1. No one can be 100% sure of such things without some evidence to back it up. Do you have such solid evidence?

2. Asking for refunds doesn't always work in some countries if you buy in a brick and mortar. Also some games might not work with some PC configurations......even if they meet the minimum reqs.

3. I never said it was fact, just my opinion.

Well, here's one person who does use BitTorrent demos. If I can't make a decision based on reviews I'll go grab a copy & play for half an hour or so. Then I uninstall it. I love games with real demos, it's so much more convenient.

I know, I know, the plural of 'anecdote' isn't 'data'. But I suspect there are more people doing this than you'd think.

Honestly, free samples/demos/teasers is a time-honored way to get new customers. There's whole industries that use this as a business model. Several studies have shown that people really do want to pay for things & deal fairly with others, I'll try to dig some links up.

What I think the biggest reason behind piracy is that people suspect they're getting scammed by software publishers since software isn't a scarce good in the current OS ecosystem (perils of a sole, usually backwards-compatible OS). I don't agree with this view, but a lot of people seem too. And that's where the desire for fairness starts hurting the situation instead of encouraging honest behavior.

I think that the explosion of competing OSs is a good thing for honest market forces that it will highlight how software is a scarce good that requires limited resources (time, effort, money, planning) & maintenance/updating just like an appliance. Open-source projects have sort of the same effect, since they highlight just how tricky it is to software done for free.

Compare Windows, Mac and Linux purchases for the Humble Bundle. The amount paid correlated with how much effort is usually required to produce software for a platform (i.e., Windows users paid least, then Mac users, then Linux.). The platform where users are required to spend more time with their software paid more, maybe because they realize how much goes into producing & maintaining working software.

Here on GOG, compatibility with multiple OSs is a major selling point. Everyone here has realized that software requires specific things & effort to work & doesn't run on HandWaviumTM.

Admittedly, this is just my opinion.

Youre being way too naive. Anyone with a fair bit of common sense knows that the rule is that those who pirate will NOT buy. Its a rule, and every rule has its exceptions. Go to piracy download site and ask how many will/have bought the game theyre downloading. Its still absurd. Youre almost implying that pirates and those who buy games on deals are the same thing. Nonsense.

1. And you're being too pessimistic without much in the way of proof to validate your statements. I don't have much factual proof either, but I at least don't tout mine as facts like you seem to be doing.

2. No it isn't just because you say it is. It's my opinion and yours is yours. Stop trying to think for me and I won't do same for you.

From personal experience I used to play mostly pirated games as I had no money and really couldn't afford all the games I played. It was the days of sneakernet so the most we downloaded was a keygen or nocd hack. Bring us to today I buy every game I play and I go out of my way to buy games that I used to play that I didn't own because I know it was wrong and it's me making amends. I imagine few people that can really afford it, pirate games. In the past I did buy many games but couldn't afford all I played. Now 40-50$ is nothing compared with the time messing with viruses/risky torrents/hacks/GUILT. The guilt goes up the more able you are to afford the games.

The sad thing is the people often gone after for pirating are the fans of games, many of which would would and will buy if their economics change. I imagine if companies could/would do student discounts etc the pirating community would decrease considerably.

As many others have mentioned, the people that won't buy will never buy, they are not customers. Be glad that your goods aren't shoplifted like other industries that do economic harm directly. Side with the fans, they love you for what you make and will spend what is fair and what they are able to afford. Litigation shouldn't become the new DRM.

Am i? Youre implying that some pirates download games to use as a demo. According to these piracy data from the thread, the most pirated game was Crysis 2. Well i just remembered Crysis 2 had a multiplayer demo on PC. You couldnt get a taste of the SP campaign, BUT STILL you could certainly check if youll like the game or not. And if compability is your main concern, with a demo out there would be no problem. Oh, and Battlefield 3, which is ranked at third on the most pirated games list, also had an open multiplayer demo. Isnt that enough? Multiplayer is the main focus of this game anyway.

Aye I found a pirated copy of Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear online years ago. After awhile I found a boxed copy on eBay (the box is huge). Why can't squadmate AI in modern tactical games be as intelligent as that game?

