Some figures on piracy

Click here and disable ads!

This is not smashing news or anything but considering the user base, I thought it bears some importance. Most of the people who frequent MODDB or similar outfits are usually the most depraved of the gamers, always looking for more stuff to try out and play. And while I have absolutely no data to back this up, my intuition tells me that these are the communities most prone to include a lot of pirates.

So there was a poll over there, asking why people pirate games:
http://www.moddb.com/polls/why-do-you-pirate-games

Why I think this is significant? Because it lays out that piracy is first and foremost a service problem. Legit services can't compete with piracy. Most of the games don't even have a demo to begin with and even when there is, it is often not representative of the final product (and sometimes, quite ironically, developers will even bitch about the players "not getting" it because they made the demo intentionally different, as was in Vogel's case and the whole diatribe around combat difficulty) and a pressing %36 admits to piracy because they need to see if they can justify the purchase.

And the others do so because piracy is easier or because they want to avoid DRM, even if they are minorities.

Only a fifth admits to piracy because of costs and only a minority of %6 admit to the lowliest position on piracy without any excuses, ie. "because I can".

Just dropping this here for future reference, for what it's worth. I think it's worth a lot.

Perhaps we could collect various polls and questionnaires from around the web and post it all here for the go-to place thread on the statistics of piracy.

What's the point, though?A question "why do you pirate games?" is a nonsensical question.
The answer should always be "because I can". Even if someone pirates a game to see if it's good before buying, he's still doing it because he can. If he couldn't, he wouldn't do it.
More informative question would be "how much games do you pirate" coupled with "how much % of your excess income do you spend on games?".

Pretty sure I've seen this before. I think it looks bad for pirates. 30% pirate with no intention of buying according to that poll. That's pretty significant considering how many people participated in the poll. About 42% in that poll want better service.

Would indeed be an interesting poll, though I'd also want to know what their excess income is. Spending 10% of your excess income on games is fairly different if that 10% could have bought you either a couple movie tickets or a couple hookers.

Excess income can always buy something else, even if it's a big mac. A few days ago I had to make a difficult choice between spending my 3$ Heavy Gear 2 and spending it on a big mac. It was a really difficult choice. I was saving for it for a whole week.

A more informative query would be "are you a fucking liar who justifies being a greedy, immoral faggot by regurgitating spurious justifications for stealing luxury consumer items".

It can, but it can't always be spent on one thing. There's a limit to how much money you can spend on games before you're just buying shit you won't play anyways. The idea that the guy spending 10$ a month and 1000$ a month both like game equally because the second guy has 100x as much disposable income doesn't work. It's the same as if the poll were about buying fast food instead. Of course the rich guy isn't spending as big a % of his cash on food- you can't eat an infinite amount of food.

You say legit services can't compete with piracy, but I've cut waaaaaaaaay back on my "Try before I buy" piracy with the advent of Steam. Well, probably a combination of Steam and youtube. At this point I very rarely bother pirating a game to see if it's worth a shit, I'll check some video of the game first and read forum posts on relatively un-shit forums such as the Codex, then I'll just buy it when it hits the price range I'm interested in on Steam. Part of that might be because when I bought bargain bin discounted games pre-Steam a "Good cheap price" was typically $10ish. With Steam I'm generally spending less than that per game, and getting a hell of a lot more games with my money than I did before.

TLDR summary courtesy of Meltdown:

Actually, the "I want to test the game" option is the lowliest. Publishers shouldn't be able to profit from people who download full game for free if they don't release it as donation-ware. It harms other publishers who have a habit of providing a representative demo of a game.

What has liking games to do with anything? I'm more interested in influence on spending habits. Though true, lack of data on amount of disposable income limits the accuracy.

The thread is about copying games, not about stealing anything.

You're being too literal. Obviously everyone only does so because they can, but in this case "because I can" means "I don't need an excuse".

On topic, I always thought that piracy is often the result of bad business decisions, as most people are happy with paying for something if it's easy to do so and they're reasonably sure they'll be satisfied with the product.

Well, I pirated games when I was a kid because my family was poor and they wouldn't buy me games anyway. Also, there was no video game store nearby, I'd have to travel 60km to the nearest one.
I started buying games when I started earning my own moneyz.
Piracy is one of the best things that happened to games. Without it, we wouldn't have tons of developers, like Tim Schafer for example. Also, without piracy, there would be less legit customers today because lots of us probably wouldn't grow up as gamers otherwise.

This is completely anecdotal, but I will say it anyway: almost everyone I know either pirates or has pirated in the past -- movies, games, music, etc.

