Sims 3 …. attacked by pirates
EArl has introduced a new regular feature today, called ‘reflection point’. The whole driver behind reflection point is to hear your views on big issues facing the games industry and EA today. Some of these reflection points will be quite deep in discussion and I can’t wait to hear your views. EArl will not seek to give his opinion but will present an article, or collection of statements/facts in a balanced way and then seek your opinion.
Bloomberg.com is carrying an interesting insight into software piracy and discusses the effect of piracy on games like Sims 3 and Spore. Take a look here to read their article and then come back and discuss your views. http://tiny.cc/d7XVp
Bloomberg cite research by BigChampagne, a company that specialises in monitoring file sharing who state that Sims 3 has been pirated more than 180,000 times between 18th & 21st May, (remember that the Sims 3 is not on sale yet until next week….the version the pirates have got hold of is a buggy, half version of the world, with a whole city missing from the pirated copy). (These are figures estimated by BigChampagne…not verified by EA). However, this illustrates the huge interest in the game and the hunger of pirates to download.
TorrentFreak.com, a German web site tracking downloads, claims that Spore was the most pirated game of 2008 with1.7 million downloads, the Sims 2 was number 2 with 1.15 million downloads, (again data on TorrentFreak.com and not verified by EA).
This illustrates the huge scale of piracy. Now consider the lost revenue to any company taking the risk to develop new titles. How many of those pirates would actually buy the game is open to debate, but given the fact that games like Spore and The Sims are games that generally people play for longer time periods as they create and build people’s lives etc, let’s for the sake of this article take for granted that all the people quoted above would have purchased a copy of the game at full retail price, (Sims 3 $49.99), EArl will leave you to do the maths…….but as you can see that is many millions of dollars/pounds/rupees/whatever currency of lost revenue.
Software piracy and of course piracy in the music & film industry is nothing new and is a huge issue. How to curb it is the issue.
Now put yourself in the shoes of a games company. In an increasingly competitive market, with lots of high class games competing for a limited net disposal income, (we all have limits to our wallet/purse size and to how much software we can buy each month), signing off development budgets and assigning 12 months of development time in a new game is a huge investment. Investment in new tools, technology and the salaries of a games team, (which could be 100+ in size). No revenue is earned on that investment until the game physically hits the shelves and people hand over money. Hence the importance a game does well and recoups that huge outlay of money…especially for smaller companies, dependent for revenue for their survival.
Now put yourself in the shoes of a developer, say a games programmer, imagine, spending 12 months of your life, investing late nights polishing a game, to the point it will hopefully be seen as a ‘AAA’ title that millions the world over want to play, to hear that software pirates are distributing it for free over the internet….and it is not just a few people downloading it for free but thousands…no, millions.
That revenue is lost and particularly for smaller companies this is crippling. This lost revenue has shockwave effects on a company, including on a companies share price, (as investors get less return), less money for reinvestment in tools and technology and of course staff can lose out when it comes to reward and remuneration. This may even lead to job losses. And it can effect the longevity of a franchise and whether future games are produced…or whether a company can afford risks taken on new IP. As we have seen in the recession, times are hard, numerous companies are struggling and laying off staff and piracy just compounds the problem for many.
Imagine you run a supermarket, you designed the lay out, you paid for that supermarket to be stocked up with all fresh delicious food, with the finest wines and lots of appealing bargains. You employ customer friendly & enthusiastic staff on the tills and to replenish the stock. You spend money advertising your shop opening, only on the day for customers to come in and walk out with trolleyloads of the stock for free. Same principle as piracy.
So what is the solution? Obviously a company wants to protect its investment. EA have tried many different ways, including last year Digital Rights Management, (DRM), on Spore. EArl remembers a great deal of feedback at the time from consumers about Spore’s DRM, which sought to limit the number of times the game was activated to no more than 3 computers at any given time. If a consumer wanted to use on more computers they had to contact EA. Feedback from consumers sought a change to this policy. EA listened and changed this policy but the issue of piracy obviously remains.
As we move towards an online future, publishers and game developers will be able to cut the ground from pirates as gamers will have to download the game directly from publishers/developers or play on servers run by the games companies. But in the meantime the issue of piracy remains.
Let EArl know your views? What should companies be doing to prevent piracy?
Spore Provoked much discussion over its use of DRM software to protect it from piracy
© 2009 Electronic Arts Inc. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners
I completely share the sentiments of the article author. Piracy may be good for your pockets, but it will catch up to you in the long run when you realize you’ve run out of quality games to play. Whether it be because they can’t afford to, or can’t be bothered to put in AAA effort, you’ll soon see you’re not only hurting the publishers and developers (both in business and in their personal lives) but you’ll also be hurting yourself and this illustrious industry as a whole.
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I worked in a small developer, (wont name it here), but we produced a great PC game and because of piracy our business struggled, did not get the revenue back we projected and we all lost our jobs as the company went under.
Hence I get very bitter about software pirates. I was down the pub recently and someone was mentioning that they were watching a copy of a film on dvd that had only just been released at the cinema and promising to lend it out to friends, I thought not of the actors losing money, but all those involved in the production…the make up artists, the production crew. they were the ones suffering from this lost revenue.
people dont get how damaging piracy is. EArl, your example of a supermarket is perfect. I hope if anyone who reads this is a software pirate/watches or plays pirated software has an attack of guilt and thinks of those behind the scenes
Thanks for this.
