Effects of piracy on game sales.

Xune

Xune

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An interesting piece on the finding of one company, Reflexive, into piracy and product sales.

http://www.indiegames.com/blog/2008/02/opinion_casual_games_and_piracy_the_truth_.html

"It looks like around 92% of the people playing the full version of Ricochet Infinity pirated it." It`s moments like those that make people in the industry stop dead in their tracks.

...

As we believe that we are decreasing the number of pirates downloading the game with our DRM fixes, combining the increased sales number together with the decreased downloads, we find 1 additional sale for every 1,000 less pirated downloads. Put another way, for every 1,000 pirated copies we eliminated, we created 1 additional sale.
Click to expand...

A 1000:1 ratio! It would be interesting to see how this plays out for more mainstream, non casual, game companies.
 
I refuse to believe that piracy is anywhere near as rampant (in general) as most organizations would have us believe. Take the RIAA for example...PLEASE!!:LOL:
 
It's kind of dispicable when you think of it.

I'd write more but I'm still gawping at the number 92% :eek:
 
Personally I pirate games fairly often during term when I'm not working and have to keep a close eye on my cash. During holidays when I get a job I usually buy games I'm interested in.

Piracy is a pretty big problem, though that 1000:1 ratio just shows that a lot of people aren't willing to spend that kind of money on a game even if there's no way to get it for free.
 
I pirate a game only if I don't have the money. I the good games though (even if I have already played them).
 
I often "acquire a demo" before I purchase a game. $50 is a lot of money to put towards something that might not even be worth my time playing. 92% seems far fetched, unless the game was majorly hyped, but reallllly sucks.
 
Alot of the development companies get enough money if they create a good game anyway. I can see why anyone would be mad at loosing profit from piracey of their product, and I don't endorse it.

But ffs it's almost like EA whining about what planet they missed out on taking over next, or what toy car a kid didn't manage to get, even though he has all the best ones anyway.
 
I pirate games solely because i thrive on tears of hardworking developers.
I can't help it it's common in my species, homo socialistus.

It should be noted that a lot of people simply left the game because they
had so much alternatives, if the industry as a whole managed to tighten up
security there would probably be more then 1 in 1000 who would be willing
to buy a game.

Also you folks are way to positive and/or laks when piracy is concerned
I'm sure the industry organization exaggerate but by no means as much
as most pirates when defending themselves.
 
I definitely doubt that 92% figure, or at least that it would also apply to mainstream games. The only interesting thing I saw in the article was that sales jumped 70% after they first upgraded their anti-piracy measures, but we need more information. Their increased security could have coincided with a marketing push, high sales period, or big release - making the data useless.
 
i only pirate games i have bought in the past and lost, or games which i would NEVER buy but think they might be fun for at least a few minutes.
 
lol at people who dont read.

its 92% for that one game and thats it.
valve would probably have a pirating rating under 5%
 
I pirate a good amount of games...but I only pirate the ones I wouldn't buy and have no interest playing it online. However there are games like Halo and WOW that I did buy because I liked them enough to spend the cash. If I weren't able to pirate the games I do...I certainly wouldn't buy them and just wouldn't play them.

giant384 said:
lol at people who dont read.

its 92% for that one game and thats it.
valve would probably have a pirating rating under 5%
Click to expand...

Yeah...they took a game that no one wants to play in the first place thats easily piratable. Look at other games such as wow or tf2. Very low piracy rate as multiplayer is the big attraction and good luck playing on the servers with a non legit game.
 
I only pirate games that I wouldn't normally purchase, and if it's good enough, I'll buy it
 
So the stats for this game show that of 1000 people who pirated this game, on average only 1 person would have bought it if they hadn't been able to get it free... That is a more surprising stat than the 92% tbh. If anything, it makes the 92% piracy figure look pretty reasonable. Their paying customer base could concievably be much closer to 1/1000 of the pirate userbase, as opposed to 2/25ths (8%). That's not taking account of people who would never consider pirating anything, of course, but lol... Anyway, I find the proportion of legit/pirated interesting.
 
VictimOfScience said:
I refuse to believe that piracy is anywhere near as rampant (in general) as most organizations would have us believe. Take the RIAA for example...PLEASE!!:LOL:
Click to expand...

Straight from Infinity Ward's mouth:

They Wonder Why People Don’t Make PC Games Any More

On another PC related note, we pulled some disturbing numbers this past week about the amount of PC players currently playing Multiplayer (which was fantastic). What wasn’t fantastic was the percentage of those numbers who were playing on stolen copies of the game on stolen / cracked CD keys of pirated copies (and that was only people playing online).

Not sure if I can share the exact numbers or percentage of PC players with you, but I’ll check and see; if I can I’ll update with them. As the amount of people who pirate PC games is astounding. It blows me away at the amount of people willing to steal games (or anything) simply because it’s not physical or it’s on the safety of the internet to do.
Click to expand...

http://iamfourzerotwo.com/2008/01/12/week-in-review-servers-servers-servers/

PC pirating is very rampant because it's so easy and there are cracked servers and so much other stuff.

