4 ms·

The thinking goes - without DRM, some large number, X % of the games are just copied instead of purchased. With DRM, close to 0% of the the games are copied, b

The thinking goes - without DRM, some large number, X % of the games are just copied instead of purchased. With DRM, close to 0% of the the games are copied, but some large number Y % of the games are no longer purchased because people either are (A) Philisophically opposed to DRM, (B) Want to be able to play the game offline, or now, (C) Can't play the game because the DRM breaks it. The balancing act, here, is how many of those X% can be converted into purchases, and how many of those Y% valid purchases are lost. EA may have tipped the balance here through poor execution and resulted in fewer games being sold, but, I don't work in the game industry - so I don't know how high X normally gets. (50%? 75%? 90%? 95%? I'm sure it's a pretty disheartening number)

hayksaakian 14y ago
For many of the X%, purchasing was not a consideration; what's more useful to consider is how many people that were paying customers in the past STOP paying, given that they've demonstrated their willingness to pay.
001sky 14y ago
Also a consideration: 866 reviews and a "1-Star" average.
pc86 14y ago
A lot of games are copied, but it's a fallacy to assume that pirating a game means you won't buy it, or that attempting to pirate a game and being prevented (by DRM or some other means) means you'll buy it instead. In college I pirated games quite a bit. I never bought one, nor would I have.
- ghshephard 14y ago
  Oh, I totally appreciate that - and, those people who would never have purchased the game in the first place, but copy it, provide some good word of mouth advertising for the game. The thing is though, if the number gets high enough, let's say 95% of people just copy the game (not unlikely in the age of torrents) and only 5% purchase it - might not be enough to fund a AAA game, whose budgets now run in the 100s of millions of dollars, and, at $70/pop, need about 6-10 million purchases to make up for the flops that will also occur. The real problem, is that if it's _really_ easy to copy, and the company puts in no attempts to prevent this, then a lot of the people who would have purchased the game, don't bother and just download off the torrents. Tough balancing act. I don't know what the answer is.
  - pc86 14y ago
    I agree. I do think the effect of piracy on a company's bottom line is overstated in just about every case. It's easy for us an the HN community (generally pretty intelligent and technically inclined) to forget that downloading a torrent isn't the simplest thing in the world, particularly the lengths you need to go to in order to get some pirated games to even function properly.
    - ghshephard 14y ago
      Torrents have gotten pretty amazingly simple and are now mainstream . My 65 year old mother figured out how to torrent a TV show (that wasn't available in Canada - she tried to buy it first, but they wouldn't sell it to her) in about 30 minutes, including the time required to download and install µTorrent. I would guess that 90%+ of the computer using population is now comfortable torrenting files. Agreed with you on the hassle of running a pirated game, and, honestly - I'm unwilling to run some random .app/.exe on my system. Hell, I'm not even comfortable opening .pdfs anymore.
      - pc86 14y ago
        Guess that just goes to show you how long it's been since I've downloaded a torrent :)
      - andypants 14y ago
        Torrenting video games is still a bit more involved than torrenting a tv show. You have zips, rars, 7zs, archives split into parts. Some need you to mount a iso file, some you need to mount multiple iso files. You may need to run a sketchy exe to patch the game, or copy files from an iso into the installation folder, run other patches in the correct order, etc. etc.
    - dylangs1030 14y ago
      It's incredibly simple to download a torrent. My non-technical parents have done it in the past, without asking me how to. In fact, from your desktop, it takes less than seven steps total to download and watch a Full HD movie of your choosing from the pirate bay.
- dylangs1030 14y ago
  That's true, but it's not what he was talking about. He wasn't talking about "one download, one lost sale" mentalities. He was talking about revenue loss in general. And if it's possible to pirate a game, you will lose some revenue from that. It might not mean every act of piracy is a lost sale, and it might not mean the game has a net revenue loss due to piracy. But there will be some revenue loss somewhere.
prezjordan 14y ago
Seems like Valve is spot-on with that X%, and maybe even lowers it a little by offering such a great service and caring about their customers. That sounded fanboy-ish, but it's the truth.
- ShawnBird 14y ago
  If it isn't on GoG or Steam (or Humble Bundle) I just don't buy it. I don't have that much time for games and will just go without. Steam is an amazing service, I am surprised that movies and music have not followed suit.
  - charonn0 14y ago
    While I have a number of complaints about the Steam client, the service itself is fantastic.
scarlson 14y ago
Your C point implies purchase. It's safe to assume EA uses purchases as their success metric, as they are unlikely to complain you actually paid for the game.
belorn 14y ago
See conversion rates from free vs paid. Lets use the average number of 3%. 100% is all users, which mean all who bought the game added with all who would have pirated the game, and 3% is the total amount of people who would potential spend money. Out of those 3%, you need to remove A), people who do not pirate), people who do not compare stores and just buy from what is most convenient, and C), people who would buy if there was DRM preventing piracy. We can now assign weight to those groups. Group B, is likely to be largest given human nature and sale numbers from places like steam. Group A would likely come second, and Group C would be smallest. Lets use the weights 3/6, 2/6, 1/6 proportions for each group. That makes Group C somewhere around 0.5% of the users which the DRM scheme might get to buy the game. Is 0.5% additional conversion rate worth the costs of DRM scheme, additional support, and a tanked amazon review rating of 1 star?

hayksaakian 14y ago

For many of the X%, purchasing was not a consideration; what's more useful to consider is how many people that were paying customers in the past STOP paying, given that they've demonstrated their willingness to pay.

