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Console Players Are Pirates
According to a study by Macrovision one in five console gamers is a pirate, or uses pirated software. Interestingly the study, detailed on GamesIndustry.biz, also found that "three quarters of them would have paid for the games if they hadn't been available for free." Coverage also available on IGN.
I don't believe this for a second. A survey of 6000 people does not represent the millions of gamers in North America. Also... the main bias of this survey is that Macrovision is trying to peddle their copy protection services to MS and Sony.
"I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection." -- Sigmund Freud
I may have missed something, but they go from talking about software to games... software is not the same as a game, and that stat seems wildly out of whack. There are a handful (at least) of hurdles that one has to overcome before being able to priate a game, and it doesn't seem like the average gamer would neccesarily also be tech savvy enough to have, and keep the motivation in order to actually pirate the material.
That people who only have a passing interest or curiosity in a game would pay money for it. (outside of a rental)
Now if they could download and burn the same game they may be more willing to give it a wirl.
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Yup, the BBC says that they're a growing threat.
Oh wait...
If it's any help to Macrovision, I vowed when purchasing my XBox that I'd never buy a single game for it, and have stayed true to my word to this day.
Don't support consoles.
I don't suppose Macrovision would have the slightest bit of bias in this sort of a study? Seeing as they sell copy-protection technology...
I would expect such blatant racism on Fark, but on Slashdot? Mods please ban this asshole.
For a number of reasons, including who conducted it (Macrovision), their sample target (Techno-savvy gamers), and their sample size (6,000). Not to mention that we haven't yet seen the actual survey that they (presumably) e-mailed these people. There's also the issue of multiple responses from the same person. I assume they tried to prevent this with IP logging, but it is certainly still feasible. Also unknown are they type of "gaming" sites. If they attached a survery to GameCopyWorld.com, that just might skew the results a tad bit. I will take this article and with it, a giant-sized cube of salt.
=======================================
Doer of bad deeds, screenwriter-wannabe
savagexp
ARRRRR!!!
Modding a PS should not be a suprise as many games from Japan don't work in a US version. They have nobody to blame but themselves.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
I could see that 1 in 5 computer gamers may be pirating games, but console gamers? I can't see 20% of kids with PS2's or Gamecubes cracking games... Is it really that easy?
There is no way! Even here at work where most people are techy, the bulk of people do NOT pirate console games. I would say more like 1 in 10 (if even). And that ratio would certainly drop in a general population count.
...one in five Xbox and PS2 gamers is using pirated software...
Does this mean they are actually pirating Xbox and PS2 games, or is it also including gamers with pirated software on their computers? This seems kind of vague to me. I am curious what exactly they asked the gamers in the study.
I know far more than 5 console players and not one of us has a pirated console game. Hell, I've never even *seen* a pirated disc or cart for a console and I'm pretty sure most of my friends are in the same boat.
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
A new study conducted by California-based firm Macrovision
Just stop there, with that source, the rest of the article is worthless.
I would be willing to grant that such piracy probably happens, but this sounds like a scare tactic comming out of Macrovision trying to prop up sales of their anti-copying technologies. I expect a study to follow which claims that games with their newest technology are pirated far less. It will, of course, be the same level of bullshit at this study, but if it drives one or two companies to adopt their technology then it will easily pay for the minimum wage they paid someone for half a day to call random gamers and ask a misleading question.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
In the article here, shareware author Colin Messit discovered that less than 20% of the people using his software would pay for it voluntarily.
He wrote his software in such a way that a user installing it would have a 50/50 chance of getting a crippled version or a non-crippled version at time of installation. When people registered, they sent their serial numbers which encoded whether or not they had the crippled version or the "honor system" version.
He discovered that the crippled version was registered (people sent money) 5 times as often as the "honor system" version.
Conclusion? Most people only pay if they have to.
This is arguably the most pirated game.
So 1/5th of the players (assuming the study is anywhere near accurate, which I doubt) are pirates...that doesn't support the statement "Console Players are Pirates." Yesh.
