| NJ5 said: The real question is, how many of those pirated copies belong to people who would have bought the game if they didn't pirate it? Piracy is not a problem unless it actually reduces the sales of the game.
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I don't know how many (if any at all) pirates you know, however, i know 2. I have known these guys since my first day of college back in fall of 2000. Both own a ps2 and a wii. one has a ds the other a psp. Now let this be clear, these guys are very hard core gamers, they game every day from the minute they get home from work to the minute they go to bed.
Want to venture a guess how many games they bought in the last 7.5 years? 2 - World of warcraft and World of Warcraft the Burning Crusade.
Now I'm not going to say that the video game industry lost money based off the number of games they downloaded cause these guys don't make enough money to buy that many games. I will guarantee you that there is a very real lost in money due to the fact they never paid for a single ps2 or wii game.
I bitch and whine to them about piracy every time we play together and I've heard every excuse and justification for piracy in the book. Bottom line is piracy is theft and hurts the industry.
Best case scenario - if there was no piracy video game profits would be higher and eventually lead to lower prices. (movies cost a hell of a lot more to make and sell for a hell of a lot less simply because the amount sold is drastically higher)
Worst case scenario - piracy increases to level where game companies become so unprofitable games will only be produced for the segment of the market that doesn't pirate. (i.e. - and entire market of wii fit, brain age, nintendogs)
./hate pirates. selfish and shortsighted ftl
