PC Piracy survey

Skerries

PC Gamer have set up a survey about game piracy
Should be interesting to see the results when they are released

http://www.pcgamer.com/pc-gamers-fill-out-our-survey-about-piracy/

EoinHef

I dont think iver ever pirated a game,be it console,handheld or PC.

Im not on any moral high horse here either,i just never have,dont think theres a reason i havent,cant think of one anyway.

Skatedude

Never pirated any pc games, I remember pirating a few spectrum games by copying the cassette tape from a friend as a kid. Usually because as a kid, i couldn't afford to buy them, but mostly because you simply could,t buy them as no shops or internet back then.

Your Face

I wonder where the information goes.

ancapailldorcha

I would expect the results to show very little piracy as Steam, GOG et al have made it so cheap and convenient to get most games nowadays.

Lemming

Don't think I've pirated anything since owning a C64 as a kid.

Never was comfortable with the reality of putting cracked software (games or otherwise) on my PC because you never really knew if there was anything 'extra' added in; and back in the day the cracks involved having to do all sorts of shiz like extra command-console services, reg-key hacks, etc. to get certain games to run which just seemed more hassle than it was worth. I just wanted to stick a disc in and play a bloody game rather than f*ck about in my file-system.

Manach

As Ancapailldorcha said - now (for me)far too many games on steam list to then time to play with. That and there is growing awareness, at least with the indie developers, that without some form of support for their good efforts on innovative games, as opposed to re-hashes, will cause the community to stagnant.

ballyargus

I did pirate a lot and still would pirate the odd game. If I enjoy it I'll usually purchase later via Steam.

ancapailldorcha

Lemming wrote: »

Don't think I've pirated anything since owning a C64 as a kid.

Never was comfortable with the reality of putting cracked software (games or otherwise) on my PC because you never really knew if there was anything 'extra' added in; and back in the day the cracks involved having to do all sorts of shiz like extra command-console services, reg-key hacks, etc. to get certain games to run which just seemed more hassle than it was worth. I just wanted to stick a disc in and play a bloody game rather than f*ck about in my file-system.

I did pirate a few games when I was younger. However, I was living in rural Donegal so I'd download them from Uni and install them at home as we only had dial up. Steam has made it so convenient now that it's more hassle to pirate wrt cracks and workarounds. The only thing is that I fear things like excessive day one DLC and other cashgrabs might push people in that direction.

gizmo

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I would expect the results to show very little piracy as Steam, GOG et al have made it so cheap and convenient to get most games nowadays.

Unfortunately, you'd be surprised.

Lone Stone

I use to pirate a fair bit, never pirated an indie game. But since steam sales and the general easier to get discounts these days i haven't pirated a game in a few years. Some game's i bought after trying out as a pirated game, like black flag and some other one's.

edit:
I did have a faze where i would never buy a Bethesda game because skyrim on my ps3 was garbage i couldnt get my money back and it broke my ps3 so yea i would still gladly pirate a Bethesda game that said i bought fallout 4 as i like the franchise.

EoinHef

gizmo wrote: »

Unfortunately, you'd be surprised.

Were only taking the devs word for it there though,its not an independent analysis. Its also a sample size of one game. Im not saying there lying,just that couldnt really state that as the piracy rate on PC.

I do pirate games that are unavailable in my region [china] (steam & the Chinese government blocks them), and then if they're any good, I'll buy them when I'm back in Ireland. I won't pirate the Indie games because they need all the help they can get, but I will download the major games companies, simply because a lot of games are not being developed properly (Total war, Paradox etc have all sold out to commercialism). Besides, many games don't do demos anymore.

The_Valeyard

I did a lot of pirating playing Sid Meir's Pirates! and AC Black Flag.

Robert ninja

I used to pirate if the DRM was strict or layered. Now I don't even bother with the game at all.

degrassinoel

Robert ninja wrote: »

I used to pirate if the DRM was strict or layered. Now I don't even bother with the game at all.

ye don't bother to buy it or play it?

ballyargus

One other reason to pirate, especially recently, is to playtest the game to see if the rig can run it acceptably on different settings. Witcher 3 and GTA V being good examples. Check if they run well, then purchase.

gizmo

EoinHef wrote: »

Were only taking the devs word for it there though,its not an independent analysis. Its also a sample size of one game. Im not saying there lying,just that couldnt really state that as the piracy rate on PC.

