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Study Links Game Piracy To Critics' Review Scores
An anonymous reader writes "A new study (abstract) published at the annual ACM Foundations of Digital Games conference by researchers from Copenhagen Business School and the University of Waterloo explores the magnitude of game piracy on public BitTorrent trackers. The researchers tracked 173 new game releases over a three-month period and found that these were downloaded by 12.7 million unique peers. They further show that the number of downloads on BitTorrent can be predicted by the scores of game reviewers. Overall the current paper gives a seemingly robust overview of the state of game piracy on BitTorrent. Although the results may not be all that surprising, it's certainly refreshing to see a decent report on BitTorrent statistics every now and then."
The more higher rated a game is, the more people download it on BT?
Is that it? What an unexpected result.
Higher rated -> More people want to play it -> More people buy it OR More people download it
Simple.
Because someone will, or already has, misinterpreted the correlation to mean that more torrent downloads leads to higher game reviews. So as you can see, piracy is really good for the game industry!
Football Odds
What's this stealing thing you're talking about.
80 CC D8 AF AE D3 AB 54 B7 2E CE 67 C7
What other arguments would you like to see than this study?
Maybe World of Goo is a good example. A great indie game that got great reviews. Still 90% of people pirated it while it didn't even cost that much. Later they even offered pay-what-you-want model, but still the piracy rate is the same. Another indie game also had 90% piracy. It's just the norm, it has nothing to do with how good the game is. People just rather pirate than buy, if they can. I'm not surprised companies are looking for DRM methods, even if just to keep the piracy out for a little bit during the first few weeks so that people who want to play it buy it because they cant pirate it.
Google+ vs. Facebook, and why Google+ will fail
The best way to fight piracy is to make shitty games
...and in other news water is wet.
I guess companies should continue to buy or otherwise influence reviews.
I just skimmed the actual study and it doesn't really provide much more info. It does make the claim that their methods are closer to the true number of pirated copies and refreshingly that these are not necessarily correlated with lost sales. However it's conclusions aren't all that interesting. My guess? This was more about their measurement techniques and the outcome was tacked on so it could get published (or have a chance of getting published)
The music and movie industries have already tried that tack, and it doesn't seem to be working.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
It's not a tautology. It's just incredibly obvious that better-reviewed games would be downloaded more on BitTorrent.
[To be clear a tautology is something that is by definition true, like "a blue horse is blue" or "if a and b are rational numbers, then ab is rational". Usually the former example--which is essentially an error of redundancy--is the type "tautology" refers to in common speech, while the latter is used in formal logic.]
Are you serious? A few weeks? You're as deluded as the software publishers who punish their paying customers with DRM.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
Looking at the table presented in the article, their conclusion seems a bit odd...
Fallout: New Vegas - Downloads: 962,793 Avg. rating: 83.7
TRON Evolution - Downloads: 496,349 Avg. rating: 59.5
Starcraft 2 - Downloads: 420,138 Avg. rating: 89.5
"Metacritic Scores explain 10% of the variance in the unique peers per game on BitTorrent,”. I guess the remaining 90% is just noise then...?
Most do fail in that, you're right, but there has been cases where the DRM haven't been broken within a whole year.
However, what is even better for game companies is to make the game only playable online, or integrate so much gameplay online (co-op etc) that it makes no sense to pirate. That is s where it's been heavily went recently and those slashdot users and everyone who rather have single-player experience should support the companies who still make good single player games. Otherwise everything will be online games soon.
Google+ vs. Facebook, and why Google+ will fail
Because someone will, or already has, misinterpreted the correlation to mean that more torrent downloads leads to higher game reviews. So as you can see, piracy is really good for the game industry!
Tomorrow, mainstream news websites will report that game reviewers boost downloads.
Next week, talkshows will discuss the financial consequences for the gaming industry of allowing websites to review games.
Next month, politicians will consider banning game reviewers.
They further show that the number of downloads on BitTorrent can be predicted by the scores of game reviewers.
Since the link is blocked at work, it would be nice if the summary actually included what the link was. I assume higher reviews correlate to higher piracy. Which is another way of saying popular games are pirated more than unpopular games, which is another way of saying popular games are popular, which ultimately says fuck all.
Copyright is an exclusive right to reproduce and distribute something. Any reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work by someone who is not the rights holder is an infringement of the copyright.
So yes, downloading World of Goo from Pirate Bay, is in fact piracy even if the developer no longer charges for the game.
You are right that most people ignore copyright, but there's a difference between "everyone does it" and "it's not illegal", see: speeding, drugs, prohibition, skipping school, etc.
Here's a question for you—not that I necessarily disagree with your viewpoint—at what point do you consider an amount of money you've paid to access to something sufficient to reacquire it through any means you wish? I.e., if you were charged ten cents for access to an extremely DRMed e-book, would you still feel like you had the right to 'pirate' it and lend it to a friend?
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
There is no honor among thieves.
Too bad the article is about copyright infringement.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
It is, but it is hardly ever prosecuted except in cases where it is a repetitive problem. Also, it is usually the parents that get in trouble for it. Which is the way it should be. If you can't be responsible for your kids, don't have them in the first place. Only in cases where parents can prove due diligence are when the kids are actually punished, usually with juvenile detention.
Disclaimer: This is all from personal experience (I was a good kid, but knew others that weren't), so as always YMMV.
Cool post bro, highfive \o
we now live in an era of a "true" free market. We get to decide whether dev/pub screwing us gets paid.
Not really a free market; since you don't have to pay for the product. You can just help yourself. And many do.
Its more of a charity.
Oh, right. I temporarily forgot that copying was the exact same thing as taking away someone's physical property without their permission.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
But then the correct solution is just not play the game at all. If you don't like the way they are licensing the game, be it for DRM, activation, information gathering, or whatever, you could just not play the game. There's enough good games, software, movies, books, and music that come with fair licenses to keep just about anybody entertained for a long time. If you choose to pirate something because you don't like the terms, then they can count that against you. However, if you decide just to not play at all, then you are truly standing up for the problems you have with the game publisher.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
> "Given the whole theft of the public domain we can say piracy is a counterbalance to this overwhelming corporate theft of the public domain."
Funny, I thought the pirate mantra was that "theft" involved physically depriving someone of something. All of a sudden, the pirate thinks the "public domain" can be stolen. How does that work again? I can't think of any game company that has deprived someone else of using the public domain. It's not like World Of Warcraft has a patent on MMOs, roleplaying, or fantasy-medieval themed-games and prevents any other game company from making games in that niche.
My theory is that pirates manufacture a sense of victimization to justify their actions.