ESA estimates 'over 9.78 million' pirated game downloads in December

by Ben Gilbert on Feb 19th 2010 2:00AM

So, okay, seriously, there are a lot of people out there stealing games. Like, lots. "Over 9.78 million" in just December of 2009, more specifically, according to a recent study conducted by the International Intellectual Property Alliance and the Entertainment Software Association. Scouring "the most popular peer-to-peer platforms" for a group of 200 titles, the study found that the worst offenders (by country) were Spain (12.5 percent), France (7.5 percent), Brazil (6 percent) and China (5.7 percent) -- the ESA also points out that these stats "demonstrate a strong correlation between countries that lack sufficient protections for technological protection measures and countries where online piracy levels for entertainment software are high."

Worse yet, the figures are repeatedly noted as being an under-representation of actual piracy numbers. "While they account for illegal downloads that occur over select P2P platforms, they do not account for the downloads that occur from 'cyberlockers' and 'one-click' hosting sites, which continue to account for high volumes of infringing downloads," the ESA echoes. The IIPA has since submitted the findings to the United States Trade Representative who could potentially impose sanctions on certain countries based on the recommendations.

Source

Tags: brazil, china, digital-distribution, esa, france, iipa, international-intellectual-property-alliance, peer-to-peer, piracy, spain, the-esa, united-states-trade-representative

Reader Comments (34)

"...lack sufficient protections for technological protection measures".... So they want to follow in Ubisoft's footsteps?

Sign me up!!

It would have been a bigger number but Microsoft banned a few thousands of gamers during the last months of 2009...

YYYAaAAARRRRRR

Not defending for piracy, but many people, who downloaded pirated games, would not buy the game anyway if they couldn't download it.
Have seen many companies posted their estimated profit loss because of piracy, those figures were bogus.

Not defending for piracy, but many people, who downloaded pirated games, would not buy the game anyway if they couldn't download it."

While this is true, it's an economically ridiculous statement. The money lost does not only hurt the companies with pirated games but those companies whose games WOULD HAVE been bought if the "pirate" wanted to buy a new game. I get tired of free flash games quickly, and since I refuse to pirate games I am forced to buy a new one (usually used). All these people would have been forced into a similar economic choice of "I am bored, what games is worth $10 to me? And what game might be worth $50 to me?"

These questions don't have to be asked when a new, free game is there for the taking.

used game sales hurt gaming companies just as much if not more than pirating.

I don't think it's bogus at all to say 1 pirated game != 1 lost sale

I know it's shocking (okay maybe not) to hear but I pirated a few games when i was in college
I was broke and couldn't afford every game under the sun, so I used them as demos. I still bought the ones I actually wanted to play, and I'm hardly alone in that usage.

I haven't pirated a game in years, mainly because I have money now and demos are more available.
I've written a few games in my day. I know what goes into it, and I'm not cavalier about it, nor am I trying to dick someone out of their money. It takes time talent and patience to make a game.
I'm saying that had I not pirated a few games I never would have bought them, and the others wouldn't have been a sale from the get go.

"used game sales hurt gaming companies just as much if not more than pirating"

Bullshit Tezz. That's just the software companies pushing for dig distriburtion because they don't like the same business model that occurs in every other part of our economy.

We've had used car dealers, second hand stores, LIBRARIES, etc for as long as I've been on this marble, and it hasn't put the manufactures out of business.

Knight Marquis is completely right, the used market WILL NOT noticeably damage the games market as a whole for one simple reason. Somebody has to buy a copy before it can be called used, now if a game sells exactly one copy and thousands of people suddenly have the achievements from that disk, then you can say the used market is a problem.

Used games sales fund NEW game sales. Period. If you don't get this you do not understand the used market. I have NEVER been in a used game shop and seen anyone EVER trade in games for cash because they get pennies on the dollar. Every used game I have ever traded in has gone toward a pre-order credit for a brand new title. Companies like GS, et al, give lucrative incentives to customers to trade in old games when buying or preordering the latest/greatest titles.

RAMPANT piracy is almost always a symptom of the distributor not PRICING items appropriately. If the game industry wants to sell 10M+ copies of the majority of titles that are hitting the shelves, then they would have to sell @ around $20 on day one release the problem is that the middle men involved still want an exorbitant cut. It's the exact same thing that happened with music and.It took a complete dismantling of the existing infrastructure via MP3/Apple iTunes for everyone to wake up.

Where are all the used CD shops, now? Gone that's where.

Games will go similarly.Hopefully Apple won't be a major player, though.

hey. where's the baby pirates?

You made me lol all over my chin.

While not true for some of them, I bet you piracy is high in Brazil for the same reason it is high in a lot of second and third world countries. Because the games NEVER COME OUT THERE.

When I was living in Thailand, you couldn't buy a non-pirated copy of a game anywhere. Even the game stores just sold copied games.

not to mention that from what I've heard, if a game DOES happen to make it there it'll cost something like $100 (us) after all their taxes!

