Piracy, How much money is being lost, and what percent of them would have bought it?

How would you even begin to figure out how much is lost? Manufacturers don't know how much of their product will sell, especially software items. These numbers are probably made using "best case scenerios" of how much they think it will sell. No one knows who would buy what program and who would download a free alternative, pirate the original program, or simply go without it. You also can't track how many people have downloaded it as warez, or how many have burned it to CD and given it to someone.

Just seems like it would be statistically impossible to figure out monetary loss.

Not to take sides with anyone but comparing porsches and software IS like comparing apples and oranges. Freddy Kreuger's analogy is a great one but I'm sure there are so many other factors that exclude it from being comparied to software directly (althought he does get it as close as possible). At the sametime, Mr. Digital hit the point that by the time R&D is done with it and the costs to recover and the profits that are to be made, both porsches and software prices will be extra-ordinarily high. The bottom line is are you going to pay for the product? Yes or no? If no, are you going to obtain it illegally meaning without buying a liscense/cd key THUS cut into the company/developers profits? If people can get something they want/desire with a small risk of getting caught, people WILL take advantage of it. Does it make them right if millions of other people do it? Absolutely not. Its human nature. Your not obtaining the product legally.

As far as how much money is being lost, its hard to tell. I'm willing to bet you that most if not all of these companies are going to inflate their "stolen profits" so that they can get the proper authorities or the public to feel sympathetic for them.


edit* just saw mr. cherry's post and he actually answers the question of the thread. Good job ace!:D

http://www.forumplanet.com/planetbat...46&tid=1525866

^^^
Someone at M$ likes to use warez. lol :D

Let's look at this from an economics point of view:

The price of software is dependant on supply and demand. Pirating for personal use directly affects the supply for the product - the pirate is essentially making the company produce more than what they're producing. Higher production = surplus at the original price, and price or quantity produced will have to come down if the company wants to maximise profit. This screws over the company since its average costs per unit might be higher than the new price/quantity combo will cover. It also screws up economic efficiency and stifles innovation (what's the incentive to produce a good if people are not going to pay for it?).

So yes, any time you pirate software, even if you think "it makes no difference," from an economics point of view, and to the company it DOES make a difference. The individual saves $10, the company loses MILLIONS.

nm, i have to re-read stuff

Just as a side note:
Lets remember piracy is not only software or music cds. It is also cheap imitations, clothes, perfumes, sun glasses, watches, etc.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by freedonX
Just as a side note:
Lets remember piracy is not only software or music cds. It is also cheap imitations, clothes, perfumes, sun glasses, watches, etc.

---

True, but idividual software piracy (not a company doing software piracy) is fundamentally different, even if we only look at the idea that on the clothing side people make money.

Even if every person that pirated the program would not have purchased that program, with it being so easy to pirate the software, where is the incentive to pay for software they would have purchased.

Why buy Corel Draw when you can pirate Photoshop? These programs serve different segments. PS is a professional grade editing program, where Corel Draw is more consumer oriented. Therefore, Corel did lose out on a potential sale of Corel Draw, which may have servered the piraters needs, but they instead opted for a much higher program that they got for nothing.

Bottom line, there are alternatives to most programs. So even if some one wouldn't have purchased what they pirated, had they bought alternatives that meet their needs and price, a company would have profited from that sale.

The argument that not everyone would have bought the software they pirated does not hold water as an argument.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Un4given
Even if every person that pirated the program would not have purchased that program, with it being so easy to pirate the software, where is the incentive to pay for software they would have purchased.

Why buy Corel Draw when you can pirate Photoshop? These programs serve different segments. PS is a professional grade editing program, where Corel Draw is more consumer oriented. Therefore, Corel did lose out on a potential sale of Corel Draw, which may have servered the piraters needs, but they instead opted for a much higher program that they got for nothing.

Bottom line, there are alternatives to most programs. So even if some one wouldn't have purchased what they pirated, had they bought alternatives that meet their needs and price, a company would have profited from that sale.

The argument that not everyone would have bought the software they pirated does not hold water as an argument.

---

You are assuming that they would have bought somehting else if this option didnt exist.

