The pirating of games has been an on-going issue since before I care to remember. My early PC gaming days involved copying, and sharing games between my friends and I. Eventually, downloading became my primary means of acquiring new PC games in my early years. Why did I do it you ask? For many reasons, but primarily the lack of income!

Kids these days dont quite have the money to buy fifty or sixty dollar games as often as he/she would like to. Hell, I know full grown adults that can’t afford to buy new games but maybe once every couple of months. That was fine and dandy a few years ago where one game could last a person months at a time. I remember being perfectly content playing Perfect Dark on N64 for almost half a year before I even thought about buying another game. Alas, those times are gone now, and many games have become short five or six hour experiences relying on multiplayer to fill the void. If you think about it, you’re paying almost ten dollars an hour to play that short game…minimum wage is barely $5.75. A person earning minimum wage would have to work 10 1/2 hours, just to earn enough money to buy your five hour game!

At this point, it shouldn’t be a big secret that the US economy is currently suffering from high gas prices, lower valued dollar, and raising cost of goods and services. The government is bending over backwards to forgive debt and losses of big corporations by offering tax cuts, and lowered interest rates. This in turn leads to a lower valued dollar, since countries with lower interest rates attract less investors. This lower valued dollar leads to a price increase of goods and services which leads to increased interest rates on consumer credit cards, since credit companies still need to maintain growing profits, and as a result…decreased consumer spending. The consumer is left dealing with the weight of a struggling economy on their shoulders.

As our economy worsens, piracy goes up. Consumers just don’t have the same purchasing power they had only a few years ago, but they are already accustomed to getting a “new game fix” ever so often. People won’t change their rate of consumption due to limited funding, they’ll simply turn to other sources. Digital forms of entertainment such as music, movies, and video games are easily distributed over the “series of tubes” called the internet. This is why, now more than ever, a growing number of companies and developers are speaking out about the rampant piracy going on these days. The numbers are vastly rising due to our slowing economy!

Its a widely known fact that Asia is one of the highest pirating areas of the world. Think back for a moment about everything you just read above. Asian countries, such as Japan, are incredibly expensive to live in and maintain a standard of living similar to ours in the US. Tokyo,Japan has been named as the most expensive city to live in the world! The power of the Yen is horribly low, and goods in Japan cost three to five times what they do in the US. This, I fear, could be the eventual fate of the US if something isn’t done about our economy now!

So where am I getting at with all this? I just wanted to state that piracy is directly linked to the state of a countries economy. No more, no less.

Technorati Tags: Game Pirating, Pirates, US Economy