corel Draw style user interface.  The design worked out well in the early days when WindowBlinds wasn't that powerful.

Here is what SkinStudio 5 looked like:

As you can see, it got pretty complicated by version 6.

By contrast, SkinStudio 6 looks like this:

The difference is application designer versus task oriented design.  That is, with SkinStudio 6, the skinner simply walks through a series of steps and at the end has a finished skin. 

How this will affect the skinning community remains to be seen. But we now have a way for people to easily make their own skins. And best of all, SkinStudio is FREE.

This screencast is a companion to the article I wrote about creating and recoloring Windows icons using IconDeveloper 2.0.  The full tutorial can be found here.

Link: IconDeveloper: Creatings and Coloring Icons from Images

If you have trouble viewing the video, click here for the video.

After a year of rewriting SkinStudio from scratch, Stardock has released SkinStudio 6.

SkinStudio is a free program designed to make it easy for people to create WindowBlinds skins.  Version 6 has been completely rewritten to provide a much simpler user experience for creating skins.

Making your own skins

SkinStudio makes it a snap to design your own skins for WindowBlinds.  When a user desires to create a new skin, they start out with either Luna (if it's on Windows XP) or Aero (if it's on Windows Vista). From there, they can change as much or as little as they want of a given skin.

As users go through the different parts of the Windows GUI, they can replace different elements with new images. The WindowBlinds skinning engine is extremely flexible allowing for the repositioning of buttons, independent border sizing, animation, and much more.

A Completed Skin

A complete looking skin will have all new title bars, borders, buttons, Start menu, taskbar, etc.  It can provide a dramatically different look and feel to your PC.  You can share your creations with others on many different websites including WinCustomize.com, deviantART, Customize.org, Skinbase.org and many others.

A completed skin

SkinStudio Pro

Stardock also offers SkinStudio Pro for skinners who are really into skinning or looking to make skins professionally. SkinStudio Pro lets skinners look at the actual underlying code of a given section and includes a live animation editor for Start menu animations (WindowBlinds 6 includes 30fps start menu animations as seen in Dragon). SkinStudio Pro is $19.95.

SkinStudio Pro adds features for pro skinners like animation editing, code review, etc.

Download: www.skinstudio.net

Introduction

IconDeveloper 2.0 from Stardock was recently released, so what a better time than now to start some walkthroughs about it.  IconDeveloper doesn't get as much attention as other Object Desktop applications, but it's one of the best ones out there for icon creation and modification.

IconDeveloper is not an icon image "editor", what it does is allows users to create their icon with graphics applications such as Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro, then import them into IconDeveloper where you can create the icon in various formats. 

With IconDeveloper you can easily import a variety of image formats, change the color of icons, do batch conversions, and create new sizes of icons using scaling techniques

Getting Started

IconDeveloper is part of the Object Desktop suite, where you can download it from Stardock Central.  There is a free download available to anyone who wishes to give IconDeveloper a look through first.  Starting IconDeveloper you will be presented with a screen that offers a couple of choices.

1. Create a new icon. This allows you to create a new blank icon.Here you have the choice to:
2. Open an existing icon. Here you can edit an icon or an icon library.
3. Convert image to icon. This is a quick way to turn an image into an icon.
4. Recolor an icon. You can recolors icons and icon packages here.

We will start by converting an image to an icon, as this is one of my favorite abilities.  For my example I am going to take an icon I created a .PNG image in Photoshop for a friends application.  I just select the "Convert image to icon" button, and a dialog box prompts me to browse to the graphic of my choice.  Just select the graphic, and IconDeveloper will give you an option to select the icon size and color depth.

Clicking the Alpha Channel button in the lower left corner will bring you a dialog that will allow you to choose a transparent color.  Since I used a .PNG with the transparency already set, I'm going to leave it as default.As you see in the screenshot above, you can first start off by naming your icon, and selected if it's Vista ready or "other" sizes that are available.  For our tutorial today, I'm going to select "Vista ready" only and that will select the 256x256, 96x96, 48x48px, 32x32, and 16x16 sizes.  You will also notice that each icon will have a preview of that selected size.

Choosing OK will then let IconDeveloper import the image, and create the icon formats that were selected.  Once that is done, your icon will be previewed along with all the other sizes shown in the left side menu. 

Recolor the icon

Selecting the Coloring tab brings you to the window where you have the option to recolor your icon.  If you want to just alter the color slightly, or make your icon a complete new color, IconDeveloper can do that for you without having to open an image editor program.

