There's a lot of ways to gather information about a topic. Surveys allow a lot of responses quickly and easily, but they have many limitations.
PC Gamer ran a survey for a couple of weeks, polling their audience about whether they pirate computer games, and why. It attempts to correlate this act by age, income, country of residence, and reason. It also asks about how this practice changed over time. They acknowledge that this system could easily be gamed, whether by multiple votes or deliberate misinformation, but noted that it's an interesting study none-the-less. They even highlight a few areas of concern, like non-zero income for people who claim to be under 10 years old (of which some are probably guessing their parents salaries, but still).
The survey is interesting, though, and you should check it out.
It's important to know a bit more about how surveys work, though. Simply put, people often report information that is much different from what would have been measured, especially in hypothetical or long-term situations. Someone who records what they ate during the day, through a survey that occurs multiple times per day, is likely to be fairly accurate.
However, asking someone if advertising works on them is hilariously bad. When I've seen surveys on this, they are overwhelmingly “no” or “it informs me of products or services I would have otherwise not been aware of”. Hate to break it to you, but that's crap. It works. It works on everyone. There is an industry that is worth hundreds of billions of dollars, in the US alone, that testifies to it working.
While you would typically expect a survey about piracy to be skewed in a way that makes the respondents self-identify better, even that is not necessarily the case. About a decade ago, Paulo Ceolho was pirating his own book, leading to an increase in sales. The same happened for a comic book artist, named Steve Lieber, whose sales peaked about ~20x higher than being reviewed on Boing Boing; this peak lasted longer, too.
These sorts of effects, as well as many others, will probably not come up in a survey. In the latter case, there is an emotional reaction to an author who treats you with respect, even though you pirate their work. You actually need to test for these effects with concrete experiments.
In short, read the data with a few grains of salt. This is not an effective acquisition method for what they are attempting to learn, but it's well done for what it is.
“It works. It works on
“It works. It works on everyone. There is an industry that is worth hundreds of billions of dollars, in the US alone, that testifies to it working.”
To be pedantic: spending millions on something doesn’t mean it has any efficacy. Homeopathy is total and utter pure grade-A bullshit, but it’s still a multi-billion dollar industry. Or Theranos: massive investment, and years of operation, before it turned out the machine didn’t actually do anything.
Yeah. I meant it more like
Yeah. I meant it more like "you're betting against hundreds of billions of dollars"; and yes, that works out sometimes, but, in this case, it's a lack of introspection.
One thing is 100% certain –
One thing is 100% certain – advertising makes a lot of money for advertising firms.
Absolutely
Absolutely
Very good survey.. The 35%
Very good survey.. The 35% of PC users pirating probably isn’t too bad in historical terms.. I’m certain this percentage was much higher on the computing platforms of the 80s and early 90s (Atari, Commodore, etc). I’m guessing most of PC Gamer’s audience is in the USA, I’d be curious of piracy by region.
– Former SysOp
🙂
My favorite quote on
My favorite quote on piracy:
“Piracy is a competing business model. It competes with [legitimate businesses] on price, quality, and convenience. You can’t beat price. So you have to compete on quality, and convenience.”
The amazing part? It was a music exec who said that, back in 2008 (when intrusive DRM was the rage). He understood how to combat piracy.
Want to know how to beat piracy? Create a high-quality product that is easier to get than pirating; and price it in a way that people are willing to pay for that quality and convenience. It’s easier to just click a button in iTunes, and instantly download a song for $1. It’s easier to get a game on Steam and buy it (especially during sales), than pirate the same game.
The people that work at a game publisher are not stupid. They know that if they lowered the price, it would dramatically decrease piracy. But they don’t do it, because they’re not in the business of stopping piracy. They are in the business of making money. And they figured that they make more money by charging $60 for a game, and letting piracy happen, than to lower the price to the point where it is no longer attractive to pirate a game.
I played a pirated copy of
I played a pirated copy of Ark for a while then bought the real thing when it was on sale. Fallout 4 on the other hand was 100% pirate until I got tired of the game. So many games these days arnt worth $60-70 when they first come out so to me pirating them is like having an extended demo. If I actually like the game I’ll buy it, I got GTA V for pc eventhough I also had it on xbox360.
Stealing is stealing no
Stealing is stealing no matter how you try to justify it, shame on you.
