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A Portrait of the UK Game Pirate
Next Generation has a report up on a British study that indicates something like 84 percent of 15 to 18 year olds pirate video games in Britain. 72 percent of those folks pirate games because they can't wait for the UK releases. From the article: "This study shows very clearly the drivers behind videogame piracy...Most respondents who have and will continue to illegally download games are young males, between 15 and 19 years old. They feel videogames are too expensive and resent the long wait for many games released in the US or in Asia before the UK. With a high level of computer literacy, it's easy for them to find a game online and download it. Their friends all do it and why shouldn't they?"
In Britain, only teenagers pirate video games.
Other than the slim chance of getting caught, there is no reason why not.
Piracy is easy. Kids do it. Game publishers are on streets selling crack to feed their family. Film at 11.
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72 percent of those folks pirate games because they can't wait for the UK releases.
If this was a tangible product, then it would be expressed as "they get it on the black market because it isn't commercially available".
There's really no good reason for a game to be released in the USA, and then wait months before releasing it in the UK. It's marketing gone wrong.
They feel videogames are too expensive and resent the long wait for many games released in the US or in Asia before the UK.
Imagine that - something is overpriced, so they get it from illegitimate channels instead. Is there any market where this isn't true?
The main difference between video games and physical products is that copyright gives the publishers a monopoly. It's not a free market.
... but I do think that cost is a major cause. The target market is in the late teens and while this segment has a lot of purchasing power, they're also a hotly metketed-to segment.
This inevitably results in fierce competition for the teen dollar, and hey, "if I can get this game for free, I can afford to spend the money on that neat pair of sneakers everyone says are so cool" and so on...
Now, for me, as an adult with a bit more of a budget than the average 18 year-old, the release date thing really annoys me. In Australia we usually have a long wait for product 'x', but I can buy online if I so choose and bypass the release date problem (except where a PAL version of a console game isn't available until long after the NTSC version)
So yeah, I think cost is the biggest factor.
Screw you all! I'm off to the pub
I can also believe that the high prices are a factor. ONE factor.
The real reason. The BASE reason is because its free and easy. You could charge $15 for every game. You know what? The people would still pirate. I can buy CDs for $9.99 off of iTunes now. Do I? Well... I'll leave that up to your imagination. The key here is that FREE is always better that having to pay something. I don't care if the release dates are pushed back and the price is sky-high - free is always best.
Guess not much has changed since I used to pirate 8-bit BBC micro games in the 80's with my friends from high school. Of course, as soon as we published a game ourselves, our attitudes changed ;-)
I guess that absence of homegrown coders is one thing that might be different nowadays -- even kids who were just a few years younger than me were used to computer games being studio affairs; the closest they'd get to writing a game would be designing a level on Doom.
Another thing that may have changed is the thrill of breaking copy protection. That was a big deal for us back then -- we'd compete to crack the encryption on the latest games... then take off the copy protection, put our own logos on, and put the encryption back in place so that lesser pirates couldn't steal our glory, heheh..... I never saw any of the really nasty "black ice" that was rumoured to exist (e.g. antipiracy code that'd deliberately wreck your drive by moving the disk head beyond its physical limit)... I heard Infocom games had a lot of this.
Back then we didn't have to resent the kids in US or Asia, cos no-one except Europeans knew what a BBC was.... in fact, looking back, US kids didn't even have Elite, so we were the privileged ones :)
No faith in copyright providing a net good perhaps, hmm?
This is all rather similar to the DVD region-coding tactic. Splitting the world into isolated markets where you can charge more or less for the same product just doesn't work any more. People will just get on the internet and, for example, order their Futurama DVDs from Europe earlier or for less than they can in the US, or they'll just pirate them. Companies know that piracy equals lost sales, so why don't they just release as widely as possible so people can just get what they want?
that that is is that that is not is not
They feel videogames are too expensive and resent the long wait for many games released in the US or in Asia before the UK.
