How much do you think piracy is affecting the PC Gaming market?

[HisDivineOrder]

Well, the original topic really can't be answered properly. There is Ubisoft saying it's 95%, and CD Projekt Red saying it's also very high, plenty of forum members saying it's nowhere near that.

Let's face it, it's really a question that can't be answered, we can only guess at best.

How much do I think it's affecting the market ? I don't know. But I know that it's probably enough to hurt it, which gets me upset because PC gaming is one of my hobbies and passions.

So when I see others talking about how piracy isn't actual theft it gets my blood pumping because it's an issue that strikes home. And it's my firm belief, and I really think others can agree on this point, that if people truly thought of it as theft, and then chose to do the right thing based on that, it would be close to a non issue.

You said earlier that people who defend piracy must be pirates because it's in their inherent best interests to defend a practice they themselves do.

So why are you taking the developers' word for everything they say? I mean, honestly, consider this. Does the developer or especially the publisher have any reason to declare piracy is dead or not a real problem?

Or do they have a solid reason to demonize piracy while not fully killing it? Because wouldn't you say that whenever a game fails in the PC market or whenever a publisher decides not to put that game on PC, hasn't it been often the case that they stated that it was because of piracy?

Isn't it possible that the developers and publishers have their own really selfish reason for making piracy out to be a greater threat to the industry than it really is? You distrust anyone who defends piracy because of man's inherent nature, but you trust the developer or the publisher--run by men and women--who would also have the same logic apply.

See, myself, I distrust corporations more than I distrust the individual person. So if a person is telling me their rationale and a corporation is telling me their interpretation of studies and I can clearly see how one conclusion serves no use to them and one conclusion serves absolutely a LOT of use to them...

...well, the corporation is going more often than not pick the conclusion that helps them out. Sometimes, publishers have games that fail. They want an easy excuse for why that is rather than admit the game sucked. Piracy makes an awfully awesome scapegoat, don't you think?

So why trust these corporations and the little companies they've built up into the DRM industry so much? That human nature you ridicule in pirates also exists in those corporations, except that instead of saving money on games or movies or TV you've got an entire corporation's management who might get sacked if the game sucked and flopped and there's not a really good reason why sales tanked. Other than the fact the game sucked, of course.

If you would lose your job if you had to own up to your game's sucking, wouldn't you think that'd be great motivation? And honestly, isn't that just a little stronger as an influence than "Yarrrr, I hate authority! I want all mah games free!" being the end of the industry?

Don't. Trust. Corporations. Without. Careful. Consideration.

When considering things like this, I always ask myself, "What's the motivation?" Honestly. Can you tell me these companies don't have great, selfish reasons to keep using piracy as a scapegoat long after it's irrelevant?

 

[HeXen]

Well, the original topic really can't be answered properly. There is Ubisoft saying it's 95%, and CD Projekt Red saying it's also very high, plenty of forum members saying it's nowhere near that.

Let's face it, it's really a question that can't be answered, we can only guess at best.

I would believe the people who are in the business and see it all first hand before i would believe what some forum consumers think. If they say it's high, then it's high until someone proves otherwise.

 

[Dumac]

That's great and all if you want to say morality has nothing to do with it. Why do so many stop pirating when they get older many times because they beilive it's wrong ?

It's because those people knew all along, but maybe now have the disposable income to no longer justify it to themselves.

The lack of morality has has almost everything to do with pirating today. It does matter, it needs to be talked about, and it's no surprise at all to me that it is an unpopular thing to bring up.

You basically just said that piracy has little to no effect on the PC gaming market and does no real harm.

A young person who has little disposable income pirates, but he couldn't afford games anyway. He then grows up, has disposable income, and now buys games instead of pirating them.

So what was the harm of him pirating? He wasn't a lost sale. And maybe he went back and bought those games he pirated or bought the sequels of the games he pirated.

