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[Sloane]

Since when does piracy make the software sales "suddenly" drop?

Or was the DS just recently been made hackable?

Nope, but almost everybody seems to be using an R4 these days. I've seen parents asking for an R4 at a Saturn as a Christmas present for their kids.

/anecdotal evidence

Really, it's awful, and it does hurt the industry. The DS is the best selling platform this gen, but developing DS games just isn't worth it anymore for so many developers. That'a a fact and anybody who's denying it, sadly has not idea what he's talking about.

 

[Gattsu25]

Lower the fucking prices.

The thing is with this particular complaint is that the market still supports this price, even with piracy.

Correction: 50% of the market.

 

[zigg]

Okay piracy sure eats some sales but it has been there for years and even for GBA...

Anecdotally, it seems much more serious now. Particularly with the more widespread Internet-enabled piracy of media.

Just take some mesures so that a 10 year old kid cant just dl and launch a game in two mouse clicks xD

Well, I think they are, with the 3DS. They tried with the DSi, but the popular perception is that it's just a DS with a couple new features, and all the popular software is still for the DS.

now on the other hand when you take DS launch games (and especially Nintendo's) well... Still 40€. .....

The thing is with this particular complaint is that the market still supports this price, even with piracy. People still paid full price for Mario 64 DS years after it debuted. That means the game's value hadn't decreased simply because it'd been on the shelf more than a few weeks, unlike other titles.

Iwata has said he dislikes price drops (and obviously the key reason is that he makes less money on hardware and software that sells for less money) because he thinks it makes consumers regret paying as much as they did for being early adopters. Well, he must be on to something, because a number of Nintendo games go on to sell for a long time, while your typical game curve has a sharp day-one number and drops quickly.

Would I personally like games to get cheaper? Of course I would. Don't be stupid. But they're not going to as long as people pay for them. It also seems illegitimate to me to drop a price because if you don't, people might otherwise steal your product. Not buy your product, sure, but steal... no.

 

[troushers]

I would like the posters claiming that high prices cause piracy to explain why iPhone games at $0.99 are pirated. What price is low enough?

 

[Sloane]

Lower the fucking prices.

People will always find an excuse to justify piracy. In the UK, DS games are cheaper than ever, you can often get new games for £15 or less. Doesn't seem to help.

 

[zigg]

Pirates: "Done"

I don't think it's at all a stretch to say that at least a portion of pirates would buy games if they had no other option. Obviously not all would, and a precious few would buy even a significant fraction the games they download, but some would pay, absolutely.

Judging from cover thread there are more crapwarePal DS games then in US. People must wise up.

I hate to sound like a broken record, but there aren't as many interesting games in the market because devs and pubs have not been able to justify taking the risk on them at least in part due to the rampant piracy problem the platform has.

I'd also like to just throw out there that "crapware" has figured prominently into every successful system's library over time. There's nothing new here.

 

[Gattsu25]

I would like the posters claiming that high prices cause piracy to explain why iPhone games at $0.99 are pirated. What price is low enough?

Please understand that there are some people who would have never bought the game in the first place. 1 pirated copy does not mean 1 lost sale.

You have to offer enough value to the potential customer so as not to lose them to piracy. The chronic pirate would have never bought the game in the first place.

 

[Sloane]

I hate to sound like a broken record, but there aren't as many interesting games in the market because devs and pubs have not been able to justify taking the risk on them at least in part due to the rampant piracy problem the platform has.

That can't be said often enough.

As for "crapware", is that supposed to be an excuse? If so, how? Also, does anybody really think it's the shitty games that people pirate? :lol

Please understand that there are some people who would have never bought the game in the first place. 1 pirated copy does not mean 1 lost sale.

So...?

 

[Mael]

I love the excuses of price, I mean you've got DS games at 40bucks max and ps3/360 games at 70bucks, and DS games are the one that are overpriced?
I mean people were apparently having no problems with GBA games being at 40bucks a pop....or even buying DS games at 40bucks the year before, right?
I also find it especially suspicious that people claim that the drop in sales is due to no localisations from ultra niche product.
Yeah Professor Layton had drop in sales because Square Enix didn't localise Blood of Bahamut :rolleyes

 

[Caesar III]

People will always find an excuse to justify piracy. In the UK, DS games are cheaper than ever, you can often get new games for £15 or less. Doesn't seem to help.

When imported from England the game is not counted towards the "buy-pirate" record for the country the buyer lives in!
But UK should have a much lower percentage here if the import factors in as well.


