Crytek CEO blames piracy on poor sales.

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Dethred

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More whining at: http://pc.ign.com/articles/884/884757p1.html

"IGN: How well did Crysis do?


Cevat Yerli: Well, commercially, we had hopes that were not met. But the real expectations were actually met. As a developer we made a profit, so we're happy. Critically, we achieved goals. The [reviews] were slightly under the critique-level that we wanted to have, but that's life. We may have failed a little here and there, but overall Crysis I would say it didn't do excellent, but it did good."


"I think our message is if you're a PC gamer, and you really want to respect the platform, then you should stop pirating. We will see less and less games appearing on the PC, or less and less games pushing the boundaries of PC gaming. Or, in other words, speaking in terms of PC exclusivity, we would only consider full PC exclusives--if the situation continues like this or gets worse--I think we would only consider PC exclusive titles that are either online or multiplayer and no more single-player."

Couldn't be the demanding requirements, shoddy multiplayer, lackluster storyline, outright deceptive marketing, or extremely poor AI... its all piracy.
 
People like Cevat Yerli don't do PC Gaming industry justice for when games like Crysis don't sell as THEY expected the first thing they blame is because of piracy. He's right PC gaming is the pirated market, but that's because it's the easiest of them to pirate.....one word : DUH! If Crysis was released when most people have computers that are capable of playing the game the way it is meant to then the game would have sold more copies, but as it is they have to wait till people upgrade or buy new computers and they're not going to do that just for one game. As of right now it's only PC Enthusiasts that are buying the game or people who don't mind playing Crysis at a lower resolution level. I wonder if he wants some cheese with that? :D
 
Generally, I'll download a game and see if it's worth buying, and if it's not I don't buy it, but if it is, I almost invariably end up paying for it. I downloaded Crysis, played it for about an hour total, and thought to myself, "hey, it's kind of pretty, but nothing spectacular, and the story isn't grabbing me the way I thought it would" so I uninstalled it and never bought it or played it again.

COD4 on the other hand looked pretty, ran smoothly, and the story gripped me, so I accidentally played through the whole thing before buying it, but bought it afterwards because I thought it was worthy of my $40.

Point is, make a good game, and the piracy won't be an issue.
 
Crysis is the one game I wish I had not purchased. Perhaps Cevat can explain why games with relatively small production budgets, such as Sins of a Solar Empire or STALKER, do not leave me with the feeling of buyers remorse?
 
I'm really getting tired of seeing piracy blamed for just about everything. It's gone way past being a boogeyman and a lame scapegoat at this point.
 
I bought my copy of crysis, played through once... did maybe 10-15 hours of online, and sold it off here on [H] for $35 shortly after release, and I had a hard time selling a legit copy for $35..

wasn't to great of a game.
 
I don't like people saying it's demanding requirements that hurt the sales... Age of Conan is proof that system requirements are not an obstacles to sales - it has sold over a million copies. In much less time than Crysis did. And guess what, it's much harder to pirate an MMO because of the need to have an account username and password...
 
I DL the demo of crysis and it ran like dookie.It ran around 40fps all on medium.WHen i turned to high I got 25 very high 10.The game looks beautiful graphically the story is garbage and the system needed to play the game right is outrageous.
 
What's becoming tired as devs blaming piracy are the people that somehow think that they're exaggerating. Even "successful" PC titles like COD4 have a huge piracy to pay rate. It's just too damned easy to do when there's no monthly service or something like Steam to protect it at least a little bit.
Companies aren't jumping on the console bandwagon because PC gaming is dying - it's mainly to protect their investment a little better. PC gamers will whine when any sort of copy protection is added, but they'll still steal the game at the drop of a hat. Just the simple protection of forcing people to modify their hardware has worked for consoles. Until PC gamers stop whining about any kind of DRM or piracy becomes tougher, you'll see more and more of this. On your PC you'll just be stuck playing MMO's and games from Steam.
 
Pepster64 said:
People like Cevat Yerli don't do PC Gaming industry justice for when games like Crysis don't sell as THEY expected the first thing they blame is because of piracy. He's right PC gaming is the pirated market, but that's because it's the easiest of them to pirate.....one word : DUH! If Crysis was released when most people have computers that are capable of playing the game the way it is meant to then the game would have sold more copies, but as it is they have to wait till people upgrade or buy new computers and they're not going to do that just for one game. As of right now it's only PC Enthusiasts that are buying the game or people who don't mind playing Crysis at a lower resolution level. I wonder if he wants some cheese with that? :D
Click to expand...

this guys right on the money.

if you release a game that has requirements that are 100x the normal amount, then yes you will have more pirating because the people who can actually run the game are MORE likely to pirate it then the average joe.

solution: release another "the sims" game expansion pack for the masses and sell 100 million copies lol
 
I actually just finished playing my legit copy of crysis a few minutes ago. I stopped playing for about 3 weeks because the zero gravity part lost my interest very quickly. Boring level that was. Then I had to turn every graphic option down to low to get playable framerates to finish playing at 1650x1080 in that carrier firefight. Q6600, 4 gigs ram, and 9600gt.....yeah, piracy could be the only possible reason this game didn't meet expectations. :rolleyes: I'm not knocking it though, I did thouroughly enjoy the first 3/4's of the game and I'll likely play through it again if I upgrade my video.
 
