The technology is better, the games are more diverse, and the market is larger, however, this alone will not force more sales. It only increases spending on reduced revenue.

Alternative measures must be taken, we the consumers need to actually purchase a little more, lest we forget that the our new phone, our internet, the life we live is in debited to capitalism and consumerism. Which we must respect instead of distain, and respect is the keyword. Communism was not interested in making entertaining games for the greatness of the people. Do we think it would?

We can see what is happening and must allow ourselves, as consumers, to attempt to aid the market we wish to see flourish. If we want more and better games we must respect the market and give people their dues. Else wise, all those amazing programmers and game designers will be working on developing the next Excel 10.0 as the business sector are the only people still playing (paying) by the rules and thus introducing capital to their budding farm. They are investing in what they want, we as gamers should do the same.

The professionals who spend their time cracking security measures also do a great job of teaching people how to crack their PSPs and dump games, download music illegally. So industries should have been worrying about them not ever caring to learn to download since they got such a great experience… but then we got DRMs. And why shift back to legal stuff then? People aren’t stupid. I call iTunes a thief when they pretend to sell you part of the rights, but then they are merely selling you a product that is limited in time (ipods and usb keys do need to be formatted OR replaced from time to time – god knows they are disposable stuff).

Piracy is not something new. Infact, some of my Dad’s old LP’s have warnings on them telling people that copying music to tape is illegal and killing the music industry.

I remember when the Amiga was out, our local market was full of stalls selling copied games (£2 a game with 1 disk, £2 for 2 disks and so on).

I do think it’s a shame that with the complexity of games nowadays it means even small start up companies need millions of pounds of investment just to get their nose into the market.

Quoting Russ’ figure of 92% whilst ignoring the rest of the points he makes with regards to conversion rates and sales is disingenuous at best. The article goes to great lengths to indicate that the benefits of blocking piracy resulted in a 1 in 1000 sale conversion. A fact happily ignored in the rhetoric of this piece.

I’m not writing off the effects of piracy here, but overstating it’s effect and playing the worst case scenario card does little favours. Nor, I fear – does painting every potential customer as a criminal.

I can’t think of one successful business model short of those used by perhaps loan sharks that relies on criminalising or treating your customers with such levels of disdain.

To cover some of the inaccuracies:

“We live in an age were many millions of people get away with stealing (6 million in the UK alone)”

That leaves, at rough estimate – around 56 million people NOT pirating if your figures are to be believed (and I’d like to see some citation for this figure, it seems awfully, awfully spurious in origin).

You’re seriously condoning criminalising 56 million people, a vast majority, on the actions of a few? This is the business model you propose?

“They use a technology called bit torrent on peer to peer networks to steal anything and everything that they want. To give you an idea of the scale of the problem, 80% of all internet traffic is now torrents.”

If torrents account for 80% of internet traffic then how does streaming video account for 36%? The figure makes absolutely no sense in real terms. Can we have some empirical facts please to back this figure up? Preferably from a non partisan source?

“It is difficult to make a PC game these days and get your money back. So now there are obviously a lot less PC games made, the PC gamer has destroyed the market by not paying for something he uses.”

The unwillingness to share even the slightest culpability in a shrinking PC game market worries me. Sure, you can argue that piracy made publishers risk averse – but I’m hard pressed to think of a scenario where major players in the movie industry, the music industry or the games industry have been anything but in a long, long time. The last game I can think of that seemed even remotely “risky” that sank a company was Bandersnatch – and even then I’m sure you’d agree that folly played an equally large part in the equation.

I’m sure piracy may play a part in the demise of PC gaming, but it is not in any way solely responsible. At least a portion of the blame must land at the studio and publishers doors and those who greenlight and redlight projects, demand that creative folk hand over their works and idea’s in perpetuity, and those whose work regimes would be classed as “less than stellar”.

It’s nowhere near as black and white as you’re attempting to paint here. Placing the onus for ones own industry mistakes on the user would seem an unwise tactic to me.

“If torrents aren’t stopped then the recorded music industry and the movie industry are dead.”

The music industry signed it’s own demise long before torrents were even a gleam in the eye of the internet. A refusal to progress, to adapt and a policy of stifling change and valuing IP over an artist did this. Not torrents. Watching the games industry follow its lead is saddening in one sense, but given the motivation that it gives the Indie scene – advantageous on the other.

For reference, there’s an interesting article published on The Times with regards to A&R policy and behaviour within one of the major players in the music industry.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article3370224.ece

A damn site more telling than any amount of rhetoric with regards to the evils of piracy and torrents.

http://www.radiowebitalia.it/img/archivio/m1054.jpg

Nice blog anyway.