Are Heavy Pirates also Heavy Buyers?: A Case of the Video Game Industry in Japan

Nobuya Fukugawa

doi:10.1515/ajle-2017-0024

Article

Are Heavy Pirates also Heavy Buyers?: A Case of the Video Game Industry in Japan

Nobuya Fukugawa

Published/Copyright: April 13, 2018

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From the journal Asian Journal of Law and Economics Volume 9 Issue 1

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to examine how piracy via peer-to-peer (P2P) network affects sales of original version in the video game industry.

Design/methodology/approach

This study conducted an online questionnaire survey in 2009 with a focus on 9970 users of portable video game platforms, and collected information of how familiar respondents were with techniques for downloading pirated video games via P2P network and how this knowledge affected their purchase behavior of original video games.

Findings

First, 38% of the respondents know how to download pirated video games via P2P network. Younger male respondents with greater enthusiasm for video games are exposed to greater opportunities to learn to pirate. Second, different respondents employ different channels to learn about piracy. Third, 95% of the respondents who knew how to pirate did not download any pirated video game. Once involved in piracy, jobless respondents with less enthusiasm for video games who were informed about piracy by their friends tend to download pirated video games more intensively. Fourth, there is no significantly negative relationship between the number of pirated video games respondents downloaded and the number of original video games they purchased. Fifth, respondents who downloaded pirated video games also purchased original video games of which pirated version they have downloaded.

Originality/value

This study clarified that heavy pirates are also heavy buyers not only at the aggregate level, but also at the individual level, and interpreted the results from the viewpoint of peculiarities of video games as a cultural product, making piracy harmless to sales of original version.

Keywords: file sharing; innovation; intellectual property; network externalities; piracy; P2P; video games

JEL Classification: O34; D03; K42; L86

Appendix

Table 8:

Sample Configuration by Age and Occupation.

	Junior high	High school	College/Grad	Employed	Self-employed	Housewife	Unemployed	Total
10–19	9	58	33	4			6	110
20–29			126	564	38	116	98	942
30–39			6	2.352	265	969	163	3.755
40–49				2.400	439	777	120	3.736
50–59				722	189	192	55	1.158
60≤				82	33	49	105	269
Total	9	58	165	6.124	964	2.103	547	9.970

Table 9:

Key Statistics by Age of Respondents.

	Average of newly-released original video games respondents ever purchased	Average of pirated video games respondents ever downloaded	Proportion of respondents who knew how to download pirated video games	Proportion of respondents who actually downloaded pirated video games	Proportion of pirated video games which were never played
10–19	7.3	1.2	0.43	0.04	0.50
20–29	7.3	1.3	0.43	0.05	0.34
30–39	8.7	2.5	0.42	0.06	0.38
40–49	9.3	0.8	0.36	0.04	0.33
50–59	7.0	1.6	0.29	0.05	0.30
60≤	5.2	0.0	0.19	0.00
Total	8.5	1.6	0.38	0.05	0.35

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Published Online: 2018-4-13

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/ajle-2017-0024

Keywords for this article

file sharing; innovation; intellectual property; network externalities; piracy; P2P; video games