EU Commission: "No evidence that piracy affects video games sales"

According to the gamesindustry.biz article, there is some evidence in the EU Commission's 307 page report that piracy might actually help legal video game sales:

"One section of the report actually claims that piracy has a positive effect on legal sales in the games industry. A table shows the displacement rate for video games is +24%, 'implying that illegal consumption leads to increased legal consumption.'

The report continues: 'This positive effect of illegal downloads and streams on the sales of games may be explained by the industry being successful in converting illegal users to paying users. Tactics used by the industry include, for example, offering gameplay with extra bonuses or extra levels if consumers pay.'"

Probably not the conclusions wanted by the video games industry, but it is what it is.

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I guess that the way of thinking is this ? - That the hoinest people buy anyway and that those who want to pirate pirate anyway ?

The only way this is possible if Rpgfool is a …EU commissioner!

Not only could it get an illegal downloader to become a buyer, but there is the obvious chain effect that has as well. The chain effect of sharing illegal downloads too, as that's still free promotion for the developers and those people weren't going to buy anyway, so what's the harm? Take the free promo and keep it moving.

Well, we also have to take into consideration which stigma it has.

And while it might not harm sales right now, I guess in a world, where nobody thinks that pirating games is bad, it would drastically harm sales.
I remember my Commodore 64 times, when the Computer just came with a disk box full of games, and I wasn't even aware that you'd normally buy them. I only had 3 original games (from a compilation) which I got gifted at the very end of my Commodore 64 days. If we shifted back to these times, then, well, it would probably hurt sales quite a bit.

I think the point is, the current situation is quite good. Adding more pressure on players via harsh copy protections is probably useless, while indifference is probably bad for the industry either.

It carries a stigma in a number of the european countries. I assure you in eastern Europe, Asia, south america, parts of north america… there is no stigma.

I agree with article. Those that weren't going to buy, weren't going to buy anyway.

@Wisdom Yeah, but my point is that there wasn't a stigma anywhere we'd got a problem.

Another point which isn't mentioned in the article as far as I see is accessibility.
For games this is quite good now (international releases are also common now). But for movies and TV Shows it's much lower though it became better over the years. When a movie or episode is released in North America, other markets might have to wait until they can legally obtain a copy for themselves / watch it via a legal source. In addition legal streaming services they are spread out.
So in these cases it might just be easier and faster to watch a movie/episode from an illegal source (watching a stream isn't illegal though afaik, might be different depending in country) than buying it, besides of not costing anything.

So the illegal offer can be the better "package" for the consumer than the legal one.

Originally Posted by Wisdom
Those that weren't going to buy, weren't going to buy anyway.

Not quite, some will buy if they try it first.

But anyway, the battling against digital piracy thing turned into an abomination.
Someone stole something? I don't care. I'm not the police. I don't want to police nor will police anything. I pay taxes so police can do their job so dear police do your job already.
Oh and yeah, start by arresting Ubi CEO for insulting PC gamers claiming 99% of us are pirates. Get big fishes that can pay fines first please, I don't care if some broke teenager streamed Justin Bieber's crap illegally.

Originally Posted by BoboTheMighty
The only way this is possible if Rpgfool is a …EU commissioner!

rofl

Originally Posted by Fluent
Not only could it get an illegal downloader to become a buyer, but there is the obvious chain effect that has as well. The chain effect of sharing illegal downloads too, as that's still free promotion for the developers and those people weren't going to buy anyway, so what's the harm? Take the free promo and keep it moving.

Seriously I'm opposed to overzealous game protection but I don't support piracy. I do believe that evidence supports existence of "free promo" pirate effect for good games, but also believe that evidence supports the notion that the vast majority of gamers are willing to pay for video games.

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Yes, it's the "policeman in our heads" that keeps society functioning. If the majority did not voluntarily comply with the norms and values, the actual policemen wouldn't have a prayer of keeping order. This is why I've always disliked intrusive DRM - it forces honest people to install software that treats them as an untrusted party on their own computer, and is soon circumvented by determined pirates.

Buying the product should always be as compelling as possible. Thats the most effective strategy against piracy. Currently steam and gog platforms are so easy and fun to use that it doesn't make much sense to waste your time searching through obscure torrent sites and risk getting viruses and other crap on your pc. Besides because of sales and key resellers, chances of getting your favourite game with modest or low price is quite high.

Tv- and cable networks and movie industry are still figuring it out. If they would release their products worldwide at the same time and make pricing as tempting as possible, there would be less incentives for people to watch them through illegal means.

Tv/cable/music is a whole different topic in my mind. The whole way licenses are set up is completely archaic, ineffective, and quite frankly insulting to to consumer.

Originally Posted by Kordanor
@Wisdom Yeah, but my point is that there wasn't a stigma anywhere we'd got a problem.