If Crysis on medium is the same as other games on high, and you have to play Crysis on medium, then how can that possibly be a reason to pirate it? That's like stealing a ferrari because you can only drive it at low speed (65 mph) versus the high speed of a peugeot at the same speed, not taking the extra cost into account.
 
Domingo said:
What's becoming tired as devs blaming piracy are the people that somehow think that they're exaggerating. Even "successful" PC titles like COD4 have a huge piracy to pay rate. It's just too damned easy to do when there's no monthly service or something like Steam to protect it at least a little bit.
Companies aren't jumping on the console bandwagon because PC gaming is dying - it's mainly to protect their investment a little better. PC gamers will whine when any sort of copy protection is added, but they'll still steal the game at the drop of a hat. Just the simple protection of forcing people to modify their hardware has worked for consoles. Until PC gamers stop whining about any kind of DRM or piracy becomes tougher, you'll see more and more of this. On your PC you'll just be stuck playing MMO's and games from Steam.
Click to expand...

I completely agree with you here.

Any kind of anti-piracy software installed, and PC games throw a BITCH FIT.
But without that anti-piracy software, the game is easily copied and distributed. Which means lower sales for the devs.
Lower sales equals lower budget for future games, and eventually running PC gaming into the ground.

Its a catch 22. :(
 
When developers moan about piracy the question that springs to mind is "and what did you do to prevent it?". Disc-based protection? Yeah, good luck with that.
I wonder how Crysis would have fared on Steam. Yeah I know that's not some magical solution to piracy, but I believe (and hope) online solutions are the future of copy protection, and I don't really care if you don't have an internet connection, or don't like the idea of online activation.
 
Dethred said:
More whining at: http://pc.ign.com/articles/884/884757p1.html

"IGN: How well did Crysis do?


Cevat Yerli: Well, commercially, we had hopes that were not met. But the real expectations were actually met. As a developer we made a profit, so we're happy.
Click to expand...

Meaning we made money, but not enough of it, so lets blame piracy.

Seriously, if I was a game developer, I would be happy just to make a profit on a game. I wouldn't need to make a billion dollars.
 
I love how he assumes all pc gamers are pirates. I feel like an idiot for actually paying for the game now and throwing my money at an ingrate for his lousy game.
 
I doubt the fact that 95% of people don't have the rig to play it didn't contribute at all to crysis's poor sales.
 
I seem to have differing opinions about pushing boundaries than Cevat Yerli. Cevat Yerli is the guy you see sitting on the couch in those game school commercials telling the devs to tighten up the graphics. I tend to be more under the belief of adding more customization, gameplay elements, and a compelling story. Though not every studio can be Double Fine or the former Black Isle.
 
>Any kind of anti-piracy software installed, and PC games throw a BITCH FIT.

Yes, because we who buy games get hurt while those who 'pirate' get a better experience with their cracked copies. Of course we throw a fucking fit when we're the one's getting reamed, and then we'll have to listen to their lectures about who we're destroying their livelihoods? It's like those piracy warnings when you go to the Movies. You know, where you'd already demonstrated that you're willing to pay?

>But without that anti-piracy software, the game is easily copied and distributed.

But with anti-piracy software, the game is STILL easily copied and distributed. If you don't agree, then I challenge you to list 10 popular titles which has never been cracked? That empty set should tell you something.

> Which means lower sales for the devs.

Which means the money they spent on securom/saftdisc/whatever ate into their profits. Look, they're been using these shitty technologies[0] for ages now. Time for them to make up their minds; Do they work or don't they? If the don't, then why the hell are you still using them? If the do work, why the hell are you complaining about piracy rates?

We know these schemes work like shit, even to 'stop casual piracy / piracy the first few weeks'. There's been a few games that weren't cracked immediately (but likely fell to emulators from day-0), but the idea that this somehow made a huge difference in the coffers... if find it highly improbable.

>Lower sales equals lower budget for future games, and eventually running PC gaming into the ground.

I'm almost at the point where I go "... and good riddance".

Between "The Witcher" and the future "Diablo 3", there's been nothing to get excited about in a long long time.

If it's the necessary 'sacrifice' to keep the PC platform open and stop further stupifying lockdown attempts, then I'll embrace the death of PC gaming as we know it. Viva la revolution!

