PC game copying, sharing habits revealed in Trymedia poll

March 25, 2004

At the
March 24 Game Developers Conference, secure distribution technology and services
provider Trymedia
Systems shared results from a recent random survey from their website. It concerned the copying and sharing habits of consumers that purchase retail PC games. They concluded from over 2000 respondants that consumers are aware of the legal and ethical implications, yet they continue to copy games for archival purposes and "social obligations".

Specific survey results include:

15% of consumers admit to copying retail games in the past 6 months.
66% asserted their right to make back-up copies of games.
64% said that illegal copying hurt game developers.
Each admitted copier buys an average of 7 games per year and makes 17 copies.
35 copies are made per 100 units sold on average.

The top three reasons why people make copies:

Personal backup
To share with friends
To use them on multiple computers (such as desktop and laptop)

The top reasons consumers share games are:

To play multiplayer games with their friends
Their friends asked them to
They thought their friends would like the game

Consumers felt that their friends were honest people and that sharing could result in their friend buying his own copy about 50% of the time.

* The survey randomly polled 2122 adults who visited Trygames in the last 30 days.

This is a poll from a very select demographic but, it is still very interesting to ponder these figures. You can visit this link to PR Newswire to read some more about Trymedia.

Source: PR Newswire