saregos said:
Mike Kayatta said:
Even 700,000 copies of a full-priced Xbox title is still a painful $42,000,000 of potential revenue loss.
....
It wouldn't be fair to say that every pirated copy represents a lost sale, but it would be equally unfair to say that every copy didn't.
So why did you? And if you actually read the studies (instead of jumping into an "OMG PIRACY IS BAD" mentality)
He didn't. He said "potential revenue loss". If every pirate bought the game they otherwise copied, that would be the maximum revenue loss. "Potential" does not mean "Definitive". The problem with digital products is that it is harder to visualise the financial loss. Suppose a car gets stolen from a dealer: they would say that the car is worth $5000 and so they have basically lost that much money. Even if the thief argues that "I wasn't going to buy the car, if I couldn't steal it", it wouldn't make a difference. The dealer is obviously still out of pocket by one car.
1) Most pirates, if they like the game, will purchase it at some point in the future. Oftentimes the pirated copy is treated as a glorified demo (and I'll note, by the way, that none of the games called out above have demos), as that particular bit of customer service has fallen by the wayside in the interest of bigger margins.
I find it hard to believe that most pirates would buy all the games they stole and liked. Suggesting that they do is as dishonest as claiming every lost game is a lost sale, because they both make sweeping generalisations about the habits of pirates. Thinking about it, if someone is willing to steal something in the first place, it doesn't seem very likely that they will ever intend to paying for it later. Fairly obvious proof to this is the old
World of Goo example. The developer 2DBOY revealed that 80-90% of people who own
World of Goo pirated it. If those people genuinely were going to buy the game later, than 2DBOY would surely be expecting a ton of revenue from those 80-90% of players. Such money did not materialise.
As for the lack of demos: it is harder and less necessary to make demos in this day and age. Harder because of the technical difficultues, and unecessary because of the massive number of reviews, forums, lets plays, and other avenues in which customers can find out about the game in advance. Back in the days before the widespread popularity of the internet, demos were vital. Now they aren't. Contrary to popular opinion, a demo isn't that much better at demonstrating a game to a consumer, so it isn't really that big of a loss.
2) Of those pirates who don't buy the game, the vast majority would not have bought it even if a pirated version wasn't available.
So they are opportunists. That isn't an excuse.
You're being disingenuous even putting a number like $42M in your article. Actual losses are a tiny fraction of that... although, as you point out, it's not fair to say it's zero, it's also fair to say it's much, much closer to zero than 42M.
Ignoring the fact that we don't know how many pirates would have bough the game if they couldn't steal it, companies also lose cash due to having to make the game, print it onto DVDs or provide the bandwith for digital distribution etc. If a business went to the expense of making a car, advertising it and putting it in a show room, only to have it stolen anyway, they basically wasted all the money invested in providing that vehicle. So if anything, the losses could be even greater for all we know, taking into consideration those factors.
The point that needs raising is that study after study after study (and I mean real studies, not industry shill studies) have demonstrated that piracy is a symptom of a failure in customer service - i.e. the pirate almost universally produces a better product than the studio in at least some respects.
So does all theft. Think about it: stealing anything provides you with a "try before you buy" opportunity. Theft is the ultimate customer service, or rather, the ultimate self-service. That is the reason why there are pirates or thieves, but in no way does that justify or excuse theft.
