[NG] The Real State of PC Gaming - Page 4 - Overclock.net

Blameless · 05-09-08

I buy at least half my games as digital distributions from places like Direct2Drive. There are numerous advantages to this. I do not need to have a CD in to play, and I get the games faster.

Any study that does not include subscription based games and digital downloads is worthless.

As for piracy, I doubt it's more prevalent now (as a percentage) than it was 10, 15, or even 20 years ago. In the early-mid 90s I was copying commodore64 and DOS floppies and half my games were priated (being 9-10 or so I didn't have mcuh grasp on what piracy was, nor would I have cared). Now, I don't think I have any pirated games that I play, though I'll still download one here or there to tryout.

The more I read stuff like this and experience the hysteria of the piracy debate, the more convinced I am that the harm done by piracy, at least in developed countries, is more myth than fact. Most of the damage done can be traced to wasted and misdirected efforts at curbing a relatively minor problem.