Piracy, Ubisoft and "the loss"

[SenseOfTumour]

Before I start, I fully agree piracy is bad, but we need to drop the 'piracy is theft' thing, as it ALWAYS brings up the same tired arguments. How about 'piracy is legally and morally wrong', I think we can all agree on that.

What I'd really like to see, is a study into regular pirates, and what they actually own.

I genuinely believe a majority own, and buy, a lot of content, and still pirate stuff.

There's another group, like me, who were terrible, obsessive pirates during their school years, when buying a game was out of the question, and you maybe got 2 new games a year, one at xmas and one for birthdays. (Hear me out before you cry "cant afford doesn't mean you get to steal" because I agree with you.

However, me and many like me, grew up, got a home, got a job, became a regular member of society, and started buying the things we like, because most of us much prefer to OWN things (putting aside the complex arguments about owning anything digital with all the EULA agreements etc).

I'd suggest, and Stephen Fry agrees with me, so I must be right, that the majority of people who download things ARE your customers, and they DO buy things, and if you broke down their door at 3 in the morning, you'd probly find shelves full of bought and paid for games, dvd, and music, OR you'd lock away a teenager and potential future lifetime customer over a couple of hundred bucks of copied stuff.

It'd also strengthen the argument if the companies weren't such dicks about it, claiming that people loaning games to friends, letting them hop onto a personal account, or buying second hand is as bad as piracy just makes it transparent that you're not about right and wrong, you've just heard that there might be some money out there that's not in your pocket yet.

 

[Pandabearparade]

What?

Not to be rude, but the point was pretty clear and concise. Someone who pirates something wouldn't necessarily have purchased it. Pirating offers next to no barrier of entry, purchasing something costs money. Someone is going to be far, far more liberal in what they pirate than what they purchase. This isn't difficult to grasp.

That is not even remotely the same thing. When have you been asked to buy all Bethesda games when you bought Skyrim? Comparing TV-shows and games isn't getting us anywhere.

The analogy still holds. If you're going to be that nitpicky just substitute Showtime with 'The DVD box set of Dexter'. The point is that a pirate can see an untried product that they would not be willing to pay to test and pirate it. That doesn't mean they would have paid for the product, therefore it isn't a lost sale.

 

[Vinicius Zoio]

Every pirated copy is a lost sale. If you did not want the product in the first place, you would have not pirated it. For example I could not care less about CoD, I have no intention whatsoever in buying it, so why would I pirate a copy? I do not want to play the game. This is why piracy is hurting the industry, people pirate games they wish to play. That's my argument, not directed at you

I know this is a lost battle to explain why piracy is wrong... People have strong believes. Nothing I or anyone else here says can convince them otherwise.

Well, I was going to stay clear from this buuuuut... I guess I should try and tackle this one...

With all due respect, things just aren't this simple. Or so black and white for that matter.

I'll try to post my thoughts on how I think the bolded phrase above and below is not true in a respectful and concise manner.

Every pirated copy is a lost sale.

You see, for that to be true, that would mean that, if a person was unable to get a pirated copy, each one of those illegal downloads would turn into a sale. However, even though a certain number of those illegal donwloads would turn into a sale, we can safely bet that not all those pirates would decide to buy the game if it wasn't available for free.

The big question is if that number of real "lost sales" is significant enough to pay off investing money in ways to prevent piracy. Most big publishers think "Yes it is", and then proceed to explore all kinds of avenues available for combating piracy. However, if the answer is "no" and that number of real "lost sales" is insignificant, then all these big companies are pouring down money on the wrong end...

That's the simple answer, I'll try to be more detailed below.

---

The big problem of saying "every pirated copy is a lost sale" is that it is an absolute, and more often then not, absolutes may lead to falsehoods. For the above phrase to be true, every-single-pirate would buy the game had it not been pirated - and with the numbers in the millions, it's very unlileky that -all- those people would follow the exact same course of action had they've been unable to download it illegaly.

Of course, the number of people who would buy the game could be greater (or even much greater) than those who would still not buy the product, and if so, the argument behind this phrase would remain plausible (piracy hurt sales).

However, since that number is unkwown, that phrase is incorrect and cannot be used to defend that argument.

As I understand you, you seem to think that phrase is true because one would only pirate something he wishes to play, but, while this phrase is evidently true, that does not mean that person would buy the game had he not pirated it.

