Connectivity - The War on Piracy

There can never be enough content to illustrate what this topic has spurned in the video game industry throughout the years. One can go on and on about how it is a crime and may as well be attributed to virtual theft, yet though I do not want to defend the prospect of stealing something we would have to analyse what piracy is; what is actually being stolen? Piracy, in the case of the software media such as video games at least, is the act of copyright infringement via distributing copies of a game free of charge. This would allow practically anybody to play a game with no money going to the involved parties retailing the game, mainly the publishers. This in turn would damage the sales records of that particular title and may adversely affect the developers involved in the production of the game, with the worst case scenario having them shut down.

As you can see, piracy would have a tremendous butterfly effect against the publishing companies and its developers. There are several notorious cases of the act being so detrimental it makes news stories, such as Demigod having over 100,000 players that had a pirated copy of the game or games being shut down in less than a week due to the overflow of pirates. No matter at what is involved in the process it is clear that this act harmful to the publishing company… But then, what about the players? One cannot forget that in this mash-up, pirates and publishers are not the only parties involved; players are more than likely to acquire a pirated copy of a game for a multitude of reasons, including the retail price being too expensive, no trial version is available to sample the game first hand, the game is not available in their country or region, the player’s copy of the game is faulty or damaged and more.

In the past publishers have attempted to take many steps to curb these breaches on copyright infringement with varying success. One of the original means was to introduce a serial code required to install the game on a PC, which was fairly effective initially until the internet became more widespread and this method was easily circumvented by the use of key generators; since console games required no installation this was never possible for them to begin with. This changed eventually when data rights management (DRM) started to take rise; while intended to protect the publishers from copyright infringement the controversial technologies used have shaken up the very idea of “owning” a game. Before DRM was established a player essentially would purchase a title with no strings attached, being able to play it whenever they wanted without any hassle. In time, things such as limited install activations, always online requirements to even omitting content from the main game are put in place to deter pirates.

… and yet, this somehow surprises the publishers when it alienates their potential customers.