The lights are on
Publishers have taken Piracy very seriously. At least that's what they want you to think. Companies, such a Ubisoft and EA, are dabbling in DRM solutions that involve an maintaining a constant internet connection to the servers that can constantly verify authenticity. What does this really solve? Who does it effect? Is there a better way?
We all know about Supply and Demand, but we cannot honestly expect that to work in industries that work in digital products. The only money you really need to make back is the cost of initial production. Actually writing the discs or digitally distributing the product accounts for so little of the equation, you don't have to factor it in. Without supply and demand, how do these companies determine prices? Your guess is as good as mine, but i'm assuming it involves and steel-tipped dart and a wall full of price points.
The CEO of Crytek, Cevat Yerli, gave a figure in an interview that claimed for every legal copy of the game sold, there were 15-20 copies illegally distributed. People tend to steal things when they want something that they cannot legally obtain. In this situation, video game systems, games, peripherals, cost way too much for the average joe to buy everything they want. Solution? Download it free from the interweb!
The gaming industry has suffered along with its brethren, music and movies, in the piracy situation. I will be quite honest: I have illegally downloaded many things in my time. From mp3s, to video games, to crappy movies recorded in a crowded theatre with a handheld camera, I've had my hands in the wallets of all those companies. Do I have any regrets? Of course not, I wasn't caught and subsequently sued. I, like many others, have been able to evade those companies' pursuit. Will I do it again? Not after writing this.
I AM NOT ADVOCATING PIRACY. I am simply making an observation. If 15-20 people are downloading the games for every one sold, is there not some price point that would make these figures smaller? If newly released major console games cost $40 instead of the popular $60, would this gap narrow to say, 5-10 downloaded for every copy sold?
The marriage of digital products and piracy has been an interesting beast. It will not soon go-away. But why must companies use tactics like Ubisoft's DRM debacle, or lawsuits, when the answer is staring them right in the face: lower price points. There's a reason PS2s still sell to this day. People love video games and a PS2 retails for about as much as a house in Detroit. There has to be some industry analyst out there detering Bobby Kotick from raising prices even more that can see that lower prices may actually make them more money. At some point, these companies have to see that the solution is much easier than what they are trying.
I am looking forward to your thoughts on piracy, pricing, and Bobby Kotick's obvious hair piece. Please comment below!
It doesn't matter what price point a company shoots for, there will always be a degree of piracy. People do it, because they can. But there's also a misconception among people who adamantly oppose piracy, and that's the idea that every pirated file is a costumer lost. In my experience with pirates and piracy, there's a very low threshold for people who take a file because they can and people who would genuinely go out and purchase the file if it weren't readily available online.
As for DRM, I think a level of protection is not only acceptable but it's expected. But when companies start taking extreme measures, like Ubisofts constant internet connection requirement, you'll find that costumers feel alienated and abused. Attempting to punish pirates, by making the game frustrating to your costumers isn't a good business model.
In the article, I'm not saying that a price drop would completely erradicate piracy: "If 15-20 people are downloading the games for every one sold, is there not some price point that would make these figures smaller? If newly released major console games cost $40 instead of the popular $60, would this gap narrow to say, 5-10 downloaded for every copy sold?"
I would think that there would be a price point where they wouldn't have so many copies stolen.
I'm just not sure that piracy is that closely controlled by price points. New games haven't gone up in price but 10 dollars between the last gen and the current. (59.99 up from 49.99) And everyone I know with modded Xboxes buy the games that they actually care about and pirate everything else. They wouldn't have bought those games at any price.
I see your point, I'm just not sure that price is that big of a motivator.
Not just the games, but the price of consoles, as well. My mentality, when I modded my Xbox1, was that I had already forked over alot of money to get the system, why keep dropping hundreds on games.
I don't do that know. I like playing on LIVE and I don't want to get banned. That and I'm not a starving college student.
Piracy is something I'm strongly opposed to, but I recognize that it will not go away. Measures like the ones Ubisoft are taking will only make pirates angrier and more determined to play for free.
I did not know that the rate was as high as 20 illegal copies for every 1 sold though. And I do think you have a point about lowering price points; $40 seems far more reasonable, and honestly if a few select companies decided to drop all future games to that price point, the immediate competitive advantage would probably outweigh the loss in direct profits.
Wait, why didn't this guy get his post banned by the moderators?
"a PS2 retails for about as much as a house in Detroit" sweet Jesus man i was having a bad day at work and this one line just turned that right around. Good post but for fear of retribution i will not confirm nor deny any participation i may or may not have had in illegal downloading.
@SMP604164
Why would it get banned?
A. Bobby Kotick most assuredly has a hair piece. Its as fake as the cheap ones you buy on Halloween for $2.
B. I remember the good old days when games only cost $39.99. Oh wait that was only 6 years ago :| You know if I could keep that $20 every time I bought a new game I'd buy precisely 1 more new game after every 2 games. Hmm lets assume most people did that... looks like a lot of added revenue to me. But instead I end up waiting around until games drop their price to this point and get a used copy which (for those of moderate intelligence) means $0 for all those developers and publishers out there.
