A scapegoat called piracy

So ... let's open can of worms, shall we? Piracy ... the most used excuse for publishers to exploit PC gamers. In the piracy debate, there's very strong feelings on both sides of the fence: some feel piracy is evil and there's never any reason to pirate anything while others feel that publishers only have themselves to blame for the increase in piracy. Me? I think so too.

If you just scratch the surface, it's easy to say piracy is bad: surely developers deserve your money if you played their game? This is also the main reason why people are against piracy since it jeopardises the possibility of more games being made so it's not entirely altruistic to want people to pay for their games. In practice, however, it doesn't quite work that way. In fact, there's a lot of misconceptions surrounding piracy and this is what I wanted to set straight in this blog post:

"Pirating means stealing money from the developers!"

Not always. In fact, almost never! The truth is that developers rarely get money according to sales any more: that money goes towards the publishers - they're the money loaners, employers, investors. They pay the wages of the developers and the expenses and in return they get all the profits. ALL the profits. Some developers get a small amount of royalties (very often a mere 5% ) depending on the contract, but increased sales will not mean more money going towards the developer and this is an important distinction.

"Oh, but!" I hear you say, "But more money for the publisher means they can reinvest more money as well!". This is very true but that money won't necessarily flow back to the developer! The publisher may decide to spend it on marketing or on another developer who may bring in more money. Or, the sequel may simply become a console exclusive! While higher sales increase the likelihood of a developer getting a new contract, it's important to note that very little if any money goes directly back towards the people who actually made the game.

I do strongly support independent developers who work without publisher funds: 2D Boy, Introversion, etc. all self-fund their own games which has become a rarity. It also means that a single unsuccessful game can cause the death of their company so they need the support a hell of a lot more than most other developers.

"Pirating means lost sales!"

Erm, no. This is a common misconception but the truth is that many people who pirate have their own agenda for doing so. This ranges from wanting to try a game before buying it (a potential sale), to simply being broke and not being able to afford the game but with the intent to buy it when they can.

Oh, sure, there's also those who can afford the game but choose not to buy it (for reasons I explained further down) but it's important to realise that these don't count for all pirates. So when a publisher says "our game has been pirated 1.000.000 times meaning $50.000.000 in lost revenue" you got to take it a BIG pinch of salt. More like a truck of salt, actually. With the lack of demos these days, piracy has become a "must" for many gamers in this economic climate. Why risk wasting $50/€40/£30 if you can get the game a try before you head to the shops? Maybe, if they released demos before a game's release, piracy wouldn't be the only other option ...

"Piracy is stealing"

No, it's not. Piracy is a breach of copyright, not stealing. Some may say that's a matter of semantics but it's not: there's a huge difference when it comes to the law which is what counts. On top of that, piracy is copying a virtual product akin to xeroxing pages from a book in the library. In fact, legally it's the same crime.

Even more important to realise, is that there's no actual goods being stolen. The developer or publisher loses nothing physical when a game or program gets pirated. Whether a game gets pirated a 1.000 times or a million times, there's no immediate difference in theory. In practice, it might mean more lost sales of course, but it's important to acknowledge the difference.

"Piracy is why this game is no longer supported!"

This is a good one - a good one because the opposite is true. A lack of support is the main reason why a game gets pirated and then not bought. Publishers see that a game gets pirated a lot and then decide to pull the plug on further support of the game. Why? I mean, why would you punish those that bought the game and also give a signal to those that pirated the game that they were right not to buy it? I mean, continuous support (including free updates) is THE main reason to buy a game so why drop it and then blame piracy? It makes no sense!

Well, to publishers it does: why keep supporting a game which doesn't sell millions, right? But not only are you dissuading your current customers of paying for your next game (why would they if they drop support so quickly?), you're also confirming what the pirates already believed: that it wasn't worth buying the game in the first place.

"Piracy sends publishers the wrong signal!"

This one is mostly true but only because publishers refuse to see the underlying problems. They treat piracy as a cause instead of a symptom caused by lack of support, the releasing of buggy and incomplete games, the removing of the value of owning a physical copy, etc. Some games can be completed in a matter of hours with little or no replay value, we no longer get a decent manual nor any freebies with our games, some only have 3 activations before the game will refuse to run, if the game doesn't run on your PC, many stores refuse to take it back, etc. etc.

All of these problems push down the perceived value of a game and if this perceived value is a lot lower than the store price, it's not too surprising to find that people are unwilling to pay for it. It's no coincidence that games such as Red Alert 3 and Mirror's Edge drastically dropped in price after the DRM "scandal" broke loose! Poor sales are a very likely reason for this.

"You need to buy the game if you want to be heard by the publisher!"

Oh no no no no no. This is the worst thing you can do. Worse than pirating it, in fact. Buying is agreeing with whatever strategy the publisher put in place - it's the worst signal you can send! A publisher will look at the sales and use that to conclude whether their business strategy works or not. If games with DRM measures had sold very well, they'd have tagged it onto every game they could get their hands on but the massive outcry luckily affected sales to a point where some publishers have already given up on the idea.

Sadly enough, voting with your wallet and not buying the game will often be wrongly interpreted as well. Instead of stepping away from whatever poor idea they had in place, they'll try to blame the developer and its game instead even if the actual game is great which might mean no sequel! This has happened in the past, sadly enough, and it's just one example of how shortminded publishers can be.

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For all that has been written above, it's important to note that I don't support piracy on the whole. Hell, why I understand why many people pirate, I will always buy a game I enjoy and I strongly support those developers that deserve it. In fact, I buy at least 5 games each month and actively go out of my way to support and promote the smaller and lesser known developers that need the extra attention.

So why did I write all this? Well, if you read it all, you may discover a recurring theme: the ignorance of the publisher which hurts EVERYONE, pirates and ligit buyers alike. I said at the start that I agree that publishers have themselves to blame for the current state of the PC market and for good reason: they ignore the community, impose the most ridiculous systems, try to squeeze extra money out of us while quickly dropping support for their products and even rushing games out before they're finished. This worrying trend is really erroding the respect gamers hold for developers and publishers alike and when there's a lack of respect, the step towards piracy is a lot easier to make.

Publishers need to accept that piracy is a reality and instead of using it as an excuse for yet more draconian measures that punish ligit buyers more than the pirates (which, ironically, creates more pirates), they should take a closer look at why pirates pirate their games in the first place. Until publishers stop pointing fingers and start looking at what they're doing instead, I don't think we'll ever get out of this downwards spiral.

It's no surprise that games such as Oblivion and Galactic Civilizations II sell very well despite having no or nearly no copy protection in please and it's because these are two well respected developers. Take note publishers: respect is something you earn.