Another point which isn't mentioned in the article as far as I see is accessibility.
For games this is quite good now (international releases are also common now). But for movies and TV Shows it's much lower though it became better over the years. When a movie or episode is released in North America, other markets might have to wait until they can legally obtain a copy for themselves / watch it via a legal source. In addition legal streaming services they are spread out.
So in these cases it might just be easier and faster to watch a movie/episode from an illegal source (watching a stream isn't illegal though afaik, might be different depending in country) than buying it, besides of not costing anything.

So the illegal offer can be the better "package" for the consumer than the legal one.

Yup, I pay for both Netflix and Amazon Prime and still there are shows that come out that I can't watch normally like most people.

Yes, I completely agree on the TV and movie front. I think we have to be pragmatic and honest about our nature, and build that into the distribution model.

I used to download TV shows and movies (and still do from time to time) because I knew things were available that I couldn't legitimately access. In some cases, like the Colbert Report (which I think is the best satirical news show ever made) there was no other way to watch it in the uk. I'd much rather not do that, and cooperate with the creators being fairly remunerated. In my case, that usually ends up happening anyway, as I add quality material to my bluray collection, but I think it would make a lot of sense for all media producers to move to models akin to Netflix, Gog, Spotify, etc. I think most of us would be happy to cooperate on that basis.

"Tactics used by the industry include, for example, offering gameplay with extra bonuses or extra levels if consumers pay"

I didn't read the study itself (I opened it, saw it was 300+ pages, and closed it immediately) so I could be totally wrong about this, but from the article it seems like the study was taking 'video game sales' as a total.

If that's the case, the conclusion is that people who pirate don't affect game sales because many people who pirate also pay for games.

That may be true, but if people who pirate single-player games buy microtransactions or multi-player games, that doesn't bode well for the single player games that don't contain microtransactions..i.e. the easiest things to pirate as you can crack it once and it works fine.

Convertion rate is a key word in the free to p(l)ay category: it is all about finding tricks to get players to pay.
Free to p(l)ay products offer a large margin to bring new revenues : usually, it takes $80 to start properly a free to p(l)ay and thereafter, it can go up to sums like $5000 or more.

The EU indicate to devs that certain roads are better than others. It has nothing to do with piracy, a gesture to them to make the right decision.

There is probably some kind of happy middle ground that's best regarding anti-policy. If companies acted like they didn't care at all about piracy, then that might remove the stigma and actually reduce sales. But the article also suggests that putting too much effort into anti-piracy isn't beneficial and may even hurt you. So the best bet is probably for companies to create some barriers to piracy, but to not worry about the few people who find ways around them.

I'm a bit sorry for posting anything in this thread. But since I did, lemme be a bit more clear rotten.

Gamers should discuss and protest on milking scams and gambling ruining our experience and our wallets.
Piracy is IMO the topic for CEOs and we, gamers, should not allow to be distracted with their whining while they're running fraudulent practices themselves pretending they're not doing absolutely anything wrong.

If anyone here or elsewhere believes I'd give a damn about piracy issues while I'm exposed to milking by cut out content from a game being sold separately and while I need to be assured a game doesn't have lootboxes before I buy it, they're delusional.

I refuse to defend fraudsters with their "piracy ruins us" statements. Respect my gamer rights, then I'll respect your CEO rights. Till then:
I don't care.

Originally Posted by joxer
I'm a bit sorry for posting anything in this thread. But since I did, lemme be a bit more clear rotten.

Gamers should discuss and protest on milking scams and gambling ruining our experience and our wallets.
Piracy is IMO the topic for CEOs and we, gamers, should not allow to be distracted with their whining while they're running fraudulent practices themselves pretending they're not doing absolutely anything wrong.

If anyone here or elsewhere believes I'd give a damn about piracy issues while I'm exposed to milking by cut out content from a game being sold separately and while I need to be assured a game doesn't have lootboxes before I buy it, they're delusional.

I refuse to defend fraudsters with their "piracy ruins us" statements. Respect my gamer rights, then I'll respect your CEO rights. Till then:
I don't care.

I wouldn't put all developers in the same box though as I mentioned in an other discussion.
In addition it partially excludes each other. As the games you are critizising are ones which you can hardly pirate (because of some always online feature or similar). And the ones which you can easily pirate tend to be from smaller companies, which also don't use these practices. Of course there are exceptions on both sides.

But the article also suggests that putting too much effort into anti-piracy isn't beneficial and may even hurt you.

Probably the best example is Anno 1404 which released in 2009. The anti-piracy protection was infuriating the customers on amazon.de so badly that the score there was 1 1/2 stars at that time.
As counter example you see other editions of the same game without that issue (which was apparently fixed with a patch) where it got a 4/5 rating.

Originally Posted by joxer
Piracy is IMO the topic for CEOs and we, gamers, should not allow to be distracted with their whining while they're running fraudulent practices themselves pretending they're not doing absolutely anything wrong.

Out of context, outdated. There is no we. It's been a while that a fairly large segment of vid product customers have taken the step to assess their own interest through the lens of devs, companies, firms, studios…

If it is good for the devs, companies, firms, studios… then it is good for them.

The line of thought has echoed multiple times on this site.