Study Claims Handheld Game Piracy Losses Top $41 Billion

[John Funk]

Are you asking me to doubt its impact? We have actual figures on certain games - 90% of the numbers showing up on the World of Goo sites were copies that hadn't been purchased, for one. When ~120,000 people connect to the Demigod servers but Stardock is only showing 18,000 purchases? Well, that's another factual number right there.

Yep, those would be the figures I'm referring to when I mention "gospel."

Lets pretend theres more to the issue than "entitled jerks" for a second. I know, madness right? Lets pretend we live in a world where when world of goo first was first released, the only real profile it had was the fact some group claimed to have "cracked" it (insanity!). So the people who actually knew something about the game were around a fifth (actual figure is 83%, btw) of the people who just download whatever gets released, play it for a bit, then forget about it.

As for demigod, same deal. Not to mention illegal distribution being several magnitudes faster than legal distribution. As an anecdote, even I downloaded that game, hoping for some sort of single player campaign, and all of a sudden I'm looking for matches online. I shit myself and alt+f4. Only afterwards do I read its a dumbed down gussied up clone of a custom warcraft 3 map.

The "piracy figures" of these games stop being relevant to piracy once put into even a small amount of context. They become more victims of the weakness of their marketing than anything else.

And, yea, getting your knickers in a twist over the textbook definition of something is quite stupid. Considering the only real reason anyone even cares is because the industry keeps issuing garbage stats like the OP.

And ya know, on the demigod subject, wheres the outrage on that? A half-ass developer rips off the work of a pretty large community and slaps a pricetag on it? My god, the DOTA community is entitled to every cent that game made. Or how about the guy who made the first tower defense map for warcraft 2? Shouldn't he be entitled to royalties for every tower defense game? Are these not examples of intellectual property theft? Oh, wait, they didn't have the money to file copyrights or, for some retarded reason, didn't think people would actually pay for tower defense games. The hell was I thinking.

83%? If you can give me a source, I'll accept that, but the only number I remember seeing from the WoG guys is ~90%.

And there's a very real difference between imitating a concept and outright taking material - don't be ridiculous. You should know very well that imitating a concept - but putting your own work into it; your own programming, modeling, art work, gameplay, etc - and outright taking the IP of others are completely different.

I can write a book about young wizards attending a magic school and fighting evil without infringing on copyright (though with people deservedly accusing me of being a hack). The moment I start disseminating Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone as my own work, that changes.

By the way, the same thing applies to you - as it applies to everyone here: Don't be a dick. It's perfectly fine to have a discussion about this without insulting the other parties involved. Andy Chalk was absolutely right in last week's column: Part of the problem here is the refusal of anyone to have an honest discussion about this without digging their heels in and trying to shout louder than the other guy.

 

[polygon]

snip

I'm not saying piracy isn't a problem, I'm saying these statistics are bullshit and have no meaningful worth to anything related to the subject. The only thing they do is serve to give those cocks who claim to pirate because The Man is always bringing them down more ammo.

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

Lending a book to a friend is one thing (friend has book, you do not have book); scanning all of the pages and sending it to them is another thing entirely.

And that is the distinction I honestly don't understand. You lend a book to a friend and he isn't buying the book from the publisher, publisher gets no money. You sell your book at a yard sale, stranger buys it, publisher gets no money. You donate your book to the library, dozens of people read it, the publisher gets no money.

According to your pro-IP world view all of those are perfectly moral actions yet they are "lost sales" and "taking someone's work that cost kagillions of euro do develop and umpteen brazillion manhours of hard work without paying for it".

Yet if someone scans the book and emails a copy to his friend then he is an evil pirate. If someone uploads a torrent of the book and dozens of people download it both the uploader and downloader are evil pirates.

It is a distinction without a difference. The mental gymnastics required to support libraries but oppose torrents is a level of self deception bordering on doublethink.

Uh, no.

