The Sky Isn't Falling: Why Piracy Hasn't Impacted Sales

[News Portal]

Industry and entertainment groups like to claim that internet piracy is destroying sales and damaging the economy - but as Steve Dalby shows, the figures actually show that piracy is having no effect.

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[Cyrinno]

There will always be those who pirate to pirate but in the end they have all this content they end up never playing or watching it's almost addiction to them.

I use to download everything, however with steam, and more reasonable priced games from imports I have not downloaded anything in years. All they had to do was make it more reasonable.

Infact I've gone from buying 1 or 2 big items at high prices to buying 10 or 20 items at a medium price which has got to be better for the industry over all.

The only thing price gouging does is help the big ticket players while everyone elses game gets pirated, if everyone had more reasonable pricing the entire industry would benefit.

[Aphyosis]

I use to download everything, however with steam, and more reasonable priced games from imports I have not downloaded anything in years. All they had to do was make it more reasonable.

So did i while i was in school. I buy most of my games now, especially in steam sales. I still pirate occasionally, particularly if the game doesn't have a demo, but for the most part games I've pirated that i enjoy i purchase.

Really enjoyed that article.

[Cyrinno]

I use to download everything, however with steam, and more reasonable priced games from imports I have not downloaded anything in years. All they had to do was make it more reasonable.

So did i while i was in school. I buy most of my games now, especially in steam sales. I still pirate occasionally, particularly if the game doesn't have a demo, but for the most part games I've pirated that i enjoy i purchase.

Really enjoyed that article.

Aye, the industry these days works on a once you've got their money don't give it back attitude so you really need to be confident in the purchase.

[libbaz]

Convenience and value are the key points here. Most of the entertainment industry is so stuck tackling piracy yet haven't bothered to understand why piracy is so successful. They assume it because its free, and leave it there. Of cause the consumer knows better.

The best example in recent times would be the Game of Throne television show. Its seen MASSIVE widespread piracy numbers throughout our great country. The media producers see it and say "look! piracy! we cant compete with that!", but have they even tried? Their best attempt to bring the show to Australia was through pay tv channels. But that's not reaching Australian audiences, that's only reaching a niche within a niche. Also there's the wait time between Aus and the US. In a world where it takes .2 of a second to share a video of a dog on a surf board to the other side of the planet.

We pay through the nose for internet and bandwidth in this country. Increasingly so. We've seen huge adoption of services such as itunes and Steam (considering our population size). We're also a nation quick to use our credit cards online (region based prices adding to this, ie; value). All this shows we are more than willing to pay, if its convenient.

[James Pinnell]

I wont admit I'm a saint - while I haven't pirated a game or music file for a very long time, I regularly download movies and TV shows because there hasn't been, what I consider, a reasonably priced nor convenient service on which to do it.

While Music is now almost overwhelmingly serviced at incredibly low rates (between $6-$12/month for ad-free, unlimited access across multiple devices) and gaming is starting to become more price neutral with the rest of the world, video is probably the most ignored property.

The closest thing to a Netflix in this country is Quickflix's streaming service. The price isn't too bad ($15/month), and its available on PS3, but the selection is woeful. Everything worth watching costs extra, most of the free content is ancient and it has a very, very long way to go before it's even close to Netflix standards.

[Wanell]

I would consider myself a pirate... But even still I own over 200 games on steam because they are reasonably priced... Spending money isn't an issue for me as I earn enough of it. The issue arises when I can get a game that is actually easier to use via a crack then it is to actually buy it or when a games price is 2x that of the price of it in America.

Valve has honestly hit the nail on the head and are profiting from it. If the rest can't see it it is their loss really. EA have seen it, they are trying to flog Origin for every one of their games.

[diamondd]

While Music is now almost overwhelmingly serviced at incredibly low rates (between $6-$12/month for ad-free, unlimited access across multiple devices)

this is almost worse than piracy, makes people think they're being good while still managing to give sweet FA to the creators.

every time a band I like comes to Adelaide I go to the show and buy a t-shirt. That alone probably gives them more of my cash than if I were to go out and buy their entire discography.

[Marius]

Buying a t shirt always gives more money than an album.

Musicians get like 10%, if that, of the money from album sales.

[Spooler]

I am beginning to love our new iinet overlords

[Angeredsoul]

The problem is the management of these companies having no **** idea how the internet works, and thus have no idea on how to integrate their business with this "new" sales platform.

Sent from my HTC Vision using Tapatalk

[RSOblivion]

There's that and there's the middle men. Those who do nothing other than distribution or even less than that and still claim a cut, reducing the artists returns on their creation. This isn't limited to any particular type of media or entertainment, but games development studios probably suffer the least from corporations like the RIAA and MPAA.

At the end of the day, the middle men are those kicking up the fuss. They are the ones who won't make any money through a digital distribution network as the are no longer needed. It also highlights how many useless steps there are between manufacturer to customer which artificially increase the price of a product.

Ironically one of the highlights of that is the price of energy over here (not gonna mention Telstra and ISP issues!). The middle men there are privately owned companies who hold the rights to some of the power grid, forcing prices higher and citing maintenance as the reason (and now a bit of carbon tax...). The retailers of power (Energex et al.) actually only profit by about 10% on the prices the customer pays but the middle men are creaming it, being private no-one really knows of their existence either...

[rathborne]

Good article.

The easier it is to legitimately purchase media, the less I use alternative means to get it.

That's why I'm really liking the 1080p content from iTunes on the AppleTV.

I'm now buying season passes for shows like South Park because I can get it faster than waiting for the DVD/Bluray release and at a price cheaper than DVD/Bluray!

Now, if HBO wised up and added shows like Game of Thrones to services like iTunes in HD and on time they wouldn't have so many people pirating the show and would make immediate profit.

But I guess logic doesn't work on some people....

[Mr_Thumpy]

Yeah, I'll admit in years gone by I downloaded games. Using the folks PC to play them, and lets face it: I couldn't afford computer games!

Now I've got a Steam library of 200+ games, a large packing box out back of my old boxed games before I transitioned to almost 100% online purchase + download.

One of the key aspects of so-called 'pirating' that I feel the the publishers get wrong, is that the vast majority of pirates are those that:

a) Couldn't afford the game anyway, which means they were never a 'lost sale' to begin with. BUT! If they're playing computer games.... Then for the most part, they've become a target market and once they have enough disposable income most are going to start paying for a product they enjoy using. This is similar to a lot of extremely expensive software like Adobe Photoshop and various CAD/3D packages. In many cases to get into certain industries you need experience in specific software, which can cost thousands. The average student simply can't afford that. Piracy to gain experience in a product, that in the long term converts them into a customer is NOT a 'lost sale'.


b) Couldn't get the game or service in their region. We've only just got R18+ ratings for games here in Australia, so I wonder what piracy numbers can be subscribed to those who wanted to play a game, but couldn't get it via any other means, or wanted it in original form (which doesn't preclude buying the censored version first, then 'pirating' the original) - Also covers TV and Film, GoT I'm looking at you! http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones

[Mr_Thumpy]

That's why I'm really liking the 1080p content from iTunes on the AppleTV.

Personally, I'd love to buy TV shows off iTunes. But being deaf (with hearing aids) means I have an imperfect ability to understand speech off the TV. Subtitles are pretty much mandatory for me, and yet some years AFTER Apple demo'd the amazing capabilities of iTunes now being capable of supplying subtitles with movies, only a handful of shows in the store come with English subs...