Online piracy has a mighty lure. Armed with a working Internet connection, anyone can download everything from films and TV shows to software and video games. The notion of doing harm, or of participating in an illegal activity, is a nonissue to many. So it should come as no surprise that video game piracy in Australia is rampant. No matter how strong the antipiracy and digital rights management (DRM) measures video game publishers put in place, game piracy continues to grow.
The Interactive Australia IA9 report, released late last year, showed that 17 per cent of gamer adults surveyed admitted to having pirated games in their collections, with nearly 10 per cent of all gamers in Australian homes having illegal copies. Peer-to-peer file sharing now accounts for an estimated 60 per cent of Australian Internet traffic, and console mod-chipping (although now illegal in Australia) continues to flourish as a business. The cost to the video game industry is significant: According to the IA9 report, the cumulative economic impact of video game piracy on the Australian games industry is A$840 million. Australian laws clearly define video game piracy as an illegal infringement of copyright, and the penalties that offenders can incur are far from lenient. So why do people pirate games?
A US study conducted by Microsoft in 2008 showed that half of the young adults surveyed were not familiar with the laws governing the use of online digital content. As a result, Microsoft helped to develop a curriculum for US middle schools to help young people understand how intellectual property rights work. But is education the right answer to curbing video game piracy? Or will publishers feel pressured to impose stricter DRM measures?
In the first part of this feature we analyse the scope of video game piracy in Australia, the laws that govern and protect copyright, the harm piracy contributes to the local video game industry, and local game publisher's perspectives on what can be done to stop piracy. In the second part of the feature we will look at console mod-chipping and how this contributes to video game piracy in Australia. In a follow-up feature, GameSpot AU will look at DRM and the future of antipiracy measures.
Victimless crime?
It seems that very few people have qualms about admitting they pirate movies, songs, and video games. The most likely reason for this is that piracy is a seemingly victimless crime. Video game publishers, movie studios, and record labels are not seen as entities worth pitying; in fact, just the opposite. At one stage or another, we have all been subject to marketing tricks, engorged prices, and plots to make money. Throw in the increasingly high price of video games, CDs, and DVDs and the cost of going to the cinema these days, and piracy suddenly doesn't seem so bad.
According to the IA9 report, of the Australians in the 17 per cent of households with illegal copies of video games, 54 per cent defended their actions by citing high prices charged for new games. Another 36 per cent said they pirate in order to try games before they buy them, and another third said they pirate because they cannot afford all the games they want. One-fifth cited delayed release dates for retail copies of games in Australia compared with other (mainly North American) national markets, and one-fifth said the pirated games in their collection were games that were not released in Australia due to refused classification or because they were distributed in a different market. One-fifth of Australians surveyed said illegal copies are more convenient to obtain than retail copies. Although these insights into gamers' minds would prove otherwise, compiler of the IA9 report, Dr Jeffrey Brand from Bond University in Queensland, said gamers are sensitive to the issue of video game piracy and recognise the importance of supporting the industry. Brand believes Australia's decision to not introduce an R18+ classification for video games is to blame for escalating piracy numbers.
"Australia is the only developed country that doesn't have an R18+ rating, so games which are refused into the country are often downloaded from the Internet and illegal copies are made," Brand said. But with an estimated impact of A$840 million on the Australian game industry, it's worth asking whether Aussie gamers really do get it. Given that Australia is home to largely independent game developers, there is no doubt that piracy is doing substantial harm to the future of our industry.
Tom Crago, president of the Games Development Association of Australia and head of Australian game development studio Tantalus, said gamers don't realise how much piracy harms local studios. "From a developer's perspective, the only financial reward you'll get for the game you've spent two years of your life making is if the game sells well," Crago said. "It would be great if people recognised that when they pirate a game, they're depriving a developer of legitimately earned income. And let me tell you, we're not rock stars; we're small groups of people who work extremely hard to make games that we hope will bring pleasure to those who play them. If consumers aren't prepared to pay to play, then the whole industry collapses."
Crago believes that PC gaming is no longer a viable business for Tantalus. "There's not a great deal we can do in terms of copy protection, as that part of the puzzle tends to be controlled by our publishers, and of course by the platform owners. Larger developers are implementing their own DRM systems. This is very likely the way of the future, assuming the wrinkles can be ironed out."
