Code Justin

Posts Tagged ‘debate on music and game piracy’

I’m exited to finally be posting this topic.  I held off for a little bit while trying to build up my reader base and I think I now have enough subscribers to get some serious opinions on the subject.

First off if you don’t care to read my “rant” and just want to post your opinion on piracy than you can do so by leaving your response right below this post.

(I warn those that do care to read my rant that it does have poor grammar and I don’t plan to revise it since those are my thoughts on the subject and changing it might alter my overall opinion to some extent.)

(Pirate Flag – Piracy Symbol)

(Pirate Flag – Piracy Symbol)

Music Piracy:

I think I’m at a fairly prime point right now to weigh in both sides of the debate in my head fairly equally.  I think mainstream piracy started taking off when everyone realized they could go and get their music for free from P2P programs.  Than iPods and mp3 players got seriously popular leading to more people seeking free music.  I didn’t give much thought to this at the time.  I was young and actually felt it was kind of neat to see people working together to share something over the internet.  Stylish and simple P2P applications like Kazaa, BearShare, and LimeWire made it easy for anyone with basic computing knowledge to find free files.  This trend was growing like wild fire and the media caught wind of it.  News stations kept pushing the subject which just in turn led to more people being curious about getting free music online.  Than some record labels and bands started pushing anti piracy campaigns but I’m sure that just lead to even more people jumping on the free music trend since most teens don’t really care what “the man” says and thinks it’s cool to do the opposite.   What could be done?  Virtually no legal actual was being taken.  No one was really seeing any punishment or even anything morally wrong from downloading free music.  I think most people didn’t let their morel values apply to pirating music because of the mentality that “these bands are already rich enough so why buy their CD?”  I don’t want to get into the indie industry too much yet because I plan to talk about that later with games but what this did was lead to people pirating local bands.  Indie bands already have a hard enough time making ends meat but when a kid shows up to your show blasting your music that he didn’t even pay for on his mp3 player while you get to eat off the dollar menu at Mc Donald’s after the show is a slap in the face.  It might be cool to see someone likes your music but it doesn’t help pay for that extra value meal.  Of course I’m not speaking for any indie bands but from talking with people that make a living off their music they seem to pretty much feel that way.  Now bands (even those that aren’t indie) have to tour more and really push non-digital merchandise to bridge the revenue gap.  So what are the benefits of having people pirate your music? Well from the music industry point of view I feel that it can actually play a big role in growing a bands popularity.  With so many indie bands out there I think that pirating gives indie bands an edge when it comes to booking gigs and filling shows.  So I don’t really feel like music piracy is necessarily a bad thing.  As for the super stars… well I have one foot on “they are already rich enough” boat and one foot on the dock.  For bands and singers that are already mainstream piracy obviously hurts sales.  Out of all the digital industries I think the music industry is the least likely to convert a pirated download into an actual sale. With iStore and other popular digital music stores it is helping soften the blow from revenue loss.  I would like to also add that recently the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has recently released a report claiming that 95% of music downloads are illegal.  (Source)
(Stolen Business Software Chart)

(Stolen Business Software Chart)

Software Piracy:

When I say software piracy I refer to any PC application other than a video game.  The software industry might just be one of the least pirated.  Since people seem to have a little more respect for an application that can complete useful tasks for them.  Also the overall average age of people using software is higher than video games.  Plus you have businesses which in this day and age thrive from business related software.  So the general market so to speak has a lot more consumers that feel pirated software is unethical.  Now when it comes to the people downloading pirated software I think it really depends on what type of software it is to gauge weather or not it is helping or hurting the publisher.  For the most part development tools benefit the most from being pirated.  It helps to build a large group of people using your product.  So when that 16 year old that pirated Dreamweaver becomes a working adult he will more than likely feel like he should be buying Dreamweaver.  Let me explain a little more… what I mean is that if a development tool is very useful it might not catch on just because it is useful.  Even marketing sometimes doesn’t do the trick but when people get to try the full version of the tool and see how useful it is they than pass that information along to others.  They pass that information along to maybe a professor at a college or managers of a software company.  Those people than might look into the product and possibly buy a large amount of copies.  Once the product gets into the business environment it gets taken seriously and once it gets into the education department it is feeding more and more people that will want to use the product once they graduate because they know how to use it well and might have grown accustom to it.  What this in turn does is make that 16 year old that heard about the software download it illegally. Once that kid grows up and if he/she sees the software is still popular he/she will probably buy it.  Also you have the kids that download products that aren’t popular yet and push them threw the system like I had mentioned.  That is my take on development tools.  As for business software I don’t think it is hit too hard by piracy because most business don’t’ partake in obvious illegal actions like downloading and using pirated software (most is the keyword).  Now on the other hand you have software that is made for the everyday consumer.  Whether it’s a digital day planner or a label maker it doesn’t mean it won’t have a high piracy rate.  Even with software developers making fully functional Lite versions of their product people want the Pro version for free.  Being that it’s 2009 most people know what a torrent is.  I defiantly don’t think that software piracy is as popular as music piracy but it still exist.  Once again people where curious to see what else they could get for free from the shiny P2P software (like the pro version of the free P2P software) so pirating something other than music got popular.  I don’t really care too much about the major software companies having their software pirated but when people start to pirate indie software I get a little upset.  If the software is targeted at an everyday user than more than likely if it gets mildly popular the software will start popping up on torrent sites.  Once people run out of their 30-day trial shareware made by some random guy they hit up the torrent sites.  Too bad that random guy is losing a lot of sales.  One could argue that the torrent allows the user to try the software but lets get real.  If the software is shareware or even offers a free version than that should be more than enough to evaluate it.  Than if the user really does want the product unlike video games or music the software isn’t really entertainment.  So if the user is legitimately interested in the full version than I think that user has a higher intent on actually buying the product but when the user see’s it for free on their favorite torrent site why would they pay the money for the software?  Yes; their are people with morel values when it comes to not downloading that $50 software for free but my guess is that most people feel they would rather keep that $50 in their pocket.
(Percent of Pirated Software by Region)

