PC Gaming and Piracy: Must Read Article

[runtheplacered]

Why aren't people making a big deal about Xbox 360 and Wii piracy? I don't own either system (Pc and PS3 here), but I've heard of plenty of people that pirate games for those two systems. The Nintendo DS is incredibly easy to pirate games for, too. I have two DS's and all I'd have to do is buy one $40 part and I have every DS game I could ever want, if I wanted to go that route.

I was just curious if anyone had an answer to that. I've always wondered.

 

[Aardvark]

I'd go even further and blame the lack of PC sales compared to console sales to the inherent laziness of mankind. Sure, John Q Average could buy himself up a PC, having to go through the install rigmarole after buying it, the boot-up time whenever he wants to play it and deal with upgrades every so often just to keep abreast of increases in gaming technology. And he would be richly rewarded in terms of satisfaction if he did. But Mr Average is fat and lazy. After a hard day's dragging his arse around the office/factory/wherever, Mr Average wants to come home and play games. He doesn't want to engage his brain very much and wants to be as comfortable as possible. Which is what consoles cater for. Couch, control pad and TV. John Q pops a disc in, grabs the ergonomically-intended controller, switches TV on and is gaming. Yes, Mr Q Average could have hooked up his PC to the TV, quite easily now that video cards are coming with HDMI output, but then John needs to check his emails, do his online shopping, work on that presentation that he can't complete because he's overworked and underpaid. You can do that on a TV, but you don't want to. Especially when John and Jane Q Jnr want to play Banjo Kazooie.

The moral of this story is that consoles are for the bone idle. RE: Most of the population.

 

[CmdrGoob]

Why aren't people making a big deal about Xbox 360 and Wii piracy? I don't own either system (Pc and PS3 here), but I've heard of plenty of people that pirate games for those two systems. The Nintendo DS is incredibly easy to pirate games for, too. I have two DS's and all I'd have to do is buy one $40 part and I have every DS game I could ever want, if I wanted to go that route.

I was just curious if anyone had an answer to that. I've always wondered.

I don't know about the Wii, but the article I linked adds up downloads from torrent sites for PC vs 360 versions of games, and the 360 versions are downloaded 10 times less frequently.

 

[EzraPound]

There are ~23 million 360's out there. With sales of graphics cards at 20 million per quater and gaming PCs at 200 million in 3 years quoted in that article, we could say 7 out of 8 gaming capable PCs aren't used for gaming and still draw an estimate of ~25 million gaming PCs that are used for gaming.

And yet despite this, the 360 version easily outsells the PC version by approximately a 3:1 margin. While the PC version is pirated 10 times more frequently. What else explains the discrepancy in sales we see?

Well, for starters, that's because 1/8 is obviously a way larger proportion than the number of people who own computers that can play modern PC games and actually frequently do so, especially when you consider industrial workplace purchases and the fact most women don't factor into the 'hardcore gamer' category. Then you could continue on to point out that if the number of habitual PC gamers actually were 25 million, tenfold piracy (a figure which I'm skeptical of) wouldn't be preventing cross-platform releases from seeing the light of day. Or the fact that the attach rate for alot of the people that do play PC games is far lower, because alot of them are just playing The Sims 2 and don't own a console. But whatever.

 

[DirkGently]

Why aren't people making a big deal about Xbox 360 and Wii piracy? I don't own either system (Pc and PS3 here), but I've heard of plenty of people that pirate games for those two systems. The Nintendo DS is incredibly easy to pirate games for, too. I have two DS's and all I'd have to do is buy one $40 part and I have every DS game I could ever want, if I wanted to go that route.

I was just curious if anyone had an answer to that. I've always wondered.

I don't know about the Wii, but the article I linked adds up downloads from torrent sites for PC vs 360 versions of games, and the 360 versions are downloaded 10 times less frequently.

That's mainly because pirating 360 games are far more complicated and costly. If you didn't need to have an xbox, mod it, and a subcription to a newsgroup to download the pirated games from, it'd be one thing. Never mind having another xbox if you want to go and playing games on Xbox Live. Also, how many PC components are being bought as upgrades for current hardware? Do we have any idea as to the motivations of why people are buying these PC's and parts? We're all really just speculating amongst ourselves, it would seem.

