The best way to address piracy in the PC market

In response to Nintendo's recent actions against emulator developers, I'd like to share my thoughts on piracy in the PC gaming landscape. Before Nintendo start another rumbling against Ryujinx, which let's hope that day never comes. It's important to note that this discussion isn't intended to solely target Nintendo but rather to explore the issue. I'd like to start this with a quote from Gabe Newell:

“We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem”

-Gabe Newell (2011)

The statement above highlights a critical point. When legal options for acquiring games present inconveniences or limitations, such as region locking, delayed releases, and restricted purchase methods, pirated alternatives often appear more appealing due to their accessibility.

The success of Steam serves as a compelling example. By offering a user-friendly and accessible platform with a vast library of games, Steam has demonstrably reduced piracy within its ecosystem. However, it's crucial to recognize that simply making games available isn't enough.

For a PC port to be successful and profitable, it's essential that the game is optimized and runs well on PC hardware. This means addressing compatibility issues, ensuring smooth performance, and potentially even utilizing features unique to the PC platform. Additionally, effective marketing strategies are crucial to generate awareness and interest among PC gamers. This can involve targeted advertising, engaging with the PC gaming community, and ensuring the game's features and value proposition are clearly communicated.

In Nintendo's case, they could test the waters by releasing remastered or improved versions of their older games. Following Microsoft and Sony's successful strategies, they could potentially tap into the lucrative PC gaming market instead of focusing on lawsuits against modders and emulator developers. While challenging, this shift could be a worthwhile long-term investment.

TLDR/ Short Version:

Piracy thrives when legal options are inconvenient (region locks, delays) or limited (purchase methods). Look at Steam: user-friendly access reduces piracy.

For PC ports to succeed, optimization is key (performance, compatibility). Marketing is also crucial (targeted ads, community engagement).

Instead of fighting emulators, Nintendo could test the PC market with remakes, like Sony and Microsoft. It could be a profitable long-term investment.

I think there was a golden time when PC pirates found a home purchasing on Steam, where they could buy lots of games without feeling it too much in their wallet (steam sales).

And this in turn also attracted a ton of Japanese devs who before didn't bat an eye releasing their games on PC.

Heck if you look at the list of developers and publishers that have returned to PC it's not something to scoff at.

But AAA (and even some smaller) games today are in shambles:

• Broken games on release
• Shader compilation stutter
• Traversal stutter
• Console ports (sometimes less features than consoles)
• Soulless or unfun games (Suicide Squad, Skull & bones)
• Multiple season passes
• Day One DLC
• Forced political corectness

And all of this for more expensive prices than ever: PC has gone up from €50 to €60 to even €70 and €80 in the span of a few years... Yeah, I feel that a lot of companies are overstretching their hand and are driving people towards cheaper alternatives.

Like I'm doing: I'm playing and buying a ton of older games. It's way cheaper and I'm just not interested in a second job (live service) as I have enough on my hands already.

Gabe Newell was somewhat delusional. The free option will always be more appealing to a ton of people than good service.

I found the easiest way to avoid pirates is to play, Sea of mofo Thieves, using the solo option, Safer Seas. ;o

And with that...

lol :P

Gabe, you mean the clown who supports DRM? Steam games are the most pirated games around. So your argument falls flat.

I think that there was a time when what Gabe said was true but nowadays with high speed Internet and how easy it is for people to get these things that percentage is a lot smaller. Given human nature and ease of accessibility I find it hard to believe that there isn’t a significant number of people who pirate games simply because they can.

@the_master_race: Explain this mate? These are the top downloaded games today.

Piracy will still be a thing because there's a lot of poor people out there. Steam addressed it way back using regional pricing, but publishers are opting out of it recently because money.

Sony is one such publisher on Steam that HAD regional pricing.

@pclover1980: Sure, not saying it won’t just saying that there’s also a significant number who pirate games simply because of the ease of accessibility for them to do so.

While AAA publishers haven't historically been known for making high-quality PC games, they can still surprise us. Helldivers 2, published by Sony (a major AAA company), serves as a good example, despite not technically being a AAA title itself. Similarly, the success of Palworld made me wonder: what if Nintendo could release their top games on PC?

Nintendo isn't likely to port their games any time soon. There is no monetary incentive (their games and consoles do really well) and I've found that their teams work on games tailor made to that specific hardware. They barely port games (Zelda and Wii U games are the exception) and I really feel that their games are at their best because they target only one specific platform.