The important thing is not the physical copy of an item. The important thing is the information contained within said copy. Otherwise, we wouldn't have to deal with concepts like plagiarism - I can't just copy Harry Potter word for word and publish it as my own work, because JK Rowling has the rights to that information, even if I've owned the books.

You may own the DVD that contains the code to, say, Super Mario Galaxy 2, but that doesn't give you the right to copy all of the code and models and re-release the game as your own. Nintendo owns that information.

It's not hard to understand, really. If you have paid money for something, you can do what you like with that physical copy. You can give it to someone else (transferring ownership from you to them - they now have it, you do NOT have it). You can resell it (again, transferring ownership from you to them). A library has paid for X copies of a book, and can lend them out as they please: Only one copy of the information exists at any one time. But copying it and disseminating it for free is now infringing on the information that exists inside of it.

It's pretty simple. And you can argue without being a dick about it - discuss politely, or don't discuss here at all.

Sorry I thought that was pretty tame. I did sarcastically exaggerate your previous statement for effect so if that was it I apologize.

Plagiarism and copyright violation are such completely disparate topics that attempting to pull them together illustrates the weakness of the copyright argument. No website is claiming to be Nintendo or that the latest Harry Potter is their original work. I'm not a law talking guy but I'm pretty sure that non-commercial copyright violation isn't a criminal offense (usa anyway), but is civilly actionable. That is why police don't arrest file sharers unless there is money involved.

But you never answered the main question. How is it different, from a publishers point of view, if someone borrows a copy from a library or downloads a torrent? In neither case does the publisher receive money. In both cases many people access the same legal copy and only the first person paid for it. You say it is because many people have access at the same time but as far as I know there isn't any legal or moral prohibition of the library tearing apart a book and posting all the pages on a sheet of acrylic, so many people can read the book at once.

TL;DR bullet points:

1. file sharing is no morally different than libraries or rental stores
2. there is no argument that can be made against file sharing that can't also be made against libraries

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Mmmmmmmm imaginary losses are imaginary..if you can't make the sale its your fault for not making it not a random 3rd party.



In final copy right law should focus more on the flow of money derived from the trade of copyrighted items rather than the mere distribution there of when that tends to cut into personal and public rights and harms society much more than contrived losses of multi billion dollar empires.

Lending a book to a friend is one thing (friend has book, you do not have book); scanning all of the pages and sending it to them is another thing entirely.

And that is the distinction I honestly don't understand. You lend a book to a friend and he isn't buying the book from the publisher, publisher gets no money. You sell your book at a yard sale, stranger buys it, publisher gets no money. You donate your book to the library, dozens of people read it, the publisher gets no money.

According to your pro-IP world view all of those are perfectly moral actions yet they are "lost sales" and "taking someone's work that cost kagillions of euro do develop and umpteen brazillion manhours of hard work without paying for it".

Yet if someone scans the book and emails a copy to his friend then he is an evil pirate. If someone uploads a torrent of the book and dozens of people download it both the uploader and downloader are evil pirates.

It is a distinction without a difference. The mental gymnastics required to support libraries but oppose torrents is a level of self deception bordering on doublethink.

Uh, no.

The important thing is not the physical copy of an item. The important thing is the information contained within said copy. Otherwise, we wouldn't have to deal with concepts like plagiarism - I can't just copy Harry Potter word for word and publish it as my own work, because JK Rowling has the rights to that information, even if I've owned the books.

You may own the DVD that contains the code to, say, Super Mario Galaxy 2, but that doesn't give you the right to copy all of the code and models and re-release the game as your own. Nintendo owns that information.

It's not hard to understand, really. If you have paid money for something, you can do what you like with that physical copy. You can give it to someone else (transferring ownership from you to them - they now have it, you do NOT have it). You can resell it (again, transferring ownership from you to them). A library has paid for X copies of a book, and can lend them out as they please: Only one copy of the information exists at any one time. But copying it and disseminating it for free is now infringing on the information that exists inside of it.

