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Epic Blames Pirates For Console-First Development
- Thread starter Zombie James
- Start date
thehillissilent
Member
Agreed.Zeliard said:
arstal said:
Did you see the post I was replying to? It was basically saying that Ubisoft puts terrible DRM on their games out of a seething hatred they have for consumers and that they would even if there was no piracy. Also they make terrible shovelware games because they're bad people.
mikespit1200
Member
eznark said:
Sorry, I should have made clear that I think all DRM is shitty, especially, Securom and its ilk. Completely counter-productive. I've said it before and I'll say it again: EA has it right, simple disk check and 10$ pirate tax for launch DLC. Ideally, I'd like to see all DRM gone, but I think EA's solution is the most sensible, because it is the most likely to turn casual pirates into paying customers without punishing paying customers.
SapientWolf
Trucker Sexologist
Why pay $2.50 for horse armor when you can buy an armored horse for $25? PC gamers are also willing to host their own servers and pay full price for beta software. It's a win/win (or lose/lose, depending on your perspective).Zeliard said:
So do we have numbers for PC BC2 yet? Initially EA reported that the PC version accounted for most of the sales over PS3 and 360. It completely blew EA's expectations out of the water. I mean they couldn't even properly distribute patches for like 2-3 weeks, among several other congestion related problems.
This proves people will pay for a good game on PC (or that they simply can't get the same multiplayer experience with a pirated version). Either way, that has to show in some way that there is a still a good market of PC gamers that can be catered to.
This proves people will pay for a good game on PC (or that they simply can't get the same multiplayer experience with a pirated version). Either way, that has to show in some way that there is a still a good market of PC gamers that can be catered to.
CecilRousso
Member
belvedere said:
It also shows that don´t need draconian DRM. First they implemented one the mildest form of Securom so far, and then they even patched that out of the Steam version.
SlipperySlope
Banned
Aaron said:
Doom 1 was shareware. Or do you mean you got the other two expansions for free?
CecilRousso
Member
arstal said:
The disc version does come with Securom, but it doesn´t install anything on your computer, it´s embedded in the exe-file instead.
If you buy the Steam version, then there isn´t any Securom at all any longer.
I never got this.
It's not like Gears 2 and 3 would make a return on investment on the PC platform. I'm fairly certain both would be profitable endeavors.
So either
A. Epic is so snoody they'd rather not make some money off a PC version because some people will pirate it.
or
B. Microsoft won't let them and they're too "hardcore" to admit to being bossed around by MS.
I'm rolling with B.
It's not like Gears 2 and 3 would make a return on investment on the PC platform. I'm fairly certain both would be profitable endeavors.
So either
A. Epic is so snoody they'd rather not make some money off a PC version because some people will pirate it.
or
B. Microsoft won't let them and they're too "hardcore" to admit to being bossed around by MS.
I'm rolling with B.
Smh. Pirate sure are useful as an excuse for developers. You can blame them for switching platforms, for poor sales, to drop features like LAN matches, or add invasive DRM. Instead of admitting the truth, say the magic phrase "pirates made me do it" and the PR department has it much easier.
CecilRousso
Member
MaxSteel said:
Well, that really says more about you and your friends than anything else.
I myself don´t buy boxed games anymore, but I have over 40 games on my Steam account + 4 seasons of Telltales adventure games bought through their online store.
BobsRevenge
I do not avoid women, GAF, but I do deny them my essence.
Microsoft doesn't publish on PC anymore. That's really all there is to that. Not that A or B is correct either.obonicus said:
You don't need to "move goalposts" to debunk this nonsense.DeadTrees said:
1) ID's comments on PC piracy are totally useless considering that they haven't released a game in years. Doom 3 sold 3.5 million copies, and they haven't released anything since.
John Carmack is a technical genuis, but what the fuck authority does he have to make proclamations about the health of the PC gaming space when he hasn't released a game for 6 years, and that game was a tremendous success to boot??
2) In Cevat Yerli's comments, the only thing that matters is that Crysis made them a profit, and they've been so successful that they've actually opened up even more studios in the same time that countless other studios are shutting down.
If Crytek was still disappointed with the number of sales they had, they should be more introspective and think about:
-Was marketing Crysis as something only massively powerful machines can run (not true) the smartest decision?
-Should we have boasted about our amazing gameplay instead of just talking about graphics endlessly?
-Should we have taken multiplayer more seriously?
Considering that Valve and Blizzard have absolutely no problem selling millions upon millions of copies on PC alone, if Crytek wanted to do the same but didn't, then they have far more than piracy to blame for their disappointment.
charlequin
Banned
obonicus said:
This really just ignores how incredibly easy PC piracy already was in the days before torrents, though. In the late 90s there was also a technological shift that made piracy "easier" too -- the advent and widespread adoption of the CD burner, which (combined with tiny patches and cracks available online) made it trivial to copy most new PC games. That didn't kill PC gaming then -- because PC gaming was otherwise desirable, which meant all the piracy going on then was nonetheless going on right next to phenomenal sales for PC games.
