Research project on Internet Piracy

[saturn1234]

Hey everyone.

I am doing a research project for a class on internet piracy and I am looking for any interesting articles/sites/opinions on the subject.

One of the points I am thinking about is comparing pirating games to purchasing a game from gamestop(or something similar) used. Getting games used and pirating a game have the same affect on the person who spent money to make it, yet people seem to be completely okay with buying used games for even 5 dollars cheaper.

I have also set up a small survey to gather some statistics and would really appreciate if you could take 1 minute to fill it out, it is only 10 questions.

Here is the link:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/7KTB92M

Thanks a lot

 

[evilartist]

Maybe this will help: http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=en&safe=off&q=internet+piracy+statistics&aq=0&aqi=g5&aql=f&oq=internet+piracy+s&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=7baa05c8a727054d

Google is our friend.

 

[dsmops2003]

One of the points I am thinking about is comparing pirating games to purchasing a game from gamestop(or something similar) used. Getting games used and pirating a game have the same affect on the person who spent money to make it, yet people seem to be completely okay with buying used games for even 5 dollars cheaper.
)

The main difference between a setup like gamestop and pirating on the internet is that with gamestop and others they are re-selling media that has already been paid for. With piracy the creator never sees any profit from the copy of the media. And thats another thing without the original media there is no proof of purchase or re-purchase. Since console games do not require an activation key, they can be traded and resold like any other commodity. PC media on the other hand is illegal to be resold because of activation keys and the way it is licensed.

 

[tahrey]

Piracy leaves the original intact, and the onus is on the person who downloaded it to maybe go buy the thing properly if they like what they've played (and avoid paying for something that turns out to be total dreck). They haven't spent any money on it either; so maybe they're skint and wouldn't have bought anything anyway. Or they'll go off and buy something else instead - either a game or a totally different product - but they're still being economically active and buying things.

Theft, or reselling, removes the original. The person buying the used game still has to take a chance on it, and give money to Gamestop that they now can't spend on other games or products. Objectively, it's worse than piracy.
However, a portion of the money that person pays to get the used game, goes to the first-time-buyer who traded it in. THAT person now has more money than they would have, had they either kept the game or just given it away for free. Said money can now be spent on other games they may not have been able to afford, and in fact, probably was.

So it's an even-stevens thing at best. Depends how significant you think the money siphoned off by Gamestop et al is in the whole equation, and how honest you think the average pirate ends up being if they really like a game. But I think the used market is probably being unfairly vilified. It's a TRADE... it's not like the money disappears, or that everyone who trades in a game goes and locks the cash they earn in a big safe forevermore. The game still had to be bought new at some point. And the person who sold it will have to replace it if they want to keep on playing.

 

[Mouse_Crouse]

Yea did the survey... not gonna go into discussion here. But filled it out.

 

[saturn1234]

thank you to everyone who responded to the survey it really helps me out.

In reference to dsmops, in most situations pirated games were purchased by the original person who uploads them. So I think the gamestop/pirate comparison works because popular games can be resold many times over the course of the years. Some games may get leaked online, but I think that is rare (I would like some more info on this). Should games have a limited amount of shares/resells? Potentially a game could be sold used just as many times as someone downloads it.

tahrey, that is a very interesting point about the "money trail" when pirating or buying used video games. I personally find buying used games at gamestop to be much worse than pirating. They rip people off on the trade ins to begin with, and then resell them for the usual price minus a few dollars. Most new games are $60 and gamestop sells them used for $55. Games that just came out will trade in at gamestop for about $30 and that is in store credit. I think you get 15% - 30% less in actually cash.

So far the data from the survey is not what I expected. I will post the results here too if anyone is interested.

 

[StriderShinryu]

In reference to dsmops, in most situations pirated games were purchased by the original person who uploads them. So I think the gamestop/pirate comparison works because popular games can be resold many times over the course of the years.

The numbers here just don't really add up for me personally. In most cases, a used game was once purchased and it goes through maybe 10 owners (and I would say that's a very high estimate seeing as how the return on investment for trading a game in is so low and only gets lower as the game ages). A copy of a game posted to a stream, however, can be downloaded by thousands or even millions of people. It's comparative I suppose, but the scale is so much larger that it's not even in the same ballpark.

Viewing piracy as try before you buy also makes a lot of assumptions about the goodwill of those who pirate the game in the first place. Certainly they may go out and buy the game the next day because they love it but the fact is, whether they liked the game or not, they still had the experience of playing it (and that's what games are; they may come on physical discs or be composed of downloaded bits and bytes, but they are experiences). I'd wager more pirates would, however, never buy the game or would tell themselves it was good but not worth $X and when it reached the price they do feel it is worth, they would have forgotten all about actually buying it.

 

[MrTeles]

filled it out. Best of luck.