001sky 14y ago

Also a consideration: 866 reviews and a "1-Star" average.

pc86 14y ago

A lot of games are copied, but it's a fallacy to assume that pirating a game means you won't buy it, or that attempting to pirate a game and being prevented (by DRM or some other means) means you'll buy it instead. In college I pirated games quite a bit. I never bought one, nor would I have.

ghshephard 14y ago
Oh, I totally appreciate that - and, those people who would never have purchased the game in the first place, but copy it, provide some good word of mouth advertising for the game. The thing is though, if the number gets high enough, let's say 95% of people just copy the game (not unlikely in the age of torrents) and only 5% purchase it - might not be enough to fund a AAA game, whose budgets now run in the 100s of millions of dollars, and, at $70/pop, need about 6-10 million purchases to make up for the flops that will also occur. The real problem, is that if it's _really_ easy to copy, and the company puts in no attempts to prevent this, then a lot of the people who would have purchased the game, don't bother and just download off the torrents. Tough balancing act. I don't know what the answer is.
- pc86 14y ago
  I agree. I do think the effect of piracy on a company's bottom line is overstated in just about every case. It's easy for us an the HN community (generally pretty intelligent and technically inclined) to forget that downloading a torrent isn't the simplest thing in the world, particularly the lengths you need to go to in order to get some pirated games to even function properly.
  - ghshephard 14y ago
    Torrents have gotten pretty amazingly simple and are now mainstream . My 65 year old mother figured out how to torrent a TV show (that wasn't available in Canada - she tried to buy it first, but they wouldn't sell it to her) in about 30 minutes, including the time required to download and install µTorrent. I would guess that 90%+ of the computer using population is now comfortable torrenting files. Agreed with you on the hassle of running a pirated game, and, honestly - I'm unwilling to run some random .app/.exe on my system. Hell, I'm not even comfortable opening .pdfs anymore.
    - pc86 14y ago
      Guess that just goes to show you how long it's been since I've downloaded a torrent :)
    - andypants 14y ago
      Torrenting video games is still a bit more involved than torrenting a tv show. You have zips, rars, 7zs, archives split into parts. Some need you to mount a iso file, some you need to mount multiple iso files. You may need to run a sketchy exe to patch the game, or copy files from an iso into the installation folder, run other patches in the correct order, etc. etc.
  - dylangs1030 14y ago
    It's incredibly simple to download a torrent. My non-technical parents have done it in the past, without asking me how to. In fact, from your desktop, it takes less than seven steps total to download and watch a Full HD movie of your choosing from the pirate bay.
dylangs1030 14y ago
That's true, but it's not what he was talking about. He wasn't talking about "one download, one lost sale" mentalities. He was talking about revenue loss in general. And if it's possible to pirate a game, you will lose some revenue from that. It might not mean every act of piracy is a lost sale, and it might not mean the game has a net revenue loss due to piracy. But there will be some revenue loss somewhere.

prezjordan 14y ago

Seems like Valve is spot-on with that X%, and maybe even lowers it a little by offering such a great service and caring about their customers. That sounded fanboy-ish, but it's the truth.

ShawnBird 14y ago
If it isn't on GoG or Steam (or Humble Bundle) I just don't buy it. I don't have that much time for games and will just go without. Steam is an amazing service, I am surprised that movies and music have not followed suit.
- charonn0 14y ago
  While I have a number of complaints about the Steam client, the service itself is fantastic.

scarlson 14y ago

Your C point implies purchase. It's safe to assume EA uses purchases as their success metric, as they are unlikely to complain you actually paid for the game.

belorn 14y ago

See conversion rates from free vs paid. Lets use the average number of 3%. 100% is all users, which mean all who bought the game added with all who would have pirated the game, and 3% is the total amount of people who would potential spend money. Out of those 3%, you need to remove A), people who do not pirate), people who do not compare stores and just buy from what is most convenient, and C), people who would buy if there was DRM preventing piracy. We can now assign weight to those groups. Group B, is likely to be largest given human nature and sale numbers from places like steam. Group A would likely come second, and Group C would be smallest. Lets use the weights 3/6, 2/6, 1/6 proportions for each group. That makes Group C somewhere around 0.5% of the users which the DRM scheme might get to buy the game. Is 0.5% additional conversion rate worth the costs of DRM scheme, additional support, and a tanked amazon review rating of 1 star?