How Serious is Piracy in the Videogame Industry?

Abstract

Downloading pirated videogames enables users of portable game machines to play downloaded videogames on a platform without purchasing the original versions. Based on a questionnaire survey, this study is the first to examine how familiar users of portable videogame machines are with downloading pirated videogames and how this affects whether they purchase genuine versions. The results show that although approximately 40% of surveyed users know how to download and play pirated videogames for free, most of them do not actually download pirated versions. Furthermore, no significantly negative relationship can be found between downloading pirated videogames and purchasing the original versions.

Keywords: Piracy, videogame, file-sharing

JEL Classification: O34, D03, K42, L86