Piracy: Good for the Consumer
Here in the UK Prey costs 50 quid on the XBOX 360, and 30 on the PC.
What are the differences between the two markets? There are a lot more PC gamers, so they can charge less perhaps. The 360 is new, so we’re “suckers”, and we pay a premium. The 360 is “next-gen” so we pay a premium.
But PC games have been cheaper than their console ports for a while. There are more PS2 gamers than PC gamers, but the GTA games were still cheaper on the PC (by about 5 quid).
So I think piracy causes the price reduction. Retailers have to compete with piracy, and thus they reduce the price. The relative lack of piracy and peer-2-peer availability in the console space means prices can stay higher.
A more concrete example of this occured recently in China, where Warner Brothers is experimenting with releasing official DVDs of their movies within 12 days of the cinematic release, and for a rock bottom price of 1.25 US dollars. Thus competing with the pirates on price and release timing.
Piracy can be good for the consumer. However, don’t get me wrong, I don’t pretend that if everywhere in the world had the level of piracy China has that creating content would still be feasible. Thus my tentative conclusion is, that in a limited form, piracy appears to be good for the consumer.
I also believe that in a limited form, piracy is good for the content-creator too. I wrote about that in a previous article.
As a disclaimer I work as a software engineer, and the money from my software is directly related to my continued employment.
[Update: 26-Jul-2006]
This post on shacknews seems to back up what I’m talking about.