Let's take inventory. Has Denuvo really been a great system as said above?

- FIFA 15 releases uncrackable, protected from pirates. It sells about the same as FIFA 14 though. Where is the dramatic spike in sales from all the previously "lost sales" that should now be coming in? Somebody tell me, where are they?

- Lords of the Fallen releases uncrackable. With no pirates to decrease the sales, surely this must score much higher than other games which are pirated to heII and back, right? FIFA fans might just all be so loyal they've always been buying the game. But no such luck. Isn't it like 10 pirates to every 1 sold copy on PC? Wasn't that what Crytek said? WHY DOESN'T THIS SELL 10 TIMES AS MUCH AS OTHER GAMES THEN??! I just don't understand. Why aren't we seeing these "lost sales" not being lost anymore? Where's the incredible profit after shutting down the filthy pirates?

- Dragon Age Inquisition releases uncrackable. Despite no pirates hurting this, it sells about as expected. It doesn't even manage to top the charts anywhere though. Games that have cracks out for them and are being pirated are still outselling this one. How on earth is this possible?

- Denuvo is said to introduce severe performance problems. Now that is regrettable but I guess that is something paying customers just have to live with, to have the satisfaction of knowing that no filthy pirates are playing the game which they paid for.

- Denuvo is said to wear out SSD much faster than regular use programs. Well, if this proves to be true, at least the developers have all that sweet dough they made from not losing so many sales to pirates. They're gonna need it to deal with all the incoming lawsuits.

Okay, enough with the jokes. I'm ultimately glad this thing came around because it finally dispelled this narrative we've been hearing all these years about lost sales. This idiotic lie that if only the option of piracy is removed, suddenly they would see much higher numbers of sold units. Well, thank you Denuvo for finally proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that, this tale is simply not true.

But why isn't it the case? I think the answer is pretty obvious but I'll break down what I believe is the reason by typecasting the different kinds of pirates and pirate/consumer hybrids.

1. Poor Pirate

Pirates everything, simply doesn't have the money to be buying games, often times lives in a not so well off country, probably unemployed and barely scraping by. Can't spend money he doesn't have on uncrackable games.

2. Punishing Pirate

Pirates to punish publishers and developers he holds a grudge against. This person only buys games from people he wants to support. They somewhat irrationally will still play and enjoy certain games from devs or publishers they hate but they won't give them money for this. EA is a popular target of this practice.

3. Testing Pirate

Pirates everything first, then buys it if he likes it. This person isn't actually a pirate, they just don't accept that there aren't any demos anymore so they use piracy to demo games to evaluate if the game is worth it. Won't spend money on an uncrackable game before testing it at a friends or lending it.

People will generally buy what they like when they can. DRM has no influence on that. Even if every game out there came with uncrackable DRM forever. I sincerely doubt that there would be significantly more sales. On the contrary, sales might actually go down. It would probably be great for lending services though because they would suddenly be really popular again.

Sr, your post deserves a prize. I've always thought that the only thing that a company achieves using DRM is to annoy their real customers. The number of people that would be willing to pay for a game for the sole reason it cannot be pirated is almost non existent. the pirate that don't want or can't pay for a game will play something else if such game cannot be pirated. Witcher 3 will show the world that DRM free games can sell far better than games with intrusive DRM

Just look at sony.

Ps3 was pirate free for many years, they fought it and fought it and tried to keep it that way but ironicly that didnt do anything.

Yoshida has said only 4/10 sony exlusives sell.

I am sure thats not because of piracy but simply people not buying those games, if the pc piracy argument was true and x360 being hackable, ps3 would have super high sales......but they didnt.

funny thing is that Denuvo is sony's doing

i know that. I wonder if it will save ps4.

It released and it did, 1/3 of all copies sell on PC, so that's compared to both next gen consoles combined.

1+3=Bingo. You got it tight on spot.Someone should publish it in some magazine to crush those pesky pirate haters.

Thanks for the kind words. I wasn't sure if typing all that would be worth the time.

It was worth the time! I've read everything and I 100% agree with you.

It's good to know that there are still intelligent people like you on the internet, I just wish more people would understand what you wrote and do something about it.

