The issue is that history has proven AGAIN and AGAIN that nearly all anti-piracy measures ultimately fail and do nothing to curtail it or increase sales. The Witcher 3 proved that a AAA release can be successful without DRM, and similarly games like Spore, Diablo 3, Sim City, Assassins Creed 2, and others that excessively try to stop piracy end up just pissing people off and suffering as a result. And it's not like DRM does much anyways. I fail to see how Bethesda thinks that not putting all the data on the disc will curtail piracy since I have yet to see any instance of a Steam released game being unable to be cracked.
As far as other countries goes, the reason piracy is so rampant is that oftentimes either A: The game isn't available in that country, or B: The game is much more expensive/Income levels are so low that games are unobtainable in most circumstances. People are willing to pay if they feel they're getting their money's worth and they can afford it.
Honestly, if some sort of rental system could be figured out, I think piracy would be HEAVILY curtailed. I admit that I have pirated quite a few games, but that was mainly because I either couldn't get the games any other way or because I didn't want to make a heavy financial investment and instead wanted a "try before you buy." Even pirates constantly point out that the point of pirating software is not to screw over developers/publishers out of payment for all their hard work. It's so you can try stuff out risk free, but if you like what you pirated, you damn sure should buy it. Of course, Steam refunds have helped curtail this a bit, but honestly, that seems more tailored to make sure you're not buying a bugged out piece of crap or some REALLY awful game. Most of the companies still pushing this bad DRM are AAA developers and in my opinion, in most cases 2 hours isn't a good amount of time to gauge whether or not you'll like a game. Still. it is obvious that not everyone thinks that piracy is the end all be all, because if they did then Good Old Games wouldn't exist. All their games are DRM free, and it's VERY easy to get them on torrent sites because of this. Even though I know how to torrent and have a 100mb internet connection, I'm still eagerly waiting for Hotline Miami 2 to get a 50% off discount as opposed to just saying "Screw it" and downloading the GoG release for free because I want the developer/publisher to get paid and thus release more games.
And yes, I know that there's still a lot of people who just pirate because they want free games, and it still annoys me when I see people read something they don't like about a game and they say, "F*ck these guys, I'm just going to pirate the game." The best way to show your displeasure for a company IMO isn't to steal their stuff, but rather to not play their stuff at all. I'm not going to pirate WBIE games because of what they did to Arkham Knight; I'm just not going to play their games at all. Sorry for this rant but I think I speak for many PC gamers when I say that I'm getting sick and tired of being treated like a dirty criminal. Yes I have pirated, but I seriously doubt that I've caused any tangible damage to any studios when I buy what I like and quickly delete what I don't.
As far as other countries goes, the reason piracy is so rampant is that oftentimes either A: The game isn't available in that country, or B: The game is much more expensive/Income levels are so low that games are unobtainable in most circumstances. People are willing to pay if they feel they're getting their money's worth and they can afford it.
Honestly, if some sort of rental system could be figured out, I think piracy would be HEAVILY curtailed. I admit that I have pirated quite a few games, but that was mainly because I either couldn't get the games any other way or because I didn't want to make a heavy financial investment and instead wanted a "try before you buy." Even pirates constantly point out that the point of pirating software is not to screw over developers/publishers out of payment for all their hard work. It's so you can try stuff out risk free, but if you like what you pirated, you damn sure should buy it. Of course, Steam refunds have helped curtail this a bit, but honestly, that seems more tailored to make sure you're not buying a bugged out piece of crap or some REALLY awful game. Most of the companies still pushing this bad DRM are AAA developers and in my opinion, in most cases 2 hours isn't a good amount of time to gauge whether or not you'll like a game. Still. it is obvious that not everyone thinks that piracy is the end all be all, because if they did then Good Old Games wouldn't exist. All their games are DRM free, and it's VERY easy to get them on torrent sites because of this. Even though I know how to torrent and have a 100mb internet connection, I'm still eagerly waiting for Hotline Miami 2 to get a 50% off discount as opposed to just saying "Screw it" and downloading the GoG release for free because I want the developer/publisher to get paid and thus release more games.
And yes, I know that there's still a lot of people who just pirate because they want free games, and it still annoys me when I see people read something they don't like about a game and they say, "F*ck these guys, I'm just going to pirate the game." The best way to show your displeasure for a company IMO isn't to steal their stuff, but rather to not play their stuff at all. I'm not going to pirate WBIE games because of what they did to Arkham Knight; I'm just not going to play their games at all. Sorry for this rant but I think I speak for many PC gamers when I say that I'm getting sick and tired of being treated like a dirty criminal. Yes I have pirated, but I seriously doubt that I've caused any tangible damage to any studios when I buy what I like and quickly delete what I don't.
