Why pirates pirate, let us count the ways

piracy

The developer who asked the question “Why do people pirate?” now has an answer. Several of them, actually.

The developer, Cliff Harris, wanted to know why people pirate games so much. The reasons are the same ones we’ve heard for years: because of DRM on game discs; to try before you buy; because games are terrible these days and not worth the money. Only about 5 percent gave the “because it’s easy, why shouldn’t I pirate?” excuse. Or, maybe it’s that only those 5 percent are being honest?

And how does Harris respond to this new data? He no longer uses DRM on his game releases, and has lowered the price of some of his games. How nice would it be to see the big publishers respond this way?

via Game Life