Hard times: PC game piracy in US estimated at 75-80%

[wraggster]

Woe be the PC game developer these days, as various reports put piracy rates in the U.S. at approximately 70-85%.

Pirates?! I'm supposed to be fighting a hydra!
It's no wonder that Epic Games is dumping PC games for the greener pastures of console gaming: piracy rates for the U.S. market alone are hovering around 80%!

And beyond the U.S., the piracy picture becomes even larger and more menacing -- especially if you're an independent developer without "Madden-sized advertising budget," said THQ Director of Creative Management Michael Fitch, who laid out his case against piracy and hardware manufactures in an epic rant at the Quarter to Three forums.

In the post, Fitch attacked pirates, the PC software security model and everything in between. In Europe, he said, piracy rates approach 90%. In Asia, those figures are "off the charts."

"I didn't believe [the data] at first. It seemed way too high. Then I saw that Bioshock was selling 5 to 1 on console vs. PC. And Call of Duty 4 was selling 10 to 1. These are hardcore games, shooters, classic PC audience stuff. Given the difference in install base, I can't believe that there's that big of a difference in who played these games, but I guess there can be in who actually payed for them," Fitch said.

These are hard numbers for any PC developer to ignore, and from the tone of Fitch's message board rant the other day, things are likely to get much worse before they get better. Or should that be "if" they get better?

http://www.gamepro.com/news.cfm?article_id=165488

[Veskgar]

Piracy sucks but the video game industry keeps setting record breaking years with earnings. Even despite a slowing economy here in the US.

So maybe the reports on the gaming industry don't include PC games. Anyway, no matter how much I have tried, I was never able to get into PC gaming. Gaming on a console has been where its at for me since the NES. And modern day consoles such as the PS3 are more and more like a computer so I see why some developers might want to shift over to console development.

[NoQuarter]

Business models need to change,period!
There will be no way for a company to survive unless it embraces to alternatives to copyrighting intellectual property.I am not expressly supporting piracy(I really don't like it,if I like a game I certainly can afford to buy it) but it is changing the face of business.
Switch to open source and figure out another way to make money,It's definitely feasible.

Intellectual property right really do hinder us as a society,think about it...

[MicroNut]

The PS3 is the secure distribution platform of choice.
Folks keep saying its going to be hacked.
Thats just stating the obvious.
It is going to rain but not for a long time.

360 is going strong.
With virtually no homebrew, the only hacks make it purely a pirates dream... right up there with the PC.

[NoQuarter]

That's a pretty good assesment MicroNut,I have to agree with you.I know I spent some money at the playstation store :)

[MicroNut]

I have spent a lot of money at the playstation store too.
Cant wait for Wipeout HD...

[JKKDARK]

Really terrible number. I hope it can do better in the future.

[LazerTag]

I find those numbers hard to swallow.

I WAS a hardcore PC gamer and gave it up for the greener pastures of the consoles. Wii, PS2, and XBox currently. I hope to add either Xbox 360 or PS3 soon.

No longer will I have to upgrade on a monthly basis.

No more will I have to install all sorts of obnoxious drivers and add ons.

My computer now is used for browsing the web, e-mail, work, homework, and simply keeping my PC knowledge up to date (the field I work in).

I play some simple games now and then and dabble in those I already own. Occasionally delving into emulation still as I do love that as always.

I just do not see the drop in PC games is simply caused by some major spike in piracy. I want to see see some hard numbers of arrests where the end user actually is caught with the goods, not just a guesstimate on the basis of the difference in sales of each platform.

In fact I actually have bought only one PC title in the past year, Orange box, and had in mind that I would play online with my gaming group. After getting done with Portal (great fun if you don't know) I dropped it like it was hot. Just boring compared to the ease of playing any of the console games I have.

Plus I think gamers, like myself, are getting to an older stage in life. It's not like when I was in my twenties and would stay up to all hours playing games. I'm in my mid thirties now with 12 and 9 year old boys. They need guidance in life and help on their homework. I've become a father whom isn't glued to his bs games constantly. I tend to play stuff that can be quickly set down or simply turned off, consoles offer me that.

My kids do play on their computers, but even the games they mainly play on the PC are not store bought games, but Java or Shockwave based from various game sites. Other then that they as well still play the oldies, but new PC games is practically unheard of in my home. And we are a 6 or 7 PC house now.

