Punch Club sells 330k copies, pirated 1.6 million times

Game of Thrones would never get as popular as it is now if not for the pirates. Just saying. It's a recognized fact.

What is the point of this thread?

I can look on any torrent site and see plenty of console games with a few millions downloads.... let alone any other industry.

Are you trying to suggest that those 1.6 million would of bought it? you haven a giggle mate?

no suprise huggles-troll jumped on so early mind you.

"Piracy is wrong" congratulations, you get a gold star.....

I said try it without having to buy it. Now that you brought it up though, the pirated copy could potentially lead to a sale ...and thats not justification for piracy but a positive outlook on the effects of piracy :)

Complain away and see if it gets you anywhere.

76% of all the piracy of the game came from Brazil, Russia, and China. 43% came from just Brazil itself, that is nearly half of all the pirated copies from just one country. Even Nintendo pulled out of Brazil so that should paint a picture of the situation in that country with games and taxes.

Out of the 1.6 million copies 1.216M was from 3 countries that in one form of another are known for issues with piracy.

The top three countries that bought the game were Germany, United States, and France making up 91% of all the sales.

So is the issue really PC gaming and piracy or is it really specific countries and piracy? I wonder what the number breakdown for piracy of Nintendo games would be? Would Brazil again be leading because of their country's specific situation?

it's an issue and it's still big a thing in third-world countries where ppl hardly access to a proper Internet service , no one can deny that piracy affect sales but it's not that big of a deal as this article is trying to make it sound and ... most importantly it has nothing to do with PC gaming , I mean, for instance Stardew Valley sales , this game has already sold more than 600K copies and still won't come down from Steam's Top-Sellers chart , considering that this game is also made by one person and you can download from kickasstorrent in a heartbeat ,

@pelvist: yes that might lead 100k people out of the 1.6 million who didn't buy to actually pay for it! :) and imma look away at all those numbers and ignore the fact that it still got pirated to death being so cheap to buy.

@MBirdy88: you are right, and even one of the users who posted on this thread came up with a picture faplace where you can buy pirated copies, that is another big issue besides the download of illegal copies since here these people are actually making money out of somebody else's work. And I wasn't, just pointing out that is is more than double of buyers.

So piracy ok?

Whilst I agree with this in principle it should ultimately be up to the discretion of the publisher if they want their product distributed for free.

Yeah, but absolutely nobody can have that power though, which is something most developers have come to terms with. It simply can't be done. The moment any form of media reaches someone else's hands, the power to prevent it from being distributed in any manner is totally and completely lost. The best developers will embrace this fact. They see piracy as advertising, they see YouTube "Let's Plays" as advertising (something else publishers have complained about), they see renting/trading/borrowing as a way to gain more fans. Companies that battle against these markets see a decline in sales.

Companies should just look at what these markets provide, and look at them as worthy competition that'll help themselves become better companies. Steam has gained more active users since 2013 than Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo have sold consoles COMBINED. It's because Steam's philosophy is to look at the benefits people find in piracy, and try to bring those benefits to their service. That's why they have free weekends, and why they have expanded into so many countries (lack of accessibility is a huge driver of piracy), and why they tempt so many users with pre-order sales and dramatic sale prices periodically throughout the year. They also look at the negatives of piracy such as online hackers, and viruses, and provide a platform safe from both with VAC as well as selling only authorized games. Steam is even trying to get into the streaming business knowing that's how many people consume video games.

It's not just Steam though. All PC distribution platforms look at these alternative markets as worthy competition to their offerings. If piracy, YouTube "Let's Plays", and renting/trading/borrowing could be eliminated tomorrow, I guarantee there'd be a steep drop off in game sales. It could even be a death blow to certain portions of the market. They are beneficial to the industry despite what anyone thinks behind the morality of them. They all drive service and content providers to produce better services and content.

Piracy is and always will be an issue. It's whether those pirates would ever be legitimate consumers... Which I doubt they ever would.

QFT.

Piracy is bad, yeah we know. But it goes with the territory. Devs and publishers that know how to reap its benefits, prospers.

Its like with your GFs, k? Some things you just have to deal with and you'll be a lot happier.

I don't see an issue. 330k thought the game was worth paying for, 16 million people thought it wasn't.

Here's an idea: make a game people want to pay for. How's that for common sense?

Scum, that's how I feel about pirates.