Representative of the local publishers, the Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia (IEAA) is also doing its best to curb game piracy--the organisation has its own investigators who work closely with local and federal law enforcement agencies to monitor online environments and maintain an antipiracy hotline. "Piracy is not victimless crime," IEAA CEO Ron Curry said. "Whenever someone creates and sells an illegitimate copy of a game, they are stealing money from the many thousands of people involved in development, distribution, marketing, and retailing who have worked tirelessly to create a first-class, local games industry."
The IEAA wants to increase its efforts to stop piracy through education with a soon-to-be-launched antipiracy Web site that focuses on prevention.
"Some of the key factors that lead to video game piracy are the public's lack of understanding that piracy is a breach of copyright--that is, it's a crime," Curry said. "Through a combination of public education on the penalties and impact of piracy, plus tough law enforcement, we hope to reduce this figure." According to Curry, Australia's game piracy levels are increasing through a rising number of gamers and a greater demand for games. "Ease of replication and the rise of Internet file-sharing have had a significant impact on worldwide piracy levels. In Australia, improved technology and growth of Internet file-sharing have been major contributors to the rising levels of game piracy."
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one gaming system cost around 1500$ , windows cost around 100$ (or more ) , antivirus cost around 100$ too , one game at launch cost around 50$ so to be a gamer u must have arround 3000$ , for a boy of a family which earns 1000$ each month but around 100$ is available for fun it is very hard to be a gamer in ROMANIA .
My only drive to have ever sought a mod was for games that weren't released here or where changed for our release. I had my original xbox modded to play Ninja Gaiden and Ninja Gaiden Black, because I wanted the non-censored version (ie. to be able to cut off heads). And I made a backup copy of my Mavel vs. Capcom 2 to play, so to not ruin the disc (which had already been scratched by the EB that I bought it from). I am a collector and treasure my games. I don't like to see them damaged. Sometimes I buy second copies of my favourite games if they are cheap, but I'd rather avoid that. The ability to install games on consoles now with the NXE on 360 means my discs don't risk being worn, which has helped. But you still have to pull the game out and put it in the machine, which is terribly inconvenient... And Australia's obligation to accept changes to its laws because of trade agreements is arse. America can shove its laws.
I see if a game is worth buying so I can support developers that make good games instead of supporting devs that make crap games as games in Australia are pretty expensive compared to the US and Japan. If it wasn't for copies, I would have wasted a LOT of money on crap games! Many games don't have demos and if you cant rent/borrow it, you need to rely on reviews but even if sites give great scores to a game, that doesn't mean YOU will like it - everyone has different opinions.
I own a somewhat modified PS2 and i honestly do not see the harm in it if you aren't using it to play illegal copies. I'm currently running the old style PS2 with a network adapter wired to a 320gb HD and a copy of HDLoader No internal modification required to the console. the reason i did this was two fold. Firstly, i wanted to play imports. There were some great titles that didn't make it outside the states, such as Grandia 3, Xenosaga 1 & 3, Front Mission 4. I own all of these games legally, but to play them i had to dump image files to my PC and transfer them to the PS2. The other reason was so that i could keep my original copies sealed (I own new and sealed copies of some real rareties such as the original PAL Shadow Hearts!) and still play these games by downloading image files of them off the net. This is probably not-so-legal but since i own the originals of these games i hardly see the harm. I don't condone piracy, i'm the kind of person who loves having original copies of games, packaging and all. Hell, i don't even like buying things off Steam. But when it comes to modifying a console, if you aren't using that as a means to play games that you don't legally own, then where's the harm?