Not "more people", just the developers, publishers and such video game industry sections that should hear the voice of people and understand the reasons of piracy, cause they probably think that we are just greedy, we want to save our money for something else, so I'm saving by pirating games which I can afford anyway at any time. Not to mention how greedy is EA.

the true is that the companys cant fight pirates... but this companys are the worst...
they lie customers, BUT they cant lie about numbers.... the numbers you posted here. about sells and eveything. and we are talking about aaa tittles.

100% with you.

The truth is ALWAYS worth the time. ;)

On internet it usually isn't :p But you're still 100% right pretty much.

Never fully read a comment but yours. Keep it up!

This isn't a defense of piracy, but a refutation of DRM.

Possessing games/media you don't own is still immoral.

No it isn't, if you lend your video game to a friend is that immoral? If you lend your music to a friend is that immoral? Pirating is a form of sharing/lending. There is nothing immoral about it. Someone who likes the game will buy it, you know why? Because they care about the game because it's easier to buy it and download it on release, you get updates and sometimes even multiplayer. That's why people buy games.

You know what is immoral? Companies that no longer give demos for people to try their games before buying it, Companies that torment loyal customers with DRM and forced internet connection for games that don't require internet, Companies that harm their loyal costumers by creating micro transactions and DLC riddled content.

As OP stated, it's now clear that pirating is not affecting sales, you know what is? Shitty games and shitty companies.

You're trying (clumsily) to justify theft.

It isn't working.

You're just broken.

No I'm not, my first paragraph explains it.

"Piracy is not theft. If you steal a car, the original is lost. If you copy a game, there are simply more of them in the world."

-Markus Notch

Since we now know that piracy is not affecting sales, there is no negative affect to piracy. If there is please enlighten us.

You're advocating doing to others what you would not want done to yourself (and lying to try to justify it).

If you were to actually create something valuable that could be copied, you wouldn't want someone enjoying it without your receiving the compensation for which the thing was offered.

If, as an author, musician, artist, or programmer, you were to write, record, create, or program something of value, then you'd change your mind about piracy having "no negative affect [sic]."

That is where you're wrong, I am a photographer. I create art for a living, I don't mind people grabbing my work and posting it on their sites.

You know why? Because it's free advertising. People find out who took the photos then they hire me to do more work. Same with music and games. The more people get to hear and see your work. The more fans and customers you gain.

Again copying is not stealing. As long as you aren't selling others work for your own profit or taking credit for work that isn't yours, you are not stealing.

So, your defense of the theft of the fruits of others' labors is commercials? Commercials are, by definition, free.

You're not allowing people to pirate your source of income, you're advertising.

You intend to give away samples of your work in the hope that customers will want to purchase your services.

If a person chooses to give away samples of their work, then that's up to them. You don't have the right to make that decision for them.

You're so dishonest.

I'm not allowing or disallowing anything, Pirating is here and it's staying. Your trapped in your old ideals of how things work. People who view it as stealing are blind to statistics and rely on it's "immoral" or its "stealing."

You have yet to show any evidence that pirating is causing harm, all you rely on is, it's "stealing." When I have shown you 3 samples on how it's not. And how it's actually very beneficial to artists.

"It's a strange concept to grasp -- the more people steal from a company, the more money it makes. "

-London School of Economics and Political Science

And commercials are not free, they cost money to make. Getting pirated cost you nothing and as shown by many researches, increases sales.

commercials are not free

Are you purposely obtuse?

It's easy to quote nonsense when you're not the one being harmed.

Yes they aren't, they cost money to produce, being pirated cost nothing. Only thing they have in common is that they both boost sales.

And there you go again, contradicting research. You must be some really good underground--economist. No one is being harmed by pirating, its the opposite. But I'm done debating with you. All you do is place biased answers with no sources to back it up. Where is this harm that you keep speaking of?

Don't bother replying, I know you wont have an answer since there is none.

Would you want someone pirating your source of income?

Of course not.

I would be honored.

You would be destitute.

There you go again disproving economists with your amazing statements of pure objective truth.

Pirating your source of income means that you have no income.

