In recent years, more and more Chinese independent games have been released on Steam, and some of them have even made it to the top of the bestseller list. Taigo E Scrolls is one of them.

Released on September 21 this year, The book quickly went viral, topping steam’s bestseller list for a short period of time. As well as gaining recognition from players, Taigo E Scroll became a new target for piracy, being cracked just one day after its release, leaving the small team of three at a loss.

Pirated games are thriving under the dust

Encounter piracy of the game is not only “Taiwu E scroll” a, as well as known as the light of the domestic game “Ai Xi”, in addition to the foreign AAA masterpiece is not spared, have to sigh these crack the ability of the team, in the sigh more people think why pirated games can be popular?

First, the market demand is large. According to the “China Game Industry Report from January to June 2018” jointly released by the China Phonetic Digital Association and Gamma Data, China’s game sales revenue reached 105 billion yuan in the first half of 2018, with a statistical growth of 5.2%. Although the growth of the game market is increasingly slow, it is undeniable that China’s game market still has a scale of 100 billion yuan.

However, according to a market research report by MUSO, a foreign data tracking company, pirated resource websites were visited more than 300 billion times in 2017, of which 4.6 billion were clicked on in China. Among the clicks on pirated resource websites, movies and games accounted for over 50%. Under the influence of people’s huge demand for pirated resources and huge game consumption market, the pirate game market with huge demand is bred.

Second, the lack of relevant laws and regulations. No rules, no fangyuan, China’s game market copyright supervision has always been relatively loose, so that pirated games have the opportunity to take advantage of. China’s pirate game industry is rampant, and a large number of websites selling pirated games have been born, they can quickly crack the mainstream PC games in the market without legal constraints.

For example 3 dm team led by not dead bird, cracked the encryption of the D “dragon age: trial”, although last year 3 dm also were punished by 1.62 million, the relevant units for the development cost is only a quarter of the normal game pirated games industry, fines for more profits is a drop in the bucket, crime cost reduce more crack team lacks the heart of fear. In addition, due to the diversification of game infringement, current laws and regulations are also difficult to make an accurate ruling, so pirated games still have a greater survival.

Third, most pirated foreign games support Chinese. “Taiwu Draw Volume” in recent years is a rare domestic steam weekly list and the title of the standalone game, its excellent game quality comparable to foreign AAA masterpiece, so it will become a pirate game team crack the target. It is one of the few cases, however, most of the time is 3 a foreign book piracy be cracked into the market, and these foreign 3 a book basically have a common characteristic, that is the original game doesn’t support simplified Chinese, pirated game has the localization, it greatly reduces the player’s entry barrier, so piracy game was very popular.

Fourth, the profit of pirated games is high. Pirated games profit is high, because it has no huge research and development and operational costs, can use with the help of a well-known games long-term accumulation of fame, fast into the market and profit, in the selling of pirated game all of the steps, only to crack the game need to invest more funds, is about a quarter of the licensed game development costs, It also avoids the tax on legitimate games (35% this year), the high profits that are the original sin of piracy.

Pirated games are the icing on the cake

Dike burst ant hole, air leakage needle. Piracy may not be as terrible as a monster, or as destructive to human nature as drugs, but it can cause the studio of Taio E Scroll to desperately appeal to fans for help, which shows that the harm can not be ignored. The harm of pirated games to users and small and medium-sized game studios is generally as follows.

The game may contain virus Trojan endangering personal property safety. There is no such thing as a free lunch, and there is no such thing as a trap. The high profit of pirated games is mainly made up of advertising, sales, developers’ compromise fee and the grey income that relies on virus Trojan to obtain privacy. Rising security team released the “China’s network security report in the first half of 2018” shows that in the first half of 2018, the number of virus infections 782 million times, resulting in computers and mobile devices Trojan virus in the main way of bad and pirated game websites, so it can be seen that there is a greater possibility of Trojan virus infection using pirated games.

