[squeaky-clean]

I'm not going to argue that piracy isn't harmful, but does fighting it really help? People claim that just preventing cracks for a few weeks is enough to make a difference. Sure, the majority of sales happen in this timespan, but that doesn't mean someone intent on pirating the game will give up and pay just because it isn't available now. That's why I don't like statements like these, from the article

>those two to three months when pirated versions were unavailable must have reduced the overall level and impact of piracy.

Sure, it probably reduced the amount of piracy, but does it reduce the impact? Is there any proof that the pirates bought the game instead of waiting a few months for a crack, or that they didn't ignore it altogether? "Less people pirated the game" doesn't necessarily cause "More people bought the game". And "More people bought the game" is caused by a lot more than just piracy, so you can never be sure.

For comparison, look at The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, a game that launched with practically no copy protection at all (just an offline CD key check), which was a huge commercial success. And Spore, a game released about a year later, was a flop and actually one of the most pirated games ever, partly out of pure spite against the extremely restrictive SecuRom DRM included with the game.

To me, fighting piracy seems like wasted effort. You can usually only delay it, there's no proof that those efforts will actually earn you sales, and you risk damaging your relationship with legitimate, paying customers in the process. That time and work can be spent making the game better. You hear about games reaching record sales because of good gameplay, good graphics, intense multiplayer, good marketing, whatever. You don't read "GTA V becomes fastest-selling entertainment product in history because of anti-piracy measures."

[exDM69]

This is a very valid point and I would like to see it backed or refuted by sales data. Of course, it's very difficult to speculate how much sales were lost due to piracy or how much was gained due to the countermeasures. But comparing several games with roughly similar total sales over a long period vs. the sales by the time a crack to come out could give a nice data point to start with. If there's a strong decline in sales per day when the crack comes out, that should be a clear indicator that piracy is hurting sales (but I find that hard to believe).

Judging by the article, there was a lot of serious software engineering resources put to this crack protection system. It takes thousands or tens of thousands of sales to pay back the time spent. This money and effort could have been spent on making the product better in a way that is directly visible to the customer. How many sales could have that bought?

But things have changed since the days this game (and article) came out. Ubiquitous Internet connectivity is now on consoles too. Games get (more) patches after they are released (well they are also more buggy on release day). The downside is not being able to play when your connection goes down (or the servers go down) but this has become somewhat acceptable (albeit it's a nuisance).

It has become a lot easier to buy games online and a lot more difficult to pirate them. This is what ultimately made me stop pirating games.

[rhino369]

>Sure, the majority of sales happen in this timespan, but that doesn't mean someone intent on pirating the game will give up and pay just because it isn't available now.

Sure not all will, but a lot of pirates aren't intent on pirating. They just do it when they can. For example, I want to see American Sniper at the theater. But if a DVD quality rip is out on launch day, fuck it, I'll take it free.

Most PC games go on sale a few weeks after launch and yet people are still paying a premium at launch.