Support NeoGAF

[BobsRevenge]

If Microsoft doesn't publish on PC then why wouldn't Epic just say that's the reason for no Gears on PC instead of this bullshit?

They aren't making an excuse for why Microsoft doesn't publish on PC, just why they are console-oriented now.

 

[Curufinwe]

Whether they're right or not about piracy being the problem... the money is on console.

That's why Blizzard are so poor and have to run their company out of a tiny, rat-infested building located inside a slum.

 

[BobsRevenge]

That's why Blizzard are so poor and have to run their company out of a tiny, rat-infested building located inside a slum.

The money for a game like Gears is on console. Not for Diablo, WhateverCraft, or World of WhateverCraft.

 

[Curufinwe]

The fact that dudebro, 3rd person shooters do better on console than on PC is not news.

 

[obonicus]

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.

Actually, you may be making my argument for me. I'm talking about the late 90s, which is also when you positioned the rise of the 3d cards. Easy broadband, widespread cd burners and higher barrier to entry thanks to hardware-accelerated games all had a stake in driving PC gaming down from its position of prominence. We can't put one above the other, though, not without more information.

Also, PC gaming was never killed. Instead, its importance decreased significantly. Which just makes the effort of trying to pinpoint a single cause for its downfall more difficult, since a whole shitload of stuff happened in, say, the 1998-2003 period. It doesn't help that the factors listed above aren't entirely independent either (which sort of plays into what Brad Wardell says about PC piracy).

but there's plentiful evidence that there aren't sale drops that correlate to the dates previously-closed systems get hacked

Here's where we have no information. We don't have sales for most platforms, we certainly have no numbers for low-performing games. Publishers are saying that there are sales drops that correlate with piracy, but we assume they're lying.

and that in markets where only some systems are pirateable there are often no appreciable sales differences between them and the closed systems

Anecdotally this hasn't been my impression, at least not for gaming. I live in a very piracy-heavy area. I know local stores that simply don't carry 360 games because piracy drives their demand so low, but do pretty brisk business in PS3 games. Interestingly, they do pretty well on Wii software, again reinforcing some of the ideas behind what Brad Wardell says, but extended to consoles.

as well as a variety of studies that reflect a low correlation betwen piracy rates and purchases.

An important question is, how low? Lower than 10%? As the Iron Lore guy said, that could be enough to make a difference.

 

[DeadTrees]

You don't need to "move goalposts" to debunk this nonsense.

Putting aside your talking points (I especially like the idea that Crysis made "a" profit is "the only thing that matters"...presumably PC-GAF is just overjoyed with all the details about the sequel?), what do any of them have to do with your original assertion that no one that made a decent game in the last decade, and didn't delay the PC version, ever complained about piracy?

 

[TheYanger]

This sounds a lot more like an indictment of shitty DRM than it does of piracy. If the IronLore guys had ditched the DRM and released a little earlier they might have had more success. It's also your responsibility as a publisher or any content owner really to make sure you secure your source code. I can't tell you how many times as a reviewer I've gotten advance copies of simple burned DVDs whether this is from TV networks, music labels or game companies.

How is it shitty DRM? If you bought the game it worked fine. Straight up. It was completely transparent to anyone with legitimate copies of the game, which is how DRM SHOULD work.

 

[aeolist]

Not really, no.

I like how in this sort of thread people on message boards are convinced they know more about Epic's finances than Epic themselves.

http://forums.sega.com/showpost.php?p=5581439&postcount=50

Truth us we did look at online support, be it GFW or some other method.

When we looked into the cost vs the projected sales, the two didn't add up. So as a result the feature wasn't added to the game.

One of the main reasons is that on PC people will steal it rather than buy it.

Like I said, fuck Sega

 

[C4Lukins]

That's why Blizzard are so poor and have to run their company out of a tiny, rat-infested building located inside a slum.

Yes lets use the company that has released only one new game in the last 8 years that did insanely massively well as an example of the overall health of the PC space. Not to say that there are not other avenues to make money with games on the PC these days, but even the PC defense force must admit that those games are not the games they are interested in playing for the most part. Unless you prefer the weekly Farmville update to a new Wing Commander, Ultima, Star Control, or Deus Ex.

 

[aeolist]

.presumably PC-GAF is just overjoyed with all the details about the sequel?

