I have known people who pirate games and if they can not pirate a game
they want they dont run out to the store and buy it. The majority of
the time they pirate because they dont have enough interest in the game
to actually buy it but they do want to check it out. While that
statistic in the title looks shocking, the gaming industry is not always
losing a sale when a person pirates a game.
You also have to consider the other reasons why people do it. Some people live in areas where the local video game store is 100 miles away. Some people live in countries that have banned certain games that they want to play so they are not for sale there. I like that the article pointed most of this out and mentioned that many of them are making considerably less income than the average American and can not afford to own a library of games like most American gamers have.
"Sean (Murray) saying MP will be in the game is not remotely close to evidence that at the point of purchase people thought there was MP in the game." - SEANMCAD
Walmart loses around 4 billion dollars a year to theft, and they still do great financially. I am not advocating piracy or theft - just saying that profitability remains regardless
They also sell 10 year old pc games for nearly full price expecting people to buy them. I completely ignore the pc software section in Walmart because you can always get it online for 50% cheaper.
Once upon a time you could grab a game off the shelf and be reasonably confident that you were going to love playing it.
I remember grabbing games of all types off the shelf and playing them to death. Terminus, Dune2, Total Annihilation, Command and Conquer, Star Control, X wing, Freespace, Legacy of Kain, Independence War, Mechwarrior, Mechcommander....etc
Developers have lost something that empowers them to make great and entertaining games. At some point Hype, and effects overshadowed player enjoyment. I remember spending countless lost hours playing SNES, and PS1 rpg's. Hell I remember losing a month playing NES Chrysalis, and several months playing Sega Genesis's Labrynth.
ICCL about graphics as long as I am having fun. The music industry also shot themselves in the foot by putting out crap records with only 1 or 2 good songs on them.
On another note. If you are on a shoestring budget like I have been for a decade you aren't going to be eating Ramen and buying games when you can actually have a decent amount of groceries and pirate. If I had not gotten ill 10 years ago and had a decent income and job I probably wouldn't have become a pirate.
I buy most games but I also pirate some. The ones I pirate are usually games I would never buy because I don't think they are worth their money. If they want my money they should have done a better job and not cry in a corner about how everyone is 'stealing' their money.
This is the same reason why I pirate some games like Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing and Realm of War in PC simply because the teasers/trailers and the game description are far beyond the actual content of the game.
When Steam introduced their Refund system (your eligible to do it if you haven't spend more than 2 hours in-game or 14 days), I immediately tested it out with "Hatred" due to some incompatibility but then I was able to work it out and bought the game again. Until now, I'm still disappointed why I bought the game the second time.
Its good to see its actually dwindling and really completely unecassary in 2016 , These are real bottom feeders tho that do this , And funny thing is the ones that steal would be the ones to Cry the loudest if it were there work that was being stolen ...
the countries surprised me , i tho the most pirates were from south america .... they are always talking about how they dont even have $$$ for food so they are "forced" to pirate games....blablaba
the link to wages from EU ...lol....GL gaining more than 900€ ....but first u need to get a Job...4M on ppl w/o work around here
You are either coming from a rich family or have never had money issues. I grew up in the caribbean and i can tell you for a fact that the economy IS the main reason for piracy in central/south america and the caribbean. In my country, life is as expensive as it is here in the US but in my country we make the equivalent to about 200 dollars a month doing the same job you would do here in the US for 700 bi-weekly. Do some research before you go discarding other people's reasons for doing things. I stopped pirating the moment i moved to the US because of how easy it is to make good money here in the US.
Walmart loses around 4 billion dollars a year to theft, and they still do great financially. I am not advocating piracy or theft - just saying that profitability remains regardless
Walmart's theft problem is really just a lot of paper shrink, when it comes down to it. Not so much theft. Though, as far as accounting goes, it is all shrink.