Piracy rates will vary massively from game to game though so there's no point in trying to determine an overall rate across the platform. On top of that, independent analysis will generally only be generated by a third party company who, of course, will need to be paid by someone. Since most metrics are monitored by developers and/or publishers, the chances they'd be willing to share such information is fairly slim so the only source remaining is examining public trackers which will give a fairly distorted figure.

Personally, if someone like CD Projekt RED say The Witcher 2 was downloaded approximately 4.5m times conservatively then I'm going to believe them. Doubly so when a company like TinyBuild, who have clearly invested in some decent analytics tools, are able to provide those kinds of figures. I find those kinds of numbers far more interesting, especially when they're accompanied by devs discussing how they deal with it, if at all.

Robert ninja

degrassinoel wrote: »

ye don't bother to buy it or play it?

Both. I just avoid the game. A game not worth buying is not worth playing and vice versa. There's plenty of good games that appeal to my niche, have minimum or even no DRM and are cheap as chips.

For the games that really do appeal my niches I'm actually happy to be supporting them. If I wanted free games there's plenty of F2P and free & open source games. A lot of people I hang out with on a server pirated Fallout 4. I don't know why they torture themselves.

FAILSAFE 00

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I would expect the results to show very little piracy as Steam, GOG et al have made it so cheap and convenient to get most games nowadays.

I was thinking the opposite when I seen No mans sky is €60 on Steam.

ancapailldorcha

FAILSAFE 00 wrote: »

I was thinking the opposite when I seen No mans sky is €60 on Steam.

True but most people already own more games on Steam than they'll ever play. A bit of patience will see that price dropped to a fraction of what it is now.

FAILSAFE 00

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

True but most people already own more games on Steam than they'll ever play. A bit of patience will see that price dropped to a fraction of what it is now.

Very true.

titan18

Ya, never pirated games. Steam is just too good that I don't bother.

degrassinoel

Robert ninja wrote: »

Both. I just avoid the game. A game not worth buying is not worth playing and vice versa. There's plenty of good games that appeal to my niche, have minimum or even no DRM and are cheap as chips.

For the games that really do appeal my niches I'm actually happy to be supporting them. If I wanted free games there's plenty of F2P and free & open source games. A lot of people I hang out with on a server pirated Fallout 4. I don't know why they torture themselves.

fair enough, it just sounded like you were pirating games just for the sake of it and not even playing them in that post above lol

Lemming

Just realised something .... with all this talk of piracy, nobody has asked the most important question yet .....



... Where's all the rum gone?



Sorry, I'll get my coat. Yarrrrr! :pac:

Digital Solitude

Used to pirate a sight back in the day, literally anything I played I pirated. Carry on went on for about two years and I pirated maybe 50-60 AAA games and not much else, just decided one day I'd stop pirating and that was the end of it, pirated maybe 2 games since then. That was near two years ago now, so two years of piracy got me 50 games, two years of buying has over 250, including some gems I'd never have found if I was dependant on piracy.

Have a few pirated games on the hard drive, I refuse to play them just haven't actually thought to delete them, with exceptions for Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim all of which I have a CD for but no DVD drive

Have ended up rebuying a lot of the games I pirated back them

Vojera

The only games I ever pirated were really old ones, to be honest. Either stuff like the early Monkey Island games or ROMs of Mega Drive games. I've only gotten back into gaming in PC in the last three years or so and I just couldn't be arsed pirating anything when buying it is so convenient and, with the sales, relatively cheap.

K.O.Kiki

I was forced to piracy because one of my favourite games was not available for general retail, and didn't work online even with a retail copy (region-locked online play).

It finally got released on Steam 5 years later.

Yakult

For me, its not like a console, where each game is optimized to the same level. PC games change with hardware in many cases. So as to not get burnt like in the past I may download the game and see how it runs and whether it looks good or not. I'm not going to throw cash blindly, so if the game seems worth it and I can run it, I will always buy. Its always worth supporting a good dev.