You can embrace poverty if you want, but you have no right to demand that of others.

(And save the snark for when you have a clue.)

Where is your proof? Show me the figures.

"Pirating" means that you're not being paid. "Source of income" is how you make money.

If your source of income is pirated, then, by definition, you have no income.

but you understand that FIFA is a sports game?

it is logical that it is sold as bread, then bought super console, and I think it's difficult to crack.

Dragon age does not sell s**t. I'm staying in the shelves (at least here in Italy).

I know friends who are eager to crack but my other friends disappointed to have spent on that game. Why?

I'm the 1st type sadly...

After I pay all my bills I'm left with what would be about $200 to live with for the rest of the month.

I can't just give almost half of it for 1 game...

If I don't pirate the game, i can't play it. Simple as that. So is it really so bad that I do it? If I didn't, the companies still wouldn't get any money, so they are not actually losing anything. At least when I pirate, I can tell my friends who can afford to buy the game that it is good, and that they should get it.

Was living in the same situation for a long time. Always bought games on sales. It usually cost you 5-10 bucks for 3-4 good games in bundle. Not so much I think

I live in Africa, here, we can't buy anything online (At least in my contry)
I'd like to buy legit copies but publisher don't bother to ship their games here!

So what ? because I had the bad luck to be born in a third world country I can't enjoy games ?

Hell, they don't even list my country in their website, so as long as I have no choice i'll pirate video games

Videogames are not an entitlement. And let's be honest if the game was for sale there you'd pirate it anyway.

Funny how people will rationalize theft with any "poor me" excuse.

Well if he has no intention at all of purchasing it then no sale was ever lost? I don't think you just understand you proved his point :|

If the piracy is theft then tell me how can I return that all stolen games to its owners.

Non sequitur.

Delete the bits.

"1. Poor Pirate?Pirates everything, simply doesn't have the money to be buying games, often times lives in a not so well off country, probably unemployed and barely scraping by. Can't spend money he doesn't have on uncrackable games.

2. Punishing Pirate

?Pirates to punish publishers and developers he holds a grudge against. This person only buys games from people he wants to support. They somewhat irrationally will still play and enjoy certain games from devs or publishers they hate but they won't give them money for this. EA is a popular target of this practice.

3. Testing Pirate

?Pirates everything first, then buys it if he likes it. This person isn't actually a pirate, they just don't accept that there aren't any demos anymore so they use piracy to demo games to evaluate if the game is worth it. Won't spend money on an uncrackable game before testing it at a friends or lending it." #

@Brlern different types of pirates out there, more likely that Amitachi can buy a $100 game but thanks to facts some african countries to even attempt to get the game here you will pay double or more to the price of the game and still be locked out of servers. I bought Titan Fall cause I love everything about it, guess what, after paying $212 to get to my doorstep, I still couldn't play it till i made a VPN attempting to be from america, all that effort for a game thats didnt even satisfy my urges for a mecha game. Now you'd exepect me to what, do it again for Lords of Fallen without having tested it first, thats a good third of my pay cheque that will be wasted.

My steam library is worth about $2000, but I can honestly say I've only spent about $300-400.

Well, you weren't bullshitting if this is your account. $375 for $1466. Well played. (paid*?)

https://steamdb.info/calcul...¤cy=us

Overestimated a bit, but close enough.

lol 515 hours. I have 1900+ hours from TF2 alone :3

Some people have jobs and stuff. And not all games log their hours in Steam.

I have 1900+ hours from TF2 alone

Games are great, but Big Picture, that's not really something to be proud of.

TF2 = Dead game xD

It's funny to see people from NA/Europe protesting about game prices. Here in Brazil, the minimum wage is R$600, in our currency. A PS4 is something like R$4000, a XOne is like R$2000 and a good PC is around R$5000. Besides that, a single game costs R$200 when it releases (on steam, where it is the cheapest). So, if you consider the basic costs of living, includig food and bills, and considering you HAVE a home, so you don't pay rental, with a minimum wage you can't even buy a game. Just to know, the value of the minimum wage is just symbolic, cause you lose around R$50-80 in taxes before you receive your wage.