I'm not biased for/against pirating, both have valid argument and no amount of internet raging is going to stop people from doing it.
But... those statistics are wrong.
First, like so many people have already said, for most pirates its not a choice between buy or pirate. Its more like, pirate or drop it. So the $42m value is off by quite a bit.
On another note, there are a hell of a lot of countries where copyright laws are non-existent, and I'm not talking about China, they at least deal with some of it. It is the whole of the middle-east, Africa (minus South africa? not sure), a lot of Asia and I'm not too sure about south america. In these countries you will not find a legal copy of a game, they do not exist. At all.
Game shops in these countries are all pirates, so they download one copy of the game, and then burn on to ~20 CDs. So essentially, the numbers you see above are off by quite a bit.
If these big game companies want to increase their revenues by cutting down on pirating, the smartest move would be to try and ship legal games to these other countries or get copyright laws into these countries indirectly. I'm currently in Libya and I know a lot of gamers that would love to support the developers of their favourite games.
Currently in Libya the only legal games you can buy are ps3 games, and they sell them for rip off prices, the cheapest you'll find is about the equivalent of £40, and the most expensive (e.g MW3) for £125. If I was faced with that choice, I think I'd pirate(which I'm not, 3 cheers for steam!). (the stated prices are before the revolution and everything tripled in price)
Sorry for the wall of text....
But... those statistics are wrong.
First, like so many people have already said, for most pirates its not a choice between buy or pirate. Its more like, pirate or drop it. So the $42m value is off by quite a bit.
On another note, there are a hell of a lot of countries where copyright laws are non-existent, and I'm not talking about China, they at least deal with some of it. It is the whole of the middle-east, Africa (minus South africa? not sure), a lot of Asia and I'm not too sure about south america. In these countries you will not find a legal copy of a game, they do not exist. At all.
Game shops in these countries are all pirates, so they download one copy of the game, and then burn on to ~20 CDs. So essentially, the numbers you see above are off by quite a bit.
If these big game companies want to increase their revenues by cutting down on pirating, the smartest move would be to try and ship legal games to these other countries or get copyright laws into these countries indirectly. I'm currently in Libya and I know a lot of gamers that would love to support the developers of their favourite games.
Currently in Libya the only legal games you can buy are ps3 games, and they sell them for rip off prices, the cheapest you'll find is about the equivalent of £40, and the most expensive (e.g MW3) for £125. If I was faced with that choice, I think I'd pirate(which I'm not, 3 cheers for steam!). (the stated prices are before the revolution and everything tripled in price)
Sorry for the wall of text....