Independent Dev Reports Over 80% Piracy Rate On DRM-Free Game

An anonymous reader writes "Developer 2D Boy has written that they are seeing an 82% piracy rate for everyone's favorite DRM-free physics puzzler, World of Goo . Surprisingly, this rate is in-line with what they were expecting. The article also features a fascinating comparison with the piracy rate of another game that was shipped complete with DRM, at 92%. There seemed to be no major difference in the outcomes of the rate regardless of whether DRM was used or not ... well, no difference other than the cost to implement such nonsense."

Comments

Only sane conclusion

[Xiroth]

Which is all just proof that the DRM that the other game shipped with clearly isn't strong enough.

Or at least, this is how I'm predicting most industry execs would interpret this. There's always wriggle room for those who'd rather not face reality (particularly those who have their livelihood staked on it, such as StarForce).

Re:Only sane conclusion

[AKAImBatman]

Which is all just proof that the DRM that the other game shipped with clearly isn't strong enough.

That's far from the only sane conclusion. The problem with World of Goo is that the "honest" customers may take advantage of one of the more convenient and easier download options. These additional options that do a better job reaching the target audience may artificially inflate the piracy figures for PC downloads. i.e. It's not that the game is heavily pirated, it's that the PC version is less popular among paying customers and thus at a statistical disadvantage.

Re:Only sane conclusion

[Ostracus]

I'm sorry but how does Steam and Wiiware fall under the "counted as piracy" figure?

Re:Only sane conclusion

[AKAImBatman]

A quick search at PirateBay easily shows how full of shit your reasoning is.

That doesn't even make the slightest bit of sense. Either you don't understand the argument, or you think that Pirate Bay somehow tracks the number of copies pirated. Either way, there's no way that searching Pirate Bay disproves the argument I just made.

Just for fun, let's make up some numbers to demonstrate. Let's say I create a game for only the PC. Let's say that 500 people buy it. Later on I'm able to prove that 500 people pirated it. What is my piracy rate on the PC version? 50%.

Now let's say I create a game that can be distributed via the Wii, Steam, or a PC Download. Let's say that the Wii version sells 1500 copies, the Steam version sells 1000 copies, and the PC version sells 100 copies. Later on I'm able to prove that 500 people pirated the PC Download. What is my piracy rate on the PC download? 83%.

Except that in the second scenario, we can see that many of the previous customers shifted to the alternative content streams. If we assume that those other streams are well protected, this means that the ratio between pirated copies and PC Downloads is now out of whack with actual sales. Overall sales are great and piracy rates have not changed. Yet through some interesting misapplication of statistics, we have managed to create a 33% increase in piracy.

What that suggests is not that piracy kills all video games and that they should be destroyed. What it suggests is that the PC Download stream is far less profitable when alternative streams are available.

"There are three types of lies: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics" --Mark Twain

Re:Only sane conclusion

[Firehed]

That doesn't even make the slightest bit of sense. Either you don't understand the argument, or you think that Pirate Bay somehow tracks the number of copies pirated.

TPB may not show it, but the number of finished copies is easy enough to get from most sites, not to mention the number of seeders that all trackers show.

Is it accurate? Not particularly, but bad data is (a little) better than no data. The two most active torrents for World of Goo, at posting, have a combined total of about 625 seeders, and another 60 or so leechers. The busiest torrent at MiniNova has 837 seeds, and claims just under 32,000 completed downloads (though the one that seems to be more consistent in terms of filesize with what's correct has 367 seeds and 21k downloads).

Take it for what you will. Those numbers are definitely the low end of things, but for reference, Spore shows 2500 active seeds and 300k downloads at Mininova alone. Obviously their 'superior' DRM didn't do squat, other than have people like me boycott all of their future products.

Re:Only sane conclusion

[lysergic.acid]

just because you don't understand what objectivity is doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. and just because people are inherently biased doesn't mean that we are incapable of being objective, or that everyone is equally biased. that's like saying that just because people aren't 100% rational all the time that logic doesn't exist, or that a creationist is as rational/irrational as an evolutionary biologist.

some things subjective, but not everything is. and it's certainly possible to be objective when it matters. adherence to sound scientific principles helps one to be objective in the search for truth. after all, objectivity is the fundamental measure of scientific & intellectual integrity. if objectivity doesn't exist, then all you have is useless rationalization/sophistry.

for instance, if i want to determine the effectiveness of a particular drug treatment, i can choose to conduct controlled experiments in a fair and aboveboard manner, or i can choose to accept bribes from pharmaceutical companies and fudge the data to fit predetermined results. similarly, if i'm conducting an experiment in which i know that my personal biases could affect the results, i can design double-blind tests to negate such biases whether they are conscious or subconscious.

the whole "everything is relative/subjective" played out cliche is just intellectual laziness.

Re:Only sane conclusion

[rsmith-mac]

the Steam version sells 1000 copies, and the PC version sells 100 copies. Later on I'm able to prove that 500 people pirated the PC Download. What is my piracy rate on the PC download? 83%.

Steam is not an "alternative content stream", it's a PC download. Valve will gladly tell the dev how many people bought it and quite often it's exactly the same game (as in it connects to the same score server). 2DBoy even accounted for it in their stats we divided the total number of sales we had from all sources . There is no significant systematic inflation for the PC version in their method that I can identify, outside of unsubmitted scores. 82% of PC players have stolen their game.

It's also worth noting that WiiWare games can be easily pirated too, and should be able to be counted in a similar fashion.