... and that would be why I stopped. My job doesn't pay me near enough that I can afford to buy a USD40-50 game more than once or twice a year, and no game (except Alpha Centauri and Halo) can keep me entertained for more than a few weeks... I just can't replay the damn things. If I want to play something, my options are:
One of the reasons for the long delay in a game making it to England is sometimes the fact that the UK is treated as part of the Europe market in terms of release. The wait is then for the translations to happen for the major continental European languages.
I guess as voice becomes more and more popular as a replacement for text for explaining things/moving plots along etc this process gets more complicated.
If its only a couple of weeks between release dates I don't mind - it gives me a chance to check out reviews and change my mind on buying it if it appears to suck.
Professor Karmadillo Songs of Science
There's a lot of things kids do because they think that the system is somehow unfair. However, that still does not make it legal, sensible, or right.
Microsoft Sucks, F/OSS Rocks. I get mod points now right?
I don't know anything about how long it takes for legit games to hit the stores in the UK, but the price issue is universal. I just can't help but think if games were more reasonably priced, the level of piracy would go down. Most people actually would prefer a real copy, but few think $40 plus is reasonable.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Just teach them kids right and don't copy that floppy
I really hate Dan Patrick.
whenever you see people breaking the law with intellectual property, you are looking into the eyes of an untapped market. Apple saw this and created iTunes.
A surprisingly large portion of illegal downloaders download songs, movies, and games because they want to download them, not because they want to steal. So sell it to them electronically.
Problem: Teen blokes in the UK download US games before their native release?
Solution: Release the US version in the UK and the US on the same day. Make it available for download in the UK and take $10 off the price because the words are all spelled wrong and the voice overs have that horrible American accent. Also, you don't need to package the box, press the CDs, and ship it to the UK. Give the online purchaser in the UK the same price you give to the chain stores here in the US.
I think you'd see the percentage of illegal downloads go down.
How about you could buy 4 games a year if you bought $20 used copies? They're just as good and cost less and you can usually find anything you want used at local game shops with the right amount of time.
The kids pirate because its easyer than asking mommy and daddy for 30 - 70 USD. I mean who really thinks that a teenager discusses the social ramification about piratings games. They do it cause its cheap and its easyer than asking the 'rents for cash. Then when they get to univ. its more about saving money for school than paying for games. Then once you've graduated and have a job your saving for a house or a car or rent. In all honesty i dont understand how game companies make any money?
I don't have to make a perfect copy of Tony Hawk Pro Skater to compete with it, I just have to make a game that a kid would rather spend his money on. That's a perfectly free market.
No it isn't. Copyright protects the bootloader. Without the bootloader, your game will not even start on a game console.
Go look at EBGames, sort by price and see. When you get down below $20 the sucking begins. The "good" bargain games are all around $30, at the lowest.
Replace "Games" with "ay" in your comment, and you'll start to see some decent prices.
I'm 20 and live in the UK and buying games has just become horrible compared to 5 years ago when you could take games back for a refund.
Now if you buy a game and it sucks or won't play you can't take it back. Therefore publishers can get away with making a crap game over hyping it and releasing it to the public.
Avalibilty is the biggest issue. If there was a system where i could buy and download the game (steam for example) then i would.
An example would be Doom 3 which wasn't released at the same time as it was in the US. result? 1 million downloads on supernova.
No faith in copyright providing a net good perhaps, hmm?
Either that, or they're sick and tired of being one of the have-nots who suffer. Independent songwriters are another group of have-nots.
I see no reason why some English-language versions of the game can't be shipped over to the UK for sale. It's not like it has to be translated or anything.
The netcode has to be done for the 50 Hz timing of the TVs used over there. And yes it does have to be translated, as many of the game console makers require that a PAL release support one or more continental languages in addition to English.
"...in fact, looking back, US kids didn't even have Elite [clara.net], so we were the privileged ones :)"
;)
Actually, thanks to piracy, yes we did.
I have to wonder how they come up with those numbers. Do 84% of 15-18 year olds even have computers in their homes, or broadband access for downloading games? I seem to remember figures from the 2000 US Census saying only half the households in the US had computers, and something like 25% of the households that did have computers were not connected to the Internet. I would think patterns in the UK would be similar. If so, then those figures don't add up.
I can't believe this hasn't been brought up yet.