Piracy on DS is huge around here. Every now and then I see some kids playing DS and when looking closer they have flashcards only. I wonder where they got them from since they are not sold in stores here. Same goes for grown ups. But there I can assume where they got their cards from.

someone above said some people decide to buy a console or handheld by its cracking options. This is the case by a lot of guys I know as well. The buy a console the day they can play free downloaded games (read pirated) on it. The worst one is a guy who bought it's 10th XBox 360 now because of RROD and his hacked consoles dying every now and then :lol

 

[zigg]

Please understand that there are some people who would have never bought the game in the first place. 1 pirated copy does not mean 1 lost sale.

Neither does one pirated copy equal zero lost sales.

You have to offer enough value to the potential customer so as not to lose them to piracy. The chronic pirate would have never bought the game in the first place.

Not at all. Plenty of these people would still go on to buy—though most not likely even a fraction of the games they've downloaded—at least some games.

 

[The Dutch Slayer]

Because its WAYYYY to easy to get your hands on a special card and the games are relatively small in size so a lot of people download them.
EVERYONE I know who has a DS has a card for it and I know over 20 people with ds's.
And I'm not talking about 20 somethings, also all the 8 year olds and the 40+ people use those cards.
Its a big problem, I do think that prices in the EU for ds games are way to high but you will not stop the piracy with that because the people that use the card now will not stop doing that.

 

[crazy monkey]

"In June 2009, Nintendo monitored 10 websites based overseas that allowed people to illicitly download game software, and found that software had been pirated a total 238 million times."

dyum.

 

[SmokyDave]

Piracy is heinous, no doubt.

In this case though, perhaps you shouldn't have strong-armed your way into fucking over the used market in the UK, Nintendo?

 

[Sloane]

Because its WAYYYY to easy to get your hands on a special card and the games are relatively small in size so a lot of people download them.

Well, it'll be interesting to see what happens when all platforms go download-only in a few years (which should make them relatively secure against piracy). Will everyone return to PC gaming? :lol

 

[thefro]

I would like to read the study that confirms that an illegal download equals one missed sale.

It's definitely not one to one, but I'd say once people justify pirating certain games (i.e. overpriced, import not available in my region, etc) it makes them less likely to legitimately buy games, especially with the current economy.

 

[Mael]

Well, it'll be interesting to see what happens when all platforms go download-only in a few years (which should make them relatively secure against piracy). Will everyone return to PC gaming? :lol

Most will probably stop, it's not like it's anything but luxury...
For me it's great I'll go back in scavenger mode and find/finish all the games I could do till then.
Bring on the DD apocalypse, I'll outlast you all!

 

[Benson]

I'm part of the problem, I haven't bought a DS game in the last year.. but that's because there haven't been any I've been interested in.

Maybe Nintendo need to look into the quality of DS titles instead of blaming the drop in sales on piracy.

 

[Gattsu25]

Neither does one pirated copy equal zero lost sales.

Agreed. So what does a 50% drop in sales mean?

Games are a value oriented product. Nintendo has to work with retailers to find a price level that will entice customers to impulse-buy again
I'm not arguing on the side of pirates, I'm just debating Nintendo's logic that piracy is the reason why sales have dropped.

If I had to pay the equivalent of $40USD for DS games--I wouldn't. On the other hand...I wouldn't pirate the fucking things, either.

 

[The Dutch Slayer]

Well, it'll be interesting to see what happens when all platforms go download-only in a few years (which should make them relatively secure against piracy). Will everyone return to PC gaming? :lol

You know that EVERYTHING get pirated he?
EVERY download only title from XBLA to steam you can find if you know what you are looking for, so that will not help even if the system is "airtight" there will always be a way for pirates to get there hands on it.

 

[zerokoolpsx]

Nintendo Co. said magicom hardware was largely to blame for a nearly 50-percent drop in sales in Europe in recent months.

The prices are still too high for DS games. Almost everyone I know who has a DS, has an R4. Also a lot of shovel/crapware. DSi games are region locked. I complain when games are 60 bucks over here, so in Japan, Australia, and Europe, you guys are paying over inflated prices. I can understand why someone would pirate, but I don't advocate it. 40 Euros is like 53 dollars for a DS game.

 

[jorma]

Oh good, another thread where GAFfers who probably pirate the shit out of games are going to furiously rage at companies who for some reason have a problem with people illegally stealing their property.

It's weird but your nick has had me believe you were actually a lawyer.

 

[neorej]

Agreed. So what does a 50% drop in sales mean?

They sold 50% less. It could have a shitload of reasons, but as long as there's piracy to blame, why the hell not? Surely, not the level of quality or price can be influences on a salesdrop...