Re:Only sane conclusion

[HadouKen24]

It may be a sign of intellectual laziness, but "everything is objective" is just as much.

Think about it for a second. What does it mean to say that a statement or a position is "objectively true?" By what standards could one make such a statement?

One common way to define it is to say that the objective is what is in accordance with reality as it is, but this renders "objective truth" entirely unreachable. We can only perceive the world through five meager senses. We can certainly infer beyond them, but even then we are limited by our own mental capacities. It is impossible for us to know--and must always remain impossible for us to know--whether or not there might be critical defects in our reasoning process which cause us to make errors which we cannot ourselves spot.

So let's move down to the next most rigorous definition of objectivity: what independent, intelligent, unbiased observers can come to agree on based on all the information. This, too, is plagued with problems. A group of people can only come to agree on something insofar as their faculties and mental processes are in accord.

This definition works very well for small things. We can easily come to objective agreement about, say, whether or not there are tigers in India or whether or not Mattel makes toys. It tends to break down where differences in faculties and mental processes become too great. Whether or not one believes in a God depends on what kind of rationality one uses to answer the question. It's not entirely clear how the "objectivist" (not to be confused with an Objectivist) will adjudicate such questions.

Compounded with this problem is the question of empirical underdetermination. It does not ever seem to be the case that there is only one possible explanation for a series of events. There may be only one explanation worth taking seriously, but this, again, is much easier with small stuff, and very difficult with big stuff.

And that's not even getting into the question of what it means to say that science is objective. Every serious experiment is designed based on theoretical principles, and thus all experimental results are inherently theory-laden.

The twentieth century made it very clear that dramatic conceptual shifts and reinterpretations of previous theories can occur. We cannot say that they will not happen again. By the second definition of "objectivity" it seems to be the case that what is objective changes with time.

Recognizing the inherent subjectivity in just about everything is not an excuse for lazy thinking, however. We can still say with a degree of certainty that certain ideas are self-contradictory or in direct contradiction to experiential fact. And indeed, the task of navigating between, correlating, and interrelating various viewpoints becomes much more difficult. The answer is not to give up on thinking, but to challenge oneself think harder and more incisively.

Re:Only sane conclusion

[atraintocry]

If there's no truth, how can you be right?

Re:Only sane conclusion

[Goldberg's Pants]

I "pirated" World of Goo. I downloaded it when a friend raved over it, tried it for five minutes, thought "Is this it?" and deleted it. I wonder what percentage of this "piracy" is actually people just trying the game after hearing about it, since I wouldn't have bothered had someone not raved about it. (I don't even know if there is an official demo available.)

I wouldn't have kept the game even if it had been free.

Far too many companies assume one pirated copy is one lost sale. (Unless you work for Starforce who once claimed one pirated copy was MULTIPLE lost sales.)

My attitude to stuff I've created is so long as you don't pass it off as your own work or make money off it, go nuts and copy it all you want.

I guess a lot of the attitude depends on why you create. Do you do it because you enjoy it? Or for the money? Sure, you can do both, but which is your primary motivator? I think attitudes toward piracy will be influenced by which side of the fence you fall.

Re:Only sane conclusion

[sumdumass]

just because you don't understand what objectivity is doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. and just because people are inherently biased doesn't mean that we are incapable of being objective, or that everyone is equally biased. that's like saying that just because people aren't 100% rational all the time that logic doesn't exist, or that a creationist is as rational/irrational as an evolutionary biologist

You had me until you attempted to inject your non-objective opinion in there with the creationist verses evolution. First of all, Evolution does not disprove creation, it doesn't even speak to the same subjects. There are even people who want to claim Evolution it a tool of creation. Evolution does not speak to the key factors of creation like abiogenisis itself or even the beginning of time and the universe or the planets and so on that a;; scientific theory eventually throw's it's arms up and eventually say "we don't know", "it was always there", or a combination of both. And this isn't even starting to mention the problems with the study of evolution like Gaps in the Fossil records that we just have faith in our assumption that our theories are correct because it validate the other theories and evolution in it's entirety to some degree. There are more problems but we don't need to focus on that. I mean the common person will never see the fossils, will never be able to duplicate any of the experiments, all the common person can do is take faith in that the source is accurate enough for their usage and to be right or correct in the stated interpretations. To the average person, and I'm talking about 99 percent of the world's population, it comes down to who or which authority is more convincing to them. The important thing is that you have become irrational and lost all objectivity in your allusion of evolutionist being more rational then creationist.

some things subjective, but not everything is. and it's certainly possible to be objective when it matters. adherence to sound scientific principles helps one to be objective in the search for truth. after all, objectivity is the fundamental measure of scientific & intellectual integrity. if objectivity doesn't exist, then all you have is useless rationalization/sophistry.

And again, you have demonstrated that you have lost your objectivness with this statement. You are presenting your opinion as if they are a fact or something.

for instance, if i want to determine the effectiveness of a particular drug treatment, i can choose to conduct controlled experiments in a fair and aboveboard manner, or i can choose to accept bribes from pharmaceutical companies and fudge the data to fit predetermined results. similarly, if i'm conducting an experiment in which i know that my personal biases could affect the results, i can design double-blind tests to negate such biases whether they are conscious or subconscious.

Or you could skip the bribes and fudge the data just to make yourself famous. :look at me, I have a cure for the cold, take this and in two weeks you will be all better.

