If anything, it's remarkable that it took six months for the game to be cracked in the first place.įootball Manager 2014 is now out and is excellent. It doesn't sound like Sports Interactive or Sega have any intention of adding more inhibitive DRM to future versions of the game as a result of the piracy. When I asked for clarification on that how that 1.74% was reached, a representative for Sports Interactive said that they looked "at the differences in sales between FM12 and FM13 during corresponding periods, taking into account pre-crack increase and post-crack decreases across every country." I've asked for more information and, if we hear back, will update this post tomorrow.
They do estimate however that 1.74% of pirates would have bought the game if the crack didn't exist, and that this adds up to a $3.7 million loss in net revenue. It's heartening that Sports Interactive isn't using these figures to leap to any unjust conclusions. That means that activations in Italy and Thailand actually went up after the crack was released. Legitimate activation in the post-crack period Here's the full chart for the top 10, showing the number of illegal downloads and the drop in post-crack activations: Although it's not quite that simple, as they also provide figures for individual countries. Sports Interactive looked at the drop in activation rate after the patch, which overall they say fell by 17%. IPs are a poor way of pinning down individuals, but they can be used to estimate quantity.Ĭhina is reportedly the largest source of piracy, with 3.2 million illegal downloads. Speaking at the London Games Conference as reported by MCV, FM producer Miles Jacobsen said that it's "ridiculous" to equate these numbers with lost sales.Īccording to the release sent out by Sega, the game was cracked in May of last year, but that crack included a flaw that allowed the game to "phone home" and for Sports Interactive to log the IP address of every person who grabbed it. The best part is that Sports Interactive and Sega are being totally reasonable about it. The report they've just sent out goes on to break down those figures by country, and estimates the likely lost revenue as a result of illegal downloads. Sports Interactive says that Football Manager 2013, the previous iteration of the game, was pirated 10.1 million times. We always approach piracy figures with a healthy skepticism, but this is interesting.
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