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Nintendo: DS Piracy Causing A Nearly 50% Software Sales Drop In Europe
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
Piracy is huge where I am. I'm the only student I know that has a legit copy of Office on my PC. I'm the only one who buys DS games. I'm the only one who buys music and movies 100% of the time. And the worst part. People think I'm a freak because I actually spend money on games/movies/music/software. If you can get it for free, why spend money on it? ><
edit:
Concerning the DS, I've only bought two games for it in the past year (Platinum and SoulSilver), and both I've imported from the US. Prices are too high in Europe for DS games.
edit:
Concerning the DS, I've only bought two games for it in the past year (Platinum and SoulSilver), and both I've imported from the US. Prices are too high in Europe for DS games.
I read something about studios no longer selling DVDs in Spain, b/c they consider it a lost market to piracy. Same with South Korea. The culture and governments of those countries don't care.
I think it's just a case where there's no local harm. People in southern Europe are just stealing from large corporations in the US and Japan, and to them those companies already have so much money. It won't hurt anything if they steal.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-spain30-2010mar30,0,6665218,full.story
I think it's just a case where there's no local harm. People in southern Europe are just stealing from large corporations in the US and Japan, and to them those companies already have so much money. It won't hurt anything if they steal.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-spain30-2010mar30,0,6665218,full.story
I don't get, why so many people seem to be on the pirates' side here. I probably spend 600 Euros or so every year on videogames, while other people play the same games for free. How can anyone who actually buys games not hate piracy?
All these stupid excuses... Crappy games, exchange rates, high prices, release schedules, downloads don't equal lost sales... Are you kidding me?
/rage
All these stupid excuses... Crappy games, exchange rates, high prices, release schedules, downloads don't equal lost sales... Are you kidding me?
/rage
Sloane said:
It's because some part of Gaf is stuck in bizarro world, they somehow hate Nintendo when they take an anti piracy mode but they love Digital Distribution that is basically the death of consumer rights.
And some will go to great length to explain why both are perfectly normal opinions :-/
edit :
and before people jump on me, I find perfectly normal that people pirate games if they're not part of the actual market (don't have proper distribution channels).
I mean it's not like they could actually pay the stupid price hikes either :-/
I mean they don't have access to the games and all, they can only pirate or do something else and they don't affect in any way the market I'm in, they basically don't exists as far as my view of the market is.
In short I don't care.
Sloane said:
Seems it will all be moot, as they said right there they are going to focus on consoles that cant be pirated. Will be interesting to see the 3DS. If it cant be pirated, you can bet your ass that alot of the people raging in this thread will be in a new thread with their bullshit veiled under the guise of 'wut, no homebrew!?'.
Going to be very interesting, especially considering PSP2 will have to do the exact same thing if it wants to sell ANY freaking software.
SouthernDragon
Member
Europe: Excessive Pricing Causing A Nearly 50% Software Sales Drop In Europe
There's a difference between "being on the pirates' side" and calling out an unrealistic publisher scapegoat. All those "excuses" you listed are potentially valid, which means that blaming the sales decline exclusively on a singular unverifiable factor just isn't very convincing.Sloane said:
Durante said:
Still claiming simply that 50% of the sales dropping being due to poor localisation effort on fucking niche games nobody ever bought and prices (when they were perfectly okay the year before and didn't affect all the other similar products) is to say the least not very convincing
I am not saying it's not related to piracy but I have found especially on the DS that there's been a drop of compelling games to play that have been released lately especially compared to a couple years ago, but I would also say that there's more factors than just piracy that causes the sales drop.
MikeE21286
Member
I live in America, so I'm obviously outside of a territory which gets ravaged brutally by absurd pricing, but I still don't think that pricing is the main reason for pirating on the DS in Europe, or any country. It has to do with ease plain and simple.
I think that if the pricing were to even be, or become, reasonable (i.e reasonable as in lining up with American standards -- which is probably the cheapest place to buy games) that almost a small fraction of people who pirate now would stop pirating.
I think that if the pricing were to even be, or become, reasonable (i.e reasonable as in lining up with American standards -- which is probably the cheapest place to buy games) that almost a small fraction of people who pirate now would stop pirating.
