Gaming piracy figures - real or imagined?

Go steal that car! You stealing that car will not affect ANY worker's job. Go steal 10 cars, it still won't have an effect. The number of people who steal cars vs people who buy is miniscule. Job losses for GM can actually be put on the shoulders of the workers with their union. The situation is far more complex than just car stealing. Steal 20 GM cars, won't have an effect, if they lose job it's due to far more complex issues.

 

Theft always has a price.

However, difference here is that the car WAS originally purchased by someone. At a minimum, dealers buy the cars wholesale then resell them.

But even if you omit that factiod... go steal the car and insurance will have to reimburse someone. Steal enough cars and insurance premiums go up. Steal even more cars and their actuarial dept will determine that perhaps a certain make and model is stolen more than others and either require a higher premium to insure it or drop coverage altogether.

And if the car wasn't insured, well then...

In any event, there's no such thing as a victimless crime. That's why they call it... crime.

Even though the analogy that started this line of thinking was flawed, the base argument is correct. In the face of alleged rampant piracy, profits are still to be had for popular titles which help to offset loses from failed titles and theoretical/anecdotal loses from piracy.

But as there is no victimless crimes, honest consumers have to pay ever increasing prices for increasing mediocrity with the occasional bright spot and have to be subjected to intrusive and abusive DRM. All thanks to detached delusional, corporate bean counting and piracy.

 

i think however way you put it piracy is wrong, although i would never go as far as calling pirates morally bankrupt as other would.

piracy however shows one glaring fact - many are not willing to pay for a 60usd game!!!
ill gladly pay for a 15to20usd game , or maybe 40usd if i really like it but not 50-60usd.
id say bring games down to 15-20usd and put a curb on piracy

 

Majority of these games don't have any replay value is the problem, charging $60 for a mediocre gaming experience of 5 hours is b/s. But really I think Piracy is just a great excuse for developers to re-direct the blame for a crappy game.

 

well some use it as an excuse but they do loose money to piracy.
i wouldnt blame the game developers though, their the heroes. its the publishers like ubi and ea who set the pricing and all the crazy drm stuff that are the evil empires here.
its all economics anyways. they just dont want to lower pc game prices to protect their console markets. seems like the console fanboys are ok with 60usd games. until that changes, nothing will happen.

 

Piracy is illegal. It's matter of law. Though, I can't blanket piracy as morally bankrupt. That indemnifies the producers of their behavior in pursuit of profit. Plus there are many reasons why people pirate. A few of those reasons, which I won't go into, are "valid" reasons for doing so. But outside those reasons, there's really no other valid, morally defensible excuses to pirate. There's just the reason why people pirate.

And I agree, less people would pirate if game prices were more reasonable. What percent is anyone's guess. But people are generally more willing to take a "risk" on a game at a cheaper price point than a more expensive one.

Add in ridiculous DRM schemes that mostly affect legitimate owners and we may see PC games priced out of the market. In other words, the end of PC gaming unless a major paradigm shift occurs.

 

When developers sign contract with the publisher, they know the publisher will charge $50-60 regardless of whether the game is mediocre or good.

So it's the developer's job then to make the game so awesome, gamers will say, yeah maybe no game is worth $60, but I'm willing to pay for this one, I want to play this game.

Or else, people will just stick to their one game, playing BC2 forever, BF2 forever, WoW, Warhammer, LOTR. Gotta give gamers a reason to be like, I'll take a break from LOTR to check out this game. So if developers are whining about sales, they ought to blame themselves.

There are MILLIONS, Hundreds of millions of gamers who did not pirate or buy the game. Don't blame piracy, hundreds of millions of people who buy and not steal, but simply say, what? Pay $50 for that garbage? No thanks. But then there is the also, what? I need to buy a GTX470 to enjoy this game? No thanks, F*U THQ.

 

true but its also the publisher who usually gives the developer the finances and the time frame they work with.
i think given enough time and money developers could make really terrific games. but thats really the publishers call.
also most of the one billion dollar revenues of a game goes to the publisher and a few million go to the developers.
and fwiw i think thq is one of the good guys. they never had restrictive drm in any of their games which to me are all v high quality (at least their startegy games).