Also, with Walmart profitability, reports show that it only has about a 3% net profit, so not just a whole lot of profit in a giant beast like Walmart.
the countries surprised me , i tho the most pirates were from south america .... they are always talking about how they dont even have $$$ for food so they are "forced" to pirate games....blablaba
the link to wages from EU ...lol....GL gaining more than 900€ ....but first u need to get a Job...4M on ppl w/o work around here
You are either coming from a rich family or have never had money issues. I grew up in the caribbean and i can tell you for a fact that the economy IS the main reason for piracy in central/south america and the caribbean. In my country, life is as expensive as it is here in the US but in my country we make the equivalent to about 200 dollars a month doing the same job you would do here in the US for 700 bi-weekly. Do some research before you go discarding other people's reasons for doing things. I stopped pirating the moment i moved to the US because of how easy it is to make good money here in the US.
Now not being disrespectful of your opinion Rojo , but how does one complain of lack of money for food ( basic living essentials)etc... But can buy a PC to justify Pirating ... maybe im missing something
As far as people pirating as a sort of demo - I think if more games had demos they would get pirated less. But at the same time people would also see how sh!tty a lot of games are first hand and not buy them as a result of playing the demo, so it's just another catch 22. Until they start making solid games that live up to the hype instead of hyping bad games that won't, pirating will be a problem for studios and their overlords.
I've done that in the past, because I didn't have any means of paying (being in school without any allowance or side-job). However, I do prefer actually owning a game rightfully, it's just something I'm nitpicky about. It's one thing to be able to play it, but another to actually have it. On the other hand, there's games we can't get through Steam or GOG or any other usual platforms - that and in Germany there's some games either on the blacklist or heavily (and stupidly) censored, so... I do think that might defenitely drive some people to pirate games as well. Of course there's means to get them, but that might end up to be more expensive and bothersome.
Another thing is ripping ROMs for emulators of different devices/consoles. Which I can understand to some extent - why throw out a load of money for two different handhelds, just because a game-series I love to play has made a spin-off or the next game-episode there, while having the majority of the whole gameseries on PC or PS. That's kinda naggy.
I usually ended up buying the good games I 'tested' through those means in the end though - by now ^^
I have not pirated ANY games. I don't know where those numbers actually come from - I think they are bogus really. I mean you can get statistics to say anything really. For example, 'Did you know that 100% of the people who breathe air die? That must mean breathing air is toxic.' That is just a ludicrous example but it is one that shows anything can be said when spinning numbers. I want for a specific game how many sold and how many stolen and they don't have those numbers. It is all supposition and look who is spinning the numbers and then you can see why the numbers come out that way.
I have not pirated ANY games. I don't know where those numbers actually come from - I think they are bogus really. I mean you can get statistics to say anything really. For example, 'Did you know that 100% of the people who breathe air die? That must mean breathing air is toxic.' That is just a ludicrous example but it is one that shows anything can be said when spinning numbers. I want for a specific game how many sold and how many stolen and they don't have those numbers. It is all supposition and look who is spinning the numbers and then you can see why the numbers come out that way.
I mean, it is possible. Just an example torrent sites in general, almost all torrents have trackers on them, it doesn't mean they can always trace it back to you, but that isn't the point, they can garner basic numbers on certain titles based on that alone. Are they accurate? Who knows?
If I can try a game before I buy it, I will. I think we get less demos because game companies know they are selling crap more often than not. I will also say, I support all games I keep playing.
I actually pirated games 10+ years ago, half as a form of game demo and half because I didn't have the income for it. I haven't done it since I got a job though, if I'm unsure of a game I wait for sales now. I also bought the games I pirated over time (well the ones I liked).
I have not pirated ANY games. I don't know where those numbers actually come from - I think they are bogus really. I mean you can get statistics to say anything really. For example, 'Did you know that 100% of the people who breathe air die? That must mean breathing air is toxic.' That is just a ludicrous example but it is one that shows anything can be said when spinning numbers. I want for a specific game how many sold and how many stolen and they don't have those numbers. It is all supposition and look who is spinning the numbers and then you can see why the numbers come out that way.
I mean, it is possible. Just an example torrent sites in general, almost all torrents have trackers on them, it doesn't mean they can always trace it back to you, but that isn't the point, they can garner basic numbers on certain titles based on that alone. Are they accurate? Who knows?
Not any more with keys, etc. Particularly for online games, they report back to the company all keys in use. It is hard to pirate now a days, not hard to cheat though. I can see that number for cheating in games, not for pirating.
The publishers just want more draconian measures in place, is all.
