I'd like to start with an obnoxious title. Piracy is a weird issue, especially in the gamespace, and, quite frankly, I'm not entirely sure there will be a victor in the long run. It's been an interesting dialog so far, however, and there've been a number of points made to both sides.
Jason Robert Brown started a discussion with a teenage girl on the subject of copying sheet music. Though it's a very different medium, I feel there are a lot of similar sentiments to be shared:
http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2010/06/fighting_with_teenagers_a_copy.php
Now, the article itself is incredibly dense, so I'll go over the basics:
The girl, referring to herself as Eleanor, is contacted through a sheet music "trading" site by the original composer of the works. What followed was a debate as to whether there was an ethical or moral infringement, not just a legal one, in what the law describes as "unfair use" of the original creator's works. The end result played out with Brown essentially teaching about copyright law from scratch. Though some of Brown's analogies are imperfect in how they're expressed, as indicated by the myriad of comments hung up over his initial "screwdriver" analogy, he makes a lot of sound points. If someone creates something and intends to put it up for sale rather than give it out for free, is he not entitled to that payment?
Now, at no point does Brown assume the system is perfect. It still has plenty of problems. Copyright laws themselves have been a veritable clusterfuck almost since day one, and only get worse as time goes on. Yet, there are plenty of points one can follow which will nearly evade any significant sordid events. Brown's point, ultimately, is to merely express what the law is, and how the current moral fiber of those who attempt to step around these laws have struck a questionable low.
I'm not one to say whether Brown is wholly right, and that has more to do with my dissatisfaction to the current system in place, something Brown seems to agree with. He expresses his point well enough, and though there are some comments a bit out of line for him [something he made a particular point of, considering he left Eleanor's own words unedited as well as his own], he doesn't denigrate his point with sidetracking or talking down to the recipient.
I look at piracy as a whole, and there's only one thing I can think of: It's illegal. That should go without question. Yes, the laws should be altered, but theft is theft. However, that isn't to say I am unquestionably against piracy to every extent. There are situations where piracy can actually be helpful for the average consumer; acting as a license-free rental, pirating a game can inform a user exactly what the game is about before buying. On the consumer end, this is a dream: Trying a game before you buy, absolutely free of charge, could be considered an impetus to take a closer look at a game one would not normally give a second glance. It could potentially save the user a good $50-60 they might have spent on a game they wouldn't even like, simply because a preview or review they've read happened to praise the game. It's easy to say one should be careful with any opinion given out, especially with reviews, but hype has the power to sway even the strong-willed. It is, on the surface, a great concept.
On the developer/publisher side, it's a loss of sales. Is it significant? Using a pro-piracy article as evidence, it's at most 10% of total sales as far as iPod apps are concerned:
http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/05/Another-view-of-game-piracy
Don't get me wrong; Piracy isn't nearly the problem game developers and publishers make it out to be. The number of pirates compared to legitimate buyers of games is incredibly dwarfed. It's easy to argue that the majority of pirates are those who have no intention of buying a certain game anyway, thus incurring an even lower number in lost sales. The problem is the fact that it's an unaccounted for market, one that cannot be accurately described. On its surface, again, it doesn't seem like much, but what developers and publishers will tell you is another fallacy: There is no telling what those who pirate the games would do if piracy wasn't an option. Would they buy the games? Would they ignore them entirely? Again, it's completely unaccounted for, yet it is typically the argument to counter the previous.
There are only a few things which could be taken as absolutes: Piracy, as it is being done now, is illegal. There's no argument there. DRM practices are ineffective against piracy, and are, at absolute best, an extra hindrance for those who legitimately buy these games. Very little argument there. With PC games which require absolutely a constant internet connection -- agonizing considering, in the case of Assassin's Creed II, its console counterpart doesn't require a connection at all-- and limiting the number of household computers which are allowed to have a game installed on them, it is a ridiculous uphill climb, one in which pirates are able to easily avoid.
Here's the problem: Piracy, to pirates, is seen as a rebellion against the current system in many cases. Piracy, to developers and publishers, is seen as DRM not being effective enough. These publishers and developers actually do have the right to not want their games stolen. Of course, not wanting it to happen is no defense, but neither are the various services they're trying to implement to prevent it.
