Former Dragon Age producer Mike Darrah has published a new video detailing what facts the games industry, including players, get wrong about game piracy. Pirating a game can be seen as both rebellious and an atrocity, depending on which side of the industry you’re on.
In the video, Darrah explains how both sides can overestimate the impact piracy may or may not have on game publishers. The video starts off with Darrah explaining how publishers can overestimate their potential sales loss when it comes to game piracy, which is more prevalent in PC gaming than in the console space. Publishers can often point to the simple math of calculating lost revenue by multiplying the amount of pirated game copies with the launch price, but that doesn’t take into account the myriad of sales discounts.
Regarding the mindset of game pirates, Darrah says:
“…If you were pirating a game as a form of protest, that’s not doing what you think it’s doing. Yes, you’re denying the publisher the sales price of the game, but assuming that they are detecting that you exist at all, they still see you as a potential player – a potential customer. So rather than really serving as a boycott, you’re undermining that, and instead you’re encouraging that publisher to look for harsher and more restrictive copy protection to try to force you to buy the game.”
He suggests not playing the game altogether if protesting against developers/publishers is indeed the intention of the player. However, there are times when pirating a game seems to be the only logical choice, with a game becoming unavailable on any platform being a chief one.
Ultimately, PC game piracy is a rampant issue, but it can’t be broken down into shades of black and white. Redistribution of console games are also a problem, and platform holders are fighting hard to prevent it. However, the constant push to a digital-only future from major console manufacturers comes with its own set of problems, and rebellious gamers will keep turning to the high seas as long as they aren’t fixed.
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