Another View Of Video Game Piracy

PogMoThoin

Finally!!!!

Why are PC games really losing sales?

While many game developers blame piracy for their decreasing PC game sales, it is clear that this is not the problem — relatively few gamers are pirates, and those that are would mostly not be able to afford games anyway.

However, it's easier for these developers to point their fingers at pirates than to face the real problem: that their games are not fun on PC. The games in question are usually designed for consoles, with the desktop port as an afterthought. This means they are not fun to play with a mouse and keyboard, and don't work well on PC hardware. Their field of view is designed to be viewed from a distant couch instead of a nearby monitor, and their gameplay is simplified to compensate for this tunnel vision.

http://kotaku.com/5533615/another-view-of-video-game-piracy

witnessmenow

Its a good article, makes a lot of sense

gizmo

Finally what? It's another rubbish article filled with silly stats and assumptions that ignores many of the key facts in the debate.

The common industry assumption is that developers are losing 90% of their revenue. That is, pirates would have bought every single game that they downloaded

I was tempted to stop reading at this point but I struggled on...

This means that even though games see that 80% of their copies are pirated, only 10% of their potential customers are pirates, which means they are losing at most 10% of their sales

And? Why should a developer lose 10% of their sales?

On top of that, this figure flies in the face of many other iPhone developers who have come forward with figures comparing their actual sales to the number of unique entires on their leaderboards which show rates FAR higher than that.

Many PC game developers find that about 90% of their users are running pirated copies

I'd love to see a quote backing that up...

The stats from the NDP don't really make sense when you compare them to figures like these, do they? I'd also invite you to compare the total sales of some of the games in that list to the piracy figures as well as the huge difference between the piracy rates on the PC versus the consoles.

Anecdotally and from studies by companies like the BSA, it's clear that pirates for the most part have very little income. They are unemployed students, or live in countries with very low per-capita GDP, where the price of a $60 game is more like $1000 (in terms of purchasing power parity and income percentage).

Yet they can afford high speed internet connections with evidently high bandwidth caps to download these games as well as decent machines to play them on? Also look at the comments on any torrent site and you'll see (admittedly amusing) quotes from people complaining that the latest movie rip doesn't look good on their 50" Plasmas.

However, it's easier for these developers to point their fingers at pirates than to face the real problem: that their games are not fun on PC.

Piracy existed before publishers began to turn their attention primarily to consoles. That point aside, even if it's a poor port, does that justify pirating it?

Blizzard is one of the most successful game developers in the world, and it develops exclusively for desktop computers. Why do they succeed where everyone else fails? They create games that are designed from the beginning to work well with the mouse and keyboard, and with all kinds of desktop hardware

They also create games with a strong online focus which, for the average gamer, can't be played online. But yea, lets look at some more examples of PC developers who develop really good titles on the platform. I'm sure the guys at Stardock would love to give you a few quotes...

With the Humble Indie Bundle promotion we've seen that when we treat gamers as real people instead of criminals, they seem to respond in kind. Anyone can get all five DRM-free games for a single penny, and pirate them as much as they want — we have no way to find out or stop it. However, in just the first two days, we have over 40,000 contributions with an average of $8 each!

Read that again. Five games. $8. This is your solution?

deceit

In my opinion a big reason for pirating is because of all the stricter restrictions that are continually being used. This is one big reason i'm finding it hard to buy games as I dont want to be stuck with these. (I have never pirated games btw) But there are always going to be people who are going to take games by pirating anyway they can no matter how cheap or easy they are to get. I think the likes of steam are a good solution once they never try charge for the use of it like xbox live.
I think this is a big excuse for companies to put stricter controls so they can have full control of what you do with there games and get all your details. It wont be long until alot of companies start putting controls on servers like mw2 so when they want you to buy a new game they just bring it out and close down the servers like EA are doing on xbox to force you to buy the new game if you want to continue your online experience. Assasins Creed on Pc is the most ridiculus thing ever though, what happens in 1,2 or 3 years time when them servers are closed down? The game is totally useless as you cant play single player. A game like that I couldnt care less if it was pirated, also the bioshock for limited instals.
Microsoft are pushing the software also and I believe it may be to help them eventually get yearly subscriptions live xbox live along with other commercial things.

gizmo

deceit wrote: »

In my opinion a big reason for pirating is because of all the stricter restrictions that are continually being used.