The next step is choosing the range of colors to change, and this can be adjusted by moving the slider to the desired position.  I'm going to move it to about the halfway mark for now.  The last step is to actually recolor the icon by taking the Hue slider and moving it to the desired position which will change the color.  I gave mine a lighter, and once I'm satisfied with the results, hit Apply and the icons will be recolored. First, take the dropper and select the color you wish to change.  For me, I'm going to select the blue color which is the main color of my image.  If you are feeling adventurous you can select the RGB value by itself.  The selected color should show up, and we can move on to the next step.

Saving and Exporting

If you are satisfied with the way your icon looks, you can either export as an image file such as .PNG, or save it as an icon file (.ico).  Also remember that you don't have to use the recoloring feature, you can simply import your graphic and export it as an icon file.

For more information about IconDeveloper 2.0, and downloads, visit the IconDeveloper page here.

IconDeveloper Screencast

The new Dragon visual style from Stardock Design doesn't just look great, it's fast. For most users, Dragon makes Windows faster than the default look of either Windows XP and especially Windows Vista. On top of that, it has stunning animation on the Start menu at full 30fps. And did we mention it does this without slowing down your PC?  This is what happens when you develop a technology that integrates seamlessly into the native Windows display engine while taking advantage of advances in video drivers (both ATI and nVidia).

Designed by Stardock Design's Mike Bryant and Chaninja, Dragon delivers a complete visual make over to both Windows XP and Windows Vista users that is consistent, reliable, and beautiful.

Dragon on Windows Vista

Dragon on Windows XP

If you don't have WindowBlinds you can get it at http://www.windowblinds.net. You can download Dragon from WinCustomize.com.  Stardock Design also has a page at deviantART. If you have an account there, stop by and say hi!

Just about at the halfway point and we are still going strong.  Yesterday was the 7th Birthday of WinCustomize, and I sometimes wonder how many skins I have downloaded and used over the years.  This week we also saw the release of the DeskScapes 2.0 preview which brings .dreams to all of Vista.

Now for this weeks picks!

	Recyclamation 3 for DesktopX Widgets by JarHead100 This is an animated icon for the recycle bin.  If you are tired of the same old recycle bin, then give this one a try.
	Asteroid in Dreams by CarGuy1 This .dream shows an "orbit" around an asteroid.  Great job.
	Unity for IconPackager by Tiggz There are over 130 icons for both XP and Vista in this icon pack, plus an extra set of icons to go along with it.  It's a very cool design that you definitely need to download.
	Earth Aurora for LogonStudio Vista by teckels A really nice image of an aurora over the Earth.  Very nice.
	Fuliginous for ObjectDock by zakai1369 I really like this set of dock backgrounds.  It goes well with many themes.
	Lightnings in Wallpapers by vlad A little tough to describe this one exactly, but does everything always need a description?  Beautiful work on this on.
	Eye in the Sky in Wallpapers by Richard Mohler Another beautiful landscape from Richard Mohler.  This one gives a nice, relaxing feel to your desktop.
	iLCD for WindowBlinds by OFFICA WoD This WindowBlinds skin has a subtle, Mac-like look to it.  Keep up the great work on this one.
	Luster for WindowBlinds by MikeB314 This week we have another updated skin from MikeB314.  This time the popular "Luster" gets an update.

Show your appreciation to the creators of these fine works, by leaving comments and visiting their personal pages on WinCustomize.  See you next week!

 
Object Desktop 2008 Guided Tour

Introduction

Object Desktop is the defacto standard when it comes to changing your Windows experience. If you want to take control over how Windows looks, feels, and functions, Object Desktop is the way to do it.  Since its original release for Windows back in 1999, Object Desktop and its components have garnered millions of users worldwide.  Parts of it have been licensed to virtually every major technology company you can think of at one time or other.

Over the years, Object Desktop got bigger..and bigger...and bigger to the point where it had dozens of programs that came with it. Needless to say, it became a little unwieldy for the average user.  So for 2008, Stardock has split the product into two versions:

• Object Desktop (WindowBlinds, IconPackager, DesktopX, DeskScapes, SoundPackager, MyColors)
• Object Desktop Ultimate (the above plus over a dozen other programs)

In addition, Object Desktop 2008 marks a major change in Stardock's approach to the desktop experience: It will be including content as part of the package.

When someone purchases Object Desktop, they not only get everything that's in it right now, they also get a one-year subscription to ObjectDesktop.net. This digital distribution subscription provides automatic updates plus adds new programs to the suite as they become available.  At the end of the year, users can renew their access to keep getting new updates (and if they don't, they can continue to use what they have forever).

