PC games piracy survey

fattypants said:
Day-1 DLC is a clear indicator that they stripped content to sell it in pieces, because it was ready when the game released but they're still charging for it.
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This is not an accurate understanding of development to launch time lines and resource allocation. I'm not saying that what you present is never the case, but the hard reasoning you use misses a few things.

For instance games are finalized, in terms of shipping state, usually at least a month before the actual launch date. Further more the final period before that is spent on polishing/bug fixing the game, at which point you stop making content addition to the game. Modern game development is also much more specialized, as such not everyone on staff is utilized equally throughout the process. For instance those tasked with mainly "content creation" roles are less needed towards the end of a development cycle since you cannot continually add content until launch date, as at some point you have to focus on testing/polishing the game into a shipping state.

There is also the impact of budgets and schedules. You develop a game within a certain budget and schedule, which is usually determined relative to how much it is expected to bring in. But DLC offers additional revenue that can have its own budget. Likewise with preorder DLC, a retail giant such as Gamestop may offer money to commission specific DLC. You would not otherwise have this additional budget to work on the core game with.

Edit: Just to add, the quality expectation on DLC is also often lower. They usually, especially day 1 types, have lower QA and do not properly integrate into the game like actual content planned from start. Using DAO as an example, since I'm playing that at the moment, most of the day 1 DLC content for that simply does not actually fit the game both in terms of balance and lore fit.
 
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I think that once you pay for the game you should have the right to remove CD/DVD DRM software. I also think once its purchased the customer should have the right to modify it to remove all DRM. I think this causes the majority of piracy concerning PC gaming , I don't think PC gamers are predisposed to be "thieves" I think that Publishers force gamers to make a lot of choices they simply don't want to in order to get games to work properly or without intrusive DRM schemes.

I also think the lack of demos force users to pirate games , console gamers get demo's galore but we simply don't at ALL anymore. We use to get every game as a demo and I'm not sure why this stopped being the norm. If publishers allowed more demos people simply feel piracy isn't needed as you can generally decide from a short demo if you'll be interested or not in spending $50+ of your hard earned money.

Much of piracy can be avoided but Publishers would rather fight tooth and nail to force us to play the way they want us to play and that's not how PC gaming started and its not how its going to end. Publishers helped make piracy flourish by being bullheaded fools and making regular gamers go above and beyond simply to play there game glitch free or DRM free experience it should be. Developers are hamstrung into doing whatever publishers want because they write the checks , I think many developers would love never to have to worry about it , never having to worry about patching DRM problems when they should be worried about in game problems like CTDs and game balancing.

I think in the end it will be like the music industry , publishers will have to give into what we want otherwise it simply won't work any other way. Customers will vote with there wallets and while some of you think that isn't good enough , if enough people do it .. and let it be known that we aren't going to tolerate it ... no other choice but to give in.
 
Cracks are a grey area, but IMO, as long as you've purchased the game, I don't really see the problem, after all, you are a paying customer, why should your experience be WORSE than what the non paying customer who acquires the game has??

Doesn't make sense to me, plus the whole fishing the CD out of the box and then replacing it with something else every time you're done playing gets old.

Again, a grey area, but I dont' see the harm.

Don't preach to me about EULA's and how it's against ToS or whatnot, that's a stupid argument and you know it. A EULA that tries to prevent me from having a good experience and allows pirates to have a better one is an EULA I can wipe my ass with.
 
limitedaccess said:
For instance games are finalized, in terms of shipping state, usually at least a month before the actual launch date. Further more the final period before that is spent on polishing/bug fixing the game, at which point you stop making content addition to the game. Modern game development is also much more specialized, as such not everyone on staff is utilized equally throughout the process. For instance those tasked with mainly "content creation" roles are less needed towards the end of a development cycle since you cannot continually add content until launch date, as at some point you have to focus on testing/polishing the game into a shipping state.

There is also the impact of budgets and schedules. You develop a game within a certain budget and schedule, which is usually determined relative to how much it is expected to bring in. But DLC offers additional revenue that can have its own budget. Likewise with preorder DLC, a retail giant such as Gamestop may offer money to commission specific DLC. You would not otherwise have this additional budget to work on the core game with.

Edit: Just to add, the quality expectation on DLC is also often lower. They usually, especially day 1 types, have lower QA and do not properly integrate into the game like actual content planned from start. Using DAO as an example, since I'm playing that at the moment, most of the day 1 DLC content for that simply does not actually fit the game both in terms of balance and lore fit.
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I understand that they can't get all the content to the customer on the same day. If they didn't charge for it, it appears to be a simple time-budgeting issue. Everyone makes mistakes, water under the bridge. Just get it to me when it's done.

