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PC Game Piracy Examined
sanstodo
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Koroush Ghazi, a former economist and writer at Tweakguides.com, released a long, in-depth look at PC game piracy this month. He examines multiple aspects of piracy, including piracy and copyright, the economics of piracy, the scale of piracy, PC vs. console piracy, changing business models, and DRM. At the end, he suggests practical solutions:
After reading the whole article (and I really suggest reading the whole article), I find that his conclusions are spot-on. He avoids much of the hysteria found in the piracy debate and delivers solid evidence to back his assertions. As a PC gamer, I find the entire situation sad. The people who will ultimately suffer the most from piracy (PC gamers themselves, along with publishers and developers) are not the ones who are profiting the most (those who provide pirating services, either websites like the Pirate Bay or piracy companies in places like China). Without clear changes in behavior by PC gamers, there are going to be fewer PC games, more crappy ports, and less diversity in the marketplace. It's within our power to stop that from happening (simple solution: buy games you like!) but only if we start looking long-term.
I've seen the piracy debate evolve a great deal over the years. A few years ago people would firmly deny that piracy was anything more than just a few people doing it. Then eventually as a range of data such as the number of torrent downloads made it painfully obvious that it was actually being conducted on a huge scale, the next argument to be trotted out was that it may be large, but it doesn't really result in any lost sales. Now that we have sales figures showing huge differentials between PCs and console game sales despite roughly the same install bases for each platform, the argument has devolved into simply blaming the greedy developers and publishers for making crappy games and using DRM. Of course even good games by struggling developers with no DRM are heavily pirated, so I wonder what's next. I believe most people justify piracy on the basis that it's a victimless crime, "like punching someone in the dark" as Nelson Munce would say. The irony is that the real victims of piracy may end up being PC gamers.
Whether you agree with the findings and arguments in this article is actually not that important. The main aim of the article is to open peoples' eyes to the fact that the entire topic is actually quite complex, and that there's a great deal of misinformation currently doing the rounds with regards to piracy. I'm under no illusions that most people will not like this article because it doesn't support piracy, but ultimately my responsibility is to write what I believe to be true, not what I believe will be popular; more and more these days, the two are drifting apart anyway. With the Culture of Piracy so prominent now, it seems everyone is demanding freedom without understanding that freedom does not equal free; everything has a cost, and we need to recognize that if content creators provide us with entertainment, they need to be rewarded fairly for it. We need to demonstrate that we can exercise the freedoms we have responsibly if we don't want to lose them. People can conjure up all manner of excuses to justify rampant piracy all day long, however neither the data nor logic bear any of these excuses out in the end.
Whether you agree with the findings and arguments in this article is actually not that important. The main aim of the article is to open peoples' eyes to the fact that the entire topic is actually quite complex, and that there's a great deal of misinformation currently doing the rounds with regards to piracy. I'm under no illusions that most people will not like this article because it doesn't support piracy, but ultimately my responsibility is to write what I believe to be true, not what I believe will be popular; more and more these days, the two are drifting apart anyway. With the Culture of Piracy so prominent now, it seems everyone is demanding freedom without understanding that freedom does not equal free; everything has a cost, and we need to recognize that if content creators provide us with entertainment, they need to be rewarded fairly for it. We need to demonstrate that we can exercise the freedoms we have responsibly if we don't want to lose them. People can conjure up all manner of excuses to justify rampant piracy all day long, however neither the data nor logic bear any of these excuses out in the end.
After reading the whole article (and I really suggest reading the whole article), I find that his conclusions are spot-on. He avoids much of the hysteria found in the piracy debate and delivers solid evidence to back his assertions. As a PC gamer, I find the entire situation sad. The people who will ultimately suffer the most from piracy (PC gamers themselves, along with publishers and developers) are not the ones who are profiting the most (those who provide pirating services, either websites like the Pirate Bay or piracy companies in places like China). Without clear changes in behavior by PC gamers, there are going to be fewer PC games, more crappy ports, and less diversity in the marketplace. It's within our power to stop that from happening (simple solution: buy games you like!) but only if we start looking long-term.
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Gonna go read the full article now but that doesnt strike me as anything but blame.
I think that's called becoming jaded.
Many people will take something for nothing if they can take something for nothing. Piracy is much easier on the PC then it is on consoles, therefore more people pirate on the PC. It's not exactly rocket science.
What developers need to realize is that restrictive DRM and other anti-piracy measures which (For the most part) only inconvenience paying customers are incredibly stupid and a better method of protection is needed.
