Piracy has always been a trouble in the video games industry, but over the last 5 years there has been an increase in 20% of illegally pirated games.
As long as there has been stuff, people have wanted that stuff for free, and this has been the same for video game piracy. Back in the 80’s when the spectrum and the C64 ruled home gaming, video games used to come on tape cassette, there could be no simpiler way to load games, but in the same vein there was no simpler way to copy said game – all you needed was a twin deck tape recorder and you could get a copy of the game.
Move forward 30 years and the games developers are still having the same issues with piracy> Yes, security has become harder and the way pirates have to copy the games has gotten more complex, but the fact that piracy has skyrocketed 20% over the last 5 years shows that it is still a massive issue in the industry.
The BBC interviewed Sam. Sam downloads around 100 titles a year but still purchases around 50 of them a year.
“I buy games because I’ve pirated them, if I don’t get to try them I never would have bothered picking them up.”
Sam, who didn’t want to give his surname, says he’s not put off by the threat of being fined or sent to prison.
“I’ve never been fined. I’ve been doing this since I was 14 and I’m now 23. Games that I enjoy I purchase, ones that I don’t enjoy I delete.”
Piracy definitely is not right, it should definitely not be allowed, but Sam does have a point. There are that many games out now that it costs a lot of money to buy titles at £40 a go to find out it’s not your cup of tea. If companies made games more affordable there is a chance that less people would illegally download their releases.
Let us know your thoughts on our comments below or via our @Gadget_Helpline Twitter page or Official Facebook group.