Digital Pirates Will Pay!

I am not talking about walking the plank, or spending an eternity in Davy Jones's locker, I am not even referring to seafaring pirates! But I am talking about digital piracy, illegal downloading, and one of the hottest topics on copy infringement today:

Will a Pirate pay for a game they have downloaded illegally?

The funny thing is that I think most are consigned to the fact that illegal downloaders will never pay! PC Publishers should accept it and that the losses are minuscule! So much that people have stopped asking questions, or worse, looking for some answers.

But how do you find out if illegal downloaders are willing to buy games? I mean we are talking about illegal downloaders here, so asking them has to be stupid? But this is the kind of thinking that is fundamentally wrong. Granted not everyone tells the truth, but for the most part, most people are law abiding citizens?

If you like a game you have downloaded, do you buy it?

This is the exact question one person posed on a private p2p tracking site! If you are a member you can go see the independent poll in their forums.

And the choices were: 

1. All the time -- I try to support good developers whenever I can.
2. Yes, on occasion -- But only if I found it to be amazing.
3. Rarely -- Only for multipler [Multiplayer] support or other extras that you can't pirate.
4. Never -- I wouldn't dare part with money for something I can get for free.
5. I don't play videogames because they're childish and I'm better than you.

From past experience of the piracy network we have guesstimated that 10% of illegal downloads could be potential purchases. This isn't produced from hard facts; however, from observation of illegal downloading habits, we believe it's a fair assessment.

We were wrong...!

The poll suggests the figures are much higher!

Here you can see that 21% would purchase the game, and if it was popular, this figure would rise a further 43% (Total of 64%). The Poll then goes on to claim even higher figures when you account for multiplayer access, adding 22%, something that isn't easily pirated. That's a whopping 86% of illegal downloaders would buy; as long as it fulfilled the first 3 criteria.

This independent survey shows that most illegal downloaders, at least on this private tracker, will pay for games. More importantly only 10% refuse to pay no matter what. This private tracker also caters for other digital products, so the last option with 3% of the vote, is just an option for those that don't play games.

If we used the torrentfreak's top 5 most illegal downloaded games of 2010, the top spot game Call of Duty: Black Ops was illegally downloaded 4,270,000 times. And seeing as it was top of the illegal charts it must be a popular game, so if you say that 64% of the illegal market would have bought the game. This puts the reclaim at 2,732,800 units, giving a figure of € 122,948,672 ($163,940,672).

The PC version sold in Europe at €44.99 and $59.99 in America. What is most telling is that the PC version only sold roughly 685,000 units in the US alone; assuming that the PC market share was 5%. The estimated the PC sales would be € 30,818,150 ($41,093,150), which is barely a fraction of the estimated losses.

"Black Ops top selling game ever, 13.7m US units sold" 11^th March 2011 (http://www.nextvideogames.net/black-ops-top-selling-game-ever-13-7m-us-units-sold/)

Then of course the flip side is that if these figures are true, and believable? Is piracy actually a problem in the first place? Or is it the mere rants of the publishing houses and their offense to the fact that people have access to their products for free.

It's probably a little of both, while the majority of people would be willing to purchase games. If they can get it for free why bother paying for it? We are all a little guilty of good intentions and the occasional tap dance on the path to hell.

Of course the real answer to the ultimate piracy question isn't that easy, and needs a lot more research. But still the fundamental underlining fact is that it supports the claim that illegal downloaders will pay for games.

But what do you think?

If people illegally download do you think they would pay for a game?

Or do you think that you'll never get money out of them?

Do you download illegal and buy a legal license? Or just illegal download?