The only time I've pirated was if I already owned the game and had a key but my disk was damaged. I guess it counts as a pirated copy, but I can't really view that as theft, as I did already pay for it, and had the key to make it a legit install, I just needed the client to do so..
At this point I've already repurchased most of those games digitally on GOG or Steam for dirt cheap..(NWN, NWN2, KOTOR2, Morrowind as well as a few others... )
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
The coolest stat is "50% stopped pirated because Steam etc made it easier to get than pirating it"
Music Industry has the same dam problem. I WILL GIVE YOU MONEY just LET ME DOWNLOAD THE DAM MP3 already. Instead of sign ups, DRM and 14 hoops. I can DOWNLAOD IT FOR FREE FROM PIRATE BAY!
God Dam BluRay Movies, I have to wade through the SAME DAM FBI WARNING every time NO SKIP ALLOWED, I have to WAIT and FORCE MYSELF THROUGH Your BDLive check and 12 more previews on movies i've already seen 14 times AND I CAN'T BREAK OUT TO THE DISC MENU UNTIL YOU FEEL IVE STARED AT THEM LONG ENOUGH. JUST PLAY THE DAM MOVIE, I JUST WANT TO SEE ONE DAM CHAPTER AGAIN. My 3 yr old literally watches 30 minutes of Zootopia and then 4 other movies every dam day for a week straight . I SPEND MORE TIME GETTING INTO THE MOVIES THEN WATCHING THEM
For the record I often have pirated downloaded version of MOVIES I ALREADY BOUGHT ON BLURAY, because I can BYPASS ALL THIS RIDICULOUS MARKETING CRAP And INSTANTLY WATCH MY DAM MOVIE at ANY POINT I WANT on ANY DEVICE I FEEL LIKE.
I WILL PAY YOU EXTRA TO LET ME BYPASS ALL YOUR FORCED MARKETING MENUS!
I have not pirated ANY games. I don't know where those numbers actually come from - I think they are bogus really. I mean you can get statistics to say anything really. For example, 'Did you know that 100% of the people who breathe air die? That must mean breathing air is toxic.' That is just a ludicrous example but it is one that shows anything can be said when spinning numbers. I want for a specific game how many sold and how many stolen and they don't have those numbers. It is all supposition and look who is spinning the numbers and then you can see why the numbers come out that way.
I mean, it is possible. Just an example torrent sites in general, almost all torrents have trackers on them, it doesn't mean they can always trace it back to you, but that isn't the point, they can garner basic numbers on certain titles based on that alone. Are they accurate? Who knows?
Not any more with keys, etc. Particularly for online games, they report back to the company all keys in use. It is hard to pirate now a days, not hard to cheat though. I can see that number for cheating in games, not for pirating.
The publishers just want more draconian measures in place, is all.
You don't need a key to pirate games. Even games that require server authentication can be circumvented. For example, NBA 2k17 is being pirated quite a bit right now (no I did not pirate it) and it would usually require connection to a server to allow you to login and play, but they disable it.
It's not as hard as you believe to pirate. Take a look on any torrent site, you can see thousands leeching and seeding, and that doesn't even take into account the many, many more that likely downloaded it and didn't seed it.
I dont have the know how to pirate a game and not be paranoid about being caught, even if the oppertunety arrived and I knew how to pirate game, I wouldn't, I love games and I wish to see them flurish when they make a great game. I hear a lot of excuses, like I dont make enough money, I am entitled to a copy because "reasons", i just spent x amount on item x. the point is, there is nothing about any game that requires you to own it the day it comes out, nothing in the game is going to change your life forever nor is it going to make you a better person. if you can't buy the game dont just dont feed me any ridiculous notion that justifies stealing a game, even if they fail on a lot of there promises "cough" no mans sky". also a lack of a demo is a very poor excuse to steal a copy, read a review, ask your friends that is what the internet is for. I will leave you with this, if a gaming franchise fails or gets canceled due to poor sales, you were apart of the problem
I have not pirated ANY games. I don't know where those numbers actually come from - I think they are bogus really. I mean you can get statistics to say anything really. For example, 'Did you know that 100% of the people who breathe air die? That must mean breathing air is toxic.' That is just a ludicrous example but it is one that shows anything can be said when spinning numbers. I want for a specific game how many sold and how many stolen and they don't have those numbers. It is all supposition and look who is spinning the numbers and then you can see why the numbers come out that way.