So, of course, it seems we're at an impasse. Neither side is right, but technically, neither side is exactly wrong. Illegal things have happened on at least one side, certainly, but there is a clear message here, and it's the same thing that's happened with the music industry and with literature: The system needs changing. Of course, literature, or, rather, fine literature to be exact, found a pretty decent answer with eBooks. It's not perfect yet (I could certainly do with having an eBook code for every hard copy I buy), but it's difficult to complain too heavily against it. Music is still at odds, as even the musicians are torn on the issue, young artists and old. Games just need some kind of answer to this problem of piracy.
But what are the answers? This is yet another problem, as the pirates and the publishers and developers are really making no meaningful attempts to open a dialog. This happens because there's no real unified voice on either side; each company enacts its own version of DRM, each pirate finds different sites to torrent from. It's honestly enough to want to beat one's head in against a wall, because both sides are claiming to take the moral high ground when all they're doing is enacting severe stubbornness. How are they supposed to start a dialog when everyone's values are mixed?
There are at least some interesting individual solutions. Services like Steam are making it more beneficial to buy games through them, by having a site which basically does a lot of the nastier work, such as patch downloads, making DLC available on the same service, an instant messaging client unique to the service, and even an in-game browser, and it somehow works for just about every single game in the service. OnLive, the cloud-based game streaming service, also for PC, helps those who want high quality PC gaming without the thousand-dollar PC purchase a chance to play the games they'd otherwise not have the money for, all for a subscription fee. Hell, it even offers rentals. Of course, this doesn't quite answer the same problem on consoles, of which there are still difficulties. Demo versions are getting more and more difficult to make thanks to how complicated games are getting, an issue that caused one of the largest gaming conventions on the planet, the Electronics Entertainment Expo (E3), to falter for a few years. This means people aren't able to try out games before they buy nearly as easily as before.
What seems to work, or, at the very least, what seems to work for the time being, is an answer that makes a lot of sense: Those who buy the game legitimately get tons of developer support. Give players a reason to lay down the money. THQ has been making some interesting pushes, by offering older games for practically nothing when you buy a brand new game in their line (Vigil Games' Darksiders came with a redemption code for a copy of Red Faction: Guerilla, for instance). Sony's recent Playstation Network push, Playstation Plus, offers full games on both trial periods and in complete form while you're with the service, running through a cycle of titles evidently by a per-month basis.
Of course, some answers don't seem to be received quite as well: EA has made mention of an Online Pass, au gratis for folks who pay for a game new, is as it sounds, as it allows folks to get online with their games for no charge. Those who get it used have to pay an extra $10 to get in on it. This is especially confounding, considering this was a service that has since been considered, and has been executed as, common sense. If you get a sports game, you get to play it online, provided you have the capabilities. What's worse is, Ubisoft is considering the same plan, meaning those looking to save a little money will end up having to pay $10 more per used title, infuriating considering used titles in most major used games retail places only have a markdown of $5 for pre-played games, thus essentially adding a $5 charge for those "unwise" enough to buy a title just a little bit more cheaply.
There's no answer that everyone seems to agree on, and it's doubtful there'll be one any time soon. DRM seems to be getting more and more annoying. Those who support piracy are claiming this is part of the new business model, yet won't explain what the new business model actually is. There are a lot of cogs in the wheel of this situation, and with every proposed solution, with every point of view given, any number of cogs are left out of circulation, and the system goes haywire.
This post isn't necessarily to decide what the answer is, or even propose that there is a solution on the way. The goal here is to point out how complicated things are, without even touching heavily on the decline of PC gaming, on new markets cropping up -- such as the dubiously named "casual market" -- or even the new technologies entering into the gaming business with price tags difficult to swallow, including the Microsoft 360's Kinect (currently marked at $150) and the PS3's Move (which includes two separate controllers and a camera bundled together with a Wii Sports game for only about $50 less than the Kinect), and with very few games actually there to back up any justification to jump in. Piracy isn't the biggest problem facing the industry, but it's certainly one of very few issues as loud as it is.
Perhaps, when we have one single console on the market and no others, and it is completely impervious to hacking, perhaps, just perhaps, this issue will go away. Until then, we'll have to deal with both sides squabbling, not getting anywhere, and constantly throwing stones, hoping something lands with any form of impact instead of just getting regular gamers caught in the crossfire.
