Good opinion article on PC Piracy

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ihira

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link: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=19392



This article goes through all main justifications for piracy and explains why PC gamers really don't have much of an argument when it comes to pirating games.
I found the article and the responses interesting as piracy has always been something that i've tried to pay close attention to and look at the reality surrounding the issue.

Discuss.
 
A little late. We finished this discussion on this exact article in the general gaming forum and it was locked.
 
Interesting, but doesn't address the one biggie. I.e. the fallacious "1 download = 1 lost sale" numbers that are put forth. As long as the industry keeps using that tired and flawed math, they aren't going to be able to come up with real solutions.

In order to defeat piracy, they need only to convince someone unwilling to buy their product, to buy it. I would guess most pirates, if they could not download the games, would simply find a cheaper hobby. Most the people I know could never afford all the crap they pirate. If they couldn't pirate it they'd just go to an MMO where the enjoyment per dollar is much higher. And for their apps they'd use open source, since they don't have the money for expensive software suites.

Basically, even if piracy become technically impossible tomorrow, with no ability to circumvent the protections, I doubt you'd see much of a sales increase. Pirated software was pirated because the person wasnt willing to spend the money in the first place, why would making it unpirateable make them more willing to buy it? It wouldn't.

This is true especially of games. People dont NEED games, and are more likely to just say "Meh fuck it, I heard it sucked anyway and that's why I was trying to pirate it, Im not spending a cent."
 
NKDietrich said:
Interesting, but doesn't address the one biggie. I.e. the fallacious "1 download = 1 lost sale" numbers that are put forth. As long as the industry keeps using that tired and flawed math, they aren't going to be able to come up with real solutions.

In order to defeat piracy, they need only to convince someone unwilling to buy their product, to buy it. I would guess most pirates, if they could not download the games, would simply find a cheaper hobby. Most the people I know could never afford all the crap they pirate. If they couldn't pirate it they'd just go to an MMO where the enjoyment per dollar is much higher. And for their apps they'd use open source, since they don't have the money for expensive software suites.

Basically, even if piracy become technically impossible tomorrow, with no ability to circumvent the protections, I doubt you'd see much of a sales increase. Pirated software was pirated because the person wasnt willing to spend the money in the first place, why would making it unpirateable make them more willing to buy it? It wouldn't.

This is true especially of games. People dont NEED games, and are more likely to just say "Meh fuck it, I heard it sucked anyway and that's why I was trying to pirate it, Im not spending a cent."
Click to expand...
I have a friend that told me he pirates, but I don't think he does..

Anyway, he told me that he buys some games because he needs a valid CD KEY to play them online, otherwise he wouldn't buy them. So it's not really because pirates flat out don't want to spend money, they just have the exact same features with pirating.

There needs to be some more authentication in games, and the removal of cd checks are uneeded any more, not only do they cost the company money, they give consumers a headache, and are very easily cracked. So CD checks are pointless nowdays.

Maybe if the game required something more than a simple CD key to play offline, pirating would drop.

Question is, what could come in a box other than a serial number and copy protection that can't come over a torrent (within reason)?

For example, take a look at consoles. Their piracy rates are almost null, but they have pretty much the same hardware, and don't even require a silly cd key. But on the other hand they must run from a CD.

What if you had to use some piece of HARDWARE the came with every game, and every game would have a unique piece of that hardware, that you had to plug into a USB drive (or even more far-fetched - every new motherboard would be produced with a slot for this anti piracy device) that without it, you wouldn't be able to play the game.

Sort of like a secondary CD check that is more effective. And would not be controlled by software (e.g cracks), as a matter of fact, this anti piracy device could scan certain game files and if it detects ANY change from factory settings, would prevent the game from being launched?

Troublesome for consumers? Sure, but so are CD keys and CD checks, that's what they are meant for.