My point on age is the younger gamers who are playing and buying games now would seem to me to have teethed on consoles. That's what they use (my kids and my nephews/cousins are of this crowd, 10 to 25 roughly). They've never bothered with PC games for the most part as the consoles have always had the fix they needed.

Anyway, now I find that same fix in the same place and thus have helped lessen the number of PC game sales.

On a final note the only thing I think WILL come to pass is that investing in PC games or systems like Steam may be a bad investment in the next few years to come. Now if they could figure out a method to take Steam over to one of the next gen consoles, that could be a money maker. ;)

[jamotto]

These things make me laugh, they invest big bucks into the latest anti-piracy measures to the point where they conflict with themselves. One games DRM stops another game from starting.

Take Bioshock just as an example, installing it for the first time was a pain. I put the cd in to start the install, ten seconds into the install you see that wonderful BSOD. OK, reboot and get on the Internet to see whats wrong, drat cd-rom firmware is incompatible with the DRM I need to update the firmware. Fine, install the firmware and reboot again, start the install once more. It says it needs to download an update. I click OK, and oops can't connect to the site. Back on the Internet, find out this is a known problem, I need to set IE to use a ....proxy server? wtf
sigh, fine fine change IE's settings as shown. Go back and start the install yet again. It makes it all the way to downloading the "update" that I end up having to restart the download four times as it kept timing out on a proxy server that has a 65ms ping time.

I am, however lucky I didn't have any trouble with the CD-Key Issue where the game would reject valid CD-Keys. :rolleyes:

With more PC games having to make you jump through hoops like this I can see why fewer people are buying new PC games. If I was asked I would suggest the console version.

[juiceface]

"Intellectual property right really do hinder us as a society,think about it..."

I stronlgy disagree with this, as copyright is what keeps everything in line for people who make these games (for a living, you know familes and stuff) for your pleasure. trust me, If you personally created a unique game for 3 years as your lifeblood and living you would like copyright and IP to protect the investment you made in your work.

What incentive do game programmers have to make games for people? Money. What incentive to artists have to make music? Money. Just because people want to make money for their work does'nt mean copyrighting their work is a hinderance.

The only hinderance is on you the consumer, because you can't afford to purchase every game.

Now here is where I think the fair line should be drawn. Computer games, console games, games period should not be $50.00.
A new game should be around $15.00, that way NO ONE can complain about being priced out. A new CD? $5.00 each, no matter what. If corporations were'nt so greedy in their practices consumers would have a much better view of the IP laws as they would deem the prices they are paying as "fair and deserving", not $17.99 for a cd that came out 10 years ago.

[FOL]

I stronlgy disagree with this, as copyright is what keeps everything in line for people who make these games (for a living, you know familes and stuff) for your pleasure. trust me, If you personally created a unique game for 3 years as your lifeblood and living you would like copyright and IP to protect the investment you made in your work.

What incentive do game programmers have to make games for people? Money. What incentive to artists have to make music? Money. Just because people want to make money for their work does'nt mean copyrighting their work is a hinderance.

The only hinderance is on you the consumer, because you can't afford to purchase every game.

Now here is where I think the fair line should be drawn. Computer games, console games, games period should not be $50.00.
A new game should be around $15.00, that way NO ONE can complain about being priced out. A new CD? $5.00 each, no matter what. If corporations were'nt so greedy in their practices consumers would have a much better view of the IP laws as they would deem the prices they are paying as "fair and deserving", not $17.99 for a cd that came out 10 years ago.

Yeh what he said, :).

I remember having an argument with a SONY rep, on the price of PS1 games, and his reply was "The prices are as they are because of piracy", stupid lame reply. It is odd logic though, they up the price to offset the piracy they might have.

I think the thing that annoys me most is people who say they cant afford games, but they can afford the console, its like "HELLO, ANYBODY HOME".

Games, CD's etc etc. will always be the same prices and nothing will change, this is why I will never buy a PS3 or XBOX360 (well wont buy XBOX as its only a PC in disguise) games. Who in there right mind would pay over £35 for a game.

