Video Game Execs Join BSA, RIAA, MPAA In The Bogus Piracy Stats Brigade
from the welcome-to-the-club dept
The BSA, RIAA and MPAA are all well known for their
bogus stats about piracy that are
easily disproved. In fact, when it comes to the BSA, the company they contracted to conduct the study has even complained that the BSA is
misusing the stats. You would hope that a younger, more dynamic industry wouldn't fall into the same trap. Unfortunately, though, it looks like the video game industry is going down the same pointless path. Todd Hollenshead from id Software is getting a lot of attention today for
trumpeting the ESA's latest bogus stat numbers that appears to assume all pirated copies are lost sales and not taking into account (at all) the fact that pirated copies can later lead to legit sales. Hollenshead goes on to talk about various annoying means of copy protection to keep anyone from pirating the game. This isn't a new argument for id. Last year, the company put out a similar statement about how
piracy was killing the video game industry (which actually appears to be pretty vibrant). It also ignores id's own history. The early success of games like
Castle Wolfenstein and
Doom were, in large part, thanks to pirated copies being widely available and getting people hooked (often resulting in them buying legit copies, or later software products from id). It also ignores the success of other game publishers, such as Stardock, who decided that treating all its customers as if they're criminals is a bad idea -- and releasing their game with no copy protection at all... and having it
turn into a best seller.
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Yo Momma, your response is idiotic: comparing downloading a computer game to stealing a car or breaking into somebody's house??? ROFLMAO, you must work for *AA.
I often d/l games from BT too as a way to demo them since many games these days don't even come with demos, or the demos come (months) later or the demos are not representative of the actual game (like the demo runs fine then you buy a game only to find it's slower than the demo or crashes on your machine - FEAR, that I bough anyway after upgrading my video card), often demos have too many limitations, or... the demo is the best 10 minutes of the entire game. I buy my games even if I d/l them first from BT (if I don't like the game I usually know after few levels and delete it anyway) but often playing the demo is insufficient or, like I said, the demo just doesn't exist and I don't have friends who play games, and I don't want to try out games on consoles in a game shop. I've bought crap games before and I don't want to burn another $50 based on hype until I'm sure I want the game. There are very few stores that would accept game returns. If I had console I'd rent games, but I don't have that option with PC games. So it's not stealing, and please stop freaking comparing downloading games to stealing cars, robbing homes, etc., it's DUMB.
The game industry has only themselves to blame for crappy, short games and misleading or non-existing demos.
Adam
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