I can, I do, and I reject the statements of publishers (who literally have no additional relevant information to base a "more informed" position on.) Accounting for the impact of something like this, when you're inherently measuring people's actual actions vs. their "intended" actions, is obviously difficult, but there's plentiful evidence that there aren't sale drops that correlate to the dates previously-closed systems get hacked and that in markets where only some systems are pirateable there are often no appreciable sales differences between them and the closed systems, as well as a variety of studies that reflect a low correlation betwen piracy rates and purchases.
CecilRousso said:
Yup.
The flipside to the issue where people's typical first-blush moral intuition is that copying content doesn't hurt anyone is that people also typically like paying for things they enjoy and will continue to do so in fairly large numbers even given a free (but illicit) alternative. Typically you don't see the complete collapse of the system except when paying for content becomes a sucker's move because pirates are actively getting a better experience for free.
On PC, through a combination of carrot (value-added services like Steam, lots of sales, cheap indie releases with no DRM) and stick (login-based multiplayer) a lot of publishers have produced a situation where many games continue to be worthwhile to pay for.
charlequin
Banned
gofreak said:
Bullshit.
I am a utilizer of copyright law; I make my living producing copyrighted material (although in the vast majority of cases, I turn around and utilize open licenses on that material.) I've had things stolen from me personally and I've had content I created used illicitly, and they are very different things. The way I found out about them was different; the way they affected my life was different; what I had to do to try to remedy each situation was different. It does me no good to conflate them; in fact, it actually does me harm as a creator, by helping perpetuate the situation where rather than a reasoned compromise on matters of copyright, matters continue to polarize between copyright absolutists (large multinational corporations who explicitly want copyright laws to help them screw over small content creators in disputes and keep hold of rights that were intended to return to the public, among other things) and people who think the best solution is just to get rid of copyright altogether and let everyone sort it out from there.
Yes, it very much is. You're disingenuously comparing one crime to a very different one to try to elicit sympathy for the crime's victim -- not for what was actually done to them, but for the level of anguish you want people to "understand" that they experienced, above and beyond the actual crime. It's crap.
I'm all for arguing about how piracy is a bad thing overall, but argue based on what it actually entails rather than trying to force a false equivalence ("everyone knows theft is wrong, so they should automatically know that this other thing I'm calling theft is wrong, even though it isn't really very much like theft at all!") as a flawed undercurrent to your argument.
Fox Mulder
Member
MaxSteel said:
I know plenty of people that buy PC games, however their interest in PC ports of console games is pretty low. If game developers want to whine about PC sales, maybe they should actually be making PC focused games.
Zombie James said:
UT3 (though that sold badly in addition)
Gears of War PC (mostly because of Games for Windows, at least that's the justification of some pirate groups for it)
Also old news is old. They gave this reason when the 360 launched, didn't they?
kamspy said:
PR spin. What sounds better:
"Our publisher won't put Gears of War 2 or 3 on the PC because the port of our first one sold and reviewed like shit and they don't want to lose money"
or
"People wanted to play the port of Gears of War so much that they had to resort to stealing it. Obviously, since we hate crime, we won't be feeding this frenzy any longer."
SlipperySlope
Banned
MaxSteel said:
Why don't you buy PC games? I buy them all the time.
Diatribe1974
Member
Let's face it, that no matter how the pirates spin things, it all boils down to one simple fact that even they cannot deny: They pirate what they pirate because they didn't want to pay for it & knew how to do it easily. With a few mouse clicks, they can get whatever piece of software, song, or movie they could probably ever want. But they're also a hypocritical lot, as were someone to hack into their bank accounts and transfer the money from their accounts to another account, they'd be the first ones out there, screaming about how they'd been robbed and how wrong it was.
I <3 Memes
Member
DiatribeEQ said:
So you are saying that all of the PC gamers in this thread that are speaking against Epic are pirates?
Mr. B Natural
Member
In this thread we learn that PC gamers are still in denial.
They had a company down right say what the hell is wrong with PC gaming and...nope, not good enough.
They had a company down right say what the hell is wrong with PC gaming and...nope, not good enough.
charlequin
Banned
I <3 Memes said:
Oh I hope he is. We can all post our Steam account pages! :lol
Mr. B Natural said:
Fox Reports That Those Grapes Up There Are Indeed Sour In Closely-Related Story
Interesting, but piracy has been around for computers since i can remember and company's have managed to get by.