- AMW
"According to a study by Macrovision one in five console gamers is a pirate, or uses pirated software. Interestingly the study, detailed on GamesIndustry.biz, also found that "three quarters of them would have paid for the games if they hadn't been available for free." "
Funny, the console market is pretty darn strong. You'd think all this piracy would mean that this year would be a real drag for console game publishers.
"Derp de derp."
One look at the boards where i hang out (the IGN Gamecube boards), you'd think that the top-selling games for the platform were Eternal Darkness, Viewtiful Joe and F-Zero. These games all NOWHERE NEAR the likes of the Mario Parties and Luigi's Mansion games (both of which I liked, by the way). Online people have a VERY different mindset than non tech-savvy/everyday gamer people...
The US gov says government corruption at an all time low.
Hot dog vendors say now is a good time to buy a hotdog
Could it possibly be that, perhaps, by the definitions used in this study, that one in five PEOPLE are pirates?
www.eFax.com are spammers
I personally know of 12 people who have console systems and are regular purchasers of games. Of those 12, TWO have pirated games. Of those TWO one was pirated because of REGION LOCKING for a game that was never released domestically. The other is a college student with no income.
This is obviously a propoganda piece devoted to target the "common knowledge" specifically with the claim that piraters would buy the product if it wasn't pirated!
I can concieve that people actually doesn't have pirated games, but take this as example:
:P
Here in Argentina, I would say only hi-class people with no knowledge of games get to a game store and buy original games and consoles. Simply becouse they don't care about money. The rest use "pirateable" consoles like PS1/2 and Xbox, just becouse thay sell modchipped aquipment in the stores, and copied games too.
Enclosing things, make that survey here and you will get:
30% Sega Mega
30% PSOne
20% PS2
15% Xbox
5% Other
and a huge 90+% pirated stuff and a 10-% elite buying original games/consoles.
(I get it about actually buying the console and promoting it's games, but the 1 of 5 relation doesn't make sense to me)
Get real, look at the DC/eMuLe/BT networks and tell me you would rather download the game even before it hits the shelves and download it to your IDE 80 HD on your XBox.
P.S.: FBI Agents, I don't own a console so don't poke me
As far as I can see and hear, gamecube games are some of the hardest to pirate because of their backwards spinning mini dvd disc format. It's just simply not technology that you could easily have access to from the home, unlike a plain old dvd burner which can be bought pretty damned cheap these days.
My gaming systems include a pc and a gamecube, and while I've bought about a half dozen games for each in the past 2 years, my collection of pc games that I've aquired during that same 2 years is quite respectable. I must mention also that I know a few people who have bought an xbox or a ps2 over a gamecube because they knew it could be modded to play burned games.
Just makes me wonder if Nintendo would have a larger presense in the console world if it was easier to "evaluate" their games.
Maybe Steve Irwin would know abou--what, console pirates? Nevermind...
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Not Pandemonium... sheesh... see kids? This is what crunch mode will do to ya!
Conclusion? Most people only pay if they have to.
That applies to sex also.
I'm the urban spaceman babe, but here comes the twist... I don't exist
No kidding.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
Macrovision, RIAA, et al - have discovered how to PREDICT THE FUTURE!!!1!1 bah, you get the idea.
Idiots. I doubt they even bothered to do any kind of reputable research for this and just made it up out of whole cloth, or the survey consisted of someone asking their drinking buddies what they thought some good numbers would be.
It would be pretty hard to get accurate predictions on something like this regardless, even if they did try. From someone that's actually downloaded things, and knows people that've downloaded things, the reality of the situation is:
If people download something, it's because they don't want to pay for it. Lack of availabilty online won't necessarily make them want to pay for it. Downloading it MAY change their mind and make them want to pay for it, in which case they will do so. I download music so I won't have to listen to the crap that turns up on the radio (not to mention having to wait through the commericals & talk talk when I just want to hear music). I download vid files because the stuff on cable has no redeeming entertainment or intellectual value. I download games to find out if the damn thing sucks so much that I won't launch the program more than twice.
