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Piracy Causing UK Developers To Consider New Business Practices

Alex Wiltshire's picture

By Alex Wiltshire

November 10, 2009

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TIGA survey suggests 50 per cent of UK developers are looking to new practices, but only 10 per cent view actual threat to their businesses as high.

60 per cent of respondents, each a member of the UK trade association, see piracy as a problem for their businesses, and 90 per cent see it as a rising issue. 
But 60 per cent regard the actual threat of piracy – in the form of peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing – to their businesses as low, with just 20 per cent assessing it as medium and 10 per cent as high.

Still, 50 per cent of the developers are considering different ways of doing business as a result of P2P piracy, with 75 per cent of these considering either digital distribution, subscription-based services and ad-supported free games, and 25 per cent considering working with publishers to address the issue.

The reaction spurred TIGA CEO Richard Wilson to state that it shows how pragmatic the UK industry is proving in the face of piracy: “The results of the TIGA piracy survey clearly demonstrate that UK developers are taking the initiative when dealing with the issue of piracy and looking for new ways of delivering content and communicating directly with their consumers. Developers are not complacent in dealing with this problem and are mostly seeking to find solutions for themselves rather than simply relying on the Government to solve the problem of piracy.”

DRM, however, proves a contentious issue, with 50 per cent of respondents regarding it an irrelevance, 30 per cent as the solution and 20 per cent as the problem. And so does government intervention by slowing or cutting off broadband of P2P pirates – respondents were split equally down the middle in agreeing and disagreeing that it was a good idea.

Alex_V's picture
On November 10th Alex_V said:

In such broad terms piracy is obviously a 'problem' for any business. And of course they will look at business practices that can offer a better profit. An utterly irrelevant survey.

PhoenixMDK's picture
On November 10th PhoenixMDK said:

I quite liked Stardock's levelheaded and vocal view on piracy (though query whether their view has changed since the launch of Demigod, when their servers were swamped by pirate users). They basically stated that developers need correctly to assess their market as people who will be paying for their games. Those are the people for whom they should be designing and, provided those people buy the game, the piracy numbers are largely irrelevant as the product will still be money-making with or without them. They are simply not part of the market.

The downside is that a market view like that is a bad sign for many hardcore gamers since that is where piracy is rife. Casual games become vastly more appealing as a market of potential paying customers, so following Stardock's advice could lead to a significant decline in hardcore games. Whether "new business practices" constitutes that kind of shift, I could not say.