*Wonders off to fire up his Amiga 1200, with hundreds of games. Which are better than tat put out today, :).*

[Aryn]

I personally do not believe that piracy is the main cause of the lack in game sales for PCs. Almost every person I deal with has told me they own a game system and do not really desire to purchase new PC games and then upgrade their computers just to be able to play them. As for console game sales, the same people who complain about how much piracy is hurting the video game industry are (in most cases) acquiring record profits. And considering how crappy a lot of the games are these days (not all, of course, there are still some that are quite innovative and fun) and the fact that good reviews (and bad ones) can be purchased one can not blame the average gamer for downloading a game before deciding whether or not to pay a particular company for their creations.

[R4mbo]

Hard times? Oh cmon, Most people (I guess 90%) which use illegal backups dont have the money to buy originals. So there isnt really a damage, since they copy the games, not stealing them.

[LazerTag]

Hard times? Oh cmon, Most people (I guess 90%) which use illegal backups dont have the money to buy originals. So there isnt really a damage, since they copy the games, not stealing them.

It's still stealing no matter how you try to disguise it.

[R4mbo]

Its no disguise, cmon, think about it, you just say so because of some laws. But if you dont have the money, and wouldnt buy the game anyway, nobody is making losses. Its just my opinion independet from any laws. And I'm just writing this because I cant see that stupid "Oh my god, we're making milliards of $ losses because of piracy" whining anymore.

[Sketchy]

Y'know i've noticed a lot of ppl using the 'price of games' excuse. If you cant afford a game don't simply pirate it, just wait. I'm sure that your internal organs will not explode just because you can't buy that 'awesome game that was released 2day'.

I really wanted C&C 3 on the 360 (also coz i dont wanna upgrade my pc....pointless) but i couldn't afford it. I waited and bought it just a month ago.

[phsychokill]

you claim about the people using the price of game argument but how many times have people payed between £40-£50 only to find out that the game is terrible or onl;y lasts a few hours. If gaming firms were more open about what actualy was in a game and let people try them on something more than a demo that just shows the best bits people would be able to make a decission easier.

I recently bought the lost video game yest it was only £18 but it only take 5 hours to finnish and was nothing like the tv show as all the voice acting was rubbish and done by random people. this is the problem with gaming you end up buying a game that the firms lists loads of features for then you get the game and realise half the stuff they said isnt there. yes you could go off gamer reviews but alot of them are biast because of people who dislike certain firms or platforms.

[R4mbo]

hehe, but dont get me wrong, If I like a game and think its worth to buy, I buy it. But with my income that only fits to those really good games... Metal Gear, Zelda, Mario and stuff...

[JKKDARK]

Its no disguise, cmon, think about it, you just say so because of some laws. But if you dont have the money, and wouldnt buy the game anyway, nobody is making losses. Its just my opinion independet from any laws. And I'm just writing this because I cant see that stupid "Oh my god, we're making milliards of $ losses because of piracy" whining anymore.

You forgot something important: The companies lose money when they develop the game. And to get the money back and more money to pay the salary to the workers, they need to sell their product.

[phsychokill]

You forgot something important: The companies lose money when they develop the game. And to get the money back and more money to pay the salary to the workers, they need to sell their product.
you also forgot to add production of some of the bigger games actualy costs more than making a movie.

[JKKDARK]

video games have nothing to do with movies. Both are different entertainment products.

[R4mbo]

You forgot something important: The companies lose money when they develop the game. And to get the money back and more money to pay the salary to the workers, they need to sell their product.

Its true what you say, BUT, if a game is crap, or I dont feel like its not worth its money, I dont buy it. Its not the fault of backups then, its the fault of the company because they failed at making a good game. But this just fits on me and most others... I'm sure there are people with an ass full of money which prefer backups. But thats the minority I think. There's so many speculation... and maybe impossible to get true facts... so this isnt worth to discuss at all.

[MicroNut]

Piracy is theft plain and simple.
What is there to argue about?

[R4mbo]

Morality. I think that it is in some situations not wrong to use backups. In the case when you dont have the money to buy the originals, or you would never spend money on the original version because its not worth it.

[eatnooM]

I think they should start packaging nice things with PC, hell, all games like you can often find when buying albums. A combination of that and digital distribution, because frankly once I buy a CD/DVD game I normally shove it on my hard disk and leave the CD/DVD in its box so I don't have to cart too many around and worry about wear and tear. And it's somewhat more difficult to get them illegally via, say, Steam as they can patch exploits etc.

