By: Luke Plunkett

Piracy. It's a terrible business. Not the yyaarrgghh, timber-shivering kind, mind you, the dodgy $5 copy of Age of Empires III kind. And while it's a problem the world over, nowhere is it more prevalent than South-East Asia, where decades of cultural acceptance and government inaction have seen the software piracy trade flourish.

Putting aside the larger argument of the ethics of such a trade, let's just for a moment assume that piracy is bad, and that it needs a good kick in the ass. Then examine the fact that international pressure, token law enforcement gestures across SE Asia and a general acceptance of the practice have made previous attempts at ass-kicking a total bust.

Means it's time for something new. Something like the approach Dragonback Media are taking with their JumboPlay service, a Gametap-esque subscription program in South-East Asia that is aimed squarely at luring people who once would have paid a few bucks for pirated games, or indeed nothing in the case of downloads, to instead spend a few bucks on their legal, publisher-backed service.

Established in 2005 from a team pulled largely from games publishers and music industry types, Dragonback have devised a unique way of making an honest buck while at the same time tackling piracy. Mark Lankester, the company's boss, explains, "the games industry is enormous in Asia, but the reality is that publishers are recognizing only a fraction of that total end user consumption because of piracy".

"What piracy means is that the perceived acquisition value of games is low by the majority of gamers. To counter that, we look at bridging the gap in the end user pricepoint" he says. Nice words. Warm, fuzzy, and for publishers, comforting. So how's it achieved?

Unlike similar online gaming services like GameTap, Dragonback does not rely on a monthly subscription fee (though the option does exist should consumers wish to pay it). Rather, through arrangements with the biggest internet service providers across the region, it piggy-backs onto both their service and, more importantly, their monthly fees. These vary according to the country and the ISP, but are between USD$3-7 per month. Yeah, pocket change.

So when you pay your monthly internet bills, you're paying your Jumboplay subscription as well, giving you unlimited monthly access to a big catalogue of games, all at your fingertips. Just like those popular dodgy marketplaces. But, most importantly, without the impression you're paying for it.

The idea for the service came from the Dragonback team's history with the music business, and in particular the damage piracy has done to its bottom line. "Look at the music industry", Lankester says. "It basically sat on its laurels for a long time, saw its business decimated, were brought kicking and screaming into the iTunes era at 99c a track" he continues. "Billions of downloads later it is a real business".

In theory, this is all tip-top. Gamers are happy because they're getting a ton of games for no perceived cost, pirates are unhappy because this cuts in on their business and publishers are happy because they're actually seeing some revenue from the region. Everyone's a winner baby, that's no lie. Or, wait, are they?

As any GameTap or indeed Steam user will tell you, the platform itself is only a start: the biggest issue for anyone downloading games are how many games they've got to choose from, and how good they are. You're not going to pay to download Tomb Raider II, for example, if you can grab a pirated copy of Tomb Raider Legend for a couple of bucks.

Something Lankester is aware of, in keeping both customers and publishers happy. "To cater to the hardcore gamers, recency of a title becomes paramount. The key deliverable as a legitimate secure distribution & content delivery platform will be to ensure that we are in a position of delivering volume revenues to publishers, comparable to the physical market during the halcyon days".

"We feel that having an installed base of active paying customers across Asia of equivalent to the ISP's broadband connections base will potentially be the tipping point of day & date and broad adoption by publishers". In other words, as soon as JumboPlay start getting a few big games on their service on the same day they hit the shelves, they'll be making their customers happy. They'll also start getting the rest of the publishing community onboard.

Big-name publishers currently signed up to the service include Atari, Ubisoft, Eidos and Microsoft Game Studios. Which to be honest isn't as great as it could be, and the absence of EA, Activision and Take-Two are telling. But it's definitely a start, and the company are constantly adding further publishers to their roster.

JumboPlay currently offers over 80 major titles, with 2-4 added every month, though this number is expected to grow exponentially as more publishers join the service. Of this number one or two are casual, bite-sized titles, some by the major publishers, some from smaller teams.

While JumobPlay as an organization is clearly aimed at capitalising on the influence of piracy in SE Asia, Lankester is reluctant to say that combating pirates was the main goal in establishing the business. He'll only say it was a sensible business decision, despite proudly advertising on their website that they're actively partnered with both the Malaysian government and the BSA in tackling piracy.

Whether altruistic crusade or savvy business decision, publishers and gamers in SE Asia won't be inclined to care: if JumboPlay succeeds in luring paying customers to their service and away from pirated software, publishers will have succeeded in taking money away from pirates, and gamers will be happy with their "free", downloadable games.

"Whilst piracy will always be prevalent", Lankester concludes, "making legitimate content available to consumers, simple to use, fast to play and at good pricepoints will make inroads into piracy".

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