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GameCube (Games) PlayStation (Games) Entertainment Games

How Console Piracy Affects Gaming 65

Posted by simoniker from the very-glum-felon-roger dept.
Thanks to GameSpy for posting a three-part article discussing the problems of pirated console games, and the steps being taken to combat the problem. The article talks to IDSA boss Doug Lowenstein, and suggests that "..console piracy is a worldwide industry, as multi-national as wireless telephones or McDonalds hamburgers.", also contrasting the piracy problems of the major manufacturers: "Nintendo's piracy problems are more localized than those of Sony and Microsoft. While GameCube piracy has not been a problem, Game Boy piracy, on the other hand, has proliferated."
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How Console Piracy Affects Gaming More

How Console Piracy Affects Gaming

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  • Lik-Sang (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jnguy ( 683993 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @10:43AM (#6358957) Homepage
    When Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo banded together to make Lik-Sang stop selling its "back-up" products, I think it stopped piracy only to a certain extent. Now people just go else where. There will always be pirates and people that buy and make illegal games. Piracy affects the ability for certain game makers to make good games, because if they don't recieve income from games in the past, they will be unable to create games in the future.
    • Illegal and 'need a copy' are 2 different things.
      A cart can be pretty sturdy, but what happens when your most favorite GB game gets rolled over by a 5 legged rolly chair?? You just cant send the game back to nintendo with a small fee, get a new game which you owned.

      The same problem exists with CD's. Does Nintendo provide a backup service where you send in scratched/broken minis and get a new one? NOPE. They tell you buy another full license at 40-60$.

      Backups are part of our copyright, and any format whic
      • Let's say you buy some type of figurine (you know, the stupid little statues that fat ladies buy).

        The design is copyrighted- you can't copy it. But, if you break the figurine, they don't replace it for you.

        It is not the companies responsibility to ensure that you always have use of their product- it is their responsibility to make sure that the product they originally give to you is what you paid for.

        And you can be damn sure that if you went around trying to duplicate and sell those figurines, you would

        • Re:Lik-Sang (Score:2, Interesting)

          by PainKilleR-CE ( 597083 )
          And you can be damn sure that if you went around trying to duplicate and sell those figurines, you would hear from the company.

          They key is in the 'and sell' part. Only a small number of people would bother to justify selling copies of games (though more would try to justify buying those copies). Backing up copyrighted material is covered under fair use in the US.

          Some PC game publishers do have a policy of sending replacement CDs for a small fee if you return a scratched or otherwise damaged disc to them

        • Re:Lik-Sang (Score:2, Interesting)

          by Creepy Crawler ( 680178 )
          With the statuette, you may for the making of the statuette. With games, you pay for the DATA. The disc/cart is just a way to transport the data.

          And if we're paying for that 1 copy of the data, we should be able to, for a fair price, send the remains of the broken media and get a new disc/cart.

          Since MANY game manufacturers do not allow that, we're forced to use "semi-legal" means where you cannot tell if it's backup or copyright violation. And now add in zone-based game plays where a Japanaes game wont wo
          • I don't really like copy protection, but a lot of the 'I was just making a backup' logic sounds a lot like the 'For Tobacco Use Only' signs that you see in headshops.

            How many people are really making legitimate backup copies, and how many are pirating the software?

            The companies MUST be able to protect their time, and effort in creating the software.

            If there were no pirates, there would be no copy protection.
        • "The design is copyrighted"
          Yes, but the customer did not purchase the design, did they? They purchased the doll and the doll cannot be copyrighted.
          You are a troll.
          • Ahfoo-

            First of all chucklehead, I said 'figurine', not 'doll'.

            And I would recommend that you learn something about copyright law before you post your ignorant statements. Yes, a figurine CAN be copyrighted- it falls into the 'statuary' category.

            But of course, if you don't bother to educate yourself, then my comments would make no sense.

            I still hold the same opinion. The copyrighted material is the artistic work (software/statue) The physical material you buy is the delivery system. Whether you break y

  • Come on... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by greg987123 ( 677841 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @10:49AM (#6359024)
    Wee all know that most people wouldn't pirate a game that they would want to buy in the first place.
    We really need to worry about more serious things [foreignwire.com].

    • Re:Come on... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Hogwash McFly ( 678207 )
      Wanting to buy a game and wanting a game are two quite different things. I might really want Final Fantasy XCVII Ultra Edition but might not want to pay £40 for it. That's when I might pirate it (hypothetically of course).

