Government calls bull**** on piracy figures.

[marcus]

Remember the PRO-IP, backed by big business figureheads, and signed in by the Bush administration? Well, the newly formed Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, whose job is to research the economic impact of piracy and counterfeited goods, has lead to an extensive study that everything the big businesses are telling you is grossly overestimated and the impact on the American economy is dubious if not impossible to actually estimate.

The Government Accountability Office has debunked all three popular claims (including the famous "Piracy kills 750,000 jobs and costs 300 billion in lost revenue") and further research is being investigated to suggest that piracy actually benefits the economy because it frees up revenue to place elsewhere. Money circulates, of course, and it's this reason why you can't make a blanket statement like "it's killing the industry!" Bush's bill took an ironic turn by turning on the guys who pushed it into office.

And with that said, I really want to do some research into PC game piracy because I think it's absolutely bogus when developers claim there's no money to be had in PC games. With no licensing fees and the advent of digital downloading removing the 20% cut retailers get plus no manufacturing or distribution fees, PC games are worth 2-3 times more than console games in terms of pure profit. It's always the big publishers who cite piracy as a problem while ignoring more important issues that could have damaged their sales like a flooded market or, hell, a bad product. I remember Crytek blaming piracy for their first week sales (which still put them in the top 5 for that month) and less than two months later EA said Crysis had hit the platinum mark of 1 million units sold. It was this pirated flop that allowed Crytek to double their studios, buy out other studios, and double the budget for their next game, right?

Surely piracy was to blame and not a game that could only run properly on a $1,000+ rig. A console port to PC having low sales must be the insane number of people not wanting to buy the game rather than the poor optimization of the port itself, right? I mean, everyone in the world should be lining up to buy Grand Theft Auto IV on the PC, a game that's nearly impossible to run on anything less than 3 cores. The Saboteur's poor PC sales must be pirates and not the fact that the game literally isn't compatible with ATI cards and EA offered a fix that doesn't even work. Assassin's Creed II is getting pirated left and right because pirates are evil and not because no one wants to be online 24/7 to play a singleplayer game, yes? PIRATES ARE RUINING OUR BUSINESS!

[Valkysas]

Re: Government calls bull**** on piracy figures.

it's possible to profit from PC game sales, just not at retail unless you're going for the casual gamers. digital distribution is the way to go for that.

and piracy does help kill the industry. look at the PSP. that right there is a platform that was completely murdered by piracy, despite a ton of great games for the system.

I won't deny that companies inflate their estimates at how many games are being pirated. but the numbers are large enough where they can kill the PSP, and scare a lot of developers away from the PC.

and this community has seen first hand how piracy can be so widespread that it can threaten the future of a franchise. smaller game developers can go under from piracy. it happens a lot. almost happened with enterbrain's RPG Maker branch.

[Red Dragon]

Re: Government calls bull**** on piracy figures.

Saying piracy isn't a big deal on a RPG Maker board is kinda silly.

[Caciss]

Re: Government calls bull**** on piracy figures.

You're an idiot if you think piracy doesn't have a pretty huge effect on game sales. I'm sure there is plenty of hyperbole being thrown around, but I imagine for most big games there are at least a few hundred thousand copies not sold, that would have sold.

I pirate all the time, but I'm not about to defend it.

[American Hero]

Re: Government calls bull**** on piracy figures.

http://cristgaming.com/pirate.swf

[Denmo]

Re: Government calls bull**** on piracy figures.

http://cristgaming.com/pirate.swf

[John Mora]

Re: Government calls bull**** on piracy figures.

[Sampson]

Re: Government calls bull**** on piracy figures.

I think it depends wholly on what is being pirated. We take it for granted on this forum, but the average person doesn't even know how to pirate in the first place.

For example, Windows OS is not going to be hurt by piracy since their user base is enormous and many of their customers lack the ability to acquire a pirated version.

On the other hand, if you release a niche product targeted at somewhat computer savy people (for example, RPGMaker) piracy could kill your business.

EDIT: And I don't think its fair to say piracy killed the PSP. Try lack of (good) games with broad-based appeal.

[Valkysas]

Re: Government calls bull**** on piracy figures.

there were good games on the PSP. some still come out. but most companies were driven away after their great games for the PSP didnt sell.

if you look at hardware sales for the PSP, compared to software sales, its obvious that most of the people who buy PSPs arent doing so to buy games for the thing. or they're all buying random bad games to ensure that no PSP game ever appears on top "whatever" sales charts. which may actually be what's happening. It's happening with the wii, although that still has some games that do well.

[Big Rick Cook]

Re: Government calls bull**** on piracy figures.

Derailed piracy topic. Let's talk about the benefits of this unexpected press instead of having one side being all PIRACY IS BAD AND HERE'S WHY and the other side being all PIRACY BUNK AND HERE WHY.

Our government pushed through a bill that was expected to investigate and uphold the claims of the crushing sales figures as claimed by big business, and it has so far backfired excellently on the macro-economic scale. The main issue as I see it is that these large corporations enjoyed a period of time where music/movie/game sales (and whatever other pirating may occur) could be easily calculated and quantified because there were one or two main mediums present that offered simple figures. Your music gets a lot of radio play and sold a million physical copies, so great success.

Now success is less measured in physical sales because digital media is so accessible and prevalent in a dozen different ways. Pandora is an ad-revenue-generated personalized radio service that makes its money on ad-space rather than on "what's hot." Rental services such as Netflix are streaming video online at the cost of subscription services because it's easier than physical rentals and a lot of people are beginning to prefer it and have systems capable of such. iTunes and other music services micro-manage music sales, selling digital copies and attempting to dictate how you can use it. Video games / PC games have their own forms of digital content through online stores that help cut out the physical retailer, allowing for lower prices and more immediate access to content.

