1. A game pirated doesn't equate to a lost sale or profit lost.
2. There is no way to measure the actual amount of pirated games on a per copy basis that isn't just thin-air statistics or educated guess work.
3. There is no way to easily subtract from "pirated-totals" ( if we could ever hope to measure it ) those games that wouldnt have been a 'sale' anyway because that person either couldn't afford it, didn't want it ( for anything greater then free ) or simply thought it wasn't worth it. Going around and asking users once they've pirated games if they would've bought it after the fact is unrealistic / unreliable even if you could collect data that way.
4. We shouldn't underestimate how much sales can be boosted by freely spread word of mouth which is basically free publicity/advertising for any (pirated) game.
Pirated games probably do hurt sales to some degree but I don't think it's as clear-cut as "copies sold versus copies copied".
More significant (and more damaging for everyone in the long run) I'd guess is the loss of investors / game development due to loss of confidence of the platform, financial concerns out of fear of piracy or even opportunistic slander from competitors (after it's opened up to piracy), that devalue the console if it causes a sudden lack of support from good game devs coming in.
2. There is no way to measure the actual amount of pirated games on a per copy basis that isn't just thin-air statistics or educated guess work.
3. There is no way to easily subtract from "pirated-totals" ( if we could ever hope to measure it ) those games that wouldnt have been a 'sale' anyway because that person either couldn't afford it, didn't want it ( for anything greater then free ) or simply thought it wasn't worth it. Going around and asking users once they've pirated games if they would've bought it after the fact is unrealistic / unreliable even if you could collect data that way.
4. We shouldn't underestimate how much sales can be boosted by freely spread word of mouth which is basically free publicity/advertising for any (pirated) game.
Pirated games probably do hurt sales to some degree but I don't think it's as clear-cut as "copies sold versus copies copied".
More significant (and more damaging for everyone in the long run) I'd guess is the loss of investors / game development due to loss of confidence of the platform, financial concerns out of fear of piracy or even opportunistic slander from competitors (after it's opened up to piracy), that devalue the console if it causes a sudden lack of support from good game devs coming in.
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thats exactly right, but we do agree that if there was no opportunity to play roms whatsoever, actual game sales would be better, if only by an undefined amount, right?
imagine a world that never knew about pirating, there wouldnt even be people saying "im not buying this 3ds, im waiting until its hacked" those people would either not buy anything at all, or save up for that stuff, the same way they save up to buy a book, a tv, a new car or candy. they would obviously play less games, as they cant freey pick every single one, but in the end, they would pay more than what they would pay otherwise.
also, that word of mouth argument... i dont really believe it to be very true. there are so many sources for information besides fellow pirates (and theres a reason i write fellow pirates), that we can indeed underestimate the impact here. yes. when i tell my friends a game is good, it will probably mean a little more than the ad on tv, but unless you lie to all your friends about your pirating habits, if they are really interested, they will ask you for a link or if you can put it on a usb drive for them. go ahead and try telling your friends why they should throw out 50 bucks for a game, they know they could get from you for free.
when i showed my friends kingdom hearts days on my back then new flash card, they didnt ask me where to buy that game (even though they did want to play it) they asked me where i got the flash card and how much that costs.
similar with hacked wiis and other consoles way back till the ps1 and stuff. people, parents and kids alike ask people with hacked hardware "where do i get this free game stuff? how much does this chip business cost?"
well, i guess what i'm trying to say is, yes, we cant know anything in hard numbers, we know that pirated is at most potentially a lost sale, but we do know that as far as piracy goes, the losses outweigh any possible gains. however negligible the difference may be, it really just needs a handful of people thinking "by buying a flashcard, i can save a ton of money".
