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[Virex]

Probably something closer to a million copies, plus or minus a few hundred thousand.

Although your maths on number of sales for triple AAA titles to make profit is accurate to what I've experienced I have to point out few games make these sale numbers. Most games don't actually make a return on investment, apparently it's about 1 in 20 (or 5%). The successful ones tend to be very successful though so publishers use them to support the ones making the loss.

What I know from a related field (patents on inventions) is that on average 95% are carp, 4% cut even and the remaining 1% makes up for the losses and profit needed. I'd imagine the creative sector (games, books, music) would have roughly the same figures. So the "Flood" of crap games is probably not because modern games are worse, but just because 95% of games (and any other intelectual property) is always just crap. Main reason for this is because you can't realy tell what will be a hit from the game proposal, so you actualy have to put something in production to see if it's worht it.

[MrWiggles]

This is so true. How many books have been written vs. how many that are meaningful? 4% meaningful books sounds about right. And you need the crap product out there as it keeps the industry alive. That 95% crap is what allows the 4% of quality to get through.

We need Twilight to allow Steven King to get published.

[Dwarf]

All I can say is:

I would buy the CDs if I had the money.
But I don't.
Thus, I ilegally download stuff.

[Shades]

How much it hurts the industry is unquantifiable at this time. It does hurt, as it hurts all industries of media. This cannot be denied.

Actually it can be and has been by a number of studies, there was one I believe that even showed how piracy increased sales although I'm not all that convinced. Personally I expect it does hurt somewhat but probably less than the amount spent on software/hardware solutions to try to stop it. Feel free to show me some evidence to the contrary though as more hard numbers would be helpful.

The formula to stop pirating is simple really. The protection has to be hard enough to disable to be beyond the resources of those nefarious groups wishing to; in balance to hardship of the legal consumer that happen because of the protection.

This hasn't been reached yet. 

And is unlikely to ever be. At the end of the day it has to be usable by the consumer. Hardware solutions have repeatedly failed to work (although generally requires some form of moding/soft-moding so limits the problem) and software solutions haven't even come close and are unlikely to. There is very little you can do to protect audio and video due to the fact it has to be decoded to be displayed, and there is only so much you can do to verify software. It's orders of magnitude easier to work out and disable a protection than to come up with a new one.

[Jreengus]

Actual numbers are hard to come by so have a few someone actually came up with.

[Blacken]

All I can say is:

I would buy the CDs if I had the money.
But I don't.
Thus, I ilegally download stuff.

Or you could...you know...do without.

Oh, wait. That's hard, so fuck it, I'll just give them the middle finger and take what I want.


I'm a software developer. I've also got a book about 3/4 through the publishing process. I can attest that piracy does directly hurt people. But since you don't have to look them in the eye, I guess it's okay, huh?

[Dwarf]

Does that make it okay? I'm not going to pretend that. I just give a flying fuck.

[Rafal99]

All I can say is:

I would buy the CDs if I had the money.
But I don't.
Thus, I ilegally download stuff.

Or you could...you know...do without.

Oh, wait. That's hard, so fuck it, I'll just give them the middle finger and take what I want.

I'm a software developer. I've also got a book about 3/4 through the publishing process. I can attest that piracy does directly hurt people. But since you don't have to look them in the eye, I guess it's okay, huh?

Yes he can do without it. The question is why?
Does it really hurt you or is it your imagination?

Yeah it is easier to hurt people you have never met, but I don't see anyone being hurt here. What difference does it make to you / whoever if he has got a copy or not? If he wouldn't buy it anyway...
If he advertises illegal copy or makes more of it and shares it to someone who might actually buy it then it may hurt the publisher, I agree. But personal use only will not.  

Also information is an abstract thing. You can cannot own a sequence of bits.
Something that cannot be owned also cannot be stolen.

As a note, I play only free games now, something that is not made for money is always better.  

[Zangi]

Piracy is also prevalent because of availability.

Company X sells to the US, releases to the Euro 1 month later. And Vice Versa.  Guess what happens?

Company X sometimes decides not to sell to the Euro/Aussies/Wherever.  Guess what happens?
Company X doesn't ship enough copies down to South America or the Caribbeans.  Guess what happens?  High cost second hand market, piracy sales and piracy in general. 
Games are actually double the cost of what the US pays for in some places down there.

China, well a lot of Chinese pirates and resells.  I hear that Russia does it too...

If they want to prevent piracy... they need to work on making their product more available to the publicworld.  They lose sales because they do not provide.

[Blacken]

Yes he can do without it. The question is why?

Because he is abusing the creator's right (esconced as such in the form of copyright in every industrialized nation) to compensation for their work. You have no right to receive copyrighted material--if a creator wants to give it away for no compensation, that's fine; if a creator wants to be compensated for it, respect their rights.

Does it really hurt you or is it your imagination?

Oh boy, the standard "oh, it doesn't cost them anything" nonsense. And it is nonsense. It does not matter if it harms them (although in my experience I have found the majority of the "wouldn't buy it anyway" claimants to be utter liars--they take it for free because they can). They have a right to the distribution of their creations as they see fit. You don't.

Yeah it is easier to hurt people you have never met, but I don't see anyone being hurt here. What difference does it make to you / whoever if he has got a copy or not? If he wouldn't buy it anyway...

If he wouldn't buy it anyway, then he can fuck right off instead of abusing the creator by pirating it. "Oh, I wouldn't buy it anyway" does not excuse the infringement upon the creator's rights. It's not difficult to understand.

If he advertises illegal copy or makes more of it and shares it to someone who might actually buy it then it may hurt the publisher, I agree.

So every P2P file sharer ever, because it's a near-certainty that they're throwing data at somebody who would have bought the intellectual property in question if they couldn't have gotten it for free. Man, you're great at this, aren't you?