The fact that they charge for it makes look more like they withheld content intentionally.

If I got 3/4ths of a shipment of parsnips and I paid the price of a full shipment of parsnips, I could be forgiving if part of the shipment didn't make it to me, but they sent the rest out as soon they were ready. When my parsnip supplier tells me that they want more money for the remaining 1/4th when it arrives, I'm not inclined to be so charitable; I might even feel as if I'd been mistreated as a customer.
 
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Fail said:
Sounds like you're trying to justify your piracy.
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Im not trying, nor do I have to justify anything. Just pointing out that your statement is inherently flawed since many people pirate games to evaluate if a game is worth purchasing,
 
Droc said:
Im not trying, nor do I have to justify anything. Just pointing out that your statement is inherently flawed since many people pirate games to evaluate if a game is worth purchasing,
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Then again, my statement used the word "I" in it, nowhere in it did I mention others. That's my own philosophy, I don't expect others to follow it, or if they do, that's cool, if not, cool beans.
 
Survey taken. With how easy steam makes my gaming life, no reason to not to use it.

Well it also helps that I've grown up a bit since my teen years, and feel like *some* developers should earn my money ya know the ones who put out a great game. The ones who don't I just don't play easy.
 
I doubt the main reason people pirate is to 'try before you buy'. That may be the intention at first but after you download and beat the game, what % of them go out and buy it? Maybe a small fraction of a %.

I also want to point out that from going 48 to 100 responses, the amount of people were pirated has dropped almost 5%. You should have anywhere from 1200 to 5000 samples to get good results so by no means do I believe 86% is close to the population average.
 
bigdogchris said:
I doubt the main reason people pirate is to 'try before you buy'. That may be the intention at first but after you download and beat the game, what % of them go out and buy it? Maybe a small fraction of a %.
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That question is in the survey, go back and read.

A surprisingly high percent of games that are completed are later paid for, especially if someone believes the game is worth paying for.
 
PrincessFrosty said:
A surprisingly high percent of games that are completed are later paid for, especially if someone believes the game is worth paying for.
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But then the question arises, how do people define "worth paying for"? Does that mean they pirate at release then might buy it when its in the bargain bin for $5? Its a very easy question to say "yes, 100%" to, yet it also to mean absolutely fuck all with no definition of what "worth it" means.

I still think this survey is far from representative, you constructed the questions reasonably well but being limited to 10 questions clearly made you leave out some things, and by virtue of the fact you posted it here on [H] as a poll that people can take at their own discretion means you inevitably only get people who....

1) Are enthusiasts
2) Actually want to take the poll, so are probably from the "I only pirate because I'm trying to make a statement" crowd.

The people who pirate just for the hell of it, have no intention of buying and would continue to pirate regardless of DRM, DLC, price, demos, etc aren't the same people who are gonna be inclined to take such a survey, so its far from a random selection from the wider gaming community. Add to that its only 100 people and I dont think the results mean all that much.
 
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People define whether something is worth it based on their criteria, the point was to work out if there actually is some criteria by why people pirate games or if people just do it mindlessly because they can.

All indications point towards people that are actually happy to pay for games they value, people value things differently so that's a sliding scale but that's not what I'm trying to measure, I'm simply trying to determine if this picture of piracy of everyone pirating all their games and never contributing to the gaming scene is actually true or not, and it simply isn't true.
 
PrincessFrosty said:
I'm simply trying to determine if this picture of piracy of everyone pirating all their games and never contributing to the gaming scene is actually true or not, and it simply isn't true.
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I dont think anyone would say that EVERYONE is pirating all their games and never contributing is true otherwise PC gaming would not exist as their would be no money to fund it. But what proportion of people are active pirates and then what portion of those are just leeches and which are "contributing" pirates and then by how much do they contribute is the real question which would not be answered by your poll (for reasons I posted above, you may have missed them since I edited my post while you may have been typing yours ;)).
 
Tudz said:
I dont think anyone would say that EVERYONE is pirating all their games and never contributing is true otherwise PC gaming would not exist as their would be no money to fund it. But what proportion of people are active pirates and then what portion of those are just leeches and which are "contributing" pirates and then by how much do they contribute is the real question which would not be answered by your poll (for reasons I posted above, you may have missed them since I edited my post while you may have been typing yours ;)).
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What is commonly implied is that pirates simply pirate everything regardless of quality or price (because why wouldn't they?) and that it's non-pirates which support developers.

