Why do gamers buy copied games?

Today at the ELSPA International Games Summit in London, a preview of academic research from the University of Central Lancashire suggested that people who buy cracked games, chip their consoles or download software illegally don’t think there’s anything wrong with it at all.

“In fact it’s seen as relatively normal“, said Dr Jo Bryce, senior lecturer in Psychology at the University of Central Lancashire, who had interviewed a sample of gamers both over the web and by post. “It’s an every day thing to do. It doesn’t seem to be a problem. They understand to a greater extent that it’s illegal, but they see it as quite a normal thing.”

So why do we gamers think stealing IP is a perfectly acceptable thing to do? The games industry often compares buying copied games or downloading games to going into a shop and stealing a game from the shelf. But gamers simply don’t accept that.

Dr Bryce also suggested that people think there’s a marked difference between buying games from a friend in a local context, which the research found was the way most people obtained their counterfeited software, and downloading it from the Internet.

“Consumers were more reluctant to accept downloading was wrong because no money changes hands. They think it’s cheaper. Somehow it is ethically or morally different. They view it as a cleaner way to obtain products.”

Of course, a virtual game feels different to the physical box, and so downloading it to your hard drive feels different to taking it from a shop. If a gamer can see a piece of software available for nothing to download, and know that anyone else who sees it can do the same thing, they don’t feel any remorse. ‘Who am I stealing from? It’s just a file on a website. I wouldn’t have bought it anyway?’

Of course, this perception of right and wrong doesn’t take into account perhaps the most pertinent motivation for buying counterfeit games – cost. When faced with the prospect of paying £40 for a game, a lot of gamers will pluck for the fiver it will cost them to buy it off a market stall.

Young people, who have a limited amount to spend on entertainment, won’t even think twice.

“Cost is something you can’t get away from“, said Dr Bryce. “It’s the salient justification any consumer will use. Especially among younger people, there are issues with cost and lifestyle. Cost was linked to what freeing up disposable income allowed people to do in their leisure time. It’s what saving money in one purchase allows you to do. The money saved allows young people to spend more money on the cinema or their mobiles, because they only have a certain amount of disposable income.”

“Teenagers are tactical spenders. You’re not just competing with other pirated entertainment; you’re competing with a range of leisure services.”

Moving forward, the research suggests that the purchase of counterfeited software will grow. With broadband penetration on the up, more and more people can download bigger files quicker, and the public perception of buying copied games is unlikely to change.

“People did have a very high perception of being ripped off by the entertainment industries“, continued Dr Bryce. “We have to, on some level, engage with those beliefs in order to change these beliefs.”

“It’s not perceived as a criminal activity regardless of what the industry of government tells us. People see it as an issue that cannot be resolved; it’s something that is inevitably going to happen.”

Whatever the public perception, as was noted by a panel discussion after Dr Bryce’s presentation, it is currently not illegal to buy counterfeited software. It is only illegal to make it available, either on file sharing websites, market stalls or at school.

And then there’s the school of thought that it can have a positive effect on the industry. As a member of the audience put to the panel, where’s the harm in a gamer downloading Halo 2 to their Xbox, plays the single player mode then goes out and purchases the game legally to play it on Xbox Live? That’s a sale Microsoft has made that they wouldn’t have done normally.

Whatever, it seems an impossible feat to stop people buying copied software if it’s available cheaper than official release. As long as there’s demand, there will be supply. The industry still has a lot to do to combat this hugely complex issue.