 

Developers DO NOT loose money due to piracy! Not gaining money (or someone else gaining it) does not mean you are loosing it.

Your logic (or rather lack of such) if fascinating.

 

they do loose some money.
although most pirates will not buy the game if they had to there are some gamers who would have bought the game if they would not have been able to get it thru piracy.

your logic (or rather lack of such) is simplistic and misleading.

 

Totally agree. Assuming that everyone who pirates have never the intention to buy the software otherwise is extremely simplistic.

 

AAAAGGGGHHH! It's "LOSE" not "LOOSE". Sorry just one of those things that bugs me.

Ok, now back to our regularly scheduled program.

 

Fighting the interweb is a loosing battle; its always too late for me to walk away when i should of

 

Don't loose your cool! Just be footloose and fancy free

 

Then why else would you pirate it? Because you like possibly getting infected with a virus?!

My logic is on the spot, you made no proof to support your "argument". (Fail.) Don't try to pretend to be smart. It doesn't work.

If you want to buy the game you can buy it easily online. From most of the countries (direct2drive, gamespot, etc.). If you don't have money and you want it the alternative is to pirate it. It costs absolutely no money to the developer since you are simply making a copy of it. Regardless that you *should* have paid from ethical or whatever point of view.

If you wanna play the "IF" game, you can also say, pirating actually INCREASES sales revenue! Because people tried to play a game, it was terribly unplayable with the pirate DVD rip, but official game includes online play, extra packs, etc etc.... It's meaningless to try to attach numbers to these speculations.

 

Oddly enough online purchases aren't quite as prevalent as some people (especially those living in the North American continent) think. Pirating the game is almost certainly an overall economic loss to the developers simply because what should have been a legitimate purchase ended up being lost revenue to the "copying" of the game for free.

 

I haven't bought a game in a long long time. Very little games interest me now a days, but I'm going to pick up Starcraft II for sure. Make better games.

 

again your 'logic' shows your lack of it.
just because a game is available for purchase online doesnt mean a gamer will buy it if you can have the same software for free.
thats the economics of piracy and gaming atm- getting something for free vs paying for it.
although the publishers are wrong to assume that every pirated game is a lost sale, you are in the same boat assuming that every pirated game is not a lost sale. your argument is as silly as theirs.

 

Dont we have the right to look at asomething before we buy it? with PC demos becoming more and more scarce its like shooting 50-60 bucks out the door on a game, a game we can almost never get any return on if its crap. GS dont take pc game trade, the DRM makes it so they really cant. Game pirating has led me to buy some games I never would have cuz I got to try them out before hand. On the other hand tho its also led me to not buy some games because..well..they blew.

 

Wasn't that the case where right around the same time that aircraft went down in france? I turned out the woman payed more in fines than the airline did for the lost lives. I'd have to find sources but I recall my outrage over that pretty clearly...

 

Gaming industry just needs to restructure how they make a profit. The need to stop viewing Piracy as a loss, but as a potential cash mountain.

 

exactly.
i found the vid-article you posted about using torrents as a distribution network and adding ads to games v enlightening.
the probelm i see is that game companies just wont touch anything atm as long as their console games are making profits for them. they wont rock the boat. status quo rules since they are making a killing with the consoles

 

Where did you find that publishers believe every pirated copy is a lost sale? I think that attitude is just as obtuse as actually believing that every pirated copy is a lost sale. I don't think anyone in the industry is really that naive. But when you look at game piracy across the board, as a business it would be just as silly to believe it has no impact on sales.

Take a look around. Piracy on the 360 is like 10% of what it is on the PC with pretty much any AAA multi-platform title. All you have to do is track the popular games on torrent sites to see this.

Sales on those same games are heavily weighted to the side of the 360, something like 10:1. No this is not an exact figure because publishers do not release complete sales figures but we can examine sales of popular titles that do get lots of press and attention as to sales. So we learn that this is a pretty acceptable figure with some small margin of error.

Hm, from a business point of view what can you determine from this data? Well, 360 games have a significantly better sales to piracy ratio than the PC. Why is that? Because piracy on a 360 is:

1. More difficult than on a PC.
2. Riskier due to being banned from Live services.

Likely there is also some weight given to demographics etc... but these are pretty undeniable facts. So what does a publisher do to try and mimic this model on PC? They attempt to make it more difficult and riskier to pirate on the PC. And we get Ubisoft & EA 24/7 Internet Connection DRM.