 

[HasimirFenring]

Completed it, hopes it help you

 

[saturn1234]

The numbers here just don't really add up for me personally. In most cases, a used game was once purchased and it goes through maybe 10 owners (and I would say that's a very high estimate seeing as how the return on investment for trading a game in is so low and only gets lower as the game ages). A copy of a game posted to a stream, however, can be downloaded by thousands or even millions of people. It's comparative I suppose, but the scale is so much larger that it's not even in the same ballpark.

Viewing piracy as try before you buy also makes a lot of assumptions about the goodwill of those who pirate the game in the first place. Certainly they may go out and buy the game the next day because they love it but the fact is, whether they liked the game or not, they still had the experience of playing it (and that's what games are; they may come on physical discs or be composed of downloaded bits and bytes, but they are experiences). I'd wager more pirates would, however, never buy the game or would tell themselves it was good but not worth $X and when it reached the price they do feel it is worth, they would have forgotten all about actually buying it.

thanks again for filling it out everyone

The numbers may not add up, I agree that it is easier to imagine more people downloading it than buying it used. But just a few points.
There is no evidence that someone who pirated the game would have purchased the game. With a used game, the person was willing to purchase the game. I think that it is easier to view that as a direct loss to the gaming companies.
I think the "pirate communities" are very small also, at least so much smaller than the amount of gamestop customers. I know for an average gamer, gamestop is the only place they go to buy video games. And gamestop is constantly advertising and giving deals for trade ins. There really isn't any kind of advocate for pirating. The person has to be above average at using a computer (rarer than you think) and also know where to look.

 

[LikeDustInTheWind]

If piracy is wrong letting your friend borrow a game is wrong. That's an extremely simplified version but still true.

Also, I filled out the survey.

 

[StriderShinryu]

There is no evidence that someone who pirated the game would have purchased the game. With a used game, the person was willing to purchase the game. I think that it is easier to view that as a direct loss to the gaming companies.
I think the "pirate communities" are very small also, at least so much smaller than the amount of gamestop customers. I know for an average gamer, gamestop is the only place they go to buy video games. And gamestop is constantly advertising and giving deals for trade ins. There really isn't any kind of advocate for pirating. The person has to be above average at using a computer (rarer than you think) and also know where to look.

Oh, I agree completely. I'll admit I'm a staunch anti-piracy guy but it's very true that it's hard to pull up any real numbers on either side of the equation. A pirated game doesn't necessarily equal a lost sale and, as you say, if someone does buy a used game there obviously was intent to purchase.. just not at the price of a new copy. I suppose I look at it in more the sense of morality than numbers. As I said, pirates, regardless of their individual excuse, get to experience a game for no cost and then decide on the value as an afterthought. It's far too convenient at that point to come up with even more excuses about why not to pay. Even the few choose your price initiatives that do exist still require you to pay before you play. No other entertainment medium works like this except maybe street corner busking, and we all know game development doesn't work that way.

This price issue is easily one area where videogame devs/pubs need to improve. Very few companies approach the pricing of their games intelligently and simply accepting how fast the expected price of a game can deteriorate (or what the proper price for your title is in the first place) will do nothing but improve sales for all games. It will also do much to cut the knees right out from under the companies that exist almost solely on used game sales. I have nothing personally against GameStop, and I agree with you in that they provide a valuable service or in some cases the only service in an area for gamers, but there's little question to me that they take perhaps too much advantage of their near monopoly.

 

[Anarchemitis]

Why piracy exists is because Pirates offer a very simple easy product with which many big companies that try to directly fight Pirates, can't compete with. This is one of the reasons why Valve has been so successful; they know that pirates will always be around, so they try to out-compete them.

 

[Astalano]

From the experience of having read numerous articles and seen quite a bit of data, I concluded 3 things about piracy:

-Substantial piracy can indicate a problem with your game/service, like Valve had with its games in Russia.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLC_zZ5fqFk

-Piracy generally indicates interest. Starcraft is the most pirated game of all time while the sequel was the most pirated of 2010.

http://www.gamesradar.com/pc/starcraft-ii/news/starcraft-ii-is-the-most-pirated-computer-game-of-2010/a-20100812172458966028/g-20070518211627437097/c-1#10374492282500775221966690580627809

-Piracy has little effect and is constant, as well as predictable. Make better games and market them and they'll be pirated more, but also you'll sell more units. At the end of the day piracy is irrelevant. If someone is a pirate, the only way to convince that person to buy your game is by making better games and offering a better service.

Also:

http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/05/Another-view-of-game-piracy

http://notch.tumblr.com/post/1121596044/how-piracy-works

 

[C.S.Strowbridge]

I remember hearing a quote by one of the executives at Microsoft about piracy. I don't remember exactly what it was, but to paraphrase, 'The only way to combat piracy is to make a product people want and sell it at a price they are willing to pay.'

For music this means stop releasing CDs with one or two good songs and a crapton of filler. For movies it means putting out DVDs / Blu-rays with special features that are actually worth checking out. For games it means having high replay value.