Maybe it was more extreme for the commodore amiga, where piracy was supposedly one of the main factors in it's demise along with the launch of the IBM PC. However Epic managed to make a good living while there was piracy abound. Now I don't know what the scale was back then compared to now regarding piracy levels as a percentage of computer owners to pirates, but then the audience to sell PC games to is massive compared to computer gaming back in the day.
It sounds like a bit of a cop out.
I don't think it's helped them that the pc games they released recently where either very poor or very late after the console release.
As digital distribution develops on the PC, they will change their minds.
Maybe it was more extreme for the commodore amiga, where piracy was supposedly one of the main factors in it's demise along with the launch of the IBM PC. However Epic managed to make a good living while there was piracy abound. Now I don't know what the scale was back then compared to now regarding piracy levels as a percentage of computer owners to pirates, but then the audience to sell PC games to is massive compared to computer gaming back in the day.
It sounds like a bit of a cop out.
I don't think it's helped them that the pc games they released recently where either very poor or very late after the console release.
As digital distribution develops on the PC, they will change their minds.
CecilRousso
Member
Mr. B Natural said:
Yes, because if one person says one thing on the internet, then he must be right.
Mr. B Natural
Member
bkfount said:
Never made any sense 10 years ago. Doesn't make sense now.
Or are you referring to games like UT3 right?
Diatribe1974
Member
I <3 Memes said:
Where'd you come up with that idea? I was talking about the pirates, not people on this forum (well, I guess if there are people on this forum that pirate, then sure, you can group them into my statement concerning pirates). All in all, what I said is true: As a whole, the people who pirate doing it not only because they don't want to pay the money for the product, but also because it's so incredibly easy to do. My best friend if a pirate. I doubt he's bought a CD (or paid for a song via iTunes-Napster-Amazon-ect) in years. The same goes for the software on his PC. And he's just one grain of sand on the beach in this discussion.
karasu
Member
Why is it so hard for you guys to believe that piracy has an impact on these decisions? Every time it's brought up people act like it's bullshit. While at the same time piracy is taken so seriously here that you'll probably be banned for copping to playing a pirated game.(current one)
I <3 Memes
Member
Well you can see why I would be confused. Pirates are not in this thread discussing the remarks from Epic. It's just your fellow gaf users.
Mr. B Natural
Member
CecilRousso said:
You mean one guying being the president of Epic? Or one guy meaning you or the other individuals that just talk right out their asses with not a lick of knowledge or data. None. Zilch.
Because, yeah, that's the definition of denial.
Oh, I know, it's an illusion or a conspiracy. Developers are switching/focusing on consoles cause it's a big conspiracy against pcs. There's no reasoning to business decisions when it comes to big companies like Epic. They don't know what they're doing! Gaf does.
bhlaab said:
So yeah, my "B" answer in my previous post.
It is very shitty of them to throw PC gamers under the bus though. It's alright. I'm sure Runic pushing 500,000 copies of Torchlight and splitting the profits between 20 people inspires plenty other talented developers to support the master race with good, made for PC content.
Look what throwing us a bone (albeit slightly mildewed) did for DICE and EA with BC2?
Mr. B Natural said:
Well, for one, testing two configurations of a game vs. millions of configurations is probably easier on the ass end budget. Not to mention the console demographic is one of the least discerning of any media buying populous.
I don't think anyone would argue that developing for consoles is more expensive than PC when you're talking AAA games.
CecilRousso
Member
Mr. B Natural said:
I mean the one guying being president of company who´s hardly tried to develop PC games since Microsoft showed an interest in that game that became Gears of War. The person who got a question about PC gaming in an interview and had to answer with something.
While at the same time, there are plenty of guys who are presidents of companies that without any doubt releases very succesful PC games, companies we have mentioned in this thread.
But yeah, lets just say that everyone who questions that one answer from that first guy are in denial, it´s so much easier that way.
There is a market on the PC, it may not be the size of the consoles but its still there and its large. It's just lately a lot of big developers make a game for the PC but do a shitty job of porting it(Borderlands), remove key features(dedicated servers on MW2), shitty DRM and an extra $10 slapped on it. That's when people stop supporting titles like that and then sales slip and it's pretty easy to place blame on piracy which can be a factor but no developers wants to say admit and say "Yeah, we did a shit job of porting, we won't give you key features that have been standard in a PC game for over a decade - we'll patch it in a month"
I'm pretty sure you'd be pissed if someone charged you more for less. It's why I continue to support Valve, Blizzard and many indie developers because they keep their ears to the community while maintaining a business.
I'm pretty sure you'd be pissed if someone charged you more for less. It's why I continue to support Valve, Blizzard and many indie developers because they keep their ears to the community while maintaining a business.
Commanche Raisin Toast
Member
Zeliard said:
this + HD remakes of (slightly)older console games from previous generations.
it has nothing to do with piracy.
/thread