But personal use only will not.

There is a significant cost (opportunity and material) involved in the act of creation. By choosing to deny the creator their right (and, yes, it is a right--society has deemed that it is, and no, you don't have the right to unilaterally deny them it) to compensation for their work, you are exploiting them against their will.

Deriving value from something while denying the creator their due compensation is wrong, immoral, and unethical. If you aren't going to buy it, don't use it. It's not that fucking hard of a concept.

Also information is an abstract thing. You can cannot own a sequence of bits.
Something that cannot be owned also cannot be stolen.

We have a society have decided this is untrue. It does not matter whether you agree or not. If you disagree, change the law.

But no, that'd be hard too, so chow down some Cheetos and pretend it isn't true.



I am well aware that I am appealing to a better nature that probably doesn't exist in the sadsack fucksticks who want to take for free what others worked to produce, but I thought I'd at least give it a try. Here's the thing, though--since that better nature doesn't exist, content creators have to take steps to protect themselves. We have laws and we have police to protect other rights, but so far they've proven weak against this particular infringement of creators' rights. So we have to do it ourselves. It's your own damned fault when DRM hassles you, and what makes it really unfortunate is that innocent people get caught in the crossfire.

Currently the software I write doesn't have any DRM or other restrictive materials, but if I start seeing significant piracy of it, you can bet I'll be investigating ways that hamper (no, they won't prevent piracy, but it can make it more of a pain to undertake) pirates without unduly harming consumers.

[Zangi]

Currently the software I write doesn't have any DRM or other restrictive materials, but if I start seeing significant piracy of it, you can bet I'll be investigating ways that hamper (no, they won't prevent piracy, but it can make it more of a pain to undertake) pirates without unduly harming consumers.

Get back to us on that will you?  Serious.

Only thing I can think of is Serial Keys on CDs...

[Bauglir]

-snip-

[Jimmy]

Actual numbers are hard to come by so have a few someone actually came up with.

Excellent article for the negative on piracy. Just finished reading it and it raises some interesting points. Of particular interest is the Tap-Fu game anecdote related to the number of pirates who will then go on to purchase the game.

Actually it can be and has been by a number of studies, there was one I believe that even showed how piracy increased sales although I'm not all that convinced. Personally I expect it does hurt somewhat but probably less than the amount spent on software/hardware solutions to try to stop it. Feel free to show me some evidence to the contrary though as more hard numbers would be helpful.

A few scholarly studies into the field follow. The first shows a low to nil effect on sales due to piracy (link), the second shows an 80% increase in software sales from sharing due to piracy (link) and the third shows a decrease of 0.2 album sales per album downloaded (link).

And is unlikely to ever be. At the end of the day it has to be usable by the consumer. Hardware solutions have repeatedly failed to work (although generally requires some form of moding/soft-moding so limits the problem) and software solutions haven't even come close and are unlikely to. There is very little you can do to protect audio and video due to the fact it has to be decoded to be displayed, and there is only so much you can do to verify software. It's orders of magnitude easier to work out and disable a protection than to come up with a new one.

As a famous person once said, there's no lock that can't be picked. DRMs won't solve the issue, as Jreenus' linked article outlines. Quite frankly, the pirates who share these files gain more pleasure from cracking the latest DRM than in actually playing the game itself.

[dragnar]

DRM doesn't hurt pirates, it gives them a reason to laugh at those who bought the game. They don't break the protection, hackers do, and DRM is nothing but a fun challenge for them. It hurts no one except those who legitimately buy the game.

That said, I am against piracy in general. I have pirated a dozen or so games, but only ones from ps1 era or older. I can't buy them from the makers of the game, and I see no reason to buy them from someone on Ebay. Unfortunately, I am now seriously considering breaking this self-imposed rule and downloading assassin's creed 2. I would love to buy it, the first game was awesome, but I can't support the idiotic DRM that Ubisoft is now using. Game designers/programmers/etc. deserve to be paid for their hard work, but this is... I don't even know how to describe how bad it is. As far as I'm concerned what ubisoft is doing is far more wrong than any piracy. It's like selling someone a car then telling them it will only function within 50 feet of the dealership.

I suspect most pirates wouldn't buy the games even if they couldn't get them free, so in the end no amount of copy protection will help a game's sales by any significant amount, though it can certainty hurt them. Besides, almost everyone I know has pirated music, and the music industry sure seems to be doing well.

Edit: and it appears most of my points were made for me while I was typing...

[Areyar]

@OP:

I think those fighting for copyright are imagining mountains of gold from the download numbers. They claim each download is equal value to a single sold (or something).
Personally I don't rent less movies or buy less books because I can download them for free. I still buy games that I really want (even if I then need to DL a hacked version to play without CD/DVD). I never bought much music, but I certainly am buying more now that I'm able to preview at leisure in MP3 format.
As for DVDs; I like cinema and like to own a real copy, still I download recent movies.
I rather prefer downloaded movies though, as they do not contain that endless antipiracy and advertising crap at the start. I'd rather see that crap on pirated wares and have my paid for material crapfree.
wares: hmm. honestly, I've DLed several titles that I didnt buy afterwards. otoh I've also paid for unusable software. AND as a selfrespecting baywatcher, donate freely to my favorite free software producers when I'm able.

Now downloading everything not nailed down and not even thinking of paying anything is just amoral. Just as expecting to receive money from the treasury for every illegal download is immoral.

I hate drm and related products: I don't have a dedicated CD-player, so up until recently when I got a DVD player for Xmas, some of my purchased CDs were coasters. (Could not play them on my PC)

I also hate those "you hereby absolve us of any damages we may cause" clauses software companies make you agree to before allowing to install their stuff. But that is another topic.