It's pretty simple. And you can argue without being a dick about it - discuss politely, or don't discuss here at all.

Sorry I thought that was pretty tame. I did sarcastically exaggerate your previous statement for effect so if that was it I apologize.

Plagiarism and copyright violation are such completely disparate topics that attempting to pull them together illustrates the weakness of the copyright argument. No website is claiming to be Nintendo or that the latest Harry Potter is their original work. I'm not a law talking guy but I'm pretty sure that non-commercial copyright violation isn't a criminal offense (usa anyway), but is civilly actionable. That is why police don't arrest file sharers unless there is money involved.

But you never answered the main question. How is it different, from a publishers point of view, if someone borrows a copy from a library or downloads a torrent? In neither case does the publisher receive money. In both cases many people access the same legal copy and only the first person paid for it. You say it is because many people have access at the same time but as far as I know there isn't any legal or moral prohibition of the library tearing apart a book and posting all the pages on a sheet of acrylic, so many people can read the book at once.

TL;DR bullet points:

1. file sharing is no morally different than libraries or rental stores
2. there is no argument that can be made against file sharing that can't also be made against libraries

The only thing I see wrong with file sharing is how sites move money away from the market environment this is done via ad rev and donation's and such this should be illegal but the copyright nazis are to busy squelching free speech and other rights rather than deal with the real crime....

 

[Seldon2639]

Sorry I thought that was pretty tame. I did sarcastically exaggerate your previous statement for effect so if that was it I apologize.

Plagiarism and copyright violation are such completely disparate topics that attempting to pull them together illustrates the weakness of the copyright argument. No website is claiming to be Nintendo or that the latest Harry Potter is their original work. I'm not a law talking guy but I'm pretty sure that non-commercial copyright violation isn't a criminal offense (usa anyway), but is civilly actionable. That is why police don't arrest file sharers unless there is money involved.

Neither plagiarism nor piracy are criminal offenses, even when money is involved. But, actually, plagiarism and piracy are cut from the same legal cloth: misappropriation of another's work. Passing it off as your own for your benefit is not very different in the legal sense from distributing it online.

But you never answered the main question. How is it different, from a publishers point of view, if someone borrows a copy from a library or downloads a torrent? In neither case does the publisher receive money. In both cases many people access the same legal copy and only the first person paid for it. You say it is because many people have access at the same time but as far as I know there isn't any legal or moral prohibition of the library tearing apart a book and posting all the pages on a sheet of acrylic, so many people can read the book at once.

It's still fundamentally the owner of an instantiation of a product using it however he/she/it likes. If you read John's post (and it was a good explanation if you pay attention), the distinction is between "you can borrow this individual instance of a book, and the owner can do whatever he likes to it" and "the owner of the instance of the book makes a copy, which he then gives away. He has now created an illegitimate instance of the book, without giving proper recompense to the creators.

Your analogy is bunk. If I pirate a game, I am not "borrowing" it, I'm stealing it. if you cannot see the difference between "my friend giving up his access to a book, and temporarily granting me it" and "randomdude12309238 on the interwebs letting me copy his book, and have unlimited access to it without limiting his access, nor paying the original creator", you're either being intentionally obtuse, or are are very ignorant.

TL;DR bullet points:

1. file sharing is no morally different than libraries or rental stores
2. there is no argument that can be made against file sharing that can't also be made against libraries

1. No, it isn't, see above.
2. Yes, there are, see above. Specifically: libraries don't copy books and redistribute the copies, they buy books and let people temporarily use those books which they own. The difference is not simply semantic.

 

[Seldon2639]

And you know why. There is no solid data or real evidence in the entire piracy argument. Just the industry screaming at the top of it's lungs. Meaning thats really all that can happen in response.

Also, I wasn't aware the guys who made demigod or the people who release tower defense games give credit to the people responsible for the vast majority of their game design.