i dont see much difference between modchips and other devices that allow/enable copyright infringement. Things such as MP3 players, DVD burners, combo DVD player/writers are acceptable and not to mention the software that drives them. But does that mean everyone with one of these is doing the wrong thing? No. So why are modchips treated differently? The big corporations are just as guilty. They make money from people's illegal activities. They know ppl download music yet they make mp3 players. Copying "Sony" PS2 games is illegal yet you can buy a spindle of 50 blank "Sony" DVDs for \$20 and burn them with a "Sony" DVD writer. And you can watch downloaded movies on a "Sony" DVD player that has divx/xvid decoder built in to allow these movies to play. So why do they make such devices? Im not condoning piracy but i just think its hypocritic to argue one thing is illegal yet at same time provide the means for other illegal activities to occur because they make something from them
all people who say piracy is ok and that game industry should find a way to deal with it: on the one hand you are marxist for going with the free info thing? on the other you deny other people their income? this is exactly why any form of organized society is bound to fall because no matter what the system is people will work against it citing contradicting sources until it burns down. only system that works when everyone is out for himself is anarchy, and when there aint an organized society dont think games will exist. so when capitalist democracy falls and the next robspier is out there offing heads i hope ill be already RIP.
I say if someone ain't making a profit off what you made then it should be all fair game. Sony wised up and made the ps3 unmoddable. I hope it stays unmoddable because Sony needs more sales to go in for the win. Im for piracy but not marketing pirated games basically keep em to yourself.
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The only reason i've been looking around to get my PS2 chipped is because i want to get rid of the stupid region lock, i want to play MGS2, 3, and KH II Final Mix+. The only places i can get these these days??? Playasia.com and ebay. thing is, they're NTSC region locked. can anyone please tell me why they have region locks??? it is the most annoying protocol i have ever come across. Mostly these days i play on PC with no region locks, and its the only thing i'll use until i get my PS3. i only buy a game if its worth it, and when i'm wrong, i get really pissed cause they won't let me return the thing. Far Cry 2, for example, i bought for \\$79 about 2-3 weeks after release. the biggest ripoff ever. it deserved to be worth \\$20. purely repetitive, mindless gameplay and rock bottom multiplayer, and i could have pirated it for a test run, realised it was utter rubbish, and uninstalled it. i want game developers to EARN my money, not make ridiculous false advertising campaigns and steal it. 2 purchases i was very happy with: Oblivion goty edition for \\$60, and Fallout 3 in USA for a mere US\\$50. whats with the difference in pricing??? the game retailers should be swimming in money compared to the fair priced US retailers. If you want less people to pirate your games just lower your prices to the equivalent of US pricing and remove DRM. if its affordable more people will buy it.
I dont see the point in mod-chipping my console, i would prefer to own the actual copy of the game. Some people do mod-chip and i dont realy have a problem with it, its the same as downloading movies and music. If you make a copy of a game why cant you without selling it.The only illegal thing about it is selling the copies you have made of the game, you shouldnt sell copies you have made of cds movies or games because that hurts the industry and honestly i think people who do sell them illegallly are loser and you should go get a JOB or create your own games to sell.
@omnilet: ""piracy has the potential to destroy the Australian video game industry." Epic fail on this statement. Piracy has not caused anything to collapse." Difficulty reading, I see. "Piracy has the potential to destroy" is not the same as "Piracy has destroyed". Nobody is claiming that piracy HAS destroyed the industry. Only that it COULD. And it WOULD, if everybody was a pirate, but luckily there are still some moral, law-abiding real gamers left in this country. Of course, the claim that 'the gaming industry is still making money so piracy is ok' is a fallacy too; that's like saying it's ok if somebody skims off \$2 of the \$5 an hour you make flipping burgers, because you're still making \$3 an hour so your income hasn't been destroyed. So the gaming industry is a multi-billion dollar industry...so what? What if it were a multi-trillion dollar industry? Maybe then we'd have some better games, more risks being taken, and Australia could be taken seriously as a distribution region so we wouldn't have to wait as long as a year to get games released here, if they come here at all. And companies like Auran, Red Ant and Pandemic wouldn't have to close up shop. Which I'm sure have been conveniently forgotten about, since the gaming industry is still making money and everything is fine! Or so you keep telling yourself. I love the stupidity of the pirates.
One other thing worth considering is that the changes to the copyright laws to outlaw things like mod chips also affect things like Action Replay discs for previous consoles. The PS2 Action Replay product was never authorised by Sony, and circumvents the technological protection measures of the console in order to load. Furthermore, it lets you circumvent the technological measures preventing the console from playing out-of-region DVDs. Furthermore, its primary purpose of patching game code provides the ability to circumvent technological measures inside the game itself. Are we really better off now that such devices are now technically illegal?