How is piracy unverifiable? Everyone knows it's happening, every single developer will tell you it has gotten worse and worse.Durante said:
The DS itself still does great sales numbers every month, the user base keeps growing but the software sales decline by 50 percent. There are more than enough games worth buying, the prices haven't risen since 2005 (in Europe, most DS games are actually cheaper now), and who exactly cares about exchange rates?
Valid excuses? Right.
MurkyZebra2417
Member
You really are excusing piracy with overpriced games?
Hey, I want this Ferrari, but it's overpriced, so i'm just gonna steal it...
I get laughed at that I buy my games, PC, DS or Wii. When I tell people that i bought a new game they are like "WTF, you buy games? Just download them! What, you have a unchipped PS2 and bought games for that too? You are such a looser".
Piracy has become the "normal" thing for gamers, we legit customers are the outsiders, sad world :/
Hey, I want this Ferrari, but it's overpriced, so i'm just gonna steal it...
I get laughed at that I buy my games, PC, DS or Wii. When I tell people that i bought a new game they are like "WTF, you buy games? Just download them! What, you have a unchipped PS2 and bought games for that too? You are such a looser".
Piracy has become the "normal" thing for gamers, we legit customers are the outsiders, sad world :/
Tarin02543
Member
A coworker of mine brought up his chipped Wii over lunch, he has like 200 burned roms but he "hardly" plays it. It's like people already see games on the shelf as 'theft' because they don't see it as a product but as something you should get free from the start anyway.
It angers me but I can't express my feelings otherwise I'm viewed as a "freak" that loves videogames too much.
It angers me but I can't express my feelings otherwise I'm viewed as a "freak" that loves videogames too much.
It'd be interesting to have a study on this to differentiate the factors that could come into play.
(The whole thing about supporting a developer so that they may make a new version of $enjoyable_game doesn't seem to cross peoples minds for whatever reson.)
Price, is it considered to be too expensive as a whole? By how many of the pirates, and is that too expensive in comparison to "free" so to speak?
Ease, it's easy to do it and since I don't give a hoot about the () part, what do I[Pirate] care?
Other terretories having unfair advantages such as earlier releases or far better pricing? This one I doubt, except prehaps the fact that $Sought_after_game may in some cases be released on torrents many days before it hits EU shelves.
How much "fat" is there in the download numbers? If you can download a title for free more or less, why not download a huge amount of them while you're at it? So instead of this person downloading a game instead of buying it (an assumption), he/she downloads the interesting title and twenty others, because why not?
(The whole thing about supporting a developer so that they may make a new version of $enjoyable_game doesn't seem to cross peoples minds for whatever reson.)
Price, is it considered to be too expensive as a whole? By how many of the pirates, and is that too expensive in comparison to "free" so to speak?
Ease, it's easy to do it and since I don't give a hoot about the () part, what do I[Pirate] care?
Other terretories having unfair advantages such as earlier releases or far better pricing? This one I doubt, except prehaps the fact that $Sought_after_game may in some cases be released on torrents many days before it hits EU shelves.
How much "fat" is there in the download numbers? If you can download a title for free more or less, why not download a huge amount of them while you're at it? So instead of this person downloading a game instead of buying it (an assumption), he/she downloads the interesting title and twenty others, because why not?
The problem is that it's hard to get people to stop once they've started pirating, but easy to get them to start when you do stupid things with pricing and distribution.MikeE21286 said:
The biggest issue with piracy is the way companies respond to it in an anti-consumer manner. Cut off someone's Internet when they download music? Sure, why not. Let's just ignore any studies that say that people who download a lot also buy a lot.
OldJadedGamer
Banned
To all the folks in Europe complaining about the cost of games... how is it that Europe (according to GAF) is "Sonyland" and the PS3 does so well over there yet it's the system that can't play pirated games at all so each person must buy legit games to play on the system. Obviously the price of games can't be too bad if a legit system that is even the most expensive out of the bunch can do well. I think the cost thing is just an excuse.
Oh, and I do agree that 1 download does not mean 1 less sale and a horrible way to judge something like that.
Oh, and I do agree that 1 download does not mean 1 less sale and a horrible way to judge something like that.