Also, what does it describe as "fit for gaming"? Because what's fit for gaming may also be sufficient for film editing, HD media watching, Flash, etc. Maybe it was bought for a dual screen display. Or something else. Maybe it's a hobby and they're into freeware/shareware indie games, and got the card so they could play Fallout 3 when it came out, or other games they had been meaning to try and are going to borrow from a friend.

 

[CmdrGoob]

There are ~23 million 360's out there. With sales of graphics cards at 20 million per quater and gaming PCs at 200 million in 3 years quoted in that article, we could say 7 out of 8 gaming capable PCs aren't used for gaming and still draw an estimate of ~25 million gaming PCs that are used for gaming.

And yet despite this, the 360 version easily outsells the PC version by approximately a 3:1 margin. While the PC version is pirated 10 times more frequently. What else explains the discrepancy in sales we see?

Well, for starters, that's because 1/8 is obviously a way larger proportion than the number of people who own computers that can play modern PC games and actually frequently do so, especially when you consider industrial workplace purchases and the fact most women don't factor into the 'hardcore gamer' category. Then you could continue on to point out that if the number of habitual PC gamers actually were 25 million, tenfold piracy (a figure which I'm skeptical of) wouldn't be preventing cross-platform releases from seeing the light of day. But whatever.

How is it obvious that 1/8 is a way larger proportion of the gaming capable PCs used for gaming? We are already narrowing it down from the estimated 1 billion total PCs out there.

The sales of add in graphics cards sounds to me like a market heavily dominated by gamers upgrading their PCs, and that market is big enough to support sales of 20 million in a quarter, according to the sources in that article. Let's say half of those are sold to PC gamers, and the average PC gamer upgrades every 2 years, we'd already be in the ballpark of 80 million gamers. Who's buying all these add-in graphics cards?

 

[EzraPound]

Also, what does it describe as "fit for gaming"? Because what's fit for gaming may also be sufficient for film editing, HD media watching, Flash, etc. Maybe it was bought for a dual screen display.

Like I said: the number of people who own fit-for-gaming PCs that actually game on them frequently (and by that I mean own more than The Sims) is probably closer to 1/24 than 1/8, which means the PC gaming demographic is probably closer to 8 million than to 24 million (using some figures provided by CmdrGoob), in which case it makes sense that less investment is funneled into the PC market, regardless of piracy.

 

[CmdrGoob]

Also, what does it describe as "fit for gaming"? Because what's fit for gaming may also be sufficient for film editing, HD media watching, Flash, etc. Maybe it was bought for a dual screen display.

Like I said: the number of people who own fit-for-gaming PCs that actually game on them frequently (and by that I mean own more than The Sims) is probably closer to 1/24 than 1/8, which means the PC gaming demographic is probably closer to 8 million than to 24 million (using some figures provided by CmdrGoob), in which case it makes sense that less investment is funneled into the PC market, regardless of piracy.

So a market of 8 million harcore PC gamers is supporting a market of 20 million add-in graphics cards sold per quarter? Is that what you're saying?

Edit to add: Also, how many consoles are sold to people who aren't frequent gamers? Consoles are cheaper and easier, after all. Who's more likely to be a hardcore gamer, the console owner, or consumers of add-in graphics cards? Should we be dividing 360 sales in half or something?

 

[EzraPound]

Let's say half of those are sold to PC gamers, and the average PC gamer upgrades every 2 years, we'd already be in the ballpark of 80 million gamers.

Yes, and when Crysis gets GOTY and sells 1.5 million copies it's clearly evidence that the legion of pirates as conspiratorial and secretive as the New World Order or Jewish Agglomeration (remember, you don't actually see them in numbers) simply downloaded it 20 million times, explaning the disparity between your figures and reality.

Who's buying all these add-in graphics cards?

Uh, let's see...

- Americans who just buy shit because they have high incomes
- Americans who just buy shit so they can play one game (see: EAShit)
- Americans who are pressured by salespeople into buying shit they don't want
- Americans who just buy shit for the PCs in their corporate buildings they don't need
- Americans who just buy 3D shit so they can do anything other than play games
- Anyone other than Americans that just buy shit for the above reasons (see: less)

 

[CmdrGoob]

Also, how many consoles are sold to people who aren't frequent gamers? Consoles are cheaper and easier, after all. Who's more likely to be a hardcore gamer, the console owner, or consumers of add-in graphics cards? Should we be dividing 360 sales in half or something?

