jlauro - So you're telling me that you buy video games to play them at the public library? I dunno where you live, but around here they don't let us install our own software on their machines for security reasons. Seriously, you've hit a real low if your justification for excluding customers is that, theoretically, they wouldn't be disqualified if only they could live inside of a public library. Brilliant
miguel - That does not prove piracy had any impact on sales. There has been a freeze on salaries through the last ten years, too. People aren't making more money, and in fact over the last couple of years they have begun making dramatically less money. The 90's gave us one of the biggest booms in the world economy ever. Of course sales of luxury good increased when everyone was making money. That's obvious, just like how sales decrease now that they make less.
In fact, with the severity of inflation this past decade if you're that statistically average person that hasn't increased in salary over the last decade you have 25% less money to spend on luxury items today then you did in 1999. And the essentials (food, gasoline, housing) have all seen very dramatic, world altering raises in prices in that time. People just plain buy fewer things because they have relatively less money.
Piracy was very widespread in the 90s, I probably had more of my favorite songs recorded from the radio as a kid then I had on legitimate cassettes in the early 90s (before I got a CD player) and I definitely listened to my mix tapes a lot more than originals. My friends were pretty much the same. Nobody even really thought much about it, either, and the music industry certainly wasn't going around suing everybody for it. But it never stopped the boom times from causing massive upswings in sales.
Sales were great in the 90s because people made more money in the 90's. The average person has steadily declined to 75% of their 1999 purchasing power, so sales have declined. You data ONLY reflects the economic climate we've been in since the decade began. Nothing else, especially not the impact of piracy. The data just isn't there to support your claim.
You do not have the right to never be offended.
