I agree that piracy is often pointed to as the sole reason for lower sales. The bad economy, changing consumer taste, and a variety of factors do contribute. However, I personally had a few indie pc groups die out on me because of piracy related issues (like Iron Lore Entertainment). I don't particularly regard the mainstream view of movies/AAA games and piracy towards niche games because the profit margin and audience size is far different (you go from millions to a few thousands, or hundreds--based on a previous twitter of an indie group I can cite if someone wants me to look this one up)..Sales were decent throughout the years, enough to support us and ensure that we could keep updating our games. Then our entire catalog of games was posted on The Pirate Bay and spread to other torrent sites. We didn’t think much of it at first, piracy affects everyone in this industry, and we believed that sales wouldn’t be affected too much and that gamers would appreciate supporting the devs and buying DRM free games. Then sales went down. A lot. The “bundle” of games hit the torrent sites in January 2011, and by March, sales were down 50%. By May, they were down 80%. We tried to respond to the piracy of our games in several ways. We lowered the price on Steam by 33%. Sales picked up a tiny bit, but it’s impossible because you’re competing with free. We had Steam sales, bundle packs, everything we could. It wasn’t enough, and by October of 2011, I had to let go half of my team — 6 people. We’ve restructured now to focus entirely on iOS games. I dunno how it’ll turn out, but developing on PC and supporting our PC games is not an option any longer. We just can’t afford it.
But eh, just my two cents. I always buy the games I play, but a lot of my friends love to pirate despite having the money to pay. They're pretty much on the whole "copying isn't stealing and ease of access makes it the game devs' fault." It became common actually, they expect a lot of things for free. Since I don't makes games, I don't have a financial investment. It's more of an annoyance to me because it actually makes it harder for me to buy the niche games I want.
http://www.siliconera.com/2012/01/13/th ... al-novels/
One primary example is a visual novel group in JP whose work is basically horror/mystery. Their translated VN was pirated heavily and boom: all of a sudden, I read the group is
That sucks. I want to buy the visual novel but the group doesn't believe the audience is there. But hey..that's life I guess. I know people go on about fan translators, but there aren't that many for all the VNs I want to read. Not to mention, I like the idea of having the VNs priced reasonable and available easily to a wider audience."...skeptical of actual sales opportunities in the west."
So anyways, I don't make games nor do I ever want to. But I want to play them and I want to buy them. Unfortunately, that sometimes isn't an option I get to have. So yeah, that sucks.