It’s not good for players to form the right values. “You get what you pay for” is the most simple idea of equal value exchange in China. It is also a reflection of correct values. Nowadays, Chinese game players have the idea of “why should they spend money when there are free games”. The most commonly cracked foreign aaa games are big, but these games are almost all paid games. Such as “GTA 5” sells for 189 yuan, the justifiable defense 3 sells for 220 yuan, a high price to many players have support genuine game of the heart, but there was no support genuine economic capacity of the game, pirated games at a low price or free as part of this player’s choice, “something for nothing” was formed over time values.

It will discourage game companies. “Taigo E-Scroll” was lucky. Although the game was cracked two days after its release, the loss was stopped in time due to players’ increasing awareness of the authenticity of the game and their conscious resistance to piracy. A few years ago the other domestic game is not so lucky, one of the most let players feel sorry to get the best 3 d games “IMGA” seven nights, the game at that time, price 18 yuan, but since the game is pirated too serious, lead to studio even go abroad to accept have trouble to pay the cost of 6300 euros, eventually. There are also a large number of excellent small and medium-sized game studios such as Heluo Studio that suffer from piracy. Because piracy makes these studios unable to make ends meet, it greatly discourages their enthusiasm for game creation and restricts their innovation, thus making it difficult for excellent games to emerge in China.

The winter of piracy is coming

The game was cracked in less than two days after its release, but thanks to a growing number of people who are aware of its authenticity, the game has sold 600,000 copies in 15 days on Steam and has already earned over 28 million yuan in revenue. From the cracking of “Taio E Scroll” to such good sales results, it is enough to reflect that the winter of pirated games is really getting closer and closer.

First, the average player’s concept of game consumption changes and upgrades. The appearance of pirated games was determined by the national conditions at that time. Twenty years ago, the monthly salary of the average public institution worker in Beijing was only five or six hundred yuan, but at that time, the price of a Japanese game named “Ridge Racing” was as high as 680 yuan, almost one month’s salary of the salaried people. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the per capita disposable income of Chinese residents was 14,063 yuan in 2018, and licensed titles such as Assassin’s Creed, the latest steam game, are on the market. Odyssey is only 248 yuan, completely within the affordable range of players, so the concept of game consumption of ordinary players has gradually changed to the legitimate version and upgrade.

Second, the game is getting harder to crack. The founder of 3DM forum pointed out bluntly that with the rapid progress of anti-theft technology, it will be difficult to play pirated games in just a few years. Although the claim is exaggerated, there is no new cracked game and previous pirated game resources, there will not be no pirated game to play, but it reflects from the side of the anti-cracking technology is indeed too powerful to crack the point. The most obvious example is not using the latest anti cracking techniques of games like too my scrolls were cracked and in two days and use D encryption of the sonic: power fail, after three months before release, it also reflects the long-term development of the anti cracking techniques from the side, the difficulty of the game crack will further intensify in the future, realize the unbreakable.

Finally, pirated games have many drawbacks. As people living standard rise, people on the quality of the game and experience requirements also more and more high, as people meet greeting by eat “no” to “eat”, people demand for games also from “could play” to play “the best”, pirated games is experienced crack group of secondary processed products, hard to avoid can appear incomplete game, Advertising and other situations, seriously affect the user’s game experience, it is difficult to meet people’s requirements for high-quality games.

summary

Rome was not built in a day. Pirated games have been around for decades and won’t disappear anytime soon. Pirated games are notorious, but everything has two sides, we need to treat it rationally and dialectically. On the one hand, piracy can increase the popularity of the game and accumulate more fans. On the other hand, pirated games will bring huge economic losses to game companies, discourage the enthusiasm of game creators, and limit the original sin of game innovation. It causes the continuous death of excellent games in China in recent years, and also affects the health of players.

The good news is that piracy is creeping into the winter. It can be seen from the incident that “Taigo E Scroll” was cracked and received widespread attention and support from the majority of players that pirated games are not accepted by the majority of players and the survival will be more and more difficult. Pirated games do more harm than good and will eventually disappear into history.

Article/Liu Kuang public number, ID: Liukuang110, this article first kuang Venture capital network