Think for instance of the people in that number who pirated the game but couldn't buy the game. This may seem absurd to americans but believe me, there are some places in the world where such games simply cannot be afforded to be bought by the average citizen. Evidently, that does not make "piracy right" - specially with so many good games out there available for free and the rising number of options for buying games at decent prices - but that still means that some of those people who pirated the game will not buy it later, simply because they can't.

That alone would mean that not every pirated copy = a sale. There are lot of other factors to take into account that would invalidate that thought, but let me try to explain things with a silly example.

---

Suppose that, every day after your work, you walk back home and pass through a gallery of sweet vendors. In this gallery, there are approximately ten stalls selling different kind of sweets, each at 10$, even though the candies available are very different from each other. 10$ just happens to be your change every day - so you get used to buy some a candy on your way back home every day.

Now, what would happen if everyone of those candies were free? Well, if you like candies, you're probably going to eat a lot more than the original "10$-candy a day" that you otherwise would spend. You may try different sweets, somedays you'll eat less, somedays you'll eat more.

But if all the sweets returned to the 10$ price, you would return to your routine of spending your money in the stalls you like best. Perhaps you used to eat candy at the red stall when they were free, but now that the candys aren't free anymore, you'd rather spent your money in the blue stall with the candy you like best.

---

In many ways, piracy follows the dynamics in the silly example above .

A person that is used to pirate games will pirate every kind of game, certainly more than he is able to play or buy. If suddenly, piracy was stopped, that person would then spend his money on the titles he would think more deserving - and not in all the titles he would have pirated.

That means "pirated copies does not directly equals lost sales". Without some kind of "magical farseer", it's very difficult to know what number of those pirated copies represent truly lost sales. To makes things even more complicated, there is also the possibility that piracy can lead to better popularity and generate actual sales.

Using the example above, perhaps you never went to the yellow stall before candies were free because you thought their sweets wouldn't be so good. But then, after sampling their food in the "free period", you've grown to like them. Maybe you told your friend about the yellow stall. And then, when the candies went back to their usual price tag, perhaps you became an avid buyer of the yellow stall...

---

So, no, we can't state that "piracy hurts sales" as if we had actual evidence of that. We don't. The ammount of study and "guessing the possibilites" to make an accurate and scientific research on the impact of piracy in the sales of games would be astonishingly expensive, and frankly, I think we fear the possible answers.

In most cases, piracy is wrong for ethical reasons - in the game industry, an entertainment industry, piracy simply isn't ethically justifiable. But we cannot state that piracy reduces sales in the digital enviroment without concrete evidence. It would be easier if one could concretly prove that - but as of now, it isn't. And that's why so many people refuse to see their actions as inherently wrong.

 

[Jack Rascal]

Not to be rude, but the point was pretty clear and concise. Someone who pirates something wouldn't necessarily have purchased it. Pirating offers next to no barrier of entry, purchasing something costs money. Someone is going to be far, far more liberal in what they pirate than what they purchase. This isn't difficult to grasp.

The "what" came from your "bullshit". You are saying that pirate would not have necessarily purchased a copy, which is my point. Pirated copy is a lost sale. If you do not want the game to start off with, you do not pirate, you are not a sale. If you do want the copy, you are a sale. If you pirate a copy, you want the game and are counted for a sale.

The analogy still holds. If you're going to be that nitpicky just substitute Showtime with 'The DVD box set of Dexter'. The point is that a pirate can see an untried product that they would not be willing to pay to test and pirate it. That doesn't mean they would have paid for the product, therefore it isn't a lost sale.

As long as there is interest, there is a sale. You cannot justify piracy with "viewing" or "playing" before buying. Most of TV shows and games have websites where you can view the product before buying. And even then, if your friend praises Dexter, why not go to their place and watch it?

 

[Rude as HECK]

You are saying that pirate would not have necessarily purchased a copy, which is my point. Pirated copy is a lost sale.

Isn't that the polar opposite of what you were saying?

Anyway, I am going to need empirical evidence supporting the lost sale concept before accepting it.

Oh, btw, it's worth noting the lost sale doctrine has been rejected in courts in various jurisdictions, notably the US, most recently Spain, for what it's worth.

 

[Pandabearparade]

As long as there is interest, there is a sale. You cannot justify piracy with "viewing" or "playing" before buying. Most of TV shows and games have websites where you can view the product before buying. And even then, if your friend praises Dexter, why not go to their place and watch it?

I'm tempted to call 'troll' too. I've made it pretty clear I'm not defending piracy, I'm demonstrating that not every pirated product equates to a lost sale. Which I've done.