There is nothing keeping you honest. Even your honesty has a prices. The only think making sure that we can trust your findings is the ability for others to repeat your experiments and review your data. Again, for the average person, this is out of reach and improbable. Hell, even for scientist this is a hard thing to achieve. Look at all the attempts global warming skeptics made to get data being used to promote Global warming theories just to find that they couldn't get to the data or had other data included to skew the testing and so on. Do you really think you can get the data on any drug trials yourself and review them? I didn't think so either, you might be able to get some but not any which is why we have a government office to lend credit to the system.

he whole "everything

Re:Only sane conclusion

[William Baric]

Just out of curiosity, why didn't you download the demo instead of pirating the full version?

Re:Only sane conclusion

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you want the demo if you can have the full version???
Ethics?
The demo usually is also DRM infested

Re:Only sane conclusion

[trytoguess]

"Cause I don't know if I'll like till I played the whole thing!" Well, that's one rationale I heard...

Re:Only sane conclusion

[Goldberg's Pants]

Did you not read my post? I didn't even know if there WAS a demo. Friend raved over it. Saw it on a torrent site, gave it a go, deleted it.

Re:Only sane conclusion

[NickFortune]

I think the point the GP wanted to make was that, while Objectivity as an ideal is necessarily absolute, objectivity as a human trait is a relative quality.

As an example, consider the case of the physicst who times falling objects all over the earth and concludes that the acceleration due to gravity on the surface of the earth is generally 9.81 m/s, with given margins for regional variations.

Now let's suppose he has a colleague who claims the true value is 11.0 m/s, because that was the value revealed to him in a dream by the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Since the first physicist's observations are mediated through his own senses, it's possible to claim that they are therefore subjective, and therefore that neither researcher is being objective. On the other hand, I think most reasonable people would agree that the first physicists work, (being grounded in careful observation and reproducible by anyone who follows the methodology) is considerably more objective than that of the second.

All IMHO, obviously :)

Re:Only sane conclusion

[Draek]

Think about it for a second. What does it mean to say that a statement or a position is "objectively true?" By what standards could one make such a statement?

That the experiment leading to such conclusion is easily reproducible. If I state that 70% of people weight over 200 pounds, then all one has to do to corroborate my statement is to weight everyone, and calculate the percentage of people over 200 pounds themselves, or they could do it in a smaller sample and accept some error margin based on statistics, etc. And of course, anything that can't be proven or disproven by experimental results (such as the existence of God) becomes a subjective matter.

Re:Only sane conclusion

[ultranova]

Far too many companies assume one pirated copy is one lost sale. (Unless you work for Starforce who once claimed one pirated copy was MULTIPLE lost sales.)

Well, since you're giving a negative review of the game here, it seems they were correct. Of course, you'd likely give a similar review even if had bought the game. That rises a philosophical question: if a single sold game means multiple lost sales, are you in fact selling a negative number of them ? Obviously, this would only be a concern for really shitty games, but then again, that includes most of them.

Re:Only sane conclusion

[Ginger Unicorn]

scientific theory eventually throw's it's arms up

If by "throws it's arms up" you mean "is intellectually honest enough to be clear about areas where there is more to be learned" then yes. Conventionally "throwing your arms up" is intended to convey as sense of premature futility - just giving up out of frustration. Science absolutely does not do this.

As you point out, the theory of evolution is not formulated to explain cosmology or abiogenesis. You seem to regard this as somehow weakening the theory of evolution - that because doesn't attempt to explain everything that it is no good at explaining the phenomena that it is attempting to.

Will science have a more complete understanding of the universe once a theory is composed that unites gravity with quantum effects? Absolutely. Is the current theory of gravity dubious because it doesn't explain quantum effects? Absolutely not - it doesn't need to explain quantum effects in order to highly accurately describe gravity.

The same goes for evolution and abiogenesis - a more complete picture will be uncovered once science has a rigorous theory of abiogenesis, which would obviously need to integrate well with evolutionary theory to form a coherent picture. But that has no bearing on the accuracy of evolutionary theory with regards to the subject it actually attempts to explain, which is the way life has developed from the first primitive organisms. This topic can be modelled, investigated and described without needing to know about abiogenesis.

..Gaps in the Fossil records that we just have faith in our assumption that our theories are correct because it validate the other theories and evolution in it's entirety to some degree. There are more problems but we don't need to focus on that.

I think you do need to focus on that, because the two examples you just gave and the entire gamut of evolution denialist "problems" with evolution are demonstrably false. Unless you know of some new ones, but as far as I've seen the evolution denial movement hasn't come up with anything new for a long time. I don't say this to be arbitrarily dismissive, If you think you have some genuine counter-evidence to the theory of evolution i'd happy to argue it on its merits.

To the average person, and I'm talking about 99 percent of the world's population, it comes down to who or which authority is more convincing to them.

This is true, and it's a problem that science is designed specifically to tackle. The way science obviates this problem is by only accepting data and conclusions that are reproducible by others, and that have been tested using formal methods to such a large extent and by so many independent people that it precludes objective bias to a reliable extent. Of course this process can never establish anything to 100% certainty, but the more it is applied to a particular question, the higher the percentage of certainty is pushed. Evolutionary theory has undergone this process for 150 years. Ironically, a large enough percentage of the population do not realise this, and write the scientific consensus off as carrying no more weight than the opinions of the small group of people all of whom have an undisguised (most of the time) agenda to defend the inerrancy of one particular religious text.