If they were to support PC that would mean hundreds of different of configurations versus 1 right now.

While your screenshot from a random torrent site doesn't address my point about how strong service offerings can discourage piracy, it's important to acknowledge the limitations of pirated games. They often lack features like achievements and updates, which can detract from the overall user experience. While piracy may never fully vanish, it can be significantly mitigated through effective strategies that go beyond simply highlighting the drawbacks of pirated copies.

@mesome713 said:

@the_master_race: Explain this mate? These are the top downloaded games today.

I think a large reason of why Nintendo are especially targetted by seafaring robbers is just because of Nintendo's terrible backwards compatibility. The Nintendo Vault sure doesnt help either.

I think porting games is the ideal solution. To fix crime, people need to ask themsevles why the crimes are being commited in the first place. Trying to crack down isnot a sustainable long term solution.

I can't quantify the number of people who pirate games, but here's a significant number of people who don't.

And here are171,000 unwitting pirates, unknowingly funneling money straight into Sony's pockets!

@the_master_race said:

While your screenshot from a random torrent site doesn't address my point about how strong service offerings can discourage piracy, it's important to acknowledge the limitations of pirated games. They often lack features like achievements and updates, which can detract from the overall user experience. While piracy may never fully vanish, it can be significantly mitigated through effective strategies that go beyond simply highlighting the drawbacks of pirated copies.

@mesome713 said:

@the_master_race: Explain this mate? These are the top downloaded games today.

Yet you can't explain why the most pirated games are games that have everything you state? Sony games are now among the most pirated games.

@the_master_race: Huh? Not sure I follow. Aren’t those people who bought the game?

First games on a new platform can be like toddlers: a bit wobbly at first. But hey, Sony's been taking notes, (From Horizon to Nixxes's Spider-Man) and even PC porting isn't exactly rocket science. If Sony can do it, then Nintendo can too!

The solution is releasing a solid port at the right time, and by the right time, I mean a release that is far away from the date that GTA 6 hitting PC. And it's been a long long time coming.

The real way to address piracy is to release a game with quality multiplayer. This will force people to buy a copy instead of playing a pirated version. But if you're like ghost, and is afraid of the multiplayer, those people will always pirate everything.

Which Sony game, The Last of Us or Helldivers 2? Just Google "most pirated games" and guess what pops up first? Alan Wake 2, of course. Must be because this stellar game is shackled to the dreaded Epic Games Store, a platform loathed by everyone... except maybe actual users.

@the_master_race: Alan Wake 2 is nowhere near most pirated games. If you google most pirated games historically you get Minecraft, GTA5, CoD, etc. If you look at most pirated games today, you get stuff like I just posted. People aren't pirating these games cause they lack features. Sony games have some of the most gamer friendly features you can find and are still among the most pirated games today. Your argument falls flat mate.

So here's the thing: pirates will always be out there, hoisting the digital skull and crossbones. But you know what stops them in their swashbuckling tracks? A fantastic PC port, released at the perfect time, and priced to move faster than a greased-up ferret! That way, gamers get their fix, CEOs rake in the loot, and maybe, just maybe, there'll be enough left over to, you know, not lay everyone off.

A certain % of game distribution will always be pirated, and there is very little they can do about it.

Crime will always exist, and you can only prevent so much crime before you have to resort to draconian measures.

I don't say this is a defeatist way, as there are some things you can do, but a lot of the current measures are pretty terrible.

There reaches a certain point where if you went from a 15% chance of piracy to 5%, and your next anti-piracy measure is "install malware on the game that will crash many systems" then you need to accept that 5%. Especially since they wouldn't buy the game anyway.

And therein lies the end of the argument: there will always be a certain segment of the population that will pirate.

Accept it, don't alienate your legit customers with ineffective anti-piracy measures, and make your game or don't.

Appreciate the chat, mate! This whole thing feels like a flashback to 2015, arguing with other concerned Sony's shareholders on System Wars about bringing their exclusives to PC. Dayum, all fell flat into Steam's pirate ship. I say, we give my 'My Nintendo on PC' argument just a decade too and see where it lands? Guess only time will tell, eh?

@the_master_race: Well I never said that it wouldn’t help to make games available for purchase on other platforms. Simply saying that I don’t think that people pirating games because it’s much easier to do so these days and just do it because they can isn’t as insignificant as some believe.