Give me content that doesn't suck through an "approved" outlet (which is to say, one they can directly line their pockets with) and I'll pay for it - to the extent that I have available currency. I'll still prefer cheap or free media outlets to overpriced ones, and I'll still only buy the things I want to own. If it's not that good, I'll still get it from the library or listen to it on the radio first. I buy what I want to own, I don't buy what I don't want to own.
Um, the only console I own is a gamecube. I'm curious to know how Macrovision could determine how I could possibly pirate gamecube games (which like 99.9% of gamecube owners out there, I've never even tried). Hell, I don't even own the broadband adapter. I wonder if they'll tell me how we can do it so easily?
I have a study to prove it!
--Acme Elephant Insurance Company, Oklahoma City.
If kids can't even figure out how to install Final Fantasy XI, how can they be pirates, too?
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
My point is that this research only tells us that crippleware worked better in this particular case, a case where I think the registration fee was set way too high. Looking at just the uncrippled registrations, he made $3900 in about a year for his couple of days work. To me that seems pretty fair, and certainly not something I'd complain about. All registrations totaled $34000, and he claims it would have been $50000 if all versions had been crippled. That seems like an awfully good return for a couple of days work. Good on him for making that, but it seems a bit off to be complaining about his users honesty given just how much he made from that software.
I think they misread the survey results. It is far more likely that the respondants all said: "They would have paid three-quarters (75 cents) if the games hadn't been available for free.".
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
or I'll hit you with my peg leg and sic my parrot on you!
And 9 out of 10 women are guilty of showing their foreheads in public. Let's all do as we're told and be outraged by it.
I am NOT a number! I am a - oh wait, I'm number 761710. Look! 761710!
Unfortunately, many publishers insist that consoles be region-encoded. If you're thinking about picking up a property from Japan, the percieved value of that property is a lot lower if it has already leaked into your home market. It's more difficult to create a frenzy that way, and some of the demand will already have been satisfied. Of course the amount of people who would buy foreign titles is margin-of-error sized for any game less popular than Street Fighter 2, but that's still how publishers view the issue.
Of course, my personal reaction is "tough titty toenails. It's a global market. It's not worth the trouble you're causing your players." But that's probably why I'm not a publisher.
The ______ Agenda
Has anyone found the actual study (not another press release), or the citation for it? I did a search at the macrovision homepage, and then through the technology/engineering databases at my university, but I couldn't find this study.
Now look at the Xbox Next. Instead of a 700Mhz Celeron, it's gonna have a 3Ghz, triple-core PPC chip. These will not be cheap to produce. Can you imagine how much Microsoft will lose on each unit?
The Final Solution to the Microsoft problem should now be obvious. If each and every one of us buys an Xbox Next and no games, we will bankrupt Microsoft. I'm not advocating copyright infringement. I doubt the launch games will be worth duping. Just throw it in a closet and dust it off when someone figures out how to run Linux on it.
"The newly born animals are then whisked off for a quick run through a giant baking oven." --heard on Food Network
The amount of money he made should have little to do with how much work he did. Instead, it should correlate with how much service he did for others.
I think he should be applauded for serving so many with so little of his own effort. There are those that put plenty of effort into pointless tasks and serve no one.
Instead this man was able to, with just a few days work, provide something useful to thousands.
So what did those he served give him in return? Well, those that were honest, gave him money. Those that were dishonest did nothing for him.
Money is a promise to serve. Giving someone your money is a promise that they'll get something something back from you, directly or indirectly. It's a form of reciprocity.
Are you really defending those that would use this man's services and not even give him a "thank you"?
How many PC users have pirated software? I'd say a LOT more than 1 in 5. That's actually pretty low, and encouraging for console game manufacturers. More people stole Halo PC than bought it, and a lot of coppies were sold. That's >50% piracy rate. Compared to this, console gamers are comparatively well behaved.
If it's 1 in 5 then i reckon it's my brother Colin.