"Interest" doesn't equal a sale. Pirating something doesn't necessarily mean one would have bought it without the piracy option. Your assertion fails, sir.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Hey, yeah! There's a 95% chance we're pirates. Cool! Finally an excuse to carry that cutlass around when it's not Halloween.

You know, Bethesda's got it... And Mojang too. Release great games at fair prices with wide mod support for the PC, and your name will last forever...

Couldn't have said it better myself, unless I included VALVe in the mix. Seriously, they're rolling in dough.

But they, rather cleverly, went "hey lets not bother with openly combating piracy, and just make some great games and stick them and a bunch of others into a brilliant distribution platform!"

Actually, it's more than that; Steam has one of the more intrusive DRM platforms on the market built in (it's called Steamworks.) It's just that they're so good with customer service, Steam itself brings so many fringe benefits, and the games are so cheap, that most people don't care.

OT: Here's the real reason piracy is such a big issue: the people in charge of publicly traded companies have to answer to the shareholders, and have to show them that they are trying to maximize profits. Well, they're doing a pretty good job of that; they're already selling pretty much all of the copies they're going to at the current price, and the only way to get more to sell is to lower the price, which for whatever reason, they're unwilling to do. But the shareholders want more money, so what else can they do to at least /look/ like they're working harder? The answer is to go after casual pirates. Sure, it's not going to make any real difference in the bottom line, but people with large stakes in multimillion dollar companies tend to ignore logic when it gets in the way of their bottom line. They're too busy counting their own short term profits to care about the long term ones they're throwing away by pissing off their customers with intrusive DRM. The front page article about Ubisoft is a prime example of a company that does that starting to get that niggling feeling that their efforts are actually costing them in the long run.

 

[Jack Rascal]

As long as there is interest, there is a sale. You cannot justify piracy with "viewing" or "playing" before buying. Most of TV shows and games have websites where you can view the product before buying. And even then, if your friend praises Dexter, why not go to their place and watch it?

I'm tempted to call 'troll' too. I've made it pretty clear I'm not defending piracy, I'm demonstrating that not every pirated product equates to a lost sale. Which I've done.

"Interest" doesn't equal a sale. Pirating something doesn't necessarily mean one would have bought it without the piracy option. Your assertion fails, sir.

Thanks for that. I'm really glad people are throwing troll when an opinion differentiates. For the reference, troll is someone who is intentionally flaming others, not when giving an opinion.

If you think that downloading Dexter is fine, because you only wanted to know if it's any good, fine. I am saying that any illegal copying is pirating, and in effect direct hit on sales. Why purchase something you can have for free?

But apparently I am a troll. Cheers for that.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

As long as there is interest, there is a sale. You cannot justify piracy with "viewing" or "playing" before buying. Most of TV shows and games have websites where you can view the product before buying. And even then, if your friend praises Dexter, why not go to their place and watch it?

I'm tempted to call 'troll' too. I've made it pretty clear I'm not defending piracy, I'm demonstrating that not every pirated product equates to a lost sale. Which I've done.

"Interest" doesn't equal a sale. Pirating something doesn't necessarily mean one would have bought it without the piracy option. Your assertion fails, sir.

Thanks for that. I'm really glad people are throwing troll when an opinion differentiates. For the reference, troll is someone who is intentionally flaming others, not when giving an opinion.

If you think that downloading Dexter is fine, because you only wanted to know if it's any good, fine. I am saying that any illegal copying is pirating, and in effect direct hit on sales. Why purchase something you can have for free?

But apparently I am a troll. Cheers for that.

It's only a directly lost sale at the price point of "free." That's what everyone is getting at. The way supply and demand works, there is only a certain quantity demanded for a given price point on the supply end. The quantity demanded at $10 is going to be higher than the quantity demanded at $60, and the quantity demanded at free may as well be infinite, assuming the item in question is actually desirable, and not something that isn't selling because it's a terrible product. What pirates are really saying is "the asking price is too high, but free is not too high." There is probably a point somewhere between the asking price and free that would get a lot of pirates to start buying, but it's a fallacy to say that each pirated game is a lost full price sale.

Edit: This applies double for used games, since the people who buy them are showing that they are willing to pay for a product, just not $60 each. By fighting a war on used games, game publishers are actually trying to ignore the way the free market works.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I'm not really well-versed in the exact statistics and my opinion alone won't carry much weight or even get noticed in a thread with this much traffic. I'll just point out that those in the industry will now look at any gap between their expected sales and their actual sales and say "must be pirates". That's where we get these ridiculous figures from.

