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Do you have anything to back up that statement? The article says that 90% of all copies of popular games are pirated, but he also doesn't back it up. However,
by henrikschroder 17y ago
Do you have anything to back up that statement? The article says that 90% of all copies of popular games are pirated, but he also doesn't back it up.
However, it's important to always remember that a pirated copy doesn't equal a lost sale. Many people download a game, but never install it or play it. Others download and play it, but if they couldn't have downloaded it, they would never have played it. And finally, there's a percentage of downloaders that would have bought it if they hadn't gotten a pirated version first.
It will be interesting if this experiment by Ubisoft can determine how large that percentage is. It's definitely not 100%, and it's definitely not 0%. I would guess that it's a single-digit percentage of the people that would normally pirate a game that could go and buy it instead.
However, this new DRM is so vile, that they will also lose sales on it, and I wonder if the sales they gain from delaying the pirating of it is larger than the sales they lose from having a horrible DRM.
- teamonkey 17y agoThe 90% figure is based on the scant amount of information released by a few indie studios. http://www.joystiq.com/2008/11/13/world-of-goo-has-90-piracy-rate/ http://www.joystiq.com/2008/11/13/world-of-goo-has-90-piracy...
- firebird84 17y agoThere's also a (likely small) percentage of people who pirate games they have already bought in order to "simply play it." I can't tell you how many NoCD hacks I've used, which while different from outright piracy, is very similar in concept and likely prone to inflating piracy figures. Lastly, there is also the (likely small) category of those who pirate and later buy the game once the price comes down. Many games drop to $5-$10 on Steam after a year or two, which is rather enticing even to a pirate.