“Why you mad?” - User and media perception on game design anti-piracy measures

Abstract: Video game developers have implemented multiple measures to combat piracy throughout history. One of these measures, defined in this study as in-game anti-piracy measures, prevents player progression on unauthorized copies by degrading gameplay or drastically increasing the difficulty.This study conducts a content analysis research on textual data gathered from the world wide web to assess the public perception in regards to this type of anti-piracy measures. The data gathered for this study consists of 425 statements in the form of comments and forum posts that have been coded, divided into themes and then analyzed inductively to generate findings that can be linked to Moshirnia’s (2012) previous research.Even though no clear results occurred that can confirm Moshirnia’s (2012) findings, this study has discovered a potential connection between in-game anti-piracy measures promoting piracy. The findings also suggest that the unique “broke features” might lead to the popularization of games modded to let legitimate users experience them too.