If piracy gets worse and worse so that developers decide they can't make money from selling games... then they'll just have to find another way to make money out of giving away games for free.

In the future there will be a Hulu for free video games full of advertisements. The industry will still be profitable, AND games will have a wider audience.

when people want the insurance and the manufacturer support, they will buy a car. When people want a free car and not have to pay road tax, they will steal one. both can co exist. 

are you saying that if someone wants something for free its ok to steal it.  say i want the packaging, the manual, and the game for free, is it therefore ok if i went into a store and stole a copy of muramasa  because the indsutry is going? what about if people started all stealing NIS games? hey the comapnies going bust but that doesnt matter because the industry is growing! Plus people have been stealing for ages so that makes it ok

I will support the article.

I'll take the time period of 2 years, end of 2007 to end of 2009. I have pirated around 50 games in the time frame, I ended up buying probably around 30% of them, Dawn of War 2, Total War, World of GOo (3 copies actually), etc. The other 70% were just too shitty for the amount of money asked.

At the same time, the end of 2007, I made a Steam account with 0 games. Now at the end of 2009 I have about 110. Also bought dozens of retail games.

Now I ask how many of all those "OOOOOO Piracy is BAD and it will ruin the industry!!11ONE!ELEVEN" people have bought anywhere near the amount of games I have bought. In other words. I'm a pirate, I'm also one of the biggest industry supporters you will find, and according to the music industry, pirates are the backbone, not the people who don't pirate.

I will start finding piracy morally wrong and find it ruining the industry when others contribute at least as much as me to the industry. As it stands, I am a far greater helper of the industry than 95% of the people you will see on this site. I'm also a proud pirate.

Edit:

Forget it

 F***ing lemmings

Of course you're not going to purchase the game after you got it for free.

Speak for yourself. As I pointed out, I have probably done more of this industry than you have.

So you would prefer to pay for crappy games and support shovelware rather then trying things out before you buy. Or let me guess you know every game you want to get before it comes out and you are never wrong and buy crappy games or think something was going to be better then it was.

Oh and I have about 65 or so

Ps3/PS2/PSP/DS games and CFW on the PSP 1001 and an R4 for my GFs DSl !

and we still buy games !!! amazing I know, just not the shity ones

Alright, I'll just ask more about my last question as discussing the rest would be moving into strawmen territory. I'll just give you a big 'fair enough'.

My point with asking about those services was flawed. I only use PSN, and forgot that the others can be pirated. So instead, I'll just ask with PSN. You can buy games like on any of the other services, but you can only rely on research (including demoes), and you can't give games back. Would that deter you from using PSN for downloading games if you had a PS3?

If Nintendo and Microsoft were to follow Sony next generation and succeed in making their console pirate proof, would you spend less on money on console gaming, or would you just spend more money, but on games you don't know for sure if you will like?

The argument that piracy is something people want is ridiculous. Look at Itunes and Ipod. Good product+ good model+ cheap prices($0.99-1.29 a song)= HUGE SUCCESS

Now correct me if Im wrong but 0 is cheaper than $1.29. Yet people pay for tracks. Coz 1.29 is a gr8 price. I wouldn't think twice about an impulse buy if I liked a song at all.

In developing countries the same model shd be applied.I was in India recently and I visited an music store. You could buy original movies(a few yrs old) for Rs.30-50(that's literally $1 or lower).

Now that's a ridiculously low price- and Im sure they barely profit off this model but that is the model they have had to evolve in order to break off the piracy habit.

I remember the release of a big movie on DVD in china the same day it released in cinemas the day in the US. So companies have taken bold steps in the past.

People are smart. They want content NOW and fairly priced. You cannot charge 2-3x the price of the same content, in different parts of the world, if all the discs are all manufactured in China. That's freaking daylight robbery.

In gaming the model shouldn't be much different. $70 is a high price for games. A DVD costs next to nothing to manufacture- The reason we have high piracy is mainly becoz games target a younger, more sophisticated audience than say- movies or music- which caters to older tastes as well. I fail to see how this model is ever gonna work. Young gamers will never have access to as much money as adults do. So unless they figure out a way to find a cheaper, yet profitable method to distribute games- Piracy is going to exist.

Morality and legalities aside.

Price cheap.Market Well. You wont have to prosecute people.

Only games I know something about or if the demo was good enouh would I buy something from PSN and as a result from not being able to try before it would be alot less then from VC,WiiWare so in effect the industry would loose alot of money from me.

If they managed to do that next gen I would buy alot less and end up with even less games I would keep but I would probably lend alot more games and rent if there was the possobility wich again would mean the industry would probably loose between 25-50% of the purchases I do now wich would mean approxomatly 15-25 games less per year/console.