While the USFTA may have changed the legality of mod chips, it hasn't changed my opinion of them: while consoles use technological measures for more than copyright protection, owners should be able to circumvent those measures. Among other things, a chipped PlayStation 2 could act as a networked media player using music and videos stored on a PC. The software that did this was freely released by its authors, so there was no copyright problem with the software: the problem was that Sony hadn't given permission for me to run that code on my hardware. The PS3 is an improvement here by permitting more things I'd want to do (media player, playing overseas titles, etc), there are still a bunch of things that it refuses to do (e.g. playing overseas DVDs, playing unapproved third party programs/games without the current hypervisor restrictions on access to the GPU). While these activities remain forbidden by the technological measures, I see a need for mod chips.
Pilch_R_eD - that was good chat!
Wii mod chipping id understandable I mean Wii is like the first PS everyone is releasing tonnews of mediocre games with the occassional good one.
Look at Burnout Paradise for the PC. US release date, 5th FEB, EU, 6th FEB. AU, 12th March! It's over a month differance! I want to play it. I want to buy it. I look at all online places I can buy it. Can I? Nooooo, because they won't sell it to me in this country untill it's available here retail. WHY? So now, I have a copy untill it comes out here. I was willing and trying to buy it, but couldnt. Because of this countries greedy retail system. Even online US prices for places like steam, when our dollar was roughly at 94 US cents. US game prices where never higher than \$60. Even \$60 at 90 US cents is roughly \$66 AUD. And retail stores here where still pushing those titles for \$90 - \$110 !!! But nooo. Us Game consumers in this country should be Happy!!! Buying feels GOOD! Why? Because we get ripped off and have to wait forever. And then if your a PC gamer especially. Have the risk of buying a crap \$100 game and feeling just so peachy afterwards for an unreturnable game that didn't have a demo like 90% of titles these days. For starters, if you want to stop piracy for people who want to buy things. Have release dates no longer than 3 days differance. And let people buy the games from online and digital distribution retails the moment it becomes available. Let's face the facts. It's the greedy publishers and retailers thats hurting game sales more than piracy. Don't get me wrong. The people who are online Pirating games like crysis and every other game regardless, saying they dont have the money, but have something like "Intel Core i7 940, W.D. 1TB SATA HDD, 1GB 280 GTX Gigabyte, 4GB G.skill DDR3 etc etc in their Sig just makes me sick. And those people are everywhere, and are completely unjustified. The game sucks, why should I pay for it? If it sucks?! Why do you want to play it so bad??? Eitherways, companies are seemingly getting greedier and greedier. And if we didn't have the internet to fight back, the poor consumer would be getting crushed. And all the publishers out there would be saying, who gives an F about yalls. Look at ALL THE MONEY!!! Now, when we have a weapon to vote with either our cash or piracy. Your all. THE INDUSTRY IS DIEING. WE HAD TO DROP 11% of our workforce JUST so i could have my 3 month end of year holiday in Hawaii with my family this year!!! Obviously, allot of this rant is very exagerated. Eitherways. It's time for the balance between Quality, Customer care, and Profits and DRM to come back into line. Blame piracy all you want, but when people are making good quality products, it's amazing how much money they make from the people buying that product.
The ongoing problem of Oz censorship, poor PAL Localization, often ridiculous release dates, niche title availability (or even not being released) and inflated costs in games just makes even the most hardcore gamer of whom values games mod-chip their console.
In my country (Ecuador) its amazing how the games are copied. Believe or not i only play original games in my 360 and Wii mainly because it preserves the console but for economic purposes its a budget killer. Here games cost around 120 to 130 dollars. The reason for this is taxes, that have increased to close 60% over the last year. I used to own a ps2 and i use to have a lot of copied games but i also bought 4 ps2 over the years because copied games kill the lens of the console. My point is now that I am more mature i know that copied games killed little by little the game industry. In my country we see movies, music and games being made copies. The government does not do much about it because they profit with a tax that they put on the blanc discs or cds.(import Taxes) and i Know what i am talking about because i use to be a Custom Agent. My final thoughts in this matter are the following do not put a chip in the console to play copied games in the end it will short the life of the console and in the end its not legal and you can not experience the joy of playing on line.