Again, piracy has been a big issue since before the introduction of more intrustive DRM. It has also been shown that even games without any DRM are heavily pirated, the Stardock reference above is proof of this, not to mention the likes of 2D Boy and World Of Goo.

deceit wrote: »

It wont be long until alot of companies start putting controls on servers like mw2 so when they want you to buy a new game they just bring it out and close down the servers like EA are doing on xbox to force you to buy the new game if you want to continue your online experience.

MW2 has no "control" over servers, it uses P2P for games so there aren't any servers bar the usual authentication ones to make sure you're using a legit copy of the game.

deceit wrote: »

Assasins Creed on Pc is the most ridiculus thing ever though, what happens in 1,2 or 3 years time when them servers are closed down?

While I completely agree Ubisoft's DRM solution goes a step too far, they have also stated that the security measures will be removed should the servers be taken down. SEGA are using a similar approach where they have publicly stated that their DRM will be patched out of Alpha Protocol 18-24 months after release.

Kiith

We pirate games because it's easy, and because we can.

Its not hard to fathom that people will take something for free if they can. Most people don't see the negative effect it has on the industry as a whole. They simply see it as saving €30-€50. You think console gamers wouldnt pirate games if it was as easy as it is on the pc?

I still think the only way piracy will be effectivly stopped is if the service providers start working with the industry and police, and start fining/jailing people who upload or download copyright material. Until people feel there is a genuine consequence to stealing games/music/films, people will keep doing it.

Duggy747

Well, if they curb upload limits to something like 500MB or a gig a month that would make a big dent in game piracy consider the latest games are touch a minimum of 4 - 6 gigs.

Such an upload limit wouldn't make too shìts of a difference to the average internet user.

Hypothetically I'm speaking, of course..................

<_<

>_>

Console modding is quite easy too if you have the basic IT know-how.

deceit

A good way to curb piracy is if the game companies released there games on torrents themselves, loads of instances of them all with tonnes of viruses so when people tried download them thinking its just any normal cracked copy they would just have a messed up system in the end and it might deter them as the risk of lots of hassle would not make it worthwhile downloading games.

Overheal

deceit wrote: »

A good way to curb piracy is if the game companies released there games on torrents themselves, loads of instances of them all with tonnes of viruses so when people tried download them thinking its just any normal cracked copy they would just have a messed up system in the end and it might deter them as the risk of lots of hassle would not make it worthwhile downloading games.

The MPAA did that back in the Napster days. It doesnt take.

You have brand-names and private communities in the torrent market that are selective about what they upload for this and several other reasons. You eventually learn for instance to trust a torrent from the same source as your other torrents; get to know the authors/uploaders by their tags, etc.

The OP article doesnt make much sense: if the reason Im not buying the game is because its too poor a port to bother playing, why am I pirating and playing it??

tman

deceit wrote: »

A good way to curb piracy is if the game companies released there games on torrents themselves, loads of instances of them all with tonnes of viruses so when people tried download them thinking its just any normal cracked copy they would just have a messed up system in the end and it might deter them as the risk of lots of hassle would not make it worthwhile downloading games.

Pretty sure there are laws against knowingly distributing viruses...

Just judging by the quote in the original post, this is a terrible article. I'd love to see sales figures for a FPS developed from the ground up for the PC and compare them with sales figures of an equally popular console conversion...

gizmo

And the final nail in this utter ridiculous coffin...

Kotaku have posted a follow-up to the Humble Indie Bundle story which contains an amusing link to an updated blog post from the developers referenced in the OP.

The relevant part being...

Last week, a pack went on sale that let you name your own price for five great indie games, all in the name of charity. Know what a ton of people then went and did? Pirated the thing. Wonderful.

