As seen in Magazine:

"Piracy stings the game industry"

Game piracy has dogged the industry since its inception, but events in 2004 showed just how serious the problem has become. Early in the year, hacker Sean Michael Breen was sentenced to 50 months in prison for bootlegging over $500,000 in illegal games with the Razor1911 piracy ring. Later, in April, the FBI conducted operation fastlink, a series of over 120 raids on illegal piracy rings in 27 states and several foreign countries. In an unrelated case, Atari, EA, and Vivendi Universal filed suit against the makers of Games X Copy, PC software that would allow users to easily make copies of there computer games.

Despite Law enforcements efforts, matters got worse as the year went on. In August, valve's Gabe Newell confirmed that the source code for Half-Life 2 had been stolen by hackers who had used keystroke recorders installed in Valve's e-mail system. This year's other high-profile PC FPS, Doom 3, was also leaked to peer-to-peer sharing networks days before its August release. The BBC reported that at any one time, over 50,000 copies of Doom 3 were being downloaded resulting in millions of dollars of lost sales.

Things were no better on the console side, on both Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and a french-language version of Halo 2 were circulating the net well before there respective release dates. These leakes were rumored to have originated from employees at DVD manufacturing plants. The Entertainment Software Association estimates that the industry loses at least $3 Billion a year from piracy. Based on results of a Macrovision study conducted in 2004, which found that 52% of all PC Gamers played pirated games, this number will only increase in the future.

**NOTE** I didnt write this article, it is Copyright 2005' Game Informer Inc. I did type this article straight out of the Magazine.

The end of PC Gaming is just down the road, unless more people learn to control themselves.

Why do you think there are very few new PC Games released, nowadays?

Yep. The buisness is getting fucked. Hard. Very hard.
I'll never go as far to steal games or movies? Why? Takes too long, and not worth it.

Every game I have, I have bought. Poor id soft :(

At 1/22/05 11:28 PM, iLLiCit_JmBd wrote: DarkArchon, I seen on a website its from last year. >: (

OLD... LIKE YOUR MOMMA.

You saw within the article the date 2004. It was just printed in the Feb 2005 issue of Game Informer, MORON.

Boot legs suck.

pish posh. they said cassette tapes would kill the music industry.

Who cares? They still get millions of dollars for games not downloaded. Greedy bastards.

At 1/22/05 11:34 PM, bigbadron wrote: pish posh. they said cassette tapes would kill the music industry.

wow. Did they really?

At 1/22/05 11:33 PM, iLLiCit_JmBd wrote:

At 1/22/05 11:30 PM, bitch_slap1 wrote: Boot legs suck.

Either post something relevant or don't fucking post at all.

Was that, like, sarcumsm? lewfl.

Well, the industry'll hold up...somehow. They can't break down, either that, or software will go freeware like that nazi whatever his name is that said making money off software is a sin.

At 1/22/05 11:34 PM, bigbadron wrote: pish posh. they said cassette tapes would kill the music industry.

Dude, that was like.. over 15 years ago.

I personally think the whole "millions of dollars lost" is a tad bit of an over statement.

Out of the 500,000 that were downloading the game at any time, how many do you think would actually go out and BUY the game if they had the money?

At 1/22/05 11:39 PM, DarkArchon wrote: Dude, that was like.. over 15 years ago.

and where is the music industry?

At 1/22/05 11:34 PM, bigbadron wrote: pish posh. they said cassette tapes would kill the music industry.

I'm tempted to feel the same way, but games aren't music.

If you steal music (how can you steal something that is given away freely?), you hurt some BIG record label executive's pay. And maybe some prima-dona performer. In other words, who cares? Millionaires who wouldn't be likely to give you the time of day.

With games, piracy effectively stifles the growth of new game companies (The Behemoth, for example), and makes the BIG companies like EA do things like this to their employees.

I don't mind musical piracy, but I do not, under any circumstances condone software piracy. Software piracy takes money from hard-working programmers and designers, not big-wigs who artificially bloat prices.

At 1/22/05 11:47 PM, bigbadron wrote:

At 1/22/05 11:39 PM, DarkArchon wrote: Dude, that was like.. over 15 years ago.

and where is the music industry?

In the clouds, because things evolved. EVERYONE listens to music, not everyone plays games.

Damn pirates. it's all their fault that we have to pay 50+ for games now.

we have always had to pay 50 + for games. you just dont remember having to pay that much because mommy and daddy bought them for you

At 1/22/05 11:51 PM, Hiei_swordsmen wrote: Damn pirates. it's all their fault that we have to pay 50+ for games now.

Actually, it isn't.

1. The publisher hikes the price for profit.

2. The store raises the price.

3. If it's a console, the console owner (For example, Nintendo), will charge a fee for releasing it on their platform.

Boot legers neet to relize that by steeling from the industry the game makers arnt gona make any money= no games.

Its good for no one.

Actually it used to be around 35-40 for games. I still have tags from psx games on the cases. the prices actually have jumped up since the invention of CD games.

At 1/22/05 11:53 PM, PunishedOne wrote:

At 1/22/05 11:51 PM, Hiei_swordsmen wrote: Damn pirates. it's all their fault that we have to pay 50+ for games now.

Actually, it isn't.

