PC game piracy examined

Koroush Ghazi maintains a site TweakGuides which purpose is to help to optimize your PC. One of his biggest focus seems to be on PC games.

He publishes a long article “PC game piracy examined”. This paper is excellent. He presents a very balanced, realistic view on piracy, game piracy and especially PC game piracy. His vision encompasses the economical aspects making it realistic. For instance, he explains the lack of games on Mac because initially it was too pirated and the market size was too small to have a ROI.

According to him, piracy harms PC games, because developers may first go to consoles that are less pirated. Clearly, using a hacked game on a console requires either a modchip, or flashing the firmware. All that makes it more difficult for Joe SixPack, and brings some risks (see “Ban under Xray” in security newsletter #18). Therefore, PC became the preferred platform for pirated games.

He also debunks some myths such as DRM generates piracy, or PC games are dead…

If you are interested in game piracy, read it. It is really worthwhile.

Thanks to Yves for the pointer.

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