Mel's Gaming Blog

Software Piracy is it really the crime they say it is?

Every day we hear complain, justify & rant about software piracy. Company and developers are posting numeric figures in the millions to show their losses from torrents, copy of games on blogs and etc. But is this really the case? Are they actually losing the amount they say their losing?

What I’m about to say is entirely my own views on how things actually are.

Our first topic is the numeric figures in the millions company and developer believe they loss. First of all how do they come out with this figure? It actually is an estimation of what they think they loss, there is no possible way they can actually come out with that figure unless these sites who are involved tell them how many times their software were download which is impossible unless they want to go to court with a million dollar company with their professional lawyers. Now my answer to this is the actual reverse of what these companies say and think, if this million figures are what they think they loss is actually the figure that gamers/users aren’t willing to pay for the products which comes to the price of software itself. Example some companies allow you to download DEMO’s & game trailers software or games in which we get to test first before we buy. After testing the game/software the users get a choice “DO YOU WANT THIS GAME FOR WHAT IT IS?” or “IS THIS GAME/SOFTWARE WORTH MY MONEY?” If you don’t like it then don’t buy it. This is why you don’t see me reviewing games I’m not willing to buy because I don’t want it and I don’t feel it’s worth my hard earn cash.

Another thing about the million figures is some users actually do what this software’s are placing there for. These torrents up loaders place the software there for people to test first and if they like it, they encourage users to BUY them. And there are really a lot of decent people out there.

Another way their counting is that they hire a normal person like you and me and ask them to download anything they want and count how many can they possible download in a day, weeks or month and again they make an estimation. Now what’s wrong with this method? Think of it this way, do the people they hire actually download things they need? Of cause not, they were paid to download so they download as much as they can. So this method is actually wrong from the beginning, how do I know they use the method? Well remember MTV anti-downloading campaign a few years back? During an award show they ask a few people (if they were paid or not I do not know) to download music during the award show was taken place to show everyone at home how “BAD” download was and come to a figure of 5000 download towards the end of the show. And that’s on the US internet, let me remind you a lot of countries in ASIA don’t have that kind of connections, ours lines are like rubbish compared to the internet speed of the US.

Now I’m not saying piracy is not there, but these companies have to look at this in another way. Like i said earlier bunch of users download to test and buy the software after testing. DEMO or trailers software are there to help us to make decisions if am going to buy it or not. Users or should I say consumers are there to buy the things we want and need. I’m not going to something I don’t want to play so don’t add me into that statistic, I bought Battlefield 3 cause I like the game play and I didn’t buy Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 cause it doesn’t fit my playing style. I bought Elders Scroll Morriwind, Oblivion and Skyrim cause I love RPG of this kind. I didn’t buy Starcraft 2 cause I saw it and it didn’t fit me anymore, I used to love Starcraft but in my country is was around RM230.00 to RM250.00 a normal game usually cost around RM150.00 so I didn’t get it so I waited till my friend and brother got it and watch them play and I even tested the story to see if it was any good.

My point is the figures their giving the public and used in courts are not the correct figure and it cannot be used. Because not everyone in the world who downloads believe in “STEALING” as they say it.