These statistics point to one major idea: Everyone suffers from software piracy. Allow me to expand on this. I work as a manager for a major retail music store that specializes in CD’s, DVD’s, Games, and their accessories. Partially due to the suffering economy, the War on Terrorism, the War in Iraq, and I'm sure many other minute factors, our sales have suffered, as have most other retail stores in general. But the music/DVD/game industry has a very exploitable flaw: The media on which music, DVD's, and games are written to can be copied by just about anyone with the hardware capable of doing so. Let's take a show of hands; How many of you out there own a CD burner? What about a DVD burner? I'd wager to say that a good majority of you reading this (as well as many more out there) own at LEAST a CD burner. The DVD burners are still a little too highly priced for many of us to justify spending the money on them...yet. (Keep in mind, you still have to go to the grocery store for food; Target or Wal-Mart for your kitchen, bathroom, or appliances needs, etc. Those items cannot be replicated in the same manner as games, CD’s, DVD’s).

But due to these technological marvels, music can be ripped to mp3's, DVD's can be ripped to burnable DVD material, and games can be ripped to ISO's or ROM's. These, in turn, can be burned to inexpensive media for as low as $0.57 per CD, for example. As my store's profits sink further in this recession, one thing is certain: people want their cake and they want just as much to eat it, too. If the economy is a little shaky, people have a hard time justifying some purchases, especially for entertainment. I wouldn't go so far as to say that most people are saving their money because we DO still live in a "I gotta have it all now" society, but if you can get the game you want off the Internet or burn your buddy's CD or DVD for the dollar it costs for blank media, why would you spend $12-$25 for a CD/DVD or $20-$50 for a game? And since the consequences of piracy typically don’t hit all that close to home (i.e. getting thrown in jail, fines, having all your equipment confiscated), many people don’t see it as a crime, or they view it as an easily overlookable one. Anywho, continuing with my store’s relation to all of this... As sales have gone down, our payroll has gone up. As most any of you with any business sense know, higher payroll = bad news. Most companies suffer through it for a little while as your bottom line wavers, but after awhile the inevitable comes: Layoffs. In order to remain profitable, one must lower the costs of running the business. These methods include (but are not limited to): ad-swapping, less material consumption, recycling, cutting payroll (either by firing employees or by replacing higher paid employees with lower paid ones who do the same job), et cetera. So, the consumer is not the only one who suffers. This is a prime example: My store’s profits suffer. My payroll suffers. My employees suffer. If my store suffers, you can bet your butt that the chain will suffer. If the chain suffers, the corporate office suffers. People high up in the company are, perhaps, in danger of losing their jobs. Do we see a trend here?

Now, as far as I can tell, I’ve only really touched on consumer piracy, but let’s not forget those who pirate for profit. Those who burn CD’s at home are still guilty of the same crimes, but they are not as large scale as bootlegs sold on the black market. We are, I’m sure, aware of those infamous Hong Kong or Russian bootlegs that saturate the world’s marketplace. They have become even more commonplace in America in recent years. For example, just the other day, I was looking for a particular anime boxed-set on eBay. I found the one I was looking for: the true, Region 1, LEGAL set that retails for around $150. As I continued to browse, I found another auction for the bootleg. It was selling for a mere $50. It probably cost them $5-$10 to copy the original discs and packaging, encoded for ALL Regions, and shipped to the states, complete with bonus material. And yet their profit on something like that (or similar items) is anywhere from 200%-500% or MORE while those who made the product in the first place notice a considerable drop in legitimate sales! Good grief! Another couple of statistics from the same website:

As we can see, these facts speak volumes. Piracy is an ever-growing problem and one that does NOT just affect the consumer. Piracy affects every entity from the get-go. If a company makes a product and intends to sell it for profit, as soon as a beta version or an illegal copy is made, they are losing potential sales. And it has a cascading effect all the way down to the store it is sold in and the consumer, if the consumer purchases it at all. While prices have gone up over the years, if they raised prices on everything because of software piracy as D.K. (aka Anarhist) claims, the cost of a video game would far exceed $50 and it would be rising all the time. The main reason prices have gone up over time is more due to inflation rather than piracy. There seems, however, to be a relative standard pricing scheme for games, and while I’m sure they do factor in piracy to some extent, there is also a level where certain prices will guarantee the product won’t move off the store shelf.

In short, you can make a crappy game and it won’t sell. Or you can make a good game and hope for the best. If it does make it to market, that will not guarantee success and profit. There will always be people who do not want to pay full price (or any price) for something they want. Such is the nature of our current society. There are those, however, like myself, who will still go through the legitimate channels to acquire something of value. If piracy was to win out and hit that critical customer base on black market merchandise, companies and institutions would no longer make the movies, games, or DVD’s we all know and love because there would be no money or demand in it. And society is driven more by money and demand than any other thing on this planet. Of this I am certain. That is all.