Overview of features in Object Desktop 2008

In the past, a user who purchased Object Desktop would receive in email a serial # and a link to Stardock Central. They then installed Stardock Central and were kind of left on their own to figure out how to get Object Desktop going.  This worked fine when Object Desktop was mostly used by power users.  But by 2008, customizing ones computer had become mainstream and such a clunky first impression was no longer viable.

With Object Desktop 2008, users now install Object Desktop 2008 as a single package which automatically sets up the primary components of the program for the user.

These 6 programs now make up the core of Object Desktop.  Users who opt for Object Desktop Ultimate get those 6 programs plus ObjectBar, RightClick, SkinStudio Pro, TweakVista, IconDeveloper, WindowFX, Keyboard LaunchPad, along with some new programs that are in development that should be out within the next year.

On top of the 6 core programs, however is something new: MyColors themes.  MyColors themes are premium suites designed to use the core parts of Object Desktop seamlessly. In the past, users who purchased Object Desktop were essentially expected to fend for themselves to find cool stuff.  With Object Desktop 2008, users will receive 4 premium MyColors themes through the course of the year plus discounts on all MyColors themes (normally they're $19.95 apiece but for Object Desktop users they'll range between $8.95 to 16.95 depending on licensing requirements).

In terms of value, the individual programs of the core of Object Desktop add up to over $100 not counting the premium themes.  However, Object Desktop remains only $49.95.

WindowBlinds

WindowBlinds is a program for Windows XP or Windows Vista that changes the look and feel of the Windows GUI.  It integrates seamlessly into Windows and allows users to alter the appearance of Windows safely -- it doesn't alter any system files (in memory or on disk).  A user of WindowBlinds can make Windows look like another operating system or something completely original.

WindowBlinds enables users to change the actual Windows graphical user interface to whatever they want. There are literally thousands of different visual styles (skins) to choose from.

IconPackager

IconPackager is the industry standard way of changing all the icons on Windows in a single click. Users choose a set of icons (known as an icon package) and then hit apply and IconPackager will change them all.  For users of Windows Vista, IconPackager is the only program that supports live folder icons on Windows Vista and will automatically enhance XP icons to support Windows Vista.

IconPackager makes it a snap to apply entirely new sets of icons to Windows XP or Windows Vista.

DesktopX

DesktopX is the grand daddy of desktop enhancement programs. It was the first program on any platform to allow users to create mini-applications on their desktops (commonly called today "widgets" or gadgets"). Long before there was a Mac Dashboard or Konfabulator or Windows Gadgets, there was DesktopX.  But DesktopX is so much more than that.  It can build entire desktops from scratch. Its integrated editor makes it a snap to share your creations with others users.

For Object Desktop 2008, DesktopX gets updated to support Windows Vista more fully. Now, DesktopX creates can be exported to be placed on the Windows Sidebar.

DesktopX makes it a snap for users to add cool stuff to their desktop.

The latest version of DesktopX can even export your creations to natively integrate into the Windows sidebar!

DesktopX lets users combine their objects together to build entire desktops of their own design.

DeskScapes

DeskScapes is an animated wall program for Windows Vista. It takes advantage of the new Windows Vista compositor to do animation without impacting performance.  Object Desktop 2008 will come with DeskScapes 2.0 which is designed to run on all versions of Windows Vista.  While currently only available for Windows Vista users, Stardock is investigating some of the recent video driver advances on Windows XP...

DeskScapes runs .DREAM files as animated wallpaper. .DREAM files can contain either video content or dynamic content.

SoundPackager

SoundPackager is a pretty straight forward program. It lets users change their Windows sound scheme. What's amazing is that somewhere along the line, Windows quit allowing users to load up distributed sound schemes. You are now expected to set each sound individually (a far cry from the Windows 95 days).

SoundPackager, by contrast, makes it a snap to make your own sound schemes and distribute them out. It also comes with some really high quality sound schemes.

SoundPackager makes it a snap to create and trade sound schemes. There's already a ton of sound packages available on WinCustomize.com.

MyColors

MyColors combines the 5 preceding elements together into a symphony. A MyColors theme can dramatically alter the look and feel of Windows by changing the Windows GUI, the icons, the background, add widgets, and change the sound scheme.  MyColors themes are created exclusively by Stardock to ensure a bullet proof experience.  We may open it up to others down the line to create MyColors themes but for now, we want to focus on making sure that the user experience is exquisite.

For Object Desktop users, Stardock will be releasing at least 4 MyColors themes per year. The longer one keeps their access to ObjectDesktop.net, the more MyColors themes they'll accumulate.

MyColors brings it all together.

