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

Posted by Soulskill on from the trust-rewarded dept.

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."

8 of 422 comments (clear)

  1. Only sane conclusion by Xiroth · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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).

    1. Re:Only sane conclusion by AKAImBatman · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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

      --
      Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
  2. DRM is not about prevent piracy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  3. These numbers are misleading by Jimmy_B · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.)

  4. Counting IP's? Fail. by Presence2 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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%.

  5. odd math by socsoc · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:odd math by IceCreamGuy · · Score: 5, Informative
      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.

  6. Awesome game by mrsteveman1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?