Consumers will pay for convenience and value. You simply cannot price a game at $80 and hope to sell it in India. You can't expect consumers to have half a dozen monthly streaming subs to enjoy their favorite content.
When a product is providing value, and it's easier and more convenient to buy than pirating it, then people will buy it.
Netflix killed piracy until the platform fragmented and now you need half a dozen subs to watch everything. Expectedly, free streaming sites are now better than ever.
Yeah. Where piracy really hurts is when games get cracked and released before the official release date. That actually devastates sales; unlike a teenager with no money pirating a game (who they can’t afford to buy anyway).
There used to be (maybe still is?) a period where a small number of publishers had DRM for the first few weeks, and removed it once it was cracked.
Research from the University of Amsterdam’s IViR “Global Online Piracy Study” (survey of nearly 35,000 respondents across 13 countries) found that for each content type and country, 95% or more of pirates also consume content legally, and their median legal consumption is typically twice that of non‑pirating legal users.
Fun fact, this study was financed by YouTube to create a legal shield.
In 2017/2018, they were in the position where MPAA and RIAA were saying: "Piracy costs us billions; Google must pay" + they had European Parliament on their ass.
Google financed that 'independent' study to support the view
"Piracy is not harmful and encourages legal spend".
So the credibility of "independent" studies, is something to consider very carefully.
My real world observations agree with the direction of the study, so I don’t entirely dismiss it as fake based on its funding source.
I am cautious about the conclusion, though. It seems clear there is a spectrum from “unscrupulously pirate everything” to “consume legitimately after pirated discovery”, and quantification is necessary.
No, you misunderstood the comment, it said that paying nothing is compelling, not that paying something was inconceivable or something; it was a response to a comment with a common misconception that pirating is only some "service problem"
I agree with your earlier comment (GGP) and feel like you're contradicting yourself here. "Too expensive" is either a service problem or at least directly adjacent to it. It's distinct from "well if I can get away with piracy then I'll do it". To say that free is a compelling price is to imply the latter as opposed to the former (at least imo).
Yeah but if a pirate would have not paid the full price why care? It is by definition not a lost sale, the most likely outcome is just an increase by one the player count
Because the price isn't binary? Also, the total spend isn't fixed either, it depends on how easy it's to pirate. So it's by definition still lost revenue, even if later/at reduced price
Consider reality instead, you can make any fantasy case you want:
C. You didn't pirate, but played because your friends were deeply into it, so you skipped buying lunch to save money and pay for the game (pirating was hard for this specific DRM). You bought it at a discount on sale (remember, the price isn't fixed?). That feeling of overcoming hardship and friendship fused into a very positive experience, making it 10 times more likely for you to buy the next version than in A. or B. The overall likelihood still was tiny because now you have a family and don't have time to play, so that and
D. Considering the amount of uncertainty (your game company will go out of business in 25 years) the value of your "more likely" is $0
Not paying full price is not a "lost sale". People unwilling to pay full price wait for a discount or price reduction. Look at how popular the seasonal Steam sales are. Pirating the game very likely means they never purchase it at any price, which _is_ a lost sale.
I never paid for games as a kid (starting with 8 years and first PC). We didn’t have the money until much later. Other friends and uncles had games, we copied it all. Eight years later (with 16) I bought two game compilations for birthday and Christmas. Around 40 games, no more than 2 or 3 years old. I had fun for years.
And then much later being a university student, I had money of my own and have bought games I liked. Never pirated to save money. And you know, GOG came along, and I was thrilled having the old games from my childhood again as digital legal copy. With manuals and addons. I bought 20+ old DOS games I already knew. Better late than never.
Before it was really expensive and difficult to get access to movies or music. Then came Netflix or Spotify. So money is the primary discriminator now, not access. And users without money would not bring revenue anyway