Which group of people do you think has the higher probability of being an objective and unbiased source? Honestly? The scientific community, which consists of millions of people of all races and beliefs, who independently and openly are free to question and disprove any of these claims over and over again at any time? Or the tiny minority of evolution denialists (the people who actually come up with these arguments, not the people who merely accept them) who almost universally admit to an agenda?

Of course, the argument from authority is not a valid logical approach, but accepting scientfic consensus is not the same thing as bowing to an authority. The scientific consensus is the culmination

Re:Only sane conclusion

[windsurfer619]

Actually, 2D Boys post says they recognize that for every 1000 pirates, they would be lucky for 1 sale. They do realize that piracy != lost sales.

Re:Only sane conclusion

[cliffski]

"My attitude to stuff I've created is so long as you don't pass it off as your own work or make money off it, go nuts and copy it all you want."

Interesting. Is this stuff that took you two years hard work, full time, which you did as your primary way of paying the bills and putting food on the table?
Because thats what 2DBoy did. And yet you seem to be equating this with something you might knock up for laughs in your spare time.

Theres nothing magical about creative 'entertainment' works which means the people making them do not have to pay rent and buy food. I bet you don't have th same carefree attitude to your employers paying your salary "as long as you admit I did the work, I don't mind how much you pay me".

Re:Only sane conclusion

[cliffski]

maybe the implication si that you should respect the wishes of the people who made that game, and the fact that they clearly want you to try the demo. People are less likely to pay for something they already swiped for free, and you know it.

But I guess if you get to rip some off over the internet anonymously, you don't really give a damn about their wishes, feelings or how it affects their business...

Re:Only sane conclusion

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Respectfully, I believe you are missing the point.

You can try to be as objective as possible in your experimentation, by eliminating potential sources of error where you see them. But that does not mean you can ever find an absolute truth. By definition, the scientific method is based on the premise of falsifiability: your theories are only ever as sound as your latest experiment, and no matter how many times you may repeat that experiment and get consistent results, you never know in absolute terms that your theory is complete and correct such that future experiments will always yield the same result. Deities, stealthy aliens or undetected cosmic rays may be manipulating your experiment every time and one day not be there any more, for all you know, or can ever know. The only absolute truths are those axioms that we can define to be true, such that no experimental validation is required; this is what separates mathematics from science.

I'm not really sure what all this has to do with game piracy, though. I would have said the use (or otherwise) of DRM was more a question of ethics, as is how to deal with people who copy games illegally. Any legal system based on the use of courts is ultimately just trying to make the best informed decision it can under the circumstances, which is why we have standards of evidence to guide how much uncertainty is considered acceptable given the implications of the possible outcomes of a case.

Re:Only sane conclusion

[cliffski]

so fuck the developer. If you can get a game 4 minutes faster by stealing it, fuck em eh?

Re:Only sane conclusion

[ImOnlySleeping]

"an omnipotent being that takes personal interests in the lives of humans" If that's true, God is a first rate asshole.

CORRELATION != CAUSATION

[yincrash]

there are more variables than "has DRM" and "does not have DRM" that could influence the steal rate. selling price, metacritic rating, marketing to name a few.

Re:CORRELATION != CAUSATION

[Excelcia]

More variables indeed. Like "is the game worth actually spending money on?" is one variable that leaps to mind.

DRM is not about prevent piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

DRM is about preventing sharing. I don't mean BitTorrent sharing. If you purchased a copy of a game from Walmart and want to lend it to a friend after you are done, DRM is designed to prevent that. Most (if not all) DRM solutions are bypassed before the game hits the torrents, making DRM worthless at preventing piracy. But a limited number of installs prevents honest customers from lending each other games. It also makes re-selling the game difficult if not impossible.

The game companies would certainly do this for consoles if they could (I believe Sony has a patent associated with it). It's one of the reasons why downloadable games are very popular. I've purchased the first two episodes of Penny Arcade Adventures for the Xbox 360. I have a friend who would like to give them a try. The DRM doesn't prevent an illegal download of the PC version of the game, it doesn't prevent me from lending a legal copy of the game to my friend.

80% seems pretty high

[pablodiazgutierrez]

Which explains why they're trying new ways of making people pay, as we saw recently...

Re:80% seems pretty high

[TubeSteak]

80% does seem pretty high, but a 10% difference in piracy rates would, generally speaking, strike me as statistically large enough to be called a "major difference".

Unless of course, their margin of error is greater than 10%, in which case their results are meaningless in any comparison.

These numbers are misleading

[Jimmy_B]

The problem with using a per-game statistic for measuring piracy is that a pirate can play far more games than someone who doesn't pirate, but will play each of them less. If you have 25 pirates and 75 people who pay, and each paying person buys five games but each pirate downloads fifty, then each game will be pirated more than 75% of the time. (All of these numbers are pulled out of the air; I don't know the size of the effect, but economics dictates that the number of distinct games per person is at least somewhat higher for pirates.)

Re:These numbers are misleading

[mrsteveman1]

We can't let them get away with that, we must force them to play each game to the end, maybe with some kind of technological method?

Re:These numbers are misleading

[Lordnerdzrool]

Each game could come with a masked guy holding a whip.

Plus it makes the pirated version much less exciting.

Counting IP's? Fail.

[Presence2]

They're counting IP connections of users who opt to check a box within the game as the foundation for their argument. It's difficult to take any Piracy/DRM conversation seriously when developers are using sensationally hyped math as a starting point. Pirates vs. buyers, static vs. dynamic IP's, and those who choose to check the box to upload their scores or not; three wildly oscillating figures they're saying = 90%.

odd math

[socsoc]

TFA: we divided the total number of sales we had from all sources by the total number of unique IPs in our database, and came up with about 0.1. thatâ(TM)s how we came up with 90%.

