Piracy, How much money is being lost, and what percent of them would have bought it?
There have been a fair amount of threads touching on piracy lately. Though looking back i cant say whats been talked about or even really settled on as they seem to bounce all over every subject.
As this thread is titled blah how much money is lost from piracy, lets keep it to that. No legal arguments, and no word definition arguments please. I mean stuff like whether it is stealing, theft, piracy, warez, or copyright infringment, thats already been beaten to a bloody pulp in other threads and will only serve to get this thread OT.
I found a few sources for the money lost, but not much of a critique on that. The critique's are important because its the main without it there is no counter point, there is only one group talking at the table. And its understandable to me that someone would want to pass on the blame and increase the estimated amount of pirates, and not do adjustments for the much hard to messure amount of people that would not have bought it in the first place so they can create a bigger threat and as such get more funding for this.
The one i found didnt offer much except some numbers he pulled out of his ***, is there anyway we can get a better estimation of the number of pirates that didnt really "pirate?"
Group: Piracy Costs Software Industry $29 Billion This is software in general, and on a worldwide basis. Interestingly according to this china has a massive amount of piracy at around %95, and the US is at 22%.
The study was done by researchers at IDC for the Business Software Alliance, which includes Microsoft, Apple, Borland, Sybase, Symantec and Veritas. IDC researchers looked at business applications, operating systems, consumer software and local market software. IDC used its own worldwide data for software and hardware shipments and conducted more than 5,600 interviews in 15 countries.
...
The United States was both the best and the worst when it came to piracy, according to the study. By percentage, the United States led all countries with a low piracy rate of 22 percent. But due to the size of the U.S. software market compared to all other countries, dollar losses in the United States were the highest of any country at $6.5 billion.
The worst offenders by piracy rate were China (92 percent, $3.8 billion), Vietnam (92 percent, $41 million) and Ukraine (91 percent, $92 million). Authors of the BSA report expressed deep concern about piracy rates in the Asia/Pacific (53 percent, $7.5 billion)
News Article: Piracy Costs U.S. Game Industry Serious Money
News Date: 02/16/2002
Source: Reuters Estimated 30% piracy rate on games.
According to the ISDA...In 2001, piracy as a whole cost the United States $1.9 billion. (Yes, that's billion, with a B.) That's an amazing 30% of sales lost to illegally reproduced games...
Editorial: The State Of Game Piracy Today
I could make a safe assumption and say 75% of the people that pirate games are those that just couldn’t afford the game, not because they didn’t want to spend money they already had.
Note, the two different studies were done in different years, by different groups.
edit:i changed around my 3rd paragraph some.
Re: Piracy, How much money is being lost, and what percent of them would have bought it?
Quote:
Originally posted by Mancora
Editorial: The State Of Game Piracy Today
I could make a safe assumption and say 75% of the people that pirate games are those that just couldn’t afford the game, not because they didn’t want to spend money they already had.
I've lived in asia...in Thailand and Japan specifically. I can say for a fact that in Thailand it's much harder to find a legal copy of a game/program than a pirated one. In Japan it's the other way around.
Also that "safe assumption" is just pure BS. If you can afford a computer, you can afford to buy the games you want for it. It's just a matter of what you're willing to give up/do to get those games. People pirate games because it's so damn easy. Not having to pay for it is the motivation, of course, not denying that...but not having money to buy the game is bogus.
Re: Piracy, How much money is being lost, and what percent of them would have bought
This sounds like the most honest numbers I've ever seen. 30% is a good estimate actually.
-MrD
Re: Re: Piracy, How much money is being lost, and what percent of them would have bo
Quote:
Originally posted by talldude
I've lived in asia...in Thailand and Japan specifically. I can say for a fact that in Thailand it's much harder to find a legal copy of a game/program than a pirated one. In Japan it's the other way around.
Also that "safe assumption" is just pure BS. If you can afford a computer, you can afford to buy the games you want for it. It's just a matter of what you're willing to give up/do to get those games. People pirate games because it's so damn easy. Not having to pay for it is the motivation, of course, not denying that...but not having money to buy the game is bogus.
Just to point out, you may have noticed it, you may not, i dont agree with him, "he one i found didnt offer much except some numbers he pulled out of his ***"
Quote:
I agree, people DONT pirate because they cannot afford that program/game/movie/music/etc.. They do it because its so damn easy.
They ASSUME that since I cannot afford it anyway, It is okay for me to steal the game. Its not like they were going to get my money anyway. :rolleyes:
If we can id like to stay away from wether its right or wrong and just focus on the cost impact, it'd be so easy for this thread to wander off on that subject.
I have to say that just because it is possible for them to purchase it doesnt mean every game is a lost sale. To give some analogies: I can cut off my finger to win a prize, but i wont. I can study for 4 hours a day and get straight A's doesnt mean i will. (i sure as heck wont)
And of course there is the example of people too young to purchase stuff, in the quote im talking about software in general, but its not too much of a leap to find a parent that wouldnt pay for a $50 game, and that the kid doesnt have $50.
Quote:
Originally posted by Mancora
...example of a 12 year old that has downloaded Maya, & lightwave. That prices to over $6,000 i believe, would that 12 year old have spent that much? No. Did the companies loose any money by the kid taking it? No.
Re: Re: Re: Piracy, How much money is being lost, and what percent of them would have bo
Quote:
Originally posted by Mancora
Just to point out, you may have noticed it, you may not, i dont agree with him, "he one i found didnt offer much except some numbers he pulled out of his ***"
And of course there is the example of people too young to purchase stuff, in the quote im talking about software in general, but its not too much of a leap to find a parent that wouldnt pay for a $50 game, and that the kid doesnt have $50.
I did notice that you didn't agree with him. :)
I was just expressing my own opinion on the matter, then elaborating on it since you didn't really provide any analysis of the statement save for the numbers being pulled out of an ***. ;)
And about kids being too young to purchase the stuff anyways: So, since I'm in college and I don't have $50,000 to drop on a car, it's ok for me to take it anyways? I'll elaborate more later, gotta go run now. :)