People don’t buy hardware, they buy software. Now whether you agree with this statement or not, I’m going to show you how in some ways it is true. What decisions lead you to buy one console over another? Is price the most important thing? How about the specs of the system? I’m sure you take both of these aspects into consideration but the one thing you’ll be doing with the console you decided to buy is play games.
We are gamers and thus that’s what we care about. Games are very, if not the most important thing we look at when buying a console. The PS3 has not been selling well and many believe it’s because of the price and that’s half the reason but the other reason is for lack of good games. What if the games that we want to play so much could be bought for $2.50? That may sound like a dream but for people living in Thailand it is a reality.
In Thailand, pirated games are sold on the streets in broad daylight. You can find pirated games in department stores and there are even a few dedicated to selling nothing but pirated games. How can they operate like that without getting caught? Well, they can’t or at least, they shouldn't be allowed to. Corruption is widespread here, just like in many other countries and the pirated game vendors simply pay off the police to stay in business. It's become impossible to leave your house and travel for more than five minutes without seeing something pirated for sale.
Why do so many people here buy or sell pirated games? I believe that the main reason why there is so much piracy here is because the average salary of a Thai worker is between $100 and $150 U.S. a month. Software and hardware brought to Thailand is sold at American prices but the Thai people with their salaries simply can’t afford to buy them. They’d have to spend almost half of their monthly income just to purchase one game. That's why piracy is so popular and strong here. They sell these illegal items at rock bottom prices that everyone can afford.
Pirated Wii games can be purchased here for $1.50 to $2.50 USD. That’s less than it costs to even rent games. Official games cost U.S. $39.99 to $49.99 normally. So for the regular price of a legal copy of a game you could get 40 to 50 pirated games that would play exactly as the originals do. What this causes is temptation. That is such a huge temptation and it’s one that many people give into. If you could purchase Nintendo Wii games for $2.50 or less without any chance of getting caught, would you do it? Before you answer think about it and answer honestly. For the price of a game rental you could actually own the game.
I have not written this article to debate whether or not piracy is good or bad or if it can even be justified. I’ve written it to shed some light on how the gaming industry works here and how it could affect the future of the gaming industry. To give you guys some idea of how it is over here I’ve conducted an interview with an unnamed game vendor that has a store that sells both real and pirated games. Neither the store name nor owner’s name will be revealed because I promised I would keep their identity confidential if they gave me the interview.
WiiLoaded: Which Wii game is currently selling the most in your shop?
Game Vendor: The two best selling games at the moment are Wario Ware and Rayman.
WL: Which Wii games are you most asked about?
Game Vendor: Well before it was released I was asked about Wario Ware all the time. After it was released I get asked mostly about Cooking Mama, Super Smash Brothers Brawl, and Super Mario Galaxy.
WL: What about Metroid Prime 3?
Game Vendor: In Thailand FPS games are not really big here. No one has asked me about it.
WL: On the hardware side, which console is selling best right now?
Game Vendor: If you asking about all of them I would have to say that the PS2 is still selling the most here followed closely by the PSP.
WL: That’s interesting that the PSP is still selling so well. What about the “next gen” consoles?
Game Vendor: The Wii is selling the best right now and the Xbox360 is the next best selling console.
WL: I know that the Nintendo Wii has modchips available for it. Could you tell me which ones are available and which ones are selling the best?
Game Vendor: Right now there are just two modchips available for the Wii. There’s the Cyclowiz, which is only version 1.0 and the Wiikey. Of the two the Wikey is the most popular by far.
WL: Do consumers seem to buy a system more once it has been cracked and can play pirated software?
Game Vendor: Absolutely. The amount of consoles sold normally doubles or triples after modchips and pirated software comes out for it.
WL: Which do you prefer to sell more of, the real games or the pirated copies.
Game Vendor: I sell a lot more pirated games compared to real games so I’d have to say pirated games. The volume is so much that I get more profit from it.
WL: Could you tell me the ratio of pirated games vs real games sold in a day.
Game Vendor: It’s incomparable. The closest I could come to a number would be that I sell a minimum of twenty pirated games a day and the most I could ever get, maximum for real games would be no more than seven.
WL: So almost triple the amount?
Game Vendor: It’s actually more than that. That would be a best case scenario for selling real games in a day.
WL: I really appreciate all your time and have one final question for you. You’ve been in the video game business for quite a while now. Could you tell me your prediction for how the system battle will turn out in Thailand?
Game Vendor: I would say by the end of this year that the PS3 will catch up and perhaps pass the Nintendo Wii in Thailand. Most people here know the Sony brand more. They know the PS from the past, the PS3, which is still the best selling system here and they know the PSP. I have so many customers who come to my shop asking about the PS3 and they’ve never even heard of the Wii. I think once the PS3 is cracked and pirated games are available that it will have a tremendous effect on hardware sales. A lot of people are still waiting for that. The other reason I say that the PS3 will take over here is because of the graphics. The control of the Wii is fun but it eventually wears off and you can’t help but notice how bad the graphics are. The PS3 doesn’t have any killer games yet but once they do have some then it will give them a big sales boost here. (There is also a) “dark side” of the industry that most gamers don’t see.
WL: The dark side?
Game Vendor: There is so much that goes on behind the scenes that determines what price the game vendors will sell software and hardware at. You’d be shocked at some of the things that go on behind the scenes.
I learned a lot from this interview. I've always been a Nintendo supporter and I do own the Nintendo Wii but the comments about the PS3 coming back strong near the end of the year has got me wondering. He made many valid points and he does see everything from a different perspective. I've always said that for the PS3 to succeed that it would need to have must have exclusives and I still believe that but now knowing that many once-exclusive games are going multi-platform it's hard for me to see a bright future for the PS3. Does that mean what he said is impossible? Not at all. I will say that a lot of the games that are currently out or coming out soon for the Wii are looking a bit...rough. Graphics aren't everything but you can't ignore them forever. For Nintendo's sake I hope they do keep coming up with great games that will make me continue to not care about graphics. How long will that last though?
Click here to have your opinion heard by discussing this in our forums and voting in the poll.
Images
