Publishers never seem to understand that the average pirate who pirates their game were probably never going to buy it anyway, regardless of drm. Thinking of every download as a lost sale has always been foolish.
Sony stopped porting games because they don’t want to dilute their console and they were displeased with the games sales (because they released full price a year or more after the PS5, and they’ve given weak discounts during sales). Not because of pirates.
I didn't make the claim. I repeated a claim that has been found from studies many times in the past. Google is your friend. There is no evidence that piracy hurts profits. It's only their fear of losing control. As for you pirating things you should have bought, sure that's just you. I've pirated things that I never would have bought or played, only to then buy the game on steam, and multiple copies on other platforms because I liked it so much. DA origins and The Witcher 2 are two examples for me. In those cases piracy actually got them more sales.
This stuff doesn't happen in a vacuum. It's always cost vs reward. Every company does analytics on their sales.
And suppose they find out that 4% of sales was pirated. Now the obvious question is how do they get that money. Your solution is "lul just ignore it" which would not fly anywhere. So instead they try to figure out solutions that cost less than the money they claw back.
Companies have smart people working at them. This isn't just moron CEO flight of fancy stuff. They calculated that denuvo is worth it. Whether directly or thanks to secondary effects. Remember piracy was DEAD for YEARS.
Anti piracy is worth it in no small part thanks to people who willingly put up with it. It's pointless to argue whether piracy is a big problem because that's not the benchmark. The question is whether denuvo makes them money. And without seeing receipts how much it costs and how it affects their bottom line we are just guessing.
Piracy was dead for years because companies were making it more convenient to pay a subscription or cheap cost of a game than it was to pirate.
Fast forward to now, where all subscriptions have doubled or tripled in price and now offer less, and oftentimes include mandatory advertising. The tables will turn when companies do things that consumers view as unfavorable.
Regardless only a small percentage of people will ever put in the effort to even figure out how to pirate.
If companies believe that paying Denuvo is worth it for their bottom line then let them have at it.
Personally I think it's foolish. With AI now, there's nothing that can't be cracked if people want to.
I think companies need to look elsewhere for ways to increase their profits, but I'm just a random guy, so whatever.
"Companies have smart people working at them."
Companies also have stupid people working at them, they also have smart and stupid business partnerships with other companies that have their own objectives/worries/investments.
"They calculated that denuvo is worth it. Whether directly or thanks to secondary effects."
The secondary effects are depressed sales. The receipts are dozens of studies done over the last two decades because each group doesn't believe the last groups study and then finds the same result.
It's a giant industry. This isn't about a single company. Your argument is that almost every big company has idiots running the show LOSING money.
Only redditor X with study Y knows the truth. Or more likely they know how many sales it costs to implement DRM and they know that some piracy may boost sales and all the other stuff you said yet they still have their own reasons for putting it in their games which they aren't sharing with you.
An anecdote is not something typically relevant in statistics. As studied many times those who were going to buy something will typically buy it and the rate of those doing otherwise merely because piracy was present rather than just not having it at all is not statistically relevant. Plus the matters of word of mouth and free advertising can encourage sales from people that liked the game but pirated somw or all of their experience. Pirated games yend to be singleplsyer over multiplsyer as well which tends to be story or otherwise titles amd experiences that are positive usually get good reviews or reception from others and then others will hear or see that.
Someone playing something that never would have bought it can not be considered a lost sale.
But your assertion about Sony porting games and why they dont anymore is very fanciful as it doesnt even point out the state of their games from ports wasnt considered very good and didnt have as much value as a result. They were also hoping to make people buy the ps5 games if they liked these which is a major factor.
“An anecdote is not something typically relevant in statistics”
I know, which is why I lead with calling it out as an anecdote.
But no “statistics” were offered, just a vague appeal to an undisclosed authority.
But the strong claim was made: “Video game piracy doesn’t hurt company profits.”
If I pirated a single game I otherwise would have bought, that statement is immediately invalidated unless proof of external factors related directly to piracy caused more or equal profit to go back to the company.
Ah, nice one. I've seen this one several times now :)
2014 data (not like consumption habits can change over more than a decade or anything, right?)
Self-reported dataset (not a disqualifier, but definitely a factor)
Margin of error at 45% (you claim to favour statistically relevant things, and this fails to reject the null hypothesis so there's that)
Offers a tepid justification as to why this could be their finding as opposed to identifying the effect directly
Broad survey covering all forms of media and asking questions about piracy obliquely - even calling out in the study that the self-reporting didn't align with their observation of the data itself
The research field is obviously constantly moving, and new research often cuts against previous conclusions.
There's a far more recent and targeted study published in 2024 called Revenue effects of Denuvo digital rights management on PC video games that specifically analyses a set of Denuvo games with various times of being cracked, and its estimation based on the data was that Denovo protects 15-20% of revenue.
It also has the benefit of having been published this decade. I figured someone like you would appreciate the updated research.
I think they stopped porting because sales of the sequels were lower - e.g God of War Ragnarock and they want to pivot back to exclusivity. I checked the price of GoW and was like Hell No! I could have pirated but honestly can’t be bothered. I bought the Uncharted Collection and never even installed it.
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u/SoulslikeEnjoyer387 2d ago
Video game piracy doesn't hurt company profits. This has been studied and explained multiple times.