Or at least, those are 2 ways I reckon would be effective to encourage pirates who think somewhat like me to buy the games. :)

[the_eternal_dark]

Personally, the DRM featured in pc games is pretty much a joke. I don't think piracy would be such an issue if companies would move to an easier way to secure their media (a method similar to steam) and go to digital distribution rather than give us a ridiculous maximum install count or "cd needs to be in the drive during play" and so on. Make one distribution medium that is cross platform (ie no system specific lock-in) and please everyone at the same time. The costs for games would be sure to drop because of this, and all you would have to buy at the store from then on would be the manual booklet and the product key for install/use all locked in a simple, theft resistant hard case at the store.

Tell me I'm wrong.....

[LazerTag]

Morality. I think that it is in some situations not wrong to use backups. In the case when you dont have the money to buy the originals, or you would never spend money on the original version because its not worth it.

OK, I don't know where your morals come from, and I'll say right now mine are not all that great either, but arguing whether this is moral or not is a moot point. It is in fact NOT moral to do what your talking about. I mean we could get into a huge dispute about numerous "laws" that stop you from doing stuff that are only laws. I mean steal from someone, kill someone, hurt someone. Those are only written laws stopping you from those things too, but do you do them? I doubt it. Because you know they are wrong.

I mean when you don't have money to buy a movie, magazine, book, whatever you don't just attempt to steal it from a store because of that, do you? Just because you can download something without anyone probably noticing doesn't make it any more legal then taking from the store. If you don't have the money then you simply don't get it. Maybe cancel your Internet connection for a month or so or don't go out with friends or out to eat so much for a while to make the money needed to buy the product.


And, If you think the game is crap anyway, then why bother with it to begin with? Simply choose to not be a statistic in those cases.

[jmendes]

Wow... if piracy numbers are that high in the US, i guess it´s about 95% in my country (where you pay twice the money for a pc game and 3 times for a console game). I do download games myself now and then... I dont like doing it, I dont encourage it, but it´s the only way I can play some diferent games (I cant pay U$120 on every pc game i like). However, I buy the games I really love, even if it´s just 3 a year. What really bothers me is that I see hundreds of people in internet forums that think it´s smart or righteous to pirate games, even though they can easily afford a game a week... Piracy hurts the very game developers you get your games from, so the smart thing is to avoid or keep it to a minimum.

[NyghtcrawleR]

Those numbers are plain absurd. I'm sure there is a ton of piracy but nowhere near that number.

1. You cant play pirated games online for the most part except on pirated servers.
2. People in general have switched more over to consoles, this leads to a great drop in pc sales.
3. 80% come on.....be serious. Not even 80% of gamers probably even run torrent programs on their computers.

[Spotfist]

I have to agree with NyghtcrawleR, COD4 is a complete waste of money to be playing by yourself, it's all about the multiplayer and you surely can't play the game on-line if it's not an original...? it took me a day to finish the game and I played it for weeks on-line!

I think that if games companies (perhaps music and movies too) just stopped trying to block piracy and focused on dropping the price, things wouldn't be as bad as they are, ok so there are acutal people who are professionally pirating games and making loads of money but surely this should be something that the police should be dealing with...? how much money is being poured into DRM? how many extra employees are being hired to cope with customer complaints? I bought CnC for my PC and it didn't work, It complained about my installation of daemon tools so I e-mailed customer complaints and was given a huge list of things to check. I honestly wish I had pirated the game cuz it was soooo infuriating! In the end I had to crack it WTF?!?!

Does anyone remember the half-life / steam problem when it first came out???? what a nightmare!

What about advertising in games/movies? where does all that money go?!?!?! Im sorry but as usual it's all left to us to solve all the problems in the world! No new ideas, the market just stagnates with the same old junk and then we get blamed when it gets worse!?!?!

[Qmark]

These things make me laugh, they invest big bucks into the latest anti-piracy measures to the point where they conflict with themselves. One games DRM stops another game from starting.

[...]

With more PC games having to make you jump through hoops like this I can see why fewer people are buying new PC games. If I was asked I would suggest the console version.The pirated version any idiot with a bittorrent client downloads, for free, actually works. The one bought at Wal-Mart, for money, does not, or at least not until after a couple hours of insanity.

Guess which is going to be more popular?