Uh... yeah? I think Crysis 2 looks fucking awesome, can't wait to play it on my 5850.

 

[bhlaab]

Uh... yeah? I think Crysis 2 looks fucking awesome, can't wait to play it on my 5850.

From what I've read it sounds like theyve dumbed it down for consoles but wait and see I guess.

 

[C4Lukins]

From what I've read it sounds like theyve dumbed it down for consoles but wait and see I guess.

Yeah because this was a sophisticated series to begin with. I mean how could I possibly open the flaps, increase speed, lower the landing gear, use 5 different types of potions, and navigate a complicated inventory system all at once on a PS3 or 360 controller?

 

[aeolist]

From what I've read it sounds like theyve dumbed it down for consoles but wait and see I guess.

They've streamlined the powers while actually making the system as a whole deeper with upgrades and passive powers. Given that I only ever used armor and stealth in the first game I think this is an excellent design decision.

 

[luka]

From what I've read it sounds like theyve dumbed it down for consoles but wait and see I guess.

The first game had full support for the 360 pad and was perfectly playable that way, so...yeah.

The concern among PC gamers is how much the size and complexity of the levels will have to be scaled back due to the limited console memory. I'm sure it will be every bit as fun as the first one, but probably just a lot more linear and...narrow.

Given that I only ever used armor and stealth in the first game I think this is an excellent design decision.

You've obviously never played on delta. Armor is actually the most useless ability on that difficulty. You'd be using everything else a lot more. :lol

 

[aeolist]

You've obviously never played on delta. Armor is actually the most useless ability on that difficulty. You'd be using everything else a lot more. :lol

I played Delta but with a user mod that tweaked a some gameplay options. Everything died faster (including myself) and the biggest power difference was that Stealth would last a lot longer but wasn't as good at hiding you.

Yeah, Armor was a lot less useful then but Strength had no advantages beyond better grenade throws and Speed wouldn't affect the perfect NPC aim anyway.

 

[luka]

Yeah, Armor was a lot less useful then but Strength had no advantages beyond better grenade throws and Speed wouldn't affect the perfect NPC aim anyway.

Strength was my most used power besides cloak. It makes a significant difference in accuracy and if you're using single shots from a moderate distance it doesn't drain very quickly at all. Speed is VERY useful when moving from cover to cover or trying to get away faster when your energy is depleted (you walk faster in speed mode than you run in armor mode with no energy).

EDIT: Holy shit this is getting way off topic.

 

[Stallion Free]

I enjoy the Gears of War series, but I can't find the PC GoW1 anywhere really anymore. I would totally double dip on that. I wish Epic would release the whole trilogy on PC in one nice neat package (Steam Cloud, Achievements, Dedicated Servers with Steam Friends connectivity, Leaderboards). I bet it would sell great.

 

[Mael]

That makes no sense. Why would they incur the extra cost involved in developing/licensing DRM if they didn't have to? Because they're French and evil?

Well I'm French and evil, so as they say it takes one to know one
Seriously though media corporations don't just like money, they most certainly like control more than money.
I mean that's the whole point of monopoly all corporations aspire to have :
have a captive audience they can milk however they want, do you really think it was for ease of use and development all this publishers went console instead of pc?

This is silly. It doesn't matter if you're not 'reducing the resource' available to other people.

Let me put it this way:

I write a piece of software. I upload it to a server. I invite people to download the software in exchange for money. They must pay me to download it, however the URL is public and open.

Someone comes along and goes straight to the URL to download the software without paying.

Is this theft? I say, yes. It is.

Did you lose the item you sold? If the answer is no then it isn't theft.

By your logic it is not because the person downloading isn't diminishing a resource.

THAT cannot be the boundary between theft and 'non-theft' or whatever you want to call it. The boundary is whether the trade is agreed upon by the vendor.

Also your analogies are flawed. The closest analogy to other crimes, in moral terms, in terms of the scale of difference between two crimes under one banner might be manslaughter and murder (both 'killing'). Both end up in the same end result, its the circumstances that differ. However, the differing circumstance that may absolve someone morally in the case of manslaughter (lack of intent) aren't even really present as a distinction between 'stealing' and 'pirating', if you're knowingly downloading a pirated copy of a game.

