Ubisoft games - poster children for piracy?

[Berkut]

Okay, here's another example for Berkut.

Update: For 2009, the most pirated PC game as reported in this article was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The PC version had a staggering 4.1 million downloads via torrents alone compared with an estimated 200,000 - 300,000 actual sales via retail and Steam, demonstrating that the most popular game of 2009 was also the most pirated, and more importantly, that the actual number of downloads for the most popular game is now almost three times as high as in 2008, signalling the rampant growth of piracy. It is also interesting to note that while COD:MW2 sold around 300,000 copies on PC and had 4.1 million pirated downloads, the console version sold in excess of 6 million copies during the same period according to this article, and yet had a fraction of the number of pirated downloads at around 970,000.

From the article I posted on the first page.

So clearly the problem is not hardware on the PC, or lack of players.  Naturally 4.1 million downloads is only one form of piracy.  There are P2P site and programs as well.  Still this fraction of piracy is a good indicator of how widespread it is.  If as someone here previous said only 1/4th of those who pirated the game would have bought it that's still 1 million copies.  Triple the number the number sold on PC.

Why would you assume that 1/4 of the people who pirate the game would buy it?

Why not assume all of them would - that would mean it would become one of the best selling PC games of all time!

[Razgovory]

Is there point to that post Berkut?  I took the 1/4th number from someone on your side of the argument.  Grey Fox I think.  He pointed out that not everyone who pirates would buy.  This is true, but it's also true that the people who pirate the game value it some, and if they could not pirate it some would value it enough to buy it.  It's hard to tell how many would would or would not buy it.  1/4th is as good a number as any.


My point is the fact that since at least 4.1 million people downloaded it (Likely many, many more), then there is a very robust market for PC games.  At least equal to any one console and possibly larger then all of them put together.  There are a lot of PC gamers out there, there is just not a lot of PC gamers who are buying their games.

[Berkut]

Is there point to that post Berkut?  I took the 1/4th number from someone on your side of the argument.  Grey Fox I think.  He pointed out that not everyone who pirates would buy.  This is true, but it's also true that the people who pirate the game value it some, and if they could not pirate it some would value it enough to buy it.  It's hard to tell how many would would or would not buy it.  1/4th is as good a number as any.


My point is the fact that since at least 4.1 million people downloaded it (Likely many, many more), then there is a very robust market for PC games.  At least equal to any one console and possibly larger then all of them put together.  There are a lot of PC gamers out there, there is just not a lot of PC gamers who are buying their games.

If we are just going to pick numbers, lets go with 1/20th instead. Or 1/50th.

Oh look, piracy isn't such a huge deal - most pirates were never potential purchasers anyway, and making piracy easier just means more people who were not going to buy will pirate. Ho hum.

What your example shows is that just like the Crysis example, popular games sell a lot and get pirated a lot.

[Razgovory]

I didn't pick it.  As I said, one of your guys picked it.  Did you consider 300,000 a lot?  If it gets pirated around 20 times for every game do you not consider that a problem?

Your argument has been about the market changing.  But if so many people are simply stealing games the market is still there.  The lots of potential buys who can run the game and have an interest in it.  It's just that most are stealing it.

[Berkut]

I didn't pick it.  As I said, one of your guys picked it.  Did you consider 300,000 a lot?  If it gets pirated around 20 times for every game do you not consider that a problem?

I don't think I have any guys, except myself. So as long as we are randomly making numbers up, certainly I can choose one of my own instead of one chosen by someone else, right? I choose 1/50th.

Your argument has been about the market changing.  But if so many people are simply stealing games the market is still there.

*Some* market is certainly there, true. Whether it is at a price that is worthwhile is unknown. It is like arguing that since the Chinese steal DvDs like crazy, there must be a market for DVDs in China. Sure, that is true - but what does it matter? You cannot stop the piracy, you can only manage its direct cost to you as best you can and then account for it. Which is what is happening.

  The lots of potential buys who can run the game and have an interest in it.  It's just that most are stealing it.

Yeah, that is a lot of potential buys - so? The argument is not that piracy is ok, or that piracy doesn't harm people, it is that piracy is killing the industry, or has killed the industry, or has some significant impact that has resulted in the dominance of console gaming. I think that argument is based on a lot of emotion, anecdote, and very little actual data or reason.

There is lots of piracy out there. There has *always* been lots of piracy out there. For as long as there has been a PC gaming market, there has been piracy, and developers claiming that piracy is destroying them and the market. It is understandable why they say so, but it almost certainly was not true 20 years ago, and is not true 10 years ago, or 5, or today.

[Razgovory]

Okay, Berkut lets back up.  What do you think is the reason for the market change?

[Berkut]

Okay, Berkut lets back up.  What do you think is the reason for the market change?

Dear Christ, no way am I going over that ground again.