The easiest way to show that something exists at all is to look at the extremes. Bob, a 21 year old with some income pirates 200 titles in a year (bob has lots of free time during his job). Now we use our magic wand and *poof!* its impossible for him to pirate stuff. Now he very well may purchase 50-100 of them but thats quite a few less.

How does this example differ from your own example? Almost no difference at all. They both show that in the absence of the piracy option if you added up the value of the pirated software, and the value of the legit software, less money was spent on the legit software.

Thereby showing that not 100% of the monitary value of pirated goods would have been purchased legit like.

from this thread -

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Pailin
Right, here I go...

I see this discussion as very important, as it is a snapshot of the world we live in and whether we get hung up on the exact wording of laws (and their creation) or use a bit of common sense.

(please forgive my limited No. of links, as time is limited)

A little background:

The RIAA (or its equivalent of the day) tried to ban tape recorders as it thought they would bankrupt the music industry. They even tried to ban radio for the same reasons – why would people buy music if they could listen to it for free on the radio (and even record it!!! (shock, horror ) )

In the end the opposite happened, instead of reducing music revenue, it INCREASED sales as it helped expose more people to it, who thought “I like this, I’ll buy it”

The present day:

The RIAA has now been jumping up and down complaining again how these “new” forms of music piracy (mp3 downloads) are bankrupting the industry and how music sales are suffering, yet:

Quote:

---

- For the first quarter of 2003 Soundscan registered 147,000,000 records sold.

- For the 1st quarter of 2004 Soundscan will report 160,000,000 records sold.

That's 13,000,000 more units, almost a 10% increase in sales since last year. He also confessed that 1st quarter "album sales" (as opposed to overall sales) had increased 9.4% since 2003.

---

Taken from here

*Edit
There were decreases in sales around 2000 - 2001 for example, but though piracy may have had a factor it was a small one (in a round about way even admitted by the RIAA). Main factors in the sales decrease would be various economic ones and just maybe a decrease in new music releases of over 10,000 on previous years!!! (see this, first table)

Considering this, its remarkable that sales only dipped as little as they did - indicating an increase in the ratio of sales/releases. This also clearly shown in the table where in 2000, when total sales revenue started dropping, there were also 10,000 releases less. Yet dollers per release went up by $156,849.09

Basically it seems sales have been going UP since the advent of P2P file sharing!
*/Edit

So maybe my faith in humanity is partially restored by people like asmox who will obtain new music, listen to it, if liking it, will then buy it! The 9.4% increase in sales seem to back this up – I believe this is one of the biggest increases in music sales for some time, leading to the possible argument that music piracy has lead to a direct increase in music sales!!!

Sadly there are obviously people who will happily download their favorite music and NOT buy it (they too may later change their ways as they realize the impact of what they are doing), but as long enough people buy what they like of the music downloaded there should be a net increase (to a point) in music sales as people find more of what they like rather than just waiting to chance across something they like.

This is very good for newer, less well know artists, I know I would not (potentially) waste good money by buying music from unknown artists, but will TBYB in this pirated fashion and have thereby paid good money to artists I would never have otherwise known of. This has lead me to spend a LOT of money on music in the Psytrance genre.

The Point:

Yes downloading music via P2P is illegal, no one here is denying that.

The reason it is illegal is what we should really be looking at:

The RIAA (and other media groups) saw the potential of P2P to freely distribute music (and other media) to people who wouldn’t have to pay for it – add here a low opinion of people and forgetting what happened in the past (“A little background” above)- then you can see how inappropriate laws come about. Laws that perhaps should not exist. Imagine if after all radio had been banned and remained banned (sounds daft I know, but they tried this), I’ll wager the music industry would be a LOT smaller today and we would have a LOT less choice.

So basically laws have been created based on a knee jerk reaction from the request/pressuring of groups like the RIAA who have also tried to have perfectly legitimate businesses (P2P networks which hold no illegal files on central servers) closed down. (please accept this one, as it is currently legally so and does not need to be turned into another argument).

At the end of the day, if enough people like myself and asmox actually buy what they like, this “Piracy” may well save the media publishers millions of dollars in advertising! & become an accepted part of life, like radio and tape recorders did.

At the end of the day these groups are here to make money, when they see that P2P actually can increase sales, then it will be accepted like radio was.

