June 7th, 2010 
Cliff Riseborough 
Indeed, an investigation by the Computer Entertainment Suppliers Association (which shockingly shortens to CESA) claims that piracy of PSP and Nintendo DS software between 2004 and 2009 totalled $41 billion in losses for the industry.
The study also revealed that the US has the most internet servers hosting pirated games in the world, with China at number two.
Getting back to the dollar value, how did they arrive at such an outlandish figure? Here’s how it was explained on 1Up :
The science behind CESA’s methods are certainly worth questioning. The association arrived at these figures by monitoring the top 114 identified piracy websites for downloads of the top 20 best-selling Japanese games in the five year period. They then added up the amount of money retailers would charge for each one of those games, and — under the assumption that Japan represents 25 percent of the world’s software market — multiplied that number by four to arrive at this figure.
Well, that seems like a brilliant calculation…if you’re five years old and math is still a relatively new concept. Have to love ANY ‘factual calculation’ based on assumptions and guesswork, though.
All that we have here is yet another ridiculous industry ‘study’ that tosses a bunch of numbers in a blender and comes up with a ludicrous total that nobody in their right mind would take at face value. And even the very basic chunk that is based on something…the number of observed downloads…doesn’t take in to account that most of those people would never have purchased the game anyway.
In other words, “Industry study makes up a bunch of stuff, starts wild rumours’ should really be the headline.
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One question that comes to mind. Who or what is the intended target for these numbers? Does the industry really expect anyone to believe that they lost 41 (gasp) billion dollars? I didn’t know that even had that much to lose.
Funny too, since the floor space in retail stores has quadrupled in the last couple of years…that’s not a sign of an industry in trouble or bleeding money.
I think these numbers are there for the industry to use when they go lobby government. No gamer actually believes these numbers, but the government is going to believe a ‘study’ by corporations rather than believe gamers.
I was going to mention the lobby crowd, but thought even ‘they’ may not believe numbers such as the ones claimed.