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August 07, 2003
The Public Goods Problem
During a <a href="http://www.siggraph.org/s2003/conference/courses/ellis.html">course on IP rights</a> at SIGGRAPH, Bob Ellis (the org's <a href="http://www.siggraph.org/pub-policy/">public policy program</a> chair) commented on how many people perceive music (or more specifically MP3s) as a "<a href="http://www.auburn.edu/~johnspm/gloss/public_goods.html">public good</a>". That is, once a musician creates a piece of music, there is no additional effort spent as the amount of listeners increase (ie, the cost of creation is the same regardless of the amount of consumption). Interesting point of view...
Bob further went on to explain how this was relevant to those working in the digital/graphics worlds in terms of their IP rights and so on. This was a course at SIGGRAPH after all.
Anyway, I saw this as an interesting economic principle and in some way felt that this "<a href="http://www.auburn.edu/~johnspm/gloss/public_goods.html">public goods</a>" problem might provide some insight as to why many developers are hesitant/resist <a href="http://www.igda.org/join/">becoming a member</a> of the IGDA. In even just reading this <a href="http://www.auburn.edu/~johnspm/gloss/public_goods.html">simple definition</a> one can get the sense that the IGDA is in many ways a public good. That is to say that EVERY developer benefits from the work we are doing to fight government regulation (as one example), regardless if they are a member or not. And so, why should they pay (ie, join) to receive a benefit they would receive anyway? Like, who ever pays for PBS?
Hmm, seems like the shame and guilt tactics alluded to have been our best bets so far ;)
Kinda sad.
Sorry to bore about internal IGDA challenges, but moral of the story is that there's some really cool stuff to learn from economics. I can already see how this one principle can apply to both game design (especially in MMOs) and game business (think piracy issues)...
Posted by della at August 7, 2003 12:45 AM
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Comments
Jason,
You should check out <a href="http://www.mediagora.com/">http://www.mediagora.com/</a> Kevin has some interesting ideas. On to get artists (or as he calls them -- Creators) paid and get the fans involved in promotion.
Posted by: Adam Hill at August 11, 2003 02:52 PM