He'd completely agree with your stance. The problem he points to is that a lot of very good games (he uses "World of Goo" as an example) suffer from low sales and high piracy figures(piracy rates of about 90% of all active installs). This kills off many independent game developers and contributes to stagnation, such as reliance on established franchises (like Need for Speed and the ilk) or platform flight (developers not prioritizing PC development, or not developing for the PC at all).
Buying good games is exactly what should be happening, but according to the statistics, that's not the trend; the trend is toward better games being pirated more, often at levels that make developing PC games non-viable.
I recommend reading the section on DRM because it addresses the complaint about overly restrictive DRM.
I'm still on page 1 of the article. This shit is good.
Whoops, sorry. I totally zoned out there and completely failed to notice the link in the OP. >.<
Didn't SINS drop their DRM and allow anyone to pirate it if they wanted to, resulting in lower piracy numbers at the end of the day and good sales?
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Because a lot of retailers, upon finding out you're selling your digital version for cheaper, respond by dropping your product from their shelves.
I honestly don't know where to start the discussion though.
I'm not sure but there haven't been similar successes across the board. He talks about a bunch of games that released without DRM/minimal DRM and they basically got destroyed by day zero and day one cracked versions. Again, World of Goo is an example of a great game without DRM that has piracy rates of about 90%.
@JustinSane07: PC games are harder to keep stable because of the myriad setups consumers use. Consoles have a fixed hardware base so more can be fixed before release. Patches are always going to be a necessary evil for PC games because of the additional variables that different operating systems, hardware setups, drivers, etc. create.
Which parts did you think were wrong? That seems like a good place 8-)
What DRM problems did you have? Personally, I haven't had any that weren't fixed pretty easily.
And with broadband service increasing and digital distribution becoming more common that threat becomes increasingly more damaging to the store than to the provider.
COD4 didn't work at all until I found a working crack (it would start up and then immediately close down), which in the end I had to obtain by torrenting the game and extracting the exe from it. XIII had a similar problem, but I foud a crack for that that worked. First one, then the other of my DVD burners stopped working until I used the Starforce removal tool (which stopped the games that rely on it from working). There were others, but that's what I can remember of the top of my head.
I didn't want to buy any game that had limited install DRM (eg Spore and Bioshock), and I had got to the point where I'd need to upgrade to keep gaming on the PC anyway. So I ditched WinXP and moved to Linux full-time.
Most of the problems were pretty trivial, to be fair, but it really irks me to pay money for something and then for it not to work.
Those sound irritating, to be sure. My question is: why do you blame the companies for putting on the DRM instead of blaming the pirates who cause DRM to be necessary? Koroush makes it pretty clear that developers and publishers don't like DRM anymore than you do (it creates the problems you mentioned and also costs them money). However, they seem to have been backed into a corner by the sheer scale of piracy they confront.
His part on copyright has many mishaps, I'm not listing them as it may turn in another "copyright extension" thread. It also doesn't reflect badly on the rest of the article so that's no biggy.
He said piracy has a direct effect on game prices citing "Economy of scale". Nope. Sorry. You can't apply it with current video games distribution models or production costs. When was the last time you got cheaper movie tickets because every 100th person on earth went to see that movie? Games are as close to price fixing in different regions as it gets. Currently you're able to guess the correct price for a game even before the production for said title has started and p/l is done only on volume. The difficulty to project sales means any surplus of gamers would result in more profit, which IS a good thing, but won't reflect on price.
Nope. Online activation has not been shown to be a deterrent to the piracy of any single particular game. There is no actual justification for that measure as I seriously doubt that you could push it as a positive expense even in front of share holders. I'd say data mining is the only future reason for implementing such a measure in PC games.
About DRM, DRM is not necessary in any form and I honestly don't see how you could place the blame for its presence on piracy. There was a study only recently(look for it on slashdot) that showed comparative piracy numbers indifferent to type of DRM, presence of DRM etc.
The biggest problem I have with him tho, is his refusal to accept possible justifications for piracy. I agree that one does not have a right to entertainment and it is a crime called copyright infringement when you download a game without paying. However I still claim that the largest part of illegal downloads happen because of economic reasons, and it doesn't matter for one shit what you do, a huge percentage of those people would never be consumers. They couldn't afford to, be it because they are 12 year olds who live on 5 bucks per week, or be it because they live in a country where 50$ is a quarter of a month's salary. He doesn't offer any actual data in his study, he uses "obviously" one too many times.
As far as his conclusion, I like it, but it's idealistic.
It took me too fucking long to type that, I'm not proof-reading it....
Your point on economies of scale is dead-on.
I am less sold on the comparative piracy numbers released on Slashdot. There were several examples of DRM success that he quotes, and overall piracy numbers ignore the timing of the downloads. Companies state that day zero and day one cracks are by far worse for sales than anything else. I don't see why they would be lying about it because DRM costs them money too.