There has been no study at all that has proven a relation between filesharing and there have been several studies that have proven the opposite, among which an inquery by The Independent.

 

[Notorious_Roy]

But you can still buy them. So why download them?
And if you can't read them there is no reason to download them.
Your argument is as broken as it is invalid.

Why is my argument invalid? I'm just saying there aren't many DS games in Europe I want to play. And that's why my DS purchases have dropped from 10 a year to 0 a year in about 5 years time.

I'm not talking about downloading at all. I'm just saying the drop in sales is not 100% due to R4 and friends.

Also, importing Japanese DS games isn't something that's going to help the European sales and that's what this thread is about. So maybe YOUR argument is as broken as it is invalid.

 

[Mael]

Why is my argument invalid? I'm just saying there aren't many DS games in Europe I want to play. And that's why my DS purchases have dropped from 10 a year to 0 a year in about 5 years time.

I'm not talking about downloading at all. I'm just saying the drop in sales is not 100% due to R4 and friends.

Also, importing Japanese DS games isn't something that's going to help the European sales and that's what this thread is about. So maybe YOUR argument is as broken as it is invalid.

You're telling us there's a significant drop in sales due to SquareEnix and co not localising niche games that wouldn't have sold here anyway, wat?

 

[Notorious_Roy]

You're telling us there's a significant drop in sales due to SquareEnix and co not localising niche games that wouldn't have sold here anyway, wat?

For me. Yes. That is what I'm saying.

 

[Nickiepoo]

I don't know many people who own a DS (I do, I love it, and I buy all my games), but they all seem to pirate for it.

'Any games you'd recommend'
'Get a flash card, then you can try them all'

sigh

 

[Mael]

For me. Yes. That is what I'm saying.

You cannot account for a significant drop in sales the non release of games that wouldn't have an impact on the software sales!
That's like saying that Pokemon Company not releasing Pokemon Puzzle 32 this year would account on 50% sales drop for DS software this year when there's more important games (such as SoulSilver/HeartGold) going for it in the same timeframe!

That simply doesn't make sense, it does account for some lost sales but NOT anything significant.
But for YOU that CAN be significant though (but we're not talking about you specifically here, right?)

 

[red shoe paul]

It's just like Ubisoft blaming piracy for the Imagine series.
Maybe they just don't understand that nobody buys their crapware.

Did you see both Pokemon games sale numbers? Pretty damn good.

 

[shuri]

Wait a minute, wasnt the magicom an early snes generation era copier? Why are they calling ds flashcards magicoms?

 

[ITA84]

They mention April-December 2009 as the period of sales dropping, which is weird, since the DSi came out in April, and that should have slowed piracy down, if anything. The R4 was available a lot earlier, so I can't really tell... unless some European retailer started selling it en masse around that period (I wouldn't know, I got mine online).

 

[The Faceless Master]

In June 2009, Nintendo monitored 10 websites based overseas that allowed people to illicitly download game software, and found that software had been pirated a total 238 million times.

Multiplied by the average unit price for software, the figure translates into 1 trillion yen ($10.7 billion) in lost sales.

hahahaahahahahahahhahahahahha

downloaded rom = lost sale.

don't a ton of people collect every rom just to have 'a complete set'?

 

[Mael]

hahahaahahahahahahhahahahahha

downloaded rom = lost sale.

don't a ton of people collect every rom just to have 'a complete set'?

remove the rom card to the less savvy of them, how much would have bought games now?

 

[Sloane]

If I had to pay the equivalent of $40USD for DS games--I wouldn't.

Why? And would you pay 70 Euros for a 360 / PS3 game?

Maybe Nintendo need to look into the quality of DS titles instead of blaming the drop in sales on piracy.

Again, piracy is one of the reasons for the lack of quality, and you can't deny that piracy on the DS is huge. Even (or especially) great games like GTA, Mario & Luigi, Zelda, and Layton sold much less than they should have.

 

[Somnid]

I think one of the most sick things I've heard were dudes in a class about game design talking about how they use R4s to pirate games. I think some of them wanted to get into the industry too. I was stunned. Sometimes it's less apathy and not being able to put 2 and 2 together.

 

[shuri]

Back when the original gameboy game out, I'm pretty sure that titles were 20-25$ each.

 

[Sloane]

Back when the original gameboy game out, I'm pretty sure that titles were 20-25$ each.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation

 

[DryEyeRelief]

I think the most sick things I've heard were dudes in a class about game design talking about how they use R4s to pirate games. I think some of them wanted to get into the industry too. I was stunned. Sometimes it's less apathy than not being about to put 2 and 2 together.

