Just a guess on one specific - Blizzard and Classic (Vanilla) WoW. I honestly believe they allowed the biggest servers to operate and were in a ‘watch’ mode to see how popular they were as fans have been asking for Vanilla to be released for years.
Those servers were wildly popular with pretty good populations, I read that upwards of 5,000 people were on different servers at peak times. I honestly believe that Blizzard monitored this to see how they fared, especially with the recent expansions often losing subs. It was an easy test without committing the resources to rebuild Vanilla, which is being released (for those non-WoWhead types!) as Classic World of Warcraft this summer. Will it draw all those players to Blizzard and a sub, maybe. The emulators, (I’m not that’s proper term?) ranged from strict adherence to the original, to gross deviations on instant characters at max level, various ways to ‘pay’ to have all kinds of gear, etc. I’m sure there’s a percentage of people that played only because it was free, but many that really love Classic (I didn’t BC/Wrath are better IMHO) will likely resub to play.
There were more than 50,000 people (from what I’d read a few years ago) on one of the sites, so for arguments sake IF Bizz could pick up 50K subs @ $14.99 a month = $749,500 x 12 = $8,994,000. They don’t hate money, and stand to make much more than that. So, it was one good thing to come from an illegal activity.
I’ve seen Warhammer Online has an emulator and I really liked that game - well parts of it at least - and would love to see a version, a ‘legal’ one out there. Same for Star Wars Galaxies. I never played it, but everyone talks like it was the holy grail of gaming, so it would be interesting to see that live on, much like COH (not a big fan of that game but I know people loved it!).
I’ve never understood when it’s determined to shutdown a game, that is still popular with fans, why the development companies, don’t ‘sell/lease’ their games that are technically dead now to indy devs or another company that wants to use it and run it on private servers. Dead game, they get zero if someone steals it, versus receiving some compensation if it’s out there for people to play.
As for the copying/sharing games. I hated that back in the day when it was easier to copy games (software), as I did feel like it was stealing (why I have a shelf with three copies of many games - three people played here!). Then again we share DvDs, CDs, books - so? Think about books – we have “legal” ways to share them – libraries. Authors don’t get a penny for the hundreds and thousands of people that didn’t buy their book! And people have no problem with that and we routinely lend books to friends. Ebooks and audios have changed that – they cost less to make/distribute than physical books, charge quite a bit and we cant’ share. The big winner isn’t the author it’s the publishers. Authors that re-release their books as ebooks are the only way they make more $$ (I have an author friend).
So why do we view software differently? Just the cost to make a game? I don’t agree with stealing from someone hard work – heck I won’t pick a tomato out of a field as that’s that farmers, anymore than I would steal something of my neighbors porch – you don’t steal!
I’ve liked the fact companies like NetFlix allows me to share my account with my roommate and my daughter (does not live with me) - granted I pay so three of us could be on at the same time - we never are - but I don’t feel like I’m cheating them by just sharing the login, which I know many people do.
Same like Amazon you can share your Amazon Prime membership with someone. Amazon’s not a stupid company so gave people the ability to share without cheating.
- Just read Greyed’s comment above this - agree. It’s what we all consider ‘acceptable’. We’ve been trained into sharing via those five examples.