Piracy versus PC Gaming [Mar 09, 2007, 8:23 pm ET] – Share – Viewing Comments
Next Generation recaps a GDC talk titled "The Videogame Piracy Problem:
Fifteen Men on a Dead Man’s Chest" by id Software CEO Todd Hollenshead about the
impact of piracy on the game industry. They outline how Mr. Hollenshead says the
estimated $3 billion economic loss caused by piracy in 2004 does not include
piracy that takes place on the Internet. There is also an article about this
talk on
Joystiq that focuses on the statement that piracy is a factor in id's
embrace of consoles, quoting Todd as saying "Piracy has pushed id as being
multiplatform." On a related note,
Can PC
Gaming Survive in a Console World (thanks
Digg) recaps a panel discussion on the topic that brought up a similar
point:
Part of the problem is piracy. Big titles get stolen by cyber thieves, and it hurts revenue. "The market," said Capps, "that would buy a $600 video card knows how Bittorrent works."
Does that mean casual games, which exponentially outsell what PC gaming traditionalists think of as A-list titles, will one day rule? Hilleman made a point: casual is a poor choice of words. The average player on EA's Pogo "casual" game network plays "for 24 hours a week. There's nothing casual about that."
There is some light in the PC gaming world. World of Warcraft, for instance, is a massive hit, and the upcoming Spore looks not only creative and different, but promising. The MMO and other social networking games could become the norm for PC gaming, with big-ticket titles growing rarer with each passing year. Johnson added that MMOs are "successful because you can't pirate WoW. You cannot pirate an MMO. Period." Therefore, he said, "game design on the PC is going to bend toward persistence."
Pirating the game for any reason is stealing the property - period. Any loss of sale is loss revenue - if the product is on your PC, and you did not pay for it, they have lost the revenue.
How did they lose revenue if I wouldn't have purchased the game anyway? They didn't lose a sale and they didn't lose the code.
stealing the product for any reason is wrong and lame
Good, logical and completely valid reasons to pirate games:
1) Many games don't have demos. Mainly open-ended games with RPG aspects. Oblivion, Morrowind, NWN2, Boiling Point, etc.
2) Many demos are a poor representation of the final product. Poor choice of levels (Hitman: Blood Money), incomplete assets, lack of polish, etc. Some demo levels are merely amalgamations of other levels (DX:IW, DMOMM).
3) Reviews are unreliable. Blizzard's games have all received critical acclaim but I enjoy none of them. Reviewers don't always review final code, either. This is why they manage to overlook glaring flaws that are so obvious to everyone else (such the incomplete nature of KotoR2). Finally, multiplayer games cannot be reviewed competently. They require months of playing before you can appreciate their depth (the reviewers of the Tribes games didn't even know how to ski).
4) The best way to judge a game is to play it in its complete, final form.
So there you have it. Good reasons to pirate games.
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