Additionally, consider how many people here are honest enough to buy a game, but end up grabbing a no-cd crack or an entire pirated version of the same damn game, jut to get the freakin' thing to run? I'd bet they have gotten piled into that "80%" as well.

[Devilkin]

Take into account a 1 time fee of purchasing a console $299-$499 compared to upgrading a pc every 4-6 months to be able to play the newest releases...yea.. console game sales will be better.

[robotdevil]

Well, the numbers definately don't add up. 80% is a rediculous amount of people pirating games. If you figure an average decent game sells approximately a million copies that means that 800,000 people have an illegal copy of that game. That's a little hard to swallow. I would be more inclined to agree with something in the range of 40-60%. But I also agree that arguing whether or not this is morally wrong is idiotic. It is wrong, plain and simple. You are taking someone elses hard work and using it without reimbursement.

That being said, it's not all hard work either. Most people don't realize that many games share the same underlaying engine (care to guess how many games use the Quake engine? How about the Unreal engine? Yeah, didn't think so) and the cost to liscense those is hundreds of thousands of dollars. And consider that an average game takes 6 to 8 months to develop and a good game takes 12-18 months you can see the cost for these is getting pretty high.

But then we see a ton of games produced with no purpose. And games building on the franchises that made them famous not delivering. CoD4 for me was a huge let down. CoD1 and 2 had great single player campaigns and when I heard that CoD4 was being made by the same peeps I had high hopes for it, and it really is a good game. But $50 for 5 hours of play? Come on, that's reatarted. And the notion that the multiplayer is what makes the game, well the multiplayer is just average, nothing really special about it. I will eventually purchase it, but I'm glad I downloaded it for now.

Conversely, I also downloaded UT3 and was so immensely impressed with it that I did purchase it. And I wasn't expecting much from that game (I was expecting UT for a 4th time).

So, for me at least, the question of whether this is "right" or "wrong" is irrelevant. I am a PC gamer, and have been for years, and the cost of keeping a gaming rig running has gone up by an exponential factor. Unfortunately my pay has not kept pace so I must cut corners to decide what games are worth keeping and what games will end up in a landfill on a DVD-R.

Now, that's not entirely true, I use DVD+R.

[RagManX]

Well, the numbers definately don't add up. 80% is a rediculous amount of people pirating games. If you figure an average decent game sells approximately a million copies that means that 800,000 people have an illegal copy of that game.
Actually, an 80% piracy rate means total sales make up 20% of the entire game usage base. So a game selling 1,000,000 has an additional 4,000,000 people playing pirated copies. I'm not sure I buy that at all.

Furthermore, comparing piracy rates for Bioshock will almost certainly give some of the worst rates possible, since many of us gamers found out early on about the evil and potentially destructive copy protection and warned others against buying it. I had already installed the copy I bought at GameStop before I found out it had the same copy protection that had previously destroyed 2 of my CD burners. I warned people on my web site not to buy it. I didn't say pirate it, but I'm sure many people who heard about the problems did that instead of paying for something that could actually cause a hardware failure. The pirated version had no such copy protection.

I don't approve of piracy, and I spend a heck of a lot on games I want to play. When I can't afford something, I wait until I can or do without. I'm not saying stealing games is acceptable behavior. But I think I can explain why some people are doing it. And I don't believe the 80% number given.

RagManX

[phsychokill]

alot of the people who pirate games must be stupid as if you look on the officail assassins creed forums there is a bunch of people asking for help with crashes when the game isnt out till the end of the month and they are all having the same crash as the leaked copy had a bad file.

[krakenx]

So follow the logic here: If something doesn't sell, its because of the pirates. So when Coke 2 didn't sell, it was because people were pirating it?

Of course PC games aren't selling because their minimum system requirements are 10x what people need otherwise. 900MHZ is enough for web browsing, word processing, and SD video playing, which is what people usually use their computers for. If you want Bioshock to look half as good as the 360 version, you need a beefy (2.2ghz x2) dual core processor at least 1.5 gigs of RAM and a very powerful (possibly two) graphics card. And even after that, you still have draconian DRM, awful keyboard control, a lengthy install, storage issues, and system incompatibilities. PC gaming will die as soon as M$ and sony let you plug in a USB mouse for RTS games and Blizzard makes a WOW port. And its not because of piracy, its because of common sense.