MikeE21286
Member
aeolist said:
If it weren't easy though most pepople would not do it in the first place. It would become/stay a small segmented part of the overall installed base of consumers, compared to the (nearly) majority of consumers that this report says it has become
Technosteve
Banned
lawblob said:
you are some kind of prophet
fatty
Member
shuri said:
But then you would lose the competitive pricing model that is offered by retail. And then what about DSiWare? I've been contemplating picking up a DSi XL but from what I understand any DSiWare that I buy would be for that system only and I wouldn't be able to transfer it to another DSi or the 3DS later on down the line. I'm in the belief that if I buy a game I should be able to play it on any system I own that is compatible with it and I'm worried about how these types of things will be handled in the future.
D
Deleted member 1235
Unconfirmed Member
lawblob said:
:lol
europeans have the internet, they know the shits out in america, they follow the news, they have to wait (sometimes months) for this game to come out in their country where it will cost more for the same thing.
What do you think is going to happen? If the situation was reversed American piracy rates would be the high ones.
it's not rocket science. If you start releasing at the same time in all territories you'll limit the pirate market a bit.
Also, pirated copy doesn't = sale lost etc.
this. People can play ds games like they listen to the radio with the hardware. Download copy try discard. whole process could happen in minutes, even the 'this game sux I'm not playing it' bit could be part of those minutes.
Whereas an Xbox360 game or a Ps3 game (can you pirate these?) is a whole ordeal and commitment, plus the games are generally less 'pick up and play'
Starwolf_UK
Member
Like others have said there must be a number of factors contributing to this.
I would like to blame the DSi as it came out in the same window they seem to talking about and (for the UK) its RRP was £150 making it 50% more expensive than a regular DS Lite (this isn't true for Europe as a whole) but the sales reports show it selling well. From there I guess due to the initial hardware costing more people have less to spend on the games. Additionally, the high street increasing its focus on used games (the economic conditions, selling the family silver etc) could have an effect (used sections seem to be getting larger in the stores around me and as such less space for new games, plus HMV entering the used games market).
Also, though the article mainly focuses on "magic computer" forms of piracy that isn't the only form. The other form of counterfeit copies of games. If you go onto Amazon Marketplace, eBay or Playtrade and look at popular first and 3rd party DS games you'll see tonnes of apparent "US copy. DS and DS Lite only won't work on DSi" which are in fact pirate copies. Due to the DSis region lock not being well understood by most (not realising that if the product code is NTR-... it'll work fine regardless of region) this gives them some legitimacy they frankly, shouldn't have.
I would imagine many parents would buy the £12 pirated copy rather than the £24.99 copy due to not realising one of them is pirated. With the pirated copy tending to be unreliable and generally shoddy this in turn makes these consumers lose trust in Nintendo. This could be a real problem.
I have on a couple of occasions filled in the piracy form over at Nintendo of America about this but don't bother now as I have never received any response (leaving me to assume they are not doing anything about this form of piracy presumably because it isn't cost effective to go after a lot of small sellers, though it is worth noting the sellers tend to have pretty feedback of less than a few hundred scores suggesting they eventually get reported but should it really get to the level of a few hundred people being conned?).
As for the prices. New, first-party releases did creep up to £35*...in fact I think HG/SS was £40! I would say that would have some effect even if online is fairly static pricing-wise.
*-I remember it being like this:
GBX/GBC-£25
GBA-£35 (at launch soon fell to) £30
DS-£30 (then rose to £35...history tells you that was a good decision)
My view on the prices thing and should they drop. In contrary to Iwata being "we can't lower prices as early adopters will be butthurt", for older games I'm the one that feels ashamed for paying full price for them years after they come out as I feel I'm ripping myself off hency why I don't bother (if I wanted to pay full price I probably bought it on launch). Not DS related but it fits the story, I never got around to Super Mario Galaxy as there was no point (I have an unhealthy backlog) it would always be £30 new and a similar sort of price used (though £30 used in GAME...btw you can only find used copies in GAME). I'd waited 2 years might as well wait another 2 for a Player's Choice copy. What happened on Sunday? I found a used copy for £12.95 so got it. For reference if that £20 Player's Choice copy had come out within the last 6 months I'd have got that.
I would like to blame the DSi as it came out in the same window they seem to talking about and (for the UK) its RRP was £150 making it 50% more expensive than a regular DS Lite (this isn't true for Europe as a whole) but the sales reports show it selling well. From there I guess due to the initial hardware costing more people have less to spend on the games. Additionally, the high street increasing its focus on used games (the economic conditions, selling the family silver etc) could have an effect (used sections seem to be getting larger in the stores around me and as such less space for new games, plus HMV entering the used games market).