To recap, this was a pack that let you pay what you want. With all proceeds going to charity. So you could pay $1 and get five of the best indie games going around, and donate to a good cause, all at the same time. $1!

And here's the direct link to the blog...

After some simple math, I estimate that over 25% of Humble Indie Bundle downloads are 'pirated' -- that is, users download from shared links from forums and other places without actually contributing anything. Note: that is not including BitTorrent and other sources.

The last part is particularly amusing, of the four possible explanations he gives for the piracy rates I'd wager one is actually correct, can you guess which one? :rolleyes:

Dont be at yourself

There is no justification for piracy. If you don't think the game is worth the price, or don't believe in DRM or whatever other excuse you offer, then don't play the game.

witnessmenow

gizmo wrote: »

Long post

I'm pretty sure the article is not about condoning piracy, Its about trying to classify exactly how big of a problem it is. Games manufacturers will throw the inflated 80% figure around when in reality its no where near that.

Re: Humble indie bundle, you can look at in two ways:
The way you chose , taking it as a whole, $8 for 5 games... not exactly great
looking at in perspective, how much money would these games have made during duration of the sale without it? Seeing as there is about to become 100,000 contributers (probably today) and the average donation is around $9, so just for arguments sake we'll say each game made a $1 on average, thats $100,000 in less than a week, for fairly old games, straight into the devs pocket....seems ok to me?

gizmo

witnessmenow wrote: »

I'm pretty sure the article is not about condoning piracy, Its about trying to classify exactly how big of a problem it is. Games manufacturers will throw the inflated 80% figure around when in reality its no where near that.

I never said it condoned piracy, I simply ripped it apart for the reasons I stated previously. Also, please link me to a quote from a publisher where they give an 80% figure for piracy. The only one I can think of is the 2D Boy guys who, apart from being a developer, actually had facts to back up their claim.

Regardless, as I said above, and again in the context of this particular bundle, why should they lose 25% of their sales? Do you consider this an acceptable rate? Or, to be more precise, at what rate does piracy need to reach before publishers attempt to protect their product?

witnessmenow wrote: »

Re: Humble indie bundle, you can look at in two ways:
The way you chose , taking it as a whole, $8 for 5 games... not exactly great
looking at in perspective, how much money would these games have made during duration of the sale without it? Seeing as there is about to become 100,000 contributers (probably today) and the average donation is around $9, so just for arguments sake we'll say each game made a $1 on average, thats $100,000 in less than a week, for fairly old games, straight into the devs pocket....seems ok to me?

I've seen this argument used a few times and it still continues to baffle me. It's basically saying to the developers that they should take what they get, regardless of the value of the product. World Of Goo alone retails for between £13 and £16 online and people are paying, on average, $8 for it and four other games? And there is still a 25% piracy rate? The actual number sold doesn't really bear much relevance either as, over time, this will fall to such a degree that they more than likely would have made more money over time with the full retail price.

As for the Bundle itself, it's only relevance in this debate is to show that no matter how cheap something is, how great it, how little DRM is bundled with it or how good the cause is, there'll still be a large bunch of people who will pirate it. Looking at that, how can you blame publishers for looking to DRM?

witnessmenow

His arguemnt is a bit flawed though I own the bundle and I plan to download on two ip addresses(pc in limeirck , pc in athlone) I'm Sure I'm not the only person like this.

There is sevral reasons people pirate, laziness is one of them. A slightly related example to this, bugmenot is a website that has logins for websites that are free to sign up to, people use it cause they are lazy, same reason you'd pirate the bundle rather than pay a cent.

It's not exactly taking what you can get right from the get go, world of goo is no longer going to tempt many people at $20, so what a bundle this doing is getting peole to buy it who wouldn't normally. For example me, 2d boy got 1/7 of $10 from me, doesn't sound like a lot but I already own the game, twice! The majority of people who want to play world of goo have already played, be it owning it or pirating it.

