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."
I for one would love to see how to market would look if there was no piracy. I would bet that nothing would change, just the excuses would be different. If piracy is such an issue, why are they still releasing hugely successful games with lot's of profit? I think it's just the fact that companies want to have any penny out there, but scraping those pennies only gets their loyal customers lot's of DRM and rootkits.
And as for console games, it's a huge market but also has to deal with lot's of piracy. But the console market has generally 1 great advantage: the majority of people who play console games usually are casual gamers who don't mind playing sequel number 345 of the game which the pc gamer already played back in 1998. Cheap games with huge profit margins, and you won't hear sony and MS complain about mod chips.
Also it is estimated that the videogame industry is taking over the movie industry market wise, so if piracy was really such an issue ...
Complaining about piracy is like the farmer who is complaining about the weather: it's never ok.
Make smart and good games, and with some decent marketing you'll have your 4 rare Ferrari's in no time. Release the 475th sequel of that game people loved in the previous century ... and blame it on the piracy.
And as for console games, it's a huge market but also has to deal with lot's of piracy. But the console market has generally 1 great advantage: the majority of people who play console games usually are casual gamers who don't mind playing sequel number 345 of the game which the pc gamer already played back in 1998. Cheap games with huge profit margins, and you won't hear sony and MS complain about mod chips.
Also it is estimated that the videogame industry is taking over the movie industry market wise, so if piracy was really such an issue ...
Complaining about piracy is like the farmer who is complaining about the weather: it's never ok.
Make smart and good games, and with some decent marketing you'll have your 4 rare Ferrari's in no time. Release the 475th sequel of that game people loved in the previous century ... and blame it on the piracy.
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