Also, though the article mainly focuses on "magic computer" forms of piracy that isn't the only form. The other form of counterfeit copies of games. If you go onto Amazon Marketplace, eBay or Playtrade and look at popular first and 3rd party DS games you'll see tonnes of apparent "US copy. DS and DS Lite only won't work on DSi" which are in fact pirate copies. Due to the DSis region lock not being well understood by most (not realising that if the product code is NTR-... it'll work fine regardless of region) this gives them some legitimacy they frankly, shouldn't have.
I would imagine many parents would buy the £12 pirated copy rather than the £24.99 copy due to not realising one of them is pirated. With the pirated copy tending to be unreliable and generally shoddy this in turn makes these consumers lose trust in Nintendo. This could be a real problem.
I have on a couple of occasions filled in the piracy form over at Nintendo of America about this but don't bother now as I have never received any response (leaving me to assume they are not doing anything about this form of piracy presumably because it isn't cost effective to go after a lot of small sellers, though it is worth noting the sellers tend to have pretty feedback of less than a few hundred scores suggesting they eventually get reported but should it really get to the level of a few hundred people being conned?).
As for the prices. New, first-party releases did creep up to £35*...in fact I think HG/SS was £40! I would say that would have some effect even if online is fairly static pricing-wise.
*-I remember it being like this:
GBX/GBC-£25
GBA-£35 (at launch soon fell to) £30
DS-£30 (then rose to £35...history tells you that was a good decision)
The thing is this happens anyway. In GAME on Sunday I saw Rhythm Paradise for £4.95 and usually see Elite Beat Agents, Advance Wars: Dark Conflict, Picross DS for a similar price (Starfox Command tends to be confined to the used section).Kunan said:
My view on the prices thing and should they drop. In contrary to Iwata being "we can't lower prices as early adopters will be butthurt", for older games I'm the one that feels ashamed for paying full price for them years after they come out as I feel I'm ripping myself off hency why I don't bother (if I wanted to pay full price I probably bought it on launch). Not DS related but it fits the story, I never got around to Super Mario Galaxy as there was no point (I have an unhealthy backlog) it would always be £30 new and a similar sort of price used (though £30 used in GAME...btw you can only find used copies in GAME). I'd waited 2 years might as well wait another 2 for a Player's Choice copy. What happened on Sunday? I found a used copy for £12.95 so got it. For reference if that £20 Player's Choice copy had come out within the last 6 months I'd have got that.
chaostrophy
Member
Piracy always puts me in a tough spot- I'm regarded as "tech-savvy" among my family and friends because I build my own PCs, use Linux, fix their computers, and so forth. And I don't keep it a secret that I'm a gamer. So everyone just kinda assumes that I pirate just because I can, unless I tell them in so many words that I don't because I'm more ethically evolved than them. So then I worry that I come off as a smug dick.
Steppenwolf
Member
They would sell more DS games if the prices wern't so unreasonable. 40 Euro for a game that is essentialy as complex as a new 10 Euro game on Steam or xbla is just nuts.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
chaostrophy said:
err, i wouldn't call you ethically evolved, since you're not ethical enough to call the cops on your pirate relatives.
lawblob said:
Oh good, another thread where GAFfers who probably pirate the shit out of games are going to knee jerk reaction due to GAF mods.
HEY EVERYONE! I CAN CALL PEOPLE THAT MAY/MAY NOT PIRATE PIRATES ON GAF, TOO! *flails arms*
Price, Games not being available in their region, etc. etc. etc. ALL contribute to piracy/lost sales more than DURR HURR THE GAME IS FREE, DO WHAT I WANT BECAUSE A PIRATE IS FREE
The Faceless Master said:
*Jackpopcorn.gif*
Android18a
Member
I dont do piracy, but I've stopped buying DS games in the last six months. I've literally only bought Pokemon HeartGold and Scribblenauts.
Why? Price. Most NDS games, for me, don't offer £30 worth of entertainment. I'd probably buy a lot more if the standard price was closer to £20.
It's like Blu-ray, when they were £30 each I bought one here and there - now they're £8-18 I'm buying them like they're going out of fashion.
Why? Price. Most NDS games, for me, don't offer £30 worth of entertainment. I'd probably buy a lot more if the standard price was closer to £20.
