Pirated titles are a ”sub-standard product” and bought illegal copies don’t allow money to ”flow back to the creative.” UKIE will research it ‘scientifically’.
”Based on information received from a number of publishers we have estimates of games piracy running at between 4:1 against legitimate sales,” said UKIE’s director general Michael Rawlinson has stated.
”What is clear is people who ‘share’ games via P2P networks or buy illegal copies are not buying the real product, and this reduces retailer sales. It can provide the consumer with a sub-standard product and money paid to illegal traders does not flow back to the creative.” BBC Newsbeat reported that 2010 saw £1.45bn lost to piracy.
”In turn, investors see higher risks/lower returns, and this in turn will undermine confidence in the sector and lower the amount of money invested, reducing the developer’s chance to create new products,” continued Rawlinson.
Attempting to tabulate a true cost of videogames piracy is extremely difficult but UKIE will be looking into the matter he says. ”We intend to commission research that will endeavour to measure what is happening in the download/illegal sales arena in a more scientific way, but it will always be difficult to translate illegal sharing and downloads and pirate sales to a loss of legitimate sales and therefore the real effect on industry - how much would these people have bought and paid for.”
”My position is clear, there can be no justification of unauthorised ‘sharing’ or pirate sales, and the industry should never support or condone this on the basis of any potential or perceived ‘marketing’ upside,” he concluded.
Surely the argument of ”money paid to illegal traders does not flow back to the creative” should also apply in principle to the high street retailer’s booming second-hand sales of videogames? Publishers get nothing from it after all.