People who have the “free” or pirated music & games do buy them

Between myself and a group of friends (about 8 of us) we all had a cracked d’loaded copy of Farcry, yet 5 of us after “trying“ this full copy of the game still liked it enough to go and buy it. We liked it, and wanted more quality games (music, programs etc, etc…) so we bought it to support the people creating products we like.

People aren’t on the whole (I have faith here) completely stupid. They can see that if they just stole electronic content and never bought it, people making the products would be prepared to invest much less time, effort and money or may not even bother to produce excellent products.

Please buy what you like and support the brilliant programmers and artists out there who enrich our lives so!

---

that pretty much sums it up.. though i guess it's easier for most people to just label everybody a criminal.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Mancora
You are assuming that they would have bought somehting else if this option didnt exist.

The easiest way to show that something exists at all is to look at the extremes. Bob, a 21 year old with some income pirates 200 titles in a year (bob has lots of free time during his job). Now we use our magic wand and *poof!* its impossible for him to pirate stuff. Now he very well may purchase 50-100 of them but thats quite a few less.

How does this example differ from your own example? Almost no difference at all. They both show that in the absence of the piracy option if you added up the value of the pirated software, and the value of the legit software, less money was spent on the legit software.

Thereby showing that not 100% of the monitary value of pirated goods would have been purchased legit like.

---

Even if they wouldn't have purchased all of the software, they likely would have purchased some. In your scenario, even if he purchased 50-100 of the 200 titles originally pirated, that is still an increase of sales of 25-50%. If we look at that, how mamy companies wouldn't like to see an increase in sales 25-50% on those copies that were being pirated. Using the numbers you originally posted, 25-50% of the roughly $6.5 billion lost dollars would amount to between $1.6-3.2 billion dollars in revenue for software developers.

Also, if you think for a minute that software developers aren't fully aware of that fact that there is no way for them to stop all piracy, and that they don't figure that in to the overall cost when pricing a product, you are sadly mistaken. They know full well that can't mark up the product enough to cover all piracy losses, but it is very much a consideration when pricing is determined.

Like I said, even if the people that pirate software would never have purchase what they had stolen, they do impact the price to us consumers that do pay for our software.

Oh, and that money figure was based solely on the US numbers, not the wordwide losses. If you look at the world wide numbers, that would mean increases of $7-14.5 billion dollars in increased revenue.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by talldude
Let's look at this from an economics point of view:

The price of software is dependant on supply and demand. Pirating for personal use directly affects the supply for the product - the pirate is essentially making the company produce more than what they're producing.

---

How does 1 copy of Halo 2 or whatever that gets leaked to the internet force Microsoft/Bungie (or whomever) to make tons more copies? I don't understand. They actually would make less copies because less people would be purchasing the product.

It's interesting to read the arguments for an against piracy against the backdrop of the EA lawsuit that's been filed. EA's employees are saying that EA has been forcing them to work 85+ hour workweeks (12 hours a day, seven days a week) without overtime compensation or "earned vacation" at the completion of a project. So on one hand, the company is complaining that pirates are cutting into profits by exorbitant amounts of money; on the other hand, (granted another hand that assumes the suit has merit, which it may or may not) they're voluntarily choosing to not pay their employees for the work they do.

When I say that, I'm not saying that I'm for piracy; I don't have pirated software (unless you count SS2 that I got off the Underdogs) on my computer, and I'm not planning on getting any anytime soon. I will say, though, that the general quality of games has been going down, while the general cost has been going up ($40, then $45, then $50, now $55). Once you buy a PC game, it's yours forever; you can never returned opened software, and you can never really be assured of how something will work on your system until you get it home. I'm sure we've all been saddled with a game that is buggy, been pushed to release too soon, and is virtually unplayable; whenever I get one of those, which seems to be happening more often lately, it does make me wish I'd downloaded it and checked it out first.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by talldude
Let's look at this from an economics point of view:

The price of software is dependant on supply and demand. Pirating for personal use directly affects the supply for the product - the pirate is essentially making the company produce more than what they're producing. Higher production = surplus at the original price, and price or quantity produced will have to come down if the company wants to maximise profit. This screws over the company since its average costs per unit might be higher than the new price/quantity combo will cover. It also screws up economic efficiency and stifles innovation (what's the incentive to produce a good if people are not going to pay for it?).