 

[Nintendesert]

I call bullshit...EA didn't do it just for (or even mainly for) anti-piracy if I'd venture a guess. It wants Origin to compete with Steam to improve sales from the Origin store so Steam doesn't have the grip it currently has on the market. It also makes it easier for EA to hock a never ending stream of DLCs/expansions for SimCity.

You call it whatever you want. But Ubisoft, Activision and now EA are doing the online always DRM to try and squeeze out as much piracy and the used game market as they can. Piracy being such a significant deal gives them the excuse they want to do this.

Just look at the piracy numbers for the Witcher 2 which had some of the friendly non-drm around. All of this creates the perception of how bad piracy is and gives all these companies free reign to ruin single player games.

 

[Dumac]

I would believe the people who are in the business and see it all first hand before i would believe what some forum consumers think. If they say it's high, then it's high until someone proves otherwise.

But the people in the business have a vested interest in claiming piracy as high as they can in order to make themselves appear as a victim and push more units.

That said, I love CD Projekt. The Witcher games are among my favorite recent RPGs, and GOG is an awesome distribution service. Obviously their concern for piracy hasn't prevented them from operating in a consumer-friendly way, and I'm inclined to believe them.

 

[Nintendesert]

But the people in the business have a vested interest in claiming piracy as high as they can in order to make themselves appear as a victim and push more units.

That said, I love CD Projekt. The Witcher games are among my favorite recent RPGs, and GOG is an awesome distribution service. Obviously their concern for piracy hasn't prevented them from operating in a consumer-friendly way, and I'm inclined to believe them.

I won't believe Ubisoft/EA/Activision on numbers, but CD Projekt I will believe. They have nothing to gain from lying about the amount The Witcher 2 was pirated, they are like you said very consumer friendly.

The numbers are real enough and significant enough to give EA/Activision/Ubisoft the justification to ruin the PC gaming experience.

 

[smackababy]

You basically just said that piracy has little to no effect on the PC gaming market and does no real harm.

A young person who has little disposable income pirates, but he couldn't afford games anyway. He then grows up, has disposable income, and now buys games instead of pirating them.

So what was the harm of him pirating? He wasn't a lost sale. And maybe he went back and bought those games he pirated or bought the sequels of the games he pirated.

You can't believe that the majority of pirates are just young kids without income though. I do agree the effect of the pirates who couldn't buy the game isn't the largest. I read something interesting awhile back about Adobe and the mass pirating of Photoshop. They weren't concerned about individuals pirating the software because it just meant a majority of people going into the field were experienced with it. They focused mostly on corporate piracy and businesses pirating licenses. They understood amateurs wouldn't spend $600 on a license anyway. I don't know if this was true or not, but it makes a lot of sense for professional software.

 

[Craig234]

You said earlier that people who defend piracy must be pirates because it's in their inherent best interests to defend a practice they themselves do.

So why are you taking the developers' word for everything they say? I mean, honestly, consider this. Does the developer or especially the publisher have any reason to declare piracy is dead or not a real problem?

Or do they have a solid reason to demonize piracy while not fully killing it? Because wouldn't you say that whenever a game fails in the PC market or whenever a publisher decides not to put that game on PC, hasn't it been often the case that they stated that it was because of piracy?

Isn't it possible that the developers and publishers have their own really selfish reason for making piracy out to be a greater threat to the industry than it really is? You distrust anyone who defends piracy because of man's inherent nature, but you trust the developer or the publisher--run by men and women--who would also have the same logic apply.

See, myself, I distrust corporations more than I distrust the individual person. So if a person is telling me their rationale and a corporation is telling me their interpretation of studies and I can clearly see how one conclusion serves no use to them and one conclusion serves absolutely a LOT of use to them...

...well, the corporation is going more often than not pick the conclusion that helps them out. Sometimes, publishers have games that fail. They want an easy excuse for why that is rather than admit the game sucked. Piracy makes an awfully awesome scapegoat, don't you think?