And yet video games have had their "most profitable year" over and again every year for decades.

Who cares? Piracy obviousn't doesn't have an effect on sales. It's just dickheads who wouldn't buy it anyway getting their hands on it. Nothing is lost, nothing is gained, it's just... nothing. An issue blown beyond rational proportion by paranoid shareholders.

"Not defending for piracy, but many people, who downloaded pirated games, would not buy the game anyway if they couldn't download it."

On the other hand, not everyone who downloads software would do so if they could afford to buy it.

No matter how "un-hackable" you make a program, someone will eventually find a way to hack it.

Here's an interesting article on software piracy you should read regardless on where you stand on the issue:
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/architecture/UnconventialWisdom.aspx

Wow. ESA really must be low on cash to nab those 9.78 million gifts!

jk

Maybe if the games weren't so goddamn expensive this wouldn't be a problem all over the world.

In Spain the new games for XBOX360 & PS3 much 70€ = 94,31 $
The pirates are they cheat us with those prices.
That does not appear in the surveys are made.

completely agree, the price of the games its high and in some places the prices are so inflated, plus the income its less in most of those countries and in third world countries like Latin America, how can they expect us to pay those outrageous price. Even if you can they dont treat you the same as the others. so you pay more for the games and consoles but you dont get support because "officially" they dont support those markets but then how can they lose money in a place that they dont officially support in the first place.

In Latin America this is specially true. In my country (Dominican Republic) basically you have to import everything because the prices are so inflated that even with taxes taken into account, you still save money. And if you bring something that is worth more that $200 (PS3 Slim, for example) the taxes are even higher.

As a result, many gamers are stuck in the last gen, pirating games on PC or with hacked handhelds.

But baby pirates are way cooler than Lego pirates. :(

Here in Brazil the main problem are taxes!
There is no local production of console game discs and all products are imported.
Besides, there are different taxes for console and PC games, because PC games are considered as a "software" and console games are considered as a "toy" by the law and to "protect" local toy industry, they have greater taxes. The price of a console game is up to (converted) US$185!
PC games have a similar price to US counterparts, but if US$60 is considered by the americans a high price, imagine that in Brazil!

Indeed there's a huge gap in price between console and PC games here. Last year I bought a legit PC copy of Call of Duty 4 on a big retail store for R$50, which was around $25 back then. It even had the instruction manual in portuguese. The same game on a console still goes for over R$180.

Sadly, not every game gets a brazilian release, but Steam is a really good alternative, especially with their crazy sales.

Not only the games, but the consoles are extremely expensive.
This is the recipe for piracy.

Here in Brazil, on a big retail chain the PS3 Slim 250G costs 1,110USD
Uncharted 2 costs around 155USD

I buy my games. I don't see why not. If the game is worth my time to sit and play, then the publisher and developers should receive payment for their work.

You can wine and complaint all you want, but if these folks don't get paid, then you end up with great studios being downsized, diminished production values and cost cutting. You end up with an environment where no one takes risks because revenue is so tight. We end up with safe games and sequel after sequel.

If you put your hard work into a job, you sure as heck want to get paid for it. Can't fork up the $60? Wait a few months for the platinum edition.

I'm with you, good post.

Those countries seem like the ones where games are either not localized very well, not released, or too expensive because of currency differences.

Sometimes I honestly wouldn't blame em if you want to support the market but the retailer and publisher aren't making it a viable option

Wait, and this *doesn't* account for hosting sites like Rapidshare? In that case, you're looking at a fraction of the total right there.

that's not all he put all over your chin

Looks like that's another 9.87 million games not priced appropriately for their respective markets. The first rule of the market is consumers will get what they want one way or another. Companies have the choice to meet that need or not.

Game prices are ridiculous in some parts of the world, when I was in Europe a couple of years ago, I saw Crysis for PC for the currency equivalent of $70 in Prague and COD 4 for PS3 for $100 in Switzerland. In Germany, most games were the same in Euros as they are in the U.S. in dollars. I think PC game prices for multiplatform releases need to be lowered to reflect the reduced cost of porting the game when it has already been released for other platforms, especially when they constantly delay the PC release of a game. The game industry needs to start living in reality and make their prices attractive to all consumers, I bet they would sell a lot more PC games if they would even make the price $30-$35 instead of $50.

Where did these numbers come from? Stop enabling magic made up numbers by reporting them without..ya know...doing actual reporting.

These numbers are made up. It's not our responsibility to support legislating business models that aren't working just because they yell "PIRACY!" whenever a game fails.

Why did Modern Warfare2 sell so well? What? No one wanted to pirate the best selling title ever?

I wonder if warez groups keep statistics on downloads of their releases and share these as facts to the ESA... Sure. These numbers are totally made up and as believable as the music industry claims saying "We would have sold X more CDs than last year but the pirates stole our sales!"

If the product is good it will sell. Just look at the numbers for the best games of last year.

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ESA estimates 'over 9.78 million' pirated game downloads in December

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