Ah... couldn't help myself when I saw this article. agentarthur seems to make quite the accurate statement, that the games industry sounds just like the dated music industry. I love the internet, why? Because it gives the consumer the chance to fight back. I recently read an article that stated more people were watching tv series online every year, subsequently this has led to advertisers to pull out of the tv game and flood spending into online advertising. This leaves the television stations out of pocket, but why? It is their fault, had they provided the consumer the chance to view their favorite tv shows current season then the consumer wouldn't have searched elsewhere for later, better material. They cut spending to make a larger profit margin, and by not investing in forms of insuring consumer loyalty just goes to show what the people running these network providers care about... Money, not the consumer, and as a consequence, they're now in trouble. Flash to the record industry, who are blaming the IP's for their lack of accountability, when it is the major record labels themselves who are accountable. Ask any of your cd buying friends why they buy a cd. Every single one will tell you 'it's for the album art' or 'I feel good when I open it', not that i'm a fan of Tool, but you look at all of their cd's, offering something the internet can't provide, and as a result I know more people who own the Tool cd's then any other bands cd's. Hell, I'll pay \\\$20 for a Roots cd that has ?uestloves linear notes on each song (For example 'The Beginners Guide vol. 1'). Why do I buy jazz cd's, because I'm supporting an artist who needs my money, it makes me feel good, feeling good is an experience, I buy because I like to feel good, place in some other form of incentive and i'll feel it's \\\$20 well spent. Now we have the gaming industry falling victim to the horrible internet. When I purchased GTA 4 I didn't just get a game, I got a book, a survival guide, and a map/poster to hang in my room, once again, it's the same thing, sell an experience, provide an alternative, market appropriately and for gods sake throw in something more then just some software. If all software industry's are to survive then the producers are going to have to provide something more then just the data. One more final note. Copyright is a restriction upon teaching, it undermines the fundamental human want to give, share and create. Walt Disney invented copyright so that no one could do to him what he did to the Brothers Grimm, and it's left us more desperate to make money than to share our knowledge to the people who want it the most, which has slowed down the development of the human race. Don't try that argument, since the invention of the internet more people have benefited from otherwise unaccessible sources. Piracy should not be considered a blight, but an incentive for change toward a more beneficial outcome for consumers. my 2cents
All the corporate talk on video game piracy, is soooo f'n jaded. They always seem to have this perception, that everybody who downloaded a game, would of instead BOUGHT it. That is soooooo not the case. I download games (fairly often). This generally saves me the hassle of buying some POS just to return it. MOST of the games i download, i try, dislike, and uninstall. Nearly every major game i've played and enjoyed, i ended up buying. If i had to pay full price for a game and came up fealing shotr changed, i would be exceptionally critical about buying a game from the same developer in the future. Downloading games lets me try them out to make better informed purchasing decisions. PS: Back in the day, the video game industry was very heavily against places like BlockBuster etc that rent out games. Much like my current situation, i bought a TON of games i had previously rented, which i would of almost certainly NOT bought, had i not gotten to rent them first. This is no diff then downloading them first, aside from the fact im not making blockbastard any richer. This is fine with me, cause id much rather give my money to a developer that put out a quality product. PPS: Some very good posts in this thread. Nice to see the some independent thought!
Thanks Lozz, nice artcile. Frankly though, there is an element that I am missing. What I want to know is the actual econmic impact on gaming revenue. E.g Would people buy more games if they couldn't pirate - or simply be more decerning? Are game houses closing and reducing numbers because of global economic conditions or because of game piracy? Or how about a simple one - is that game development market shrinking or expanding? I guess what I am trying to get at is to remove emotion and look at the economic facts. As for my personal view - I don't pirate games - but then perhaps my socioeconomic demographic means that I can afford to buy more games? Or maybe not ....
"piracy has the potential to destroy the Australian video game industry." Epic fail on this statement. Piracy has not caused anything to collapse. The video game industry is now the bigger than music and movies. Piracy hasn't collapsed any of these 3 industries, on the contrary these industries are still making billions of dollars from their box office smashes. If you google Music/movie industry profits for 2008, you'll see the industries still making Billions of dollars in profit/revenue. If making billions or millions of dollars equates to the potentially destroying any industry then consider me poverty stricken. One EBgames store made 176k for boxing day. there is no such thing as an industry potentially collapsing if there is a great enough demand for them. If someone pulls out because of loss of profit someone else will step in and replace them because there is demand.And Video games demand has sky rocketed because of casual gaming. I love the one sidedness of these articles.
