Piracy is just too easy. The vast majority of games are completely uninspired and piracy gives us the power to carefully decide what we will and won't pay for. Recently I have paid for very little. I have paid for Amnesia, to the moon, and Battlefield 3 because they are truly innovative and worthy of purchase.

games are just too expensive, especially in Australia where the average new release game is anywhere from $80 - $120. People are aware that this is 50-80 pounds and far more than our counterparts in Europe and USA pay, so the price gouging goes both ways. As the games companies/publishers blatantly gouge the Aussie games and so in turn the Aussie gamers will take back what they can from the publishers... whats good for the goose is good for the gander and all that

I own close to 100 PC games, equaling to about 1,700$. Did I ever see a single free copy or a discount from these various developers??? The answer is hellzz no!!! So I'm not even surprised that so many people are turning to piracy, when all they do is take take take... in the words of an 800 year old Jedi "Greedy They Have Become" Greed is a path to the Dark side of the force.

nice shirt

Lmao 2:04 that was awesome man

games are too expensive would make sense why people pirate them anybody noticed now its nearly all titles on XBLA that is 1200MSP? and here in the Uk games cost as much as £50 i buy 4 games i have spent enough to buy a whole new Xbox 360 Slim i mean, bring back the price of £24.99 or £29.99 for new releases!!

Pirating is too easy and games are too expensive especially for the PC. If it wasn't for Steam I don't think I would buy as many PC games because my PC did cost me 2000$.

pirating is not easy, games ARE in fact too god damn expensive, i mean, 50 to 70 euros/gbp/usd for a game, knowing how messed up the economy is for everyone around the globe is just too much. i have said this before, i do pirate games, but when i think its worth the money, i buy the game, surprisingly enough, the last 5 games i bought were indie games.

Sometimes I wear an eye-patch and pretend that I'm a pirate.

So to all those people who have told me that the second hand market is more costly to developers than pirates I shake my head in disbelief at your naivety :D

Here in Brazil people use a downloaded copy to sell dozens upon dozens of pirated games. I wouldn't be surprised if the numbers are above 10 millions copies "sold to customers" down here. Piracy will never be over, sadly. We will just have to learn to live with it.

Here people earn between 350 up to 750 BAM, one game costs over 100 BAM. Let's not forget money you'd have to fork out for new hardware since most games for PC aren't optimized well... While it's easy to find some games in America and England, most games don't ever show up in most other countries. I've been looking for Disgaea 3 for over a year, people never heard of it. I'm guessing Catherine will be non-existant here too. And ordering the game from other countries... delivery costs 1/4th of the actual game's price, if not even more in some cases. And combined with games not being good enough, loads of games are just decent, and not that interesting too, so how do you actually get to try all those games? Demo may show you only the best part of the game, or actually maybe the whole game doesn't evolve, and you just get to repeat over and over again things you've done in demo, and in some cases, it happened that demo was actually better than the game itself. You can rent games, but doesn't that cost too much too, and let's not forget how much they may hurt your laser, due to scratches, fingerprints, dirt etc.? How to tell will you be able to run game properly or at all if you don't install it first. Most people who download pirated games, actually buy those they love. Games that are good enough don't have that big problem with pirating, just look at any CoD and budget reports for example, while pirated downloads are huge, number of bought copies is even bigger.

Most games are really expensive, especially when they come out. Most of them aren't even good enough and have loads of bugs, the other day I've installed Assassin's Creed Revelations, and waited for 800MB patch to be downloaded X_x. Or few months before that 1.5 GB patch for NWN2. And there's also thing with online gaming, since people usually pay most aspect to that part of the games, they put some crappy story in campaign, and expect you to be happy with your product... what about those who don't like playing online, who don't have PCs which can still make games playable while you're online, and those of us who don't have good connections (mine is 1.5MB/s theoretically, in reality about 500kB/s)?

online services like steam etc should do like a rent feature in the same style as blockbusters etc to let gamers have the game on their account for a small price & period to see if they like it and once deadline is up the service removes the game from your account that could be a way to decrease piracy or we just call in combined task force 150

I can't really say anything about England or the US but in countries like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia piracy is so common that you can literally go to your local mall and buy pirated games from some random games shop. Furthermore, illegal downloading isn't regulated at all so almost anyone who has a computer downloads whatever they want without even thinking twice about it since there is no chance that they'll be fined or taken to court. As for PS3 games, they're probably the only original ones that are available in relative abundance here.