This news report is great as it further emphasizes the fact that big business needs to stop touting false claims in an attempt to keep their trusted forms of revenue generation the same, when the world is progressing to faster and better content distribution WITH revenue without them and every dollar they spend against changing their established systems is a dollar they lose because they're morons.

I'm not claiming piracy is a good thing. It certainly has its detrimental effects, more commonly seen on niche markets and goods. But big business needs to get off their high horses about how harmful it really is to their markets and just concentrate on ways to keep making money in a market whose patrons keep changing how they want their content delivered.

[marcus]

Re: Government calls bull**** on piracy figures.

You're an idiot if you think piracy doesn't have a pretty huge effect on game sales. I'm sure there is plenty of hyperbole being thrown around, but I imagine for most big games there are at least a few hundred thousand copies not sold, that would have sold.

I pirate all the time, but I'm not about to defend it.

The point of the figures is to determine how many sales are actually lost. Fact is, it's impossible to tell. Out of the software you've pirated in your lifetime, how many of them would you have purchased NEW if piracy wasn't a readily available option? Out of the numbers they calculate for things like torrents, how many of those are actual people and not spybots or duplicates?

Why not a figure on how much money is lost from people buying used products? Some companies like Epic are already claiming its a huge loss.

This news report is great as it further emphasizes the fact that big business needs to stop touting false claims in an attempt to keep their trusted forms of revenue generation the same, when the world is progressing to faster and better content distribution WITH revenue without them and every dollar they spend against changing their established systems is a dollar they lose because they're morons.

I'm not claiming piracy is a good thing. It certainly has its detrimental effects, more commonly seen on niche markets and goods. But big business needs to get off their high horses about how harmful it really is to their markets and just concentrate on ways to keep making money in a market whose patrons keep changing how they want their content delivered.

This has been my argument for the longest time and I pull my hair out every time some new DRM or lock out comes out because it's absolutely worthless. There's no such thing as safe code. If it exists in some form, it can and will be stolen.

How much money do you think Ubisoft spends on their fancy new servers? How much money is Sony losing in court fees, returned units from Amazon, and lawsuits regarding their recent firmware? Now how much could their products have benefited if said money was put to enhancing the product? It's like they're just throwing money into a bottomless pit thinking that it'll eventually get filled.

I'm no market analyst, but if a product was more appealing or reached a wider audience, wouldn't it logically sell more? If you take away dedicated servers and modding tools and expect to sell a PC multiplayer game, you won't because you just alienated half your market. If you force people to jump through hurdles they won't because no consumer wants their product to be a ****ing chore.

[Caciss]

Re: Government calls bull**** on piracy figures.

The point of the figures is to determine how many sales are actually lost. Fact is, it's impossible to tell. Out of the software you've pirated in your lifetime, how many of them would you have purchased NEW if piracy wasn't a readily available option? Out of the numbers they calculate for things like torrents, how many of those are actual people and not spybots or duplicates?

Why not a figure on how much money is lost from people buying used products? Some companies like Epic are already claiming its a huge loss.

I'd say at minimum, a 100 albums I would have bought, but didn't. If we play that conservatively at 10 dollars each, that is at least a grand I didn't put in record company pockets. Being conservative on video games, likely 10 or so games. That's about another 500 dollars. That's not even counting television shows and movies.

A rough guess is about 2,000 dollars I would have spent, but didn't. I still don't think because the pirate wouldn't have bought the product anyway is a justifiable argument.

[Perversion]

Re: Government calls bull**** on piracy figures.

My buddy does things semi-the right way. He'll download stuff he's heard about or looks interesting (music-wise), give it a few listens, and if it's not something that really gets him, it would not have been something he would have taken the chance on anyway.

But if he finds something he really DOES like, he'll go out and buy a physical copy of it, either on vinyl or sometimes CD.


Problem is, about half the stuff he supports by buying a physical copy, he either gets from ebay or from a used CD store. So he's really not giving the artists money half the time anyway.


For music, I CAN see an argument SLIGHTLY for piracy. The artists, if signed to a major label, get recording money/living expenses when recording the album, but only get a very small percentage of total sales. The artists make their money on tour, where their cut is bigger, and where ancillaries (T-shirts, etc) are almost pure profit.

So theoretically, by grabbing an album from online, you're really NOT taking money away from the artist. In fact, if it's something you really dig, there's a chance you might attend a concert you ordinarily might not have.


However, for music on indie labels, the above argument really doesn't work. Smaller record labels NEED CD/vinyl/iTunes/etc sales to stay afloat. Granted, for the artists themselves, it's similar to the above, but most likely WITHOUT a per diem/budget for recording/living expenses. So in this case, you probably ARE hurting the artists as well.



Back in the old days, I used to go to a $5 matinee at a 30 screen theater. I'd ALWAYS pay the ticket price for the foreign/indie/smaller film, and then sneak into any bigger budgeted Hollywood film that really didn't need my $5 anyway. 30 screen theater...never got thrown out, and I did this 2-3 times a month for probably two years. I always justified it to myself, knowing that the smaller film that NEEDED the box office was getting my money.

[DarkwingChuck]

Re: Government calls bull**** on piracy figures.

Piracy only affects sales in as much as the person would have bought the product had they not pirated it. I've downloaded a few oldschool games and emulators but never really bothered to play them. Meanwhile I almost never buy a game new so I have no impact on the sales figures. I've downloaded a few gigs of music but I wouldn't have bought any of it, in my whole life I've bought like 3 cds. I stole far more music when I did that 20 cds for a penny thing and never sent the penny. I do pirate por... cinema quite a bit but who pays for po... cinema these days anyway.

[Caciss]

Re: Government calls bull**** on piracy figures.

the record companies don't deserve any money despite taking all of the financial risk.