| alekth said: I'd say that piracy has a significant (relatively to the overall presence) effect in developing markets. For games especially prices across Europe are roughly the same, with bigger markets actually profiting from discounts more often, while developing markets often have the people with lower income paying more. It's a luxury, but if it's available for free, then it's the collectors buying since the perceived value for most other people significantly drops. Smaller markets also can't develop a large used games segment, so it's more on a private basis, concequently more of a hassle. I can imagine this being pretty similar for South America (where importing isn't quite as easy as in Europe, I guess), some of Asia if not a big part of it. And there are probably also some exceptions not based on income, Sweden likely, I know a couple of people there who simply don't view media as something to be bought unless it's unavoidable, like unhackable or you're going to the cinema, and members here have confirmed the existence mentality of this as well. So the overall effect will differ from region to region. A lot of those regions' numbers would have been very low compared to the rest, but still on a local basis piracy can definitely become the de facto way of getting digital media. (comics and books are probably lower on the list, a pirated game can be 100% identical, a well encoded film can be close enough to the original, books still have a distinctly different feeling). Either way, I think the offer of a service (Live, PSN) can go way further in its efficiency than tracking IPs and sending out letters. |
Piracy becoming the defacto way of getting media because things are so expensive is basically the epitome of why piracy doesn't hurt in those regions. When a game costs 2-3 months wages... who is going to buy a game?