Heaven forbid a legit user installs it on his laptop, takes it to the library, starbucks, work, university, a few friend's houses and whatever other wifi signals he comes across.

This math seems pretty flawed.

Re:odd math

[IceCreamGuy]

FTA:

it's just an estimate though... there are factors that we couldn't account for that would make the actual piracy rate lower than our estimate:
* some people install the game on more than one machine
* most people have dynamic IP addresses that change from time to time
there are also factors that would make the actual piracy rate higher than our estimate:
* more than one installation behind the same router/firewall (would be common in an office environment)
* not everyone opts to have their scores submitted
for simplicity's sake, we just assumed those would balance out. so take take the 90% as a rough estimate.

I think they make it pretty clear that their math is flawed and based on shaky assumptions. If you scroll down further in the article there is an update, too, with much more detailed math and the final conclusion of an 82% piracy rate.

Piracy != Lost Sales

[Anonymous Coward]

I downloaded it (the full version) to try it out. It's neat, but it's not my cup of tea so I deleted it. In my case there's no lost sale, as I was using the game as a demo. I'm sure a fairly large chunk of that "82%" probably downloaded the game so they wouldn't have to pay for it, but I think it's important to note that there are people who will just download something because it becomes available. They don't necessarily want it specifically, and will probably never touch it, but they download it anyway. It's my opinion based on my own experience (I have done zero formal research) that these people comprise the bulk of the "pirates". They didn't buy the game because they were never going to buy the game. Their downloads will get stashed on a DVD or a hard drive somewhere and then go ignored until the heat death of the universe.

Back when I was younger I was really into the "collecting" aspect of downloading software. I didn't know when or where I might need something (or indeed IF) but if I could get something my friends didn't have it felt like a victory of sorts, as did sharing what I had. I tell you, if I'd put half as much effort into my studies as I did into downloading I'd have a PhD by now. Now I waste all my time downloading music I never listen to. :D Some things never change.

Re:Piracy != Lost Sales

[AKAImBatman]

I downloaded it (the full version) to try it out.

Here's an odd question: What is so horribly wrong with the demo that you refused to download it? If you had done so, you would be providing one less piracy statistic and instead providing a failed-conversion statistic. A failed-conversion tells the developer that they need to do better. A piracy statistic suggests that they're not getting paid for their hard work.

Re:Piracy != Lost Sales

[Anonymous Coward]

Hm. You know, and this says nothing good about me, it never even occurred to me to seek out a demo. I very seldom play new games because most games these days are either huge FPS/RPGs or strategy games or lame rehashes of Bejeweled, so when I saw something a little different I wanted to try it out. I'd hoped for a side-scrolling platformer, but alas, it was more like lemmings than anything else so...

To the devs, if you're out there reading this: I'm sorry. It's not you, it's me. I'm just an idiot. I hope you can forgive me.

Re:Piracy != Lost Sales

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Here's an odd question: What is so horribly wrong with the demo that you refused to download it?

Because you can't trust demos. Over the years, demos have been the subject of just about every anti-consumer dirty trick you can think of from polished demos for hastily finished games to significantly different game play. If the real thing is available, why even bother with a potentially misleading demo?

Re:Piracy != Lost Sales

[gknoy]

the guy who made this originally did the basics of it for a competition that he won, and then added on more components in his spare time to make the game being sold today. With 20,000 units sold, even with the claimed "90% piracy" rate the guy still would've made a huge chunk of money. It's not like this guy's pan handling out on main street now. He's got a well paying job, and he's getting rich off something he was doing in his spare time.

Whether or not the author is getting rich has NO BEARING on the ethics of pirating their creations. If they created a product worthy of you spending time with it (past a demo phase), they've created a product worthy of your money. Don't try to sugarcoat your actions by saying "well, he's rich anyways".

Re:Piracy != Lost Sales

[cliffski]

So do you take the same approach with movies? ie, sneak in and watch the whole movie, then maybe flip some coins to the till on the way out?
After all, you can't trust trailers can you.
Also, take cars. That test drive is a very inaccurate demo. You don't get to test the car at night or in the snow. Way better to steal the car, and then pay the manufacturer in 10 years time once you are sure you like it right?

Face facts, people pirate because they want to take stuff for free and don't care about the developer. it has fuck all to do with the nature of the demo.

Re:Piracy != Lost Sales

[cliffski]

If I had the option of not paying for restaurant meals at the end of them, suddenly no food would be up to my *standards*.

A pathetic excuse.

Re:Piracy != Lost Sales

[c0d3g33k]

Bad examples. It's more like going to a friend's house to watch a movie, then deciding you like it enough to buy a copy for yourself. Or going to a library, reading a book and liking it enough to want a personal copy. Or borrowing a book.

The existence of ways to experience something without payment to the original creator doesn't preclude a purchase if someone wants a copy for themselves. The missing piece seems to be to give people enough of a reason to want a personal copy.

Re:Piracy != Lost Sales

[Blakey Rat]

Yes, but your example is bad also.

If you watch a movie at your friend's house and decide you want it, you can't just take it from him and keep it until the end of time. Unless you're an asshole. Ditto with the library.

In the pirating case, however, there's no practical difference between pirating the product and owning your own copy. So the incentive to buy your own isn't there in the same way it is with the "book" and "movie" examples above.