Seriously, are people still this ignorant about piracy and pricing? 5 million torrent downloads does not equal 5 million individual users. Do people still believe there are 12 million+ individuals that currently log into WoW? And all this ignorance over pricing. Still? Games are super expensive in some countries not because of the producers, it's often because of obscene Nth degrees of taxing. That's why games are so pricey in Australia. Of course there's always an exception to the rule; Activision and their premium price tag for anything with CoD on the cover. But if you can't find dirt cheap legal copies of your games (for the PC in particular), you're an idiot. We just came out of another holiday Steam sale. If you're desperate for that new game - learn to wait until it's on special somewhere. How about some new statistics huh? How about doing some research on which games continue to be demo-torrented versus games that don't punish their paying customers with ever annoying anti-piracy measures (BF3 and their Origin-only-launching issue). Show us how much piracy goes on with games that exploit systems like Steam AND their constant "sale" marketplace versus those that are never really on sale (again CoD, or how about the Ubi/EA online stores?). And lastly, if you target your cash cow franchise to idiots, accept the consequences of catering towards that sort of demographic: Stupid people do stupid things, and the mass market is largely made up of stupid people!

Honestly when it comes to game piracy, I think none of those are the reason that there is so much of it. Speaking from personal experience I feel that games such as those are pirated because (correct me if I'm wrong) no real demos are available. In the harsh economic climate of these days, people would rather ensure that what they would potentially buy is worth the large blow to their wallets by testing it illegally. But then they realize that they have the full game for free, so why bother purchasing it.

@20years This particular one comes from GamerPrint here in the UK, but they do deliver overseas. I can recommend them too, it feels like a quality product.

games are too expensive indeed . no one has enough money to buy food these days yet a game is $59.99 !! why pay such a high price for a legal copy of a game when you can buy more than 20 games with that amount of money ? imho publishers shouldn't exist because more than half of that almost $60 goes to their pool of money . so thumbs up for "On-Live" !! @ReadySebbyGo nice T-shirt Seb , where do you buy'em ?

@POP-3D My point wasn't that better graphics = better games, rather that over time teams have gotten bigger and developement costs have gotten much higher. You can compare a screen shot of an 8 bit Nintendo game and a current gen game, or even a PS one game and a current gen game and see how far the industry has come. That was my point. That was my only point.

Atari is exactly like old people. They were awesome in the past, but today is just waiting for death....and they both stink

I live in a country that has lots of piracying problems. I only buy original products, however I don't buy them here, since a new game here costs around USD160 while they only cost USD60 in the US (yes I said only). I use eBay a lot :) . So, eventhough I condemn piracy, I think the price for the new product is way too high over here. Producers should rethink their price strategy for non US/Europe/Japan countries.

I never speak about this topic because some time ago I made a question and receive a advertising (is legal use the NES emulator on your PC to play the games that you have on your desk?) . But I live in Costa Rica and I purchase my games with my cousin on USA. Because a Original game of any console in my country cost 100$ to 130$, the used game cost 50$ to 80$ be a gamer on the third world country its very expensive. For me a solutions is made all games avaible to be download, le reduce the price for them to 15$ to 40$, with that you made a profile buy a game and you can download the game - play the game - delete it and download again if you want, no more disc no more blue ray no more nothing just virtual purchases (software license) and them download and delete it many times as you want. Bendiciones

PS3 remains pirate free ..."All I need now is to break the expert level hacking" JAJAJAJA

I dont walk into a store and steal products from the store, so why would I pirate? Its the exact same thing. Youre stealing someone elses things, which is just wrong.

@zender2004 - > You CLEARLY have never taken a class in accounting or economics. If you had you would have a basic understanding of profit and loss as well as cost of goods sold. Even simpler than that try to find a publisher's model of a game development cycle -- look closely at where money (that the company has yet to make) is spent just to get a game to market. Then re-apply your simple math. I'm betting you will start to demonstrate, at a minimum, some empathy for devs.

