This statistics makes me wonder if the same applies to movie downloads. I’m also sure it doesn’t fit with illegal software download, but none the less it seems that measures like cutting Internet access to pirates for life, as they intend to do in France if you’re caught three times, is not good for business, as you’re sending away your best customers.

Illegal file sharing

Of course, big music/software companies always say that they loose X millions from illegal use of their intellectual property, but forget to mention that they measure wrong: if I download music worth of 1000$ it doesn’t mean that I would buy it if I couldn’t download it for free (probably I would buy songs that cost 126$ a year, if this study is true).

The problem I see with illegal pirating is that it’s not really  stealing, nor correct, it’s something in between. I also hope things will come to a middle ground, where everyone will be happy, as it’s clear that stealing does no good to companies, nor does cutting access to those who steal (as they buy more that ‘normal’ users). If you have an idea I would like to hear it.

You might also be interested in what I wrote about online piracy.

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That’s for me the worst part of piracy, but it’s not worse than buying software and games that don’t live up to expectations. It’s like buying something that doesn’t has the features listed in the shop, features that made you decide to buy that in the first place.

Now, to strengthen what I said above I’m gonna tell you a story that happened to me this month, when GTA 4 appeared. I’m a big fan of the Grand Theft Auto series, which I’ve played since it’s made the move to 3D. Now, I live in part of the world where piracy is over 90% in households (business piracy is a little lower, but not that low) and I’m a part of the problem too, but at least I’m trying to cure myself. 

The GTA IV story

Back to the story, starting December I was planning to but GTA IV, but I couldn’t wait for it to hit shelves in Romania, that’s why I’ve remembered I have  a STEAM account (which I’ve made because I’ve had an OEM Half Life 2 Licence that came with a graphic card I’ve bought) and I thought I should give it a try. 

That being said I’ve logged to my STEAM account and saw that GTA IV will be available starting  December 3rd starting 00:00 GMT midnight for European users. I bought it with my credit card and started downloading. GTA 4 occupiexs 16 GB installed, so that took a whole day, but that was not a problem because I have to work during the day.

Till here everything ran smoothly and I was really enjoy going legit (hey, you have to buy things for Christmas, so why not make myself a small present). I really thought STEAM was a valid and nice distribution platform (which it is). Problems started after I’ve run the game for the first time. I have a pretty powerful PC, a bang for the buck system: 3GHz Core 2 Duo, 4 GB RAM, ATI Radeon 4850 graphic cards and two 17″ monitors.

Well, it seems it’s not enough for GTA IV, as I am only able to play it on medium settings with frame rate hovering around 25 FPS, but that’s not the biggest problem, as the game sometimes crashes, textures are not displayed properly and a few other graphic problems. Now when I spend 1000$ money in a PC and 60$ for a game I expect it to run smoothly plus I expect a good story (which fortunately GTA IV has) or I’ll think I made the wrong investment. 

I can only imagine what people that constantly buy games of software feel when the product they spend their money on is crappy. GTA IV looks to me like a game that was barely optimized (and I’ve played it on Sony PS3, and it was crappy there too), but gets saved by gameplay and story, which are truly exceptional (not at the level of Mafia, but close).

Future premises

It seems that software and games industry is following the path opened by crappy Hollywood movies that made people stay home and download movies instead of going to cinema and spend a few bucks on tickets and popcorn. This is happening to PC games these days and if game studios won’t do something to increase the quality of their products soon. You can say that consoles are the future, but I’ve played this year with Xbox 360, PS 3 and Wii and I don’t see myself buying them as games are completely different that on PC (I love strategy games a lot and those are not too well represented on consoles because of control methods).

What do you think, should piracy be legal or should producers spend more time polishing their products?

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