News Handheld piracy costs industry £29 billion

Everytime piracy is mentioned 2 secs later this moronic argument gets brought up. No, not every game pirated is a lost sale, but you can be damn sure some are. Your telling me every single person, moms whose kids have DS's, hardcore Pc gamers would up and quite gaming if piracy was not available? Hell no. Some would buy if they had no choice, I have friends like it, they got a PS3 and buy every single game at 70 a pop, has not bought a PC game in years, he admits he would buy them if he had to like he does his PS3.

 

That explains why the better and more popular a game is the more it is pirated.................. Oh snap.

 

No, because Neo Flowerpot Puzzle Party 4 isn't a real game. Even if it were, it would likely be a budget title, retailing for less than £15.

In any case, why would you value something based on how much time it took to make or build? I personally value my games based on how much I use them. If CoD4 cost £70, based on the amount of time I've got out of it I'd certainly regard it as money well spent.

Personally, I'd say that Pokemon and New Super Mario are games that are well worth the money spent on them. They're polished and are a lot of fun. Remember that handheld consoles are very popular in Japan, where the psyche is very different.

What is there to gain from being aggressive and rude? Do you feel good? Does it help you in any way to be abusive? Just wondering.

Riddle me this. The old lady who lives next door to you has died. She's been taken away in an ambulance, you know she has no relatives, and she doesn't have a will. You got an invitation to the funeral.
Is it then morally justifiable to smash her window, nick all her valuables, crap on her fireplace and pee in her kettle? It's a victimless crime because she's died, remember.

 

How do PS3 unit sales compare to x360 these days? Have they sold enough PS3's to be able to broadly compare the two platforms?

Since piracy is basically non existent on the ps3 and since sales figures are easy enough to come across for both platforms it would make an interesting comparison to see how much of a difference piracy makes. It would have to be caveated to hell but still be interesting.

 

think about it, if that 1 game was developed on all platforms, at same time without porting, the costs would be similar. i didnt say anything about 1 game costing same as another, just developement costs, and i meant per game, of course bfbc2 is gonna cost more to develope than neo flowerpot puzzle party4

 

Dear the entertainment industry

The next time you want to raise piracy as an issue, don't start with the absurd statement of 1 pirated copy = 1 lost sale. You might as well start with the statement "pirates cost us eleventy-squillion dollars!*" i'd be about as factually accurate.

It makes any statements following such silliness easily ignorable.

Thanks,
The world

(*source = because we said so)

 

Ah, abusive and rude, I see that I have no right at all to feel annoyance at the regular usage of the word "stealing" when piracy is involved, only to make piracy in to something that it isn't.

As for the example you've used, "riddle me this" what's that got to do with piracy? I said piracy and stealing aren't the same thing. You've just gave me an example of stealing and indecent behaviour.

Good job at talking nonsense though.

 

p.s. it starts big massive forum debates

 

There's a massive difference between saying you would and actually doing it. Besides the issue that publishers/developers should be looking at isn't how to stop all piracy but how to get those people who would part with their cash to actually do so instead of just downloading whatever it is they want.

And to be honest there's nothing moronic about pointing out that a study claiming there's been 29 billion dollars of lost sales is based on a flawed assumption. As consumers we should be the ones on the forefront of pointing out why these studies are flawed and trying to get publishers/developers to actually look at the real issues instead of implementing ever more complex and unfriendly drm schemes and trying to get ever more draconian laws passed in an attempt to get their hands on imaginary lost money.

 

Additionally, what price do you think they use? The average street price? Or an inflated RRP?

I'm guessing it's the inflated RRP.

 

RRP of course, the bigger the number they can get for potential lost money the better

 

You seem to not understand how a discussion forum works.

Additionally, your "friend" obviously is a perfect example of everyone. It's a little convenient that you have a friend who does exactly what you're claiming is the "norm".

The point hat every download doesn't = a lost sale still stands either way. There are a lot of people who download games they've bought, just so that they can leave the game in the box and play the downloaded one with a crack. There are also people that download stuff, but never actually use it. What about the people that operate on try-before-you-buy? Or the ones that never buy games because they can't justify the cost, so download them instead?

It's too hard to produce accurate and representative figures, the people doing the "studies" are clearly going to be biased against piracy, so are clearly going to use the "results" that fall in their favour (that piracy is evil and people who kill and eat babies aren't as bad as those pirate "thieves".

Why is this hard to understand? Sony is obviously going to make out piracy is as bad as possible, they're clearly going to disregard anything other than piracy = lost sale, they're always going to add up the cost of the games using the highest price they can, regardless of if you can actually find the game at that price or not, and it wouldn't surprise me if they also included (or rather, didn't bother to disregard) incomplete or failed downloads either.

 

Real or not doesn't really matter, I just used that facetious title to demonstrate a point.

Ubisoft estimates that the average DS game costs 20 times less than the average 360/PS3/PC game. Of course there are going to be some exceptions.

So yes, I do think its value should take into account how much it cost to build. I wouldn't pay Range Rover prices for a Nissan Micra, no matter how much more I used the Micra (hyperbolic I know, but true).

I agree, in a perfect world we should pay accordingly to how much we use something (Activision have hinted several times that they would like to do something like that for future MW games), however that is just not practical at the moment.

You sir, make a very good point.

I would love to know exactly how the PS3 attach rate compares to that of the 360 or Wii. The problem is manufacturers hate releasing accurate data like that, and analysts guesses are vague at best. No doubt people buying replacement 360's would tarnish the data even further.

Still, the PS3's current situation is unprecedented in recent console history (in regards to zero piracy). It would make for a great case study.

Sorry dude, I re-read that four times and I still have no clue what you mean. However, your initial post was pretty clear so I stand by my reply. You said "developement costs for any platform will be similar, so why would a console/hand held console game cost any less? " and that is simply not true (click that Ubisoft link above for just one publisher's estimates).

 

Of course! Which could skew the results by an absolutely massive amount. Games with RRPs of £40 can often be found for £20 in a lot of places, such a situation would completely invalidate half of the figure they've came up with.

 

maybe comprehension is not your thing, you basically said there would be ZERO lost sales, and that's BS. There is some, that's obvious. I agree, one pirated copy is not 1 lost sale, that's been determined, and is not what i was debating.

 

what they should have said was lost potential sales rather than lost sales

 

In defense of those who actually performed the study, I expect it was done fairly well, taking into account assumptions that had to be made. As I said earlier, they may make an assumption that one download is one lost sale (although, do we even know this is the case from the article?) but they also don't take into account P2P downloads, which is where the majority of pirates set sail. It's just a case of 'PIRACY IS COSTING US £29 BILLION in 5 years' grabbing more attention than 'We estimate piracy costs £29 billion over 5 years assuming everyone who downloaded a game would have bought it at full RRP'.

I think their estimate was probably quite conservative in some manner as well. They assume that because Japan accounts for 25% of the world's software market that it also accounts for 25% of the world's piracy market, whereas I think this will be more in favour of the USA and China. Still, at the end of the day it's a number plucked out of a bunch of assumptions that are difficult to justify - like most statistics.

Now, if someone can read Kanji/Kana and wants to read the full study from CESA, please do and come back to us with any details that haven't been summarised here or at andriasang.

 

No I didn't.

 

Is english hard to understand? Please show me where I was arguing that 1 lost sale equates to 1 pirated copy? It's obvious it doesn't, and is not what i said at all. Inferring NOT one sale is lost though, is indeed moronic.

 

Sorry, you never, but this guy did, saying "They would just go without", is BS. So, at least know what and who i was referring to.