The fact that the industry even has to scream "piracy is bad, folks, it's stealing our stuff" makes us the unreasonable ones. They shouldn't have to prove that we shouldn't violate their copyrights and shanghai their product. No one makes Ferrari prove that I shouldn't swipe a new one of their models.

Mmmmmmmm imaginary losses are imaginary..if you can't make the sale its your fault for not making it not a random 3rd party.

In final copy right law should focus more on the flow of money derived from the trade of copyrighted items rather than the mere distribution there of when that tends to cut into personal and public rights and harms society much more than contrived losses of multi billion dollar empires.

Imagine saying what you did about the theft of any other product. If I steal a car, would you look at Porsche and say "it's your fault for not selling it to him"? Probably not. And if I bought a stolen one, would you say "see, Porsche, you should be offering a better product than your own stolen product sold at an almost 100% discount"? I doubt it. Yet you're willing to somehow say that it's the fault of a game developer who has to recoup expenses that they can't compete with another person offering their stolen goods for free.

Don't be an ass.

There's no such thing as personal or public rights in terms of stealing property. I don't get to steal your car, and then say to you "you shouldn't call the police, because they might come to my house". I guess I could, but you'd say "fuck off, idiot". We're complaining about the fact that we're suffering consequences from our compatriots stealing stuff. How about we get the people stealing stuff to stop stealing, eh?

The only thing I see wrong with file sharing is how sites move money away from the market environment this is done via ad rev and donation's and such this should be illegal but the copyright nazis are to busy squelching free speech and other rights rather than deal with the real crime....

First, Godwin's law dude.

Second, the real crime being something other than theft?

People shouldn't be able to redistribute someone else's work, even for free. Imagine if someone put up the blueprints to the iPad on the internet, as well as a place to get the materials for free (a strained analogy, but it works). People would make their own iPads (assume it has the same functionality), rather than buying them from the people who spent the time and labor to actually design the damned thing.

That's crap. We wouldn't accept stealing iPads and giving them away for free, we shouldn't accept stealing Assassin's Creed and giving it away (and, after you've made a copy of it, you are stealing the copy, and any subsequent copy).

 

[John Funk]

Part of the problem here is the refusal of anyone to have an honest discussion about this without digging their heels in and trying to shout louder than the other guy.

And you know why. There is no solid data or real evidence in the entire piracy argument. Just the industry screaming at the top of it's lungs. Meaning thats really all that can happen in response.

Also, I wasn't aware the guys who made demigod or the people who release tower defense games give credit to the people responsible for the vast majority of their game design.

Also, http://2dboy.com/2008/11/13/90/ = "piracy rate" was 82%.

Providing figures is screaming at the top of its lungs, now? What can it do if all people do is discount the figures as made up?

Inspiration is one thing - you don't need to give credit for similar ideas. Does everyone making a game or movie with space marines give credit to Heinlein/Ridley Scott? No. That's not the same thing at all.

Anyway, we're not getting anywhere with this. Let's just call the discussion quits and move on.

 

[qrter]

Whatever you stance on piracy may be, I think it's undoubtable that the games industry constant release of shoddy research results is not helping anyone's case.

It just makes publishers look desperate and more than a bit shady. Furthermore, I feel it's very condescending to consumers - we'll wave some numbers in front of you, you'll believe anything we say.

I'm also kind of surprised The Escapist would report on a study like this, and then make the same kind of vague, unprovable comments in its byline ("It's just about impossible to nail down how much the industry is actually losing to piracy but whatever the amount may be, it's a lot." - that really makes no sense at all).

 

[DamienHell]

Wow this is a ridiculous study.
1: A pirated copy isn't a lost sale, there is no guarantee that the pirate would have bought it.
2. Trackers are shared across different sites, so taking 10,000 from one site and 12,000 from another doesn't mean 22,000 since up to 10,000 could be shared.