Canis Lupus

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I would expect the results to show very little piracy as Steam, GOG et al have made it so cheap and convenient to get most games nowadays.

Doubt it except for sales time. GoG probably help piracy because they're DRM free. Whenever I resort to the piratebay it's always nice to see GoG as I'll probably not need a crack.

For me personally it's the grey market that stops me pirating as a lot of games are more online focused nowadays so I need to make a purchase to use them.

Digital Solitude

Oh wait until Kiki sees that Canis :pac: You'll send him into overdrive

ShooterSF

Like most I used to pirate a lot and if I did buy a game I still got the cd crack- ain't nobody got time... I still do retro games, mostly console and arcade. But with PC now I have more games than I ever will play and will rarely buy new. Likewise Spotify has practically ended my music piracy days. Movies and TV shows I still do. I pay for netflix but that doesn't provide as a good a service as piracy so...

Robert ninja

Canis Lupus wrote: »

Whenever I resort to the piratebay it's always nice to see GoG as I'll probably not need a crack/

You'll not need one. But if you did, would it really stop you? For people who frequently pirate, it never seemed to.

Canis Lupus wrote: »

For me personally it's the grey market that stops me pirating as a lot of games are more online focused nowadays so I need to make a purchase to use them.

So you pirate DRM-free and fund heavy DRM and online-focused games that are online for the sake of being more DRM. The exact opposite of how I support things. :pac:

I think it's pretty unfair to say GOG increase piracy, too. For one they're not the only service that provides DRM-free copies and secondly some of their bigger titles still sell pretty well on their own platform and on steam even though there's apparently a torrent. I honestly don't see someone having to move crackedlauncher.exe over to another folder really being enough to make a person say "Yeah I'd rather pay 59.99 than copy and paste.

http://steam.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games

Canis Lupus

Robert ninja wrote: »

You'll not need one. But if you did, would it really stop you? For people who frequently pirate, it never seemed to.



So you pirate DRM-free and fund heavy DRM and online-focused games that are online for the sake of being more DRM. The exact opposite of how I support things. :pac:

I think it's pretty unfair to say GOG increase piracy, too. For one they're not the only service that provides DRM-free copies and secondly some of their bigger titles still sell pretty well on their own platform and on steam even though there's apparently a torrent. I honestly don't see someone having to move crackedlauncher.exe over to another folder really being enough to make a person say "Yeah I'd rather pay 59.99 than copy and paste.

http://steam.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games

Cracks usually only work with a specific version. It can be a right pain in the hoop if you need to install a patch and then dig around for a new crack.

Robert ninja

Patches are another thing I dislike about modern DRM. There's no way to decline an update. GOG seem to be making some progress to even rollback, although on their galaxy platform which I'm not so hot for but at least it's an attempt.

Although you're right. The amount of crap I had to go through to get Max Payne 3 cracked is what convinced me to not buy it and overall step away from Rockstar who were another company who drank the DRM coolaid. I just wanted to see if the controls were as tight as the previous games. Game had too many annoying gameplay-interrupting cutscenes in the end anyway.

Canis Lupus

Robert ninja wrote: »

Patches are another thing I dislike about modern DRM. There's no way to decline an update. GOG seem to be making some progress to even rollback, although on their galaxy platform which I'm not so hot for but at least it's an attempt.

Although you're right. The amount of crap I had to go through to get Max Payne 3 cracked is what convinced me to not buy it and overall step away from Rockstar who were another company who drank the DRM coolaid. I just wanted to see if the controls were as tight as the previous games. Game had too many annoying gameplay-interrupting cutscenes in the end anyway.

I bought that one and Rockstars download client craps out if your internet drops below a certain point. Some 55gb with a client that crapped out a million times and rolled back a gig or so everytime and that's what I got for buying the f*cking game.