@the_master_race: personally I don't have a problem with piracy. In fact, calling it piracy is dumb, it's just people expressing their freedom of speech or the 1A and i will never have a problem with that. Another question is so called piracy really impacts revenue. The ones who are willing to pirate these games give up a lot of features to do so and these people likely would never have bought the game regardless.

You can take basic steps to mitigate piracy, like for example releasing half decent hardware. Notice that there still isn't a ps4 emulator on the market. The only one with a piracy problem is Nintendo, because they insist on releasing shitty hardware.

On top of that, the Nintendo games often lack features like points, and achievements, the community is often sub par, lots of barriers for online play. I hear the pirated Mario kart online community is actually bigger and better than Nintendo own. Just shows you how backward Nintendo is that a group of people working from their basement can provide a better service.

And I simply say we deserve the choice to play the best versions of our favorite games on our preferred platform, without the hurdle of a hardware paywall. But alas, Nintendo seems more focused on ...

From my experience, as I grew older and have more access to money, I began to notice that I've been buying a lot of games (in relative comparison) than before. However, I very rarely buy games when they are at their full price (I think there were two or three exceptions to this, but all of these were associated with my desire to splurge some money that day on different things; so I may not have bought those games at full prices otherwise, though) and I am very careful on what games I spend my money on. That being said, pirating is way more easier, if you know what you are doing, than buying a game; and, at times, this is anecdotal evidence, but some AAA games run better cracked than their legit versions for some reason (e.g., AC: Valhalla legit version kept crashing for me every hour, while cracked version did not *shrugs*).

@the_master_race: If you purchase the game then I’m fine with people emulating it. Piracy though is a “no go” for me though. I’m very skeptical though on just how many people who pirate Nintendo’s games actually bought them first.

It seems that Yuzu was getting money for it as well which is a no-no.

I’m also fine with companies protecting their games, especially if it’s a current product that they are selling.

One way they could address it is with TPM and a hypervisor. The PC environment can be split off into a trusted and managed side, and an untrusted unsigned unmanaged side. In this scenario, the trusted side could be encrypted and signed and inaccessible by untrusted and unsigned apps.

The user could still do whatever they want with the PC on the untrusted side, but there would be restrictions on managed and trusted apps.

There would be restricted ways for cross interaction and to import/export on the trusted side but it could remain largely seamless to the end user otherwise.

The PC seems to have been slowly moving in this direction and we already see a secure path for streaming video services, but if we take it further, there can be an entire secure segment of the PC where something can be stored and run on your hardware but be inaccessible to the rest (unless there is a flaw that would allow for a compromise/jailbreak).

There's no definitive answer on how many people who played on Yuzu actually bought the games they played. However, if Nintendo were to bring its games to Steam in a well-optimized way, I'm sure they'd attract a significant number of potential buyers who are countable.

In the case of Nintendo: It wasn't just about stopping piracy: It's about protecting their walled garden. It's one of their most important assets.

Nintendo do not want to come to the PC. They really really really don't. They have always wanted tight control over the environment they operate in. They want people to buy their hardware and only run their games on their hardware. It will take a colossal financial scare (2 wiiiu level flops back to back with no backup) to make them even remotely consider moving their business. They briefly dipped their toe in mobile during the lean wiiiu years and, with the success of the switch, they have basically pulled right back.

I wish there was a middle ground that could be reached. Some doodad or some addin board that can play switch games officially and the user can then pump the output through a post process upscaler or something.

But Nintendo like their control and their high markup on controllers and 30% cut from all software sold on the Switch. They dont have to worry about specs and multiplat....they develop to one spec and only one spec...their spec. At the moment making PC games is a very hard sell for them.

It will be interesting to see if they push to shut down more emulators soon or was this a once off. I looked into YUZU a bit more and they really didn't do themselves any favours. Apparently they put a release of it that played TOTK behind a paywall to raise money....BIIIIG no no. Big no no. I hope lessons are learned with whatever follows. Don't talk about the PP and for gods sake DON'T PROMOTE IT AS PLAYING UNRELEASED NINTNEDO GAMES!! Also don't host it in the USA :P.

@the_master_race: I’m sure they would make good money bringing their games to PC but that doesn’t excuse piracy in my opinion. If that’s where someone wants to play the game then they need to buy it first in whatever fashion that it’s sold in. In this case buy the Switch version then emulate it.