According to my research piracy has cost the industry -$10 Trillion dollars, based on evidence as reliable as this study's.

 

[Aura Guardian]

To people claiming that not every download is a lost sale: That's true, but that's not the point. The fact that there's at LEAST $41bn of pirated software floating around out there is a staggering number. If even 10% of that was a lost sale, that's $4bn. That is a lot of money.

Would the $41 Billion include the development cost as well? These games aren't made cheap and sales would help the developers. But if they're being pirated like crazy, they're wasting their money making games for "free"

 

[Spiner909]

So this means piracy of electronics is the most successful crime in all history.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Imagine saying what you did about the theft of any other product. If I steal a car, would you look at Porsche and say "it's your fault for not selling it to him"? Probably not. And if I bought a stolen one, would you say "see, Porsche, you should be offering a better product than your own stolen product sold at an almost 100% discount"? I doubt it. Yet you're willing to somehow say that it's the fault of a game developer who has to recoup expenses that they can't compete with another person offering their stolen goods for free.

Don't be an ass.

There's no such thing as personal or public rights in terms of stealing property. I don't get to steal your car, and then say to you "you shouldn't call the police, because they might come to my house". I guess I could, but you'd say "fuck off, idiot". We're complaining about the fact that we're suffering consequences from our compatriots stealing stuff. How about we get the people stealing stuff to stop stealing, eh?

You can't "steal" a thought or smoke or electricity after its released from the lines.
There is no theft or stealing involved in IP/CP infringement its not treated as such its treated as something far more vague why do you think its so hard and costly to punish non commercial offenders? Has the money the media industry spent bullying the masses made up for the losses or are part of the losses of this war on drugs,er digital items?

Because its that inane and vague and non functional you can not steal CP/IP there is only 2 legal processes to fight infringement the main one is commercial infringement involving real bootlegging and the FBI which has some loopholes in its process making it not quite bullet proof and then you have non commercial infringement which comes down to a he said she said shouting match only one side has no money to fight and thus is bullied into an unjust position simple because there is no limit to how money they can fine a person in civil court.


The real crime of illicit profiteering is ignored because no one wants to balance the law and insure that the public's rights are not diminished by conglomerated interests as it has done via the DMCA....

First, Godwin's law dude.

Second, the real crime being something other than theft?

People shouldn't be able to redistribute someone else's work, even for free. Imagine if someone put up the blueprints to the iPad on the internet, as well as a place to get the materials for free (a strained analogy, but it works). People would make their own iPads (assume it has the same functionality), rather than buying them from the people who spent the time and labor to actually design the damned thing.

That's crap. We wouldn't accept stealing iPads and giving them away for free, we shouldn't accept stealing Assassin's Creed and giving it away (and, after you've made a copy of it, you are stealing the copy, and any subsequent copy).

Better to be a zombie layman than a corporate nazi shill, if you are not up to make that work and get lil to no exclaim for it get another job, if you are small fish in a big pond close up show and move on to greener pastures if you as the seller can not gain the interest of the masses then no matter how tight you close the lines and protect the industry from the consume via bad laws and unethical schemes you can never prevent the public from doing something that is natural(share stuff,gather stuff, enjoy inspirational/educational and entertaining works of media) and for the most part ineffective as the media industry has been FINE since the invention of the tape recorder.

You don't like people shearing media get out of the media business because its a basic human right(as last I check by half the world, the US is not the world BTW), think fair use only not so vague and set in stone that amplifies these words THE PUBLIC CAN NOT STEAL MEDIA. On the other hand a business can, and if you make anything off the share or trade of unlicensed goods then you are a business and IMO you are a criminal who needs to be treated the same as those who sale drugs.

Its alot easier to expand personal rights and fair use to focus on those trying to make a profit off it than everyone and everything because the law is outdated and infective in a real world setting.....

/Incoherent intellectual

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

To people claiming that not every download is a lost sale: That's true, but that's not the point. The fact that there's at LEAST $41bn of pirated software floating around out there is a staggering number. If even 10% of that was a lost sale, that's $4bn. That is a lot of money.