even if just 5% of the pirates stopped buying their games when they got access to the right hacks or flashcards, and even if they otherwise would have bought just like 4 more games, the greatest hits that they really needed to play, at a greatest hits/platinum/goty price level, thats still a loss. yes, 5% and 4 games are made up estimates, but they are low estimates. as far as i see it, it would be much more realistic to say that theres just about 5% of people that DIDNT entirely stop spending money on real games. I sometimes buy games I believe were very good, but I know I would have bought more if I didnt have the alternative. I would have made mistake and idiotic purchases, I would have spend 10 bucks more to play a game earlier, these numbers do add up.
again, not having any hard numbers, but just look at the size of some of the bigger hacking communities out there. it is much more likely that they cause more financial damage, than benefit, isnt it?
at least for the gaming industry, where saving up would otherwise be pretty manageable
The communities are big, there you are correct. The difference here is that is a downloaded game a lost sale? Would the person have bought the game if they couldn't play it with a flashcart? Can you even count downloads as lost sales? Would the system have sold that well without piracy? More sold hardware units = more possible consumers, there is no way to go around this. This is more a psychological and financial philosophy problem. If a person has the option of buying the items and piracy, he would buy the items if they were available in an easy way. If he'd have to wait for 9 months for a game instead of downloading it and hitting in a microSD, guess which one would win?
There are no way to count sales and downloads with comparison to each other. Why? Not everyone can even buy the games being downloaded. Look at the DS and how many games haven't received a US release or a EU release. If a person doesn't have access to buy items online (which affects quite a few younger ones), there is no way for them to buy the games. Why? There isn't a store that sells them.
My point here isn't to say you're completely wrong on the matter, it's a point of perspective. DS games don't have demo versions to try out. Sometimes you are able to test a game at a local store, but that's that. Compare it to PC/PS3/360 gaming and you see a point. Also piracy can't take care of all matters regarding games. Just like the Pokéwalker or B/W did with additional features. You couldn't use the new features with a flashcart.
Conclusion: Piracy isn't as simple as different sides of the discussion want it to be. While it may hurt at one time, it may help at another.
ps. The music industry is an even better example here with record sales vs concerts vs legal downloads vs illegal downloads. "No one buys records in place X, no point in having a concert there" *concert happens* "How are there 10000 people watching the show when there are no sales whatsoever?" *MAGIC*
but you did read that i wrote exactly that too, yes? i never said that a download equals a sale.
a download is only a potential lost sale, but among the number of cases, there are obviously instances when it IS a lost sale.
and would the system have sold as well? maybe not so much, but then again, if you buy it FOR PIRACY, you are a potential consumer, yes, but you are very much more likely to not be one. I'm pretty sure, nintendo would gladly take a few lost hardware sales if it meant that piracy would be dead tomorrow. if you're like sony and actually losing money with sold hardware, this gets even worse, as you would normally have to offset the "cheap" console price by buying like 3 or 4 software titles
your psychology argument only holds true for easy access AND cheap. it has to be really cheap (on a per game basis), to take a legal download over an illegal free one.
the industries, all of them, they over exaggerate. and with stuff like acta, they do overreact, though i can understand why they want that kind of law... non the less, it is costing them, hands down, it is. you dont need to compare downloads to sales and ask every single pirate in the world, or compare this dimension to one, where piracy was never a problem.
if there was no piracy, they would be better off
a download is only a potential lost sale, but among the number of cases, there are obviously instances when it IS a lost sale.
and would the system have sold as well? maybe not so much, but then again, if you buy it FOR PIRACY, you are a potential consumer, yes, but you are very much more likely to not be one. I'm pretty sure, nintendo would gladly take a few lost hardware sales if it meant that piracy would be dead tomorrow. if you're like sony and actually losing money with sold hardware, this gets even worse, as you would normally have to offset the "cheap" console price by buying like 3 or 4 software titles
your psychology argument only holds true for easy access AND cheap. it has to be really cheap (on a per game basis), to take a legal download over an illegal free one.
the industries, all of them, they over exaggerate. and with stuff like acta, they do overreact, though i can understand why they want that kind of law... non the less, it is costing them, hands down, it is. you dont need to compare downloads to sales and ask every single pirate in the world, or compare this dimension to one, where piracy was never a problem.
if there was no piracy, they would be better off
@[member='Sappoide']: You got me wrong, I was just using my country as example to why people buy pirate games, never said that the consoles should be hacked for that reason. Also, do you think people here care about the ps2, a console that is from two generations ago? No, thanks... We would rather have reasonable prices for last generation games instead. We may not be a developed country but we don't live in pre-history...
