If you count aftermarket sales, consoles likely have a higher piracy rate than PC. Whenever gamestop or blockbuster sell a used game, the money goes straight in their pocket. Yet, strangely enough, no one cares about that. How is that any more morally acceptable in this type of argument than pure piracy?
Btw, I pirate virtually every game before I buy it. Why? Because I got tired of spending money on "AAA titles" (massive quote, unquote) that looked awesome and had tons of hype but turned out to be utter crap. Developers covered the crap with cheesy marketing and horribly misrepresentative demos. Were it not for Activision, and lately EA's, abysmal development practices I would still buy every game like I used to. They caused my habits and I'd bet you money they've caused many others to develop similar practices. Sure there are people out there who will never legally buy a game because they simply don't care, but there are far more that are simply tired of wasting $50 or $60 (don't even get me started on the price increase) on games that are typically crap, were quickly thrown together using as small a budget as possible, were rushed through alpha/beta testing because hey it's hard finding all those bugs, and then pushed out with barely any content so they can sell expansions and DLC.
If a game is good and worth the money, I buy it. If it's terrible, I uninstall. If it's good but not worth the asking price, which is usually the case, I uninstall and wait for the price to go down.
And yes, I have friends who even if I gave them a link to the torrent still wouldn't pirate the game. There are honest people still out there, typically they're the ones who've managed to avoid EA.
you realize that piracy on consoles is rampant and pathetically easy, right? devs go to consoles because console users have a higher propensity to pay 60$ for a shitty game. the piracy smokescreen is a ruse to justify their ruination-for-profit of my hobby.
This sums it up nicely. One thing to add, part of the reason console users don't mind spending $60 on any game that comes along is because they can always resell it later. When you buy a PC game, you're typically stuck with it. You think EA heavily encouraged users to register their keys on Origin to make things easier for the user? Once that key's registered they can't sell their game to someone else. That other person has to go buy a copy at the retail price.
Another thing to consider: Stardock has a "gamer's bill of rights" posted on their forums, and they have NO DRM on Sins of a Solar Empire. I have sold four copies of that game AND its two expansions, purely from letting people try the game, then telling them to buy a copy when they could afford it, if they liked it. Stardock's forums are rather full of people who tried a friend's copy for free, then bought the game for themselves.
I pirated Sins and then turned around and bought it. When Rebellion comes out I'll be buying it as well. It's a game I would have never puchased in a million years had I not played it first. Everyone I know who has it also pirated it first and then bought it. In fact, a friend of mine that virtually never buys legal copies actually went out and bought it and all the expansions. When asked why he said it was worth every dime.
Hence my earlier comment. When you make a product that's worth a damn and stand behind it, you're going to sell it. That's how the market works.
