Piracy: The Good, the Bad, and the Future

When we think of the term “piracy” in its modern sense, we tend to think of the morally reprehensible. Media moguls spent years combatting piracy by conjuring up disheveled images of thugs and depictions of malevolence, along with the line “You wouldn’t steal a car,” but this sort of propaganda couldn’t be farther from the truth. No longer is piracy an act of devestation performed only by the wicked, but as piracy’s negative outcome has weakened, its rates have proportionally skyrocketed. Nearly everyone in the digital world, even the most righteous, has pirated something at some point in their lives, be it a movie, a song, or in our case, a video game.

[caseh]

Simply put, piracy doesn't impact sales like many are led to believe.

I can remember back to the days of the Spectrum 48k and seeing my brother ram as many games onto a cassette tape as he could. The fact here is my brother is a tight b*stard and would never have bought those games to begin with. You can't lose sales to an audience who were never willing to part with their cash to begin with.

And thats the reason why piracy hasn't killed any media industry since it first came about.

[Farsendor1]

i used to be a huge pirat,i pirated everything i could but then i started buying pc games on sale. found i like having all the game features and being able to download the patches.

i started buying full priced games to go along with the games i bought on sale i haven't looked back.

[b_one]

your example fits perfect with FTL.

[kayoss]

Yes piracy does not impact sales but the question is what type of sales are you talking about? Hardware? or software sales? Hardware sales may increase which is a fact but software sales will take a big hit. When you purchase hardware sales, there are very little to no profits to be gain. What most companies depends on are software sales to make up for the lack of profits they make on hardware sales. If software sales are lacking then support for that hardware from developers will dry up and eventually lead to total abandonment of the hardware itself. You may bring up the Nintendo DS as an example. Its been pirated for a while but why is it doing so well when compared to the PSP?? very good question. With the nintendo DS. My answer to you is to take a look the majority of the user base for that console when compared to the majority of the user of the PSP. Most DS user base are young kids, they know nothing about piracy or about the R4 cards. I'm pretty sure their parents are also unaware of any piracy at all when it comes to the nintendo DS. Now look at the PSP user base, the majority of the user are pretty much mainly tech savy teenagers who have the knowlege and know how to hack a psp.
I agree with you that hardware will increase in sales but eventually if you dont have the support from software then the hardware is pretty much on life support.

[caseh]

'Hardware sales may increase which is a fact but software sales will take a big hit.'

There's a large enough void in technical knowledge to prevent everyone pirating games. Again, those with the knowledge probably would never have bought the hardware to begin with if they couldn't mod it. PSP has shifted 71m units, thats not too shabby. Its clearly not affected by piracy to a system ending degree. But if I couldn't have modded it, I would never have bought it and hence I would never have bought any games for it.

Personally i've modded every console i've had since the Megadrive, simply because I can. Last console I done was the Wii, i tried about 5 games and gave it to my girlfriend. I've not bothered with my PS3 as i'm mainly in it for the online gaming.

Thats the thing, i'll spend my money where I believe its worth it. If i've not bought something its because its just peaked my curiosity. If I couldn't copy it then I would just end up renting it or trying a friends copy.

I get what your saying and it obviously isn't as black and white as I make out. Theres an exception to pretty much every rule. I pirate a lot but I also spend a silly amount on games. :)

[MikeMyers]

Since they tend to profit more from software and often sell hardware at a loss which do you think has a greater impact?

There is a hidden community that pirates and they are a small portion. Their reasons for doing it are random. Some try to validate it because they want to try before they buy. Who gave them that right? They did. Some argue it has to do with games being broken so why pay? Again who gave them that right? They did. Some argue they aren't real consumers anyways and wouldn't pay even is they couldn't find it for free. Great, maybe they should take up another hobby then.

What I've witnessed over the years is this self-entitlement attitude seems to be growing. I think that relates to the loss of respect as well. It's just another case of the weak being subsidized by the strong. Some people refuse to work for a living, while others struggle to get by. It's this in-balance that also exists in media and gaming.

[TheLeapist]

On top of never actually being a potential customer they can become a potential means for advertising after they pirate the game.

A few years back I pirated Just Cause 2 and absolutely loved it. So much in fact that I told all my friends to buy it, and they did. I even ended up buying it later even though I'd already played the crap out of it because I felt like I owed it to the game. Not only did they lose nothing but they ended up gaining more because of pirating.

People that are super anti-pirating are very silly to me. It's like they're incapable of comprehending these extremely valid points.

[Tetsujin]

I've talked with people who pirate games and their #1 reason; no available demos for the game they want to play, and they need to verify the game will play on their PC before spending the $. Yes there's minimum requirements, and sometimes there's websites who can test your hardware, yet there's times where the test or the minimum requirements are met, when you play the game itself it doesn't run as expected, and with PC software you can't return it, so your $ lost.

[Abdou23]

Bottom line is piracy never hurt anything, PC-Ps1-PS2-DS-PSP, even XBOX 320 are all pirated like crazy, and they sold millions and software companies made loads of profits.

And tbh some companies deserves to be pirated like those who refuse to sell in certain regions or require to pay extra money for something when they shouldn't and requiring constant internet connection and all that crap.

[Tetsujin]

The way some see it, someone already paid for the game, so why complain about 'loss of sale' when it had to be purchased in order to be put for the public?

I look at it as "if it's good, people will buy to support it over bootlegging" regardless of how cheap or broke they are. I've met people who absolutely refuse to spend $ on DVD movies because it's "Free on the internet" yet spend $ at the movie theater.....

My complaint is a lot of companies swear they know what the fans want - they don't; otherwise piracy would be down and in the long run the company would make more $.

[kayoss]

@tetsujin
by your logic is that, " someone already paid for the game, so why complain about 'loss of sale' when it had to be purchased in order to be put for the public?". So let see, one person bought 1 copy of the game for $60. Uploads it to the internet and so that 1 million people can download it. Its like buying one and getting 999,999 copies for free. Thats a net loss of potential sales of almost 60 million dollars. I hope you are not running any business because if you were, you're in big trouble.
@abdou123
Have you ever sit down and think about why some companies dont sale to certain regions? Its not as easy as you think. I have my own business and as a co-ownerbusiness of a distributing company we have to obey certain laws. We can not just sale things to every regions or places as we wish. First we have to get permission from that region before thinking about doing business. You then have to look at benefit aspects of things as well. Such as is it worth selling to that certain region? taxes, shipping all play a big role.

I'm at this point where i dont really care if people pirate or not. pirating will satisfy you in the short term. But once developers stop making games for that hardware you're left nothing to pirate and you must move onto the next console. Its become a cycle.

[Tetsujin]

I never said I saw it, I put "some" as it not me; learn to read and comprehend before jumping on someone. I made my statement below that paragraph, and as far as the whole piracy argument there's too many "What ifs" and "maybes" to really know where people stand. One can argue for it, another against it; without actual data, and talking to people first hand all we're basing opinion off of is just one side and not hearing both ends about it. Do I support it? Depends on the situation of why somethings downloaded.

[AnimeAvenger]

I used to pirate games, but then I discovered Steam and now my wallet is getting severely raped.