Plus, it makes sense for companies to put their strongest DRM on the games they figure to be the most popular. Koroush clearly shows that the most popular games are the most pirated. They are likely to attract the most attention by people in the scene (the crackers, in this case). Likewise, lower profile games are going to have lower piracy numbers anyway because fewer people are interested in obtaining them. I don't remember seeing any adjustment for that, or for the timeliness of the cracks, in the Slashdot survey.
As for your last statement, it is true that software is unaffordable in many countries. Koroush does discuss that. But that doesn't mitigate the fact that sales are being lost due to piracy, and apparently in large enough numbers to make developing PC games less desirable than it would be in the absence of piracy (or even in a less piracy heavy environment).
I can't see any justifications for piracy, to be honest, except for major incompatibility issues caused by DRM (which would be null if piracy didn't exist). Other than that.......what other justifications are there that actually make any sense and/or stand up to scrutiny?
Why?
-Not every pirated copy is a lost sale. If your game costs $50, and 1,000,000 people pirate it, but only 1,000 would have bought it had piracy not been an option...you're out $50,000. NOT $50,000,000.
-DRM doesn't do shit. Big-ticket games are cracked BEFORE release, usually by internal leaks. Smaller games don't take much longer.
Or as 2D Boy put it:
I happen to think their rates are a bit high, but the end conclusion is spot on. Developers should be making their decisions based on SALES, not on what they think they might have gotten if piracy didn't exist.
None, but it doesn't matter, because most of those people wouldn't have bought your stuff anyway.
This is some good shit right here. That's one way to deter pirating. Deliberately leak a buggy copy of the game.
The section on Free Riders is really good. It's a brilliant look at the sub culture reflecting the culture.
I'm not shocked that DRM works to some degree. BioShock is famous for preventing piracy in it's first week, which greatly helped sales.
He's aboslutely right about everything in the PC vs. Console section. I'm absolutely convinced Force Unleashed was not released for PC because of piracy, though. Lucas knew they were hyping that game up huge and did not want to lose sales to PC piracy.
I'm actually in all support of in-game advertisements, provided the context. Movie ads showed up in Madden in '07, but that makes sense, because they're football stadiums. If you were to go real games, those kinds of advertisements would exist for real. But let's say you were playing a Vietnam related game and you ran smack dab into an Alienware advertisement. That wouldn't make any sense. I haven't, personally, seen abuse of IGA like my example, which is a good thing.
I kinda stopped updating my reply after that, but I read the rest of the article. It's pretty accurate to the facts.
I still think StarForce is a fucking evil program, but mostly because StarForce Inc. is a bunch of assholes so I would never trust them with my machine. The one thing he didn't bring into question was the idea of programs like SF and SecuROM messing with your system. Yes, D-Tools and Alcohol are common programs used for pirating, but in no way should one third party software be allowed to screw with a different one. This has always bugged me. I can't run a certain program because SR says so? Who are they to determine this? They're not a legal entity of any kind.
His solutions are very good, but I've always had this feeling even SR doesn't know what kind of problems their software can cause to hardware. Sony wasn't aware that their CD protection software would prevent users from accessing their CD rom drive physically back when that mishap happened with the Celine Dion CD. I'm not convinced that explaining the DRM included in the software is all that helpful because of this.
My other major issue is the idea of "intellectual property." I own a Scion TC. Let's say I pay off that loan. I own that car outright now. I can do whatever I want with it. I can resell it. I can crash it into a tree. I can reverse engineer it for my own use (<-- note this phrase) if I want. Toyota can't come back to me and say "YOU CAN'T DO THAT! IT'S OUR IP! OUR CAR!" because it's my car. This is my main issue with DRM. Once I buy a game, it's my game. It doesn't belong to the developer anymore. As long as I stick to what's legal, I should be able to do what I want. If I buy Spore and I want to sell it to a friend when I'm done with it, I should be able to without issue. The fact that EA thinks they can still control my usage of my paid for product is what bothers me the most.
Now, I understand the online component brings a whole new issue. For example, World of Warcraft accounts. Who do they belong to? Blizzard? The home user? Blizzard would say them, and their EULA does too. But the person who played that character and put the effort in would argue it belongs to them. It's their time, effort and money spent. The key there is the "money" aspect. With an MMO, I'm never done paying for it. I'm always paying for it. On top of that, the MMO company provides the server for me to play their game on. I'm still involved with the company. In that case, the character still belongs to the MMO company.
