5 ms·

> especially if you are willing to wait for some days or weeks after launch (an important sales window for the publishers). “Important” is an understatement.

> especially if you are willing to wait for some days or weeks after launch (an important sales window for the publishers). “Important” is an understatement. Even for long-term success stories, the first three or four months often accounts for half of a game’s revenue. And, despite so many people theorizing that “pirates don’t have money and wouldn’t pay anyway”, in practice big publishers wait in dread of “Crack Day” because the moment the crackers release the DRMless version, the drop in sales is instant and dramatic.

fwipsy 9mo ago
Do you have a source for sales data when a crack becomes available? If so, that seems like definitive proof that piracy does affect sales.
- bendangelo 9mo ago
  When the Nintendo Switch became hackable, ie can play any game, Nintendo saw a massive decrease in sales in Spain. Btw people in Spain pirate the most games in Europe. The decrease was at least 40%. The idea that this is a service issue and piracy doesn’t affect sales is just PR speak. If the game is offline, it’ll be pirated a lot.
  - scns 9mo ago
    > Btw people in Spain pirate the most games in Europe. They have very high unemployment among young people, might be related.
  - fc417fc802 9mo ago
    Both you and GGP make concrete claims but fail to provide evidence. Can anyone cite published sales data or is this all mere conjecture? We've been exposed to what seems like FUD about piracy killing sales since approximately forever - you wouldn't dOwnLoAd a cAR - but seemingly zero actual evidence to date.
    - mindcandy 9mo ago
      My source is first and second hand reports from management of game companies having worked in the industry for decades. But, they don’t make numbers like that public. The best public report I can find is https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1875952124002532 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S18759... which shows a median difference 20% of revenue for games where Denuvo is cracked “quickly” but also no significant difference if Denuvo survives for at least 3 months. What I’ve observed from internal reports from multiple companies is that, if you don’t assume an outlier blockbuster game, major game studios’ normal plan is to target a 10% annual profit margin with an expected variance of +/-20% each year. So, assuming you have a solidly on-target game, DRM not just being there, but surviving at least a couple months is the difference between “10% profit moving the whole company forward on schedule” vs “10% loss dragging the whole company down” or “30% profit, great success, bonuses and hiring increases” depending on the situation. Outside of games, I have seen many personnel reports on Hacker News over the years from small-time ISVs that they find it exhausting they need to regularly ship BS “My Software version N+1” just as an excuse to update their DRM. But, every time they do, sales go back up. And, the day the new crack appears on Pirate Bay, sales drop back down. Over and over forever. Thus why we can’t just buy desktop software anymore. Web apps are primarily DRM and incidentally convenient in other ways.
      - BrenBarn 9mo ago
        > My source is first and second hand reports from management of game companies having worked in the industry for decades. But, they don’t make numbers like that public. As an aside, I find this kind of behavior on the part of companies rather irritating. It's like, if you want people to believe that something affects your sales, you need to publicly release the sales data (and do so in a way that people will trust). Otherwise there's no reason for anyone to believe you're not just making stuff up.
        sokoloff 9mo ago
        Why would they care if you or I believe them or not?

fwipsy 9mo ago

Do you have a source for sales data when a crack becomes available? If so, that seems like definitive proof that piracy does affect sales.

bendangelo 9mo ago
When the Nintendo Switch became hackable, ie can play any game, Nintendo saw a massive decrease in sales in Spain. Btw people in Spain pirate the most games in Europe. The decrease was at least 40%. The idea that this is a service issue and piracy doesn’t affect sales is just PR speak. If the game is offline, it’ll be pirated a lot.
- scns 9mo ago
  > Btw people in Spain pirate the most games in Europe. They have very high unemployment among young people, might be related.
- fc417fc802 9mo ago
  Both you and GGP make concrete claims but fail to provide evidence. Can anyone cite published sales data or is this all mere conjecture? We've been exposed to what seems like FUD about piracy killing sales since approximately forever - you wouldn't dOwnLoAd a cAR - but seemingly zero actual evidence to date.
  - mindcandy 9mo ago
    My source is first and second hand reports from management of game companies having worked in the industry for decades. But, they don’t make numbers like that public. The best public report I can find is https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1875952124002532 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S18759... which shows a median difference 20% of revenue for games where Denuvo is cracked “quickly” but also no significant difference if Denuvo survives for at least 3 months. What I’ve observed from internal reports from multiple companies is that, if you don’t assume an outlier blockbuster game, major game studios’ normal plan is to target a 10% annual profit margin with an expected variance of +/-20% each year. So, assuming you have a solidly on-target game, DRM not just being there, but surviving at least a couple months is the difference between “10% profit moving the whole company forward on schedule” vs “10% loss dragging the whole company down” or “30% profit, great success, bonuses and hiring increases” depending on the situation. Outside of games, I have seen many personnel reports on Hacker News over the years from small-time ISVs that they find it exhausting they need to regularly ship BS “My Software version N+1” just as an excuse to update their DRM. But, every time they do, sales go back up. And, the day the new crack appears on Pirate Bay, sales drop back down. Over and over forever. Thus why we can’t just buy desktop software anymore. Web apps are primarily DRM and incidentally convenient in other ways.
    - BrenBarn 9mo ago
      > My source is first and second hand reports from management of game companies having worked in the industry for decades. But, they don’t make numbers like that public. As an aside, I find this kind of behavior on the part of companies rather irritating. It's like, if you want people to believe that something affects your sales, you need to publicly release the sales data (and do so in a way that people will trust). Otherwise there's no reason for anyone to believe you're not just making stuff up.
      - sokoloff 9mo ago
        Why would they care if you or I believe them or not?