Another good quote on piracy:
mod
“To be honest, if PC wasn’t pirated to hell and back, there’d probably be a PC version coming out the same day as the other two.”
He continues,
“But at the moment, if you release the PC version, essentially what you’re doing is letting people have a free version that they rip off instead of a purchased version. Piracy’s basically killing PC.”
That's from Ubisoft Shanghai director Michael De Plater, speaking about Endwar in this interview: http://www.videogaming247.com/2008/10/08/ubisoft-creative-director-piracys-basically-killing-pc/ , in which he claims releasing a pc version alongside the two others would result in much lower sales for the consoles, as people would just steal the game.
Then a quote from rockpapershotgun.com on the topic:
This hardly seems worth saying, but of course we in no way endorse piracy. Illegally downloading games is, well, illegal. But what we want - what we want so much that our sides ache and our foreheads pulse - is for the truth to be at the centre of this discussion. We want people who make these decisions, who give comments like this, to present the facts and figures that back up their statements.
And ofcourse, it isn't. The truth isn't anywhere near these sort of remarks.
Interestingly enough, a pc release isn't even 100% certain. It's 'likely' to be released further down the line.
Do you think these guys ever heard of Steam? It isn't 100% foolproof, but in my experience with trying to run a pirated Half-life 2 in light of my pc not connecting to the internet (therefore keeping me from my orange-boxy goodness ;__;), it's a fucking hassle. More hassle than getting a console chipped, I imagine.
Replies
So, they purposefully delay the PC release dates to ensure that the console version is out before the PC one.
I think when stuff like that happens, people will only end up pirating the PC version more often. Because it's the same game that they played on their mate's console some months back. And even if they have avoided playing it, the plot twists, secrets or any other sort of mystery has generally been stripped away and sequels already being discussed. It leaves very little incentive to actually buy the 6 months late PC version (which is, of course, riddled with DRM which only serves to punish the legal buyers).
I'm still not sure whether PC piracy that sidelines PC development or if it's simply a case of PC games just aren't as profitable as console games.
I dont agree with patting people on the head for doing the "right" thing but maybe being nicer to the people buying the game would work in favour... I've no idea what could be offered up or removed but if a game was easier and simpler to install than its hooky counterpart that would be a move in the right direction?
Online play and a CDKey is more than enough of an excuse for me to buy a game, i'd installed my friends CoD4 and played about a bit on a LAN and enjoyed it enough to warrent buying the game so I could play online. Some people dont really care much about those bonuses i guess, so what one could give to them to make it worth while purchasing well, i dunno!
I wonder, would removing protection injure sales all that much? crackers and the like love a test so where theirs a will theres a way.
you don't think there's any truth in any of that?
Pirate: Prove my activities are actually hurting anyone!
Company: We'll need hard numbers from the sites you operate on, and we'll also need to poll the pirate community to find out how many would actually buy the game.
Pirate: We respect the right to remain anonymous and unprosecuted.
Company: Well then we can only guess.
Pirate: HA that's what I thought all hot air. You hear that boys, gorge yourselves!
Company: Well then don't be surprised when we pull out of your beloved free game market.
Pirate: Oh well I'll just figure out how to pirate console games.
Company: Why are console sales down!? Even blockbusters are losing money?
Company: We are officially closing our doors and going back to selling tech gadgets.
Company2: We are officially going back to making Office more bloated and un-user friendly. To cover our losses we are jacking up the price of our next OS which we're sure you'll all love, no really you'll like it!
Pirate: Wow, I guess piracy does effect sales, who knew?
I'll stand by position of if even one person pirates it and would probably buy it if it wasn't so avaiable, it is lost revenue the company should have gotten and is hurting the company. Regardless of weather they turn a profit or not, pirates aren't shareholders, they don't get to indulge in the companies profits. And its not up to them to decide what percentage gets "given back" to the community.
This BS of if they can make a profit who cares about piracy is total BS.
I personally would like to mug a few pirates on pay day, leave em 5 bucks and tell them they should be happy they have 5 bucks and see what they have to say.
