EA's CEO Sees Video-Game Pirates as a Potential Market

When it comes to piracy, not even the Caribbeans are as populated with swashbucklers as the video-game industry. As such, every publisher has tried in one way or another to limit the number of illegal copies that end up in the hands of gamers, with all sorts of methods. Some have deployed the dreaded DRM, while others try to use online accounts and authentication methods to increase their sales. Unfortunately for them, these solutions are short-termed at best, as the only thing between an original game and its cracked version is a very small amount of time. And, sometimes, not even that is present, as there are plenty of cases in which the cracked title is available before the original release.

But some publishers don't see pirates as a blight on their business and money gone to waste, but they see them as a potential market. We already saw that XPEC Entertainment was inspired by piracy to give birth to a new MMO, but now it looks like Electronic Arts might have reached the same conclusion. In a lengthy interview with Kotaku, EA's CEO John Riccitiello discussed how he looked at piracy and why he thought that the very popular DLCs were a great way to combat it.

[ADAMRK=1]While surprised of just how well they were received by gamers, Riccitiello said that, "The consumer seems to really like this idea that there is extra stuff. The consumer wants more, and when you give them more or sell them more it seems to be extremely well received." And as far as gamers that turn to pirated copies are concerned, he believed that, "There's a sizable pirate market and a sizable second sale market and we want to try to generate revenue in that marketplace."

The way he sees it, people might not be willing to pay the full price for a game that they haven't tried yet, but, once they do, and it proves to be enjoyable, they might be tempted to purchase the cheaper DLCs that are offered for the title. The EA download manager doesn't distinguish between original copies and pirated ones, so it sells its products to both, indiscriminately.

One thing Riccitiello was very proud of was the Dragon Age: Origins DLC that, according to an EA spokesperson, sold over one million units in the first week alone. "They can steal the disc, but they can't steal the DLC," Riccitiello said. EA's CEO seems very enthusiastic and proud of his little pet, but someone should have really told him the truth, even if the messenger usually gets killed. All the DA: O DLCs, along with all of the special items that were made available by different distributors, were up for free on the net in less than a week.

Not only that, but the underground gaming scene regularly releases cracked versions of DLCs just as it does with full games. So his hopes that downloadable content like the one for Dragon Age: Origins will make it "increasingly less likely that people will pirate because there is so much value on the other side of the door," are still frozen and have been shattered before they were even properly out the door.