I assume they lose some sales due to piracy.  But not every copy pirated is a lost sale.  If people had to pay 50-60 bux for it, its a good bet alot of them would of never bought it.

So while piracy remains vampant... I don't really see this process of sueing people (whether it be for video games, music, or movies) resulting in more sales for these companies.

I think they really tend to forget, that if people had no choice but to pay for  the product.. they might not at all.

This is one of the most absurd things I've heard from a (supposed) intelligent person. Stating that computer game piracy benefits hardware manufacturers is no different than saying that manufacturers of DVD/Blue-ray players are benifiting from movie piracy. Obviously there is going to be some small benefit to them, but to call it a "dirty little secret" is ridiculous, and amounts to nothing more than nonsensical propaganda.

Hollenshead seems to forget that without the computer, without sufficient computer sales, his games would be worthless!

If piracy didnt exist, computers would never had sold as well as they did. If people had to pay for everything, there then would not be as big of a computer industry as there is now. Piracy caused computer use to grow.

When they ask $70-$90 for a new game which you then can't use because of the anti-piracy measures they use (which happened with the last 2 games I legally purchased, and is why I have not purchased any since) and then you have to stuff around wasting more time and money just to get it working as it should have out of the box, is it any wonder people prefer to download the pirated version which works straight away and costs nothing.

Maybe they need to look at charging a fair price for their games and most of all get rid of the DRM and other crap which makes the customer experience of being overcharged for something that won't work a nightmare and leaves a sour taste in your mouth and wallet.

To my point of view they themselves have created a large proportion of the problem they now face, oh well serves the greedy buggers right.

I wonder if this idiot knows why HIS company even exists?  Doom was one of the most pirated games ever.  How did they manage to stay alive with all of that piracy? 

If it were not for the *evil* Internet, game companies woud go broke from telephone support and from mailing out patches. In life, there are always good and bad sides to an issue. Sure, there are pirated games, but, they are pirating our hardware, our time and Internet connection bandwidth to provide them with free means of distibuting patches and also, they have the Internet support groups that help each other out with de-bugging etc. Without these things, they would spend a lot of money keeping their customers up and running and happy.  How many times have you bought a game only to find out it is a "work in progress" almost due to all the freakin' bugs? I think the game companies should STFU.

What they don't seem to realise is that, thanks to the internet, their market place is now VAST - and they should keep this in mind when pricing their games. Delivery methods such as STEAM keep their overheads extremely low. Games are too expensive, yes, but not only that, we are dealing now with sub-standard games by people who just want to make a quick fortune. Playing a DEMO of a game does not give you a true image of the full game, as publishers do what Hollywood do for trailers (put all the good bits in to sucker the consumer into going to the cinema), to a certain extent. I will not pay more than £18 ($36) for a game, unless it is a triple-A game such as 'Oblivion', 'Bioshock' etc.. You may want to check out this website:

http://www.fairplay-campaign.co.uk/

If these companies keep crying about copyright people will go back to reading books. Then they will get NO money and people will happily trade and share books with each other.

"the PC hardware industry sees game piracy as a "hidden benefit" towards increased hardware sales."

Absolutely true. For example, I can afford to get a new video card every 12 months because I pay NOTHING for video games. Hell, I just bought an ATI HD 4850 last month for $200. Now my downloaded games will look even better and run faster.

Now, I know some of you are thinking, "But Duke, don't you feel bad that the makers of those games you download are shafted out of $60"? Nope, because I'd never pony up that kind of coin for a game in the first place.

i always wait for the games to go down in price to $20 so i have to wait a year but its worth it for the little i play, i am a very big tombraider fan.

@applegodel8

Yep, I do the same. Sometimes, I will even wait till it hits $10. I got the patience to wait since I am not interested in getting a game exactly when it is released. Let the other fools pay the high price for impatience.

But with that said, the software companies are starting to sound like lil' kids, "It is not fair! How come they get to play and we don't???!!!" MOM!!!" Thats what it sounds like to me. I guess no one told them that the world isn't fair; and that sometimes, you are handed a raw-deal.

It's sometimes wise to wait a while until the game has had a few patches before playing a PC game. Although it's very difficult to discipline oneself when an excellent game is released

Games will always be pirated, software in general for that matter. 

Everyone is to blame.  Software people for creating garbage, stating unrealistic system specs, too high prices for substandard software.  Users for justifying their theft because of the aforementioned or simply because they're cheap and it's relatively easy to steal software. 

But a 'hidden benefit', that's a new one....buy ONE new game and you're most likely going to have to upgrade.  How does pirating factor into that equation?