Battlefield 3 has CRAP scripted squadmate AI. They didn't even try to make it decent in SP.

Just wanted to say that this was a very interesting post! And the links were very enlightening to read.

I somehow always lose interest after some time in those threads. It's often like discussion evolution with creationists ...

A discussion about piracy? Oh, it's that time of the year again?

The reality is, as it has already be said before: we can only speculates because nobody cans:

- tell the number of game's copies completly downloaded and installed;
- tell the relationship between installed game's copies and sales not made;
- tell the relationship between sales not made because of installation of game's copies and the commercial result of a game.

Moreso:

/rant

I'm only playing games for two decades and a half, so this piracy thing is kind of new to me, but:

1) I never boarded any ship and threatened people life with weapons to steal goods. I do think the vast majority of those so-called "pirates" have never done anything that harmful. I don't think there ever was any real /piracy/ problem on internet at all.

2) I met a number of copy/right/ infringement issues, the majority of which was the publisher failures to meet it's part of the deal:

- impossibility to use my right to copy the data for protected purposes (citation, backup);
- denied usage of/access to the material because of artificial barriers (faulty CD check…).

The industry seems only concerned about lack of respect of copyright by non-customers, but they don't respects their customers rights at all.

3) Outside of copyright problems, a number of publisher and distributors seems to think it's a good idea to:

- not double-check the language of a country before distribution. No, german isn't our language here, french is, and untranslated english spoken games will of course fares better that badly translated ones;
- deliver a partly finished product, worst an untested partly finished product;
- lie on the product box on the minimal requirements - it should be legally binding: if it isn't playable with that, I want my money back;
- deceive customers about the product itself: I didn't want to buy anything from Sierra On-Line anymore when I payed full price for a Space Quest IV with "improved graphics" (=> the most awful looking 64 colors Amiga game ever made - it looks fully automated, nobody why working eyes seems to have tested it, SQ III (even SQII !) where better served for the platform);
- charge the customers in some countries more that in others just because they can;
- not distribute a number of titles in some countries at all (seriously, there's no legal barrier to sell softwares allowed in EU here, so don't cry if your non-customers somewhat get access to a product you denies them, and don't cry if they buys it in the import market).

Delivering a rushed or mismatched product isn't going to help sales, non-delivering it either.

4) Second hand market isn't a problem for the industry. If anything, it keeps it alive. The big problem is that people don't have that much money to throw at what looks more and more a big lottery:

- We can't return any game to the store. It don't work, our problem, the best I could obtains it to change a game with another copy of the /same game/ who somewhat fared a little better with my dvd drive (only failed to works 50% of time after that…).

- It's very hard to find trustworthy reviews (big site included). A lot of them don't say a word about unusable games because of insane copy protection, creeping bugs, internet dependance, etc. And don't start me on the notations (awful big budget game -> 80%-90%, very good small budget games -> 70%-80%)…

- The games are sold at outrageous prices in the stores, and have never their prices lowered before they disappears forever. (I never bought a number of titles because of the $80-$100 range who was commonly practiced here. It's starting to get a little better now, more in the $50-$70 range.)

In the past, I always bought new console games by reselling old ones, and tested unknown franchises by buying used version of previous titles (and starting at a later episode isn't that .

Now, I wait months after release before trying to buy a PC title.

We can't rely on anything for confidence when buying an expensive title, I would say that the used market, with it's low barrier of access, helps with it. But no such luck with modern PC titles.

If the music and film industry where of any indication: money not used to buy new games will finish to go… to buy new games.

5) I always download cracks for all games after I buy them in retail. Always. I can't stand Windows Live or CD/DVD checks. I do think a lot of people do the same. Oh, and sometimes, I download "localization patches" (ie. translations ripped from others versions). I agree it's totally illegal, as a form of copyright/distribution rights violation, but I won't loose sleep over it, even if it makes me an hideous high-sea criminal that oughts to be hanged.

