Dev Says Piracy Prevents PC Exclusives

MrLonghair said:
If this is the right Titan Quest I'm thinking of it was a very busted and broken game that most people were lucky to see even load properly, and for quite a while, starting with the demo that they released.

The forum buzz from demo to after the full game release were along the lines of "f that s", people listened to that and became wary of investing in a purchase of it.
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Yeah, and I bet now with the undoubtedly decent sales of the game on Steam sales for $5-10 it just goes to show that the game probably would have sold a lot better if it was released in the condition it's in now, after several patches.
 
lilbabycat said:
You should have probably actually checked those searches before using them in your flawed rationale.
"Download COD MW3 PC" - ~54 million results
"Download COD MW3 Xbox" - ~110 million results


Yes, console gamers who have never played a FPS on PC don't know what they are missing. As well, what games they were "raised" on help determine their likes / dislikes. Just like people's music tastes generally suck (ie: 99% of whats on the FM dial), people's tastes in video games generally suck too.
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I did check them the results with actual downloads the very first item is a download for the PC, not so for Xbox.
I disagree about the tastes, I think most FPS people that enjoy FPS at all, will enjoy them on either, the only difference being controls and graphics differences.
 
I can't play an FPS on a console to save my life, it's like aiming with a trackball, but worse.

I don't even remotely understand how people do it.
 
stealthy123 said:
I can't play an FPS on a console to save my life, it's like aiming with a trackball, but worse.

I don't even remotely understand how people do it.
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Not to discourage your point (which I totally agree with), but I've heard of several competitive FPS players using trackballs. I imagine it's harder to get used to but some people are able to use them very effectively.

I guess the same could be said of controllers, but even the best controller player wouldn't be able to beat the best mouse/trackball player, methinks.
 
From an article linked to earlier:

"After Iron Lore had shut its doors and Crate was struggling through its first year in existence, sales of Titan Quest just kept rolling.

According to the Electronic Entertainment Design and Research Institute, only 20 percent of games that are released onto store shelves ever become profitable. At the end of 2008 I found out that Titan Quest had managed to claw its way into that 20 percent. The game had not only reached profitability for THQ but it was very close to surpassing a million copies sold."

TQ was crap on release, and after it was patched it was very good. It even managed profitablility w/o good marketing and perhaps negative marketing due to the DRM and bugginess.

PS, CODMW3 is lame mainstream console crud like Crysis 2. PC fpsers won't touch it with a 10 foot pole. Too bad BF3 is tied to origin, guess I'll still be playing RPG's or 3rd person shooters etc.
 
If you want to sell more copies of a PC game, add a halfway decent multiplayer component. The more you NEED the CD key, the more likely people will be to buy it. Will people still pirate these kinds of games for the single player content piece? Yes, but it's likely going to happen no matter how you look at it. Hackers gonna hack, crackers gonna crack, and someone will find a way to get around pesky issues like online key activations and blah blah blah. It sucks because I really like PC exclusive games where the game actually comes optimized for the computer over the controller, but it's getting rare with the money being in console game sales.
 
VMaxx said:
I did check them the results with actual downloads the very first item is a download for the PC, not so for Xbox.
I disagree about the tastes, I think most FPS people that enjoy FPS at all, will enjoy them on either, the only difference being controls and graphics differences.
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I've never played a FPS yet on console that I enjoyed and all because I hate the gamepad compared to mouse and keyboard.
 
It's kinda funny:

The pirates say: "Stealing your product has no effect on your business."

The developers say: "Your theft has forced us into other venues."

The truth is probably somewhere between the two. I'm sure that piracy does damage to sales, but I'm also sure developers can find a way to stay in the PC only business.

The problem is both sides are greedy, pirates want to take what isn't theirs and developers want to get paid more and more per game :(
 
I'm not sure many people are saying that piracy has NO effect on developers, it's just much, much less of an effect than some of them would have you believe. It's obvious when they throw out random numbers like "$500 million in lost sales".
 
Ryoohki360 said:
I won't hide myself i was a huge game pirate 5 years ago, but I am a converted to steam or other dig distribution service now, since 5 years i haven't downloaded illegally a game so its not true that pirate never buy games. I know at least 5 friends who do the same as me now
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same, digital means i don't have to track down copies and whatnot...and i can wait for sales that take advantage of the lower overhead for digital distribution. It basically hit the pricepoint where I don't need piracy anymore.
 