So yes, any time you pirate software, even if you think "it makes no difference," from an economics point of view, and to the company it DOES make a difference. The individual saves $10, the company loses MILLIONS.

---

So if there is a surplus of product on the shelf because people are downloading instead of buying, they lower the price to a point where it will sell. That makes sense to me and if I owned a company where people could produce copies of what I create I would be choked as well.
But is the price originally high, even over priced, because of piracy?

Do companies produce crap products, ie games, because of piracy?


Probably some do, but they prolly woulda had bisiness problems anyway.
Companies have always gone out of bisiness for various reasons, but Superior Companies, companies with vision, look for solutions such as improving there product at a reasonable price to genarate sales. Better multiplayer, story lines, nice boxes whatever.

Two sides to every story:
What if piracy was totally impossible. Monopolies reign. I wonder if any company in any biz would work at lowering prices and improving products (it might happen) more likely they would suck you in for as much as they can get.

I know its a wrong and in someplaces illegal, but jeez ... there are crimes and there are CRIMES.

When I was young I would listen to the radio all till they played all my fav songs. I would record them one by one (even with the dj talking) I would make my own tapes that way. That was a crime but who cares.
I've bought Bat out of hell 5 times I think. album, tape, cd (a few times) and I've downloaded it lol.
I've downloaded Pink songs, loved them, went out and bought the CD so they would all be in order and sound good, lyric sheet etc. Piracy made that sale. Same with BF 1942(even though I hate it now).

umm...I've lost my focus so I'll stop typing

:(

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Colossus


It doesnt really matter if you were/werent going to buy the item. You are still using something that you are not entitled to use.

---

Yes but this has nothing to do with whether the people pirating games got something they didn’t pay for it’s about whether the company selling the game lost any money as a result. If the person pirating the game was not going pay for it either way the company selling it in fact did not lose a dime since their bottom line is identical either way.

As noted above this is about how the gaming industry calculates the revenue lost to piracy, not whether piracy is right or wrong.

You as the consumer cannot tell the software developer how much a given software package is worth. You have no right to say that Windows XP PRO OEM is worth $50 instead of $130.

So since you dont agree with the pricing that doesnt NOT give you the right to pirate it. Since you wouldnt buy it at $130, so you download it for free. That is one of the dumbest thing I have heard!

Its like a TV, if you cannot afford the Mitsubishi 60" Wide screen, then you get something smaller or alternative within your budget. Most software has a very good comparable product for less or even free...

Such as..

Windows -> Linux
Office -> OpenOffice

If someone only likes one song on a given artist album, and wont buy the whole album for that one song. That does not give them the right to just download that one song. That is still a lost. Did you mail a check to the RIAA for $1.50 or whatever for each of those songs that you downloaded illegally?

Did you even look around, alot of songs are on other albums. Such as a billboard, or other mixed music albums.

Also if I want to edit my home movies, will I steal the software that they used to produced Jurassic Park? (granted I need the hardware too). Or would I use a cheaper/easier solution that I can afford to edit my home movies.

Most people dont need the $700 photo editing package. When a much cheaper $50 or free package would do them just as well. Joe Bloe and many others do not have the skills required to take full advantage of photoshop.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Un4given
Even if they wouldn't have purchased all of the software, they likely would have purchased some. In your scenario, even if he purchased 50-100 of the 200 titles originally pirated, that is still an increase of sales of 25-50%. If we look at that, how mamy companies wouldn't like to see an increase in sales 25-50% on those copies that were being pirated. Using the numbers you originally posted, 25-50% of the roughly $6.5 billion lost dollars would amount to between $1.6-3.2 billion dollars in revenue for software developers.

Also, if you think for a minute that software developers aren't fully aware of that fact that there is no way for them to stop all piracy, and that they don't figure that in to the overall cost when pricing a product, you are sadly mistaken. They know full well that can't mark up the product enough to cover all piracy losses, but it is very much a consideration when pricing is determined.

Like I said, even if the people that pirate software would never have purchase what they had stolen, they do impact the price to us consumers that do pay for our software.

Oh, and that money figure was based solely on the US numbers, not the wordwide losses. If you look at the world wide numbers, that would mean increases of $7-14.5 billion dollars in increased revenue.

