With the gaming industry becoming a multi-billion dollar industry, it is unsurprising that the industry has become a target from piracy. A target which The Entertainment & Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA) believe to be costing the industry $600million+ a year in potential losses and damages.
However on the 29th January the ELSPA and The London Metropolitan Police performed a raid on a business premises in the famous London borough of Camden. The raid resulted in the discovery on more than 50,000 illegal game copying devices, counterfeit peripherals for the Nintendo Wii, Xbox360 and PlayStation3, counterfeit games and a fully operational production line. The set up was discovered as mail sacks filled with illegal game copying devices waiting to be sent to Europe were discovered and seizure notices from the HMRC (Her Majesty’s Revenue and Custom) were repeatedly ignored and it is believed that out of the 38,000 game copying devices, 32,000 of them we imported since December 2008!
It is probably a bad thing that I am not surprised by this, take the R4 for example. This Christmas I was inundated by parents coming into my store and asking if we sold them, parents didn’t know these things were illegal. In fact they knew so many people who had them that they couldn’t believe it when I said they were illegal. If each memory card had 10 DS games on it, that’s a $300 loss for each one sold. Yet thanks to websites that let people rent games like Game Fly (USA) and Love Film (UK) getting your hands on the latest games is easy and relatively cheap for the first time ever, leaving little excuse for those who try to condone piracy. $600million is a hell of a lot of money to lose, I can’t say that I find it surprising that companies like Microsoft, notorious for their hunting down and banning of users with modded 360s, are trying their hardest to keep a hold of their profits and stop piracy.
But how innocent are any of us? Wait until you get a retro itch and the only way to scratch it is by downloading a ROM or if you really like the Mirrors Edge theme and it can only be found on a torrent or Limewire. Can we all honestly say that we have never aided piracy, never used a ROM or downloaded an .mp3? We live in a world where people want things now and they want them cheap if they plan to pay at all, yet in the end, aren’t we just shooting ourselves in the foot?
February 2nd, 2009 at 7:22 pm
Great Post! I can honestly say I can’t remember pirating anything other than a copy of Photoshop once - and I only did that because it was required for school and I honest-to-goodness couldn’t afford it.
I used to use Kazaa back in the early high school days, but at that point I didn’t really know it was wrong. I just knew that it was the only place I could find Final Fantasy OSTs on the web…haha.
I guess I see why people pirate at times, but at the same time I think it is very bad for our industry. How do you think EA feels about Spore being pirated to the extent that it was? Is this going to encourage them to take the risk on another hugely spendy game? If pirates continue the way they are, game developers are not going to see large-scale projects as fiscally sound investments - and that hurts all gamers.
February 2nd, 2009 at 7:25 pm
What a great post!
February 2nd, 2009 at 8:01 pm
Mirror’s Edge theme is available now at an online music store near you!
February 2nd, 2009 at 8:26 pm
Good post, girl. And yeah, we kind of are shooting ourselves in the foot. Buying used games doesn’t really help the industry, either—although that’s pretty much ALL I buy, unfortunately, because I just can’t afford full prices all the time. Usually the only time I buy new is for gifts or if I absolutely must have a new game, LOL!
However, I believe renting games does something for the industry if you can’t buy—which is totally understandable in my eyes considering how expensive games are now. I’m actually looking into GameFly for the summer, and then buy games new if I really like them (and can afford them). Anyone have GameFly before? Good service?
February 2nd, 2009 at 8:30 pm
^^ Billy is a huge advocate of Gamefly, and I just signed up yesterday. There’s a center in Pittsburgh, Steph, so they would get to you pretty fast!!!
February 3rd, 2009 at 2:45 am
Fantastic post! Media piracy is a moral gray area that makes it even harder to understand the price of art/entertainment.
February 3rd, 2009 at 11:04 pm
Piracy? Why I never!
*hides the torrents and DS roms*