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Aside from my useless idea, here are some facts that contribute to piracy:
  • Extremely low number of people being caught means that the next guy is less likely to NOT think of getting a free game
  • Broadband - gives users the freedom of not having to wait for days, weeks, or even months for their pirated game to download
  • Technological advancement: back in the 90s, not half as many people knew how to crack copy protection and generate alogothrims or what have you to play games on the market. Now as more people/groups know how to crack games, they will share that info with others who are interested, and they will also become crackers
  • you don't see a dial up user downloading Crysis, do you?

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So pirating can be handled in very few ways:
  • More crackdowns on pirates
  • Companies creating better anti-piracy tools (unlikely to solve the problem for long these days)
  • The ISP being tighter on identifying and tracking down pirates
 
Tylerdurdened said:
Aside from my useless idea, here are some facts that contribute to piracy:
  • Extremely low number of people being caught means that the next guy is less likely to NOT think of getting a free game
  • Broadband - gives users the freedom of not having to wait for days, weeks, or even months for their pirated game to download
  • Technological advancement: back in the 90s, not half as many people knew how to crack copy protection and generate alogothrims or what have you to play games on the market. Now as more people/groups know how to crack games, they will share that info with others who are interested, and they will also become crackers
  • you don't see a dial up user downloading Crysis, do you?

------------


So pirating can be handled in very few ways:
  • More crackdowns on pirates
  • Companies creating better anti-piracy tools (unlikely to solve the problem for long these days)
  • The ISP being tighter on identifying and tracking down pirates
Click to expand...


Valid points and one I was starting in in another thread that got locked.It simply too easy to pirate games.There is virtually no risk of the pirate ever having to be held liable for what he does.Now,if those issues are addressed,(STEAM becomes the standard or whatever)I highly doubt the same guy will walk into a B&M store and swipe a game off the shelf.
 
trust_no1 said:
^yeah what was is there to stop someone from spoofing a USB check?
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Nothing. A number of companies use a "secure" dongle for software authentication, like the iLok, and they're always circumventable (see iLok reset).
 
phide said:
Nothing. A number of companies use a "secure" dongle for software authentication, like the iLok, and they're always circumventable (see iLok reset).
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Well like I said the next paragraph, this USB device could also check some files (including the main executable) for any changes to the code, and if found, prevent access.. all theory :p
 
It's obvious that invasive security on the end-users PC is NOT the way to go, and its just annoying and gets cracked anyway.

It's security on the ISP level that's going to defeat piracy. It's really the only way. It's the one secure place between the end-user and the internet.
 
Perfect example is photoshop.

In the years I have been a computer guy, it seems to be one of the most pirated programs out there.

Are they seriously going to tell me that every one of those people would have spent 600-800 bucks or whatever the full version would have cost them, had they not been able to get a pirated version?
No, they would use something cheaper. And most of the people that I know that NEED the full version, paid for it, and took a tax writeoff on it as they need it for business reasons.
Most people that have pirated versions are likely using it to make the latest and greatest "lol cat" picture or "pink shirt guy" chop lol.


I mean obviously it DOES cost them some sales. But a lot of the people that have pirated software, would simply find something else to use rather than buy it. I work with a guy that has TONS of pirated stuff on his comps, and a lot of it he has, simply because he can have it. Stuff he has no use for, programs he has never, and never will even install. So would he have bought those things? Obviously not.


Its a BIG problem, but its not as big of a problem as they think (from a financial standpoint I mean) because 1,000,000 illegal downloads of a product does not= 1,000,000 lost sales. Probably more like 200,000 lost sales. Yes that is still a lot of money, but its 800,000 less than they are thinking.
 
damonposey said:
It's obvious that invasive security on the end-users PC is NOT the way to go, and its just annoying and gets cracked anyway.

It's security on the ISP level that's going to defeat piracy. It's really the only way. It's the one secure place between the end-user and the internet.
Click to expand...

ISP level measures would be the easiest thing to get around for most people that know what they are doing. At least I would think.
 