I guess I got my $5 worth out of Titan Quest. Got bored with it.

Steam makes it sooo easy to buy/download games on the cheap. I had to stop because of my backlog I will never get through.

People bitch and moan about online access like Starcraft 2. I'd take that any day over Starforce or some other BS from back in the day. The only valid argument I see about that is people who travel a lot and don't always have internet access. But there are offline modes too.

And as everyone stated the 360 is heavily pirated too and no one is bitching about losing money on console sales. Why? Because it takes a modicrum of skill/talent/patience to mod your console and then download/burn the stuff. Johnny the 13 year old hacker wasn't going to pay for your $60 game anyway.
 
So how many copies of the Sims sold for XBox 360 or the PS3? (the original version)
How about Lemmings?

I'm sorry PC sales for games, that for whatever reason, sold like gangbusters really out does sales of any other game on any console except perhaps the Nintendo exclusive titles (Mario franchise). If your new game doesn't sell tons, it's not because of piracy, it's because you're still trying the same crap you did in the past and that might not work anymore.
 
MavericK96 said:
I'm not sure many people are saying that piracy has NO effect on developers, it's just much, much less of an effect than some of them would have you believe. It's obvious when they throw out random numbers like "$500 million in lost sales".
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Because it's much easier to go to The Pirate Bay, do a search for a particular game and see a lot more PC downloads, then the same number of Wii, Xbox, PS downloads. Consoles need chips/cards/hacks to play pirated games, PCs do not. How easy is it to find a site that sells modchips or what not? Maybe because there's a huge secondary market of physical hardware to sell that consoles aren't attacked for piracy as much :D
 
Burticus said:
Steam makes it sooo easy to buy/download games on the cheap. I had to stop because of my backlog I will never get through.
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It's funny, too, because for all the argument that piracy takes away sales, I'm sure there are a lot of people (myself included) who buy games on Steam sales and who never would have bought the game in the first place if it wasn't so cheap.
 
you seem to repeat the point, yet miss the point. they dont have to prove that the game would have sold millions of copies to the turds making laws. they just show piracy numbers. call each pirated copy 50 bucks lost, and claim millions in lost revenue.

i think mediocre to crap games actually increase piracy, because when folks hear this game is a dud, yet they liked previous versions of the title, they might be more tempted to download and try a pirated copy, versus risking their 60 bucks. (catch 22?)

correct me if im wrong, but doesnt the pc actually offer a great drm concept, online accounts tied to game keys? just how many pirated steam based games get spread around the web? (im not really in touch with game piracy so i dont know.) but im sure if my steam account popped up in multiple places around the globe steam would shut it down pretty fast.
 
FurbySlayer said:
you seem to repeat the point, yet miss the point. they dont have to prove that the game would have sold millions of copies to the turds making laws. they just show piracy numbers. call each pirated copy 50 bucks lost, and claim millions in lost revenue.

i think mediocre to crap games actually increase piracy, because when folks hear this game is a dud, yet they liked previous versions of the title, they might be more tempted to download and try a pirated copy, versus risking their 60 bucks. (catch 22?)

correct me if im wrong, but doesnt the pc actually offer a great drm concept, online accounts tied to game keys? just how many pirated steam based games get spread around the web? (im not really in touch with game piracy so i dont know.) but im sure if my steam account popped up in multiple places around the globe steam would shut it down pretty fast.
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Every Steamworks game is pirated. No idea how heavily, but Steam DRM was broken many years ago. You don't need Steam to run the pirated versions so the account wouldn't pop up anywhere. When things like Steam and Origin work they are great DRM (though Origin's interface is a bloody nightmare, but that's another argument entirely), providing users with easy access to games.

Good games, bad games, and everything in between get pirated to hell. There is really no rhyme or reason behind the numbers at times. World of Goo had a 90% piracy rate at one point, Witcher 2 was something like 4:1, and so on so good games get hit hard as well as bad ones.
 
heatlesssun said:
But making a kick ass game is expensive these days.
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Depends on how you're defining kick ass. If you mean a AAA FPS with ultra-realistic graphics and utterly addictive and badass gameplay, then yes, that's expensive. If you're talking about market exposure and profitability... how much did Angry Birds cost to produce?