      Your statement is moot because pirating a game is the opposite of buying it so if they're gonna buy it then they're not gonna pirate it. Try this:

      We all know that most people would pirate a game that they want but don't want to buy.

      These 'most people' make up quite a large

  • is this really a problem? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by pb ( 1020 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @10:56AM (#6359091)
    I think the vast majority of people just go to the store and buy their games--either when they come out, when they get cheaper, used, whatever--and the actual percentage of people who mod their conosles is relatively small. Obviously you'd have to study this, but like the interview says, they aren't hurting.

    However, what about the people who do mod their consoles and download games? I knew a guy who had tons of Playstation games and almost every Dreamcast game period. He had more games than he could ever buy, and he was a college student. He still spent what money he had on Playstation and Dreamcast peripherals and whatnot.

    So how much money did the big video game companies lose on him personally? Probably the price of a few games, at most. And how much did they make? Well, I don't know, but I had the opportunity to try out just about any game I wanted to for the Playstation and the Dreamcast, without having to buy it. Now I have a Playstation, and I have quite a few games for it, all legal.

    So I guess the question here is, does the price of the one or two games the average modder would otherwise end up having to pay for outweigh the incredible amount of free advertising they do?

    Personally, I'd say their time would be better spent going after the professional pirates, who can produce professional-looking games at base manufacturing costs. And I'd say the same thing to the RIAA and the MPAA. Just as long as you aren't actively screwing over the vast majority of law-abiding customers, you have nothing to fear; this is probably why the RIAA is so scared right now. :)

    • Re:is this really a problem? (Score:5, Informative)

      by dogbowl ( 75870 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @11:01AM (#6359128) Homepage
      Yes, its a huge problem just not in the better established countries like the US or the EU.

      If you ever travel to South America and parts of Asia, its hard to find a *legitimate* copy of a game. Burned copies are being sold on every street corner ... its just the norm in some places. I've been to a large, established store dedicated to video games in Istanbul and was unable to find a single legitimate video game - they were all bootlegs!


      • How much do the console companies charge for games in South America and Asia, anyhow (and how many do they ship)? If it's the same price, then I'd wager that a lot more people can't afford them (or consoles in general) in the first place.

        Also, were these professionally done, or just cheap home CD-burner jobs?
        • Yes, I beleive the prices are comparable to US prices, so they would be out of reach from a typical teenager (I guess).
          And the quality varies. In Bangkok, professionally made copies are the norm; in South America its usually some cheap burned disc.

          And there are TONS of pirated game boy, mega drive (genesis) and famicom cartidges floating around the world. TONS I tell ya!!

          • As the article stated: Sony doesn't sell Playstations or Playstation games in South America. That means the piracy rate is 100% minus whatever the import rate happens to be (which I doubt is very high, since it's normally pretty expensive to import consoles and games).
    • it's not the same company....
  • Is the console 'backup' makers open chip firmware and tracings so that anybody can make those devices.

    Lets see how Console makers like them apples.

  • I think before (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Apreche ( 239272 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @11:12AM (#6359236) Homepage Journal
    I think I talked about this before, but now I get to post early so more people will see it!

    Pretty much piracy is a double edged sword. If your system is pirateable like MS or Sony you get increased market share. But at the same time if your system is unpirateable you get more profit per sale.

    Check this. Playstation games are pirateable, probably the most pirated games ever. The PS1 is a cheap and easily obtainable and moddable piece of hardware. Low income people (most of the world) can afford to get the Playstation because they can get the hardware cheap and can pirate games. I know a lot of people who have PSOnes. Sometimes I think I'm the only person without one. But all of them that I know have both legitimate and pirated/imported games. Because games are pirateable more people buy the system, and those who own the system are highly likely to buy a few legitimate games. However, because of piracy you will have a few people who would have and could have bought the game, but pirate instead. And of course if your system is pirateable there is the extra revenue you get by winning lawsuits against pirates.

    Then you look at an unpirateable system like the cube. Everyone who owns a cube paid for it. They paid for every game they own and every accesory for the system. So on every sale Nintendo makes profit. The only people who own a cube are people who want it and can afford it. Nobody else has one, so Nintendo's market share is low. But when a game comes out for the cube that is awesome, like wind waker, it is instantly a million seller. Everyone who has the system buys the game.

    So, piracy good and bad at the same time. Market share or profit margin? I don't see Nintendo going out of business any time soon, but I don't see sony going out either. But I do see XboX turning a loss despite higher market share in the US over the cube. Hmmmm.

