The Negative Effects of Video Game Piracy

Have you ever dreamed of having an unlimited number of video games at your fingertips - without paying for anything them? Given consumers’ natural demand for free products, piracy has been a topic of contention since the 1985 debut of the Nintendo Entertainment System. Although pirates commonly defend their actions by arguing that content developers receive their fair share of money through sales, the unfortunate truth is that they don’t: generally, 1 of 15 copies are pirated of your average game. Piracy affects developers extremely negatively: since their efforts are insufficiently rewarded, they lose the urge to devote the time and resources necessary to produce quality games, and stop innovating in the competition for sales. They churn out what is termed ‘shovelware’ – low-calibre games that appeal to wide mainstream audiences, usually via popular licenses – to make up lost profits, which hurts the industry in multiple ways. At the root, however, the problem lies with the consumer and the ease with which games can be pirated.

Pirating games is exceedingly easy. For example, the Nintendo DS - the world’s most popular portable video game console – needs only a flash cart (essentially an adapter that allows a memory card to be inserted) to run pirated software. Though it’s not quite as simple to pirate Sony PSP content, the task is still manageable: after making slight modifications to the memory card, users are free to run unauthorized software. Most tellingly, however, the world’s best selling console to date – the Sony PlayStation 2 – needs only a slight physical modification to enable users to run software that removes restrictions on pirated games.

Piracy’s impact on the gaming industry as a whole takes the form of ...

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...ble games and dozens of terrible game consoles. This incident could have been averted, had video game developers taken more care and showed more pride in their products.

Therefore, video game piracy will impede developers’ ability to create new games. If this trend continues, many great companies will go out of business: it would be horrific for the economy because many jobs would be lost. Piracy chokes the developer’s will to innovate and deprives them of funds that are used to create games of worth. In summary, mass video game piracy discourages the production of quality games, which in turn reduces game sales, leading to more rampant piracy. It is a vicious downward spiral towards the abyss of rubbish games from which the true game aficionados can have no deliverance. It is up to the consumer to decide whether or not it is worth it to pirate video games.