Even though I am fully against game piracy, the claim that it's lost revenue is pure industry propaganda. A pirated game is not a lost sale. It is a lost opportunity for a sale, but in the absence of piracy the sale may or may not have happened. More than likely the sale would not have happened. Even among the small proportion of people who pirate 100% of their game library, of the hundreds (probably) of games they pirate, if they couldn't pirate they would not buy the same number of games. My own PSN+ experience is analogous. If I didn't have PSN+ I would not have bought anywhere near the number of games I've obtained through PSN+, not even 25%. But because those games have already been paid for I download them, so they are the available to play when I am in between games I've actually bought, and I don't miss out on a hidden gem.

Also what is the price point at which they calculate the lost sale? Again, in the absence of piracy that proportion potential sales that would end up as actual sales may well happen primarily at the bargain bin price rather than the new release price. If they base the maximum potential revenue loss on the average price of a game over the sales lifetime of the game then it is a reasonable estimate of total potential sales. Actual sales loss will be a fraction of the total potential sales. Possibly as low as 1%, but I would guess more like 10-20% would translate into actual sales if piracy was magically completely eradicated.

Of course the "value" of video game piracy will be second highest in terms of revenue if the industry uses the new release value as the cost of each so-called lost sale. But if they use the bargain bin price the revenue calculation will fall dramatically, and most likely fall below movies and TV shows, and probably even music. Claimed revenue loss is a very bad, and misleading statistic to use to demonstrate the effect of piracy on the industry. Just say how many actual illegal downloads have occured compared to actual games sold. That gives us a direct and easy to analyse comparison.

OK, once again it is time for this immortal manipulative narrative to surface. This is straight up bullshit, like it has always been and will always be when there is clear agenda to be driven. There are too many factors in play which makes it humanly impossible to end up with reliable conclusion. Just think about the valuation process of 31,000 titles, how the hell could that be even remotely accurate, lol. If it's 2015 slap $60 on it, if it's 2014 slap $50, how about 1996? How about the data of downloaded copies, it cannot be anything but a wild guess. They mention $74 billion, now if they would have presented a different number like $90 billion or $60 billion would people have called bs? No because any of those three numbers are as accurate/inaccurate and they can pretty much present any number they want.

Not really

This indeed.

It's probably only a small amount of piracy that eats out of potential sales. Probably as low as 10% in my personal estimation.

For some games I buy and beat legit and then I pirate them using emulators using cheat codes, finding secrets and all.

Wow I'm such a bad person.

They have the same thing in The Netherlands (at least when I lived there). Is that a good solution? Why do I need to pay a tax for my home videos. Plus does you isp pay that same tax for every GB you download? With streaming this tax on rewritable media has become outdated and pointless. Only the pirates win.

Btw in the future a general tax on bandwidth can still happen. The battle is long from over.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/digital-culture/canadian-downloaders-should-expect-a-copyright-notice-in-the-mail/article22336673/

Now you have companies trying to scam the pirates, karma lol
http://www.metronews.ca/news/canada/2015/04/22/canadians-under-no-obligation-to-pay-for-piracy.html

They have been tracking illegal downloads for years, this is from 2011
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2388261,00.asp

Just ask a pirate if he would buy a game if there was no way to pirate it. If he says yes it is factually proven that piracy affects the industry, whether a lot or not. This isn't a question if God exists. All it takes is one single pirate that bought, for example, Assassin's Creed 2 or another one (I can't recall) when it took more than 1 month to find a good way to crack it. He would have not bought it if he could pirate it, but he had to because he didn't want to wait that long. Even considering 1% of the pirated copies, which statistically, probably, is not an exaggerated estimate, that is a lot of money lost. Yes, lost.

If a gamer wants a game, he will want it in any way he can. If someone doesn't have money they will look for cheaper ways to get things. That's it. Saying a gamer that is a pirate would not play any game if piracy didn't exist, is ludicrous at best.

Even if 25 people on this planet pirated a game that they would have purchased you are affecting sales... It's a pretty damn safe bet that piracy DOES indeed affect sales the ONLY real question is how much.

Yeah, 25 people at $74.1 billion, that's....$2,964,000,000 each.  Brilliant.

You completley missed the point. What I am saying is even if 25 people who pirated a game that had every intention of purchasing it would affect sales.. No matter how small. I am sorry you misinterpreted what I said.