It’s possible this person
It’s possible this person wouldn’t have bought ARK if he hadn’t tried it first. Ironically, when ARK did a ‘free weekend’ recently they released a major patch update right before the free weekend and most people had major problems.
So yes, he “stole” the game but it may have led to a sale. Game companies can learn from this model.
You mean like releasing a
You mean like releasing a demo.
Hmmmmm…
Good thing they didn’t steal
Good thing they didn’t steal anything, as stealing is the taking of something that deprives others of something. Pirating games does not deprive anyone of anything, regardless of the lies companies try to tell you about it.
P.S.
PCGamer is shite , and surveys are shite. This survey from PCGamer is double shite.
Thats nothing but a bullshit
Thats nothing but a bullshit rationalization and if youre not trolling, you should check your premises.
A person WORKS on the software which they then SELL to earn a living.
If you STEAL that software through piracy, you not only deprive the creator of the money they are owed when you USE their creation, but you RAISE PRICES for people who arent assholes and actually buy stuff.
So fuck you very much asshole.
its a one sided argument,
its a one sided argument, then what would you say about companies releasing games that are either broken or hugely differ from what they promised?
how many AAA games do u know have public beta? or a demo for players to try out?
I call BS on ur statement. Think for ur self, dont take the BS those companies feed as the truth.
i guess u are the guy/girl who pre-order every game b4 even the start of development.
Here are some cold hard
Here are some cold hard truths for you:
1. Many companies all over have done some shady, unethical, immoral, and sometimes outright illegal things. And hell yea I agree that they are wrong for it and ssomething should be done about it, but stealing from them is not the answer.
2. Stealing is not only wrong, it is also very illegal.
3. Your comment not only tries to justify why you think stealing from those companies is ok, but you also have a rather lame attempt at trying to insult me, or anyone like me.
Regardless of what you think or how you try to justify it, stealing is wrong. It really is that simple.
Piracy isn’t stealing, there
Piracy isn’t stealing, there is no loss of sale. You cant say because someone priated the company lost 60$, thats like saying my grandma didnt buy GTA, so we lose money.
Just because there is no lost
Just because there is no lost sale doesn’t mean it’s not stealing.
Stealing: To steal. To take without permission or legal right and without intending to return it.
If your going to pirate, pirate. You weren’t going to buy the game anyway and no one is going to convince you too stop. But don’t lie to yourself about what you are doing, and (I know you didn’t say this but I see it commonly enough in discussions on piracy) really don’t pretend your some kind of moral crusader sticking it to the man.
People say that it’s ok to
People say that it’s ok to pirate software because it isn’t a “real” thing but the company that makes it has to invest money into the product to make it viable for retail, they are risking their money to provide the consumer with a product that and pirates are using that product without paying for it. So ya it’s like theft.
You know there are ads that
You know there are ads that specifically state “Piracy, it’s a crime” right? And it is.
http://hollythelibrarian.com/2013/05/19/piracy-is-theft-no-matter-what-people-say/
Saying you wouldn’t buy it normally so there is no loss is simply a rationalization to justify the theft.
I find it almost laughable that someone is unable to understand that piracy is stealing.
That’s a terrible intro. An
That’s a terrible intro. An ad said said so, so it must be true.
It WAS easier to pirate
It WAS easier to pirate everything in the 80’s and 90’s, I personally didn’t start buying software until 2001. The difference was the lack of profit-motive for virus authors back then. Now you would be stupid to pirate anything without using a VPN, proxy, and anti-virus of some sort to check what you download is clean. I don’t hate anyone for being passionate about something to the extent they would obtain works they care about by any means available, but I also don’t hate the government and private agencies from doing everything they can to shutdown illegal sources. So long as they go after the dealer and not the addict, that is.
You have to be blatantly
You have to be blatantly stupid to get a virus from anything these days. I picked up ~1 virus in the last decade and it was because a co-worker blatantly lied to me about the sanitation of his thumb drive.
Virus was Win32.silly, probably the easiest bug I’ve ever cleaned. Someone picked it up in Afghanistan and it lingered around the base for years, Asia/China origin.
Ive met a lot of fucking
Ive met a lot of fucking clown shoes who say what you just did and they have ring 0 rootkits on their computers. Youre fucking clueless.