I mean, it is possible. Just an example torrent sites in general, almost all torrents have trackers on them, it doesn't mean they can always trace it back to you, but that isn't the point, they can garner basic numbers on certain titles based on that alone. Are they accurate? Who knows?
Not any more with keys, etc. Particularly for online games, they report back to the company all keys in use. It is hard to pirate now a days, not hard to cheat though. I can see that number for cheating in games, not for pirating.
The publishers just want more draconian measures in place, is all.
You don't need a key to pirate games. Even games that require server authentication can be circumvented. For example, NBA 2k17 is being pirated quite a bit right now (no I did not pirate it) and it would usually require connection to a server to allow you to login and play, but they disable it.
It's not as hard as you believe to pirate. Take a look on any torrent site, you can see thousands leeching and seeding, and that doesn't even take into account the many, many more that likely downloaded it and didn't seed it.
How much though? You don't know and that is the issue. Just because it is on a torrent site, doesn't mean you can use it or even play it. The phrase 'quite a bit' is very subjective and useless term, BTW.
If we Hard and Fast numbers, like 'in X game we sold y number of copies and have found Y+10 are playing' - that 10 would be the pirates, but we do not. We don't get those numbers, we get a lot of hyperbole. No doubt there are pirates but HOW MUCH is the question and does it really affect the bottom line for these companies or are they such bad games that they are deflecting blame. 33% seems like a ridiculous amount and almost a fake number to make people react, "OH NO, We need to regulate this better.' NOT!
This is just like the recording industry. They keep saying there is so much pirating going on but many artists are now direct marketing their music to the market by various legal websites and labels. The recording industry , at one point, had a cash cow before (read here MONOPOLY) but, they haven't really kept up with new ways of marketing music. They want the old ways and that means total control. Them, like the diamond industry and the diamond cartel, which is another great example. The Diamond market is being hit by man-made diamonds which are lowering prices and the cartel doesn't want to lower the prices as they are the middle man and make 90% of the money. They were the ones to push, "Diamonds are a girl's best friend' marketing (as well as 'Show you love her, give her a diamond'). Those marketing campaigns were so successful that they created the demand for diamonds. Does that mean these man-made diamonds are cheating the market? No it does not but, the cartel would like you to think they are because they do not control the process and ultimately cannot control the prices.
Until we have REAL numbers, not just supposition from the industry (all of them), I will not believe them.
I have not pirated ANY games. I don't know where those numbers actually come from - I think they are bogus really. I mean you can get statistics to say anything really. For example, 'Did you know that 100% of the people who breathe air die? That must mean breathing air is toxic.' That is just a ludicrous example but it is one that shows anything can be said when spinning numbers. I want for a specific game how many sold and how many stolen and they don't have those numbers. It is all supposition and look who is spinning the numbers and then you can see why the numbers come out that way.
I mean, it is possible. Just an example torrent sites in general, almost all torrents have trackers on them, it doesn't mean they can always trace it back to you, but that isn't the point, they can garner basic numbers on certain titles based on that alone. Are they accurate? Who knows?
Not any more with keys, etc. Particularly for online games, they report back to the company all keys in use. It is hard to pirate now a days, not hard to cheat though. I can see that number for cheating in games, not for pirating.
The publishers just want more draconian measures in place, is all.
You don't need a key to pirate games. Even games that require server authentication can be circumvented. For example, NBA 2k17 is being pirated quite a bit right now (no I did not pirate it) and it would usually require connection to a server to allow you to login and play, but they disable it.
It's not as hard as you believe to pirate. Take a look on any torrent site, you can see thousands leeching and seeding, and that doesn't even take into account the many, many more that likely downloaded it and didn't seed it.
How much though? You don't know and that is the issue. Just because it is on a torrent site, doesn't mean you can use it or even play it. The phrase 'quite a bit' is very subjective and useless term, BTW.