Will it work? Well I just read today that AC2 has actually been cracked. No this isn't the server emulation that was out pretty quickly, this is a crack like pretty much any other out there.

We also get delayed PC releases to push 360 sales up front and we get less attention given to PC ports and even canceled ports due to their much lower profit margins. Does all this totally suck for me, the paying customer of PC games who doesn't pirate but is suffering a poorer experience because of it?

YES!!!!

 

although i agree with your post, i never said this.
if you read a few posts back i was reacting to another post, but never did i say this. i have actually advocated the opposite on many different posts.
but i am not naive enough(like others) to think that pblishers lose nothing to piracy. they lose some as i have mentioned previously, but nothing in the millions or billions they try to make the public believe.

 

Oh sorry I haven't read through the whole thread as it seems to teeter on pointless at times and your comment just stuck out at me.

Well it's in the publishers best interest to make the problem as serious as possible. It is pretty difficult to determine the actual economic impact of piracy, and publishers no doubt know this too, but it's hard to ignore these stats. If 360 games sell 10-1 vs PC. And PC games suffer from piracy 10-1 vs 360... well I am no mathlete but that looks like a pretty convincing argument for significant lost revenue on PC games due to piracy.

 

well not necessarily. there could just be much more console gamers out there atm, add to that the facts you mentioned about the diifulty of pirating on a console and you can understand why those ratios are such.

however if you read the article posted by the op even the us gov't admits that the figures that software companies claim (250billion usd in lost sales) is humongously overstated.

 

Oh I don't discredit that statement at all. That's a pretty massive and of course unsubstantiated number. I have read the article. Content owners are amazing at coming up with numbers that make them look like bleeding heart victims when crying lost revenue due to piracy. Don't get me started about the RIAA

But I have read many, many, many articles on piracy from all sides. Not just in games but also in music and some in movies. And imo it is rampant on PC because it's easy and safe. Plain and simple. People come up with all kinds of neat excuses and reasons to pirate games but in the end there really is no good reason. All these excuses come from an overgrown and dangerous epidemic of entitlement.

Games are a luxury item. Don't like DRM... don't buy the game. Prices too high... buy it on sale or used. No demo... read some reviews, ask some players about it and watch some videos.

 

No, the article doesn't say that. The conclusion is the lack of basis to support the number (which means the numbers could be over- or under- stated). The conclusion of the overstated numbers was added by the website promoting the article.

 

true.
software piracy is like a vicious cycle.
first publishers give us: sofware thats expensive, software we cant install, sofware that wont work properly, software that doesnt have proper tech support, sofware that crashes our systems.
in turn we pirate the software which leads to poorer software, prices etc which leads to even more pirating.
what im saying the software guys also have a fault in this. however this doesnt justify pirating.
it will be a difficult cycle to break, especially with the gaming industry focused on consoles.

 

And on that I agree, they are not guiltless. The clearest proof is Ubisoft's new DRM scheme for their newest games. It is simply unacceptable. The way to go is not to support those games. If we pirate those game then we are indirectly giving reason to the companies to keep escalating the DRM scheme because the game is "popular".

 

yes, the point im trying to make is that although there are many reasons for piracy, some of which may considered valid, piracy is never justified and is in fact a crime.
the reason why many people engage in it is because the chance of getting caught is quite minimal.
but what software companies fail to recognize is, just like what others have said, its a fact of life and its here to stay. just like a force of nature, sometimes the more you fight it the harder it hits you- and thats what happens in the instance of drm's like ubi's

 

Again, I think that's a bit naive. Software companies are well aware of this. It is definitely a cultural shift and not one for the better. But to simply accept it, ignore it and just move on would be ridiculous for any software company. They have to try and fight it. They have to try and make them selves as profitable as possible. This is their business. This is their livelihood.

Do I agree with Ubi's DRM, no. Will I support, not if I have a choice. But I can't help but lay the blame on the pirates for its inception. Don't get me wrong, I am not defending Ubisoft in any way here. They have made some real stinkers in the past, and still do... but how this somehow leads to a fault for rampant piracy doesn't seem logical to me.