---

"Even if they wouldn't have purchased all of the software, they likely would have purchased some. In your scenario, even if he purchased 50-100 of the 200 titles originally pirated, that is still an increase of sales of 25-50%."

And thats the premise behind this thread, how much exactly is being lost, its not 0% lost sales, and its not 100% lost sales (like the piracy estimates account). [im definatly not saying its 0% lost sales]


"was based solely on the US numbers"

The main reason i focused on US numbers is beacuse most people from this board are from USA, the most money is made here, and the rates of piracy differ greatly (95% in china).

Quote:

---

Originally posted by wildjamesmiller
How does 1 copy of Halo 2 or whatever that gets leaked to the internet force Microsoft/Bungie (or whomever) to make tons more copies? I don't understand. They actually would make less copies because less people would be purchasing the product.

---

Ok, look at it this way:

Company A produces 10 copies.
Pirates create 5 copies.

The market supply is 15 units, though the company only produced 10. That means there's a surplus at the price that would be charged by Company A for 10 copies. They have to lower prices to sell the copies they have made/and or lower the amount of goods that they're producing. That will mean selling at a point where profits are not maximised. Incentives are lowered etc. etc.

That's one part.

Then we have the whole deal with substitute goods. Take two restaurants for example - Restaurant X and restaurant Z. X costs $50 a meal, Z costs $5 a meal. You can't afford X, but you manage a way to get a free meal (let's assume the meal doesn't cost anything to produce for the sake of simplicity). Now, your eating at X doesn't cost anything, but Z is losing $5 since you're not eating there. Same thing with software like photoshop.

That's another part of the equation.

As for this:

Quote:

---

Yes but this has nothing to do with whether the people pirating games got something they didn’t pay for it’s about whether the company selling the game lost any money as a result. If the person pirating the game was not going pay for it either way the company selling it in fact did not lose a dime since their bottom line is identical either way.

---

Refer to the above - the whole substitute goods thing is relevant. Sure, you wouldn't buy all the games you pirate, but some of them you would buy. That's where the company's bottom line suffers. We have no way of quantifying the amount of piracy that results in lost sales though, so any numbers have to be taken with a grain of salt.

As for

Quote:

---

What if piracy was totally impossible. Monopolies reign. I wonder if any company in any biz would work at lowering prices and improving products (it might happen) more likely they would suck you in for as much as they can get.

---

Monopolies wouldn't exist...there are substitute goods and competition in almost every market. Where there are monopolies, there are usually government regulations in place. Even with a totally unrestricted monopoly, the company will produce a level of product that maximizes their revenue. That price cannot be ludicrously high where people couldn't afford the product anymore...yes it would be much higher than desired in all likelihood, but it's your choice to buy the product. With anything absolutely necessary, there is government regulation.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Mancora
"Even if they wouldn't have purchased all of the software, they likely would have purchased some. In your scenario, even if he purchased 50-100 of the 200 titles originally pirated, that is still an increase of sales of 25-50%."

And thats the premise behind this thread, how much exactly is being lost, its not 0% lost sales, and its not 100% lost sales (like the piracy estimates account). [im definatly not saying its 0% lost sales]


"was based solely on the US numbers"

The main reason i focused on US numbers is beacuse most people from this board are from USA, the most money is made here, and the rates of piracy differ greatly (95% in china).

---

I don't think anyone here has access to enough information to come up with any type of firm numbers.

Theft is theft. People steal physical goods (cars, electronics, clothes, food, etc.) so you will never be able to stop all piracy because it's just another form of theft. Just as there are people that will steal those types of physical goods, likely for the same reason people pirate software, there will be those that steal software and come up with some lame excuse for it. I think the reason software piracy has become a problem is because it has gotten so easy to do, and the chances of getting caught so low.

It's like my old man always told me, "Locks are to keep honest people honest."

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Un4given


Theft is theft.

---

I think there are degrees of seriousness. Piracy is not robbing a bank, CLOSER to going to the library.*slight sarcasm*

Quote:

---

It's like my old man always told me, "Locks are to keep honest people honest."

---

Exactly.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Freddy_Kruger
I think there are degrees of seriousness. Piracy is not robbing a bank, CLOSER to going to the library.*slight sarcasm*

---

Tell that to people that are doing time in prison for non-violent crimes, including theft.