It isn't going to die completely of course. On the fringes, there will still be the counterstrike crowd, casual games will continue to expand, and indie games like Aquaria will continue to be amazing, but the days of mainstream 3D PC gaming are numbered.

[Murdock]

This entire discussion is dumb and has been done so many times ... always the same arguments by the "piracy hunters" and their "fellows" (those who cry like idiots: "Piracy = Crime!")

1. Piracy is not legal .. that's true ... but comparing a simpe COPY of a game/video/song ... with a crime like stealing sth. in a store (maybe even with violence involved) is just rediculous ... every idiot can see there's a huge difference! :rolleyes:

2. These numbers only serve to excuse lousy PC game sales ... nothing else!

3. Unfortunately I have seen a German company going down because a good game did not sell very well, it's called "Paraworld" .. great game if u ask me ... but I seriously doubt the reason (as the CEO of the company later stated) was that the game was copied too often ... there was hardly any advertisement (due to a lack of money), game shops sold the game, but it was placed in the very last shelf of the shop :mad: I didn't even notice it b4 the news was on the TV that the company had to close it's doors :(

4. What about the numbers of console games that get copied and played? No information about that ... simply comparing two numbers (sales console vs. PC) is rediculous ...

5. Don't tell me that playing a copied PC game via pirated servers/hamachi, etc. is the same than playing the original game online with a valid key .... it is surely NOT! Every1 who states sth. else doesn't know what he's talking about! -> new games are created around the online gaming feature (e.g. QW:ET, find out which game this is urself). So ppl. who first play the pirated version will be pretty eager to by the game (like in my case ... I didn't pirate it, but a firnd of mine brought it to a LAN match ... I played it with him, against bots and wanted the original) -> since online gaming gets more and more dominating, the problem will vanish more or less by itself ... since no1 can play on RANKED servers for example with a copy ... it simply doesn'T work!


6. A company who gains more and more profit every damn year and at the same time comes whining and crying like a whimp that their games get copied and they lose money is makeing a fool of itself ... just look at these companies gains ... no matter where u look, music, video or game industry .. they earn more and more every damn year ... and then complaining about piracy? :rofl: sorry, but this can't be true ...

7. Conclusion from these above and agreeing with other comments here:

- Lower the prices and more ppl. will b able to buy the games! I know that production costs are very high for good games, but u can't tell me that a game has to cost 60 to 70 € ... I got QW:ETfor 19,- € ONLY about half a year after release ... so why not selling it from day 1 at such a low price? It'd be like a wave, more ppl. have the game from day 1 on, more other ppl. will see the gae at their friend's and in turn will buy the good game again for the cheap price ... -> in the end = more money for the companies ... they'd even need less money for advertising a game, since good games then would advertise themselves ...

BUT: The problem is that more than 50 % of the games are pure CRAP! Therefore companies require a high price to get the money for development back. They do not want ppl. to advertise their games since they aren't 100 % convinced of their product themselves ... they know this "wave-theory" would not work!

The only thing they want is a lot of money from the first buyers ... they know these ppl. won't recommend or advertise the game since they play it, get mad since they payed a lot of money for it and tell their friends that it sux or their friends play it themselves and see it's not good.

This is not a theory, it's a matter of fact! Seen it so many times ... a firned of mine buys a lot of new games since he's got a job. 90 % of his friends see the games and we of course test them on LAN parties ... most of them are quite fun for an hour, but aren't work 60 bucks ... -> no recommendation -> no further money for the company -> high price for the first buyer who gets angry then and may even think about pirating the next game because he got literally cheated the last time!

The current system still worx, but I doubt it will for a long time ...



PC gaming will die as soon as M$ and sony let you plug in a USB mouse for RTS games and Blizzard makes a WOW port. And its not because of piracy, its because of common sense.

more than doubtful ...

why should players buy console games that cost 1.5 times what the same darn PC title costs? Additionally, try to install MODS and add-ons on a console ... they try to improve the add-on possibility on console titles, but it's not the same. And I believe it will never be the same ...

additionally, there's more than just the mouse and the keyb u need to play an FPS shootter properly. THings that a console can never serve ... every1 who has ever played a FPS shooter on PC with PASSION knows what I mean ...

oh, and please ... explain ur common sense to me ... seems not as common as u thought since I don't get it -.-