The video game world is being taken over by software piracy that is dooming the packaged disc industry. According to many technology news outlets piracy will boost business with the pirating of videogames. Lawrence Lessig writes in his book, Free Culture, piracy is a positive in some areas of business by stating, “Many kinds of ‘piracy’ are useful and productive, to produce either new content or new ways of doing business” (pg. 66)
In the article, “Video Game Piracy is good for Business,” from IGN, Scott Steinberg discloses the positive impact piracy will have on the developers market. The article makes a point by saying that videogames are beginning to become to expensive to users and piracy is a way to get by those costs. Free to play model video games on the Iphone and on Facebook are taking over the business of the videogame developers. Video game users want the ability to pay low costs to play the games they like when they want and expensive games just do not cut it. Scott Steinberg brings up the bold point by exclaiming piracy can potentially be a big opportunity. The opportunity he is writing about is, “When game creators stop focusing on security measures, this lowers production costs. Making titles widely available to the public may be the solution when combined with the freemium business model: Letting people pay what they want, when they want, can definitely expand gaming's reach and result in more revenue.” To put it simply if video game developers lower there costs on video games, more people will have the ability to buy the products.
In my analysis of the article from Scott Steinberg, the journalist brings up a good point; by lowering the costs of videogames the industry will undoubtedly reach a bigger market. In today’s society people are looking for cost friendly merchandise but, with rising prices on videogames piracy is an easy way of getting these expensive games for free. Developers need to take advantage of the point Scott Steinberg is proposing. In my experience with video games, being an avid video gamer, I find myself passing on buying $60 games because the cost is just too high. Being a college student and not having the extra cash to buy video games is hampering my gaming which leads me to indulge in the free games online and on my IPod instead. Cutting costs of video games will give the ability to reach a broader market and people who might not be able to buy them at the present cost.
I like the point you analyzed by Steinberg, it is valid and should be looked at more by developers. But as for me and the avid gamer that i am, i do not find myself passing on the $60 games nor do the massive crowds of people who line up to buy these games either. I really like the point but i dont feel like i am being persuaded to believe in one side or the other.
ReplyDeleteYour analysis of the argument that Steinberg proposes is effective in that it backs up your point about lowering the cost of these games so that it becomes more available to many different types of people. I think that you can strengthen this blog post by asserting that piracy is a temporary means of creating new ways of doing business. That way, piracy doesn't have to be entirely prohibited and deemed, definitively, deviant by society and can function as a tool that businesses can employ to rethink their mode of conducting business. Great post, good connections, very fluid!
ReplyDelete