Impulse

While not technically part of Object Desktop 2008, Impulse will debut with it.  Impulse is Stardock's next-generation distribution platform.  Existing users can still use Stardock Central if they want, but Impulse will be available to easily manage not just software but content as well.

Impulse lets users manage, update, and get more software and content for their PC.

Object Desktop Ultimate

Anyone with an active subscription to ObjectDesktop.net on March 31, 2008 will automatically get upgraded to Object Desktop Ultimate free of charge.  Object Desktop Ultimate will be $69.95 for new users.

Object Desktop Ultimate is designed for the ultimate PC power users.  It adds a host of additional programs. While Object Desktop Ultimate is a better deal (you get a lot more for just $20 more), it is intended for users who know are looking to turbo-charge their Windows experience to the ultimate level.

Availability

Stardock is targeting March 31, 2008 as the release date for Object Desktop 2008.  If you have previously purchased Object Desktop but your subscription to ObjectDesktop.net has expired, now would be a good time to renew it so that you automatically get Object Desktop Ultimate.

Recently there has been a lot of talk about how piracy affects PC gaming. And if you listen to game developers, it apparently is a foregone conclusion - if a high quality PC game doesn't sell as many copies as it should, it must be because of piracy.

Now, I don't like piracy at all. It really bugs me when I see my game up on some torrent site just on the principle of the matter. And piracy certainly does cost sales.  But arguing that piracy is the primary factor in lower sales of well made games? I don't think so. People who never buy software aren't lost sales.

Is it about business or glory?

Most people who know of Stardock in the gaming world think of it as a tiny indie shop. And we certainly are tiny in terms of game development. But in the desktop enhancement market, Stardock owns that market and it's a market with many millions of users. According to CNET, 6 of the top 10 most popular desktop enhancements are developed by Stardock.  Our most popular desktop enhancement, WindowBlinds, has almost 14 million downloads just on Download.com. We have over a million registered users.

If you want to talk about piracy, talk about desktop enhancements. The piracy on that is huge.  But the question isn't about piracy. It's about sales. 

So here is the deal: When you develop for a market, you don't go by the user base. You go by the potential customer base.  That's what most software companies do. They base what they want to create on the size of the market they're developing for. But not PC game developers.

PC game developers seem to focus more on the "cool" factor. What game can they make that will get them glory with the game magazines and gaming websites and hard core gamers? These days, it seems like game developers want to be like rock stars more than businessmen.  I've never considered myself a real game developer. I'm a gamer who happens to know how to code and also happens to be reasonably good at business.

So when I make a game, I focus on making games that I think will be the most profitable. As a gamer, I like most games.  I love Bioshock. I think the Orange Box is one of the best gaming deals ever. I love Company of Heroes and Oblivion was captivating.  My two favorite games of all time are Civilization (I, II, III, and IV) and Total Annihilation. And I won't even get into the hours lost in WoW.  Heck, I even like The Sims. 

So when it comes time to make a game, I don't have a hard time thinking of a game I'd like to play. The hard part is coming up with a game that we can actually make that will be profitable.  And that means looking at the market as a business not about trying to be "cool".

Making games for customers versus making games for users

So even though Galactic Civilizations II sold 300,000 copies making 8 digits in revenue on a budget of less than $1 million, it's still largely off the radar. I practically have to agree to mow editors lawns to get coverage. And you should see Jeff Green's (Games for Windows) yard. I still can't find my hedge trimmers.

Another game that has been off the radar until recently was Sins of a Solar Empire. With a small budget, it has already sold about 200,000 copies in the first month of release. It's the highest rated PC game of 2008 and probably the best selling 2008 PC title.  Neither of these titles have CD copy protection.

And yet we don't get nearly the attention of other PC games. Lack of marketing on our part? We bang on the doors for coverage as next as the next shop. Lack of advertising? Open up your favorite PC game publication for the past few months and take note of all the 2 page spreads for Sins of a Solar Empire. So we certainly try. 

But we still don't get the editorial buzz that some of the big name titles do because our genre isn't considered as "cool" as other genres.  Imagine what our sales would be if our games had gotten game magazine covers and just massive editorial coverage like some of the big name games get.  I don't want to suggest we get treated poorly by game magazine and web sites (not just because I fear them -- which I do), we got good preview coverage on Sins, just not the same level as one of the "mega" titles would get. Hard core gamers have different tastes in games than the mainstream PC gaming market of game buyers. Remember Roller Coaster Tycoon? Heck, how much buzz does The Sims get in terms of editorial when compared to its popularity. Those things just aren't that cool to the hard core gaming crowd that everything seems geared toward despite the fact that they're not the ones buying most of the games.

