Representatives from Trymedia have revealed the results of a survey they conducted to find out why people pirate games. Of the 2,122 people that responded 15% admitted to having copied a retail game in the last six months.
The majority indicated that they copy games to make back-ups, to allow them to run the same game on multiple computers (often one at home and another at work), as well as sharing with friends. On average these users buy seven games a year and make seventeen copies.
A total of 64% of those polled admitted they new that copying hurts game developers, but suggested that sharing a game with a friend often lead to them purchasing it as well. In response to this the company has used its ActiveMark technology to allow consumers to copy games for back-up purposes and share copies.
When loaded onto any machine other than the one it was created on though the game defaults to a demo mode with limited functionality. The system uses a CD activation code allowing users to register their copy of the game via phone or the Internet.
Source:
The Register
