The true cost of game piracy: 20 percent of revenue, according to a new study

6 pointsposted 14 hours ago
by speckx

6 Comments

caekislove

13 hours ago

If buying isn't owning then piracy isn't stealing.

navjack27

10 hours ago

More beautiful words have never been said.

Clippybara

13 hours ago

> After 12 weeks, new sales are so negligible that "developers could eventually remove unpopular DRM schemes with minimal losses (and possible gains from strongly DRM-averse consumers)," Volckmann suggests (and some publishers have done just that after Denuvo is no longer effectively protecting new sales).

We're probably a tiny fraction of the overall consumer base, but I'm hopeful that companies do take this finding to heart and pull Denuvo once the 12-week stress period ends, because that's certainly costing at least SOME customers.

I wonder if the same rate-of-user-reviews metric picks up the hypothetical uptick in sales after Denuvo gets removed. I recall some discussion about that re:the Dishonored games but I can't seem to find firm numbers.

navjack27

10 hours ago

But what about the numbers for when a game company's agreement with Denuvo ends? I pirate initially when cracked and then if I like the game and have the money I buy when the publisher removes the DRM. I mean, heck, you get so much better of an Experience when you pirate a game because the DRM isn't impacting performance and a lot of the time you get all of the DLC and pre-order bonuses too.

benoau

13 hours ago

You can tell from the "seeders" numbers on pirated games that piracy is in fact extremely niche. The fitgirl repack of "Dragon Ball: Sparkling Zero" has 3,400 seeders and 58,000 concurrent players on Steam.

I remember when Steam and GOG used to act like consumer refunds would be used to steal from them too, back when Steam had their illegal no-refund policy and GOG had a contrived obstacle course of excuses to refuse them.