1. The publisher hikes the price for profit.

2. The store raises the price.

The publisher is required to hike the price because they are losing money because of piracy.

I Work in Retail. Guess how much we make on a $49.99 video game? Between $2-5 dollars. TWO TO FIVE DOLLARS.

At 1/22/05 11:49 PM, TheShrike wrote: I'm tempted to feel the same way, but games aren't music.

granted, they do work hard and they do deserve their money. but the big companies like id and EA aren't going to bankrupt because they lost $2.2 million of their $50 million due to piracy. what they don't get from sales of software, they can pick up in marketing. like collectors editions and fancy limited edition cases. everyone is a sucker for a limited edition. hell, i know i am.

i'm not saying piracy is ok, i'm just saying unless you're a mom and pop publisher like the Behemoth, it's not going to hurt a company badly enough to where they'll go under.

At 1/22/05 11:50 PM, DarkArchon wrote: In the clouds, because things evolved. EVERYONE listens to music, not everyone plays games.

that would be true, if you said it 6 years ago. EVERYONE plays games now. it's no longer a "kids toy," it's a source of entertainment.

At 1/23/05 12:00 AM, DarkArchon wrote: I Work in Retail. Guess how much we make on a $49.99 video game? Between $2-5 dollars. TWO TO FIVE DOLLARS.

That is very reasonable. The cost of equipment, production, salary, and so on is very expensive. A two to five dollar profit is reasonably good considering...

Take guitars for example. Guitar companies make about a $20-50 profit (depending on what is used). For a $300-500 guitar, thats about in the same ratio as a video game.

At 1/23/05 12:00 AM, DarkArchon wrote: The publisher is required to hike the price because they are losing money because of piracy.

I Work in Retail. Guess how much we make on a $49.99 video game? Between $2-5 dollars. TWO TO FIVE DOLLARS.

Bam!
i kno how the buisness works cause that's what i'm going to work in.
games used to be alot cheaper.

At 1/23/05 12:03 AM, bigbadron wrote: everyone is a sucker for a limited edition. hell, i know i am.

i'm not saying piracy is ok, i'm just saying unless you're a mom and pop publisher like the Behemoth, it's not going to hurt a company badly enough to where they'll go under.

I understand where you're going there, but in the large companies, they take any loss of sales out of the pockets of the staff, first. Almost any large company will try and squeeze it's employees for the most productivity at the lowest wages. Rampant piracy, whether it is a tangible problem for them or not, they will use it to justify lengthened hours, and lower pay. I'm not claiming big fish like EA or Sega would go under entirely due to piracy, rather, I argue that they use piracy as an excuse to undermine requests for wage increases and reduced hours.

At 1/23/05 12:09 AM, Hiei_swordsmen wrote: Bam!
i kno how the buisness works cause that's what i'm going to work in.
games used to be alot cheaper.

So were records...

Playstation games were around $40. As technology advances, so do prices that partain with that technology. The prices of older technology goes down.

At 1/23/05 12:18 AM, TheShrike wrote: I understand where you're going there, but...

very true.

now, it just crossed my mind, that there is more or less, a legal piracy ring going on. used games. think about it, someone buys a game, sells it to a store, store jacks up price, pulls in a profit. maybe big chains like GameStop and EB have some sort of royalty system set up, but what about those independent stores? in a sense, that is worse than dling a game, because you're giving someone money for a game they didn't legally buy.

i donno. it's sounds right to me right now. anywho, i'm going back to my chips.

At 1/23/05 12:18 AM, Crimson_Edge wrote:

At 1/23/05 12:09 AM, Hiei_swordsmen wrote: Bam!
i kno how the buisness works cause that's what i'm going to work in.
games used to be alot cheaper.

So were records...

Playstation games were around $40. As technology advances, so do prices that partain with that technology. The prices of older technology goes down.

Yeah that's true too. but as systems got better piracy went up.
but all in all pirates suck
dumb pirates and their hooks and eyepatches and peg legs and their stupid parrots.

At 1/23/05 12:26 AM, bigbadron wrote: now, it just crossed my mind, that there is more or less, a legal piracy ring going on. used games. think about it, someone buys a game, sells it to a store, store jacks up price, pulls in a profit. maybe big chains like GameStop and EB have some sort of royalty system set up, but what about those independent stores? in a sense, that is worse than dling a game, because you're giving someone money for a game they didn't legally buy.

Hmmm.... Interesting spin on that one. I'm taking notes, here. I think I'll sit on this, think about it a lil.

At 1/22/05 11:46 PM, Crimson_Edge wrote: I personally think the whole "millions of dollars lost" is a tad bit of an over statement.

Out of the 500,000 that were downloading the game at any time, how many do you think would actually go out and BUY the game if they had the money?

actually, it's "billions of dollars lost", and its true.

if there was no way to get the game other than purchasing it, many people would, in fact, purchase it if they want to play. i have heard pirates complain about things they can't find for free and then complain about having to buy it the next day.

Now that THAT's out of the way, we can see the government tackle those less important computer prblems, like child pornography and weapon sales.

At 1/23/05 12:44 AM, DanPaladin wrote: HONK HONK!

jeez Dan, you work on three games and you think you know the entire game industry.

:roll-eyes: