PC Piracy Charts

#21 And to add... I don't really see anyone condoning piracy in this thread. I do see a quite a few frustrated consumers though, but the industry doesn't seem too interested in counting those numbers...

#22

Quote:Piracy is a big problem, so don't say games have too much copyright protection on it.

And yet the "most pirated" game of the year is one that carries the most cripplingly overbearing DRM, so what exactly is DRM achieving aside from hurting legitimate paying customers?

As with any security measure, more effectiveness == less usability... I reckon it's only a matter of time before we pay for a game and they give us an empty box. No product, no piracy. Problem solved (and it'd cut down development costs).

#23 The "most crippling overbearing DRM" actually does not exist now. They have removed the worst points that people disliked. A few of us at the office purchased Spore and had no problems with the DRM. As I mentioned earlier, Fallout 3, Spore, and Crysis are the big purchases for me and none of them have given me problems.

Ubisoft just released a game that is DRM free in an effort to prove that DRM does not validate a reason for piracy, and they still got criticized for "not trusting the consumer." At some point, the principle of the matter has to give way to common sense.

#24 To be fair, I don't think Ubisoft would have taken any flak over that had their community manager not worded the announcement in the most asshole-ish way possible. I remember when Stardock announced Sins of the Solar Empire had no DRM and they shown nothing but praise.

Plus, I have to agree with those that say Ubi has a loaded experiment in their favor. Prince of Persia isn't the type of game that typically sells well on the PC these days, its a more console centric game.

#25 Here in Denmark it's easy, if you break the seal you do not get a refund!
So best try a demo or buy on your own risk!

If people keep buying expensive games new releases will stay expensive... so hold your horses and buy the game when you feel you can afford it...

Life is hard if you can't get your candy... ;-)

#26 Gold Sellers also are a form of IP theft that I hate just as much as warez. It's gotten bad out there and has hurt the PC industry as much as others like the record industry. That being said it's kinda integral to the web so we all just have to deal with it. I support use of tech to control licenses. It's a hassle but look at it from the developers point of view. Dev's have to eat and pay bills just like everyone else.

#27 It really seems like people tend to paint this picture that buisnesses are failing left and right due to piracy, and I'm not seeing it. Again, I'm not saying piracy isn't a valid concern for the industry. It is. But the only numbers I ever see for piracy is 100% loss per incident when that is far from true. I really don't see how you can measure 1 piracy incident via bit torrent as a 100% loss of one unit. How do you know that the title would have been purchased had that person not been able to pirate it? Certainly there is a valid number somewhere, either based on research that shows the actual value, based on averages, of what percentage of each piracy incident is in real lost value.

Also, I'd like to see the propgating value of a pirated title. While the average pirated copy is certainly less than 100% of title value, what percentage of each incident results in propogation of the pirated title? Based on those numbers what would be the new loss-per-incident based on average of pirates who would have bought had the pirate option not been available modified by the propogation probability of incident.

If anyone has numbers of valid research on the real lose-per-incident of piracy, I'd love to read it.

@Vashner,
How do you see gold farming as a theft of IP? I can't see it, would love to know yours (or anyone elses) reasoning behind this.

#28 @Brian,
A game seller has a right to expect compensation for every copy of their game being played. If people are stealing those games and not paying for it, the seller is being robbed.

Would the player have bought the game if they couldn't pirate it? It doesn't matter. It's still theft from the rightful owner of the IP. The theft doesn't lower the value of the product or services being stolen, so the loss-per-incident is still 100%.

@Vashner,
Gold farming is not theft of IP, it's abuse of the service. A very bad thing, but at least those scumbags are buying legal copies of the game.

#29 @John

I see your point, but I'm not quite asking that. The pirate does indeed owe the owner the full amount. What I'm interested in though is the actual value of the loss. This is a hard concept to get across as we are using old language to describe a new problem. Historically a loss or theft involves direct transition of posession. But since we are talking about duplication, there isn't actually a direct 1:1 loss here. Again, yes, a pirate owes 100% of license value, but assuming that never gets recovered, what is the net loss? On a per-incident basis certainly that's hard to say. But when you start talking large scale, aka globaly across multiple years, I would assume there would be enough agregate data to average to determine the monetary loss.

Is it no loss because you can't prove there would have been a purchase had the pirate avenue been available? I think most of us would not agree. Is every incident of piracy >100% loss due to a percentage of propogate of the pirated software? Or is it somewhere in-between? Certainly the easy answer is 1:1 per incident, which is kind of what the industry is settling on, I'm just wondering if it's possible to get a more accurate number.

#30 @Tyler Slabinski I'm not saying piracy is ok, I'm just saying that the methods used affect the customer. And if people such as myself have problems running a game due to these methods then people may get sick of it and turn to piracy.

Also you need to think of the number of people who pirate games, if they would have brought them? If they couldn't pirate them, would they have brought it? I think not in a lot of cases, so the amount of loss that they claim, although is true in the sense that someone has there product without paying - is much lower.

#31 @Brian & Edward,
I see what you're getting at. There's no way to quantify exactly how many sales were lost from the piracy, and I think that's where we get into problems with the loss figures cited by piracy victims. But damage is inflicted, even if there's no direct cost to the retailer.

That's always been a sticky issue in legal matters: how do you put a price tag on a non-monetary loss?