MX-5 Dave said:
Its a BIG problem, but its not as big of a problem as they think (from a financial standpoint I mean) because 1,000,000 illegal downloads of a product does not= 1,000,000 lost sales. Probably more like 200,000 lost sales. Yes that is still a lot of money, but its 800,000 less than they are thinking.
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I think most of the people publisher-side talking about it already know that. Crytek was tossing around numbers like 10:1 or 20:1 downloads to legit purchases of Crysis from what they'd seen, but Cevat Yerli (or however it's spelled heh) said at the same time that if piracy was completely eliminated he'd hope for maybe 2x as many sales at best (from 1.5m -> 3m over 6 months, in context of the time he said that at).

Basically estimating 1/5-1/10th of the people that downloaded the game would otherwise purchase it, sort of in line with the numbers you just gave.
 
MX-5 Dave said:
ISP level measures would be the easiest thing to get around for most people that know what they are doing. At least I would think.
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Yeah there are so many ways to encrypt your stuff now so that your ISP has no idea what you are doing. They can't ban encryption because that would break e-commerce and the many thousands of legitimate uses for encryption. They could throttle encrypted traffic, but all that would do is get them smacked down by the FCC.

The math is so wrong on piracy for TWO reasons.

1) The assumption that 1 download = 1 lost sale. Mitigating factors: Did the person ever use the program? Did they even finish the download? Would they have used an open source alternative if they could not pirate it? Would they have even been able to afford it?

To me this means that expensive software is where the least amount of money is being lost. People pirating $1500-2000 software are very likely to be unable to afford the software in the first place. So there is no potential for a lost sale.

2) Based on their flawed 1 download = 1 lost sale math, they assume that pirates could afford to buy everything they've pirated legitimately. If I download $500 worth of content a week that I "should have" paid for, but I barely make that much each week, they cannot say I've cost them $500. If piracy were not possible, a person in this situation may buy a COUPLE of the things they've pirated, but for the most part they would just learn to do without.
 
MX-5 Dave said:
Perfect example is photoshop.

In the years I have been a computer guy, it seems to be one of the most pirated programs out there.

Are they seriously going to tell me that every one of those people would have spent 600-800 bucks or whatever the full version would have cost them, had they not been able to get a pirated version?
No, they would use something cheaper. And most of the people that I know that NEED the full version, paid for it, and took a tax writeoff on it as they need it for business reasons.
Most people that have pirated versions are likely using it to make the latest and greatest "lol cat" picture or "pink shirt guy" chop lol.


I mean obviously it DOES cost them some sales. But a lot of the people that have pirated software, would simply find something else to use rather than buy it. I work with a guy that has TONS of pirated stuff on his comps, and a lot of it he has, simply because he can have it. Stuff he has no use for, programs he has never, and never will even install. So would he have bought those things? Obviously not.


Its a BIG problem, but its not as big of a problem as they think (from a financial standpoint I mean) because 1,000,000 illegal downloads of a product does not= 1,000,000 lost sales. Probably more like 200,000 lost sales. Yes that is still a lot of money, but its 800,000 less than they are thinking.
Click to expand...

If people couldn't pirate photoshop they'd probably use GIMP instead, then with more people working on GIMP photoshop might lose all its business :p
 
if piracy ended tomorrow i believe there would be a drastic increase in sales... not for individual apps/games/movies but overall we would deff see a big increase.

a lot of people say they wouldnt buy the crap they pirate but if they couldnt pirate that stuff how else would they get it?.. if there were 1 billion piraters and pirating was dead and each one of those 1 billion piraters bought something they normally would have pirated for two dollars? that would be a lot of extra cash eh?

btw thanks for the article nice read^^
 
MX-5 Dave said:
Perfect example is photoshop.

In the years I have been a computer guy, it seems to be one of the most pirated programs out there.

Are they seriously going to tell me that every one of those people would have spent 600-800 bucks or whatever the full version would have cost them, had they not been able to get a pirated version?
No, they would use something cheaper. And most of the people that I know that NEED the full version, paid for it, and took a tax writeoff on it as they need it for business reasons.
Most people that have pirated versions are likely using it to make the latest and greatest "lol cat" picture or "pink shirt guy" chop lol.


I mean obviously it DOES cost them some sales. But a lot of the people that have pirated software, would simply find something else to use rather than buy it. I work with a guy that has TONS of pirated stuff on his comps, and a lot of it he has, simply because he can have it. Stuff he has no use for, programs he has never, and never will even install. So would he have bought those things? Obviously not.


