This is how much damage you do to a developer when you illegally download a game instead of buying it

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The dispute has been going on for decades: How bad are pirated copies really for developers? We now know the answer and it is surprising.

Are pirated copies now bad for the developer? In general, of course, yes. Because every pirated copy is illegal and potentially harms the rights holders. But developers, publishers and, generally speaking, the Internet have been arguing for a long time about how damaging pirated copies really are financially.

A new scientific study (via sciencedirect) has now used extensive data analysis of past releases to find out when pirated copies are particularly bad, what role copy protection plays and whether certain features of games attract hackers. The focus here was on Denuvo, which is currently the most used software of this type.

By the way, you’ll meet plenty of real pirates in Ubisoft’s Skull and Bones:

Pirate MMO Skull & Bones shows brutal sea battles and absurd upgrades in the new trailer

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Denuvo: After release it depends

How bad are pirated copies? It depends on the point in time at which copy protection fails:

  • If Denuvo is cracked by hackers during the first two weeks, around 20 percent of all revenue over the title’s entire cycle will be lost.
  • This value decreases with every week, and after just 28 days the differences in income between cracked and Denuvo intact are minimal.
  • If the protection is only broken after 12 weeks, the difference is virtually zero. So from here on out it doesn’t matter at all whether the game is still protected via Denuvo or not.

    • How long does Denuvo last on average against hackers? 75 percent of all Denuvo protection measures last around seven weeks. 50 percent are cracked after five months. From here the curve flattens out: after a little more than a year, cracks have been released for 3⁄4 of all Denuvo titles.

    What does the study recommend to publishers and developers? It is advisable to try to maintain protection for two to three months. It can then be removed. The studios should rather take advantage of the positive marketing associated with the removal.

    Why so much potential loss to begin with? Even today, developers and publishers still sell most copies of a game that has just been released. On top of that, the price is also at its highest at this time. Sales after six months are still relevant, but if a newly released game sells well below expectations in the first month, it is usually a flop; and often harms the developers in the long term.

    Are some games cracked particularly quickly or often? No, the characteristics of a game, whether it’s a shooter, an RPG or something else, don’t matter. Furthermore, the hackers do not care whether certain publishers are behind the title. It can hit every title sooner or later.

    Not only do pirates need thick internet lines for their illegal activities, but in general it’s nice to be able to download large amounts of data quickly these days. In times when even individual patches can amount to dozens of gigabytes, many would like to have such a connection: With the fastest internet connection in the world, you can download Baldur’s Gate 3 or even the new CoD in just a few milliseconds

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