Ok so you think the producers of the game dont take into consideration that their products are being pirated? Let me tell you something for a game like Crysys 2 for example, you said 3 milion ~ copies being pirated ? They sold 3 milion copies "As of June 30, 2011 over 3 million copies of the game have been sold across all platforms" Do a simple math 3 milion copies * 60$ = you will get 18 000 000 $. I dont feel sorry for the producers and i wont feel... ever !

I signed in just to say awesome shirt

@josephreynii This is completely a different topic but i hope you understand that taking a screen shot of any video game and compare it to another one from another game just to say 'look this one is better than that one and thus this game is better than that game and so they earned the extra money' is a complete nonsense... You do not measure the quality of a video game based on the quality of its graphics, sure the graphics quality as a factor, but it is not the only factor nor it is main factor, a video game is a package and you measure it based on all the elements inside this package. Just because the graphics looks better doesn't mean that the games are better, and there is a list of countless video games names out there that might not have that type of good looking graphics but still are better as video games than half of the top best looking video games - in graphics - that are out there in the market.

great comment SadhuBaba

Demos are mostly a thing of the past, so if I want to demo a game before shelling out the cash then I am going to do so. Regardless of what the average non-pirate thinks, "most" people do go out and buy the game if they like it enough albeit you do have the punks who make good money and just refuse to spend it that do give us a bad name.

Even though piracy is a problem, it will always be there, no matter what counter measures you put in place, when you have people that are determind enough, there is only so much you can do to protect yourself before you start hurting the consumers who actualyl buy the games outright, DRM is an example of how this situation affects the regular people who buy the game, they have to go through hoops just to even play a game they've actually paid for. Even though these numbers might seem impressive, but dont let these numbers fool you, piracy has absolutely nothing on when it comes to consoles and their renting system. Publishers and Developers alike from Wii PS3 and 360 have lost more then double the ammount of money that is "supposed" to have been lost via piracy due people who dont buy their games on consoles, and can just rent a game for a few dollors and then be done with it in a few days without having to spend $60 each per game. times that number by millions, with online companys like gamefly, and this, out weighs ANYTHING that leads you to believe these game developers have lost due to piracy, Renting is the single most biggest hit for game companys to loose money period, hence why piracy is so low on all console platforms compared to PC.

well there are countrys that actually need to piracy to get games as stupid at its sounds, you buy de console but there are no games. you need to but them in ebay or sth and the taxes in my country are +48% of value and you cant buy them on things like PSN cos you have no support for our country so its SO comon to see piracy on the street that its comon sense to think NO ONE has sth original XD

long live pirating

@dante-1776 Here in the US I paid $49.99 for Ninja Gaiden back in the 80's. That was on the old school Nintendo. I've always paid around $50 for any game on any console period. It wasn't until the Xbox 360 came out that game price went up an additional $10. Go back and look at a screen cap of a Nintendo game versus a current gen PC/360/PS3 game and tell me if the additional price isn't warrented. Also, look at the size of the teams....oh nevermind....just keep playing your ff7...

OK, it is both, games are too expensive and piracy is too easy, but that is not even the point, you just go ahead right now and contact Valve (Steam) - since their game Portal 2 is in 5th place - and ask them how many copies they sold of Portal 2 in their past holiday sale... And i assure you that the numbers will almost equal that 3 million + downloads of the pirated version. I wouldn't ever agree with any one justifying piracy because of the game's quality or the game's price but it is still a fact, and to solve that problem companies needs to be less greedy, make a better video games and provide them with a reasonable price.

@TrueProphecy22 spot on. it sounded like you could read my mind.

well, I think it's a combination of a lot of factors. first of all, these numbers are really misleading, because you are assuming that a person would make a full price purchase on something that they could get for free (albeit breaking the law but in a way that would not put them in real harm's way) anyway, why people pirate? first of all because its free. second it's easy. and third there are no real legal consequences to doing it, as the risk of getting caught is very small. if you go to a mortar and brick store, you could try to nick some games as well. it's also free. it's fairly easy (although not as easy) but the risk of getting caught is pretty high. the whole thing is a risk assessment problem. and to try to control it would be a massive legal undertaking that would be impractical and most unpleasant for everyone. so what they need to do is technological inovation to prevent people from pirating (i.e. making it hard) it's not like EA does not make a ton of money, but they want to make more (or at least turn some of this potential income in to actual income) and they deserve to do so. but this is a lot more complicated then just pointing out the finger at the pirates and saying AAARRGH, you are evil people with no morals.