If we Hard and Fast numbers, like 'in X game we sold y number of copies and have found Y+10 are playing' - that 10 would be the pirates, but we do not. We don't get those numbers, we get a lot of hyperbole. No doubt there are pirates but HOW MUCH is the question and does it really affect the bottom line for these companies or are they such bad games that they are deflecting blame. 33% seems like a ridiculous amount and almost a fake number to make people react, "OH NO, We need to regulate this better.' NOT!
This is just like the recording industry. They keep saying there is so much pirating going on but many artists are now direct marketing their music to the market by various legal websites and labels. The recording industry , at one point, had a cash cow before (read here MONOPOLY) but, they haven't really kept up with new ways of marketing music. They want the old ways and that means total control. Them, like the diamond industry and the diamond cartel, which is another great example. The Diamond market is being hit by man-made diamonds which are lowering prices and the cartel doesn't want to lower the prices as they are the middle man and make 90% of the money. They were the ones to push, "Diamonds are a girl's best friend' marketing (as well as 'Show you love her, give her a diamond'). Those marketing campaigns were so successful that they created the demand for diamonds. Does that mean these man-made diamonds are cheating the market? No it does not but, the cartel would like you to think they are because they do not control the process and ultimately cannot control the prices.
Until we have REAL numbers, not just supposition from the industry (all of them), I will not believe them.
by your estimation you would never be able to get real numbers. That's the point of piracy, its generally meant to be anonymous... gone are the days that you have a guy on the street selling bootleg copies of movies.
It's very easy to see if those copies are working copies... I use torrenting sites often, I do not generally download anything "illegal" in the sense that I find transfer speeds of torrents substantially faster than general servers so if I need to pick up something like a copy of Windows 10 to reload a workstation, or if I'm looking for an obscure piece of software that I have trouble finding, I go there first.
That being said, it's easy to see what the top 100 or most recent downloads are, and a quick click on any number of games, even those that you think need to have server side connectivity to authenticate, they are listed there, usually with something in the title about it being cracked, and inside are dozens of comments usually explaining how the crack works.
Any statistic is generally estimated, they will never get 1 for 1 numbers. I think that a lot of us forget that even though we personally may not pirate games, that we can't speak for the millions of other users in the dozens of other countries that we don't inhabit and know little to nothing about in terms of pirate culture.
In western countries especially it IS easier to generally buy off steam, games go on sale all the time.. it's more of a hassle to pirate a game and follow the instructions for the working crack that usually only gives you 60 - 70% functionality, but thats just one mans opinion. Statistically, I don't disagree with the numbers, I think that is extremely plausible. If they said 50 percent? Not even close.
I have not pirated ANY games. I don't know where those numbers actually come from - I think they are bogus really. I mean you can get statistics to say anything really. For example, 'Did you know that 100% of the people who breathe air die? That must mean breathing air is toxic.' That is just a ludicrous example but it is one that shows anything can be said when spinning numbers. I want for a specific game how many sold and how many stolen and they don't have those numbers. It is all supposition and look who is spinning the numbers and then you can see why the numbers come out that way.
I mean, it is possible. Just an example torrent sites in general, almost all torrents have trackers on them, it doesn't mean they can always trace it back to you, but that isn't the point, they can garner basic numbers on certain titles based on that alone. Are they accurate? Who knows?
Not any more with keys, etc. Particularly for online games, they report back to the company all keys in use. It is hard to pirate now a days, not hard to cheat though. I can see that number for cheating in games, not for pirating.
The publishers just want more draconian measures in place, is all.
You don't need a key to pirate games. Even games that require server authentication can be circumvented. For example, NBA 2k17 is being pirated quite a bit right now (no I did not pirate it) and it would usually require connection to a server to allow you to login and play, but they disable it.
It's not as hard as you believe to pirate. Take a look on any torrent site, you can see thousands leeching and seeding, and that doesn't even take into account the many, many more that likely downloaded it and didn't seed it.
How much though? You don't know and that is the issue. Just because it is on a torrent site, doesn't mean you can use it or even play it. The phrase 'quite a bit' is very subjective and useless term, BTW.
