EA CEO believes game pirates will still pay for DLC

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EA CEO believes game pirates will still pay for DLC

Posted Dec 8th 2009 4:00PM by John Callaham
Filed under: Biz, Downloads, Expansions

While you shouldn't really pirate a game, let's say for argument's sake you decide to do so anyway. Would you still pay for that game's future downloadable content? Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello seems to think so, telling Kotaku, "They can steal the disc, but they can't steal the DLC."

He seems to believe that if you pirate, say, a copy of Dragon Age: Origins you might actually want to pay for the game's extra quests and other content for download. He states, "There's a sizable pirate market and a sizable second sale market and we want to try to generate revenue in that marketplace." Of course, there's no reason to believe that pirates can't find a way to get to the paid downloadable content for free as well. We happen to think Riccitiello's attitude is more than a little naive.

Tags: bioware, dragon-age-orgins, ea, electronic-arts, mass-effect-2

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

I assume he's talking about console gamers here. Console piracy gets very, very little media exposure, but it's just as bad as on the PC.

You won't see developers complaining about console piracy, though, and you'll have a hard time finding a media outlet willing to report on it.

What he's saying here seems specifically about consoles, though. A pirating PC gamer wouldn't be 'stealing' a 'disc', they'd be downloading, and they'd be able to download the DLC from the same source, probably.

A console gamer on the other hand, well, downloads are rampant too, but there's no shortage of copies being sold in flea markets. The same could be said of PC games, but PC gamers are far more plugged in and online.

Another possibility however is that by 'piracy' he is talking about lending games to friends. That's very, very, VERY obviously what the limited install DRM is meant to combat. That and the used market. If they think of that as piracy, and apparently they do, then maybe he really is talking about the PC. Of course, that applies to consoles, too.

Either way, this sounds a lot like console news to me. Funny that he managed to not use the word 'console', though. If he was talking about PC piracy, he'd have managed to fit the term 'PC' in there nine or ten times.Posted at 5:41PM on Dec 8th 2009 by asfm

Pirates are not going to pay for a goddamn thing. Simple as that. Console or PC, it does not even matter which segment he really meant. They won't pay for it. Even the operating system they use is pirated. So forget it.

Console piracy is a problem, no question about it. They seem to be more concerned about console modifications which allow pirated game to be mounted and played judging by the recent bans by I believe Xbox Live. Not quite sure since I am not a console gamer at all and do not own one.Posted at 8:07AM on Dec 9th 2009 by Ladron

There are people who pirate everything they can... but then they donate money to their bittorent site or buy their t-shirts.
So... they will pay... just not the people who actually made the product. :PPosted at 1:44PM on Dec 9th 2009 by ahac