And for the record, I always prefer to play games on PC, work on art in my free time that's well beyond the limits of current consoles, etc.
I've always thought a more constructive approach would be to have DRM that is tied into the gameplay. Don't release games that attempt to prevent themselves from being played. Release games that actively punish players for attempting to play them without paying. If the game has an on-line component, make it so that anyone who hasn't paid will have the odds grossly stacked against them. Make it so that they can't host their own games, but must always join someone elses. There's any number of ways to penalize people who aren't willing to cough up the cash.
These days I don't pirate games I'm on the fence about. I just flat out don't buy them. Same end result, financially.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that a console RTS would have a hard time against truly great RTS games on the PC. So this marketing douche says it is piracy? He is just lying. That is his job.
From Wikipedia:
"As of June 27, 2008, Crysis has beaten EA's expectations and sold 1.5 million copies worldwide, according to a gamesradar article."
Hey, weren't these guys just saying how piracy killed their sales? I mean, it is becoming a cliche to blame piracy when you can smell console money.
Here is Cliffy B's take on Crysis' great PC sales:
"The PC right now is a fair amount different to what it was back in the day, with all the badly integrated video chips. Heres the problem right now; the person who is savvy enough to want to have a good PC to upgrade their video card, is a person who is savvy enough to know bit torrent to know all the elements so they can pirate software. Therefore, high-end videogames are suffering very much on the PC."
Maybe Cliffy B forgot that Unreal had a software renderer and supported multiple graphics API's for hardware acceleration...
Also, it is good to know Cliffy and this End Wars douche think I am a chump when I actually pay for my games.
But that's all besides the point , which is that staggering your releases isn't actually doing your customers any good, so it's another clear case of legitimate customers losing out far more than pirates are, and for what purpose?
edit: Ninjas, don't even mention Cliffy B. Despite him using his grown-up name now, he doesn't appear to have gotten any wiser.
My point is that if you divide total PC sales by PC exclusive titles for 1998 and for 2008 you'll find that PC exclusive games are doing just fine. I don't have any hard data to prove this other than the PC game section on store shelves takes up one shelf when it used to take up 10, and yet they they still sell more than half of what they used to.
1.5 million copies is a lot for a buggy game that only runs on very top end hardware. If you compare it to console game sales, it may not seem so high, but then the console market has been growing like crazy. Just because the PC market is not growing doesn't mean it isn't healthy.
http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/dodgy-digits-behind-the-war-on-piracy.ars
It's retarded is what it is, if you enjoy a form of entertainment, you pay for it so the great folks who provide you with so much fun can continue creating that which you enjoy so much. That's the goddamn cycle!
On the same end I'm really curious as to whether the PC games are really that much less profitable because of piracy, versus publishers just having the mindset that "hey some people are stealing our stuff, lets just go to consoles!"
Blizzard and Valve seem to be doing pretty damn well for themselves, the PC games market seems to be booming in Europe, is it really that piracy is making PC gaming unviable or is it just the mindset of the publishers and their share holders??
Brass fucking balls, ladies and gentlemen.
I'm amazed people can't understand this. Of course I imagine most pirates can understand it and choose to disregard it in order to justify their actions, which of course means they know they're doing something wrong.
Frank the Avenger
its dry, but i did my best trying to be moderately amusing:
i remember back in the good old days, when me and my buddies used to swap games.
each game usually passed an average of between 4-5 people minimum.
should that count for lost sales too?
And me claiming that does not imply I encourage piracy.
piracy moves the situation to a more subscription/service based model. is google complaining about piracy? is blizzard's WoW losing money? why does microsoft have to shove Vista into our face with our hands tied up?
unless someone comes up with a perfect copy protection system, the model doesn't work anymore.
WoW doesn't get pirated. downloadable content is comming into it's own.... i think the solution is getting people to log into servers. i think we need streaming content, even for shitty single player myst style adventure games. i don't know what the solution is exacctlyy.. but we need some sort of "key for my lock" that is more robust than a cd-key
i shouldn't have to pay money for the game, i should have to pay money for access to the server.. or the DLC.