My point is that the most sold consoles are the easiest to pirate, do you actually think it's a coincidence that the ps1 sold more than the snes and genesis combined? And in the next generation, the PS2 sold better than Gamecube, even though the gamecube was cheaper, had better graphics and was very easy to program. While the PS2 was graphically inferior and very hard to program. Since the PS2 was easy to pirate, it had better sales and more games were developed for it, proving that game developers prefer developing for the best selling console despite of piracy.
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I think it was summed up perfectly already so I don't know why there are still arguments against this. The numbers of revenue list due to piracy is greatly exaggerated and consoles and games still sell very well and each year all the companies profit about what a few hundred million to to billions and its usually the console can be heavily pirated that sells quite well and like others have pointed out piracy doesn't mean a loss of sale since that person wasn't going to buy it in the first place so there was no sale to begin with.
Piracy does affect the industry to a degree but I think its safe to assume the impact of it isn't that big to begin with otherwise no console or games can be sold at all and all of them will be selling at a loss of millions of dollars and anyone who thinks that piracy is destroying the game industry seem like they are brainwashed by corporate greed. Look at the 3DS, Vita and the WiiU they represent that the game industry are still going strong even with piracy. A good example of this is to take a look at other gaming forums like 3DSforums, MMGN and whatever, the members there are very anti-piracy and think anyone who pirates are the most evil being on earth and destroying the gaming industry but when confronted with the actual facts that a game even though got pirated still sold millions of copies deny that in order to bash pirates.
Piracy does affect the industry to a degree but I think its safe to assume the impact of it isn't that big to begin with otherwise no console or games can be sold at all and all of them will be selling at a loss of millions of dollars and anyone who thinks that piracy is destroying the game industry seem like they are brainwashed by corporate greed. Look at the 3DS, Vita and the WiiU they represent that the game industry are still going strong even with piracy. A good example of this is to take a look at other gaming forums like 3DSforums, MMGN and whatever, the members there are very anti-piracy and think anyone who pirates are the most evil being on earth and destroying the gaming industry but when confronted with the actual facts that a game even though got pirated still sold millions of copies deny that in order to bash pirates.
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He did i'm just hoping this thread doesn't get derailed into another argument of if the 3DS will be hacked or not.
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Well there are reasons to hack. Patches that come out, additional features are all good stuff. Pokemon Blaze Black and Volt White are good examples. There are ample reasons.
If you found a vulnerability and exploited it to allow you to play 3DS ROMs, then sure keep it to your self. There are scene groups actively dumping 3DS ROMs even though there is no publicly known way to use them. Why risk Nintendo patching it? What they don't know, they can't fix. On the other hand. If you found a vulnerability and exploited it to allow you to run unsigned code, sure release this hack. What is the point in making the console run unsigned code if there is no code to run? People wont make programs for a system if they can not run it on the system.
Yes, but region locking is the easiest way to control different audiences. If something was illegal in country A, but legal in country B, they could release separate versions for the countries. Now the company doesn't have to worry about the legal issues in country A if someone happened to bring the game from country B. Simple and effective, but not for the customer.
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That feels more like censorship to me than anything else. Also I doubt that any game will have that problem if anything it would have stuff that isn't "socially" acceptable but not illegal in country A but okay in country B. The main problem I see with that is it can extend from the smallest and harmless thing as Japanese names/themes etc to being able to date an AI character with big boobs and not alot of clothing.
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