Widescreen Gaming Forum

So, sometimes when you debate the PC piracy problem people act like publishers overreact and the problem is not that big a deal and those people would not buy games anyway, but... here is a large anonymous survey from the biggest gaming blog showing this is not the case.

79% of gamers on that site pirate PC games, which is a staggering number, compared to only 50% on the console, the vast majority of that 50% being in the "only a few times" category.

Reasons for piracy are many, the winner was "other" which I find amusing...

It bears mentioning of course that a survey is not a scientific thing, and this could all be completely inaccurate to the whole, but I doubt it. Next time someone says PC publishers should just accept piracy and focus on the paying customers, I will show them this to have them see just what kind of percentages these publishers are working with.

http://kotaku.com/5500495/kotaku-census-2010-the-results-in-full

'Only' 25% said they do it all the time. Along with 18% on the console. Its not /that/ much different.

To begin, that's a small sample (though I don't know if it's large enough to be statistically significant) that's not randomized, made up of people that read a video-gaming blog (meaning they're probably not very casual gamers). One of the best-selling games of all time is The Sims, which is not pandering to that audience. My point is - it makes sense that more computer-literate, gaming-oriented people are pirating games compared to a casual gamer who doesn't know a floppy disk from a flatscreen.

Secondly, the figure doesn't surprise me at all. It would have been nicer if they broke it up to even more categories (week, month, etc.), because downloading a PC game is so incredibly easy these days. All pirate to get the game, but some do it because they don't want to pay for it, and some do it because they just want to "try out" piracy. So while 79% is high, that doesn't mean that 79% pirate every single new game on the market. Personally I'm not averse to the "try before you buy" mentality of certain pirates if a demo doesn't exist for a new game, and that is yet another reason someone may pirate, even if they shell out the cash for the game when the release date hits. But I guarantee you that if pirating a game for a console was half as easy as it was for the PC, that statistic would be much much higher (in part due to the $60 pricetag on console games).

I'm rambling so I'm going to shut up (soon). Piracy is a problem for gaming, yes, but saying that 79% of PC gamers are pirates is a very generic statement that misses the mark. It's like saying that a majority of the population are drug addicts because they have experimented with drugs at some point in their life. Ultimately, anyone who pirates a game without paying for it only takes away the money from the developer if they intended to pay for it in the first place.

Short version: Not surprising.

/rambling

EDIT: ^What he said. :hide

WHY, who did you open another thread? We get it, you and cranky would open up a slaughter house for pirates if you could, the discussion is over!

o, sometimes when you debate the PC piracy problem people act like publishers overreact and the problem is not that big a deal and those people would not buy games anyway, but... here is a large anonymous survey from the biggest gaming blog showing this is not the case.

79% of gamers on that site pirate PC games, which is a staggering number, compared to only 50% on the console, the vast majority of that 50% being in the "only a few times" category.

Reasons for piracy are many, the winner was "other" which I find amusing...

It bears mentioning of course that a survey is not a scientific thing, and this could all be completely inaccurate to the whole, but I doubt it. Next time someone says PC publishers should just accept piracy and focus on the paying customers, I will show them this to have them see just what kind of percentages these publishers are working with.

http://kotaku.com/5500495/kotaku-census ... ts-in-full

(in part due to the $60 pricetag on console games)

Lucky.

http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/product/call-of-duty-modern-warfare-2-xbox-360/10125088.aspx?path=13ea7cbc2b0eef9ac7d91ec51be0f1e2en02
+ 10% tax

60 U.S. dollars = 61.7099836 Canadian dollars

Its just on the games that the big publishers think can get away with such a price tag thankfully.

And yes I agree with Soduka; You two fraking LOVE trollin about piracy.

Well, as soon as I see circular arguments this thread is getting locked, but I thought this was interesting:

http://www.videogamer.com/news/ea_slams_its_c_and_c4_drm.html

One of the EA bosses has a flaky 'net connection, and he rips C&C4's DRM apart because of it! :mrgreen:

'Only' 25% said they do it all the time. Along with 18% on the console. Its not /that/ much different.

True, but that includes all consoles.

I don't know anyone who didn't mod their original Xbox to play old console games.

WHY, who did you open another thread? We get it, you and cranky would open up a slaughter house for pirates if you could, the discussion is over!

I mostly posted this because I thought the percentage was insanely high for a volunteer survey, and the whole article is interesting really.

I guess posting it so soon after that other piracy thread might have been a bad idea, but honestly I forgot it existed. I read the Kotaku article, went "wow" and then posted it on my two main forums, NVNews and here.

To begin, that's a small sample (though I don't know if it's large enough to be statistically significant) that's not randomized, made up of people that read a video-gaming blog (meaning they're probably not very casual gamers). One of the best-selling games of all time is The Sims, which is not pandering to that audience. My point is - it makes sense that more computer-literate, gaming-oriented people are pirating games compared to a casual gamer who doesn't know a floppy disk from a flatscreen.

This is true, but hardcore gamers are the ones publishers rely on to sell the games most of us here likely enjoy. No one is worried for the future of popcap or indie games on the PC, we are worried about the AAA big production hardcore games from EA, Ubisoft, 2K and the rest.