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Kasz216 on 15 March 2008
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Lone_Canis_Lupus said:
Sky Render said:
I've already explained why the software sales cannot be count as lost. It's a standard function of supply and demand: if the price of good Y is too high for consumer X, consumer X will not pay for good Y. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. Though you can modify a consumer's willingness to pay for a good, there has been essentially no attempt to do so with PSP games (or video games in general, save hyped games; consumers are generally willing to spend a bit more on games that have especially gotten their attention in a good way). The simplest way to draw those consumers pirating at the moment would be to drop the price of the games to a level that they are willing to pay for them.

Ok, one problem, Patapon piracy numbers are already high and the game is only $20. That isn't very expensive at all, and you think that would be lowered enough to draw people in. Even with a low price, some people just don't want to pay for certain products at all when they could get them for free. Patapon is popular, and cheap...but pirate numbers still prove high. Making piracy this easy in the case of the PC and PSP I think probably makes a majority of the pirates just not want to pay at all. What you both are saying makes a lot of sense, but something just doesn't add up for me. I'm not saying the same amount of people pirating would be the increased amount of sales but probably some form of increase would happen.


Here is the thing however. Patapon is a quirky game. Like say Okami. Most people are likely pirating it only because it is a high rated game and otherwise they wouldn't take a second look at it no matter the price.

There are plenty of "Popular" games that don't sell well.

See my above example of the minor positive effects piracy can have as well... any minor positve and negative effects likely aren't statistically significant but if it makes you feel better you could consider them canceling each other out... and why most studies find it peculier that piracy slightly increases sales though not usually of a statistically significant amount.