How much of that statistic do you think would purchase a game if they couldn't pirate it?
I know I wouldn't, especially because there have been games half-life / battlefield that have had sufficient copy protection to make pirating it not worthwhile unless you count single player, and I simply didn't play those games.
It's the same deal with mmo's, can't pirate so I won't play. I have many friends with a similar attitude.
Its not like when games finally arrive here they have necessarily corrected the Websterian spelling mistakes and done anything with the grating accent. I'd pay extra to get that sorted for sure.
Worse still, I got Act of War as a present (its a turkey btw, don't buy it). It features cut scenes with an apparently "British" dude. Christ, there are 80 million of us who speak in our native accent all the time but Atari got some bad American actor to try his hand and then got a scriptwriter who apparently thinks Britons use American vernacular all the time. Its not merely grating, it makes your toes curl.
Plays violent online games as: Nerfherder76
http://www.acemurdermystery.com.nyud.net:8090/imag es/pirate/Bluebeard_2.jpg
That's a picture of a UK game(Legged) Pirate , Blue beard
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
This story is not acceptable as it does not contain any references to the highly relevant and burgeoning subjects of 'women playing games, women in games or women in the games industry'.
These are a critical issues to the modern world and things that I go to sleep worrying about every night, much like world poverty and war. I'm sure you feel the same.
Please can you amend this story to somehow reflect the role of women in the games market, possibly 'do women pirate games' or something similar.
Thanks,
signed,
Monka Tom BSc PhD
President of the Gay and Lesbian cubicle interests group for health food and kumquat concern assocation of the UK.
Amen to that. UK gamers always seem to get the short end of the stick. I live in America myself - but I'm sure if I lived in the UK I'd feel more than justified in pirating games rather than waiting 6 months for a simple port job.
How long'd it take you guys to get Animal Crossing again? Wasn't it like a year and a half?
...If you don't like the way products are released in your market, you have several options. Piracy isn't (a legitimate) one of them. And before I hear that it's not piracy, it's copyright infringement, realize that I'm not referring to the product that you're downloading but the money you are depriving the developer of having.
If you don't like your options when a game comes out, you have several legitimate choices:
1) Purchase a substitution game that is released with terms you like. (IE, released in the US and UK on the same day with reasonable pricing that you agree on)
2) Wait for a price drop to bring the price in line with what you are willing to pay.
3) Wait for a copy to go on sale on the aftermarket for a price you are willing to pay.
And yes, some publishers are doing really well, and won't *really* mind the lost revenue. But the majority of them aren't. And developers aren't doing well, by and large.
I currently have no clever signature witicism to add here.
Nobody pirates newspapers, magazines and books. The publishing industry doesn't beat it's chest in anger at the sale of photocopiers, that could easily destroy their entire industry.
Hardly anybody even pirates books electronically - even though their an ideal target due to their low size when transcoded to a txt file.
Look elsewhere in the media, there aren't any pirate TV stations that've started up broadcasting TV without the adverts. In the last couple of examples people buy books and watch normal regular TV as the legitimate option is low cost and it's convenient.
Piracy only starts to spring up when people are dissatisfied with the leggitimate option - either on price or availability. I'm 28 and since I had a job the price of games isn't so much of a problem, when I was a student it was. I had the option of piracy or nothing, and I chose the former.
Availability is a problem. I want to play Psychonauts and currently in the UK I'm going to be twiddling my thumbs until mid-September...unless I....
I balance it against convenience (and that warm inner glow that you get for doing the right thing).
I bought HL2 on Steam. It patches itself, it reinstalls itself when I rebuild my machine, it works online without any hunting for hacked servers etc etc. My major gripe with most purchased software is having to put the f'in disk in the drive to play - something I don't have to do with a hacked pirate copy.
Heaven forbid that the English have to deal with crappy American speak, when millions of Americans read Harry Potter daily.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
"Anyone who has a computer connected to the internet and enough knowledge to setup "emule" a browser (for checking warez sites) or a bit torrent client." Thank you for reading!