That's what Ikeep telling you though, between outright theft and copyright infrigement the end result is so not the same.
In one case you can't do anything with the product because you don't have it anymore and the other you just got a competitor that provide a better product you cannot compete with

To me, it's the equivalent of stealing the money. You've usurped the bank's exclusive rights to make and distribute copies (money) in order to get money you shouldn't have.

WHATEVER legal differentiations you want to make, IN MY OPINION, you are a thief. That's my judgment, and I have no qualms about personally considering software pirates to be thieves.

Except that you can't expect to have a discussion on the matter on YOUR moral ground as opposed to general society ground, it's weird enough trying to discuss that with someone who's not subject to the same legal system. I mean what happens if someone who lives on the Moon come up and say, well it's okay for me to pirate stuffs all I want, it's legal and perfectly moral for me. We can't discuss anything hence why I'm steering this on legal ground since we've got something of worth to discuss

OK, well I'm not sure what this has to do with anything of what I said prior to my last post. I took your point to be the 'I wasn't going to buy it anyway' defense.

oops, sorry I tend to digress a lot, still I think we can agree that the 'wasn't going to buy it anyway' is not exactly rock hard defense

Knowingly infringing a copyright is as good as theft. We call it different things in different contexts - e.g. plagiarism - but it's just another type of theft IMO. Again, a court might think them different, deal with them differently, but it in my opinion it's as good as theft.



Intuitively there is a loss immediately someone copies material you own the rights too. There is a theft on that level at least, a theft of your monopoly over the material.

It is morally (and legally wrong), perhaps equally but that doesn't make then the same of worth of using twice the same word for 2 different things

I am talking about piracy vs stealing a piece of software.

Me saying that piracy is IN MY OPINION - whatever about how courts parse them out - effectively equivalent to theft is nothing like equating burglary with rape. Rape is the sexual violation of an individual. Burglary is breaking into a house with intent to rob or commit a crime. The end outcomes are not remotely the same, whereas with piracy and stealing a game (from a publisher server or a physical store - whatever the case), the amount of overlap in terms of the outcome is mostly to entirely the same depending on the particular circumstances. Thats why I consider it effectively to be theft. You, or the legal system, can make as many distinctions as you wish, but for ME, I think of it little differently.

Well someone could come and say rape and murder in his opinion is the same regardless of what the court of law say and if we're discussing a case of rape that doesn't add anything at all.

 

[Prisen]

One important moral difference between piracy and theft is that piracy is in many cases clearly beneficial for the rights holder.

 

[a Master Ninja]

One important moral difference between piracy and theft is that piracy is in many cases clearly beneficial for the rights holder.

Clearly beneficial?

 

[Aaron]

Clearly beneficial?

Always gives them something to bitch about.

 

[Mael]

Clearly beneficial?

In the case of movies for example, it has been shown avid movie goers/dvd buyers are the most avid pirates and will use the tools to discover more films.
In the case of music, the most avid fans will go to great lengths to discover new artists they will then go to concerts and all

 

[dreamcastmaster]

In the case of movies for example, it has been shown avid movie goers/dvd buyers are the most avid pirates and will use the tools to discover more films.
In the case of music, the most avid fans will go to great lengths to discover new artists they will then go to concerts and all

But then the cost of legitimate versions is much lower allowing them to purchase a higher ratio of legitimate goods to pirated ones.
The price of games is a factor here.

 

[Mael]

But then the cost of legitimate versions is much lower allowing them to purchase a higher ratio of legitimate goods to pirated ones.
The price of games is a factor here.

Hey I'm just saying that sometimes in some specific case it can be a good thing not that it's all rainbow and gumdrops.

Heck if the publishers used the torrents to dispatch the free demos, they probably could touch even more people.
After all they're free content anyway.

 

[kittoo]

Epic Head Predicts Shift Back To PC Gaming From Consoles

http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2010/05/18/epic-head-predicts-shift-back-to-pc-gaming-from-consoles/

"Most publishers I'm speaking to right now think their money's going to be shifting back to PC and away from traditional consoles, just because folks are in that mode of wanting to spend a little bit of time every now and then, and paying money to save time because there's so much media competing for it,"Epic president Mike Capps said in the most recent issue of Edge, according to CVG. "So maybe Facebook will save PC gaming — but it's not going to look like 'Gears Of War.'"

Is this the complete statement? Is he saying that gaming will shift to PCs but only for facebook games etc?

 

[mikespit1200]

How is it shitty DRM? If you bought the game it worked fine. Straight up. It was completely transparent to anyone with legitimate copies of the game, which is how DRM SHOULD work.

Because regardless of how IronLore's particular form of DRM was intended to work it blew up in their faces. As someone described above, people who had pirated their copies bitched loudly about bugs and that somehow got conflated with a legitimate working copy which potentially hurt sales. Going DRM free works, we have demonstrable evidence of this from Stardock, iTunes, Indie Packs, Cory Doctorow etc. DRM in and of itself is a liability no matter how seamlessly it works, see Ubisoft, Sony Root Kit, etc. DRM costs money to develop, causes your paying customers headaches and has absolutely no tangible or demonstrable benefit whereas the opposite is true of the examples I listed.

 

[FLEABttn]

people who had pirated their copies bitched loudly about bugs and that somehow got conflated with a legitimate working copy which potentially hurt sales.

There's no somehow. We know how the two got conflated. The pirates lied.

It's not unusual for them to lie to get free support. Which is why when I see "better support" as an anti-piracy idea, I laugh. They'll try and use that for free as well.

 

[I <3 Memes]

Epic Head Predicts Shift Back To PC Gaming From Consoles

http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2010/05/18/epic-head-predicts-shift-back-to-pc-gaming-from-consoles/



Is this the complete statement? Is he saying that gaming will shift to PCs but only for facebook games etc?

If that is what he thinks then he must think that PC hardware sales are coming to an end. That would result in future consoles costing at least $1,000 as the 3 console manufacturers struggle to pay for their own hardware R&D. That would pretty much spell the end of console gaming too. So it sounds like he thinks gaming is headed for a crash and Epic will not be around as anything more than a casual game maker in a few years.

 

[kodt]

Epic Head Predicts Shift Back To PC Gaming From Consoles

http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2010/05/18/epic-head-predicts-shift-back-to-pc-gaming-from-consoles/



Is this the complete statement? Is he saying that gaming will shift to PCs but only for facebook games etc?

Perhaps he believes microtransactions are the future of PC gaming? Game is free but you need to pay for better gear/items?

Some games may be able to pull this off reasonably well and not suck too much for the consumer. I hope it doesn't become too common though. I am looking forward to the new MMO from the Torchlight dev's that is supposed to use this model.

 

[mikespit1200]

There's no somehow. We know how the two got conflated. The pirates lied.

It's not unusual for them to lie to get free support. Which is why when I see "better support" as an anti-piracy idea, I laugh. They'll try and use that for free as well.

That still doesn't challenge my position that IronLore would have saved themselves a world of hurt by just ditching the DRM scheme altogether. Yes, it sucks that it's easy for people to get free shit in the internet age. DRM only opens up way more potential problems than it solves.

 

[Opiate]

The money for a game like Gears is on console.

Exactly. This is the key point. Not that PC gaming doesn't have money in it, but that for games that are akin to Gears, the money isn't there any longer.

As I've said many times on this forum: the size of PC gaming (that is, by revenue) has been increasing in recent years, not decreasing. We don't have the data to show if this is the case for 2008->2009 yet, but we did get it from 2007->2008.

But not many people on a board like NeoGAF care very much about this, because the types of games leading the PC charge now (MMOs, casual titles, flash/browser games) don't interest people here, and thus effectively "don't count."

The games that "count" are big, hollywood-esque, blockbuster games like Gears of War, Halo, or Mass Effect. Games which have a particular focus on high presentation values and a bombastic, epic ambience. And these types of games definitely do better on the 360/PS3 now, as you have noted.

The interesting question would be: why? Piracy is definitely part of the answer here, although not all of it. Gears of War type games tend to be 1) Retail oriented, 60 dollar titles, which are far more prone to be pirated than flash games which cost nothing up front and make money through ad revenue, 2) Appealing to young males, who are the exact demographic which is most prone to pirating, and 3) have no subscription service which makes pirating far more difficult, a la WoW.

There are other reasons, too, however. Both Sony and Microsoft stretched particularly towards these precise types of games for their HD consoles, because they -- like the large publishers they court -- have a strong incentive to raise the barriers of entry and keep small competitors from entering the market. By creating a market space where high end technology is absolutely necessary to compete -- we now call this the "hardcore" market -- they make it nigh impossible for anyone without an enormous amount of investment capital to enter.

 

[charlequin]

Why is it so hard for you guys to believe that piracy has an impact on these decisions?

The point I've been trying to make (and this may not be clear, so I apologize) is that while piracy may be what publishers and developers are thinking about when they're making these decisions, it's not actually a major factor in the sales of games on PC (which is ultimately the real driver of the PC exodus.) That is -- people are seeing that PC games sell like shit at retail and many have trouble succeeding altogether now, they also see that piracy is rampant on PC, they draw a conclusion that I believe is erroneous tightly connecting these two factors, and then decide to ditch PC. Their stated reasoning is piracy, the major underlying factor is bad sales (which they see as driven by piracy); I disagree with that explanation but not necessarily with the decision itself. Epic wasn't suited to making money in the current PC market, and while I think they're deluding themselves by blaming piracy (rather than a whole host of complex factors) for that, they're still right that they're better suited to console dev.

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.

You could actually address any of the discussions of other big structural problems with the PC market (that also contribute to the sales issues that ultimately led to Epic switching to consoles) instead of setting up these strawmen. Just sayin'.

Actually, you may be making my argument for me. I'm talking about the late 90s, which is also when you positioned the rise of the 3d cards.

The problem here is that the decline in importance and sales of PC gaming aligns quite closely with the degree to which good off-the-shelf PCs stopped being unable to run new-ish games, a trend that really kicked in 3-4 years after the rise of cheap and easy CD burning. In 2000 you're still looking at many games shipping that don't require 3D accelerators. If new piracy technologies really had such a big impact, CD burning should have been strangling the PC market by 1998.

I know local stores that simply don't carry 360 games because piracy drives their demand so low, but do pretty brisk business in PS3 games.

What country are you talking about here?

 

[zugzug]

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.

No no let's face it, Mike Capps is a fucking liar who should have orange juice thrown into his eyes next time he is faced by any sort of PC gamer for spewing such lies.

Radical yes? Angry Post yes? However coming from a company that use to support the PC and now lies about it to futher their public spin. Epic Games still wants to be luved as a developer how else do you say fuck you in their face to Epic Games. By not giving them any love and saying really angry words at them everytime you can.

 

[Warm Machine]

Exactly. It's not like that 90% would have bought the game if it wasn't pirateable.

And here we go back into the argument that exists where paying customers are viewed as the suckers while thieves are viewed as the intelligent innocents.

If you want to enjoy something that cost others to create and who are asking for money in return then you must pay for it.

 

[Vigilant Walrus]

A while back someone was talking about how PC gaming would become more accesable once CPU's and GPU's would merge into one chip on one die, that that it would make pc gaming on a hardcore level much more universal?

 

[freddy]

A husband(Epic) will use any excuse when caught in bed with a prostitute(Microsoft). But who's paying who?

 

[gofreak]

Did you lose the item you sold? If the answer is no then it isn't theft.

I can only but disagree in the strongest possible terms.

Theft = taking something belonging to someone else without their permission.

If I do not permit you to make a copy of software from my server, if I am charging for that access for example but you ignore the terms under which I'm offering the software and make a copy without paying me, you are stealing that software as far as I'm concerned. It matters not a jot that I have a 'infinite supply' of copies.

Well someone could come and say rape and murder in his opinion is the same regardless of what the court of law say and if we're discussing a case of rape that doesn't add anything at all.

You can keep saying piracy and theft are as different as rape and murder, but in terms of the effective outcomes of each, the only distinction you've made is this 'if it's an infinitely replenishing resource, it's not theft' argument, which I, nor I think many others, accept. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck...it's a duck as far as I'm concerned. But you can keep making this strawman rape/murder comparison.

Anyway, I'm only repeating myself...we could go round and round in these circles forever, so I'm happy to agree to disagree.

 

[CoLaN]

I'm a PC gamer (and a console gamer), and i hope only 1 thing: that the current generation of MMORPGs just stops ruining my hobby.

The sooner they evolve in something decent that doesn't revolve entirely in turning people into mindless zombies farming for gear to show up, the better.

I know a lot of people who used to play all kind of genres and now just hop from one MMORPG to another.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

"So maybe Facebook will save PC gaming — but it's not going to look like 'Gears Of War.'"

