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| 12.24.2006Piracy: Here to stay... as always.
I have been a gamer since the days of the 2600, and see piracy as pretty harmless most of the time. My earliest memories of piracy go back to the Commedore64, when I got an unlabeled copy of Zork from a friend. At the time I was in middle-school and my budget at that age allowed me to buy 3-4 games a year, so if I didn't get that pirated copy, I would have never been able to play the original game, nor would I have purchased the full retail versions of at least 4 other Infocom games (none as memorable as Zork I).
Now, I'm in my 30's, and the situation is pretty much the same. I spend well over $1000 a year on games, which is what my income allows. Any games I'm playing for "free" are games I would've never purchased in the first place, and the "free" games I really like usually end up with me purchasing the original, or purchasing future games from the same developer. I get frustrated when I buy a game for $50 and lose interest in the first 2 hours of playtime.
As a previous reader stated, demos do alleviate this problem, and significantly decreases piracy. However, from a business standpoint, if a developer knows their product is average to mediocre, it is not always in their best interest to release a demo (similar to the recent trend in movies where studios will not have a pre-screening for the press on movies unlikely to get critical acclaim). Several times a year I get excited about a game, play the demo, and am left completely underwhelmed. The same thing happens with about 20% of the games I buy, purchases that would've been avoided if I could've got my hands on a demo or other "free" trial version.
The other "harmless" version of piracy comes from pure ego. It has always been cool to be a hacker- and even though downloading pirated software isn't hacking, it gives people a similar feeling of satisfaction; and if the software is not yet released, not available in a particular country of origin, or in the most attractive scenario -banned, it amplifies that feeling of satisfaction to a level only a hardcore gamer can appreciate.
One other aspect of piracy that is rarely addressed is the fact that the level of technical knowledge one must have to download/install/burn said software on PC is much, much higher than that of the average gamer, with the bar being set even higher for consoles and handheld devices where a physical hardware modification needs to be made. Sony always reports on how much revenue they lose to piracy, but probably doesn't even have a figure for how much they have made from consumers destroying their systems by installing modchips, or bricking their psp's by improperly downgrading the firmware.
The most annoying form of piracy that is often never addressed is when one developer does it to another. Every time a game breaks new ground, almost every major publisher comes out with a "pirated" version; same exact core game, but with different details. This trend started with Pong, went rampant with Pac Man, and still goes on today with titles like Resident Evil, Grand Theft Auto, and Metal Gear Solid. Instead of calling it piracy though, they just call it a new genre.
Piracy has and always will be an issue of controversy, and unless all games become online only, it will always exist at some level.
The only form of piracy I've excluded (which is a big one) is the reselling of pirated software- which is completely wrong at all levels. Every hardcore gamer or computer user follows a strict code most of your readers I'm sure already follow; it's okay to try, but never under any circumstances sell, and if you use the software regularly, and ESPECIALLY if you use it for business, buy it and give the developers the credit they deserve.-Tom Newman
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