What it really comes down to is that software pirates delude themselves to make their illegal activities "ok", and one of the most popular delusions is, "I was just trying it out, I wasn't going ot keep it." Sure, and four years later you're *still* "trying it out". Complete crap.

Re:Piracy != Lost Sales

[c0d3g33k]

It's closer to the real situation than "sneaking into a theater" or "eating a meal in a restaurant and not paying" or even "stealing a car".

And there are differences between a downloaded copy and a "real" purchased copy which have value. Physical things like packaging, a manual etc. Economic value like the ability to resell. Well, the latter has been neutered by no-return policys and the crusade against pre-owned media, but it's one reason to own a real, tangible good. Then there's the ability to actually provide proof of ownership. I've been advocating on GoG that they provide proof of ownership for those that request it. A real certificate, maybe, or a GPG-signed/validated digital certificate.

The point being that there might be ways to provide an incentive to "buy your own" which actually reflect economic reality as it applies to other goods. And maybe those ways ought to be explored and applied. If people only bought/sold things because they were forced to, economic systems wouldn't work. Fair exchange and payment are natural human tendencies. If that isn't being fostered then something is wrong and someone is missing something somewhere. In the case of infinitely replicable digital data, what seems to be missing is the benefit of purchase that exists for practially every other good in the world.

Re:Piracy != Lost Sales

[level4]

You're a Brit, so maybe you don't know about tipping.

In many countries in the world, a tip of around 20% for service is considered normal, even obligatory. In theory, if service is indeed not "up to your standards", you can leave nothing at all. In practise, almost everyone tips at or near the generally accepted level.

People could use your "pathetic excuse" to never tip, but they almost always do. Hell, I'm not even a yank, so I've got another excuse not to tip - "that's not my culture!". But in America, I always tip, 20% on the dot. Social pressure wins every time. So I bet that even if paying for restaurant meals was "optional", you'd still pay, unless you're some kind of sociopath who isn't capable of noticing or caring that people hate them.

I have had access to pretty much any music I want for free since 1998. I still seem to have a lot of CDs. Basically any band that makes it into my "A-list", I go buy all their CDs. Why? I don't know. There's no economic advantage. A pride thing, a social pressure thing, a status thing? You tell me.

I've had a DVD burner since the early 2000s. There has been nothing stopping me burning my own copies of DVDs, for a marginal or zero cost, since then. I have actually never done this even once. Why? Same as above, I guess? And I don't want to look like a cheap-ass loser to my friends. Or myself.

Why am I mentioning these things? Well, I just think your worldview is too black and white. There is not a sharp line between good paying customers and illegal thieving pirates. It's more like a gradient. Plenty of artists where I only have their "good" CD. I've got the rest of the albums on mp3, they're just not worth spending the $30 on (or, these days, storing the damn things forevermore - almost more of a factor!).

Similarly, I own a number of, say, iD software games. There were some shitty ones, and I never bought them. They just didn't deserve that vote. But I'll pay money for games I like, no problem at all. I'll pay a LOT of money for games I actually want. In fact I've previously said on this site that I'd pay pretty much any reasonable amount for remakes of some of my favourite games, say Marathon 2 or Final Fantasy 7. If there was a PS3 with FF7v2 in ROM and useless for anything else that costs $1000 and that was the only way to get it ... I would buy that in a heartbeat, lol.

So it's complex. Your worldview seems to be about a binary world of "filthy thieving callous dishonest pirates" vs "angels who can do no wrong". In reality, everyone I know is a mixture of the two.

Which am I, angel or thief? I own many more CDs than average. But I've "stolen" many more times than that again. I probably own 10 times as many games as the average consumer. But I've pirated 100 times more. But I've given the industry thousands of dollars! But I've stolen many times more! Which is it?

Grey. It's a word, it's an area, it's a colour, it's a point on a sliding scale between black and white. Turn up the bit depth on your display of the world, maybe you'll start to see an awful lot of it.

Awesome game

[mrsteveman1]

I only heard about this game because of the piracy story here on slashdot, went and played the demo, and loved it. I'm gonna buy the full version now.

Hows that for irony?

Re:DRM and relative sales

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Unfortunately, customers don't seem to care about DRM per se, just DRM that fucks with their systems. In DRM terms, contemporary consoles are to PCs what cybernetically enhanced Yakuza ninja assassins armed with mind control shiruken are to mall security guards.

The latter are far more annoying; but the former are far, far more effective. It would not at all surprise me, given their experience with both WMRM and consoles, along with the overwhelming degree of dissatisfaction with current PC DRM, most of which does some seriously dubious stuff to your OS, if Microsoft simply decides to fold a DRM API of some sort into future versions of Windows. By virtue of controlling the OS, they would be able to offer equivalent or better DRM than would the third party stuff, with lower likelyhood of breaking things horribly.

Now, having the guys you buy your OS from in on the conspiracy to control your use of it is not exactly an improvement from the freedom perspective(and you might want to look into bidding fairwell to first sale); but it would quiet the people who oppose DRM merely on convenience grounds.

Re:huh ???

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you. Even if we accept the absurd math and conclusions given, it could be that pirates are aware of the game but the public at large isn't. Hell, I probably spend more on games each month than on groceries and I've never heard of the thing.

Maybe the real issue here isn't DRM, but marketing. In fact a high level of piracy may be the only reason it got the sales its gotten!

Re:Tough demand curve.

