Oh it still could be downloaded 3-6 million times, since the table stops at 3.2 million. It could be number 6, for example.

Or the numbers ('facts' ?) could be wrong. We don't trust other numbers from other sources, so why trusting these numbers? They could be higher for example.

But your right, regarding piracy nobody has exact numbers with reliable small errors. That makes it so hard to discuss about piracy ... either way.

Wut?
https://www.google.com/search?q=supply+and+demand
That's not related to piracy. The mass doesn't want new or inventive games. They wont buy it, they wont pirate it.
If you look at the chart, it's the best selling games which are the most pirated...

I disagree (at least to a certain extent). First of all I would say it's pretty clear that piracy is at an all time high right now. But still, Indie gaming (which is most often DRM free anyway) is also at an all time high, which shouldn't make sense. But I think, that "good" games still get "bought" more often (Witcher II) than your run of the mill shooter clone. I mean the "bought to pirated" ratio of those Fifa and MW games is a lot higher than of TW II or, say, Bastion.

It's similar to the music industry. People rather pay for the bands they really like. And

I honestly think that piracy might rather help "the cause" here, as those "kids" that do most of the pirating are "mainstream gamers" and not the enthusiast like us, that buy good games. And if piracy would kill of at least some of the CoD clones, I would say well done! ;-P

The only two games I "properly" pirated this year (not buying them) were MW 3 and Saboteur (which I only played for a short while, they really did release it unplayable. A shame really, as I liked the concept).

This what you mentioned ain't outcome of piracy, but of industry going more and more corporate. Stuff (of any genre or industry) going corporate = bankrupcy of dare, originality and innovation.

No matter how you look at it the amount of pc downloads is bad over 3 million for the top 5 games each. Sadly this will just give games companies more ammunition for their sodding drm schemes and with those figures i can see their point although i hae drm.

Unless something is done to reduce the amount of people downloading games like this things wont change customers will get screwed (the ones who buy the games), companies will still lose money and not release good games on the pc thanks to these downloaders.

1 solution is companies making demos again these would help people who are on the fence on the game trying that instead of downloading the full game.

ALL HAIL GOG!

Isn't BitTorrent only one of many torrent clients?

This discussion isn't really new, is it?.

The music industry didn't die, and they had a far bigger problem with piracy than games. Same with the movie industry.

I still think that piracy as an economical factor isn't bad for the industry as a whole. The problems people have with it are far more psychological than anything else. ("He got something for free, but I payed for it. You bastard!").

And the gaming industry is using pirates as a scapegoat to put DRMs in games. But the actual target of those is the used games market (which got huge with ebay, etc.). The whole purpose of Steam was to kill the used game market on the PC. I don't blame them, as I don't buy used games (other than as collectors items that is).

The publishers jack up the prices far more than the people pirating do. At least if you're living someplace other than North America.

BitTorrent is the protocol, not a client. Any "torrent" client is using that protocol. It's just omitting the "bit" part for convenience.

BTW where these numbers in the screenshot coming from?

Here...

But it does make sense. When half of "customers" opt for bittorrent, the magic break-even point is more and more difficult to achieve. Making trying anything new more and more risky venture. Even big companies do try this now and then, because they know they need new franchises as well. But they can't afford too many 50 million flops between know successes.

The creativity and will to innovate is still out there though, without publisher support there's only the indie way to go. You work for a year or two and hope for the best. Some come out on top but on average the production values just aren't there, a few guys in a garage just can't match a team of dozens. The successful ones tend to go with a highly stylized less labour intensive route. World of Goo was awesome, but what works in a casual game doesn't work in AAA titles.

You see creativity, but you won't see anything of Mass Effect production values from indie scene.

And hey, the early cartridge games and such. The cost was high and the content was low. Nice to play and all, but they were usually something a single developer or a small team cooked up in a few weeks. Now the developement costs are 100 times as high, yet the prices have remained the same or gone down.

They've been saying that for years and its basically not true (from Spectrum onwards, where once games used to cost 35 quid). Especially when you start looking at what they charge in various regions. There is no way the same game should cost 60 euros but only 40 pounds on release.

My own habits are now that I won't buy a game on release as usually they are too buggy and cost too much. I'll happy wait till the GOTY /Ultimate / Deluxe edition comes out with all the DLC / patches. Unless I get a good word of mouth I am very weary of games that don't have demos and in the past I would sometime "torrent" (well news group download) a game to actually try it out though its been years now.

Publishers do annoy me though, particularly Atari who released Ghostbusters which was unplayed on my previous computer because it couldn't handle the number of graphic resolutions my GFX had (others suffered this too) and they basically abandonded the game on release and didn't/wouldn't create a patch. If they expect me to buy a game from them at full price ever again they are sadly mistaken. Yes I know, they didn't give a $&!(

I like this strategy. If every pirate would do this instead, the world would be so much better. But that ain't happen to a large enough number of people. You'll always have the people who want to play a game now but do not want to pay for it and cannot under any circumstances wait.

I think your right, the publishers get nothing from used sales from gamestores or eBay and DRM (particularly keys to play / play online - I'm a little sad bioware went that direction but at least they did eventually remove the need for key in NWN) is a "good" way of forcing people to buy it properly.

I never buy used PC games, only get them when they are super cheap on Steam, or on GOG. XBox 360 games (of which I have bought 5 in 2 years, plus 2 or 3 from the Xbox arcade) I only buy used or in GOTY/Classic/whatever editions when they are cheap.
More people need to have kids :) Then its a question of "free time? whats that when its at home?"