What is the actual data on piracy? How much are companies losing? How prevalent is piracy?

This is supposed to be a thread discussing piracy in the PC market, but some on this thread are bring up the Switch emulation topic. Is there already a thread on that?

Classic Nintendo, holding onto their games like a toddler with a favorite toy. They've even fallen behind Tencent in the race! Maybe they should just hand the reins to Pocket Pair, Inc. (Palworld), right? After all, why miss out on all those potential customers when you can watch your games get emulated on day one?

This thread is not about reasons to justify or endorse piracy on PC but how the absence of well-made ports and a good service can incentivize people to resort to piracy.

@the_master_race: Fallen behind tencent in what race? Nintendo currently a very healthy financially.

@the_master_race: Well to that I agree.

Yes, Nintendo is currently very healthy, but it's important to point out that video game companies embracing new strategies tend to reach a wider audience and stay ahead. Expanding into PC, mobile, and cloud gaming markets significantly boost their revenue.

They also sometimes get their teeth kicked in. Historically Nintendo have also not done well in red oceans. They can't outspend MS, Sony and companies like Tencent.

Expanding into those markets also means letting go of the walled garden. Remember that Nintendo get a 30% cut out of every game sold on the Switch (and a lot of games are sold on the switch). They also make money on peripherals (including authorised 3rd party ones). They make money on the hardware itself too. And they make money off carts for physical releases. Then there is licensing fees they get from publishers on top of all that.

So to undermine all that for the chance of maybe selling more of their own games on other platforms, platforms where it will be Nintendo paying the 30% cut to someone and making nothing on hardware etc....putting my corpo Nintendo shill hot on for a sec: it's a tough sell.

Don't get me wrong. I'd love to have an official method of playing Nintendo games on the PC. It would be better for us, the consumer.

But the only way I see it happening is if Nintendo are forced to do it due to an existential crisis. Switch 2 and 3 being flops with much fewer people buying their games on those systems and Nintendo having no fallback....that may force their hand. But i think that's what it will take.

In my opinion, Nintendo should test the waters by porting one of their popular titles to PC. If it doesn't turn a profit, they can decide whether to continue porting games. After all, wouldn't it be better to give Steam a 30% cut and reach a wider audience than to watch their games pirated before release? They're missing a golden opportunity, and the more they wait, the more people might resort to piracy. As you mentioned, They're so stubborn, you could lead them to water, offer them a boat, and they'd still try to walk on it

@the_master_race: All PC gamers do is pirate games. Look what happened to Sony, every single one of their games are top pirated games today and none selling well on PC. Nintendo don't want to be fools like Sony.

@Pedro: I posted a thread last year about piracy on PC in 2023.

It was 1 in 4 out of a study of 50k participants that admitted to pirating games last year on PC. However there would be the ones who didn't admit it also like our resident pirate Ghost, so that figure would be higher.

So if a dev sells a million copies, it means 250k are get pirated.

So for every 4 million they sell 1 million are getting pirated. That's insane.

That's a shit ton of lost money for drvs/pubs.

The PC is the worst when it comes to supporting the games industry. The number one reason Hermits admitting to pirating games was cost. So yeah they can afford to spend over a grand (some in the thousands) to by/build a PC, but can't afford games, is anyone stupid enough to believe that?

Oh no, this is a travesty

Just pay for Denuvo for a few months/year. Problem solved. Obviously this is a limited solution since a scene could potentially start again to crack it consistently, but for now it's basically works.

I mean it "solves" the problem by creating another, which is that Denuvo and other anti-piracy software are bloated and chew up game performance. And "solved" is in quotes because I would imagine more often than not that pirates are people who would just not buy the game anyway and are fine waiting for the cracked version.

The best anti-piracy is, as always, accessibility, and Denuvo actually hurts that in certain cases by hiking up game requirements.

There is a lot of assumptions you are participating in and then you are deriving more assumptions based on these assumptions.

Out of that 25%, how many games they own are pirated? How many pirated more than one games? How many pirated old games? How many pirated consoles games? How pirated new games? Without that information, your derived number of 25% of every PC game is unfounded and lacks merit with basic scrutiny.

Uh huh, so that's why people like Ghost pirate everything.

@Pedro: I posted a thread with the PC's piracy stats last year. You probably posted in it.

If you want more details you're going to have to go look for that thread fo find them.