I've seen my mum play facebooks farmville, and it probably has 10 times the gameplay and complexity than gears of wars head pop/whack a mole tripe.

 

[charlequin]

You can keep saying piracy and theft are as different as rape and murder, but in terms of the effective outcomes of each, the only distinction you've made is this 'if it's an infinitely replenishing resource, it's not theft' argument

No, the argument is that the person who holds a copyright does not actually lose anything they currently possess when their copyrighted material is copied, which is so goddamn freaking obvious that there is pretty much no legitimate way to even start to dispute it.

When some jackass broke into my car and took my GPS a few months ago, that shit was gone. When someone buys a piece of digital content from me and then copies it for their friend, I won't ever even know unless someone tells me. It is fundamentally different in an insanely obvious way, like driving and walking are different ways to get to work or like a garden salad and a whole roast pig are different kinds of dinner.

 

[dLMN8R]

Putting aside your talking points (I especially like the idea that Crysis made "a" profit is "the only thing that matters"...presumably PC-GAF is just overjoyed with all the details about the sequel?), what do any of them have to do with your original assertion that no one that made a decent game in the last decade, and didn't delay the PC version, ever complained about piracy?

When people actually try to address my original assertion, I'll create replies that are related to that assertion.

As of now, still no one has presented a single time where a company that released a multiplatform game simultaneously on PC and had a quality PC release went on to complain about piracy hurting the PC SKU.


-When Crytek bitched about Crysis sales (in wake of profit and success), they had no console release to base that on
-When Epic complained about Gears of War (if they did), it was after they released it a year late
-When Epic complained about Unreal Tournament 3, they ignored the fact that it sold like crap on all platforms, not just PC, and that it was disappointing for the fanbase.
-When Capcom complained about Street Fighter IV, it was after they released it 5 months after the console version (and, well, it's a fighting game on PC :lol)
-When Ubisoft complained about Assassin's Creed, it was after they released it 5 months delayed


On the other hand:
-Bethesda never complained about piracy of Oblivion or Fallout 3
-Infinity Ward and Treyarch never complained about piracy of any Call of Duty game
-Valve has never complained about piracy
-Eidos never complained about Batman: Arkham Asylum piracy
-EA didn't complain about Bad Company 2 piracy
-EA didn't complain about Dragon Age piracy


Can you think of examples that go against my assertion?

 

[HK-47]

Valve and Blizzard develop online games for now. Valve offers really good service of updatiing your game with tons of fixes on sometimes a daily basis. They're just too convenient. Portal 2 will feature coop. I gues Episode 3 will follow the suit.

Blizzard's removed LAN. That fact tells a lot.

But if you go single-player on PC you must produce something remarkable for people to buy it after they've "tried it". You must go straight to their heart :lol Like The Witcher did. But The Witcher cost only 5 million to develop according to their PR.

Dude if The Witcher only cost 5 million, then you gotta wonder why it so hard for these other people to make good, lengthy, nice looking games for a similar amount.

 

[HK-47]

Whether it is piracy or Epic making shitty games the past few years, no matter what your opinion on the matter is the PC space has changed significantly. Very few core games have been successful in the past 5 years. If you look at the best that the PC core community has produced in the past few years, The Witcher, Crysis, Stalker, Company of Heroes, these games are really struggling to hit the million mark. Spore did not live up to everyones expectations. And then you have PC centric games like Mass Effect, Gears of War, Call of Duty, Dragon Age, Left for Dead and Fallout that seem to perform sales wise much better on consoles and in some instances their PC sales are so horrible that they could not justify their budgets if they were exclusive to PC.

Of course WOW, Popcap games, the Sims, and soon to be Starcraft 2 still prove the relevance of the PC, not to mention the multitudes of Steam, Flash, and Facebook games. It is becoming increasingly difficult though for developers to justify staying PC exclusive while creating big budget games. I think even Blizzard will have trouble justifying Diablo 3 as a PC exclusive game, and they will be leaving several million in sales if they go that route.

Wut. And even if they did struggle (they didnt) does the million sales mark magically mean success? I mean you think it might be possible to make a profit by selling less than a million?

Also Gears is PC centric my ass.