Its a BIG problem, but its not as big of a problem as they think (from a financial standpoint I mean) because 1,000,000 illegal downloads of a product does not= 1,000,000 lost sales. Probably more like 200,000 lost sales. Yes that is still a lot of money, but its 800,000 less than they are thinking.
Click to expand...

A perfect example would be if photoshop cost $50-$60... How many people who pirated WOULD have paid $50-$60 for it if they were unable to pirate it? I'm willing to bet a whole lot more. What that translates to is that there is indeed lost sales. Sure, it's not a 1:1 ratio, but there are significant losses to be recovered.
 
When I was young I used to pirate, then I grew up and realized I can get AAA games for $5 on Steam.
 
xenotype said:
yes, as well as the most hated. americans do not adhere well to censorship.
Click to expand...

There would be a good reason for that. I don't think I need to point it out.

The article is interesting. And I think a large portion (not all and not 50 percent) of PC gamers have at one point or currently are still doing so.

However the whole "If this person didn't pirate than they would have bought" said game/software is just wrong. You can't account for that kind of supposed "loss" and making up figures like *certain* companies do (Hello Crytek) just makes it look even more absurd.

Piracy won't last forever in terms of PC gaming piracy but the platform is thriving regardless. Developers need to stop "crying" every time there failure games don't sell millions of copies and then using piracy as a handy excuse for poor development/marketing.
 
Not sure what the point of the article is?
That piracy happens and it is wrong? duh?
Please don't be pirates? Ok

as a paying customer should I *NOT* be upset to see these endless accusations/complaints about piracy, about DRM to "fix" piracy, about GFWL, EA, Bioware, Ubi and other logins necessary to play a game, about rootkits, about always online connections to play?

Yes the publishers have a legitimate beef about piracy. But they are not going to conquer piracy by alienating their player base with features that take value away from the products they are selling.
 
Outdated uninformed opinion piece without any evidence of any objective research being undertaken to support the views expressed.
 
Tylerdurdened said:
I have a friend that told me he pirates, but I don't think he does..
Click to expand...

Do YOUR friends or family members fake pirate? Fake pirating is not known to have shortterm aside effects, but can cause many problems down the road in life.

Watch for the warning signs

*Purchases large quantities of blank cd's, but never burns anything. You can check this by flipping the cd/dvd upside down and look for write rings.

*Actually shows excitement when finding a coupon for free itunes music.

*Claims to have hacked his/her xbox, but has xbox live membership cards scattlered around.

*Constantly changes xbox faceplates stating "This bit*h is modded"

*Frequently goes to newly released movies, even bad ones like Faster and No strings attached.

*Large collection of purchased DVD's, Movies, Games.
Click to expand...
If you think a friend or love one is fake pirating do not contact the authorities. Any suspected pirating will only enable them to continue this awful addiction. Seek counseling for them before it goes too far!
 
Holy thread revival Batman!

People focus too much on the negatives of piracy, sure it causes some degree of loss for development studios but that's a small price to pay for the positives that it brings.

The gaming industry is a bit of a mess, consumer rights are in the toilet, a lot of games have restrictions on how we use the software, how many installs we get, and how many different PCs we can play it on. The quality of a lot of games is down, with so many bugs at launch and especially games being heavily consolized a lot of players feel more like beta testers rather than consumers. We can't return these games for refunds when they don't work, nor can we resell them any more. Demos are less common and advertising is misleading often never showing game play.

Piracy gives consumers back power which shifts the status quo so that payment for games is purely optional, there can be no tricking consumers into buying shoddy products by pumping money into advertising and selling unfinished games because a lot of consumers are downloading the game often before the game is commercially available and trying before they buy. Even if you don't pirate yourself you still benefit by the waves of posts and user comments on the web as soon as the rip is available.

I recently bought Dead Space on steam, it wouldn't load properly and was unplayable, thankfully steam gave me back a refund although they were not legally obliged to (and they made a note to tell me that) but I would have avoided that messing about had I just grabbed a torrent of the game, and tried it out first.