If we Hard and Fast numbers, like 'in X game we sold y number of copies and have found Y+10 are playing' - that 10 would be the pirates, but we do not. We don't get those numbers, we get a lot of hyperbole. No doubt there are pirates but HOW MUCH is the question and does it really affect the bottom line for these companies or are they such bad games that they are deflecting blame. 33% seems like a ridiculous amount and almost a fake number to make people react, "OH NO, We need to regulate this better.' NOT!
This is just like the recording industry. They keep saying there is so much pirating going on but many artists are now direct marketing their music to the market by various legal websites and labels. The recording industry , at one point, had a cash cow before (read here MONOPOLY) but, they haven't really kept up with new ways of marketing music. They want the old ways and that means total control. Them, like the diamond industry and the diamond cartel, which is another great example. The Diamond market is being hit by man-made diamonds which are lowering prices and the cartel doesn't want to lower the prices as they are the middle man and make 90% of the money. They were the ones to push, "Diamonds are a girl's best friend' marketing (as well as 'Show you love her, give her a diamond'). Those marketing campaigns were so successful that they created the demand for diamonds. Does that mean these man-made diamonds are cheating the market? No it does not but, the cartel would like you to think they are because they do not control the process and ultimately cannot control the prices.
Until we have REAL numbers, not just supposition from the industry (all of them), I will not believe them.
by your estimation you would never be able to get real numbers. That's the point of piracy, its generally meant to be anonymous... gone are the days that you have a guy on the street selling bootleg copies of movies.
It's very easy to see if those copies are working copies... I use torrenting sites often, I do not generally download anything "illegal" in the sense that I find transfer speeds of torrents substantially faster than general servers so if I need to pick up something like a copy of Windows 10 to reload a workstation, or if I'm looking for an obscure piece of software that I have trouble finding, I go there first.
That being said, it's easy to see what the top 100 or most recent downloads are, and a quick click on any number of games, even those that you think need to have server side connectivity to authenticate, they are listed there, usually with something in the title about it being cracked, and inside are dozens of comments usually explaining how the crack works.
Any statistic is generally estimated, they will never get 1 for 1 numbers. I think that a lot of us forget that even though we personally may not pirate games, that we can't speak for the millions of other users in the dozens of other countries that we don't inhabit and know little to nothing about in terms of pirate culture.
In western countries especially it IS easier to generally buy off steam, games go on sale all the time.. it's more of a hassle to pirate a game and follow the instructions for the working crack that usually only gives you 60 - 70% functionality, but thats just one mans opinion. Statistically, I don't disagree with the numbers, I think that is extremely plausible. If they said 50 percent? Not even close.
No - the gaming companies KNOW the numbers, real numbers. The companies know their sales numbers, how many copies, etc. are out there, they have to otherwise, they are out of business. Just like they know how many are pirated, I am sure it is a known amount. This is what I am trying to say. They need to give us hard and fast numbers, if they want gamers to believe that pirating is cutting into their profits. What they don't want gamers to see is how much profit they actually make from the game as we pay 50-60 US dollars for a game and how much of that is actual profit? I don't begrudge them profits at all, I do begrudge them getting laws changed just so they can cut into the gamers privacy (the laws out there already protect them enough).
No - the gaming companies KNOW the numbers, real numbers. The companies know their sales numbers, how many copies, etc. are out there, they have to otherwise, they are out of business. Just like they know how many are pirated, I am sure it is a known amount. This is what I am trying to say. They need to give us hard and fast numbers, if they want gamers to believe that pirating is cutting into their profits. What they don't want gamers to see is how much profit they actually make from the game as we pay 50-60 US dollars for a game and how much of that is actual profit? I don't begrudge them profits at all, I do begrudge them getting laws changed just so they can cut into the gamers privacy (the laws out there already protect them enough).
How do you expect the game companies to know about PIRATED copies?
Let me put this into perspective..
Lets say we take a game -- say, skyrim... people download them, replace the exe with the cracked one that never touches anything regarding bethesdas servers or requires a registration of any kind. How do they know that specific user pirated the game? It requires no serial keys, it requires no authentication, so how would bethesda have numbers on how many copies were pirated?
Saying that "they know" is like saying "they are willfully allowing people to pirate games, and they just don't care.