The overwhelming reason was because it was free. Furthermore, essentially nobody actually paid for something they had already pirated. I can't think of an instance, actually, but I'm sure it's happened at least once or twice.

I really don't believe a whopping 35% of those polled actually pirate to "try products out". It's just a thin justification used before they pirate; and something that tends to disappear after a product is pirated.

I do think better service is the best way to cut down on piracy, though. Better service is conducive to good business in general.

Digital distribution services have been somewhat competing with piracy by throwing very attractive sales, which somewhat cope for "They cost too much." Unfortunately not really true for brand new games. And of course this does nothing about the 36%.

Most of the pirates are kids who couldn't afford games anyway, who cares.

It's strange that the most reasonable option is the least popular. I mean, it's relatively common for me to, having accidentally wandered into a store and suddenly seeing a game or a cd/tape or something I used to like and have been having as mp3 or an iso for a decade, to make an impulse purchase just for the heck of it *. But actually doing some effort in order to acquire something which is always one google search and 2 clicks away from me, *and* at my own expense to boot? Yeah, *right*.

What the game industry needs is bringing back the time-honored institution of peddlers. Going from door to door and asking everyone to buy the latest game by Obsidian or whatever. Also, tiny non-intrusive private stores on every corner. I know that would triple my impulse purchases without making me actually care a tiniest bit more.

* - well, it should be taken into account that the shit I play or listen to is almost never sold in the open, so it's a kind of "whoa, they are actually selling this? that deserves a pat on the back" reaction. were I a common peon loving whatever I am told to love in the latest ad in big joo media, I'd be probably less impressed at stumbling upon a box of Dominions or a tape by Branikald while having an aimless stroll.

And before some moron starts his usual tirade about blah blah self-entitled kids - boo fucking hoo, indeed, I *am* entitled to have wares I don't need being brought to my door and being begged to shell out some cash for them. I *don't* need it, because I can have it for free without leaving my chair anytime I want, and you can't do shit about it - it is you who need to make a sale. So try harder next time to make it more convenient for me to buy than to pirate :shrug:

Not that I count for the majority or anything but I really do purchase most the games I end up liking. Even shit like dominions 3 that sells for 60 dollars

Nice poll, makes pirates look even better than I would have predicted (even if it has as little significance as the numbers the content mafia pulls out of its arse). But what's the point? Anti-pirates are fundamentalists (and very often morons). In their self-righteousness they won't even deign to discuss it. Piracy is wrong, evil, stealing. Period.
It's like trying to discuss abortion with a fundamentalist christian. All arguments are negated by the simple "Life is sacred (before it's born). God says so. End of line."
Just look into this thread *shrug*

Perhaps these sorts of polls might provide interesting results if they dropped anyone below the age of 21.

Sorry bro, but this poll is probably worth shit. People who actually post on forums or visit sites like moddb are pretty much a minority among people who play games. So, the only thing this poll can tell you is why moddb users pirate stuff. Jumping to conclusions because 7,000 people have voted on some site is wrong. Piracy is soooo huge that it's really hard to pin the exact reasons why people do it.

I saw an interview not too long ago with someone speaking about piracy in the entertainment industry. He claimed that while huge amounts of piracy was occurring, consumer spending was increasing in entertainment. For example, people will pirate a dvd but still buy a legit copy to add to their collection, or people will use the money they saved by pirating something by buying other must have entertainment items. It might be different for games, but it seems it's just shit to blame pirates when there exists many examples of ways to grow and thrive alongside piracy.

I used to pirate games because I didn't have the money, still buying the occasional game when I really felt it deserved it.

Those days I buy a lot of games, but I don't have the time to play them. Steam is the biggest reason, it just makes it easier to buy the game than to pirate it.

Well, yeah, I think there is an element of that. I also think it's worth noting that that 20% claiming they can't affiord it means the game pub wouldn't have gotten that money anyway, although perhaps when the game goes on sale, but yes I do think pirates have a tendency to try to justify their acts rather than just admitting they wanted a game for free.

But I don't think that answers all of it. I'm one of those people that likes to demo a game and if a game doesn't have a demo, well then what am I to do? It's ridiculous not including a demo for your game and the excuses don't cut it. Preferably the demo should come out slightly before official release, but even if it's a few weeks/months, just release a damn demo. You may not get that whole 36% but maybe half of that, who knows? I'd like to see the research behind the claim that demos can actually hurt sales

People find out the game sucks before buying it, and therefore don't buy it, therefore hurt sales.

Makes perfect sense to me.