Piracy is not so bad

[RCBH928]

Or is it?

A lot of people complain about Piracy(in videogames) and companies put in a lot of effort to stop it. But after giving it another look, it seems that Piracy is not so bad.

Looking back at history, the easiest(or most pirated) console is the one with the biggest sales. PSX, PS2, NES, and now the Wii.
They even scores highest game sales .

I think there is a relationship here between piracy and the success of a console. Despite the companies complaining about how piracy is making lose a lot of money, the question is , when was the last time a company failed due to piracy? Usually they score tens of millions of dollars then complain that they are losing money due to piracy.

On the opposite, game makers that go out of business do so because no one even wanted to pirate their games because simply they suck big time or they put in a huge amount of money into a mediocre title.

I think piracy has to do a lot with the success of any console/game developer . It sure is going to help the console maker if they are making profit on each console sold(Like Nintendo today), because no matter what, he who pirates will have to pay for the console price at least.

One way I think piracy can help companies is that it creates brand recognition. Like lets assume Sonic was a pirated game. Sega might have sold a million or two of Sonic games, but now they go a Mascot that is known world wide. Piracy is like indirect marketing.

[IcKy99]

but piracy also discourages developers.

perfect example - the PSP

barely gets any games anymore, since it was so easy to mod.

but who am i to talk, i got a cycloDS and a modded PSP, plus i torrent PC games hahaha i just love free shit!

[BigTinz]

[IcKy99]

Pirating on DC dont matter since its a dead system, hell its actually awesome

[t0yrobo]

I've yet to see compelling proof that piracy was a main cause of the DCs death. CD burners were still rather expensive back then and not that many people had them.

[BigTinz]

Pirating on DC dont matter since its a dead system, hell its actually awesome

I'm not talking about present day. Piracy has been rampant on the DC since it came out...and it hurt game sales.

[Dylan]

Eh, I think that I can confidently say that piracy is not good for companies.

[Hobie-wan]

I think there is a relationship here between piracy and the success of a console. Despite the companies complaining about how piracy is making lose a lot of money, the question is , when was the last time a company failed due to piracy? Usually they score tens of millions of dollars then complain that they are losing money due to piracy.

Just because the console companies aren't going out of business doesn't make it right. The DC was hurt by the ease at which copies could be made as much as the blow of the PS2. Sega did almost die, granted some of it was their own fault with the hardware releases.

We all pay more for games and have to deal with DRM headaches because of piracy. Even though DRM will always be defeated because there are many more people working on breaking it than making it in the first place, companies spend money on all that crap and charge more to recoup because they like to count every pirate copy as a lost sale, even though that's BS.

On the opposite, game makers that go out of business do so because no one even wanted to pirate their games because simply they suck big time or they put in a huge amount of money into a mediocre title.

So Capcom closed Clover Studios because Okami and Viewtiful Joe were crap and nobody bought them eh?

I think piracy has to do a lot with the success of any console/game developer . It sure is going to help the console maker if they are making profit on each console sold(Like Nintendo today), because no matter what, he who pirates will have to pay for the console price at least.

Nintendo is pretty much the only console maker who made money on the actual systems anywhere near the beginning of its lifetime. For quite some time consoles are sold at a loss with the licensing of third party games expected to make up the difference. This means that game sales are what create the profit. And piracy erodes game sales, not console sales.

One way I think piracy can help companies is that it creates brand recognition. Like lets assume Sonic was a pirated game. Sega might have sold a million or two of Sonic games, but now they go a Mascot that is known world wide. Piracy is like indirect marketing.

Terrible example. A large number of the people who played Sonic games on the Genesis (before he had recognition) did so as a pack in game.

[Hobie-wan]

I've yet to see compelling proof that piracy was a main cause of the DCs death. CD burners were still rather expensive back then and not that many people had them.

I had a burner back then. Yes I paid about $200 for it, but its not like the bad old days when they were $1000. All of my friends had burners. Heck, the first DC I played was at a friend's place around the time the PS2 came out and he had DC backups.

[darthmunky]

Yeah, the creators shouldn't care about people pirating their stuff. They shouldn't be making games for the money, they should me doing it to create great games. I don't have any PS1 or Dreamcast games that aren't backups. I also have a modded Xbox and I had a modded Wii with only backups.