  • I once saw one of those... (Score:5, Funny)

    by ronfar ( 52216 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @11:15AM (#6359261) Journal
    I once saw one of those multi-cartridge Gameboy advance cartridges. I can't say where, of course, <bsa-protection> but rest assured I immediately reported the perpetrators to the BSA.</bsa-protection>

    I didn't notice any problem with the quality of the games, I guess extensive play will be required. <bsa-protection>What a pity I immediately destroyed the cartridge in disgust at the ripping off of the poor software giants and movie studio execs who had licensed their preciousss IP.</bsa-protection>

    However, if I had played it extensively, I'm sure I would have noticed some of the false advertising on the box compared to its contents. While the four gameboy advance games (Harry Potter/Mario Advance 2/Lord of the Rings/Shrek: Hassle in the Castle) I'm sure would've been as advertised, I noticed that Dig Dog (sic) was shown on the cover as having Doraemon characters in it, I guess due to Dig Dug's resemblance to an earless, robotic cat and Doraemon's relative popularity in SE Asia. There would've been some wierd games too like "King of Ghost."

    Yes, 115 games in all... but most of those were old gameboy games that I doubt would sell outside of Asia anyway... like two Majong games...

    <bsa-protection>Oh well, all hail BSA/MPAA/RIAA and their continuing war against copyright infringement. Their neverending quest to screw up every computer everywhere and crush legitimate reverse engineering projects like Bleem!, Gameboy Advance Flash Cartridges and Freecraft has inspired me to behave morally whenever I see anyone try to infringe their preciousss IP.</bsa-protection> Of course, some might say that in such a war, morality has become a gray area....

  • Piracy (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I never would've got into computers if it wasn't for piracy. I bought my C64 and later the Amiga because of the easy access to games on BBSs and personal trading with friends. I was a kid so I couldn't even afford to buy most of the games anyway (maybe one or two a year at best) so nobody was losing any money. Now that I'm older and have some cash I don't pirate my games, but still only buy one or two a year because most of the titles just aren't worth it. :-)

  • Profit source (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DrWho520 ( 655973 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @11:36AM (#6359450) Journal
    One thing to remember in all of this is where these companies get their profits. Profit is not made on selling systems, but on selling and licensing games. The X-Box costs about $300-400 a pop to produce (don't quote me on that). MS loses money on each X-Box they sell. I do not know about Sony or Nintendo, but they may sell at or below cost as well. You have probably read the business philosophy, "Give away the razors, sell the hell out of the blades." They give away the consoles and sell the games. Nobody pirates the consoles, they pirate the games, and that's where the profit comes from.
    • "The X-Box costs about $300-400 a pop to produce (don't quote me on that). MS loses money on each X-Box they sell. "

      Will this always be the case? Typically, the same PC at the same speed, with the same hard disk becomes cheaper to produce as time goes on. Since an X is like a PC, if Microsoft is selling the same X-box that they started with, does this mean that they lose less and less money on each unit sold as the months go by, and eventually they will break even (unless they upgrade the platform?)
      • Yes, this is true. Console Manufacturers usually make a bit of a profit at the end of a console's lifespan, even though it is relatively cheap to buy at that point.
      • The XBox uses a fixed set of components that are mostly obsolete for PCs, and many of the more common components are specially made for the XBox anyway (ie the P3 processor is not the same P3 you'll find in a laptop or desktop, the nVidia graphics chip is not the same graphics chip you can get on an AGP or PCI board for your computer, or in a laptop). The hard drive is smaller than the platters on many current hard drives, so the best they could probably do there to keep costs down is to format larger drive
        • I'd expect something more like $200-250 currently, if not less. It's possible that they make money on each XBox sold now, but unlikely. It's more likely that they make money when you factor in the number of games sold per console, but you have to remember that they are still trying to make up for the original production, as well as the costs incurred in setting up XBox Live.

          Considering Microsoft lost $190 million (on $493 million in sales) in calendar Q1 on the Xbox, I highly doubt they're making any mon

    • That's nice, but if it doesn't work without trampling Fair Use, then that business model needs to be re-examined. Copyright isn't a natural right, it is a bargain struck between the public and the authors and publishers.
    • Problem is, for some of these system's, it can be easier just to rent a game for a week or two, finish it and return it, and rent another one. For the longest time I bought a SNES back in the day, without any games at all for $100cdn. I didn't buy any games for the longest time (must of been over 2 years), but rather rented games, due to the price. And yes, the cost of renting games after a while ended up more than the cost of buying games, but for a game that's easy to finish or that I got bored of easily,

  • Companies sometimes encourage piracy. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @11:52AM (#6359600)
    When the companies refuse to make available where there is a demand games which are available in other regions, this of course encourages piracy.