(Percent of Pirated Software by Region)

PC Video Game Piracy:

The computer games industry is the one I feel most strongly about when it comes to piracy affecting developers.  I will apologize ahead of time for any foul language used but this is my opinion flat out.  I was one that used to think “oh ya that game is getting popular and making money by people torrenting it”.  This might play true years ago before torrenting and warez sites got so popular.  I think that the people downloading pirated games years ago did carry some value for the game developer/publisher.  Since more people in the community where fairly tech savvy and had legitimate interest in trying a game before they paid for it.  Why is this not true any more?  Well because of the people that simply abuse pirated games.  Single player PC games are really just becoming like music files.  More people are realizing that they can get it for free.  Now most of my comments only apply to minors.  It’s the kids right now that are killing PC games.  Kids hold a fair share of the market which actively plays video games.  In today’s world a 13 year old kid feels like free music is their god given right.  So it comes naturally that they feel no remorse or have any guilt for downloading pirated games.  Why convince mom and dad to go and buy you ‘Kill the hooker and rape the old lady‘ when you can get it quicker from a torrent site?  Kids have no morels when it comes to the internet.  Everything is at the touch of their finger tips and free.  Why hide play boy under your bed when you have access to so many free porn videos?  At the time of this post I’m 18 years old myself.  Does this make me a hypocrite?  No because I’m young enough to know what the generation under me does.  I honestly feel like my generation is the last one with any kind of internet morels.  I’m talking about the kids as a whole.  Of course there are the ones that have some respect for games and might buy something they pirate.  You also have the ones that fear the government will kick in their door if they illegally download Spore.  That’s only a small faction of the kids that use the internet.  The gaming industry is growing and along with it brings more tech savvy youth.  So what does all this mean?  What it means is that single player PC game sales are dying due to piracy!  I’m not even for the “the company is so rich it doesn’t matter” when it comes to games.  This is affecting all kinds of game companies.  I’m really pissed off when it comes to people cracking indie games.  Indie studios and hobbyist do not have the capital needed to publish a game on a console platform.  Yes there is Xbox 360 and iPhone but those aside developers are pretty much stuck with the computer platform.  So these people pouring out an endless amount of hours to create a commercial quality game are getting shit on because fucking kids are too damn lazy to bug their parents for to use their credit card to make a purchase which will support an indie game company.  Unlike indie music is really doesn’t matter if you make a pretty good game and people like it.  Years ago if someone liked a game they tended to buy more products from that company.  Well kids don’t really look at the company they look at the franchise and even if they like what they company is doing it doesn’t matter.  They are just going to pirate the next damn game!  This is out of control and in all honesty if you fail to see that than you are probably one of those people that haven’t bought a single player PC game in a long time.  If you are one of those people that pirate most of the single player PC games you play than don’t buy them what do you think your doing?  Do you feel that games are just some sort of instant and free entertainment?  I’m serious when I ask you this because I think the problem is the fact that you DON’T THINK about what you’re really doing.  More than likely your going to give some really lame and rare example of how pirating helped a game.  Like I said I feel that would be possible years ago but not today!    Companies are taking huge hits because of pirating and start ups that make a good game have no chance any more.  Let me guess… you’re going to say 2D Boy got really popular with World of Goo and they didn’t fight pirating?  Well lets serious think about how much MORE money they could have made if the people that pirated the game and liked it actually bought it.  With all that extra revenue they could be hiring people and making even better games!  Instead they have to use what they got to fund themselves for the next 7 years and not have the capital to solely make a very large scale innovative game.  What really got me pissed off is when I started to look at the actual numbers and statistics of pirated games.  It’s fucking ridicules.  Here are some links for you to check out.  Over 80% of World of Goo players didn’t pay for the damn game! Dream Pinball 3D sold only 800 legit copies and was illegally downloaded 12,000 times! Piracy in Asia is over 90%! Recently even fun loving Stardock takes one to the chin HARD with DemiGod! Michael Fitch feels pretty strongly about this too! I’m not one to get pissy about things but when it comes to people pirating especially indie PC games it makes me mad.  I hear lots of excuses from people that do the pirating but very little about them actually buying the game they just played to the end.  So let’s wake up see that pirating is out of control and is seriously affecting the industry!  Also with all this PirateBay junk in the media all it will do is spawn more people to Google “How to ruin the indie PC game industry”.
Revenue Loss From Piracy

(Revenue Loss From Piracy)

Thought I was completely wrong?  Thought I hit the nail on the head?  Regardless I want to hear your opinions on piracy!  Leave a response below and if you would like to take part in more topics or read about my programming journey you can SUBSCRIBE to the blog for future updates!  Tomorrow I will be going over how the blog is doing (with pretty screen shots of traffic stats) and I hope hear about what you guys want to see in the blog!