Edit: This applies double for used games, since the people who buy them are showing that they are willing to pay for a product, just not $60 each. By fighting a war on used games, game publishers are actually trying to ignore the way the free market works.

I'm sorry to pester your inbox when I'm only addressing a minor part of your post, but I just wanted to say how nice it is to see other users espousing this view.

It's actually supported by law, at least in America. First-sale doctrine has been codified in U.S. law ever since the 1970's - it essentially gives an individual who has payed full price for a copy of something the right to re-sell it or pass it on to another without the permission of the original creator, provided the copyi tself does not infringe any copyright. This right was recognized in the states as far back as 1908, apparently. And yes, I'm using Wikipedia here.

I'm fairly certian that it would be surprisingly easy to use this right to support the Used Games market and criticise the emerging practice of locking gamers who buy used out of certian content, or even the entire game. I'll admit I'm not well-versed in this law, but it seems to me that any developer who attempts to stop the game from changing hands as soon as the first sale is over is infringing on it, and that first-sale specific content or renewable codes aren't much better.

Unfortunately, there's a contrary law in Europe which allows an original artists to get a cut of re-sale profits. The only thing similar to First Sale Doctrine only really regards patents. I find this slightly surprising, since it's in keeping with the attitude America is supposed to support but doesn't (see the likes of SOPA and it's ilk for an example of what I'm on about here).

It goes back even farther than that, actually. The current law on the matter was written in the '70s, but it's been codified in some form or another for over a century, and it's been a part of English Common law (which is the basis for American law) for multiple centuries. The European law you're thinking of is actually a French thing, and it was put in place because some of France's most famous artists were having a hard time surviving after World War I, even though their paintings were being sold for ridiculous sums of money. In other words, it's a relatively new concept. It's really scary just how bad gamers are at filling the consumer's role in the free market; they basically do the producers' job for them, as far as maximizing profits at the cost of consumer rights goes.

 

[ElPatron]

And as a final note, I think you might have used a different analogy than the War on Terror. I know you didn't mean it in that way, but what can be very much taken away from your statement is that "we should just let terrorists perform their attacks and not resist because it's pointless anyway".
That's pretty insensitive to all the people who have lost loved ones to those attacks and it undermines all the work that's being done by NATO and the national securities of the West to combat that terrorism. Personally, for instance, I like the fact that there are people out there stopping more terrorist acts from occurring, rather than just letting the extremists run riot.

Like Yahtzee said, Bin Laden is dead and the world got rid of terrorism...


Most "terrorists" are either farmers who are fighting because they had their families held hostage at gunpoint, or just brainwashed kids.


If I keep using his analogy, then you are basically arguing that we should sacrifice our personal freedoms for the sake of the War on Terror (DRM), we should ignore the Geneva convention and use illegal ways to obtain information (people use torrents and pirate games themselves to spy peers, comiting crimes to catch the criminals), kill civilians and gun down every terrorist alive (jail to innocents and culprits).


You think it will work? It will end up in people getting hurt, but most of all - it will give others a reason to hate the authority even more.

 

[Farther than stars]

Anyway, I'd also like to go back to the War on Terror thing, as I agree it's a bit of a tangent, but it's the same basic principle. Do you really believe that extremists are going to stop killing people if we keep our mouths shut about it?
How many eyes were on Norwegian terrorism when this happened? Because I'll wager there weren't a lot, but it still happened. Shouldn't we then at least put this knowledge that we've gained of the situation to good use so as to help ensure that this doesn't happen again?

What is the goal of terrorism? Example; Country A has troops in country B to keep the peace. Someone from country B are not happy about Country A keeping soldiers in the country. These people from Country B desides to send someone over to country A to somehow kill some people there, in order to scare country A to pull out their soldiers. If country A does not appear to become scared (ie, does not noticably react to the attack beyond one would if someone close died), why would these people from country B keep attacking? Country A is obviously not put off by their actions, so it doesn't help.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/terrorism

If an act of terrorism does not intimidate it's target, it won't coerce the target. If it fails at this, it has failed it's point and would be pointless. YES it is naive to believe that the whole world could be made to just not care, and so terrorism would go away. That just wont happen, it makes too juicy news, and said news are far too available for the average concerned westerner... Typically, dwelling on something makes it more significant than it initially was.