Reading the piracy threads on this site, I often come across anecdotes from people in the industry, telling of how their coworkers even pirate games. It's crazy.

 

[Hari Seldon]

So is this R4 thing new? Does it just make it super easy to pirate instead of the previous hax?

 

[Kunan]

I do think that prices in the EU for ds games are way to high but you will not stop the piracy with that because the people that use the card now will not stop doing that.

Pretty much. It's too late for most of these suggestions of dropping prices.


I make any friend I have who has one feel reeeeeally guilty, as their pirating and suggesting other people pirate too is affecting my job future.

 

[Coen]

Enlighten me if I'm misinformed, but I was under the assumption recent DS-software has been difficult to pirate? Some regular customers ('hardcore' gamers) have started to buy some of the bigger DS games at our shop, something they haven't been doing for years. We used to sell most DS software to casuals, and I guess we still do, but the gap is definitely closing. We've been selling a lot less DS software 'though, that much is true. I'd imagine ubi is especially concerned.

 

[Mael]

Back when the original gameboy game out, I'm pretty sure that titles were 20-25$ each.

You have a shitty memory,
I can't tell for everywhere but here before everything went Euro, games were of the equivalent of 30 to 35€ at the very least.
Less than 30€ (in fix'd conversion) is unheard of for new Gameboy games where I live, I doubt it's very different anywhere in the Original 6 of the EU.
If I had the time, the means and the will I could even dig up some old bills saying as such.

 

[Cep]

Neither does one pirated copy equal zero lost sales.

Not defending piracy or anything, but this is very true.

I live in a dorm, and I have seen people pirate stuff they would never in a million years consider purchasing (my roommate is your usual dudebro and he pirated FF13, he never really got far into the game).

 

[Somnid]

Enlighten me if I'm misinformed, but I was under the assumption recent DS-software has been difficult to pirate? Some regular customers ('hardcore' gamers) have started to buy some of the bigger DS games at our shop, something they haven't been doing for years. We used to sell most DS software to casuals, and I guess we still do, but the gap is definitely closing. We've been selling a lot less DS software 'though, that much is true. I'd imagine ubi is especially concerned.

They've tried things but it's usually patched out fairly quickly. That and DSi blocks older cards so if they are long time pirates they need a newer DSi compatible one.

 

[Like the hat?]

I just don't understand the point of downloading a ton of stuff that you'll play for 5 minutes. Hell I can't even keep up with the stuff I buy, I'd hate to see how big my backlog would be if I downloaded games.

as for people saying there is nothing worth buying on the DS, that would mean that they've exhausted all of the fantastic games that have already come out (but that's a different topic all together. I currently have 53 DS games, and haven't finished 34 of those, heh. I need more free time!)

 

[DryEyeRelief]

I just don't understand the point of downloading a ton of stuff that you'll play for 5 minutes. Hell I can't even keep up with the stuff I buy, I'd hate to see how big my backlog would be if I downloaded games.

When you pirate, you get a backlog for free.

 

[The Faceless Master]

remove the rom card to the less savvy of them, how much would have bought games now?

well, they're going by volume. there's like 5000 roms, including quite a few of games that aren't even in print plus stuff that's not even for sale and were prizes only, and they're just counting them all as lost sales.

I think one of the most sick things I've heard were dudes in a class about game design talking about how they use R4s to pirate games. I think some of them wanted to get into the industry too. I was stunned. Sometimes it's less apathy and not being able to put 2 and 2 together.

several devs on GAF have mentioned that many of their fellow developers are very savvy pirates.

 

[Cep]

I just don't understand the point of downloading a ton of stuff that you'll play for 5 minutes. Hell I can't even keep up with the stuff I buy, I'd hate to see how big my backlog would be if I downloaded games.

It cost you nothing(except perhaps your moral integrity) to try.

People love free shit, even if it is junk half the time.

 

[Jex]

Unrelated figures, but still useful when considering thinking about ther terrible argument that
one pirated game = one lost sale.

US Government admits most piracy estimates are bogus

 

[WillyFive]

I just don't understand the point of downloading a ton of stuff that you'll play for 5 minutes. Hell I can't even keep up with the stuff I buy, I'd hate to see how big my backlog would be if I downloaded games.

as for people saying there is nothing worth buying on the DS, that would mean that they've exhausted all of the fantastic games that have already come out (but that's a different topic all together. I currently have 53 DS games, and haven't finished 34 of those, heh. I need more free time!)

But most people don't play games for only 5 minutes.