Most Pirated Games of 2009

[Solid Knight]

Yep you're right. When I re-read it I realised I'd missed some of the nuances. I thought you were implying that every download was a lost sale, not a potential lost sale. The joys of late night browsing...

I see you edited it. In the spirit of good will I will edit my post as well.

[Shannon]

Bioshock, Fallout 3, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Mass Effect and Assassins Creed 1 & 2, just to name a few.

If you're happy with the demo you shouldn't need any more convincing, no matter how good/bad the multi-player is.

The incentive should be to buy the game based on what you thought of the demo.

"beating the single player campaign" - So what you're saying is that in general, developers only deserve your cash based on the multi-player experience?

"I'll download it, finish the SP, have no replay value and in the end" - That's basically what purchasing a game is all about... Remember the NES and SNES days, when you bought a game, finished it and maybe played it again a year later? I hate to break it to you but building a single player game costs money too.

If you're not happy with the demo that the developer/publisher provides then don't buy the game and walk away, you have no right to torrent it just because they didn't let you play multi-player.

Admittently though, most successful games are sold on their multiplayer. COD, Halo, Gears of War, Killzone, UT, etc, etc. The point I'm trying to make is, pirates know they can't play MP. If you give them a multiplayer demo then you're going to tempt them to buy the real deal.

The SP/MP also becomes and issue when you couple it with price. I personally cannot justify spending $120 on a singleplayer game that I will get 12-20hrs out of, when I could spend the exact same on a multiplayer game and get months of enjoyment out of it. And I personally know people like this too. Having said that, I bought inFamous the other week because I loved the demo when I played it and it was only $40. I didn't buy it when it was released because it was too damn expensive for what I would (and did) get out of it.

Introduce a fairer pricing system. If a game has a single player campaign and a multiplayer mode, the extra effort and development time is worth the money. But when you're charging the same exorbitant amount for a campaign only, I can see why games like Prototype get pirated. And if you're trying to push MP as the selling point of your game, release a multiplayer demo to get people hooked on it. Obviously you're going to have cheapskates who just want everything for free - it's unavoidable. But I honestly think pricing and, in MP-orientated titles, not being able to demo the game's selling point are driving factors for the upward trend in piracy. I know its personally stopped me from buying a number of titles (and to be clear, I haven't pirated them either - I've just gone off gaming nearly completely these last few years).

[Smigit]

Admittently though, most successful games are sold on their multiplayer. COD, Halo, Gears of War, Killzone, UT, etc, etc. The point I'm trying to make is, pirates know they can't play MP. If you give them a multiplayer demo then you're going to tempt them to buy the real deal.

I'd say its a 50/50 split and hasn't got so much to do whether a good multiplayer component is included as to whether what the game does attempt to do is done well. We can add others such as GTA, Zelda series, Mario and Half Life which while having multiplayer components (in most cases) still were sold on the single player aspect (well I guess HL had Counter Strike but thats almost a different game entirely).

I think a game just needs to be a quality title. Whether its an online or offline doesn't matter really and just dictates whether it will be popular in several years time. For sure, multiplayer titles win in that regard but overall sales can be great for single player ones too.