Gamers are Killing the Games Industry

Escapist Fourms - "It's taken me a while to realize, but we're the problem. In a way almost no other medium has to deal with, the target audience for games is such that we're a largely untenable audience now that technology on the back-end has gotten to the point where gamers writ large can go toe-to-toe with any anti-piracy actions the developers engage in. While the argument that "pirates can defeat any DRM software easily, so don't use DRM" holds about as much water for me as "burglars can break into your house even if you lock it, so don't lock it", the attitude of "DRM makes me pirate games" is prevalent enough to truly concern me.

Screw the law for a moment (and anyone who knows me, or has read my posts, knows that I don't write that lightly). And let's ignore any arguments about "fairness" and "what's right". We're helping usher in backward steps in gaming as a whole. And this in a way that movies, television, and music don't struggle with as much. Those forms of media have audiences who don't have the capacity, knowledge, or will to pirate. The pirate-ready population of moviegoers isn't as large a proportion as the pirate-ready population of gamers. We're a unique audience in that our capacity to use games (especially for PC gamers) is directly correlated with our ability to pirate them.

It's still prohibitively difficult to pirate games on consoles, but I believe that's the next step. At that point, game companies will either (a) escalate the DRM war, and alienate people, or (b) accept significant populations of people pirating rather than buying. "But-" I hear you cry "it doesn't cost them anything if I play without paying, if the alternative is that I not play at all, and it gives word of mouth, ect." It's possible, but in a weakened economy, that word of mouth is less likely to inspire "more sales" as "more piracy".

"Ah ha-" you reply "but it doesn't cost that much to make a game. Even if we include all the costs of developing Modern Warfare II, they more than made back their investment, probably twice or three-times over". That's true, but somewhat misleading. For every Modern Warfare, there's a dozen Okami. The profits from MW2 go into offsetting the cost of less-well-selling games. Madden pays for Shadow of the Colossus, Pokemon pays for Trauma Center.

Think of it like a pharmaceutical company. The money they "make" off of the sale of their drugs not only pays for their previous investment (or, more likely, future investments), but also for all of their failed products. So, what if, instead of researching low-profit and high-risk-of-failure drugs like antibiotics, all a company did was develop and sell erectile dysfunction medication? That'd kind of suck for us regular folks, wouldn't it?

It's even worse for us gamers (relatively, at least, since we're not talking about death). We expect new products every year, and there's no real consistency. If Phizer makes a cancer drug, then can expect to make good money on it for fifteen years. If Bioware makes a good game, the best they get is one sales season.

And, not for nothing, but without the ability to make up for investment in Okami with massive success in MW2, Okami doesn't get made. Games will become safer and safer, with companies unwilling to invest in innovative ideas, or do anything that won't appeal to the biggest audience possible.

So they need every penny they can get.

For a more proper analogy, think about what's been happening to the porn industry. Without the means to control distribution, and without a vigorous ability to prevent piracy, the industry is suffering heavily. Many studios are going bankrupt, and what was once considered "recession-proof" isn't really "internet-proof". Gone are the days (largely) of actual big-budget pornographic movies. It's all been brought to the lowest common denominator.

"Wait a second" you scratch your chin "what about all of the tube sites that give things like home-videos? Porn is alive and well". Exactly. Pornography has been relegated more and more to small companies making relatively low-budget productions, and to a lot of amateurs.

Do you want that in gaming? Gaming is hung primarily on a backbone of big-budget blockbusters. We want Halo, we want Mass Effect, MW2, and full 3D everywhere. Do you think that a bedroom programming company can do that? Imagine if all of gaming was Peggle and Steam games (not the big-name ones, the "independent" games); would that sate our thirst for games?

We should be helping to defend game companies from pirates, not trying to justify piracy. We should be trying to ensure that every company gets every dollar due it. Otherwise, we have no one to blame when companies re-release the same generic mainstream crap over and over again. Unless we try to make it feasible for companies to take risks, we're asking to be disappointed."

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I dont typicaly pull stories from fourms but I felt this had some insight to it.
C.D.