I love the way you frame this. I have played pirated software. Sorry. But I never ever thought of it in the terms you have stated here.
A fresh perspective. Much food for thought.
Best summary of this issue I have read. Very thought provoking.
I guess piracy will only go away as an issue when all games can be released online and we play on servers. I have no issue with that as those who take the risks should take the rewards.
This is a great site….please keep the articles coming…I wont always comment but I always read.
I think gaming companies should work together and try to educate consumers not to use pirated games any more. I am talking about an aggressive campaign meant to raise awareness among gamers regarding the consequences of piracy and how it impacts gaming companies. In order for this to have a genuine impact, it is important to elaborate well structured, long term campaign with a couple of SMART objectives, constantly evaluated.
I’ve never pirated a game of any sort, and I game on all the consoles + PC. But I have to say that the argument that every pirated copy translates into a lost sale is just a huge credibility loss to me. That’s not even close to being true. There are several ways to combat piracy, and I think a reasonable mix would be most effective:
-Create a more attractive physical package such that the retail copy is genuinely superior. I’m especially looking at you, EA, with regards to producing quality manuals, which it has been over a decade since you’ve done. Sure people will still be able to get PDFs, but let’s be clear that we’re not talking about eliminating all piracy (which would be impossible to do, and a gigantic waste of money to attempt), just at making the legitimate copy a more appealing proposition.
-Don’t gimp the legitimate copy. Disc requirements, install limitations, etc. do absolutely nothing to deter piracy because THEY ONLY EXIST ON THE LEGITIMATE VERSIONS. If we’re going to put obstacles to playing the legitimate version, let’s at least give them some ancillary benefit. Like make every owner do ten push-ups before he can play.
-Make the legitimate copy more convenient, and cheap. Millions of people with perhaps shaky “morals” use iTMS over piracy for the simple fact that they like browsing the story, they like getting the album art with their purchase and having everything go right into iTunes, and they don’t want to bother digging around for files of questionable quality, and hey it’s only $.99/$10. Steam works on a similar integrated convenience model, and even they’ve started to implement sale pricing to with a good deal of success.
-IP Enforcement (Litigation). This is one I go back and forth on. The music industry has abandoned the strategy, and it largely backfired on them even though they did rack up many “victories” in the form of token settlements and judgments. But if the idea is to ignore the “hardcore” pirates (a good idea) and to try to win over the regular users who pirate just to save a few bucks, I can’t help but think that a few notable legal victories would strike the fear of God into “regular” users who only frequent the major sources of pirated games and don’t really have the technical know-how to feel “safe” in their piracy.
I need to nitpick a little bit here. The blog post makes two grand assumptions–(a) that every user that pirated Sims3 would’ve purchased it, and (b) that by pirating it they have no longer have intention to purchase Sims3. The first assumption I think we can safely say cannot/would not be true, and the second assumption is contradicted by quotes from the Bloomberg article the blog uses to build its case. That being said, while it may be true that these statistics therefore cannot be taken as rock solid, I think we can also all agree that you can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater and can acknowledge that piracy is a legitimate concern.
I agree with Bjorn on one belief, which is incredibly restrictive DRM practices actually work counter to your intended goal. You only negatively affect those who are or would be honest customers; those who were always planning to steal your products aren’t going to have to deal with DRM anyway because it’s neutralized in the pirated release. Spore saw very vocal consumer backlash for its DRM methods initially.
The more effective measure, in my opinion, is to provide positive solutions and product value to entice people to purchase new copies. If you can do that you’re really combating three problems facing company profits–piracy, rentals, and the used games market; all three are skyrocketing in the bad economy. An example would be Gears of War 2, which provided additional maps for those who purchased the game. For Sims3, perhaps you could provide unique outfits and items to users for registering their product with EA. Remember, however, that I’m not talking about pay-for content updates; I’m saying offer some of these things for free, as incentive to be legitimate users. You need to make the user feel like they’re missing out on something if they don’t purchase the game. Reward them for good behavior. Current DRM methods are akin to penalizing the entire classroom for the actions of a small subset of students.
For the PC market I think Steam has a terrific model for dealing with the community. Digital distribution eliminates the used/rental markets. But beyond forcing PC users to play games through a company-run portal you want to, again, make having the portal a positive experience for the user. Make it something they can’t get from a rental or pirated copy. A current example is Blizzard, who just revamped Battle.net and by registering your WC3/SC/WoW keys you can download digital versions of your games. Provide user profiles with robust stat tracking, achievements, and ladders. Community events. These things are positive both for the user, who has increased incentive to play legitimately, and the companies that not only see more purchases and longer shelf life for their products but also can glean valuable information for future products. Companies are already doing this with console services like XBox Live.
Piracy isn’t a new phenomenon, and it isn’t going to ever fully go away, but I definitely think there are measures that can be taken to reduce the number of pirated games. You likely won’t convert the die-hards, but the majority of pirates aren’t die-hard–they’re people taking the most cost effective route for perceived maximum value, but aren’t think of the ripple-effect consequences of their actions.
[...] it (they?) posted an article regarding software piracy. I can’t really disagree with the stance much. I’ve seen a lot of [...]