And that's the poular example, there is games in the bundle I had never even heard of, I sure wasn't going to buy them and they are after getting some money of me 2. It also advertises the studio, if the game is good I'd keep an eye on hames the release in the future.


This post was too long to write on a iPod

Monotype

I probably wouldn't have enough faith to put something like that out completely DRM free.
How many copies of these games actually sell for the asking price these days? Most of the developers are well into new projects; these games are a few years old and so the developers might as well make what they can from it in a monetary and advertising sense.
Look at the depreciation on some titles which can go from €50 to €5 in two years. These are not huge titles with a team of 50 people and a $150 million advertising budget backing them.

Pulling a stunt like this probably isn't the wisest strategy for keeping control of your digital creation, but it certainly earns respect as I've seen a lot of people donating for the cause over the games themselves. Being DRM-free is one of the positive selling points. In this instance, I think that any DRM would decrease sales over gain. Under normal circumstances, I think light DRM is appropriate to discourage the casual copiers. Heavy DRM is pointless. It's a waste of resources implementing it and maintaining it (upkeep of servers) and it pisses people off. There's a middleground there somewhere where you can minimise your loses.

Azza

NekkidBibleMan wrote:

There is no justification for piracy. If you don't think the game is worth the price, or don't believe in DRM or whatever other excuse you offer, then don't play the game.

I'm pretty much in agreement with that statement. I don't have a problem with the idea of people downloading games to try as a demo but I'm quite skeptical of peoples desire to pay for a game after finishing it particularly if its a single player game.

The only other case that I could possible justify it, is to replace lost or broken disc's, something I have done a few times myself (for example my Battlefield 2 disc is cracked so I downloaded an image of that).

Venom

deceit wrote: »

A good way to curb piracy is if the game companies released there games on torrents themselves, loads of instances of them all with tonnes of viruses so when people tried download them thinking its just any normal cracked copy they would just have a messed up system in the end and it might deter them as the risk of lots of hassle would not make it worthwhile downloading games.

They tried that but since most people use private torrent sites its easy to spot the dodgy torrents Also the developers would be open to lawsuits if they caused damage to someone's PC.

While we all know PC games get pirated I don't for a second believe every pirated copy of a game is a "lost sale". The sort of person who will pirate every game they can get their hands on is not the sort of person who pays for games. And enough with the PC is the prime culprit for pirated games, go check out any of the big torrent sites and have a look at the amount of x-box torrents.

gizmo

Venom wrote: »

While we all know PC games get pirated I don't for a second believe every pirated copy of a game is a "lost sale". The sort of person who will pirate every game they can get their hands on is not the sort of person who pays for games. And enough with the PC is the prime culprit for pirated games, go check out any of the big torrent sites and have a look at the amount of x-box torrents.

I don't think anyone considers the lost sale issue to that extent although people seem to cling on to the idea that is what publishers think. As for the piracy rates among PC and console titles, the link I posted earlier shows that it is a significantly lesser issue on the former platform but it's certainly becoming a larger one on the latter. In case you missed it, here is the info.

Azza

Vemon wrote:

And enough with the PC is the prime culprit for pirated games, go check out any of the big torrent sites and have a look at the amount of x-box torrents

I suggest you check those torrent sites out yourself. You will find the scale of PC piracy is several times greater than what it is on the Xbox. I think on average its normally 4 times bigger.

PogMoThoin

Azza wrote: »

I suggest you check those torrent sites out yourself. You will find the scale of PC piracy is several times greater than what it is on the Xbox. I think on average its normally 4 times bigger.

What about handheld? I know very few who actually buy DS games

Venom

Azza wrote: »

I suggest you check those torrent sites out yourself. You will find the scale of PC piracy is several times greater than what it is on the Xbox. I think on average its normally 4 times bigger.

How are you coming up with 4 times bigger?

Pretty much all the latest releases for both formats are covered by working torrents from what I have seen and as there are more game releases to pirate on a console over the PC when you tot up the overall amounts I feel they are higher for the consoles.

noodler

Everything I have ever read or heard has been about how PC gaming by far the worst.

