Internal Debate: Future Wary

I am an intern.

If you can get past that line and somehow keep yourself from shuddering, then have someone nearby give you a pat on the back. A lot of folks are too wrapped up in their own egotistical eccentricities to realize that sometimes, those of a younger generation might actually have something to say worth listening to.

Like many people my age, I possess a particular fondness for gaming. However, unless you work in the industry, you likely dismiss its existence. Indeed, you may very well perceive games as little more than the rigorous pastimes of teenagers, twenty-somethings, and the occasional (but much reviled) forty-year-old. If this is the case, then please, allow me to be blunt with you:

I am most certainly not here to change your mind. Frankly, I have better things to worry about. And I think you do too.

Let me explain. I'm in college right now majoring in game design, and as an aspiring developer I worry about the state of the global gaming industry. I worry about what the business will be like once I get to it. Heck, I worry about what the business is like right now. I would imagine that, in your own fields, you probably do too. For my part, I quiver when I gaze across the Pacific, for I see Asia looming on the horizon.

The Escapist recently published an article investigating the booming business that gaming has grown into in China. As is the case with any investigation of Chinese gaming practices, piracy was at the forefront of the discussion, and author Thomas Wilburn provided some terrifying financial figures to complement his thoughts. At a going rate of about three bucks a pop for every pirated copy of a game, the Chinese market has topped $590 million in phony purchases. Conversely, games sell in the States for about $50 a title.

Do the math. Even accounting for a tremendous amount of error, we're talking billions of dollars in lost revenue. And consider this: Chinese pirating rings don't stop with games. As Microsoft and other big software companies can attest, they'll target anything and everything if it nets a profit. In the BSA's annual Global Software Piracy Study released last month, China's piracy rate ranked fourth in the world at 86%, while the global loss to pirated products numbered almost $35 billion last year (the U.S., conversely, had the lowest piracy rate in the world at 21%). Admittedly, China has shown a four-point drop from its 90% high two years ago, and this is encouraging -- but that doesn't affect the simple truth: that the losses there remain positively staggering, and the global rate has most definitely gone up.

If you work for a company that deals in software, or is otherwise connected to such companies, then there's a good chance you're out some serious cash. Because your business would likely be doing a heck of a lot better if folks over in China and the rest of the world paid you even a fraction of what they're spending on the stuff their countrymen stole from you.