Piracy in the Video Game Market

Sales of counterfeit video games are increasing worldwide. In 2003, video game executives joined a coalition of movie, software and music companies to appeal for help from the United States government, citing that they had lost a combined $20 billion due to piracy in 2002 (Kent, 2003).

Video game piracy "is more than a $1 billion industry," according to Douglas Lowenstein, president of the Interactive Digital Software Association, the trade organization that represents the games industry (Kent, 2003). "It is well over $2 billion worldwide if you include all piracy, which would include PC games."

For Microsoft Corp. And Sony Computer Entertainment, which respectively make the Xbox and PlayStation 2, piracy is a major problem. "Given the popularity of consoles on a worldwide basis, certainly a significant share of the losses is coming from the console side," Lowenstein said (Kent, 2003).

Worldwide, console piracy...
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