This poll shows that's demonstrably false, the overwhelming majority of people polled spend money on games and they also go on to buy some of their pirated games as well.
 
A very good survey, and I can't say I'm surprised by the outcome at all.
 
I'd imagine most people pirate less as they get older. Mainly because they have more money, and less free time. I don't pirate because I don't have enough free time to play the games I buy legally, what's the point of stealing more games on top?
 
PrincessFrosty said:
What is commonly implied is that pirates simply pirate everything regardless of quality or price (because why wouldn't they?) and that it's non-pirates which support developers.

This poll shows that's demonstrably false, the overwhelming majority of people polled spend money on games and they also go on to buy some of their pirated games as well.
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I dont think its really all that commonly implied that everyone who pirates also doesn't buy games (except maybe by a couple of extremely vocal forum members). I think its more commonly accepted that there's some percentage of pirates who do also purchase a certain number of games and the contention comes when talking about the proportion of pirates who purchase considerably vs the proportion that dont.

My issue is you made a list like the one below. Using terms like "hardly anyone", "a massive number", "most people","overwhelmingly the biggest reasons" would imply that you took a reasonably representative cross section of gamers and a large enough sample size, but in reality its simply the first 100 [H] members who happened to take the poll in the ~17 hours that it was posted (and judging by the fact you had 160 responses when you took the screenshot, it was probably only the first ~10 hours of actual results you captured). When you say "24%" you literally mean "24 of the people tested". You could just as easily pick 100 people from a different forum at a different time of day and get a completely different response.

  • Most people have pirated
  • Hardly anyone pirates all of their games, most people also buy games.
  • Gamers WANT to buy games, they are given the option to get for free or pay and given the opportunity and circumstance they will pay for games they like.
  • Overwhelmingly the biggest reasons for pirating is to try before you buy.
  • By far the single most important factor if people will buy your game is IF IT'S ANY GOOD! There is a very strong trend of people buying more and more games after they have pirated them if the game is worth completing or perceived to be good value.
  • A massive number of digital distribution sales are attributed to people who have pirated games in the past and legitimately want to buy copies of these games at a discounted price.
  • Anti piracy laws and actions taken by ISPs will be almostly completely uneffective at trying to stop piracy, users smart enough to pirate already know the tools they need to circumvent blocking and tracking by ISPs. Threats do little dissuade people, it causes the majorety to simply look for better ways not to get caught.
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Its like those polls that say something like, ohhh, I dunno "are all gays evil?" and get 90% saying yes simply because the poll was only up for a few hours and in those few hours some random church group got every member to respond "yes". Or someone has a poll "Should adult video games be censored?" and the only place you see links to the poll is on gaming websites and it gets a 99% vote of "hell no!", well fucking der, it was posted on video game sites, what do you expect :p

Those are obviously more extreme examples, but the principle is the same. You came to an enthusiast gamers forum and put up a poll but only took the first 100 answers, I wouldn't expect a result any different to what you got.

pigwalk said:
I don't pirate because I don't have enough free time to play the games I buy legally, what's the point of stealing more games on top?
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LOL, yeah, I only play 3-5 games a year, not much point pirating them ;)
 
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Well I don't know if I agree with that Tudz, you haven't demonstrated that a different forum would produce wildly different results or that the first 100 replies are significantly different from the 100+ results.

I'm not saying the numbers are 100% accurate, but it's a good guideline to see what to expect, which is why i use vague terms when describing the results.

The interpretation of the results is purely my interpretation, I haven't said otherwise. People can make up their own mind.
 
PrincessFrosty said:
Well I don't know if I agree with that Tudz, you haven't demonstrated that a different forum would produce wildly different results or that the first 100 replies are significantly different from the 100+ results.
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Ah touche :p Yes, I have no intention of "demonstrating" it because I dont have the time/patience/whatever. What I said was purely speculation (though speculation I think is grounded in sound reasoning).

