SI discusses Football Manager piracy

As with any kind of online piracy, faster broadband speeds and penetration has led to an increase in online piracy. Boxed piracy is falling though, albeit not at the same speed that the online piracy is increasing.

The only reasons for differences is speed of cracks becoming available. Therefore FM11, which has little protection on it, is deemed to have been the most pirated from the stats available to us.

The last time we had properly accurate stats was with FM2009, when the game wasn't cracked properly until late March. After that point, whilst we still had stats for those who downloaded the not properly cracked version, the piracy would have increased exponentially to levels we cannot calculate.

That's a question that is impossible to answer without speaking to every single person who has pirated the game! We know that for every one person who bought FM09 there were at least four pirated copies, not including the fact mentioned above regarding how we couldn't track all of them from April that year and beyond.

We also know that the numbers of people downloading torrents from public sites rose massively for both FM10 and FM11, despite shutting down torrents as quickly as they went up for the first few months of release.

We also know that being cracked ahead of release leads to people to cancel, or not pick up, pre-orders, and lower first weekend sales.

But one pirated copy does not equal a lost sale. Not everyone who pirates games would buy them if they couldn't pirate them - they'd just do without it. But there are a small percentage who would go out and buy it if they couldn't get it for free.

It is. That figure is just from what we've been able to track, and the reality is that it's higher than that.

Again, you can't talk about saved sales. It's an impossible stat to track. Steam is effective at cutting at day-zero, and pre-launch piracy. Time will tell whether in FM12's case, it can stay protected beyond that.

I would love to have no DRM on our games. I'd also love to not have to have locks on my home, or a burglar alarm, or locks on my car. How good would a life without keys be? I'd also love to have no insurance, either at home, or at the studio. Or a security guard at the office. The unfortunate reality is that as long as there are dishonest people in the world, you will need locks, and you'll need insurance. As long as there are people out there who want to pirate, there will be a need for DRM.

If there is, I unfortunately don't think it'll happen in my lifetime. Even with freemium games, people cheat and try and find ways to steal others coins, as per recent court cases. It's very sad, but it's the world we live in.