Seriously why the media people even tries to "stereo type" gamers, pirates and even computer users? when are they going to realize ANYONE can be in that demographic? all you need is the rigth tools and the most basic knowledge and you are in. You learned to play halo or mario dash with your kids and you do it each week, well you are a gamer! (casual at least) You regularly download and share software through "emule" or "kazaa" you are a software pirate! har har!
It has nothing to do with age or even personality.
waste of time article.
Go ahead MOD my day!
More opinions here
Oh and in case you were wondering, the reason why you find recent releases in "warez" is because sometimes there are people "groups" who upload this files to the web and then brag about it and/or use that as credit to get other files. They are not necesarily teenagers or even "haxors". Just people who have access to those files for whatever reason most of the time they are beta testers, co-developers, store employees or reviewers, but of course no one can prove that. So is easier to blame "those damned haxor kids!"
Go ahead MOD my day!
More opinions here
Why is this news? I mean british pirate were famous since long ago roaming in caribbean sea, right ?! right?!
Once you have "a real job", you not only can afford the games, but it's cheaper to just buy them. After all, with all that time you would waste obtaining an infringing copy could be better spent working some overtime or moonlighting.
And I'm not even talking about the discount bin games here either. If you put those into the mix, the micro-economics of it get even more skewed in favor of purchasing.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
Seriously, I get 90% of all my games from LAN parties.
I wipe my HDD to make room for ISO's and images, make my way to the party, and we spend an hour setting up, transferring files, and installing the games of the night.
Usually one of us goes out and buys a copy so he can play online, but for the most part I only play these games one time every few months, and you can't rent PC games so that leaves pirating them as the only logical solution. (Like hell we'd try to track down 10 discounted boxes at the local shops at 4am for one night of gaming.)
I guess statistics like this can't be real until someone "does a study" huh? Teens have been the biggest pirates since the dawn of computers. Back in the C64 days for example...
Teens have less income, but more free time. They always want more more more. And if it can be free, they will take it.
And this is all true of other countries, not just the UK.
... the game company? As far as they're concerned, if you buy used you might as well be pirating. They don't make any money off it. Ok, there may be a little bit of trickle-down effect: the original buyer can now afford to buy another new game because he sold his old one -- but wouldn't it be easier if they got a clue and lowered the frickin' price?
They feel videogames are too expensive and resent the long wait for many games released in the US or in Asia before the UK. With a high level of computer literacy, it's easy for them to find a game online and download it.
Since when did most people in that age group have a chance to purchase games that are both expensive and are of limited availability?
Besides - most people in that age droup are in high-school. While they could get a job, they don't get much money out of minimum wage work on weekends. For this case, you can say that most teenagers have no effective income.
With whatever income/allowance a teenager is given, the only things that can be bought are the most famous games. If there are hidden gems that he hears about , he has to collect enough money, only to find that the game is unavailable.
Internet distribution is supponed to solve this issue - however, teenagers aren't usually issued credit cards either and thus cannot make online purchases (without bothering their parents.)
While the exact percentage is news, the reasoning is not. Never be suprised if piracy occurs - unless there is a massive effort to get these users to play GPLed games.
One blatent problem with that reasoning is your example. Steve Jobs wouldn't pirate. And, like anyone with a brain, he would deny doing so anyways (Note the "Anonymous Coward" authorship). He has no need to, and his time is far too valuable to spend it on this activity. It goes back to what you mentioned about Total Cost of Ownership, his time is worth millions to the hour. Mine is basically worth zilch when I'm not working. So the hour or so it takes to download a full album is less of an opportunity cost than the $.99 at iTunes.
One more factor you may have missed is that many pirates are quite adept at finding what they are looking for. It usually takes me a few minutes to find a certain game/movie/audiobook (yes, I like audiobooks). Thus, there is a very negligent cost to this and it is definatly cheaper than driving to a store and buying the product myself.
This is actually quite similar to what you mentioned about linux, there are those who can format and build a stable server on linux in a matter of a few hours, but those people are called wizards for a reason.
Basically the TCO of piracy cannot be meassured in a large community. Some are better at it than others. If you know where to look it doesn't take long at all, and if the place is good you won't end up with a "crappy disc."