C. Nice post thanks.
Pirarcy is not ok under any circumstances. I know that publishers have other, more greedy reasons to increase prices, but piracy is still a major reason for such high priced games. Piracy makes things harder for everyone else and if we could put a stop to it than prices would go down substantialy simply due to the fact that video game publishers would have no way of further excusing their high prices other than greed.
@bucknuts
I see your point, I just think it's the other way around. There's no way to get rid of piracy, so your theory doesn't really have a solution to an end. I don't think that piracy has resulted in the higher prices of games and consoles. Prices are based on focus groups and an effort to recoup development expenses while turning a profit. Not "people are stealing our stuff so we have to raise prices." It doesn't fit into supply and demand of retail products (consoles and physical game units). They would just alienate people that legally buy games.
Then again, that's what they are doing with their new DRM, so you could be entirely right.
Personally, at some point, even if it's available for free on the net, I end up buying it. You know why? Because it tends to be of higher quality. I don't trust illegal games, because half the time, you get Alpha-code instead of retail-equivalent code, which just degrades the experience into a mess of bugs. I can't stand movies that were filmed in a crowded theater w/ a camera phone, because the lo-fi recording just doesn't do the movie itself any justice.
Even w/ music, I can't stand downloading MP3s or even AAC encoded files(and this kind of goes for legal download services like iTunes as well), because I happen to be in a very small group of people who can pick up on those little frequencies that get eliminated when you compress a music file to one-eight the size of what it would be on a CD. I'd rather deal w/ the slight inconveniece of managing dozens of CDs than have a low-quality player that I can conveniently carry in my pocket.
That said, though, it's ridiculous that games for PS3 (my system of choice) and Xbox 360 cost sixty dollars. That kind of price is why I only buy one brand new game a year and buy everything else I want used, sometimes two years after it came out (i.e. Resistance 1, Uncharted 1, Armored Core 4) or, if I want a new game, put it on a list and hope it shows up either for my birthday (December 17th) or Christmas. And if I don't get it? Maybe, I'll find it used a few months later and buy it then (such as Demon's Souls or LittleBigPlanet), or maybe it just goes away and I never play it (such as SoulCalibur IV or [to date] Red Faction: Geurilla).
I think charging just ten dollars less for new games on 360 and PS3 wouldn't be a crime, and would probably increase sales from people who want to play games but don't have enough money to keep up w/ all the games that come out.
@ghos1bane
Those prices were at the end of that console generation.
@InfectedCrypt
Don't go on living without play Red Faction: Guerilla. It's a great game. I was hesitant at first, but going around downing buildings is alot of fun.
Okay, here's the deal. Yes, piracy is caused by the price of the games, but... the price of the games is caused by piracy as well. It is a symbiotic relationship of crapiness. People who pirate games cite the price being too high for them to afford them, while the game developers cite the fact that people still buy their games and attempting to make up for all the sales lost thanks to piracy as reasons why the games stay at that price range.
In order for this situation to sort it out one of several things must happen. Game developers get desperate enough to lower the price of their game in a clamor for customers even as the market is showing signs of beginning to re-stabilize, sadly this isn't very likely thanks to greedy publishers and it is still the most likely thing to happen. Another solution would be for people to stop pirating games and the consumers to make a huge fuss about the price of the games. Definitely not going to happen any time soon. The DRM could stop piracy all together, though it most certainly won't, and then people could make a fuss.
Last, and certainly least likely, is that the consumer gaming community, the ones that actually pay, basically go on strike and don't buy any games that come out. The problem with that is that there are so many good games constantly being made that it would be rather difficult for someone to resist. Big name popular games are also released every or every other month, which means that it could feasibly take up to six months for the little strike to have an effect. Lastly, this would have to be a world wide effort. If regular people won't ban together in a concerted global effort to do something really important, like reduce greenhouse gasses, implement green energy, or feed the hungry in Africa, then there is no way in hell that the fanboy nation of gamers is going to not buy that new game for the greater good of the gaming community.
DRM isn't going to work, because as long as you understand how it works you can create a way around it.
Everyone should pirate Activision and publicly claim they are doing it because they hate Bobby Kotic and see if we can get his ass fired. lol.
I just don't buy that piracy causes high prices. Development cost and limited market are what create high prices. But really, relatively speaking, games today aren't much more expensive than earlier games.
You bought a launch date game in the 90's it was around 49 bucks. That's only 10 dollars more and the value we're getting is much greater. And when you figure in the value of currency, then vs now, todays games are much cheaper than even that. (A $50 dollar game in 1990, would cost $80 by todays value.)
I agree with infectedcross, the value of pirated games is it's own punishment because pirated games tend to be glitchy and the risk associated with it is just not worth it.
So let's be honest, video game prices aren't that bad and piracy has nothing to do with it.
Assassin's Creed II, Spore, games like these actually offer an incentive to be a pirate because they are hands down easier to use with pirated software. Way to go EA and Ubisoft, you've made the problem even worse.
I pirate games. its just because we have no money. The only way lower price points would help is in the PS3 section. I'll be pirating for 360 and PC for years to come, but that PS3 stays legit.
If prices are the culprit, then why is the PS3 safe with you? PC usually has lower price points on new releases. I'm curious as to what your thoughts are.