On a slight tangent... Piracy seems more akin to a dine-and-dash than to shoplifting. Maybe we should view piracy as theft of service, rather than theft of a product?

@Edward,
I agree: DRM can be very intrusive and burdensome to the consumer. On several occasions, I've downloaded pirated versions of software I've legally bought, just to get around DRM problems. That's a clear indication of an overly restrictive DRM solution.

#32 Well some would argue that dine and dash is stealing both a product and the service...

Stealing is stealing, even if you split the pack of cigarettes with your friends!

My humble guess is that posession of pirated software is a felony no matter where on the planet you download it.

On the other hand I find that some software companies ARE doing the dine and dash on the consumers, -by making stunning demos and nice graphics... and after 30 minutes it turns out to be crap! And there is no way of getting your money back!.... In the arcade age you (almost) got what you paid for. Today you have to play a $50 game a lot to get some kind of entertainment...

#33 IMHO.

When will "they" learn? Games should be FREE to the public. Allow the public to freely distribute your game using P2P and the internet! Instead of trying to figure out new security features, figure out a new business plan. You can not fight the tidal wave, you should learn the ride it instead, or you will drown.......

#34 Got to love it when ever somebody mentions that DRM is wrong they get called a piracy advocate. It has been shown countless times that DRM has only ever stopped the consumer of doing legitmate things with their purchase. There is a reason why there is a huge backlash against DRM in general due to abuse by large corporations such example where you cannot play a blu-ray movie on a machine that has a blu-ray drive, but not certified video card and display with HDCP restriction management in place. Its sickening to spend so much money to be compliant with these media gaints agendas of control over what you will do with your purchased products.

Now simple (or classic) DRM such as simply requiring a CD key in order to run a program or game was acceptable back in those days, but the new crap coming about where you'll have to re-authenicate online if you change too much hardware at once (motherboard blown out and had to replace it: new NIC, board, sound, etc.. noticed by Windows XP), or you must be online every couple of days to play a game even if all you do is offline single player gaming, is just bullshit. Or how about popping in a movie and unable to skip through the countless commercial garbage cause of a user control lockout (I'm looking at you Disney!).

Meanwhile the those who are committing the copyright infringement (calling it piracy is idiotic and completely wrong, go lookup definition of piracy) gain the advantage of being free of the non-sense that is forced upon us legitmate customers.


The real deal with DRM is that it is about control, of you, the consumer of the product of which you bought and paid for, has absolutely nothing to do with stopping copyright infringers. Currently the big boys are just testing the waters to see just how far and absurd they can get before people start to notice that they're the frogs in the slowly boiling water.

#35

Quote:IMHO.

When will "they" learn? Games should be FREE to the public. Allow the public to freely distribute your game using P2P and the internet! Instead of trying to figure out new security features, figure out a new business plan. You can not fight the tidal wave, you should learn the ride it instead, or you will drown.......

Well I think that Battlefield Heros and Quake live will test that water but the most part you have to fund this stuff some how. I mean what about the droves of artist that its takes to make these things? they ahve to pay their bills too ya know.

#36 99% of all online piracy you need to pay for. Wether it's a monthly fee or whatever.

There is a big difference between pirates that give away games for free and pirates that SELL the game. Those who give the game for free are either just trying to prove a point or think that the game should be available for free due to other fees (such as the DRM)

Those who SELL the already made game to people so that they can make money without lifting a finger are just lazy and stupid.

And people that USE their features should be blamed just as much.

#37 @Tyler - Apply that logic to other products. Music, toys, video cards, cars, and so on. There are people who worked just as hard to create those and they charge. Just because some people think all cars should be free, doesn't make it right for people to steal them.

I do agree, though, with your last point. People who download the torrents or buy the pirated games at a market are just as much to blame. There is absolutely no justifiable reason to download a torrent. I'll say it again, the downloader is just trying to get something for free. If they continue to seed, then they are helping others get the product for free as well. If the downloaders want to prove the point about DRM or cost of games, just don't buy the game.

#38 Companies take the additude of either you're buying our stuff or you're "pirating it!". So, for every one person that doesn't buy their product they press release that they're obviously commiting copyright infrigment. That is always their additude, therefore "Just don't buy the game" doesn't register with these companies. You're either a customer or a thief in their eyes and statistics.

For example just because I didn't purchase the latest game of Far Cry 2 they'll statistically mark me as a "pirate" and not what I am of which is "I don't play Fry Cry". So Michael because you didn't run out and buy The Golden Girls - The Complete Seventh and Final Season then you obviously must have "pirated" it! ;)

Some say that 98% of statistics are made up on the spot. Stastistically speaking of course...

#39 @Nathan - Point taken about the attitude of the corporate types who send out press releases that insult people.

Still, valid points and principle of the matter aside, the company can call me a pirate but it doesn't change the fact that I didn't steal The Golden Girls - The Complete Seventh and Final Season. Someone from EA can knock on my door and tell me I'm a pirate love because I did not buy Mirror's Edge. That's fine because they still don't get my money and his car is getting egged before he leaves.


Btw, who WOULDN'T pay for that that DVD set? That's a collector's item!

#40

Quote:Some say that 98% of statistics are made up on the spot. Stastistically speaking of course...

Apply that to your own statistic right there and you are a genuine CEO