ShadowHearth

Damn, back in my country you would actually pay for pirated games. They were not cheap too! In Lithuania one legitimate copy of a game costed as one months wages!
I still had legitimate copies of Diablo 2 + lod, warcraft 3 + tft, my most played games ever! Maybe that's a reason I am so in love with blizzard. Those were a bit cheaper, maybe 2 weeks wages each. So yeah, I pirated a lot, but it was the only option. In capital city there was only one place that sold a few legitimate pc games and as I said - crazy money.
As for nes, Sega and ps1. I never sow a legitimate copy. First time I sow it was in Ireland in one of those cash for gold places.

Since I moved to Ireland its different. I just bought normal games in shops. Ffs, you had actual shop that sell video games. Was mind blowing! Only damn video games!

I haven't pirated for 10 years. With games being heavy on multiplayer, updates in content, early access etc it's a pain in a hole to pirate. Like anyone else I love steam too.
I do buy most of my games on sales or cdkeys.com. Very very rarely buy full price releases anymore.

K.O.Kiki

Canis Lupus wrote: »

Doubt it except for sales time. GoG probably help piracy because they're DRM free. Whenever I resort to the piratebay it's always nice to see GoG as I'll probably not need a crack.

For me personally it's the grey market that stops me pirating as a lot of games are more online focused nowadays so I need to make a purchase to use them.

Digital Solitude wrote: »

Oh wait until Kiki sees that Canis :pac: You'll send him into overdrive

Devs would rather you pirate their game than buy from grey-market sellers.

As has been discussed in the other thread.

chrislad

I used to pirate, but I generally don't anymore. The only time I might would be to test if a game runs, as my card isn't the highest spec, and often times those minimum specs are blatantly false, and in some cases, change before release. I got burned with Just Cause 3 this year. I met most recommended specs, and was well over minimum, but it was a laggy mess.

That said, last game I pirated for this reason was, I think, Assassins Creed IV, so that's a good while back.

H3llR4iser

Back in the day, everything was pirated - starting from the 1980s and 1990s in Italy, where no clear copyright law existed for software, you could easily find pirate C64/C128 cassettes sold by newsagents in broad daylight as legitimate publications; There were fully registered companies providing these products, putting them out for sale with printed covers and even booklets! They ranged from the equivalent of today 1.50 to 5 Euro, and you'd find between 5 and 30 games on them.

One of the big issues was that it was next to impossible to find the original stuff and this continued well into the early 2000s until the various Gamespot & C. type stores started popping up; Before that, the only outlet for games were the big "electronics" centres (in the style of Harvey Norman) and it was normal that you went to one on a specific game's release day and not only they didn't have it - they didn't even know what it was and had no way of ordering it.

Throughout the late '90s and early '2000s therefore, I like more or less everyone else down there kept pirating - on the PC, but also on the consoles; Buying a PS2 or an first gen Xbox implicitly meant having it modchipped as well. The games were nearly always available, pirated, on the release day (or leaked before), while the shops selling legit copies lagged months behind - when they actually bothered at all.

Today I tend to get most stuff through Steam whenever there's a promotion or a discounted price. I know many people love to hate on Steam and similar services, but they make for a mostly hassle-free experience. Whatever I have is kept up to date, and that's it.

Digital distribution on the PC as well as the major consoles did bring game pricing down (it's not rare to see new titles in the 30-40 Euro region), although there are signs of a new upwards trend - Yep, "No Man's Sky" pricing is way too optimistic. I can understand the strategy - the game has been hyped into Kingdom Come (a double edged sword that will generate a lot of "haters" who made their own game up in their heads and will be p1ss3d that the real deal looks/feels different) and there will be people buying it at that frankly insane price; Then it'll go down to 30 or 40 Euro in 30-60 days time and experience a sales resurgence.

Finally, a couple of things - first, I am still of the idea that demos would help sales; Second, the major digital distribution outlets (Steam, Xbox Live, PSN, Google Store) need to put some SERIOUS filtering to what they sell - it's becoming increasingly common to find absolute fecal matter from "indie" developers for sale; I'm talking about stuff that would really not even be worth the hard drive space if it came with a free can of Pepsi...

cruizer101

I used to pirate a fair bit but I think its nearly 3 years since I've downloaded a pirate game, as others have said prices are that cheap these days also with the amount of online multiplayer I think it is harder.