 

[SapientWolf]

The point I've been trying to make (and this may not be clear, so I apologize) is that while piracy may be what publishers and developers are thinking about when they're making these decisions, it's not actually a major factor in the sales of games on PC (which is ultimately the real driver of the PC exodus.) That is -- people are seeing that PC games sell like shit at retail and many have trouble succeeding altogether now, they also see that piracy is rampant on PC, they draw a conclusion that I believe is erroneous tightly connecting these two factors, and then decide to ditch PC. Their stated reasoning is piracy, the major underlying factor is bad sales (which they see as driven by piracy); I disagree with that explanation but not necessarily with the decision itself. Epic wasn't suited to making money in the current PC market, and while I think they're deluding themselves by blaming piracy (rather than a whole host of complex factors) for that, they're still right that they're better suited to console dev.

...

The problem here is that the decline in importance and sales of PC gaming aligns quite closely with the degree to which good off-the-shelf PCs stopped being unable to run new-ish games, a trend that really kicked in 3-4 years after the rise of cheap and easy CD burning. In 2000 you're still looking at many games shipping that don't require 3D accelerators. If new piracy technologies really had such a big impact, CD burning should have been strangling the PC market by 1998.

Well said. It's also worth mentioning that most of the best selling PC games of the last decade can run with onboard graphics.

 

[CecilRousso]

Do we have any reliable sources for sales numbers for pc games that include services like Steam? Without them, we really dont know anything about how pc games are selling.

 

[fushi]

How about making Gears of War available on Steam.

 

[bhlaab]

The first game had full support for the 360 pad and was perfectly playable that way, so...yeah.

The concern among PC gamers is how much the size and complexity of the levels will have to be scaled back due to the limited console memory. I'm sure it will be every bit as fun as the first one, but probably just a lot more linear and...narrow.

I was talking less about the controls and more about how they've described Crysis 2 as being "a game where the fun finds you!" and scaling back the suit powers to be more accessible or whatever

 

[subversus]

-Infinity Ward and Treyarch never complained about piracy of any Call of Duty game

Infinity Ward complained

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/50748

-Eidos never complained about Batman: Arkham Asylum piracy

Bundled with videocards + who really cares, it's a console game

-EA didn't complain about Bad Company 2 piracy

There was none, single player doesn't count for this game.

Can you think of examples that go against my assertion?

Look above

 

[Mael]

I can only but disagree in the strongest possible terms.

Theft = taking something belonging to someone else without their permission.

If I do not permit you to make a copy of software from my server, if I am charging for that access for example but you ignore the terms under which I'm offering the software and make a copy without paying me, you are stealing that software as far as I'm concerned. It matters not a jot that I have a 'infinite supply' of copies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theft

In English law, theft was codified into a statutory offence in the Theft Act 1968 which defines it as:

"A person is guilty of theft, if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it". (Section 1)

Funny I also found :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_espionage
which is actually more what you're talking about

You can keep saying piracy and theft are as different as rape and murder, but in terms of the effective outcomes of each, the only distinction you've made is this 'if it's an infinitely replenishing resource, it's not theft' argument, which I, nor I think many others, accept. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck...it's a duck as far as I'm concerned. But you can keep making this strawman rape/murder comparison.

Anyway, I'm only repeating myself...we could go round and round in these circles forever, so I'm happy to agree to disagree.

Actually seeing more on the matter, I'll admit I'm actually wrong on this one,
the whole copyright infrigement and all are under the Theft moniker (as well as embezlement and fraud).
My problem with the whoole discution can be tracked back to theses blasted media company that DIDN'T make the connection of illegal digital copy to theft but to robbery (must I take out the whole posters 'you wouldn't steal a car' again?)

The funny thing is that I was actually right at the beginning, counterfeiting is ruled under Theft too :lol

so yeah copyright infrigement and the usual theft (better worded as robbery) are under theft in the same way that murder and rape are under assault.

Then again IANAL either,
that's why I prefer politic I'd say :lol

edit that doesn't change the fact that charlequin has a better explanation why pc game sales suck than 'yaaar pirates'
When your customers have to change their hardware setups to 'run' the software you're selling, most won't go through the assle and won't buy your games :-/

 

[subversus]

I'll post it here just to remind some of you

Back to 2006, Ritual Entertainment

http://www.shacknews.com/extras/2006/072606_ritual_piracy_1.x

edit: heh, they closed the shop in 2007. Somebody wanted an example of an independent dev being killed by piracy? Here you go.