Would the $41 Billion include the development cost as well? These games aren't made cheap and sales would help the developers. But if they're being pirated like crazy, they're wasting their money making games for "free"

Without the popularity for the games there would be no market for them,basically "piracy" is cause and effect as you have a idea get funded,finished and duplicated thats 5-50K for a CD, 5K-250K for a small time/smaller pond game or film, 25K-25M for a meduim'ish A/V r game project 10-50M$ for a high and larger projects.

Well one the project is complete most of the people who made it got paid and as it gains the public attention it gets more money to pay off its debt as a single project. Projects done by larger publishers are the most protected from bad/lackluster projects still the studios even if they do well are basically at the mercy of their contracts so more money dose not media from X Y or Z.

Infringing duplications world wide can amount to a drops in the bucket of potential losses, tho I surmise more potential loss comes from anything a shearer or trader makes by hosting a path to copyrighted items. Its the flow of illicit money thats made from the trade of mostly inane and harmless information that I see as the problem. But alas people can't see the Forrest for the trees....

Anyway you go after all forms of illicit profit you will turn file shearing to what its meant to be fans being fans nothing less nothing more.

 

[Antari]

Obviously crack is getting cheaper in Japan

 

[xyrafhoan]

The number of money lost to pirates seems ridiculously high, but then I remember almost all of my family, especially the Chinese side, pirates all of their games (with the exception of Wii Fit), and almost all of my friends own an R4 or a similar flashcart device and have stopped buying most of the games they play. I tend to go out and buy the games my boyfriend didn't, but we both like to play the same game at the same time and don't really have the money to buy two copies, but there are a lot of people who don't even do that. It's hard to argue "well I go and buy the games I pirate. I just wanted to try it out" because there are so many people who don't *ever* buy the game. They just feel they are entitled to play the game for free, and that just bugs me. When I met up with a friend on the bus who lives in a house with a ton of foreign exchange students, he said he bought a Wii, got it modded, and then got 40 games for "free" that he actively plays with all his room mates. I can already say they probably have no intention to ever pay for any of those games, even the ones they really like.

tl;dr Number is probably inflated but the DS and Wii are especially vulnerable to pirated software and there is a staggering number of people who just don't buy games for their DS anymore.

 

[Lord_Jaroh]

tl;dr Number is probably inflated but the DS and Wii are especially vulnerable to pirated software and there is a staggering number of people who just don't buy games for their DS anymore.

And the question is if piracy weren't an option, would that friend have purchased a Wii and/or any of the games that he got for free? Do the 40+ games count as lost piracy copies if he never would have bought them anyway?

He was never a customer in the first place, nor would he ever be. Piracy is not a "problem" nor will it ever be. Used games affects game sales more than piracy ever will, as people who buy the used games are actual customers that chose not to buy new, and just bilked the developer out of their hard earned money (if you want to follow the same logic...). Companies need to start pandering to their actual customers to create value within the product they make rather than try to justify lost money on customers that don't exist.

 

[John Funk]

You don't like people shearing media get out of the media business because its a basic human right(as last I check by half the world, the US is not the world BTW), think fair use only not so vague and set in stone that amplifies these words THE PUBLIC CAN NOT STEAL MEDIA. On the other hand a business can, and if you make anything off the share or trade of unlicensed goods then you are a business and IMO you are a criminal who needs to be treated the same as those who sale drugs.

Its alot easier to expand personal rights and fair use to focus on those trying to make a profit off it than everyone and everything because the law is outdated and infective in a real world setting.....

/Incoherent intellectual

Did you just call media a "basic human right"? It's a privilege, not a right.

And you can steal ideas. If I wrote a novel that was word-for-word Harry Potter, maybe with a name changed here and there, do you think I wouldn't get my ass sued so hard - deservedly?