The gaming world is being taken over by piracy and the videogame business you would think would be losing business but, the opposite is happening. According technology based 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) We can divide piracy into four different categories: pirating the game instead of buying it, sampling the game before purchasing, owning a game that is no longer in production, and getting a game because it was free in the first place. Pirating a game instead of buying the game is the bad option according to Lessig. The other three options of pirating all are good ways of pirating because as an outcome of doing one of these more advertisement comes towards these companies.
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 too 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. These free to play videogames are being created then bought by the computer company and only being given out when the new high powered PC’s or platform which they are on come out. This is good business for both the PC manufactures because consumers who want the videogame will buy the PC in order to play the game, therefore a boost in sales. Another example of this is the title, “Angry Birds” which is on the Iphone, in order to play this game you have to buy an Apple product with the ability to play this game. This boosts Apple and because the game designer already got paid by Apple he or she doesn’t have to worry about game sales going up or down.
Another reason why people are pirating videogames is because 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.” An example of this coming into play in the videogame industry is games like Farmville. The first part of the game is all free but, to continue and to get the best options for the games you have to pay actual money to get the item. These games allow the person to sample the game, just like Lessig’s type of piracy, and then to buy it. To put it simply if video game developers lower their 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. Another way sway people to buy games would be to have pay to play games which will allow consumers to sample the game therefore, creating an advertisement in its own right. As Lessig writes, “…piracy is motivated by a new way of spreading content caused by changes in the technology of distribution” (pg. 75). 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.
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