[Razgovory]

Oh and provide Data for it as well.  You've been talking about data but provided precious little yourself.  Incidentally, if we use your number of 1/50 sales. That's something like 120,000 more sales.  At 50 bucks a pop that's six million dollars.  That's like 40% more sales, which I would think is somewhat substantial.  If you lost 40% of your income what would you think?  Oh it's not a huge deal!  Ho hum.  If so, please send me 40% of your income.  I would welcome it.  I will PM for the details for this little transfer.

[Razgovory]

Okay, Berkut lets back up.  What do you think is the reason for the market change?

Dear Christ, no way am I going over that ground again.

You really haven't gone over it the first time.  Except for vague statements.  About markets and consoles being better.  That doesn't really make sense though.  So lets try with your data you keep talking about.

[The Minsky Moment]

I don't have the detailed data either, and I agree that discussing the matter seriously (from either "side") is a little pointless.

But I think from the limited data mentioned in this thread, it is reasonable to conclude that piracy has some non-insiginficant impact on marginal PC game sales, and hence on profits.  And Econ 101 tells you that ceteris paribas, that will result in less supply of that good to the market than would otherwise exist.

[Barrister]

There is lots of piracy out there. There has *always* been lots of piracy out there. For as long as there has been a PC gaming market, there has been piracy, and developers claiming that piracy is destroying them and the market. It is understandable why they say so, but it almost certainly was not true 20 years ago, and is not true 10 years ago, or 5, or today.

I certainly remember pirating computer games myself as a child for my Apple II, when I didn't have any money so I appreciate that such piracy has in fact been there since the dawn of computers.

But surely you'd acknowledge there's a huge difference in the ease of piracy from the days when you had to make physical copies of the disks, to when you simply have to download them from a torrent site?

[garbon]

There is lots of piracy out there. There has *always* been lots of piracy out there. For as long as there has been a PC gaming market, there has been piracy, and developers claiming that piracy is destroying them and the market. It is understandable why they say so, but it almost certainly was not true 20 years ago, and is not true 10 years ago, or 5, or today.

I certainly remember pirating computer games myself as a child for my Apple II, when I didn't have any money so I appreciate that such piracy has in fact been there since the dawn of computers.

But surely you'd acknowledge there's a huge difference in the ease of piracy from the days when you had to make physical copies of the disks, to when you simply have to download them from a torrent site?

But then that begs the question - what did Crysis do right that so many people actually bought copies?

[Berkut]

I don't have the detailed data either, and I agree that discussing the matter seriously (from either "side") is a little pointless.

But I think from the limited data mentioned in this thread, it is reasonable to conclude that piracy has some non-insiginficant impact on marginal PC game sales, and hence on profits.  And Econ 101 tells you that ceteris paribas, that will result in less supply of that good to the market than would otherwise exist.

No argument from me.

[Berkut]

There is lots of piracy out there. There has *always* been lots of piracy out there. For as long as there has been a PC gaming market, there has been piracy, and developers claiming that piracy is destroying them and the market. It is understandable why they say so, but it almost certainly was not true 20 years ago, and is not true 10 years ago, or 5, or today.

I certainly remember pirating computer games myself as a child for my Apple II, when I didn't have any money so I appreciate that such piracy has in fact been there since the dawn of computers.

But surely you'd acknowledge there's a huge difference in the ease of piracy from the days when you had to make physical copies of the disks, to when you simply have to download them from a torrent site?

Not really.

Now you can go download from a torrent site, sure - but you have to go through the entire mounting rigamorole to get it to install, right? All those ISO files and whatever.

Not that it is hard, but it isn't just downloading and off you go.

But more to the point is that I don'tthink piracy being easy is what is killing PC sales. Piracy being easy means more people will pirate, but those are mostly people who would not buy the game anyway.

Just compare Crysis to MW2. Both were the "best games of the year", Crysis 5 years ago, MW2 last year. Both sold more copies than any other game in their year, and both were the most pirated games of their year.

But Crysis sold 3 million copies, and MW2 sold a few hundred thousand. You cannot say the difference is because of piracy - Crysis was ridiculously heavily pirated!

The PC game market has changed, it simply is not as large as it used to be. Now, I think part of the difference is that Crysis was a "special" game, and MW2 not so much, but the majority of the difference is simply that MW2 was available on the console, because that is now the primary gaming platform. Crysis could barely run on a high end PC when it came out, no way it could run on a console in its release form.

The market has moved on.

[Iormlund]

If piracy was such a negative driver, then there never would have been a time when PC games dominated the market even while they were being pirated like crazy.

Can you think of a time during the reign of the PC game where the piracy problem was as significant as it is now?

After all these years I can still remember the flags to unpack a multivolume .ARJ file. Hell, my first PC arrived with tons of pirated games in 5" 1/4 floppies.