That said I would potentially pirate a game to see how it well it works and maybe play a level or two, and I'd say many others are the same. If publishers created demos it would remover the need for this and I think reduce pirating. Years ago demos and shareware were very common where as these days are quite rare such that I was quite surprised when I saw a game on steam recently that had a proper demo.

H3llR4iser

cruizer101 wrote: »

I used to pirate a fair bit but I think its nearly 3 years since I've downloaded a pirate game, as others have said prices are that cheap these days also with the amount of online multiplayer I think it is harder.

That said I would potentially pirate a game to see how it well it works and maybe play a level or two, and I'd say many others are the same. If publishers created demos it would remover the need for this and I think reduce pirating. Years ago demos and shareware were very common where as these days are quite rare such that I was quite surprised when I saw a game on steam recently that had a proper demo.

Performance gauging is indeed one of the most important parts of a demo.

Now, something that needs to be said - while we often get games that are poorly optimized (I don't think the slowdown issues on XCOM 2, for example, have been fully resolved yet!), it is also true that, unfortunately, the PC audience is way less savvy nowadays than it was say 20 or even just 10 years ago. You get a lot of people, I would say the majority, who will try to run modern games on some bottom-of-the-barrel laptop with shared graphics memory and then complain it is "laggy".

Korvanica

Pirate some games to test performance on my machine.

As others have said games are usually so cheap these days theres no point.

ancapailldorcha

H3llR4iser wrote: »

Performance gauging is indeed one of the most important parts of a demo.

Now, something that needs to be said - while we often get games that are poorly optimized (I don't think the slowdown issues on XCOM 2, for example, have been fully resolved yet!), it is also true that, unfortunately, the PC audience is way less savvy nowadays than it was say 20 or even just 10 years ago. You get a lot of people, I would say the majority, who will try to run modern games on some bottom-of-the-barrel laptop with shared graphics memory and then complain it is "laggy".

Oi! My little laptop has performed admirably with games like Mass Effect 3 and the pre-Knight Arkham games. Rome total war lags like feck for some reason but ME3 on 60fps is grand.

K.O.Kiki

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Oi! My little laptop has performed admirably with games like Mass Effect 3 and the pre-Knight Arkham games. Rome total war lags like feck for some reason but ME3 on 60fps is grand.

From reading around, most strategy games are CPU-bound.

And mobile chips are the pits.

ancapailldorcha

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

From reading around, most strategy games are CPU-bound.

And mobile chips are the pits.

I've done some reading and it looks like the engine is only built for single core machines. What really f*cks me off is that I can run Medieval 2 on a solid 30fps with its more detailed unit animations.

CastorTroy

I've pirated but wouldn't really do it any more except maybe to see if a game would run before buying. I know there are steam refunds now so can go that route.
But these days, getting games so cheap is easier, backlog is large so games a cheap by the time I get to buy them and then the number of updates made to the games with patches, etc makes it more convenient to buy legit.

Kirby

Rarely. I tend to buy all my games. I have the capability to pirate virtually everything from consoles to pc but I dont. The thinking behind it being that these guys are creating games I want to play and by buying them I'm encouraging them to create more. It's mostly self interest when you look at it that way.

But I'd be lying if I claimed I've never done it. I do pirate games occasionally if I have no intention of buying them. It's a victimless crime at that stage. They werent getting my money anyway, so nobody loses anything. Arguments to the contrary fall down to logical scrutiny so why not? Free stuff is appealing even if you dont want it.

Shiminay

Kirby wrote: »

It's a victimless crime at that stage. They werent getting my money anyway, so nobody loses anything.

That's simply not true for a lot of games, anything with an online service has ongoing costs that can only be recouped by shifting a fkton of product over the course of the game's lifetime (or trying to charge a subscription which simply won't cut it anymore). Pirating a game of this nature is 100% not a victimless anything.

.G.

Used to pirate everything but thanks to Steam and the rest of them I rarely bother now. I still will if I'm not sure about a game and I want to demo it but if I like it I'll buy it.

Skerries

The only game I have pirated in the last several years was a game I wanted to play and couldn't find a legal way to purchase without paying silly money for 2nd hand which doesn't help the developers anyway