I mean it's not me or my Dad, Harry, or my mum, Carole, or my other brother, Captain Jack Sparrow.
Yep definitely. The pirate is Colin.
Secondly, my point is that the time he spent on that app is a more accurate estimate of its worth than the entirely arbitrary price he decided to charge for it. I haven't tried the app myself, but from description (it prints out windows helpfiles) and the time he spent on it indicate to my mind that it is overpriced. If people are given the choice between being honest and paying too much or being dishonest and paying nothing it is not a suprise that many of them choose to pay nothing. People are known for dishonesty when they feel they're being ripped off. However, if the choice had been between being honest and paying a fair price and being dishonest and paying nothing the percentage of people who decide to pay will be higher. Without further research at other price points this research is not conclusive.
Not at all. What I'm saying is that I think if his pricing were more reasonable he would have found a smaller gap between the "honest" and "dishonest" users. As I said, people who feel the price is unreasonable are more inclined to be dishonest. Take a look at his "five fundamenetals for sucess": a product users need, quality, advertising, distribution of samples, and a reason to pay. Notice that he's completely forgotten pricing. Yet most business owners will tell you that price is probably the number one thing you have to get right to suceed.this is barly scientific at best. due to the fact that it workrks based on a randam number to determan the install. to be better suted as scientific it would have to be determand at the server level. because lets say it was based on the seconds place of the system clock and that for even seconds the people installing it would have the cripled version. lets go on further that in febuary of 1995 there where only 66 installs of those 66 installs only 8 of them where non cripled. that would mean that 100% of the people that installed it payed for it and 100% of the people hounered the shareware system and liance agrement or wanted the adisonal fetures the only way to tell would be to compleatly restrict installes to downloads that came off a server that had predetermed the type of install it was and compare to that
I wonder if it's because they're trying to get an early foot in the door of the next console generation.
My attitude is that my energy is much better spent building a compelling product than it is building increasingly elaborate (and ultimately useless) anti-copying measures. In my experience, if you make it just difficult enough that the honest people realize they're violating the licensing agreement, most of them will be willing to pay anyway. The dishonest ones won't care regardless.
This guy does the same amount of work and expects $50000+. Why is the difference so high?
Same amount of work? Really? How long did it take him to become a programmer? What about the time it took him to learn the Win32 API? He didn't get anything for that work until he turned it into software that users could take advantage of.
And the qualitative difference in the type of work is important too. Most people can, in some way, apply brute labor to help build a road. A smaller percentage of people have the skill to write software. This fact seems to suggest that the task of producing software is in general more difficult than the simple application of a person's labor.
You also seem to be suggesting that the value in something comes from the labor put into it. This labor theory of value is a poor performer. One reason is the subjective nature of value. People's degree of desire for a thing has little to do with the labor put into that thing and varies greatly from person to person.
It's because the software vendor has the capability to perfectly replicate his product, and while automatic replication of work is the key to wealth, it's hardly a fair situation.
Why should it matter to the users of the software how much money or wealth the programmer might earn? So what. He asks for money for his services. People can say yes or no. What's the problem besides the envy some might feel?
People are known for dishonesty when they feel they're being ripped off.
This feeling of being "ripped off" is silly and is hardly an excuse for dishonesty.
Look. This guy wrote a cheap program to do a job many people needed done. You might think it was too easy a job to justify his charging $25.
But where were the cheaper alternatives? Surely if it was such an easy task for the typical person, there'd be other options.
I think the survey question was really, "If pirate copies weren't available, would you have to pay for these games?"
Only 25% were smart enough to realize that they could just not get the game at all.
1 in 5 Slashdot editors are Trolls. Too bad mod points can't be used on the article itself.
So when games are unavailable for free most pirates will buy ALL games they pirated ?
Gee, I wish I was a pirate. They seem to be really rich !
That's pretty good actually. If you can reduce losses by that amount you're doing well.
Microsoft takes a loss on every console sold, so even if he wasn't supporting the software companies, Microsoft still lost money.
Do you really think that's true?
