[pieno]

You are assuming that everyone purchasing a game, would not purchase it if they could download a pirated version. Call me naive, but I like to think that a lot of people that have the money to purchase a game in the first week, would still purchase it even if a cracked version is available. Just look at the billions of revenue earned by Spotify and iTunes before it, even if most music is available on release date (or even before the release date!) online without even needing cracks. I like to think that most (!) people pirating stuff, would not purchase the pirated product at all if no pirated version were available.

On the other hand, you seem to be missing the number of people just sick of DRM and all the hoops it makes you go through before actually being able to play a game. Some people may just start pirating games because the hoops of running a cracked version are easier than the hoops of running a legit version with all the DRM restrictions. Or they may just give on games altogether and decide to spend their valuable time and money on something else entirely.

So adding DRM may just as well be a net negative for game publishers.

I don't have the data to say which is correct, but just assuming that DRM is profitable because most sales happen in the first week, before a crack is available, seems a bit too simple.

[rangibaby]

Don’t forget about hyped up kids, they spend months posting to forums and Reddit about how (new game) will be the best thing ever. Then once they get a chance to play it are disappointed since it is impossible to live up to the expectations they have built up in their mind, then immediately move on to the next big thing.

Before it’s cracked they will probably buy it because of how excited they are and FOMO

[auxym]

Kids also don't have much money to buy games, and have lots of free time to figure out how to pirate them. Maybe some of them can convince their parents to buy it for them.

For me Buying a 60-80$ AAA game (I was a teen in the early 00s) by earning 5$ from time to time mowing the lawn or washing my dad's car was a hard sell. Even when I started working retail at min wage (7$), it was still a hard sell.

[thu2111]

Games publishers have all the data you're talking about and much more. They've all mostly experimented with either no DRM on game releases or very trivial DRM, and have models that can predict quite accurately these days what investment into a protection will yield what sort of return.

I'm always shocked by the frequent assumption made by people in the software world that game/movie studios don't know what they're doing financially, despite decades of experience and being the world's biggest entertainment businesses. Of course they know.

[p0nce]

> I like to think that a lot of people that have the money to purchase a game in the first week, would still purchase it even if a cracked version is available.

This is incorrect.