Comments
You also have to consider the other reasons why people do it. Some people live in areas where the local video game store is 100 miles away. Some people live in countries that have banned certain games that they want to play so they are not for sale there. I like that the article pointed most of this out and mentioned that many of them are making considerably less income than the average American and can not afford to own a library of games like most American gamers have.
no reason to pirate if you are that patient.
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
I remember grabbing games of all types off the shelf and playing them to death. Terminus, Dune2, Total Annihilation, Command and Conquer, Star Control, X wing, Freespace, Legacy of Kain, Independence War, Mechwarrior, Mechcommander....etc
Developers have lost something that empowers them to make great and entertaining games. At some point Hype, and effects overshadowed player enjoyment. I remember spending countless lost hours playing SNES, and PS1 rpg's. Hell I remember losing a month playing NES Chrysalis, and several months playing Sega Genesis's Labrynth.
ICCL about graphics as long as I am having fun. The music industry also shot themselves in the foot by putting out crap records with only 1 or 2 good songs on them.
On another note. If you are on a shoestring budget like I have been for a decade you aren't going to be eating Ramen and buying games when you can actually have a decent amount of groceries and pirate. If I had not gotten ill 10 years ago and had a decent income and job I probably wouldn't have become a pirate.
When Steam introduced their Refund system (your eligible to do it if you haven't spend more than 2 hours in-game or 14 days), I immediately tested it out with "Hatred" due to some incompatibility but then I was able to work it out and bought the game again. Until now, I'm still disappointed why I bought the game the second time.
Always learn from your mistakes.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/whether-its-theft-or-inventory-management-wal-marts-struggling-with-shrinkage-2015-08-18
Walmart's theft problem is really just a lot of paper shrink, when it comes down to it. Not so much theft. Though, as far as accounting goes, it is all shrink.
Also, with Walmart profitability, reports show that it only has about a 3% net profit, so not just a whole lot of profit in a giant beast like Walmart.
However, I do prefer actually owning a game rightfully, it's just something I'm nitpicky about. It's one thing to be able to play it, but another to actually have it. On the other hand, there's games we can't get through Steam or GOG or any other usual platforms - that and in Germany there's some games either on the blacklist or heavily (and stupidly) censored, so... I do think that might defenitely drive some people to pirate games as well.
Of course there's means to get them, but that might end up to be more expensive and bothersome.
Another thing is ripping ROMs for emulators of different devices/consoles. Which I can understand to some extent - why throw out a load of money for two different handhelds, just because a game-series I love to play has made a spin-off or the next game-episode there, while having the majority of the whole gameseries on PC or PS. That's kinda naggy.
I usually ended up buying the good games I 'tested' through those means in the end though - by now ^^
I actually pirated games 10+ years ago, half as a form of game demo and half because I didn't have the income for it. I haven't done it since I got a job though, if I'm unsure of a game I wait for sales now. I also bought the games I pirated over time (well the ones I liked).
Not any more with keys, etc. Particularly for online games, they report back to the company all keys in use. It is hard to pirate now a days, not hard to cheat though. I can see that number for cheating in games, not for pirating.
The publishers just want more draconian measures in place, is all.
At this point I've already repurchased most of those games digitally on GOG or Steam for dirt cheap..(NWN, NWN2, KOTOR2, Morrowind as well as a few others... )
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Music Industry has the same dam problem. I WILL GIVE YOU MONEY just LET ME DOWNLOAD THE DAM MP3 already. Instead of sign ups, DRM and 14 hoops. I can DOWNLAOD IT FOR FREE FROM PIRATE BAY!
God Dam BluRay Movies, I have to wade through the SAME DAM FBI WARNING every time NO SKIP ALLOWED, I have to WAIT and FORCE MYSELF THROUGH Your BDLive check and 12 more previews on movies i've already seen 14 times AND I CAN'T BREAK OUT TO THE DISC MENU UNTIL YOU FEEL IVE STARED AT THEM LONG ENOUGH. JUST PLAY THE DAM MOVIE, I JUST WANT TO SEE ONE DAM CHAPTER AGAIN. My 3 yr old literally watches 30 minutes of Zootopia and then 4 other movies every dam day for a week straight . I SPEND MORE TIME GETTING INTO THE MOVIES THEN WATCHING THEM
For the record I often have pirated downloaded version of MOVIES I ALREADY BOUGHT ON BLURAY, because I can BYPASS ALL THIS RIDICULOUS MARKETING CRAP And INSTANTLY WATCH MY DAM MOVIE at ANY POINT I WANT on ANY DEVICE I FEEL LIKE.
I WILL PAY YOU EXTRA TO LET ME BYPASS ALL YOUR FORCED MARKETING MENUS!
(deep breathe).....
That's my opinion
http://baronsofthegalaxy.com/ An MMO game I created, solo. It's live now and absolutely free to play!
It's not as hard as you believe to pirate. Take a look on any torrent site, you can see thousands leeching and seeding, and that doesn't even take into account the many, many more that likely downloaded it and didn't seed it.
If we Hard and Fast numbers, like 'in X game we sold y number of copies and have found Y+10 are playing' - that 10 would be the pirates, but we do not. We don't get those numbers, we get a lot of hyperbole. No doubt there are pirates but HOW MUCH is the question and does it really affect the bottom line for these companies or are they such bad games that they are deflecting blame. 33% seems like a ridiculous amount and almost a fake number to make people react, "OH NO, We need to regulate this better.' NOT!
This is just like the recording industry. They keep saying there is so much pirating going on but many artists are now direct marketing their music to the market by various legal websites and labels. The recording industry , at one point, had a cash cow before (read here MONOPOLY) but, they haven't really kept up with new ways of marketing music. They want the old ways and that means total control. Them, like the diamond industry and the diamond cartel, which is another great example. The Diamond market is being hit by man-made diamonds which are lowering prices and the cartel doesn't want to lower the prices as they are the middle man and make 90% of the money. They were the ones to push, "Diamonds are a girl's best friend' marketing (as well as 'Show you love her, give her a diamond'). Those marketing campaigns were so successful that they created the demand for diamonds. Does that mean these man-made diamonds are cheating the market? No it does not but, the cartel would like you to think they are because they do not control the process and ultimately cannot control the prices.
Until we have REAL numbers, not just supposition from the industry (all of them), I will not believe them.
It's very easy to see if those copies are working copies... I use torrenting sites often, I do not generally download anything "illegal" in the sense that I find transfer speeds of torrents substantially faster than general servers so if I need to pick up something like a copy of Windows 10 to reload a workstation, or if I'm looking for an obscure piece of software that I have trouble finding, I go there first.
That being said, it's easy to see what the top 100 or most recent downloads are, and a quick click on any number of games, even those that you think need to have server side connectivity to authenticate, they are listed there, usually with something in the title about it being cracked, and inside are dozens of comments usually explaining how the crack works.
Any statistic is generally estimated, they will never get 1 for 1 numbers. I think that a lot of us forget that even though we personally may not pirate games, that we can't speak for the millions of other users in the dozens of other countries that we don't inhabit and know little to nothing about in terms of pirate culture.
In western countries especially it IS easier to generally buy off steam, games go on sale all the time.. it's more of a hassle to pirate a game and follow the instructions for the working crack that usually only gives you 60 - 70% functionality, but thats just one mans opinion. Statistically, I don't disagree with the numbers, I think that is extremely plausible. If they said 50 percent? Not even close.
No - the gaming companies KNOW the numbers, real numbers. The companies know their sales numbers, how many copies, etc. are out there, they have to otherwise, they are out of business. Just like they know how many are pirated, I am sure it is a known amount. This is what I am trying to say. They need to give us hard and fast numbers, if they want gamers to believe that pirating is cutting into their profits. What they don't want gamers to see is how much profit they actually make from the game as we pay 50-60 US dollars for a game and how much of that is actual profit? I don't begrudge them profits at all, I do begrudge them getting laws changed just so they can cut into the gamers privacy (the laws out there already protect them enough).
Let me put this into perspective..
Lets say we take a game -- say, skyrim... people download them, replace the exe with the cracked one that never touches anything regarding bethesdas servers or requires a registration of any kind. How do they know that specific user pirated the game? It requires no serial keys, it requires no authentication, so how would bethesda have numbers on how many copies were pirated?
Saying that "they know" is like saying "they are willfully allowing people to pirate games, and they just don't care.