So why trust these corporations and the little companies they've built up into the DRM industry so much? That human nature you ridicule in pirates also exists in those corporations, except that instead of saving money on games or movies or TV you've got an entire corporation's management who might get sacked if the game sucked and flopped and there's not a really good reason why sales tanked. Other than the fact the game sucked, of course.

If you would lose your job if you had to own up to your game's sucking, wouldn't you think that'd be great motivation? And honestly, isn't that just a little stronger as an influence than "Yarrrr, I hate authority! I want all mah games free!" being the end of the industry?

Don't. Trust. Corporations. Without. Careful. Consideration.

When considering things like this, I always ask myself, "What's the motivation?" Honestly. Can you tell me these companies don't have great, selfish reasons to keep using piracy as a scapegoat long after it's irrelevant?

Does everyone lie about everything they have an interest in? I guess you can't pretty much believe anyone about anything then. Which is wrong.

There are times for healthy skepticism, but you take it way past reasonable saying every developer is lying about piracy.

 

[smackababy]

Does everyone lie about everything they have an interest in? I guess you can't pretty much believe anyone about anything then. Which is wrong.

There are times for healthy skepticism, but you take it way past reasonable saying every developer is lying about piracy.

But corporations are evil and out to get you! Same as government and every other entity on the planet! I bet flu shots are mind control serum!

 

[ImpulsE69]

You call it whatever you want. But Ubisoft, Activision and now EA are doing the online always DRM to try and squeeze out as much piracy and the used game market as they can. Piracy being such a significant deal gives them the excuse they want to do this.

Just look at the piracy numbers for the Witcher 2 which had some of the friendly non-drm around. All of this creates the perception of how bad piracy is and gives all these companies free reign to ruin single player games.

I don't disagree some of it is to curb piracy, but that isn't their primary motivation. Their motivation is to squeeze out as much money from sales as they can from existing customers. This would happen even if piracy didn't exist. This came about because they saw things like WoW making millions by a constant monthly stream of cash from the same customers. It wasn't about selling MORE copies, it was about making as much money from a single sale as they could. All these companies saw that people would pay and said how can we make this work for us? Obviously not every company can make an MMO as successful as WoW, so they look at other ways to go about it.

And yes..companies lie. ALL THE TIME. Anyone who thinks otherwise is deluded. They lie about anything that affects their bottom line, or impacts customer perception. It is only natural that they some would inflate piracy to keep stockholders from leaving and keep their jobs. Whether you want to admit it or not the process they (including CD Projekt) used to get piracy numbers isn't exact or scientific.

 

[sourn]

As far as games.. Why wouldn't I pirate. There is hardly any way to check out a pc game before you buy it, non refundable, and a lot of the time specially here as of late doesn't even come close to the hype. I'll be damned if I just buy any game now without first been able to play it. If it's good then sure I'll buy it.

There's also been quite a few studies that show pirates actually buy more then non pirates. Figure that one out.

So I think piracy has had very little effect on gaming or music industry as a whole. I think them putting out shit and expecting people to buy has been the major factor. Which is why they can still have record breaking sales when they actually do get something right.

 

[smackababy]

As far as games.. Why wouldn't I pirate. There is hardly any way to check out a pc game before you buy it, non refundable, and a lot of the time specially here as of late doesn't even come close to the hype. I'll be damned if I just buy any game now without first been able to play it. If it's good then sure I'll buy it.

There's also been quite a few studies that show pirates actually buy more then non pirates. Figure that one out.

So I think piracy has had very little effect on gaming or music industry as a whole. I think them putting out shit and expecting people to buy has been the major factor. Which is why they can still have record breaking sales when they actually do get something right.

Yeah! You're entitled to so much! And if you really think piracy has had little effect on the music industry, I've got a Tower Records I'd like you to buy.

 

[rozkan]

A lot of the piracy is an issue of affordability. Sorry but a lot American CEOs who complain about piracy are stupid. Here is a better idea, price your games according to a nations GDP per capita, so if a game is $50 dollars in the USA then make it $10 in a country with 1/5 of GDP per capita of the USA. Same for Hollywood and even music industry.