Hell, why do you think it's necessary that Microsoft and some hardware manufacturers are thinking of forming a "PC Gaming Alliance" to show developers why they shouldn't abandon the market for AAA games on the platform.

http://kotaku.com/355751/microsoft--hardware-manufacturers-to-form-pc-gaming-alliance

The fact is, PC Gaming is doing decent not awesome. It still sells, but not anywhere close to console numbers because it's more difficult to pirate on a console (possible, but it's not like there are thousands upon thousands doing it unlike in the PC games space).
 
did they just ask people or something? seems like an odd statistic to cover. i mean would you really answer to the company that you stole there game?
 
giant384 said:
did they just ask people or something? seems like an odd statistic to cover. i mean would you really answer to the company that you stole there game?
Click to expand...

They can have checks in the game that sees if it's a valid, unique version and they can just poll that data.

Take CoD4 example above. They can just bring up a stat on how many people are using invalid CD-keys, etc...
 
The percentage of people playing pirated PC games might be phenomenal, but if this Reflexive stat suggests anything it's that you can't take that percentage to help you make any easy assumptions about lost sales, surely...?
 
It's the classic "What Came First"

The Chicken or the Egg?

So VERY many games get released that simply suck. After forking over my hard earned cash over & over & over for games that ended up as drink costers or face plates for cheap shiny clocks, I can see why some honest people will result in pirating games. They are sick of simply not getting their money's worth. When you have to spend $35+ dollars for a game that ends up sucking or like me, $80 for the Elder Scrolls Oblivion Collectors edition, only for the DVD to somehow stop working a week after buying it & then when I contacted customer support, I was told pretty much " Thats Too bad." <Click> I don't see why people WOULDN'T pirate a game. Of course on the publishers side, the more that get pirated, the less they get & so to make up for lost revenue they raise the price, which leads more people to pirate. It's a vicious circle.

The following facts & figures are 110% USDA true.

Since 1990, The year I really got into playing PC games, I have spent a little over $25,000.00 in games alone. At last count, I had over 500 games for the PC. Times that by the average price tag of $50, some of which cost less & some more, & well you do the math. Many of which I have since sold at garage sales or given away to friends. After my wife & I married in 1999, she saw the $ of what my games total cost had came to & to say the least, she didn't care for my "Childish & Immature" ways. I could buy a new small car with what I have spent on games that ended up collecting dust on my shelf, unfinished because they sucked.

Ok, i'm done rambling.

-MRG
 
USDA? why would the United states department of agricultural care...
 
Gray Fox said:
Also you folks are way to positive and/or laks when piracy is concerned
I'm sure the industry organization exaggerate but by no means as much
as most pirates when defending themselves.
Click to expand...

Lax.

/Spelling Nazi

When I can afford games, I buy them. When I can't afford games, I don't buy them. If I have money at my disposal, I buy games. That's why we have thousands upon thousands of videogames.

My brother's EBgames total spent is like 4-5 thousand dollars.
 
I refuse to pay top dollar for a game I'm not VERY MUCH SO wanting already. I'll download it, play it and make sure it will be worth my purchase. If not, so be it, I'll delete the game and call it day, otherwise, I'll go buy it. If I would have purchased every game I've downloaded then decided it sucked too much to buy, I'd have spent enough to buy a house D:
 
CyberPitz said:
I refuse to pay top dollar for a game I'm not VERY MUCH SO wanting already. I'll download it, play it and make sure it will be worth my purchase. If not, so be it, I'll delete the game and call it day, otherwise, I'll go buy it. If I would have purchased every game I've downloaded then decided it sucked too much to buy, I'd have spent enough to buy a house D:
Click to expand...

Same. I think PC games should start a rental system through digital distribution. That way you can spend maybe 5 bucks, play the game for a week and if you like it, you can buy it. I think the major reason why PC games are pirated is because games are too expensive when the "free" option is so easy. If people can spend five or ten dollars and get just as easy access to the game, I think it would help tremendously.
 
i pirate shit games, i buy the good ones, well... most of the time
 
When the various "industrys" stop trying to claim that 1 pirate copy = 1 lost sale profit then I might care about thier "figures".

Lets say that 92% did pirate the game. Did the creator lose 92% of thier profit? Of course not. Lets say that it wasn't possible to pirate the game. How many of those 92% would have bought it? Close to none. Now, how many of the people who did buy it pirated it first to try it? I'm betting more that would have bought it because they couldn't download it.

And on the subject, that whole "copyright theft is theft" thing? Bullshit. Theft is when you take something, thereby depriving that person of it. Copyright theft is duplicating something without permission, thereby denying the owner nothing, except the fee they would have charged if you bought it. Thats why its called copyright theft, and not just plain old theft.

Rant over
 
The bounty on the EA empire has increased!

Pirate Raiders have left their base!
 
Let's say PC development stopped dead in it's tracks. What's going to happen then? All the pirates start pirating console games, because that's the only place to get them.

Iced_Eagle said:
The fact is, PC Gaming is doing decent not awesome. It still sells, but not anywhere close to console numbers because it's more difficult to pirate on a console (possible, but it's not like there are thousands upon thousands doing it unlike in the PC games space).
Click to expand...

Ah ****ing bullshit. It's not any easier to pirate on the PC than the console. There are fewer pirates on the consoles because pirates are cheap skates and won't cough out for a modchip.
 
half the time console games dont even need to be pirated. theres usually a friend that you could just borrow it from
 
I don't pirate games.
Why? I buy games I like, I don't play games I don't want to own. Suffice to say I buy very few games these days.
 
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