Yeah, you say that now, but if you hadn't heard anything about the attacks from the news, I'd bet my bottom dollar you'd screaming just as loud about the cover-ups.
To that point, I don't think the media dwells on it. They report. With such an important event, I'm glad about the fact that the public isn't being held in the dark, but that we live in countries democratic enough to have freedom of information and a protected press, so that we can know what's going on.
As for the situation you describe, you say that country B attacked country A because country A was on a "peace-keeping mission". Presumably that means they want country A to leave. So how exactly is ignoring country B's attacks going to stop them, without country A leaving their country?

 

[Farther than stars]

--snip--

Those are some very intelligent points and explain very well what the exact problem is.
Of course DRM can be frustrating, but I'd like to list Steam as an example of it's success. Steam games are of course notoriously difficult to pirate and that is because they have such strong protection.
Now, while it downloads the "patches" with all this protection, the initial download can take a while, but you have to admit, that as long as the game is designed properly, you hardly encounter any bugs in any of their games, despite their strong emphasis on piracy protection.
And the same goes for consoles like the Xbox 360 or PS3, for which developers don't mind developing so much, since those are hardware specifically designed for one function and that is running their programs. That means there are no other executive functions and piracy becomes that much harder.
I think if we lay more emphasis on creating secular systems, such as Steam, that can regulate the piracy, there will be less issues with the protection software than if games have the DRM built speficially around them.
And of course there will be always those who slip through the cracks, but since people are always more focused on new games, the longer the DRM holds out, the fewer people pirate those games, exponentially so. In fact, it's in the first quarter when games are released that most people want to get the game (one way or another), so if the DRM can hold out for even that long, the company can make a lot more profit. That's why an emphasis on DRM is so important to them. And moreover, the more profit they make, the more they can invest that money in new video game projects.

 

[Twilight_guy]

I hate people who use the argument "its not working, don't try" because by that logic we shouldn't have a police force, its not as if you can actually stop crime. I also hate people who think pirating games is not wrong. It's copyright infringement. I don't care what the fuck you believe in its stone cold true whether or not you think copyright is good or bad. Accept the consequences that's its illegal and don't give me bullshit about how you think its wrong and therefor you're exempt. Protesters break the law to change the law, they accept the consequence in order to show the unfairness of the law they don't just count themselves above it. Actually it's really the people who aggravate me. Piracy is a grey issue and full of corner cases but there are so many infuriating people who practice piracy and have the stupidest reasons for it.

 

[Farther than stars]

Like Yahtzee said, Bin Laden is dead and the world got rid of terrorism...


Most "terrorists" are either farmers who are fighting because they had their families held hostage at gunpoint, or just brainwashed kids.


If I keep using his analogy, then you are basically arguing that we should sacrifice our personal freedoms for the sake of the War on Terror (DRM), we should ignore the Geneva convention and use illegal ways to obtain information (people use torrents and pirate games themselves to spy peers, comiting crimes to catch the criminals), kill civilians and gun down every terrorist alive (jail to innocents and culprits).


You think it will work? It will end up in people getting hurt, but most of all - it will give others a reason to hate the authority even more.

OK, this is exactly why I didn't like the use of this analogy in the first place, because comparing the deaths of people with pirating just isn't the same thing (I believe I termed it as insensitive).
So more to the point: no pirate ever got hurt because they couldn't pirate a game, but game developers that lose their jobs every day get hurt when the industry can't support them because of piracy. Now, I don't think that's all of the problem, but it's certainly part of it and therefore worth taking seriously.
And I never said that DRM was the solution, but I also understand that as long as there is a significant number of pirates out there, the game studios are going to want to combat that.

 

[Vampire cat]

... This has gotten stupid, and fair enough. Maybe it IS my fault from making comparisons that I shouldn't have, seeing as they almost completely derailed the thread... But some peoples ability to misunderstand is stunning...

I DO NOT ENDORSE TERRORISM, PIRACY OR CRIME! Do you people think I'm crazy? Or just really, really stupid? Maybe my English is lacking, but my GOD it cannot possibly be this bad? People have misunderstood me in the past, but this thread takes the cake... The ACTION of terror and the ACTION of priacy is NOT the same. But the RESPONSE government/company come with ARE. They both base themselves on tighting up security, and they both end up affecting the general public/customers more than they do terrorists/pirates... It really pisses me off that this whole terrorism thing was allowed to be taken this far, cause this thread was NOT about that. I made a simple comparison between two similar aspects, and some people couldn't just absorb that and move along...

