The case against piracy

Ubisoft is increasingly finding the rewards of PC development not worth the risk of piracy.

"It’s hard because there’s so much piracy and so few people are paying for PC games. We have to precisely weigh it up against the cost of making it. Perhaps it will only take 12 guys three months to port the game to PC; it’s not a massive cost but it’s still a cost. If only 50,000 people buy the game then it’s not worth it."

On the same day, PC Gamer reported the following statement from Sébastien Arnoult (producer of Ghost Recon Online):

"When we started Ghost Recon Online, we were thinking about Ghost Recon: Future Solider…having something ported in the classical way without any deep development because we know that 95% of our consumers will pirate the game. So we said 'okay'…we have to change our mind. We have to adapt; we have to embrace this instead of pushing it away. That’s the main reflection behind Ghost Recon Online and the choice we’ve made to go in this direction."

Faced with the financially-suicidal proposition of investing in a quality port of a game that will be stolen, Ubisoft decided not to release its game to the PC market at all. Instead, they chose to release a free-to-play alternative.

We ought to blame the thieves and the torrent sites that support them. Kotaku feels differently:
 
I Am Alive 

Ghost Recon 

In both of the aforementioned posts, the author reserves his venom for game developers…vilifying them for having the audacity to defend themselves.

Those deserving absolute condemnation righteously attack anyone who won't recognize their "right" to the property of others. This monstrous injustice should be rectified as quickly as possible, and everyone who has the ability ought to speak out with indignant moral conviction against pirates and in support of game developers. 

Anyone who earns his living honestly ought to be nauseous at the sight of brutes (Ayn Rand would call them "looters") trampling self-sufficient individuals. And in a gross inversion of justice, society condemns these same individuals for raising a hand against their tormentors. 

Lest anyone think I am demagoguing this issue, I want to provide a concrete basis for the total and utter rejection of piracy and its perpetrators. 

Here's a quote from writer Luke Plunkett's Ghost Recon post on Kotaku:

"I'd point out the fact [that] Ubisoft may have trouble attracting paying customers because their PC games are ported late and crippled with annoying DRM and that they, like most other publishers, seems [sic] to turn a blind eye to piracy on the Xbox 360…but you know, it's getting perilously close to 'broken record' territory about now."

Digital Rights Management (DRM) and delayed ports are, in most cases, almost certainly the result of piracy…not its cause. Ubisoft pays less attention to piracy on the Xbox 360 because the rates of illegal downloads for PC games are "five or ten times higher than the console versions." 

I humbly submit the case of World of Goo.

World of Goo has a piracy:sale ratio of approximately 9:1. In other words, 90% of the game's players are illegitimate. How can they justify this gross violation of property rights? Let's go down the list:

1. "I only pirate from big corporations because they're evil, but I support small, independent developers!" 

[X] World of Goo's "big" developer is 2D Boy. 2D Boy has two employees. 

2. "I only pirate games because it's more convenient than buying a physical copy!" 

[X] 2D Boy distributed World of Goo digitally. 

3. "I only pirate because game prices are so high!" 

[X] World of Goo sold for less than $20. 

4. "I only pirate games because DRM is so intrusive!" 

[X] World of Goo had no DRM. 

5. "I only pirate games that aren't worth buying!" 

[X] World of Goo has a Metacritic score of 90. 

6. "I only pirate games because I want to, and I don't feel like considering the consequences of my actions!" 

[√]

 

(Republished from The GameSaver)