To the contrary though, the idea that Valve still owns my copy of Counter Strike Source should be fought against completely. For one, they don't host the servers to play the game on. That's done by private, sometimes professional, individuals. I'm not paying Valve any more money for their product. Their end of the sales agreement should be complete at time of purchase. But they insist on nosing in after that. That would be like Toyota showing up at my house at random and inspecting my car to make sure I'm following their rules about it (again, after I'm done paying for the loan).
I hope my rants make sense.
I rarely ever pirate games anymore because of what is mentioned in the article, that eventually developers will stop developing for PC, (not that it matters because you can pirate the PS3 and 360 anyway) but all the same.
Movies and music on the other hand, now that's another matter...
This is really interesting. I thought World of Goo was just a Wii game. Now I feel bad for them. Also, I'm going to buy the fuck out of Cave Story when they remake it on Wii.
An interesting post by the game maker. Note that they don't reach any conclusions on this particular case; they have a hunch (DRM is a waste of money) but they do agree that more research needs to be done. But the real problem is figuring out how many people out of that million of pirates would have actually bought the game without piracy. That, we don't really know and I'm sure tons of people are dying to get a concrete answer.
As for your last point, I think it does matter. What is considered culturally acceptable does drive people's decisions. I have talked to many of my friends about their piracy of music and some no longer pirate or do so considerably less. Peer pressure (or non-hysterical debate) is a force that could be quite useful.
Edit: @Thorion: Some games only really pay well on the PC. For example, I can't stand FPS on consoles; mouse and keyboard is generally a more elegant control scheme. I put my CD keys in a document for easy storage and retrieval. Sure, it costs me a few minutes when I install a game but it's worth it.
I agree with much of your post except the end. When you purchase a game, you don't own it. You simply purchase a license to use the program with certain restrictions (transfer of the license may be one of those restrictions). Koroush makes that pretty clear; paying $50 doesn't give you ownership of a game that cost millions to make.
As for the car metaphor, it doesn't really hold up because of the difference between copyright infringement and theft. It would be a more apt comparison if you reverse engineered your car and made the blueprints available to everyone in the world. I think that most of us would agree that should be illegal.
I don't have anything besides economic reasons and I don't think it justifies copyright infringement. I said it too strongly in the post above. I'd simply have a hard time if I'm in a jury to sympathize with the plaintiff as I won't be able to accept any possible damage.
Yup, nothing I can think of. Regional releases, as he mentions, are certainly a thing that could piss a shitload of people off, but I'm unsure that actually translates in infringements.
You purchase a digital copy of information. There is no social reason to be able to resell CD's & DVD's and to have video games' 2nd hand market as a black market.
It's too bad that the First sale becomes a complete mess the moment a judge hears digital.
Perhaps you should read the article before posting. Because DRM does work to an extent. There actual sales numbers and facts to back this up, instead of wild claims with no basis.
I'm sure that issue will come up as digital distribution of movies becomes more common. But it is a similar principle. Buying a DVD gives you the right to watch that particular movie for your personal use. You cannot legally copy the movie either (though if you rip it to your computer and don't distribute it, no one will really care). Similarly, if you buy a PC game, you are purchasing the right to play the game for your own personal entertainment. In both cases, the actual physical medium (the DVD or game discs) is not what you are purchasing; it's the license to use the information stored on those discs.
It's a subtle difference and, to most people, shouldn't really make a difference. If I buy Left 4 Dead, does it matter if I have a game disc or not so long as I can play the game? imho, it doesn't matter at all (full disclosure: I got L4D through Steam).
the article just comes off as a guy nobody has ever heard of from a site nobody cares about crying out for attention, I really don't trust anything it states. Its a skewed articl, he uses questionable sources and only ever addresses the side of the issue he personally decided is right.His whole DRM isn't bad argument basically consists of him spewing out sales figures and saying that they back his conclusion, when they actually don't support either conclusion one way or the other.
Pirating games blows even with a good connection. A big torrent can take ages and it kills your connection for that time. STEAM delivers extremely high speed downloads and usually does not cripple their games with crazy DRM. Convenience is a really big factor and buying a game digitally is a hell of a lot faster and easier than buying it in a store. Its' also a great marketplace for games(like the aforementioned World of Goo) that are independently produced and not viable for retail sale.
I read on Wikipedia about how Bungie caught a HDD-erasing bug at the eleventh hour of their Myth 2 release. I'm not sure of the particulars but somehow the game deleted the directory for Windows instead of just uninstalling the software.
There was also a snippet on Acts of Gord about a game shop owner who came into a Playstation Gameshark that shorted out systems.
http://www.actsofgord.com/Wrath/chapter03.php
Sabotage is wrong but it's still a funny idea where a pirate gets miffed because his download corrupted his computer.