I bet you belive the urban legend that Gillette lose money on the razors but make it up on the blades too!
It's a safe bet they make a profit on both, just vastly greater margins on the game titles themselves.
Maybe the survey was conducted outside a pirate store in Malaysia?
When I was a kid I could afford maybe five NES games a year. If I had pirated a thousand games I still only would only have been able to buy five, not a thousand. Most pirates probably just leave the loot unused and have like five things they use anyways.
And who knows, maybe Schrödinger's cat applies to unused files?
The Chair Corp. comic(*00-12)
"The survey participants were randomly selected from a pool of visitors to various game-related websites."
Any chance of a list of which websites? Any chance to actually see the questionaire? I really really hate it when these pseudo-scientific adverts are presented without providing any backing. I understand most people aren't interested, but there's no reason the down and dirty info can't be linked off the shock and awe press release.
Personally speaking (and I suspect I'm not alone) I have a load of consoles around my house, all chipped, or 'opened' (apart from the PSP and DS).
I've got every console I've owned chipped as soon as I was able to. It's not a matter of wanting 'free' games, it's my urge to make the device as functional as possible. You buy your console and it does X, you chip it and it does X plus a bit more. The world's full of millions of these damn consoles, all uniform in their ability/appearance. You just have the urge to get a little bit more than the next guy - the commoner you can look down upon.
My PS2 was nice, but I bought into DVD when it started off and US imports had the latest films, different cuts and lower prices. How f'in annoying was it to be only able to play back 2/3rds of your film collection? When MGS came out in the US months and months before the UK, why on earth should I sit twiddling my thumbs before I can play it?
For the Xbox it's the wonders of Media Centre - Now there's no reason MS couldn't have released something similar, but they didn't. It's out there, I want it and I need a mod chip to make it happen.
To sum up my ramblings, a large number of people don't mod purely to pirate. They mod to 'free' their console of all the artificial restrictions that've been forced upon it.
Somebody pushes you, your first instinct is to push back.
This is what Macrovision is fighting. The consoles have copy protection and most people happily live their lives with it. A minority are opposed to it, you know they are, they've spent an evening swearing at it whilst clutching a soldering iron. You're not going to make them stop, you just enter an escalating race against them. New protection followed by new patch/chip/technique. It's got personal and I'm not going to let Macrovision stop me.
PSP seems to be a bit of an advance, you need to buy games for it, but it plays movies, I can just stick the card from my camera into it, it's region free for games, seemingly it'll synch with the new PSX. I'm just curious to see if my theory holds out, will it be less of a target for hackers due to it's higher original functionality.
I would've bought a game too if it wasn't a piece of crap and not worth the $59.95 price tag. *cough* Hell after the much anticipated Deus Ex 2, Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines, or Halo 2 being not even close to having a value of $20 in my eyes I don't wanna buy many games before I play them for free. Quit making shit, people will buy.
Not by the article, but by the posts.
I don't know anybody that owns a console that doesn't pirate games. (Except of course myself since I went Intellivison, Nintendo, Genesis, 64, GC). Yet everyone is saying that exact opposite. Very strange. I am sure the study was biased, but piracy is rampant for the PS2 and XBox. And you don't have to be tech savy. I know some of the least technical people in the world and they have modded console. It's not for imports either, I mean how many people do you know that play imported games?? They just know somebody who knows somebody who's poolman's doorman can mod a console. They pay 50 bucks or so and they're done.
Perhaps it's the 20 something age group, but I am personally surprise the numbers aren't higher.
Why are they measuring pirates per penny? Has "percent" suddenly ceased to be a word?
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Of the pc gamers are pirates? And therefore, how many of the console players are also pc gamers? Terrible experiment, bad format.
Sigs are for Terrorists.
Almost every gamer I know uses pirate software, and about 10%, if that, would have 'bought the game anyway'. Different places, different cultures, different earnings.
Interestingly the study, detailed on GamesIndustry.biz, also found that "three quarters of them would have paid for the games if they hadn't been available for free."