[FooAtWFU]

Methinks a lot of them are college students with fast Internet connections and little or no budget of their own. Or high-school students. (Myself, I got out of the computer-game piracy business after I started making several tens of thousands of dollars a year. I've gone out of my way to buy most of the games I spent any significant amount of time with, as well.)

Nothing to see here...

[L4m3rthanyou]

I don't see how such statistics are even useful, anyway. Piracy is an unfortunate market force, an inevitable cost of doing business. We all know that. Clearly, it hasn't stopped games from being profitable.

I think that even the most thickheaded publishers are starting to figure out that trying to stop piracy is futile, at least for single-player games. It would seem to me that most developers releasing their stuff DRM-free have simply stopped worrying about what's being "taken" from them, and refocused on maximizing their income. In the ever-expanding world of online gaming, where authoritative control is actually possible, the DRM makes sense and will continue to be used. It's all about the benefit against the cost.

In other words... DUH.

Re:sweet game

[carlzum]

I'm playing the Wiiware version now. It's a lot of fun if you like puzzle games. It reminds me of Armadillo Run or The Incredible Machine (if you're old enough to remember that game). I'd prefer a mouse over the Wiimote, so I'm considering getting the PC/Mac version which allows you to download the Linux beta now.

Terrible study

[RichPowers]

This study is deeply flawed. Optional checkboxes? A reliance on IP addresses (dynamic, logging in from multiple locations, etc.)? I eagerly await the technical analyses of the study's flaws.

This story is making the rounds surprisingly fast, which is fucking terrible. The study is flawed, but how many readers will see that? Will they take this 80% piracy rate at face value? I really hope not.

To those who think piracy will ruin PC gaming by making profitability impossible, I offer the following analysis of the sales of another DRM-free game: Sins of a Solar Empire.

In September, Stardock reported that Sins sold over 500,000 units: 400,000 at retail and 100,000 online. For the sake of these back-of-the-envelope calculations, I'll assume that the average retail price is $40. The online price is $40. I'll round down total sales to 500,000.

So 500,000 * $40 = $20 million. We know that Stardock took in at least $4 million by virtue of online sales. I don't know enough about retail sales to estimate how much retailers take in per sale.

Sins cost less than $1 million to make. After the retailers get their cut, and Stardock pays for Impulse's bandwidth, I'll estimate that they pocketed at least $10 million, probably more. (I'm being conservative.)

That's at least a 10:1 return on their investment. That sounds like a killing! And Stardock/Ironclad plans several micro expansions in the coming months.

Even with piracy, Stardock did quite well. Hell, even if piracy is 90% (which I think is a buncha crap), they still made plenty of dough. Why? As explained by Brad and others:

1) Ironclad/Stardock kept costs low. I hate how the industry creates these multimillion dollar games that necessitate a huge number of sales to recoup development costs. Piracy or not, the PC gaming market is simply too small to fully recoup the dev costs of today's AAA games (not enough high-end PCs etc. etc.). That's why big-budget games need multiplatform sales.

2) Relatively low system reqs.

3) Sins is a PC game. At the moment, you simply can't have a Sins-like experience on a console. Stardock's offering a game that takes advantage of the PC's strengths. Imagine that, appealing to your target audience. AFAIK, the game doesn't suffer from "consolitis."

4) Excellent customer support and relations. Patches, active forums, listening to customers. The other day, Brad left a post on a somewhat obscure topic at CivFanatics. He wanted to to clear up any misconceptions about Stardock's upcoming fantasy 4X game to an audience that's clearly interested in 4X stuff.

5) Lots of positive press. Slashdot and other PC/geek sites responded positively to the company's anti-DRM messages, the PC gamer bill of rights, etc. This probably attracted customers and overall goodwill.

Now if Sins isn't your kind of game, you probably don't care either way. What I'm arguing is that it's possible to profit handsomely in the non-MMO PC game market, provided you know your audience and release a game worth playing. Having good marketing and PR certainly helps, too.

Source: http://news.bigdownload.com/2008/09/04/over-500-000-total-sins-of-a-solar-empire-units-sold/

Re:Tough demand curve.

[JLF65]

Probably most of these people are more likely the "try before you buy" type. They used to rent the game for a night or two to see if it was worth buying. Now they use the internet instead of rental places. Given that 99.9% of games are worthless crap, most people who "try before they buy" will end up not buying the game. This makes it look like the game has heavy piracy when in reality it's simply crap not worth buying. Which do you think the game industry will claim? :)

Re:Only "/." conclusion

[Klaus_1250]

or
E) Game producers turn pirates into paying customers and embrace distribution methods people prefer without harassing them. Reality is that most people pirate stuff they wouldn't buy in the first place. No loss there except free marketing. The only problem is people pirating stuff they would normally buy. But with a good product, good support and harassment-free incentives to buy the product, you should be able to turn those people into paying for products.
PS:

D) Games move to Steam. Everyone wins...except for those boycotting on principles.

Personally, I don't like Steam for the simple reason it annoys the hell out of me. I can't start games without Steam throwing ads at me for products I don't care about and it increase the loading time of games significantly. Impulse from Stardock is much better in that respect (disclaimer: I purchase most of my games through Impulse. I used to buy games from EA, or well, the studios it has taken over, but I can't remember the last time I did).

Re:My experience

[Hurricane78]

That's what I do too.

Unfortunately, my brother thinks, that as long as you can copy it, then why would you buy it at all?
It goes without saying, that his views to not fit with mine. Somehow he does not "get" the morality that is involved in being motivated to not hurt the developer if he's nice to you too.