    This is very similar to the region system in DVD's, which does nothing but encourage piracy, DeCSS, and region-free hacks of players because the companies often never make certain material available in certain regions.

    In situations like this, the problem is not piracy: piracy is a symptom and result of the companies inexplicably refusing to take money for games (or movies) that the public wants to buy.

  • How much in North America/Europe? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Mantrid ( 250133 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @12:22PM (#6360022) Journal
    I wonder how many console games are actually copied in North America? Especially the "current generation" of consoles - I don't think I know anyone with pirated versions of X-Box, GC, or PS2 software.

    I think PC Piracy is a much bigger problem - I do know more than one person who will d/l software. And even large than that, is the borrowing/cracking of games between friends. I'm sure most purchased PC games make it onto more than one machine.

    • In Europe, everybody and their mother have chpped their XBOX or PS2, and just buy games from people with the proper type of DVD burner for les than half price. Maybe it has to do with the insane videogame prices ($60-$65 in many cases).

      The main reason the GCN is not selling very well there is that GCN games cannot be copied easily

  • Definetly had to be this:

    The real question seems to be, "What benefits would consumers see if they stopped buying counterfeit games?"

    This is going to continue to be a problem untill consumers have a reason to stop doing it. If that means the industry dies, its unavoidable as far as I can see.
    Likewise, enforcement will never ever reach majority level, and even then won't stop the problem. Online games w/ a key-challenge kind of deal, where signifigant portions of the game logic rely on the game server

  • Piracy Vs. Success (Score:2, Interesting)

    by lordfoul ( 108260 )
    Gameboy / GBA - Piracy High - Success High
    Play Station - Piracy High - Success High
    N64 - Piracy low - Success Low
    Play Station 2 - Piracy High - Success High
    GameCube - Piracy none - Success Low

    That may not say Everything, But it sure says Something.

    • Re:Piracy Vs. Success (Score:3, Informative)

      by scot4875 ( 542869 )
      Sure, it says that people mostly pirate games for the most popular systems. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out. It's not as if rampant piracy somehow contributed to the success of the Gameboy, PS1, or PS2.

      And besides, I think you're a bit off on saying that the Gameboy has a high rate of piracy. Yeah, it is in the Asian/South American markets where you can buy bootleg carts. But in the states/Europe/Japan, most people don't buy bootlegs or have flash carts.

      --Jeremy
    • I don't think the success depends upon the piracy. I think the piracy depends upon the success. The more popular a system, the more people want to pirate it.
    • You know, it's considered dishonest to leave out information that doesn't support your theory when debating. You'd have a lot more credibility if you simply mentioned the Dreamcast's high piracy and low success while attributing that lack of success to the many other factors that contributed to it.
    • It's a correlation, you can't conclude any more than that. As my statistics prof was fond of pointing out, there is a very strong correlation between ice cream sales and the murder rate.
      • You may think that the expectation of cheap games has a big influence in the sells. Some people won't be able to buy more than two or three games. You are not going to buy a console for 2 or 3 games. Of course it also happends the opposite. More success more copyrigth infringment Just an hypothesis.
    • You left out the Dreamcast, which had high piracy and low success.
  • Next week on GameSpy, we will look at how GameSpy has hurt gaming...

  • Lowering prices? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by charlie763 ( 529636 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @03:27PM (#6362329)
    OK, so they can sell a number of games while there are many being pirated and still keep a profit (even if it's a little one)? Maybe it's time for them to realize that consumers are unwilling to pay these high prices and that they should lower prices to meet consumer demand. If they lowered prices it may reduce piracy and increase profits from their current state. Honestly, they are never going to be able to stop people from pirating games...people are just too smart.
  • When you aren't rich and you want to play video games, what do you do? You get them for free if possible. Am I to feel terribly sorry for the people that are reaping in millions if not billions over losses do to piracy? Hiding behind legality is just a superficial way of avoiding the point. Rich people make money off video games and people with a lot of meaningless income buy them. If all piracy ended tomorrow the prices for video games would stay exactly the same. The software programmers are getting screw

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