GamesIndustry.biz huh? What's the next hot news item?
"three fifths of them would have just mailed in bags full of money if they hadn't been available at all."
Sounds about right?
Regular Meta Moderators are not more likely to get mod points.
Okay, it's already been said that the survey results are suspect due to its associate with Macrovision, a company that sells copyright protection.
So I'll ask... what's the percentage of pirated games that are "protected" with Macrovision? Or phrased differently, how many games protected by Macrovision were never cracked and pirated?
There's some results I bet they wouldn't want to publish!
A lot of the "big" bloggers charge nothing for their site, but have a "tip jar" to accept payments from readers. They get $1000+ per month. For something that is "free".
OTOH, I've never pirated commercial software in my life.
The research company OR the gamers/users who are posting in here? Well, from what I know of the "quality" of the users in here, I tend to believe it's the people in here who are biased.
The old TurboExpress handheld is region-coded because it's a handheld version of the PC Engine, whose "Hucard" media[1] used a slightly different pinout on the Japanese (PC Engine) and North American (TurboGrafx-16) versions.
[1]No connection to DirecTV whatsover.
I know far more than 5 console players and not one of us has a pirated console game.
In Glenbrook Square Shopping Center in Fort Wayne, Indiana, is a kiosk where somebody is trying to sell a Famicom clone (legal; patents have expired) packaged with a Famicom cartridge with 110[1] pirated Famicom games on it (illegal). And don't tell me your friends have never been to romnation.net or tried to hunt down a "GoodNES set" on eMule.
[1] The packaging claims 111 but Duck Hunt is listed twice, once as Duck Hunt and again as Clay Shooting.
I have to wonder how only 63 percent of console pirates have mod chips. There an XBox emulator I don't know about?
It's possible to soft-mod the Xbox through the MechAssault buffer overflow exploit, and it's possible to flip-top-mod both the PS2 and the new smaller PStwo, with little or no soldering required. And neither the PSO-exploit on the GameCube nor use of an EFA flash card in the GameCube Game Boy Player needs a modchip installed either.
Pirates! is already pirated on the Xbox if you've modded your Xbox and installed an emulator for one of the classic systems it came out on. But don't try the NES version, as the NES version uses mid-scanline visual effects, and the emulators that can handle mid-scanline effects are typically too slow to run at full speed on the 700 MHz Celeron CPU in the Xbox.
It is worth noting that the Gamecube most likely has the LEAST amount of piracy
Only for those who refuse to count the modchip that is Game Boy Player. With that and an accessory called "EFA Linker", you can play homebrew GBA games, but you can also play almost any pirated Game Boy Advance game.
How many of you have registered Winzip instead of clicking through the "I agree" every time or modding it?
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
One in five republicans are corporate apologists.
;)
One in five democrats are bed wetting knee biters.
One in five pop musicians can actually play an instrument.
One in five teenage anarcho-punks actually know who Peter Kropotkin was. (That one's a bit of a stretch.)
My point is that these types of obtuse generalities provide no real usable information.
Of course, when you take my first pointless example... maybe they do.
#SickNotWeak
I think they need to look at another issue in order to deal with the piracy. Games cost $50 no matter how good they are and how much replay value they have. I know of countless gamers who have felt completely ripped off when the drop $50 on what they think will be a great game and it turns out to completely suck. Can you return it, of course not. However EB will buy it back from you for a lousy few bucks and then put it back onto their shelves for $45. This is my rub with the console game industry in general and the reason that I don't have any sympathy for them when reports like this come out.
Every year they expect us to shell out $50 for the new Madden when only a few minor things have changed. Come on, get real, it's an update not a new game. Let us trade in the old one and pay $20 for the new one.
I buy my games to support the developers, but the publishers have to get real on the pricing. Come up with a pricing scale of some sort instead of the default $50.
I've downloaded console games before... it's not a matter of cost, it's a matter of availability. Most of the games I want are both Japanese, AND out of print, so yeah... I'd happily have paid for them if they were even FOR SALE!