Derangel said:
Sorry but bullshit. The industry doesn't work that way. Good games fail all the time.
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I happen to know someone that worked for Zenimax and another individual that's worked for John Romero and knows him as a personal friend, and a few other people that work in various parts of the game industry. Do you work in the industry? Are you a game designer or programmer? Do you know anyone that works in the industry? Get back to me when you can back up your accusations of bullshit with some actual substance.
 
I think the take home message is that the developer thinks PC exclusives aren't worth it. Their excuse is piracy, but even if its not, it doesn't change the fact if the sales aren't there to support it, its not worth doing a PC exclusive title. It seems there are less and less big name developers and publishers happy to do PC only titles.
 
Phoenix333 said:
I happen to know someone that worked for Zenimax and another individual that's worked for John Romero and knows him as a personal friend, and a few other people that work in various parts of the game industry. Do you work in the industry? Are you a game designer or programmer? Do you know anyone that works in the industry? Get back to me when you can back up your accusations of bullshit with some actual substance.
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LOL WTH? You trying to pull a Paul Christoforo there are you? You wouldn't happen to know the mayor of Boston as well? :rolleyes:

Since when does a comment like "The industry doesn't work that way. Good games fail all the time." actually require you to be working in the industry or better yet, have friends in the industry? :rolleyes:

All it takes is casual observation, granted some actual examples of good games that weren't popular or bad games that did awesome would have lent some credence to the statement, but knowing people in the industry lends sweet fuck all weight to your argument and the fact you feel the need to say you know people actually subtracts from it :p
 
Derangel said:
Witcher 2 was something like 4:1, and so on so good games get hit hard as well as bad ones.
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Are you aware that that figure is not representative of the actual number of times it was downloaded? It was simply an estimation based on pretty rubbery assumptions.

"There are no stats available, but let's make a quick calculation. I was checking regularly the number of concurrent downloads on torrent aggregating sites, and for the first 6-8 weeks there was around 20-30k ppl downloading it at the same time. Let's take 20k as the average and let's take 6 weeks. The game is 14GB, so let's assume that on an average not-too-fast connection it will be 6 hours of download. 6 weeks is 56 days, which equals to 1344 hours; and with 6h of average download time to get the game it would give us 224 downloads, then let's multiply it by 20k simultaneous downloaders.

"The result is roughly 4.5 million illegal downloads. This is only an estimation, and I would say that's rather on the optimistic side of things; as of today we have sold over 1M legal copies, so having only 4.5-5 illegal copies for each legal one would be not a bad ratio. The reality is probably way worse."
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Whilst I really did like the Witcher 2, it just doesn't to me to be the type of game with mass market appeal which would attract that many downloads.
 
Phoenix333 said:
I happen to know someone that worked for Zenimax and another individual that's worked for John Romero and knows him as a personal friend, and a few other people that work in various parts of the game industry. Do you work in the industry? Are you a game designer or programmer? Do you know anyone that works in the industry? Get back to me when you can back up your accusations of bullshit with some actual substance.
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Its called sales numbers. Don't need to work for the fucking industry to see those and to see what games do and don't fail. Are you really going to try and argue that good games don't fail all the time or that most titles released to retail fail to make a good profit? Just because a game is good doesn't mean it's fail proof. History is littered with examples you "knowing people" in the industry doesn't change that.
 
The PC, with piracy being as rampant as it is, is really hard to make money from. My first game was Titan Quest, a hack ‘n’ slash RPG, which was PC only but the amount that it was pirated was the difference between us staying in business and going out of business," he tells them. "It’s really, really hard to be profitable by concentrating only on PC. Unless you’re an MMO." The Pirates say RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR you kidding me ??????????
 
Tudz said:
LOL WTH?
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I wasn't talking to you. Derangel called BS on what I said, trying to make it sound like I had no idea what I was talking about without substantiating anything he said. I wanted him to provide something more than "BS, it don't work that way". Anyone can say that, but I wanted to illustrate to him that he was making an accusation toward me in complete ignorance of my own level of understanding.

Derangel said:
Its called sales numbers. Don't need to work for the fucking industry to see those and to see what games do and don't fail. Are you really going to try and argue that good games don't fail all the time or that most titles released to retail fail to make a good profit? Just because a game is good doesn't mean it's fail proof. History is littered with examples you "knowing people" in the industry doesn't change that.
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You called BS on me, and said that "the industry doesn't work that way". I just wanted you to substantiate your "that's not how the industry works" statement with some actual facts, while showing you that I am not ignorant about how the industry works so that you'd have some kind of frame of reference for the discussion. Notice that I did not assume you're completely ignorant and that I asked questions? Try being a little more courteous next time before making a statement that equates to calling someone stupid and ignorant.
 