PIRACY is NOT good. But piracy is ALSO NOT THEFT. A lost sale is not a sale stolen, it's a sale lost. For a bad reason, yes, but in the end it's no worse than losing customers because you offend them or layer on so much needless protection that the paying customers experience is ruined and you lose said customer...

People pirating games they like (or even dislike) are not good people. People that steal cars are not good people. People that bomb office buildings are FUCKING HORRIBLE PEOPLE. But stealing a car is easy... You break the window, hotwire the damn thing (never stolen a car, don't know how to do that...) and off you go, aparently. The police do not usually catch these people in the act. The offence is reported, and the car may be found at a later time, possibly along with the criminal. You did not STOP the stealing of the car, but you DID get the car back at a later time. Can you prevent the crime? Yes, some times you can. But not all.

I'm NOT saying that we can just ignore terror, because we can't. I said this earlier. People WANT the information, media want to distribute the information (thats how they make their money), and the terrorists want everyone to see what they have done. If no one heard about terrorist attacks no one would be afraid of it, and terror would not work. It cannot happen, but thats how it works. Thats how terror works. You can to a large degree prevent people from performing these attacks. If you can, you should. But not when it starts hurting innocent people! That's a sign it has gone TOO FUCKING FAR. I am NOT willing to sacrifice my freedom for security. Do I want someone to pay for killing me? YES. But I don't want to live in a steel box to make sure it doesn't happen... What keeps most people from commiting crime beyond the moral dilema, is fear of getting caught. Pirates don't give a fuck, because they can't get caught. Your garden fence can be as tall as you want, if there is no consequence for people that climb over it and nick your gnomes, why wouldn't they? I wouldnt. You wouldnt. We have strong moral compasses. Some don't. They dont give a shit...

The best way to prevent people from doing something wrong is by keeping them afraid of the consequences. Maybe, if CSI: Miami did a few episodes on dirty pirates getting busted, kids would think twice... Making sure one guy doesn't get any of the ice cream by locking it in a steel chest with 70 locks inconviniences everyone, and if he wants the ice cream bad enough he'll go for it anyway... And like I said earlier, EVERYONE should know that piraters LOVE a challenge...

 

[SenseOfTumour]

I'd also maintain that it's not just about 'lost sales', the internet and a generation of tech savvy users has meant that the people who always enjoyed being in control, are having a growing feeling of not being able to control things any more, with data flowing all over the world and them not having a say in it.

"We've decided on a UK release of Walking dead season 2 sometime in Feb-"
"Uh Boss, there's already torrents of it and it's being watched from the UK on video sites"

Facts are, the public feel a lot more entitled since the internet came along, and if you won't LET us buy what we want, when we want, don't be entirely shocked if we find our own ways around your locks, rules, and barriers to get to the content. Then end up buying the DVDs anyways when you get around to releasing them because that's how much we love the show as fans.

I've linked it before and I'll do it again, Graham Linehan on piracy, he wrote Father Ted, Big Train, Black Books, IT Crowd and many other wonderful comedies:


(shuffle to about 8:35 if you just want to hear the piracy debate - he's essentially saying many people aren't pirates, they're just fans who don't want to wait when they know it's available in the US, and they're the same people who'll buy the damn blu ray when the company chooses to bless our tiny country with a release.)

 

[Koroviev]

Apparently a lot of people do it. I don't know why. I mean, why risk the health of your PC going on seedy sites (pun not intended) when you have Steam there to sell you legitimate copies at outrageously low prices? And let us not forget about the glorious Humble Indie Bundle.

 

[ElPatron]

I didn't say you thought DRM was the solution. I used it because:
- It's ineffective (like the War on Terror)
- It's the most widespread measure.
- Can be argued to violate privacy and other personal rights to some extent.
- It hurts everyone, even the paying costumers. The pirates, not so much.


Second, you don't need the "boohoo developers can lose jobs" because that was not what we were talking about, nor did I mention that piracy doesn't affect gaming. There is no point in pursuing that question because we have no disagreement on that subject/nobody can come up with statistical facts actually capable of proving a point.


Answer? There are other ways.

 

[Harb]

I pirated Skyrim when it came out.

I also preordered Skyrim and registered it with my Steam account. The box is currently on my shelve.

Where is your "every pirated copy is a lost sale" now?

Maybe customers should start saying "DRM ruins gaming industry!".