I won't even mention some of the big name PC titles that GalCiv and Sins have outsold.  There's plenty of PC games that have gotten dedicated covers that haven't sold as well.  So why is that?

Our games sell well for three reasons.  First, they're good games which is a pre-requisite. But there's lots of great games that don't sell well.

The other two reasons are:

• Our games work on a very wide variety of hardware configurations.
• Our games target genres with the largest customer bases per cost to produce for.

We also don't make games targeting the Chinese market

When you make a game for a target market, you have to look at how many people will actually buy your game combined with how much it will cost to make a game for that target market. What good is a large number of users if they're not going to buy your game? And what good is a market where the minimal commitment to make a game for it is $10 million if the target audience isn't likely to pay for the game?

If the target demographic for your game is full of pirates who won't buy your game, then why support them? That's one of the things I have a hard time understanding.  It's irrelevant how many people will play your game (if you're in the business of selling games that is). It's only relevant how many people are likely to buy your game.

Stardock doesn't make games targeting the Chinese market. If we spent $10 million on a PC game explicitly for the Chinese market and we lost our shirts, would you really feel that much sympathy for us? Or would you think "Duh."

You need a machine how fast?

Anyone who keeps track of how many PCs the "Gamer PC" vendors sell each year could tell you that it's insane to develop a game explicitly for hard core gamers.  Insane.  I think people would be shocked to find out how few hard core gamers there really are out there. This data is available. The number of high end graphics cards sold each year isn't a trade secret (in some cases you may have to get an NDA but if you're a partner you can find out). So why are companies making games that require them to sell to 15% of a given market to be profitable? In what other market do companies do that? In other software markets, getting 1% of the target market is considered good.  If you need to sell 500,000 of your game to break even and your game requires Pixel Shader 3 to not look like crap or play like crap, do you you really think that there are 50 MILLION PC users with Pixel Shader 3 capable machines who a) play games and will actually buy your game if a pirated version is available?

In our case, we make games that target the widest possible audience as long as as we can still deliver the gaming experience we set out to.  Anyone who's looked at the graphics in Sins of a Solar Empire would, I think, agree that the graphics are pretty phenomenal (particularly space battles).  But could they be even fancier? Sure. But only if we degraded the gaming experience for the largest chunk of people who buy games.

The problem with blaming piracy

I don't want anyone to walk away from this article thinking I am poo-pooing the effect of piracy.  I'm not.  I definitely feel for game developers who want to make kick ass PC games who see their efforts diminished by a bunch of greedy pirates.  I just don't count pirates in the first place.  If you're a pirate, you don't get a vote on what gets made -- or you shouldn't if the company in question is trying to make a profit. 

The reason why we don't put CD copy protection on our games isn't because we're nice guys. We do it because the people who actually buy games don't like to mess with it. Our customers make the rules, not the pirates. Pirates don't count. We know our customers could pirate our games if they want but choose to support our efforts. So we return the favor - we make the games they want and deliver them how they want it. This is also known as operating like every other industry outside the PC game industry.

One of the jokes I've seen in the desktop enhancement market is how "ugly" WindowBlinds skins are (though there are plenty of awesome ones too). But the thing is, the people who buy WindowBlinds tend to like a different style of skin than the people who would never buy it in the first place.  Natural selection, so to speak, over many years has created a number of styles that seem to be unique to people who actually buy WindowBlinds.  That's the problem with piracy.  What gets made targets people who buy it, not the people who would never buy it in the first place. When someone complains about "fat borders" on some popular WindowBlinds skin my question is always "Would you buy WindowBlinds even if there was a perfect skin for you?" and the answer is inevitably "Probably not". That's how it works in every market -- the people who buy stuff call the shots.  Only in the PC game market are the people who pirate stuff still getting the overwhelming percentage of development resources and editorial support.

When you blame piracy for disappointing sales, you tend to tar the entire market with a broad brush.  Piracy isn't evenly distributed in the PC gaming market. And there are far more effective ways of getting people who might buy your product to buy it without inconveniencing them.

Blaming piracy is easy. But it hides other underlying causes.  When Sins popped up as the #1 best selling game at retail a couple weeks ago, a game that has no copy protect whatsoever, that should tell you that piracy is not the primary issue.

In the end, the pirates hurt themselves. PC game developers will either slowly migrate to making games that cater to the people who buy PC games or they'll move to platforms where people are more inclined to buy games.

In the meantime, if you want to make profitable PC games, I'd recommend focusing more effort on satisfying the people willing to spend money on your product and less effort on making what others perceive as hot.  But then again, I don't romanticize PC game development. I just want to play cool games and make a profit on games that I work on.