Eli5 why with digital console gaming becoming more and more popular, why haven’t we seen an explosion in the piracy market for them?
In: 35
You mean emulators?
There’s dolphin on the app store
Therre are plenty of ways to play pirated versions of console games. PS4 doesn’t even seem to need a modchip, and the switch only needs a 10$ modchip and insane soldering skills. Anyone who’s interested in playing console games without paying for them, or cheating on them, is just a google search away from being able to do that.
Aside from the other explanations, I also think there’s an economic reason as well. Games are simply much more affordable today. Not only is the inflation adjusted price for a triple-A title cheaper than it was in the 2000s when gaming piracy was more rampant, but as the gaming population ages, we have a lot more disposable income than we used to when a lot of us were in high school and college.
Also a lot of games today have major online components that make it harder if not impossible to pirate and enjoy the full scope of.
Don’t quote me, but I think it comes down to how easy it is. You don’t necessarily need to do anything hardware wise to crack and play pirated games on a computer. A lot of the time, whatever piracy protection PC games have, such as testing for a connection to the Internet, is removed by just messing with a few of the files. Can’t imagine cracking console games is the easiest or turning off the piracy protection without doing something to the console hardware. Possible, but it’s just easier on PC.
Plus a lot of games on console are online which makes piracy even harder
Games are more free then ever as well.
I remember in the early days of steam, never finding any free game that I thought even looked enjoyable.
Now you have multitudes of triple A quality games that are free to access. And MAJORLY discounted incredible titles always popping up.
This is definitely a thing, the Nintendo Switch emulators and games being ripped/uploaded at launch is such a problem for Nintendo that they’re now apparently trying to get Denuvo working with their consoles.
Pirating on consoles is much harder than on PC. On my pc I can just pirate a game and play it. With consoles I have to mod them, which is very time consuming and perceived as risky (brick the console/scared to break it). It’s also hard to figure out if you’re not good with figuring out tech stuff. Also it’s not a guarantee your console can be jailbroken. I’d need to find a ps4 which hadn’t been updated in a very long time in order to jailbreak it since Sony plays cat n mouse with molders. Ps5 modding isn’t a thing yet. Switch modding is iffy depending on which model # you have, while the emulator I use on pc is super simple.
In the late 80’s-early 90s we see the introduction of “Home Computers” and “Home Entertaining systems” (like Atari), alongside the huge and expensive “computers” used by governments and corporations., made exclusively by IBM
Each machine using their own complex architecture and software.
Then a very simple Operating System (the crucial software interacting with the phisical hardware bits) was released, claiming to be able to turn a “home computer” into a “personal computer”. A PC and and u could write, compile and run your own program, at home!!
**Ms-dos and Windows** created the market of “IBM compatible computers” , setting the standards and protocols starting a the mass adoption of PC into homes.
Standards and common protocols grew exponentially, as new programs and games were written to run on ANY hardware maker using the new operating system, making it possible for people to learn
Game consoles like Nintendo, Sega (and Apple) instead **never split the hardware and software parts,** continuing to improve it on a very private/secret/expensive way.
tldr: Pirating consoles is more difficult (or improbable) because they use proprietary tools on both hardware and software, making it hard to “poke around” and trying to make it do what you want.
Most people don’t bother to pirate because they’re afraid the police will burst into the house and arrest them. Thanks to propaganda from the game and movie industries.
Plus, you might have to solder a modchip inside your console, and that’s risky. You might break it.
The golden age of piracy is over. That’s a big one. It’s harder now than it’s ever been.
Couple that with the fact that games have never been cheaper, and you don’t really have a market for piracy.
Also, pure speculation, but the average gamer isn’t a broke 14 year old anymore. Sure there’s still a lot of those. But I think the average gamer now is a 20 something with a job. They can afford to buy games rather than pirate.
Not to mention, tech stuff has gotten more complex to the point that a lot of those 14 year olds just haven’t put in the time to figure it out. It used to be easier. Now the barrier to entry on these things is significantly higher. So a lot of people who would be potential pirates aren’t even getting their feet in the door.
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