This bit of information shocked me the other day.
In a recent interview with Cervat Yerli, CEO of Crytek (the makers of PC-exclusive Crysis), he said:
“It’s crazy how the ratio between sales to piracy is probably 1 to 15 to 1 to 20 right now. For one sale there are 15 to 20 pirates and pirate versions, and that’s a big shame for the PC industry. I hope with Warhead I hope we improve the situation, but at the same time it may have an impact on [our] PC exclusivity in the future.”
Now, that’s pretty bad people. For every one copy of a legitimate video game, 15-20 pirated copies exist.
Damn.
If any of my GameSpot compatriots remember, about a month or two ago, I asked for an invitation to the website Demonoid, which is a torrent-hosting site comprised of pirated movies, music CDs, and video games.
I won’t lie. I’m a pirate of sorts – but in a gentleman-ly fashion.
For one thing, when it comes to the gaming industry, the only thing I have pirated are games in which I already own. Throughout the years, I have lost several of the CDs to my favorite games from various cross-country moves, accidents, and just generally getting tucked away somewhere.
Now, for me, I obtain maybe a new game once or twice a year. That’s it.
So, the thought of piracy appealed to me. Get anything you wanted for free? Why not? But no. I would not engage in mass-piracy. Me and my friend both stick to a code:
Never pirate a video game unless you own it. Why? Because it hurts the business in which we both want to work for one day. So, to all of you pirates out there…think about what you’re doing. With what Yerli has said about piracy threatening the PC exclusivity of Crytek’s future games, it’s just kind of sad to think of such a thing.
Think of it like conservatives think about littering. Sure, you may be thinking “It’s only one lost sale on their part – how much harm can this possibly do?”. Well, what if everybody thought that way? Let’s do the math:
1 Copy of Crysis – $40
As Yerli said, there are 15-20 pirate copies of Crysis, so
15-20 Pirated Copies of Crysis – $600-800 in lost sales
Crysis has sold over 1.5 million copies upon release, meaning
1.5 Million Copies Sold – $60,000,000 gained
2.25-3 Million Copies Pirated – $90,000,000-120,000,000 in lost sales
Total amount of games and money which could have been gained if there were no piracy – possibly 3.75-4.5 million units sold – possibly $150,000,000-180,000,000 made in sales
Those are some big numbers people. Real big.
So pirates, like I said, think about what your taking and how it might effect the people who made it. Taking games you already own, in my book, is quite alright because you’ve already given your money to the makers of the game, but if you just outright steal the game without giving back anything, then that’s where the problems begin.
I think that PC exclusives have more problems facing them than just piracy. With the exception of the enthusiast crowd, which actually includes me, it is really hard to get people into well made PC games. They’re too busy playing Solitare and Minesweeper, or free flash games at places like yahoo games.
PC games lack in a lot of ways, compared to consoles. Especially applicable is that it is easy and legal to share your copy of your console game, just let your friend borrow your disc. PC games also tend to lack any for of split-screen play. That makes popular party games, like Rock Band, to find a home on other platforms. Then there is the needlessly complicated question of, “Will this game even play on my computer?”. Now I’m smart enough to answer that, but it is still a lot more complicated than does the box say Xbox 360 or Wii on it.
Do I think Piracy hurts the industry? In some small fashion, yes. The real question is, would those people who downloaded the game have bought it if piracy was not an option? I think the answer is usually no.
Let me remind you that piracy isn’t a simple process. People who download games put up with the silly hacks and workarounds people developed. Often times they’ll be missing features, or playing the game in another language. That is if they can get their hacked version running at all. Then there is the risk of viruses and spyware. For most people piracy isn’t worth it.
Maybe it is because I’m mostly a console gamer that I feel the way I do, but I still do play a few games on PC. That is the ones I REALLY want new, or the ones that drop in price. When a game I want on PC can be picked up for around $20 I’m sold. A lot of great PC games can be found for around $10-$15. Once they’ve hit that price it is likely more PCs can run them too.
I think the problem is that new PC games usually target a niche market and slowly become more mainstream. How many PCs out there can even run Crysis? I’m sure its less than the number of 360s or PS3s even. Games like Sims 2 shows that you can still make money on PC games if you target the right market.
By: Zeph Greenwell on June 30, 2008
at 7:07 am
$900,000,000-1,200,000,000, not $90,000,000-120,000,000
By: Robert on September 15, 2008
at 2:36 am
As a person who previously played pirated games i can understand the appeal… Since at that time i was not working either! But the fact of matter is that piracy has a huge negative affect on the pc gaming industry! And its causing us pc gamers 2lose out since developers are losing out! And everytime game developers come up with something new to help curb this piracy, the pirates find a new way to crack the game…
c’mon there has to be a way to ensure that the game is not cracked!.. They even tried implementing the steam engine on the new games! I just hope something is done!.. And soon!
By: Mash101 on December 21, 2008
at 12:48 pm