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."
You miss the point. 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. There are countless examples of people playing pirated games their friends gave them - it's just so very common. Game making is a business - stealing the product for any reason is wrong and lame - I don't blame a buisness for abandoning a market that continuously steals from it.
You (everyone who downplays piracy) don't deserve good PC games.
Shhh! Jojo, people don't want to hear that around here. They are simply borrowing a game that they were never going to buy in the first place. True, they do the typical things you would normally do with a paid-for game - namely play it. But really, they had no intentions of buying it anyway so they shouldn't be expected to pay to play it. All is well. There are no lost sales. Not one. There are no victims. Game makers are charitable folks at heart and are not interested in profits. In the future, please think before you type such nonsense.
By the way, for the clueless around here (i.e. most everyone one this board), the above was sarcasm.
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