 

Agree with this wholeheartedly. There's nothing wrong with DRM, as long as it doesn't interfere with your life. DVDs and BRDs have DRM on them, but the players make it very easy to only barely ever notice them (odds are if you're complaining about not being able to rip a DVD or Blu-Ray disc b/c of DRM, you probably aren't making an innocent backup).

Solutions I'd be down with, in descending order, for removing constant call-home DRM:
1) rolling keyfobs or usb keys that you need to register online once during installation. To play the game, you need to enter the code off the keyfob or plug in the usb key, but you don't need to be online. Banks do it, most security-paranoid businesses do it, even WoW does it, why not just spread it more widely? Sucks if you lose the fob, but there's no call-home.
2) games installed to a ROM on a USB drive with some other additional security on top (thinking keypress/pad that sends a changing hardware signal). copy- and clone-able, but a pain to implement for pirates. Could also make the game installable only if the drive is attached and some signal is read (initialization algorithm of some sort).

(These I don't like, but I could live with, personally)
3) Sending the company a list of my hardware when I register the key, and make it hard to reinstall more than maybe once off that key (think MSOffice registration system). Or, compile certain files during installation that changed based on my hardware, encrypt them and upload. If I try to re-install, no barriers to activation if the same file is sent. Also, could download only the specific files needed to make the program work on my hardware at the time of installation. Basic software is there and functional, but it won't be pretty.

Or, just let the game companies quit the PC industry (not happening) and/or focus on the console industry (happening), where the console is a big physical barrier. Yes, there's piracy on consoles, but it's less rampant, and harder to do now (at least on the 360) since MS made mod chips and disc-less HDD installation near impossible.

 

That is right. A good idea already in practice in some places.

 

well theres a reason i said it that way which i have explained thoroughly in a previous thread.
but to cut it a little short there are basically two kinds of pirates - one who just wants something for free and one who used to be a paying customer and for whatever reason be it price, bugs, crashes, etc has elected to go the piracy route.
the problem with software companies is that they concentrate their efforts on the former, which admittedly is the bigger % of pirates; but which they can never convert into paying customers.
they shoudl concentrate on the minority group, the former paying customer, and try to win him back.
ubis draconian drm is a perfect example -it concentrates on the 'freebie' group and just turns-off the would be or ex-paying customer. its an epic fail on both ends because it doesnt stop the pirating of the game and it turns off legitimate customers as well.
like you im not against drm, but it has to be reasonable. but more than that gamers need a game where they feel they are getting their value for money be it thru price, content, playability, support, etc.

 

Why would that make you not want to complain? Seems like you'd complain more because you ARE making an innocent backup. I'm starting to rip all my DVD's now because my kids manage to get them and destroy them, despite my best intents and measures to prevent it.

 

Doesn't matter. To me it still violates consumers rights to ownership. All types of DRM ensure that a consumer never owns anything but only pay for the right to use. That seems very wrong to me, whether it's movies, music or games, doesn't matter.

When I bought my Asus G73, there are no measures here that prevent me from fully owning my machine and doing whatever I want with it. There is no mechanism that shut downs my laptop if I allow a friend to use it for a year while I'm away where a laptop would be of no use for example. I can allow as many people I want to use it or make any modifications I want and the G73 will not be locked down or shut down.

It is unfortunate that Torchlight for example is pirated so often considering there have been such great discounts reducing price as low as $5.

 

they wont be able to overcome pirating because people will always be on the offensive and finding ways to put it up there. These anti pirating guys and the game developers can only catch up to the pirates (?) and never will be on the offense in stopping pirating.

 

Well, as far a I understood it is the pirates who copy the games, not the other way around ... unless you tried to say something else...

 

This is precisely correct.

It's practically a lease. Therefore, if I can't own it, it would be better to change the license terms and change from purchase to subscription.

Eventually the law will catch up and mandate the distinction.

 

I agree with you, this DRM does indeed turn off potential customers, like myself and others in this thread. It's pretty obvious past DRM solutions (reasonable ones) have done little to stave off the pirates when you see the game ready for download on a torrent site even before it is released to retail. There is no easy solution I fear. If there is we probably won't like it much either as PC gamers.

