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Piracy Activity vs. Product Features in Digital Games Drachen, Anders; Bauer, Kevin; Veitch, Rob Document Version Final published version Publication date: 2011 License CC BY-NC-ND Citation for published version (APA): Drachen, A., Bauer, K., & Veitch, R. (2011). Piracy Activity vs. Product Features in Digital Games. Department of Informatics INF, Copenhagen Business School. Link to publication in CBS Research Portal General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us ([email protected]) providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 30. Sep. 2021 Piracy Activity vs. Product Features in Digital Games Anders Drachen Kevin Bauer Robert W. D. Veitch Department of Informatics Cheriton School of Computer Science Department of Informatics Copenhagen Business School University of Waterloo Copenhagen Business School [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] ABSTRACT of digital files via P2P networks [5,31]. Monitoring was carried The practice of illegally copying and distributing digital games is out for 173 game titles over a three month period running from at the heart of one of the most heated and divisive debates in the late 2010 to early 2011, spanning all genres and multiple hard- international games environment, with stakeholders typically ware platforms (e.g., PC, X360, PS3, Wii, DS, PSP), and the viewing it as a very positive (pirates) or very negative (the indus- recording of 12.7 million unique peers. The analysis of these data try, policy makers). Despite the substantial interest in game pira- indicates that the major commercial, AAA-level, action-oriented cy, there is very little objective information available about its titles account for the highest proportion of activity on the BitTor- magnitude or its distribution across game titles and game genres. rent network, although games from other genres such as “Racing”, This paper presents a large-scale analysis of the illegal distribu- “Role Playing Game” and “Simulation” games are individually tion of digital game titles, which was conducted by monitoring the more popular than the major action titles. The distribution of the BitTorrent peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing protocol. The sample torrent activity across game titles was highly asymmetric. For includes 173 games and a collection period of three months from example, the 10 most popular titles comprised 41.5% of the total late 2010 to early 2011. With a total of 12.6 million unique peers number of unique peers in the dataset. Finally, aggregated review identified, it is the largest examination of game piracy via P2P scores were found to be positively correlated with the logarithm of networks to date. Analysis of the data shows that games of the the number of unique peers per game (p<0.05). This indicates “Action” genre, which include the majority of major commercial review scores may be one determinant of BitTorrent activity, AAA-level titles, comprise 45% of the unique peers in the dataset, irrespective of the hardware platform. although games from “Racing”, “Role-Playing Game” and “Simu- lation” genres have higher numbers of unique peers on average 2. GAME PIRACY: AN OVERVIEW than “Action” games. The ten most pirated titles encompass 5.27 A key problem in the game piracy debate is the lack of compre- million aggregated unique peers alone. In addition to genre, re- hensive and objective information about the nature and magnitude view scores were found to be positively correlated with the loga- of the piracy activity and its root causes, such as its economic and rithm of the number of unique peers per game (p<0.05). behavioral drivers. The majority of the data available on game piracy originate from the industry (e.g., individual publishers or General Terms developers [12,19]) but more commonly branch organizations Economics, Security, Human Factors, Legal Aspects. such as the ESA and the Business Software Alliance (BSA) [9,17,18]. The data reported by the industry are somewhat prob- Keywords lematic, partially due to the interest of the industry to reduce Digital games, game piracy, BitTorrent, game factors, economics piracy and thus potentially exaggerate the problem, as well as a of game piracy. lack of transparency about the specific procedures for collecting the reported data [15]. 1. INTRODUCTION Game piracy, which involves the illegal copying and distribution 2.1 Previous Work of digital games [28], is a complex phenomena that occurs across Although the research literature on digital game piracy is frag- multiple channels and has a magnitude that is difficult to estimate mented, the information available on other digital products is [9,17,18]. It is the cause of heated debate, with pirates on one side better established. For example, software piracy has been investi- and game developers, game publishers and legislators/policy gated at both the individual- and country-level, and informed by makers on the other. Despite the interest in game piracy and the theory from various fields, including economics, social psycholo- controversy surrounding the activity, there is only limited infor- gy, criminology, business ethics and marketing. Individual-level mation available on the subject that spans across game titles. The research indicates the importance of intentions, attitudes, per- information that does exist often comes from industry organiza- ceived risks, and price of legal alternatives (e.g., [Peace & Gallet- tions such as the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) or ta, 1996]. Work focused on country-level differences using aggre- operators of Peer-2-Peer (P2P) networks [e.g., 31], but lacks gate indices to gauge national differences indicates that gross objectivity and a transparent methodology. domestic product per capita, investment in information communi- cations technologies and civil liberties are negatively related to The purpose of this paper is to address the need for objective software piracy rates [e.g., 32]. information on digital game piracy, covering two important areas. Firstly, we provide a much needed overview and analysis of the Both sides of the piracy debate are however more or less in current state-of-the-art of the game piracy debate and a thorough agreement when it comes to the size of the problem. For example, evaluation of the BitTorrent protocol and the issues related to ESA claimed that 9.78 million illegal downloads had occurred of monitoring it, which are commonly ignored in reports on digital roughly 200 digital games in December 2009 alone [17]. Tor- piracy [5]. Secondly, we report analyses on game piracy data rentFreak.com, one of the most influential websites on P2P shar- obtained via tracking of the BitTorrent P2P protocol. The BitTor- ing via the BitTorrent protocol, reported 18.14 million downloads rent network was chosen because it is regarded as one of the main for the five most downloaded PC games on BitTorrent in 2010. channels for game piracy and the de facto standard for distribution The five most downloaded console games add a further 5.34 1 million downloads [31]. The lack of methodological scrutiny by 2.2.2 FTP objective third parties is also a problem for government-solicited The File Transfer Protocol is specifically designed for serving research. files over the Internet. FTP servers are centralized and therefore The credibility of industry-based or government-solicited reports prone to being shut down by legal entities if discovered to host is also harmed by the common methodological problems in such illegal content. FTP access is usually restricted to a small group work, which foster suspicion of bias [e.g., 14,15,30]. As noted by and hence not a common piracy method for the general public. Anderson [2011]: “When a TV/movie company like NBC Univer- 2.2.3 IRC sal funds a P2P study from a company that specializes in antipira- The Internet Relay Chat method was developed in the late 1980s cy work, the end result is hardly a disinterested piece of data” to facilitate real-time communication, before the development of [para. 4]. For example, Huygen et al. [15] examined music, film instant messaging clients. IRC can be used to share files, but and game piracy in the Netherlands, and via an online survey of downloading files over IRC can be technically complicated com- non-randomly selected Internet users in the Netherlands (n=778), pared to other methods, and may involve long waiting periods. extrapolating their findings to make conclusions about the entire Dutch population. Similarly, Envisional [13], a piracy research 2.2.4 Physical Distribution firm, concluded in a technical report commissioned by NBC Pre-dating the internet, the illegal physical copying, distribution or Universal that among other things music piracy is virtually gone selling of software, including digital games, is the oldest form of from BitTorrent, with only 2.9% of the 10,000 “most popular digital piracy and has existed for as long as digital content has torrents” examined being music files (console games comprising been available on portable media. Physical piracy involves the 2.8% and PC games 3.9%). However, these conclusions are based distribution – selling, giving or swapping –of unauthorized physi- on a somewhat flawed snapshot methodology, which is likely to cally copied media, including game DVDs and CDs. The distribu- overestimate the popularity of larger files, such as games, which tion networks employed vary from small circles of friends to take much longer to download and underestimate the popularity of organized crime where businesses revolve around the mass dupli- smaller files, such as music, which take much less time to down- cation of pirated media, and distribution/sale at competititive load.