Copying of software has always existed and will always exists, but the industry has lost a lot of sympathy with it's cries. There is a number of solution to these problems (demos, distributors who respects their customers (GOG)), but not a lot of companies follows this path. The fact is it's hard for everybody, and of course the financial crisis doesn't help, and not everybody, customer or editor, makes the good decision.

When it's easier and safer to download a game that to buy it, it's no surprise that people starts to ponder the option. And when the editors uses infaming vocabulary to designate their customers and non-customers alike, making them the bloodthirsty killers, and, more recently, the founders of terrorism, it's no wonder people stops to listen.

rant/

Sometimes the game demos work or are compatible and the full game isn't(usually due to changes in code from demo release to full game release or due to incompatibilities with one's system not present in the portions of game released as a demo vs those that weren't.). Also some don't like MP and testing MP won't always tell you if you'll like the SP campaign(if any is included with the full game) and vice versa.

More like that time of the month =P

I believe it's not as much how the pirates "acquired" their treasure but that the treasure they "acquired" was something others had spent time and money on gathering. That is, the only effort they made was to take what others had produced, rather than spending time and effort on making something themselves. Basically the same as thieves, yet calling software pirates thieves doesn't have the same ring to it.

In my opnion, the 'real internet pirates' are those who scam people, steal identities, use trojans to gather online banking information, go after children etc. They do hurt people, sometimes even physically. On the other hand, 'pirates' is too nice a word for them - 'scum' is more fitting.

When I found GOG (heh.. that's one single letter away from a statement that makes me instinctively shy away from whoever said it..) I actually thought something along these lines: "It's easier and safer to buy here, than it is to download [illegally] - I like it; I want to try this. I want this to succeed."

Anyway, thanks for a nice read/rant - it's much the same 'reality' I know. It's not as much about the money as it as about getting the product you've actually paid for. We're not buying securom instances, we're buying the games they protect - what legit customer, if given the choice, would actually choose the version with DRM over the one without, given the price was the same (the DRM-free version would even mean more money to the developer/publisher)?

It feels like being expected to buy sex from a hooker with certified VD when you might as well hook up with a (most likely - you never know) VD-free girlfriend (who knows all the same 'moves', and in some cases, more) for free.

I don't condone piracy (and I'd gladly carve out the gentials of anyone torrenting GOG releases, with a plastic spoon, force-feeding them - that's not just piracy, that's shooting every consumer in the foot) but there's enough 'wrong' on both sides that it feels like you might as well flip a coin when deciding which path to walk.

I know some people have a hard time understanding why they should pay for something they can acquire easily and almost without risk even if it's illegal (it's not wrong if you don't get caught, or something?) - I don't think there's anything that can be done with those (other than catching them more often) - but there's also a lot of people who know they're doing something illegal, yet prefers this - and the possible consequences - to the alternative (e.g. DRM). If more services like GOG came to be, the latter group would all but vanish - I have absolutely no reason to pirate any of the games I can get here at GOG - and the 'pirate'-tag would be more fitting. And, consequently, enforcement of anti-piracy laws would be easier to accept.

Heh.. what do you know - my short comment turned into (another) lengthy rant.. sorry about that.. =/

Haha, you gotta be kidding me. So demos are useless then? I dont get your arguments. What do you want? You want publishers to give you the full game for free without making a penny for it and relying exclusevely on your gratutude to give them money? Sorry, that wont work.

Youre trying to get a very, VERY rare situation to justify your arguments. The chances of a demo working and the full game not are extremely slim. Its like saying "ill never ever buy an original game again because once i bought one and got a faulty disk". So that gives you the right to pirate games? I dont get it. Same thing happens with many other products we buy everyday. I cant go to the supermarket and eat things just to get a taste of them before buying, can i? We buy a lot of things that we arent satisfied with later. Thats life. Youll never know if youll fully like something until you buy it.

I don't know what's worse: The fact that those numbers are so high, or the fact that I expected them to be lower. It's funny, because so many that complain about the current state of PC gaming probably contribute to those numbers.

Sorry, i think i didnt express myself correctly. When i said you i didnt mean to point at you specifically. I was tryning to say "does that give someone the right to pirate games?"