But before anything, instead of trying to run your business like mafia, be honest and adapt better practices. Instead of worrying about your shareholders worry about your customers. When was the last time I heard a great song or watched a great movie that was made recently, I can't even remember...

 

[rozkan]

I honestly stopped listening music in last three years. I've already listened the great ones enough and can't find the same quality in new bands/singers. I stopped watching TV series after Lost disaster (now just watching Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead, already proven series in other forms). I am about to give up on new movies since I saw The Hobbit. If crowd sourced games of last years does not prove to be a good alternative I think I will also have to stop playing games because I don't want to pay a bunch of money for crappy games and every DLC that follows after...

 

[TheSlamma]

Yeah! You're entitled to so much! And if you really think piracy has had little effect on the music industry, I've got a Tower Records I'd like you to buy.

Tower Records is not a good example when trying to make a point.. that place had the most absurd prices on media I've ever seen, even their going out of business sales still didn't match Best Buy's normal pricing.

Just something for your argument bag in the future.

 

[smackababy]

Tower Records is not a good example when trying to make a point.. that place had the most absurd prices on media I've ever seen, even their going out of business sales still didn't match Best Buy's normal pricing.

Just something for your argument bag in the future.

Can you name another CD store chain? Maybe I'll use Empire Records and hope people have seen that movie. Regardless, the fact that all retail outlets that made most of their money selling CDs went out of business because of piracy.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Can you name another CD store chain? Maybe I'll use Empire Records and hope people have seen that movie. Regardless, the fact that all retail outlets that made most of their money selling CDs went out of business because of piracy.

Um..watch the documentary I Want That Record. The record shops didn't die because of piracy. They died because of big box stores (and the growth of internet sales to a degree). They died long before internet piracy was even considered a real issue.

 

[thecoolnessrune]

I'm sure Piracy is big on the wild west that is the PC. That being said I suppose I'm sort of atypical in that sense, and ultimately why I play Console games (Xbox 360) after being a PC Gamer for years.

I buy my games (all of them), but the Developers mostly being pointed out in this thread have to meet these requirements for me to play:

1. A Demo MUST be available, and it must accurately portray the game (if I play a demo and then read game reviews that point to a much different experience, then I won't buy.)

2. NO Intrusive. DRM. I won't be punished for buying a game. Steam's model works. Anything requiring me to always be online, platform limited key activations, or constant disc checks that break the game automatically won't get purchased by me.

3. Of course good gameplay. This varies from person to person but I think most of us has been burned playing big money for what basically amounted to Shovelware.

4. Not a crappy console port. I play PC games to get the most out of the PC experience. When I buy a game and still see the instructions laid out for a gamepad and horrible graphics, I feel burned. Will not buy.

Because of the above 4 things, Game Developers have seen far less money from me over the years, because they tend to fail at least 1 of the above things. I buy games for the Xbox 360 because the above does not apply and I make copies of my games to play (since games get damaged, especially if you have kids). I would love to play more PC games, but game developers got to step up and give me things I actually want to buy.

 

[ThinClient]

I'm still waiting for a reputable source to give any real answer to the thread's subject.

 

[Grooveriding]

Piracy is probably less headache on a console than a PC. Flash the firmware on your Xbox 360 or PS3 and after that you just play the copied games. There is some sort of myth that consoles are free of piracy, it is probably just as prevalent on a console as it is on a PC.

 

[thecoolnessrune]

Piracy is probably less headache on a console than a PC. Flash the firmware on your Xbox 360 or PS3 and after that you just play the copied games. There is some sort of myth that consoles are free of piracy, it is probably just as prevalent on a console as it is on a PC.

Yup, back when you had to cut traces and all, there was a huge market for people to pay someone $20 to do it. I used to do that alot. Nowadays anyone can do it themselves with some tools and a good USB SATA tool. $120 investment in good tools makes flashing and maintaining the flashed console a 5 minute process and cost you the cost of 3 games. In return, you can download and burn pretty much any game you want.