It's like Blu-ray, when they were £30 each I bought one here and there - now they're £8-18 I'm buying them like they're going out of fashion.
I was able to import the two latest Ace Attorney games from overseas for almost a third of what they cost here, several months in advance. And Nintendo wonders why sales are dropping? :lol I have zero reasons to even consider buying things in local stores anymore. Though I did preorder Mario Galaxy 2 today (fairly good trade-in deal 
)
Also, having a 20:1 shovelware ratio can't be helping much...
Edit: Oh I forgot, shipping costs were included above. Still about 60+% cheaper. GJ.
)Also, having a 20:1 shovelware ratio can't be helping much...
Edit: Oh I forgot, shipping costs were included above. Still about 60+% cheaper. GJ.
jorma said:
I am
TheSeks said:
I don't know whether anybody in particular on GAF pirates games, and I really don't care. I just find that these threads usually devolve into weird, disingenuous arguments. Do companies use piracy as an easy scapegoat to hide their own failures? Sure. But that doesn't have anything to do with the fact that mass game piracy is very real, and very damaging to these companies' bottom line.
I also find most arguments about "price" or "availability" to be very suspect.
MagniHarvald said:
heh I'm the same, when I discovered that I could import local retail died for me. Even with taxes and shipping is still cheaper. I'm in Colombia btw, but I'm certain you can extrapolate that to all latinamerica, Brazil has it even worse from what I've read because the import taxes are ridiculous.
It is a culture problem, but pricing has a huge impact, much more than people in the thread are giving it credit. When you go to shops where all games, including incredibly old and crappy ones still sell for $60 (for ds games, console games can easily go to $100), all of them, people as costumers just don't see a viable option in there, while as someone mentioned, just seeing one person with a R4 will convince them to get the DS with hundreds of roms, the funny thing is they will probably play only half of them if not less.
Actually when I started importing some of my friends got interested, because I got old games for $10 in Amazon, and at that pricing level piracy just doesn't seem tempting. I'm positive everyone I know will give $30 for a game that is worth it for the DS, but the availability and knowledge just isn't there.
I used to pirate everything, but it was mostly because I didn't know I had other option, for costumers $100 games is not an option. I stop pirating when I found out there are ways to get the games at decent prices (steam, imports, etc), and that if I really love a game buying it will support the developer and they will make more games of that quality. That only happened because I'm a geek that spends hours in forums, to get the mainstream costumers and thus sales companies have to stop treating their costumers like criminals (absurd drm) or people with infinite wallets (absurd prices).
Grampa Simpson
Banned
I had a Super Magicom for my Super Nintendo way back in the day. It was a great little thing. I think I still have it somewhere.bryehn said:
The reason why DS is pirated so much is simple
It is EASY to do, buy a flash card, download and copy games to microsSD. No need to know how to hack, no need for burning CDs, no long prodedure of getting stuff to work, just a simple drag and drop. This way casuals can easily pirate, why do you think music piracy is so bad, because it is easy. Plus to top it off DS games are not as big, downloading takes a few minutes (or even seconds). The only hurdle for casuals is getting hold of a flashcart. Infact my brothers friend asked me if I know where to get a flashcard, and he is a policeman. These people are aware it is illegal, but they don't give a fuck, same reason why most people don't give a fuck about downloading MP3s.
It is EASY to do, buy a flash card, download and copy games to microsSD. No need to know how to hack, no need for burning CDs, no long prodedure of getting stuff to work, just a simple drag and drop. This way casuals can easily pirate, why do you think music piracy is so bad, because it is easy. Plus to top it off DS games are not as big, downloading takes a few minutes (or even seconds). The only hurdle for casuals is getting hold of a flashcart. Infact my brothers friend asked me if I know where to get a flashcard, and he is a policeman. These people are aware it is illegal, but they don't give a fuck, same reason why most people don't give a fuck about downloading MP3s.
Eventually the music, movie and videogame industry are going to have to admit that a download does not mean a loss in sale. If not that, at the very least realize there are many, more important factors such as price, availability, release date, income that affect sales far more than piracy ever will. It seems to me big companies like to blame pirates rather than blame themselves. It especially works great because if their anti-piracy measures fail or cause bad public relations why it's still the dastardly pirates fault.