If your game doesn't have multiplayer with a cdkey, it isn't worth buying anyways, bitch! Titans Quest even had piracy prevention, I remember that one

GET A CLUE!

MAKE YOUR GAMES ONLINE WITH CDKEYS TO PREVENT THEFT..... DURRRRPPPPP. Retarddddd.

And he fails to realize people download games on their hacked xbox 360's all fucking day..... piracy of games is on consoles the same, if not, worse than PC gaming downloads. I am pretty sure the Wii can be hacked to use downloaded games too.....
 
Greene420 said:
If your game doesn't have multiplayer with a cdkey, it isn't worth buying anyways, bitch! Titans Quest even had piracy prevention, I remember that one

GET A CLUE!

MAKE YOUR GAMES ONLINE WITH CDKEYS TO PREVENT THEFT..... DURRRRPPPPP. Retarddddd.

And he fails to realize people download games on their hacked xbox 360's all fucking day..... piracy of games is on consoles the same, if not, worse than PC gaming downloads. I am pretty sure the Wii can be hacked to use downloaded games too.....
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PC piracy blows away 360 piracy:

http://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-pirated-games-of-2011-111230/

PC Game Downloads on BitTorrent in 2011
1 Crysis 2 (3,920,000) (Mar. 2011)
2 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (3,650,000) (Nov. 2011)
3 Battlefield 3 (3,510,000) (Oct. 2011)
4 FIFA 12 (3,390,000) (Sept. 2011)
5 Portal 2 (3,240,000) (Apr. 2011)

Wii Game Downloads on BitTorrent in 2011
1 Super Mario Galaxy 2 (1,280,000) (May. 2010)
2 Mario Sports Mix (1,090,000) (Feb. 2011)
3 Xenoblade Chronicles (950,000) (Aug. 2011 EU)
4 Lego Pirates of the Caribbean (870,000) (May. 2011)
5 FIFA 12 (860,000) (Sept. 2011)

Xbox 360 Game Downloads on BitTorrent in 2011
1 Gears of War 3 (890,000) (Sep. 2011)
2 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (830,000) (Nov. 2011)
3 Battlefield 3 (760,000) (Oct. 2011)
4 Forza Motorsport 4 (720,000) (Oct. 2011)
5 Kinect Sports: Season Two (690,000) (Oct. 2011)

But go one and tell yourself that console piracy is worse than PC piracy. Whatever helps you sleep at night. Note that they didn't include PS3 downloads because they were so low.
 
Ex game pirate here. I won't try and justify my past downloading habits, but I will say that once Steam/GoG came along, I never pirated a game again. My backlog is so huge now I doubt I will ever be able to play them all.

If the price is right folks like me will buy like crazy and hoard legal games just like I did pirated ones, but don't expect to get release day AAA title money out me for anything, ever. Free is cool and all but pirating is really a lot more of a hassle than the devs make it out to be.

I can scour the nets looking for a clean crack that will 9 time out of 10 show up as some sort of trojan or other malware, or I can spend 5-20 bucks on a game I know is clean. Not really a hard choice there.

Their real problem lies in getting cheapskates like me to pony up when it's $60, and that just isn't going to happen, EVER. I won't pirate your game, but I will wait until it gets to be a bargain. I have plenty of games to play in the meantime, I can wait.
 
nathancipher said:
Their real problem lies in getting cheapskates like me to pony up when it's $60, and that just isn't going to happen, EVER. I won't pirate your game, but I will wait until it gets to be a bargain. I have plenty of games to play in the meantime, I can wait.
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Greetings, fellow cheapskate! I don't pay $60 either, and this is why Steam sales are a such a great thing. I did not like Steam when it was first developed since it required an internet connection, which mine was flaky dial-up at the time, but since broadband became the norm... when I see a game that was $60 originally selling for $10-$20, it's absolutely fantastic, especially since that game is going to be available for purchase pretty much forever. I no longer have to scour the net looking for a copy of something I passed on a year ago. The only downside is I don't get a nifty box with the manual and artwork and other goodies, but I have bought games over Steam that I probably would have never played had they not been at an absurdly low price.
 
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