Is piracy a serious issue for game developers?

[shaylon]

"Piracy" of intangible works seem to lower not raise consumer prices, because the legal product is competing with free illegal product, but no legal copies are 'lost' as such, unlike if you steal computers.

I am not sure if you wrote this based off of what I said, but so you know, I agree with this statement and I have heard that is how it works. I don't think I said anything in my prior post to contradict this, I was commenting on how theft in other sectors is attributed to poor sales when there are other factors that are overlooked.

-Shay

 

[Steel_Wind]

I think it has an effect - and one which is more significant than people generally acknowledge.

I know several guys who have every single 3e book ever printed on paper on .pdf. They are hardcore gamers with significant disposable incomes and tote their gaming libraries around on laptops now.

If these pdfs were not available - they'd have a lot more dead trees on their shelves. And the first dead tree versions which would appear would be WotC hardcovers - so in that sense, WotC loses, right?

BUT (there is always a BUT)...their "hobby money" they saved on buying hardcover books has been shifted within the hobby to miniature buying. WotC still more or less (devil is in that detail isn't it?) got the money - just for a different product.

It's a complicated issue.

 

[D_Sinclair]

Is piracy a problem? Most publishers think so.

For example, about 2 years ago, my boss did his own survey on piracy. 83 copies of a PDF sold, more than 700 individual download sources online. As it is, just a few days ago, six of ten volumes of that series were posted for download on the usenet. I have a hard time believing that so many individuals would have refused to buy the PDF at all.

More recently, Eden's Army of Darkness was discovered available on a p2p service, only a week after it was released. Presumably, it was one of the mere 30 copies sold, though they can't be sure since the watermarks weren't present. Over the few days after that discovery, they recorded over 100 downloads of the book. And considering the company victimized, I guess it is no surprise that there was no further effort to examine the data to see if any of those pirated downloads did manage to spawn additional sales.

Most recently has been the flood of Gencon 2005 and other recent releases posted on the usenet this past weekend. I've seen posts for Rifts Ultimate edition, Year's Best D20, a WFRP 2nd Edition book, and several new WW books, including the latest edition of Mage, none of which are available in a PDF format, AFAIK.

I think the worst thing I've heard regarding piracy was a rumor that an RPGnow staffer has a wife heavily involved with file trading on an RPG channel on IRC. Unfortunately, try as hard as I might, no one would put a name to the accusation, so I certainly hope it was simply a groundless rumor.

 

[S'mon]

I know several guys who have every single 3e book ever printed on paper on .pdf. They are hardcore gamers with significant disposable incomes and tote their gaming libraries around on laptops now.

Given the availability of the SRD, I find this weird. But then, I like printed books.

A low-income gamer I know bought a C&C PHB (ca $10) but normally she uses the SRD and old 2e materials, she can't afford $50 hardbacks.

 

[francisca]

I work at a proverbial large, conservative, midwestern state university. Part of my job is to nail people's heads to the floor who are illegally sharing protected IP. It's a pretty big problem, as you can imagine. Not only from a legal sense, but also from a sysadmin point of view, as we need to backup data stored on univeristy machines, etc...

Anyway, in my experience (and only mine, your mileage may vary), most of these jokers downloading mp3s, dvd rips, textbook scans, and RPG scans/pdfs are simply horders. I've seen hundreds of gigs of stuff, all neatly sorted into folders, just sitting there. Seriously, we sat down and figured out this one dude had over 2 years of movies and music to watch and listen to, if he listened for 12 hours a day, 5 days a week. He had over 20G of RPG stuff as well.

Now, I have to wonder, to what purpose? I think the "thrill" to these guys is the actual finding stuff, downloading it, and checking it off of a list. I seriously doubt these guys have time to play RPGs because they spend so much time hunting around and catalogging what they have.

So I'm dubious about two arguments:
1) People download on a "try then buy" basis. I don't think they have time to "try" out this stuff.
2) Lost sales. Like I said, I don't think many of these jokers have time to read and play, so why would they buy it.

I really think most of the people with 10s or 100s of gigs of illegal RPG stuff are actually just packrats. I really don't think they use it. They just keep buying bigger drives, blank DVDs, and LTO drives to back up there collection, never having the chance to use 1% of it. Guess the joke is on them.

 

[Zappo]

To forestall the flames, I suggest we all speak like a pirate in piracy threads. What could be more appropriate? Yarrr!

Hong? Arrr! Long time no see, matey!

 

[The Persian]

I just finished reading that other topic of piracy arguements...

it was like watching Wizard vs Wizard counterspell all day long!

 

[Bloodstone Press]

has this had a real impact on the profits or quality of materials produced for either Wizards or any other gaming companies?

AS others have said, the impact on actual sales are probably minimal for big companies, but smaller companies feel it a lot more.

Is piracy a serious issue for game developers?

It is for me, personally. I really HATE thieves. I mean, really, really HATE.

Taking something without paying for it, or worse still, taking something and making free copies of it available to everyone and anyone is, IMO, a serious character flaw. Anyone doing that is a criminal and should be punished to the full extent of the law.

Furthermore, I don't buy the argument that pirates don't think what they are doing is wrong. They know it’s wrong, they just also know that they can do it with a minimal chance of getting caught. It’s basic psychology.

Consider this:
You know driving in excess of the posted speed limit is wrong. Yet how many of you do it? Why do you do it? Because you think you can get away with it without getting caught. The idea that people police themselves is a fallacy. People will do whatever they think they can get away with. That's human nature.

That’s why I have argued before that the only effective way to stop pirates is a clear and absolute threat of getting caught and punished.

 

[Morrus]

Consider this:
You know driving in excess of the posted speed limit is wrong.

Oh, I wouldn't say that, necessarily! Driving dangerously is wrong, driving fast is not neceessarily so.

It's certainly illegal, though.

 

[The Persian]

Hm, but are you stating wrong as in "factually incorrect" or as in "what mom and dad told us not to do"?