Unity Technologies' general manager defends piracy

Unity Technologies' general manager for Asia, John Goodale, has spoken openly about the positive effects of piracy and has stated that he believes it has been to the company's advantage in seeding a market in China.

Speaking with GameIndustry.biz at Unite 11 in San Francisco, Goodale discussed how his own personal experiences as a software pirate in his youth taught him to appreciate the positive effects of piracy in establishing future demand for a product. "Piracy can be a way to seed a market. Nobody will ever fully conquer the piracy problem, but we can certainly turn it to our advantage, and I think that's what we've done in China."

Goodale explained his stance came from his experience as an original DOS, Lotus 123 user whose future purchases were influenced by pirated software. "I heard of this thing called Excel, but I couldn't imagine going away from lotus 123 - it's what I knew. Then somebody gave me an illegal copy of Excel, and I loved it, and I've purchased it ever since," he said.

In Unity's introductory keynote address they revealed that the four cities with the most Unity sessions per month, "legal or otherwise", are Seoul, Beijing, Shanghai and Nei Hu.

Unity Technologies are responsible for the UNITY: Game Development Tool.

Thanks, Destructoid.