Hence the DRM.

Venom

noodler wrote: »

Everything I have ever read or heard has been about how PC gaming by far the worst.

Hence the DRM.

DRM does not and never has stopped piracy and the fact that the pirated version of a DRM enabled game is a better playing experience shows its not working correctly.

noodler

Venom wrote: »

DRM does not and never has stopped piracy and the fact that the pirated version of a DRM enabled game is a better playing experience shows its not working correctly.

*WOOOOSH*

Azza

Handheld consoles suffers from piracy on a similar scale to PC. The effect is the same, companies have cut back from developing on the likes of the DS and PSP. There is numerous reports of this on the web where developers and publishers have stated this. Google it if you want.

Non handheld console piracy is significantly lower.

Here are some numbers that show the difference between console and PC piracy. (not including handheld)

http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_4.html

http://torrentfreak.com/the-most-pirated-games-of-2009-091227/

pwd

I don't buy into the "drm forced me to pirate the game" rubbish.
However, a similar kinda thing is a semi-legitimate argument when it comes to the psp.
The psp is capable of working as a very nice e-book reader. The official firmware does not really allow this use. This is because Sony sell an ebook reader as a separate product, at a higher price, as far as I recall.
In order to use the psp as a true ebook reader you need to install custom firmware, which also is used to get around copy protection. There may or may not be issues using non-pirated new games on the custom firmware; I don't know.
Using a psp as an ebook reader is completely legitimate. You own the hardware and should not be restricted in how you use it.
There is a workaround to allow you to use the psp as an ebook reader with the official firmware, which involves a program to convert an ebook into image files, and read it through the image viewer. I use that and find it works well.

pwd

They miss the point entirely with Blizzard.
Blizzard do not stand out above all other game publishers by any means when it comes to quality or platform suitability. They succeed to such an extent just because mmogs are resistant to piracy. That's all. There's no reason to release the server-side compiled code in an mmog.
In the case of WoW, the code was leaked at some point, and it has been pirated. However pirate versions are restricted to cracked servers, which would not provide the same experience as the official ones.

jimi_t2

pwd wrote: »

They miss the point entirely with Blizzard.
Blizzard do not stand out above all other game publishers by any means when it comes to quality or platform suitability. They succeed to such an extent just because mmogs are resistant to piracy. That's all. There's no reason to release the server-side compiled code in an mmog.

MMORPGS are closer to something like AOL as they come full circle. I'd define the companies that produce them as specialised ISPs. But we're effectively in agreement.

I suggest you check those torrent sites out yourself. You will find the scale of PC piracy is several times greater than what it is on the Xbox. I think on average its normally 4 times bigger.

Because there's roughly 4x as many games (certainly in the pre-XBLA era)?

Traditionally its always been this way as blank media was available that directly interfaced. Consoles did not have this luxury, so even when the ROMS were available they could only be utilised by the most dedicated of hackers.

molloyjazz

Azza wrote: »

Handheld consoles suffers from piracy on a similar scale to PC. The effect is the same, companies have cut back from developing on the likes of the DS and PSP. There is numerous reports of this on the web where developers and publishers have stated this. Google it if you want.

Non handheld console piracy is significantly lower.

Here are some numbers that show the difference between console and PC piracy. (not including handheld)

http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_4.html

http://torrentfreak.com/the-most-pirated-games-of-2009-091227/

This is changing.. id say there is prolly more torrents for Console's than PC, more differnt versions than mac or pc.. Only more PC downloads because the average console head finds it too taxing to softmod a wii or install cracked HD on PS3.. way easier to copy and paste a cracked .exe

cherryghost

PogMoThoin wrote: »

What about handheld? I know very few who actually buy DS games

Your friends are all blatant pirates then. Out of everyone I know who owns a DS (rough headcount of about 30), 4 of them use an R4 or something similar.

Also AFAIK 360 piracy is fairly high also. Just a quick google and even a search on torrent sites seem to back it up