"(although Stevens was later charged for selling bootleg PlayStation games)." Ah, but was he convicted?! :P
region locking is the most facist, soviet, archaic, greedy, controlling, useless, devolving infrastructure ever created by dickhead business men to control markets around the world. It is preventative of the enjoyment of games and DVDs. They need to make products that consumers want to buy, and they need to compete in a proper balanced economic competition, not force them to buy products in specific countries for NO REASON - the real criminals are the people that invented region locking. consumers are not going to bring the industry to its knees - if it happens it will be because the industry does not evolve and try to remember that it is trying to offer us services and products at a price - they need to remember WE own them and we are always right. They need to offer something worth buying if we are to want to buy it. Stop blaming piracy, and start making worthwhile products - you sound like the dated music industry. Games in Oz are a rip-off.
I don't even think about mod chipping, to me it sounds all waaaaay too complicated :lol:
I don't get the last paragraph. It's a call for users to stop pirating because unless we do the games industry will collapse. Why should we care about the games industry collapsing? If users pirate games (for personal use), and give themselves the opportunity to play 100s'/1000s' of games that they otherwise wouldn't have (been able to) purchased, and in the process save themselves \\$100s'/1,000s', 10,000s' and if some stage the gaming industry collapsed, how does this make the user a loser? They've allready won by accessing the games. If the Apocalypse is upon us then so be it. We'll migrate to PC gaming. We'll continue to play the existing games we have. And amongst all this scare-mongering there's no examples of anyone (within Australia) being prosecuted or jailed for piracy. Those that profit by selling pirated games, or illegal equipment, or upload games are in a different ballpark than those that simply pirate and play, at least in my opinion. With the recent iinet hoopla hasn't it been discussed that the appropriate authorities have publicly acknowledged that they have no interest in pursuing individual users that infringe copyrights, and that they're focus is only on those that profit from enabling piracy to occur, with ISPs' currently in the firing lines. Can you be fair on the many individual users that do pirate by letting us know the likelihood of being punished. With no examples it seems that the article is indeed weighted towards the interests of the gaming industry. In regards to Pirates feeling vindicated for various reasons, they are wrong. Piracy is wrong, and it is doing harm. But lots of things are wrong. Humans do wrong things. Why wouldn't we look after ourselves, we're only on the planet for a short time. And how much harm is it doing? As far as I know the gaming industry as a whole has had huge growth since it's mass market birth in the 80s'. Is it not now double the size of the movie industry in terms of $ revenues. And perhaps it the gaming industry can still be regarded as in it's infancy - it certainly has a lot more development to come. So all this scare-mongering is kind of hopeless. We all see Nintendo, Sony and MS as the corporate monoliths that they are. Also, in regards to this comment that I see alot:- "Most people who pirate games wouldn't of purchased them anyway = no loss." I would say that that could be clarified further. Most games would be purchased more if they were much lower prices. I wouldn't mind throwing a few dollars at a crap game just for a cheap thrill and for 30 minutes entertainment - but it just doesn't get offered to us. Pay a ludicrous amount or forget about it is the gaming industrys' pricing strategy. If they really are scared about the damaging effects of piracy, perhaps they would experiment more with pricing strategy. Which of course they won't, because they're not worried about the gaming industry collapsing. Whatever harm piracy does, no matter how big it can be calculated as being, the gaming companies that get it right are still raking in huge amounts of dough. And perhaps the PSP should have been mentioned in this article - being the only console that requires no modchipping to be able to play pirated games.
