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."
If a company came up with a system that eliminated piracy, they most certainly wouldn't be out of a job, they'd have more customers than they could count. The fact it elimated piracy would sell the product for them. So I'm not sure how you think your argument makes sense.
Think about it over a longer timeline. yeah, people have purchased your magical unbreakable piracy scheme and you're filthy rich. Guess what, even rich people run out of money. but you can't sell more of your product, because eventually everyone will have it and there will be no new customers and your revenue will dry up. And that's just assuming no one copies your magical unbreakable anti-piracy scheme.
If there was suddenly no crime or war..who goes out of business? The same applies here. If there suddenly were no more pirates. anti-piracy also goes out of business. They don't want that so they're always going to scare you into thinking you NEED their next product so that they can get a slice of that imaginary 3 billion pie.
always bet on greed.
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