What Leads People to Pirate Games

Why do people pirate games? This is the question Cliff Harris, Positech Games developer, asked on his blog and for which he managed to find answers.

So what started off as a way to make people more aware of his creations and lead them to purchase more of his games on his Website turned into a real interrogation on what leads people to pirate games and what needs to be changed in order maybe not to avoid but at least decrease piracy significantly.

What came out of this survey is that games piracy is caused mainly by cost, which does not really surprise me since it is one of the sources of piracy in general and not just games piracy, and DRM which really isn't a surprise either since people don't like to pay for something they don't fully own.

However what games developers should really focus on is to improve gameplay because it is a significant cause of piracy as well. Indeed this realization is sadder than shocking since there has been a clear quality decrease over the years.

So, games developers, take some notes and users will reward your efforts. ;-)