I buy games to support the developer, but I make backups of everything I buy (regardless of the legal status of flashed Xboxes), because I've seem what happens when an Xbox 360 hiccups on a game disc. If its not a Microsoft game (who will replace your game for $5), you're generally SOL. I've known a few people who lost their games to kids, and I'd rather that not be me. Plus, its nice when I go from Madison to Milwaukee, that I can just take my console and my library of burned backups, and not have to worry about all my expensive games getting lost or stolen while on a college campus.

 

[ThinClient]

Piracy is probably less headache on a console than a PC. Flash the firmware on your Xbox 360 or PS3 and after that you just play the copied games. There is some sort of myth that consoles are free of piracy, it is probably just as prevalent on a console as it is on a PC.

A guy I used to play SWG with likes to brag that he's gone through 30 or so 360's. He flashes them to play pirated games but then they get banned from the 360 network and he has to go buy another one. He likes to buy broken ones for super cheap and repair them.

Dude's a moron.

Pirating on consoles can get retarded expensive and can be a huge pain in the ass.

 

[TallBill]

Sounds like a giant pain in the ass.

 

[Childs]

Tower Records is not a good example when trying to make a point.. that place had the most absurd prices on media I've ever seen, even their going out of business sales still didn't match Best Buy's normal pricing.

Just something for your argument bag in the future.

Not to mention the people working where were aholes. Too cool to do their jobs.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

I'm still waiting for a reputable source to give any real answer to the thread's subject.

The problem is not one of reputability, there are plenty of reputable sources that measure the raw amount of piracy, game developers themselves who operate online servers that track legal vs illegal copies of the game can get good numbers on this and it shows a very high incidence of piracy.

That has never really been an issue, the issue is interpreting the data, how do well tell what percentage of these illegal copies are legitimately lost sales and hence lost revenue. Furthermore which are legitimately lost sales but however the money for which simply denies another developer revenue.

For example, say you buy game A and pirate game B, had piracy not existed maybe you would have purchased game B, but is that at the expense of not buying game A? Or maybe you simply wait and purchase both, but only when they reach half the price.

The issue is that the market has boomed and like the movie, TV and music industry there is now vastly more content available to buy than the average consumer can realistically be expected to purchase, when you reach this saturation point not all developers can survive equally, the market can only support a limited amount of revenue, and like all other markets some businesses thrive and others go under, not because of piracy but because that's just how free markets work.

The way we think about piracy should not be looking at which developers struggle and ultimately go under, because that's a natural process, and this is very much an appeal to emotion. What we should be considering is the overall value of the marketplace, the health so to speak - how much revenue is flowing in to the market from consumers? If piracy was a genuine issue then this value would steadily decrease as piracy became more ubiquitous, but the fact is that it hasn't in fact the gaming market has only ever grown, it's now the biggest entertainment industry out there and that is a fact you can investigate and verify.

This over simplified idea that piracy = stealing and stealing = bad just doesn't follow for me. If you're stealing physical discs from a store shelf and denying others the physical media and possibly a legitimate CD key then sure, that's a reasonable argument. But in the space of online piracy where the harm comes from "potentially lost revenue" it's a far more complicated idea.

I don't condone piracy, but also I'm not overly fussed by victim-less crimes, I think we have bigger things to worry about even just inside the gaming space than addressing issues that nave nominal impact, especially when addressing those issues is both inherently impossible and comes at great cost.

I think resources are better spent on actually improving the games of today, if you want to talk about something that actually matters then this would be a great place to start. If you want to actually achieve the goal of increasing the total amount of revenue moving into the gaming market, one great place to start is targeting gamers such as myself who have quite a decent amount of disposable income but don't buy games because they're fucking crap today - I could harp on about consolization, casualization, endless sequels and joke about chest high walls and low FOVs but most of us know these issues, it's not a big secret and I'm quite frankly sick of discussing them.