Another thing to keep in mind is that software companies have not gone all out actually prosecturing people that do this, unlike the RIAA. If the fact that getting caught is low, and chances of prosecution are low, they really haven't created any incentive not to pirate software.

I'm an ex-Pirate. Now that I got a job, dishing out 40 bucks isn't that big of a deal anymore.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Un4given
Tell that to people that are doing time in prison for non-violent crimes, including theft.

---

You must be american lol.

I heard story of two guys (on another forum I think) who got caught doing the same crime related to piracy rings. One in Holland and one in the states. One guy had his internet disconected, the other, 5 year in prison. Guess who was the american lol.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Colossus
You have no right to say that Windows XP PRO OEM is worth $50 instead of $130.

---

I have every right to say it, although I would say it's real value to me is closer to $80 than $50.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Colossus
So since you dont agree with the pricing that doesnt NOT give you the right to pirate it.

---

Quite true, no one has the right to pirate software, just the option. Now it's up to the software producers to give people incentives to buy their software. Most people want to be legal, but by meeting perceived expectations on pricing, software writters can greatly mitigate pirating.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Colossus

Most software has a very good comparable product for less or even free...

Such as..

Windows -> Linux
Office -> OpenOffice.

---

Yep, that is the best route for those who would pirate, although open source has the same or larger negative impact compared to piracy on competing commercial products, but it's legal.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Colossus
If someone only likes one song on a given artist album, and wont buy the whole album for that one song. That does not give them the right to just download that one song. That is still a lost. Did you mail a check to the RIAA for $1.50 or whatever for each of those songs that you downloaded illegally?.

---

I downloaded a ton of MP3's for free last week, but they were all legal downloads. I went to Metal-Rules.com, viewed their November CD reviews, and every album that garnered a score of 4 out of 5 or higher, I wanted to check out. About 95% of the bands listed had webpages and of those 80% of those had complete and free MP3's for downloading. That's an album worth of new music every month free and legal. Did I mail a check to the RIAA? No, because these are independant labels that fill a niche market. Does it impact the Artist for me to have these free and legal MP3's? Yes, in a positive way. These are bands that have no large corporation paying for promotion. You aren't going to hear them on the radio, or most likely even on satellite radio. It's exposer at minimal cost, and that makes me more likely to buy an album or go to a concert. It's the great tragedy of our age that the large lables don't take this approach as well. They can't afford to promote all their musicians equally, and no one is going to by an album from a band they haven't heard in advance.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Colossus
Most people dont need the $700 photo editing package. When a much cheaper $50 or free package would do them just as well. Joe Bloe and many others do not have the skills required to take full advantage of photoshop.

---

I'm in full agreement here. I own PhotoImpact and it does 99.9% of anything a person who pirates Photoshop would do with it. Photoshop and Painter are way over priced for this reason. I don't think I've met anyone who actually bought Photoshop, except people in medium or large sized firms. It's been my experience that for the most part, the exuberant prices of content creation software, are justified by helping the artist make money. They aren't really meant for hobbiest, but for folks that are going to use it to generate income. You can however, find student or light versions that are affordable. If you want continued support from these products it is in your best interest to support the software developers with your dollar.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Moridin
Yes but this has nothing to do with whether the people pirating games got something they didn’t pay for it’s about whether the company selling the game lost any money as a result. If the person pirating the game was not going pay for it either way the company selling it in fact did not lose a dime since their bottom line is identical either way.

As noted above this is about how the gaming industry calculates the revenue lost to piracy, not whether piracy is right or wrong.

---

It's more about the industry as a whole losing money to pirating than the company selling each specific game. We're all going to play games whether we buy them or pirate them. If a person pirates KOTOR (because they were never going to buy it), LucasArts loses no money to them but the rest of the industry does. The pirated games takes up 10 or 20 hours of their time that they would've spent on another game they would buy like Far-Cry, D3, etc.

I don't like paying more than $30 for a game especially if it's full of bugs (UT2k4 was an exception for me). So, I usually wait 3-6 months for the price to drop and patches to be available so I can fully enjoy my gaming experience. If I have nothing new to play and don't want to play someting older online, I'll read books or watch movies in the meantime. Somebody else might have the same $$ threshold but instead they'll pirate other games while they're waiting for the game(s) they want to drop in price.