EA: Piracy didn't hurt 'Spore' sales

There doesn't seem to be much disagreement that Electronic Arts botched the launch of Spore with heavy-handed digital rights management. However, the company reacted quickly and was able to update the game with a less oppressive scheme that calmed most of the masses.

One statistic that repeatedly popped up was the fact that more than 500,000 copies had been downloaded off BitTorrent sites. EA claims to have sold 1 million copies since launch, which would mean that there are potentially 1.5 million Spore instances. The big question is whether EA is losing money from this pirating.

The blog Game Set Watch talked about the matter with Mariam Sughayer of EA's corporate communications office:

Downplaying the piracy issue in this particular case, EA's Sughayer says: "We've talked to people that made several unsuccessful attempts to download the game and ended up with incomplete, slow, buggy or unusable code. In one case, a file identified as Spore contained a virus.

"To say that every download represents a successful copy of the game--or that there's been more than 500,000 copies downloaded--that's just not true."

"Stepping aside from the whole issue of DRM, people need to recognize that every BitTorrent download doesn't represent a successful copy of a game, let alone a lost sale," she tells Gamasutra.

What's interesting here is the acceptance from EA that there will be piracy and that maybe it's not affecting sales that dramatically.

In my original post suggesting that EA could learn from open source, I said "maybe a better approach for EA would have been to consider a 'community' and 'enterprise' version of Spore, where it's usable but not good until you pay," and I still think that's a good idea. If there are "users" and "customers" and they are both on your side, you always win.

[kattenijin]

"EA: Piracy didn't hurt Spore sales."

You have GOT to be kidding me. Considering that EA's initial projections for September sales were TWO Million units, I'd consider a loss of 50% to be failure. Also, the 500,000 pirated copy number is already two weeks old, the current number is close to the Milion mark itself. So, a 1:1 ratio of sales to pirated copies for the first month, again, failure! If I were an EA stockholder, I'd be looking for a change of management very soon. It's not like the current stock market conditions aren't causing enough trouble without also ACTIVELY aleniating your customer base.

[mmntech]

I didn't buy it. Hmm, I guess it did hurt sales.

I find this statement ironic.
"Stepping aside from the whole issue of DRM, people need to recognize that every BitTorrent download doesn't represent a successful copy of a game, let alone a lost sale,"
Aren't these the same people who were claiming that every torrent download equals a lost sale? Now they're saying that's not true? So EA is basically admitted they lied to us when they were trying to justify the DRM. I guess though a lot of that is from legitimate gamers who legitimately bought the game then downloaded it to circumvent their Big Brother-esque DRM. These people really need to pull their heads out of their backsides.

[SJ2571]

Good comment. They chop and change the value of torrents to suit their marketing.

[Renegade Knight]

IF EA looks at what they could have sold vs. what they did. They got hurt. I got spore before I knew about the DRM issues and would not have bothered if I did. I won't be getting the inevitable Spore Expansion Pack. There is one lost sale right there.

[GotAMD]

I think other commenters have already noted that EA is not being entirely truthful here, but I can tell you that Spore's DRM definitely lost them revenue...mine, at the very least. And no, I didn't pirate the game either. So, you can chalk the loss of me as a customer up to refusal to buy the awful DRM and not to piracy.

[genkuros]

Journalism/Selling Out/Inaccurate Reporting at its finest. First, who says that the masses have been calmed? EA bumped the activation count from an insulting 3 instances to 5. That's a big eyeroll if you can't read it from style clues. A promised deactivation scheme (transferable license) is worth exactly nothing. Second, as mmntech pointed out, EA needs to quit playing both sides of the "lost sale" coin. They sound freakishly like the RIAA at this point. Both parties are playground children who change the rules to mooch every bit of advantage possible. Third, the game isn't all that good. EA spent a pretty hefty chunk of money whirling up the hype machine. All that momentum came crashing down on DRM. Will Spore lose its "must have" instant gratitude factor? You bet. Hopefully it'll drive a nail in the coffin of DRM at the same time. Here's hoping the Will Wright's of the world will start demanding better distribution contracts.

[Lerianis]

It's about time that we pushed for DRM to be totally made illegal unless it is a standardized, non-intrusive DRM that everyone gets on board and uses. That means no StarForce, no SecuROM, no NOTHING that installs system-level drivers in order to protect itself.

[rucknrun]

I don't believe them. Just don't buy stuff with DRM tied into it. There is no reason to make it illegal, the government is meddling/regulating the economy enough.

[Vensik]

I know they lost 2 sales from me, wife + me, one of those being the collectors edition. Who cares how many people downloaded the game Prior to it's release. If you could have sold more copies without DRM than with DRM, than it hurt the sales. Plain and simple. The DRM stopped no one from downloading, it only hurts customers who wanted to support EA. I'm just glad I learned about it, and cancelled my preorders before being charged.

[Vensik]

BTW, on the subject of taking information without asking, I ran out and bought my blu-ray copy of Ironman last night, popped it in my PS3 and got a loading screen for atleast 10 minutes before I cancelled to go look up the problem. It turns out that Ironman sends "non-personal" information out through the wireless connection before allowing itself to play.

I felt extremely violated having my IP address, hardware, ect... logged before being allowed to play the Blu-ray I just purchased as a customer. No where on the outside of the box do they ask you to agree to this before purchase, and it is only found in fine print on the inside of an insert inside the box. Well, after disconnecting my wireless I was able to watch my movie, but I don't know what the world is coming to when I can't even watch a legally purchased movie without sending my information to a company.

[grimr27]

my thout is that if the games wear not so expensive. then more people would buy them and buy more of them. but thats just my toughts :P

[ReVeLaTeD]

Sounds like the developers are not aligned with the big *AA's.

Developers: "Just beacuse it was downloaded, doesn't mean it was the actual game/movie/song/etc, and it doesn't automatically equal a lost sale!!"

RIAA (for example): "every song downloaded is money lost. We don't have to prove it, just look at the numbers!"

Yeah, alright.