And strangely, he's a media industry manager, who does not get why DRM is so evil, too.

Somehow, my theory is, that both sides, the one hurting the developer, and the one hurting the consumer, are two sides of the same character.
The type that does not trust people and thinks there is nothing else out there than a dog-eat-dog world, so if others fuck you anyway, and everybody can expect it, then he can act that way too.

The best thing is, that I even know the reason for this. His life was unfair and sometimes even horrible. And so was mine. I still do not trust many people.
But I could never stand someone good being hurt, because I saw it happening to my own brother.

So if you want to stop the **AA and those type of guys, just make the world a bit better, be nice to others and your kids, and hope that they end up defaulting to being good. (Oh, and wait one or two generations. ;)
(I know it's not realistic in the short run, but does it result in anything not good, to try it anyway?)

The flip-side

[SpeedyDX]

Of course, if we were to look at the flip-side, 18% of the people who got their hands on World of Goo purchased it, whereas only 8% of those who got their hands on the other game purchased it. That's over DOUBLE the rate of purchase.

It's all a matter of perspective.

Re:Tough demand curve.

[supervillainsf]

Trying to download anything large over anykind of college or campus network is balls-achingly painful.

I don't know what college you go to, but I just downloaded the latest xcode dmg ( just under a gig in size ) in less than 3 minutes today on my campus. The experience resulted in no ball-aching on my part.

Re:so what?

[Ash-Fox]

I admit it, I pirated world of goo because I thought it sounded sorta cool. to be honest, it's still sitting in the torrent downloads folder and it hasnt been looked it. I guess that counts as part of the 80%, but you can hardly claim I would have bought it otherwise. I mean, shit, I havent even played with it yet and it cost me nothing. can you really claim I would have bought it if I couldnt download it for free?

The statistics they have are from people who actually played and submitted scores back online. So you wouldn't of been counted.

Maybe you should RTFA.

Re:My experience

[atraintocry]

Somehow, my theory is, that both sides, the one hurting the developer, and the one hurting the consumer, are two sides of the same character.

My thoughts exactly. Big publishers need to see DRM on software because they are they type of people that would not think twice about pirating software. The honor system (that is, honor) just does not compute.

(Not talking about your brother, in case there was even the tiniest ambiguity there. I don't know the guy. Or at least I don't know that I know him...)

I never thought I'd ever hear this...

[w0mprat]

From TFA: "one thing that really jumped out at me was his estimate that preventing 1000 piracy attempts results in only a single additional sale. this supports our intuitive assessment that people who pirate our game arenâ(TM)t people who would have purchased it had they not been able to get it without paying." ... this from a game development house? Wow...

Re:Only "/." conclusion

[Dachannien]

I'm not sure this works with all games on Steam, but for a lot of the ones I've bought, I can just create a shortcut to the game executable directly. (The Steam-created shortcuts actually run Steam first and then run the game.)

Re:No big surprise

[Tony Hoyle]

On a project I worked on it was less than 0.1% - we even had large well funded companies say 'why should we pay?'.

Relying on human nature is doomed to failure.. you need stick as well as carrot.

Re:Terrible study .. only a million to make?

[dreamchaser]

I've seen the same figure in numerous write ups. Here is but one example. Excerpt:

"So how has this strategy panned out for the gamemaker's first third-party-published title, Ironclad Games' Sins of a Solar Empire? As reported by gaming trade site Gamasutra, Sins of a Solar Empire has surpassed 400,000 units at retail, with another 100,000 units digitally distributed through Stardock's online store, since the PC game went on sale in February. That's not a bad figure, considering Sins reportedly cost under $1 million to make.

"Pirate"

[AlpineR]

I "pirated" World of Goo. I downloaded it when a friend raved over it, tried it for five minutes, thought "Is this it?" and deleted it.

Yeah, and I sneaked into a showing of Quantum of Solace at the movie theater. The opening scene wasn't very impressive so I left. But if I decided to stay I would have bought a ticket afterwards. Really I would!

By the way, did you opt in to the global scoreboard and set a high score during your five minutes?

Just remember!

[Anonymous Coward]

Pirating these games are okay as long as you buy a concert tee-shirt when these developers come to your town .... oh.

Measuring Piracy

[Sir Realist]

Which would be far more interesting a statistic if they were using anything like a valid method for measuring the piracy... They're counting up the number of unique IPs logging into their site playing the game, and dividing by the number of copies they sold. Many people get assigned a random IP by their ISP on a regular basis; each of those people will count as many, many pirates by this method.

The real purpose of DRM

[rabtech]

The real purpose of DRM, especially the EA "limited installs" kind, is to shut down the resale market. The publishers look at that market and think "they're selling my games for free! those bastards...".

Like the telcos who talk tough words about "using my pipes for free", they fail to acknowledge that We the People own the land, and our government has graciously granted them access to right-of-way on our behalf, to run their lines and deliver their services. Like a renter, the furniture (pipes) may be yours, but the building (right-of-way) belongs to us. We can easily terminate their access if we decide it is in society's best interests.

Copyright is (was) a balance between encouraging creativity and our natural right to share, duplicate, and/or dispose of our own personal property however we see fit, regardless of its content or the desire of the creator. Blatant attempts to alter the balance in your own favor cannot be tolerated. We've seen what happens when the financial sector is allowed to have the very ropes with which to hang themselves, we can't let the rest of our society go down the same path.