Mod chipper B is right. Actually Sony themselves are to blame for the entire situation around mod chipping. The builk of all mod chipped systems was to be able to play games from the US and Japan. Sony was willing to take any dime they could, and then refused to give the quality of games to the European players. Most of them had to wait for 6-12 months to play a game. Sony was so obsessed with the US market that they treated others as 4th ranked customers. Too much long wionded nonsense was released to only show themselves to be even dumber. The mod chip allowed Europeans to enjoy games when they were released. Sony Europe did not like this as this lowered their reported revenue. Nintendo and Sony are still actively fighting this, while still not treating the European player on the same level as the US/Japan. DS games aren't coming into Australia/Europe and we have to wait an eternity. Opening the market would have solved that and lowered the mod chip market into an unsustainable market as many are willing to pay good money for a good game. In the end, this approach seems to give them better revenue, so they shouldn't fuzz about the mod chip.
You know people would never buy as many games as they pirate. And piraters still own actual copies so really it's a small loss. I find this article very bias.
I don't think the game industry just saying these kinds of things is going to stop people from pirating games, whether it has a negative effect on the industry or not. The fact is people were making games before there was an industry, and they'll keep making them if it collapses. The issue is not that it's a victimless crime it's that it's a crime without consequence, and you can see just from the comments here that gamers in a lot of ways feel a sense of entitlement when they pirate a game. And Lawrencevanrijn had a great point, it's the lack of quality combined with high prices and enormous industry hype that probably leads to that feeling. EDIT: @forhekset: "Most people who pirate games wouldn't of purchased them anyway = no loss." I just read what you said and I think it should be repeated just so more people will see it.
Make more games that are based online, I'm sure there are many better ways to figure who pirated the games through system checks rather than dodgy DRM
I guess if privacy gets worse, then those gaming company wont spend less money on developing games which means we'll get crapier games. Having said that though, given the high cost of new games I'm not suprise that people wont be tempted to engage in piracy. Still, for me, privacy makes me feel bad for the reason said, but no way I'll pay \$99 for a game. I'll just wait for the price drops to at least below \$30. Just picked up settlers IV a few months back for \$2.50 at dick smith!! Cheers!!
What can you expect, Australia is one of the highest paying country's for games, they are ripping us off. Lower the prices, make consoles region free, this will increase competition between companies, at the moment they own a monopoly and can charge what they want.
If the game is worth the purchase people will pay for it. I agree with TurambarGS.
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give australia R18+ classification and make all consoles region free, then the market can be more competitive which means cheaper games, which could slow piracy down. people making backups= now can afford to buy more copies people who purcahse overseas= wont need to worry about it not working and therefore pirates are singled out so modification chips wont have an excuse. But removing region locks removes the chances of people bypassing the copyright protection right?
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TurambarGS - i agree, make a good game and people will buy it. DoW II i will buy, FEAR 2 i will buy! Advantage of having PS3, regoin free. i dont need to chip it! just import it for much cheaper then AUS, but that raises a question. If i can import it for cheaper USD then why am i paying much more? DRM is not the answer, cause it just causes proplems and law suits. Most DRM install a rootkit to hide its self which is illgeal!
Yeah right Mod Chipper B, most chip the consoles to play copied games. Those DS Flash cards are used by many casuals who don't even consider buying game legally because they don't have too. In one forum alone, there is a topic each week with people asking how to obtain them since they got a DS (meaning they haven't even bought on DS game yet).
Make a great game, people will buy it. It's pretty much as simple as that.
Do you know the best way of removing piracy on PC games? Simple, have an online mode that's a must have. You can pirate all you want, but you only get the single player, you have to pay to get online mode (via unique serials). It's good for everyone! For the \$80, you get a year or so of great online play, rather then a single player that's over in a weekend. Brief, non-replayable games is what makes people pirate, because the game just isn't worth it. Worked perfect for CoD4.
I work at EB Games, and almost every day I get parents or kids coming in and asking about DS Flash Cards and have absolutely no idea its illegal. Apparently all their kids friends have them. I would have thought it was obvious downloading games to it was illegal... Apparently not.
i lie about never buying pc games. i will buy starcraft 2 when it comes out (because i go waaaaay back with the original) but even then i will get it when its in a 'battle chest' box with ALL 3 'episodes' in 1 and its discounted. that means im willing to wait. till then, its back to the 52" 1080p lcd
i agree with chemist. again and again
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"Everyone here complaining about high prices are just plain dumb consumers. If you like games would'nt you want to support the industry? Deadbeats" I have no problem paying \$50 usd for games but when we have to pay \$20-\$30usd more than in america that is wrong. the games should cost the same everywhere, not be cheaper just because you are in america. A year ago when 1nzd = about .75usd the game still costed \$100 for pc game and \$120 -\$130 for consoles games, that's a lot more than \$50/\$60usd. Thanks to steam I got most of them for \$50usd saving me \$25 off what the store charges. If they want to reduce piracy they should charge the same for the games everywhere, inflated prices outside north America just encourages piracy when sometimes America gets it over 30% cheaper.