I don't think the impact on the industry as a whole from piracy is significant, it's the largest entertainment industy around now, surpassing movies and music, all the markets (consoles and PC) are growing year on year and make massive profits. There is no more turmoil in the games industry than any other industry, bad developers go under, good ones thrive and piracy just makes the whole process faster and more accurate.
 
PrincessFrosty said:
I recently bought Dead Space on steam, it wouldn't load properly and was unplayable, thankfully steam gave me back a refund although they were not legally obliged to (and they made a note to tell me that) but I would have avoided that messing about had I just grabbed a torrent of the game, and tried it out first.
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You are legally entitled to a refund for any product that does not work as directed, stated or advertised. Companies seem to think that self-produced "policies" trump consumer law.
 
Yeah, if a game doesn't work even though your system meets the requirements I'm pretty sure they have to give a refund regardless of what their policy says. If you want to return it simply because you dont like the game, then they aren't obliged to refund you your money.
 
Plague_Injected said:
You are legally entitled to a refund for any product that does not work as directed, stated or advertised. Companies seem to think that self-produced "policies" trump consumer law.
Click to expand...

In the UK you're not allowed to return games, store policy. Steam doesn't allow refunds under its T&C, I only reason I got one for my copy of Dead Space was probably because I have a massive steam account and they want to keep me happy so I keep buying their games. As I said in my post, they specifically pointed out to me that they don't usually issue refunds, that this was a courtesy.

I mean what other industry treats consumers like gamers? Almost every other product bar a few, can be returned without issue for a refund, if there is some kind of defect or issue with the product then the product is recalled. It's like the games industry is some kind of golden child of the business world, we make a big deal about studios going under when in reality for any other industry the markets are just as saturated and there are businesses going under all the time, the bad ones die away and the good ones thrive.
 
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PrincessFrosty said:
In the UK you're not allowed to return games, store policy. Steam doesn't allow refunds under its T&C, I only got one for my copy of Dead Space was probably because I have a massive steam account and they want to keep me happy so I keep buying their games. As I said in my post, they specifically pointed out to me that they don't usually issue refunds, that this was a courtesy.
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I think it's standard they gave me the same shpeel when I requested a refund for some game they accidentally put something on sale but then changed their minds in the middle of me and others ordering. Was supposed to be 2.50 but changed to something like 12.99 when I clicked submit.
 
PrincessFrosty said:
In the UK you're not allowed to return games, store policy. Steam doesn't allow refunds under its T&C, I only reason I got one for my copy of Dead Space was probably because I have a massive steam account and they want to keep me happy so I keep buying their games. As I said in my post, they specifically pointed out to me that they don't usually issue refunds, that this was a courtesy.

I mean what other industry treats consumers like gamers? Almost every other product bar a few, can be returned without issue for a refund, if there is some kind of defect or issue with the product then the product is recalled. It's like the games industry is some kind of golden child of the business world, we make a big deal about studios going under when in reality for any other industry the markets are just as saturated and there are businesses going under all the time, the bad ones die away and the good ones thrive.
Click to expand...

Are you sure about that?

http://www.consumerrightsexpert.co.uk/FaultyGoods.html

I'm not in the UK so I dont know what the situation is, but here in Australia you can return goods if they're faulty or dont work as advertised (such as your PC meeting the minimum requirements but the game not running properly). I figured the UK would be the same, and that site I linked suggests it is.

Stores can make all the policies they want, they dont mean jack shit if they break consumer protection laws. Game doesn't work as promised, you can take it back. It even says it on ebay that when selling items people are protected under consumer protection laws and your refund policies have to be, ya know, legal (EDIT: maybe it doesn't now, I can't seem to see it, I'm sure I've seen it in the past :p).
 
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Unless the store has a no questions returns policy which most don't then you can't walk into a store and get a refund for a game. It's been that way for a long time in the UK.
 
What? Refunds on games? Where? by who? When did this happen? All news to me.
:confused:
 
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