Okay, so, gotta get this off my chest: I am a game developer; I've worked in the past at Sony Bend Studios, and I currently work for a small developer known as Play Habit; in addition, I also do my own software and game development on the side (Play Habit knows about this and is happy for me.
I've got quite a few friends who are professional game developers, and I have some friends who are professional musicians. Piracy is a hot topic for both types of folks. But when I ask "What do you think about piracy?" to the two groups, I get distinctly different answers.
Most musicians I've talked to about this WANT you to pirate their music. They would MUCH, MUCH rather have someone listening to their music than not, because they understand that product familiarity is one of the primary marketing tools. Yes, they would rather people buy their music, as that's how they make money, but if it's between not hearing their music and hearing their music, they want you to hear it!
In my experience in the professional games industry, this is rarely the case. I've seen so many folks who decry pirates, and think that one of the highest priorities is making sure that folks that DIDN'T buy the game DON'T get to play. They believe that there's a direct and powerful correlation to a pirated unit and loss of a sale, and they believe that if you effectively deny/delay access to the game, those would-be pirates will buy it.
I've been in the games industry for quite a while now, and I kept abreast of game industry news far before I entered. From what I can tell, the reason that piracy became such a hot-button issue is because it was such an effective way for a developer to save face. Picture this scenario: you are in a board room, and one of the members asks the following question:
So, why did GameX not sell according to our projections?
As a developer, you have a few options for how to answer this. Let's say that GameX was a game that could've been great. The timeline and budget weren't planned out properly, or promises were made that were untenable, and there was no room for negotiating more time or money. The main design of the game had to be changed because one of the controlling board members watched his son play another game and he wanted more of that design present. Half the content in the game had to be cut to allow the remaining levels to get the attention they needed. A change in technical requirements on PlatformX cost another month of work; time that was intended to be used for bug fixing. In the last few months the lead programmer jumped ship because he found another company who would pay him more, and wasn't scrambling to complete this project Charlie Foxtrot. And the marketing budget was tied to a related movie release that never saw the light of day.
What do you do? You could pin the blame on board member who thought he was a designer, but this man pays your salary. You could blame the project organization/producer, but he was just doing the best he could with what was given to him. You could blame the platform, you could blame the programmer. You could blame the marketing (Or lack thereof).
But the night before this meeting, you were on PirateBay, downloading the latest episode of that hot new TV show your friend told you about, and you noticed that GameX is being torrented by 5000 people.
So you figure: "Hey, if I just say that it's because we got pirated, that hurts no one, and solves the problem, no fuss no muss! I can clearly see we've lost at LEAST 5000 sales from these figures."
And so this happens, for GameX, GameY, GameY X2, etc. Eventually, the first question in every board meeting is as follows:
So, what are you guys doing to prevent piracy?
This is how we end up with companies spending millions on anti-piracy measures that are both ineffective and potentially hazardous to end-users.
Indie devs go either way on this in my experience, though most of them do understand that the piracy problem is MUCH less of a problem than people make it out to be. At the very least, in the indie community, they understand that any DRM that has a chance to affect an end-user should be avoided at ALL COSTS.