Dont get me wrong, I'd like nothing more than to see a proper study saying DRM is bad, over priced DLC is bad, lower prices is good for both consumer and developer. I guess simply that a large portion of my job revolves around reading and investigating technical data and interpretations of technical data, trying to figure out flaws or gaps in both the data and the interpretation of it that when I see something like a poll my first response isn't "oh wow interesting result" but "hmmm, I wonder what factors contributed to that result". :p

I'm always hugely sceptical of poll results as the 2 biggest flaws in any set of poll data is 1) who is going to see the poll and 2) who is going to respond to the poll, you quickly realise that the vast majority of polls are biased right from the beginning. Like TV program polls where the only people who participate are the ones who both watch the show and will go out of their way to vote. Or telephone polls where the only people voting are those who have the patience (or lack the conviction) to not say "fuck off" when someone rings up saying "do you have a moment to take a survey". Immediately everyone with a mentality like mine is eliminated from the voting population unless its something they deeply care about :p

The interpretation of the results is purely my interpretation, I haven't said otherwise. People can make up their own mind.
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Fair 'nuff. :)
 
Yeah, I played xxx game on day one and later paid $5 so thats ok is a bunch of bullshit. Whatever helps your conscious.
 
Zero82z said:
I don't see how stealing my neighbour's car is considered stealing considering it isn't for sale.
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you just demonstrated nicely that piracy is NOT theft since you don't TAKE it you COPY it. There's a huge difference.
 
hfk said:
you just demonstrated nicely that piracy is NOT theft since you don't TAKE it you COPY it. There's a huge difference.
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Exactly, isn't the whole argument for anti-piracy DRM "lost sales?"

So yeah, if it's not for sale, how can it be piracy? lol

makes perfect sense.
 
I think if the prices of games were more affordable people would buy more and not bother "trying it". The problem is that many people have put down the precious $50 only get burned with a garbage game or bad port so of course they want to try it first.

Here's a few suggestions that I feel would do a lot about the attitude of people pirating.

1. Game should sell for about $25-$30. I think there would just generally be more sales of a title.
2. Release a demo a few days before it goes to stores. Friday would be perfect with game releases on Tuesday like it is now.

I thought the whole point of the digital distribution means was cost. No disc, no manual... no physical product should make the digital version cheaper than the retail... in most cases this isn't true. Why not?

If there were demos before the release and prices were lower I think there would be more sales of game titles. I think the fear here is that developers won't stand behind their product. They release a half finished game with the intention of patching it later - which is why we don't get demos - they don't want us to know this. They can sell some copies right away, generate some cash upfront... finish the game later via patches. Its the business model that is killing them. They aren't delivering finished products and bitch when sales suck then blame it on piracy.
 
dnottis said:
I thought the whole point of the digital distribution means was cost. No disc, no manual... no physical product should make the digital version cheaper than the retail... in most cases this isn't true. Why not?
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Bottom line, its the companies trying to put money in their pockets.
 
hfk said:
you just demonstrated nicely that piracy is NOT theft since you don't TAKE it you COPY it. There's a huge difference.
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lol keep trying to justify the fact that you stole something without paying for it.......you have the game and neither the developer nor publisher got paid........so yes it IS theft....
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
lol keep trying to justify the fact that you stole something without paying for it.......you have the game and neither the developer nor publisher got paid........so yes it IS theft....
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Oh dear Lord, not this argument again...

"Its theft!"
"No its not, its copyright infringment!"
"But you're not paying for it so its theft!"
"But you aren't depriving someone so its not theft!"
"But its wrong and bad and its theft!"

Who fucking cares, its just semantics :p
 
Colonel Sanders said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeTybKL1pM4
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I've stopped trying to explain the difference to people, I've basically started posting this link like you. There was a BBC news story on BT a UK ISP who were forced by the courts to block newzbin2 and a massive number of comments on the article were referring to copyright infringement as theft and making analogies to stealing, I just posted that link.

There's only so many times you can explain something before you have to start treating people who don't understand it as children.
 
Tudz said:
Oh dear Lord, not this argument again...

"Its theft!"
"No its not, its copyright infringment!"
"But you're not paying for it so its theft!"
"But you aren't depriving someone so its not theft!"
"But its wrong and bad and its theft!"

Who fucking cares, its just semantics :p
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No, it's not just semantics.

A lot of people find it hard to understand copyright law and so frame it in terms of something they can understand. When it's referred to as theft people draw analogies to theft, these are extremely inaccurate and keep occurring over and over again and the only way to stop the bad analogies to theft is to explain the difference between theft and copyright infringement.

These are 2 different words with 2 different meanings, if people don't understand the meanings of words we cannot hope to have any kind of higher level discussion about a topic which relies on those words without extreme amounts of confusion and frustration. The only avenue left is to educate people as to the correct meaning of the word.
 
copyright infringement = jaywalking
everyone's done it, very few will ever be caught.
 
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