» Fri Dec 31, 2010 1:29 pm
Frankly, the belief that piracy hurts the computer industry is both a truth and a fallacy and locks both users and producers in a pit of circular logic.
The producers and developers are afraid of losing money on their hard earned product. This is legitimate as it takes a lot of money to produce a high-quality game. From artists to level designers to programmers, none of them are going to work for free. However, all too often, producers and developers are so afraid they go through draconian and far over-reaching methods to secure their game against such others. (UPlay's Always On DRM for example). This is apparently because they believe a pirated download is directly equal to a lost sale of their game. While this may seem logical, it often isn't. Most people who download pirated software are not going to buy the software to start with and thus are not a 'loss'. Also, there are those who will download it with the sheer intent of testing and trying it out and do buy it. Thus they are also not a lost sale even if they are one of the 'x' numbers of downloads.
There are many examples where such 'leaks' have only increased the hype and publicity the game recieved and directly interested in this case is this article by TorrentFreak: http://torrentfreak.com/crysis-2-leak-fails-to-result-in-massive-download-fest-110213/
On the other side are those pirates who DO actively hack and break DRMs. Sometimes for the right reasons (having bought the game and wish to use it DRM free) and sometimes for the wrong reasons. While I fully believe that once bought, software is mine to use how I wish without having to jump through ridiculous hoops, the blame cannot be fully placed on the pirates either since the common reaction to such DRM breaks is simply to come out with more ridiculous restraints and systems which just punishes legit users since the pirates ALREADY are or will break it AGAIN.
Ultimately, piracy happens. On all markets, not just PC. PC is just the easiest to share, and hardest to program for. Making it the easy target for both pirates and for companies to stop supporting since consoles are easier (standardised hardware and capabilities, etc) to program for. And PR Stunts and Leaks happen ALL THE TIME.