I agree with Lawrencevanrijn, that there are several issues from availability to functionality of PC games that makes the decision to buy a console to play games, and keep your PC for Net use, increasingly all too easy...
First, the statistic on 19% piracy is an underestimate. If 60% of Australian internet traffic is P2P, then a lot more than 20% of gamers have used a pirated game. Second, I believe that game piracy hurts the games industry even more than it does the movie or music industry because there isn't only one or two lead actors/musicians pocketing an enormous payout from the movie or CD. If a movie release sales' suffers from piracy then the Hollywood star ends up walking home with \$10 million instead of \$20 million. A game only has a relatively equal footed team who develops it, and thus a proprtional reduction in their release sales can mean make or break. I also agree with the ethos of the article that education, rather than DRM, is the main answer to the piracy problem.
The fact that we get censored dumbed down versions leaves a lot of people no choice but to pirate the american version. Plus why should we pay nearly \$100 to be a bug tester for an unfinished game.
Whenever i see any gaming site or magazine write about piracy i just start to shiver. For the most these articles are bogus on the premise of misinformation. For the most from the gaming industry itself. It whinges and whines to hide it's own imcompetance by blaming these illusive pirates. Now, i am not saying that pirates do not exist. They do, but the damage they cause is is not close to what is claimed. The story about so many not buying the original games. Dear producers: 'Your game sucks!' Did you consider that option? Or another reason is 'Release the game!'. That latter part i will explain in a moment. First of all how did this get started? Well, i am aware op piracy, especially when i was young in the Netherlands. I proudly owned my C-64, and the first 3 games i bought with the C64 was Loderunner, Suspended by Infocom and the Flight Simulator. That was all i could afford. Even in those early days, when games were advertised in the US at \$40-\$60. We had to pay a whopping \$80-\$120 PER GAME (this was around 1985). That is serious money! We reckon we were getting (the S word follows) so we wanted another option. Can you blame people when they are forced to pay up to 400% more. In those days credit cards were for the very rich, and order by mail was just not an option. Nowadays the prices are stable (as stable as it gets), but the developpers are hurting themselves in other ways. QA in gmaes is now non-existent. The bulk of all PC games require patches on several levels and even worse we are forced to register via internet (stupid EA). This is why i stopped PC games altogether and now only use my consoles for gaming. So PC games aren't down by piracy in my books. the bulk is down to bad QA, too many bugs and mandatory internet signup. Now the consoles. Nintendo is there starting to become it's own problem into this so called piracy. I was a fan of Kennedy approach and i found a game called Air Traffic Chaos. Now, this seems like fun, and i would love to buy it. the following list is the fact: 1. All the gaming stores i contacted do not have it, they cannot get it. 2. Amazon refuses to ship a game internationally (due to restrictions by Nintendo) 3. The game was released in august 2008 So perhaps the developers themselves are the cause to a lot of these issues. Work on Quality of product and availability and stop whinging.
@s91g_man "one gaming system cost around 1500$ , windows cost around 100$ (or more ) , antivirus cost around 100$ too , one game at launch cost around 50$ so to be a gamer u must have arround 3000$ , for a boy of a family which earns 1000$ each month but around 100$ is available for fun it is very hard to be a gamer in ROMANIA ." How the hell did you calculate this? \$3000? \$1500 (already overpriced -- \$1000 gets you a spanking system but I'll go with it) + \$100 + \$100 = \$1700 plus \$50 per game. How do you get \$3000? Are you including the price of 26 games in the cost of a PC? An Xbox 360 Elite is about \$400, add 26 games @ \$60 each comes to \$1960, add an HDTV for \$2000 plus \$50 per year for Xbox Live, and you're looking at \$4000 to be a console gamer.
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