IllegalPaladin said:
You know I tend to think of that in these kinds of arguments. People talk about buying some used games one moment and then explode in rage at the mention of piracy. In either case that money isn't going back to the publisher or developer. With a store though, it could potentially go into bringing more people to the store, but the store would still be pimping their used selection. It's all going to depend on how the person or store who sold you the used game invests that money, which could go right back into other used games. Heck, I like to rent games and I even had a subscription to Gamefly for a while. Sure, the business has to buy new games and such, but the way I see it I'm only spending a few dollars to play through and beat a $60 game. I even bought a used game at a rental store once 0_0 |
Well as the current economic theory is. The thought it software piracy "Balances out"...
While there is a small amount of anti-social would pay 60 dollars but instead don't. There are also people who wouldn't pay 60 dollars, pirate a genre of game they wouldn't normally play...and then enjoy it so much they buy stuff from that genre as their value perception of the game has risen.
Both are extreme and rare cases though.
Although the software industry has been shown to have a stronger example of expanding the market base. Not videogame software however, no study has been done on that.
Instead it was a study on computer software like Paintshop Pro. Whose popularity had a lot to do with piracy.
It's why Microsofts unoffical slogan is "Don't pirate, but if you do pirate us!"
When you think about it. In a way piracy of microsoft products helps keep down free alternatives like Linux and whatever free graphics and stats programs are out there...
because people who otherwise can't afford it pirate windows and Office... instead of Linux and Open Office taking up the marketshare of basically the entire poor.
That's of course mostly theoretcial economics still and mostly for areas where having expaneded userbase makes a big difference.