 

[EzraPound]

Consoles are cheaper and easier, after all. Who's more likely to be a hardcore gamer, the console owner, or consumers of add-in graphics cards? Should we be dividing 360 sales in half or something?

DumDum, except the Xbox 360 gamers aren't just mythical like dragons or Santa Claus because they buy the console's games ten times as much, unless you want to tell me that 10 PC gamers pirate for every 1 that doesn't.

 

[Nurb]

Companies like to blame piracy for lost game sales, but like the PoP sequels, it was because they were terrible in quality and the major companies' business practices anger a lot of gamers. Also, consoles are easy and more accessable for the masses to get into and not every single PC owner plays all these games

 

[CmdrGoob]

Let's say half of those are sold to PC gamers, and the average PC gamer upgrades every 2 years, we'd already be in the ballpark of 80 million gamers.

Yes, and when Crysis gets GOTY and sells 1.5 million copies it's clearly evidence that the legion of pirates as conspiratorial and secretive as the New World Order or Jewish Agglomeration (remember, you don't actually see them in numbers) simply downloaded it 20 million times, explaning the disparity between your figures and reality.

Who's buying all these add-in graphics cards?

Uh, let's see...

- Americans who just buy shit because they have high incomes
- Americans who just buy shit so they can play one Maxis game (see: EAShit)
- Americans who are pressured by salespeople into buying shit they don't want
- Americans who just buy shit for the PCs in their shitty corporate buildings they don't need
- Americans who just buy 3D shit so they can do anything other than play games
- Anyone other than Americans that just buy shit for the above shitty reasons

Wow, glib facetiousness really wins arguments.

Compared to the sales figures you get from console exclusive AAA shooters, 1.5 million copies sold for Crysis is pretty disappointing.

 

[Credge]

Oh, really? Take Fallout 3 as an example. Would you rather have Fallout 3 on PC or console (cheaper, GECK + mods, better graphics, better user interface)? Want to check out how PC Fallout 3 sales are going?

Fairly irrelevant and negates your entire point. Why don't you look at how Fallout 3 is doing >on one console platform (360)< and then compare that to how many pirated copies were downloaded for that same platform. You'll find that the console has a higher piracy to buy ratio than PC.

 

[geldonyetich]

Fascinating read.

So, in summary:

• [li]People pirate the same ratio of games with or without DRM, whether or not the game is good, or other iconoclastic reasons. Therefore, all such reasons are feeble excuses.[/li]
  [li]"The Scene" (those that hack games to remove copy protection and distribute said games) do not approve of not paying for good games, but keeps right on truckin' for the "free riders" anyway.[/li]
  [li]In the end, everything's going to the consoles (partly because the average console user doesn't need to know how to burn a DVD, but also apparently because consoles like to rat out pirates through their frontend GUI).[/li]

Bottom line, apparently people are stupid and lazy. Real shocker, eh?

[edited ]

 

[EzraPound]

Compared to the sales figures you get from console exclusive AAA shooters, 1.5 million copies sold for Crysis is pretty disappointing.

Sorry if I was over-the-top, I'm just saying: it's reasonable to assert that there might be 12 or 15 million frequent PC gamers based on the sales of different titles (this would make it the lowest-selling console), but to chalk it up to 20 million or 80 million isn't really consistent with the sales of the best PC games coming out, even if you fairly assess the rates of piracy. I was just joking how funny it would be if there were 80 million hardcore PC gamers and 20 million of them pirated Crysis, and this was a conspiratorial secret not reflected in subscriptions to PC gaming mags, etc.

 

[Shade Jackrabbit]

Fascinating read.

So, in summary:

• [li]People pirate the same ratio of games with or without DRM, whether or not the game is good, or other iconoclastic reasons.[/li]
  [li]"The Scene" does not approve of not paying for good games, but keeps right on making them easy to pirate.[/li]
  [li]In the end, everything's going to the consoles (probably because the average console user doesn't need to know how to burn a DVD).[/li]

Bottom line, apparently people are stupid and lazy. Real shocker, eh?

Dun, dun, DUUUUUUUUUUUN.