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If a game doesn't have DRM then it can be copied, same for all media and software.
There have been studies that have shown that piracy does not harm sales. Pirates are often hoarders who don't use most of the media they pirate. Also people pirate because they can't afford to buy the media they pirate. And often when they do find something they really like they buy it in appreciation - that's a sale where one may not have occurred without the piracy, it's an extra sale. But pirated games are typically NOT lost sales because the pirate would not have bought the game. It may sound crazy but the biggest buyers of media are often pirates.
I was never one for pirating games myself, but on one occasion where I did play a pirated game I stumbled across, I liked it enough to pay full price for it.
Summary: Don't worry about it, piracy does not hurt the industry, this sounds counter-intuitive but it has been studied.
That is not true. There's been a recent study that wasn't able to prove it harmed sales. They did not conclude as a result that it didn't, just that they couldn't prove it.
There is simply no way to know how a game would have sold with and without DRM, there's far too many variables.
I don't disagree that people who use piracy as a demo can lead to sales, but there's also a group who just pirates when they can and only end up buying games they are forced to buy. Just look at any thread following the recent Jurassic World Evolution release and it's a long stream of people 'caving' because the crack is taking too long.
There's just no decent way of calculating the effect of DRM.
Offline playtime (like Family shared or free weekend playitme) is accounted when applying for a refund even when it's not added to your profile play time.
Inside the Piracy Study the European Union Hid: Illegal Downloads Don't Harm Overall Sales[www.newsweek.com]
'Your illegal downloads of video games, top music acts and even e-books don't harm sales, according to a landmark report on piracy that the European Commission ordered but then buried when the findings didn't tell officials what they wanted to hear.'
"Just look at any thread following the recent Jurassic World Evolution release and it's a long stream of people 'caving' because the crack is taking too long. "
That's a classic example of people paying for a game that they might not have even been interested in had they not been trying to pirate it in the first place - those are extra customers - it's funny that you're actually giving an example of the games industry benefiting from piracy as an argument against piracy.
If people re-installed the client (to wipe play time) before refunding on more than one occasion then that would raise suspicions fast.
Yeah, that's the report I was talking about. Quote the report, not what some news article says about it.
That makes no sense what so ever... it's not available to pirate so how exactly do you explain the interest came from them looking for it? You need interest to do that to begin with.
The thing with that study is that it compared some of the more famous movies or TV shows which are already so popular that don't feel the effect of pirates.
Music in general costs very little to make but has high profits. Specially if it's a good song.
But take smaller games from smaller game studios. World of Goo for example had about 85% piracy rate.
Demi Gods from THQ had so many pirates that their servers wasn't enough and because of that the game got quite the negative rating. I remember reading a whole lot of more cases several years about this but I don't recall where the link to the page is.
While THQ isn't that small they where still affected by it. They had to close down and sell their assets at some point. I'd say that they probably wouldn't have to if people bought their games.
I mean if you put out a table with religious books with a big "FREE" stamped on everything, people will take them, sometimes just out of absent curiosity combined with the lack of any cost beyodnd the time it takes to walk to the table, pick up a book or two, and carry them. Did that free bookstand cost the neearby store which sells those same books any sales? No way to conclusively.
But it can be said that the presence of that free bookstand probably didn't help the bookstore any.
As for the supposed flaw. The level of strength in Steams DRM is completely up to the developer. You can put 10 locks on a door but you can't force the owner of the door to use all or any of them.
https://steamcommunity.com/groups/SteamClientBeta/discussions/0/135514823817263064/
https://steamcommunity.com/groups/SteamClientBeta/discussions/0/412448158146058257/