A lot of games seem expensive in terms of what you are getting for you money, but not most the games listed here. People are just greedy and want every AAA title when it is released. Piracy damages the industry and in this day and age of economic turmoil it will just act as a catalyst for the demise of smaller developers, leaving just the behemoths like EA which gamers (including the pirates) seem to hate.

Am I the only one who finds the war that developers are currently fighting against people who buy their games second hand a little bit more sickening considering the loses they are making on piracy. There seems to be alot of effort going in to annoying the second hand market (who are still legal consumers). Surely piracy is where they should be throwing all of their attention.

I pirate only old games that I can't find in stores, but I couldn't be happy knowing that I have an illegal copy of such epic games like Portal 2, Fifa 12, BF3, COD MW3 and Crysis 2.

First off: games are too expensive here in The Netherlands. However, if you wait a couple of months before buying a game, the price is greatly reduced in most cases. I do have a few pirated games, but only to see if I like the game. Take NFS: The Run for example. I'm so glad that I didn't buy that game when it hit the shelves, because it was boring after just an hour. Also, Skyrim: Each time I play the game, I'm quitting back to mijn desktop faster than the last time I played it. So in a nutshell: I only play pirated games to avoid disappointment when I'm buying the game. If the game really speaks to me, hell yeah I'm going to buy it. But only at a price that I find sensible enough for the game. I do not want to spend ?60,- on a game that disappoints in the end.

Ok first GIVE SOME FREAKING DEMOS to the people! Do you buy a car without driving it first???? Day One discounts can be a real deal (even Steam is a freaking money collector on specials, I know I buy from it)! Third a copy isn't a real loss as real people with real wallets (in the fictional case of non-existent piracy), can't and surely wouldn't had bought a game out of their budget... Lastly, as demonstrate for many times, piracy is a free ad and not a buying stopper. And yes as said below, I don't like to buy DLCs! Give me money worth Add-ons old school style, but the freaking kids jumps on anything marketed "right"...

It's a mixture of everything and more, why the heck are we getting all these dodgy console ports, I regret buying all but Portal 2. Price is horrendous in Australia, double or more the price of any other region. We certainly don't get demos on the PC so more often than not a pirated copy is the only way. You've got to weigh the piracy figures against total purchases on the PC because it's not black & white. For consoles it's that little bit different because they actually get demos a pirated copy should not be necessary to try before you buy.

well at least Battlefield is being as pirated as MW :P

@renatogsms agreed!!! when you way up the work involved to produce a game i think its not too expensive, rarely do i finish a game unless i really like it like the drakes fortune series or gears of war.

Don't think games are tooooo expensive. They are just too many, and when people want to play all of them, well they, then, become expensive. Not too many years ago, I played about 4 different games a year (max). Last year I've bought (and yes, thats 'bought', not (properly) played) about 20 (half of them indie one's). Moreover, you just can't deny the quality and variety on the market, the production prices and the fact that (at least in my country), we have more money (which, as you know, not being purchase power, leads us to the need of carefully choosing the games we buy, according to OUR preferences).

i have downloaded the odd pirated game in the past, i buy plenty too, the games i have downloaded are games i would never have bought otherwise. games that i only have a minor interest in, or are so short i would never fork out the money for, so no real loss to the studio's

I would like to buy new games, but there is no gamestore near my place and games dont cost 60 but 100 dollars in my country (Croatia) and im not going to go on the end of my goddamn country to buy a new or even older game for 100 bucks... btw. every game costs 100 bucks not just new, there are no price downs of games in my country. So there is nothing to say to me for pirating games.I love playing games, but i just cant go in the end of the world for them!!!

games are becoming more and more expensive over the years. And its not that the quality of the game are so much better over the years. i can remember that games cost as much as 50 (dutch) gulden, that`s about 22 euro`s for a new top game on the ps one. that was for FF7 and that is one of the greatest games i have played. so i think (and specially EA) is more busy making money then making good new games. What is the point to some degree but i think the quality of the games has taking a huge dip and people are not always at the ready to pay 50 to 60 euro for a new game.