I think we will start to see the publishers exploring more types of solutions to piracy. Subscription models are going to come and come on strong imo. Activision has already talked about a COD subscription styled game. And EA has been testing the waters with Battleforge and Battlefield Heroes micro transactions. And EA is even dabbling with the 24/7 Internet in C&C4. Adn services like OnLive may actually take off in some markets... but it's really early to even guess at that still.

It would be really nice to know the actual sales numbers though. Looking at this from a Ubisoft Exec point of view... if sales for AC2 PC did well because of this new DRM... well who's going to argue with numbers? There's always going to be resistance to change but in time consumers may learn to live with it.

Remember when Steam first started? Tons of people were like "Pffft this sucks. Who's going to wait hours for a game to download when you can just go buy it in the store. And you don't even get a manual! etc etc etc" It was buggy and there was much hoopla over the service in the early years. Now Steam is hugely popular. The culture shifted and the platform widely embraced. Is it perfect, no. But Valve has done a pretty sweet job of sticking to their guns, listening to consumers and working to bring the value of the service up in the eyes of gamers. Maybe Ubi will do the same? Maybe the culture will shift? Or maybe... it will die a horrible death, lol.

 

companies like thq, stardock, valve, bioware get it. they have the most minimal or even non-existent drm's , instead they concentrate on making good games that work. as i have explained, they understand that most pirates cannot be converted to paying customers so why waste major resources there.
sure a company has a right to protect its products, but not at the expense of its customers. even basic high school economics teaches us this.

 

I am not disagreeing with you but history has tons of evidence to the contrary. Customers can be made to accept change that doesn't bring the same value as what they are used to. It has been happening for decades. ATMs, service fees, bag your own groceries, pump your own gas...

In games, we have seen MW2 with no dedicated serves do very well at $10 more than your average game. SC2 will have no LAN play and likely sell gabillions... in three separate parts no less. Secu-Rom still causes major hoopla among many people and is still used. Some games like DoW 2 require you to sign up to multiple services just to play singleplayer... there's lots of examples.

THQ
Here's an article on how well THQ did for fiscal 2009

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6209260.html

And see my DoW 2 reference above.

Stardock
Here's Stardocks Announcement on Goo (their Impulse answer to DRM)
http://kotaku.com/5184001/stardocks-answer-to-drm-goo

And here is the announcement on the 85% Piracy rate of Demigod 10 days after Goo launches, how the service was brought to it's knees and the rather high price tag for the limited amount of content in the game.
http://www.playnoevil.com/serendipi...00-pirate-copies-18,000-legitimate-sales.html

Bioware
Bioware is basically EA no? The same publisher bringing you C&C 4 and the image of the evil giant. They acquired Bioware around the same time as Pandemic, the company they killed after the Saboteur was released. And EA makes/publishes puhlenty of crap.

As for AC2 it's probably one of the best games of 2009. I think Ubi made a great game alongside making a horrible DRM so it is possible to make a good game and work on new DRM at the same time. But ya for the most part I think you're right, pirates can't be made into paying customers, at least not through this kind of DRM and the general ease of pirating today.

Hence why I think we'll continue to see the publishers dabbling in different models over the next few years. They want some sales back from piracy and they'll continue to try and get them. And we will likely adapt some more, just like we have with Steam, Secu-Rom and generally less for more.

 

nice articles.
although i believe the revenue problems of both thq and stardock are a reflection of dwindling pc sales and the economy as a whole.
you will note that both these companies are very pc-centric, im not even sure if they make console games.
and thats what many here have been saying- you cant blame these figures on piracy alone. although i dont have the figures, i think its a given that there are more console gamers nowadays and the paradigm of gaming has shifted towards their favor.
and also as i have been repeating so many times, you can never convert the vast majority of pirates to paying customers.
the cool thing about these companies is that even with poor sales figures, they have not adopted restrictive drm's like ubi's. in fact i think stardocks solution is quite simple and elegant.
ultimately it is still the customer who decides. we decide with our purchases. there is always a limit as to what a consumer will regards as fair and worth his money. for me it drm's such as ubi's. for some they think that 'ac2 is an incredible game despite its drm'. ultimately our money decides. remember skyforce (or whatever its name was )?