I have no intention of getting bogged down in a lengthy discussion here, but to blame this all on piracy is inane to the 10-th degree. I have the money to buy a LOT of games if I wanted to, but the reality is that the PC-platform isn't really offering me anything I want, at least not with any regularity. Just an endless stream of high-requirements shooters. Half-Life 2, Gene Troopers, Terrorist Takedown 2, Crimes of War, Hour of Victory, Conflict Denied Ops, FEAR, STALKER, SoF2, Battlefield 2142, CoD3, CoD4, CoD5, Timeshift, Team Fortress 2, Far Cry 2, Doom 3, Doom 4, Unreal Tournament [0-9]+, or Crysis. It's like that spam, spam, spam sketch all over again[1]

[0] When I talk about 'schemes' above, I mean shit that interfere with the reading of discs, debuggers, emulator software, or activation counts, hardware checksumming and all that. I don't consider a simple boolean CD-key check against the Internet as intrusive, which coupled with a good online experience is probably the single cheapest and best anti-piracy option out there, right after 'make a great game'.

[1] I like a dose of "spam" from time to time, but c'mon...
 
Crysis didn't sell well because of movie theatres. With quality titles like Rambo, 10000BC, and Fool's Gold, how could the PC ever hope to compete? Just like how heartbreak kid didn't do well because of Halo 3 coming out.

Oh wait. Those are just bullshit excuses. Like Mr. Yerli's.

Crysis didn't sell well because it required a computer capable of decoding the human genome in under 2 seconds... It IS a good game, but publicly declaring you're going to stop supporting a brand new game... What does he expect?
 
In EAs Q3 2008 fiscal year earnings call transcript, And they basically say "crysis is exceeding expectations". That's what they tell investors that this game is doing well to people who will never have any involvement in that game. But they tell the people who actually bought the game that you didn't buy enough copies, so your a pirate.

According to one source, EA has sold 3 million copies of crysis, which if you look at the numbers, its selling more copies now than at release time, I mean how many copies did crytek think it could sell? 10 million?
 
LoL I'd say they hoped for more like 20 milions :D Just look at their numbers when they state piracy is 20:1 ratio :D

Personally I qualify Crysis as a buy at 7-8 euro cheap series becouse that's what FPS without good multi is worth.

Not to mention I can get Dod: source at 10$ at Steam and spent there months playing.
 
they have shouted this since the C64.
I remember the black summer when sales were crap and they blamed piracy.
The next summer there were no releases.
So piracy only happens in the summer?

Overall Crysis is a junker. bad alpha code and short. Cost too much just like all games (blame that on consoles)
 
Yerli is so full of it, he says for every sold copy there are 20 pirates, so unless the game wouldnt have been pirated it would have sold 20 million copies or so... :confused:
 
The dev can complain about piracy but until they do something about then they should shut up.Some kind of verification would stop the pirating like on the 360 with live.I know people still mod the 360 but it is nothing like the pc.
I came from a 360 to get better graphics,gameplay,and games.Not to come and here crytek bitch and moan about not selling 20million copies in a week.The game looks great but it is very choppy in the demo for me.I am not gonna spend $2k on a system just to play crysis on very high.
I still think crysis was a set-up between crytek and nvidia, make a game that no-one can max out so they will chase the performance.Produce $600 video cards so they can sli and tri sli them to run the game good.Well I can play on very high but it only cost me $1200-$1800 to do it.Oh well
 
Dallows said:
Meaning we made money, but not enough of it, so lets blame piracy.

Seriously, if I was a game developer, I would be happy just to make a profit on a game. I wouldn't need to make a billion dollars.
Click to expand...

The flaw with that thinking is that if you don't make enough profits to finance the next game, you aren't in business anymore. Investors don't want to see you barely breaking even on projects because there is too much risk that they won't get their investment + percentages back. Can't make games that just barely cover production costs.
 
MasterOfNone said:
The flaw with that thinking is that if you don't make enough profits to finance the next game, you aren't in business anymore. Investors don't want to see you barely breaking even on projects because there is too much risk that they won't get their investment + percentages back. Can't make games that just barely cover production costs.
Click to expand...

Who said my profit wouldn't cover the costs of my next game?

Yerli said they did fine, and they're obviously making another one.
 
Did you guys like the claimed 20:1 ratio for pirated installs? That means that 20 million people have played the game, and a little over 1 million bought it. I know 3 people that bought it, 1 person that pirated it, and about 10 that tried the demo and didn't even finish that. The whole idea that even 10:1 or 20:1 piracy is insane to me. I have about 15 friends that are PC gamers, and only a few ever pirate games. Maybe I'm a minority here, but from my experience, blaming piracy is a cheap way of excusing poor sales on a poor game.

Needless to say, I won't be playing Crysis Warhead. Cevat Yerli is a real piece of work, and to know that one penny of my money will go to him after all the BS he's pulled... hell no. And to say they'll improve copy protection? Crysis' implementation of Securom was the most aggressive I've ever seen. My freaking DVD drive started acting up after a few times loading up the game (cooincidence? Ha!). I had to use a no DVD crack just to avoid ruining another drive.

Let me list a few reasons why it probably sold poorly:

Crappy MP support
Buggy MP
Crappy MP dynamics
High System requirements.
Incredibly stupid AI.
Terrible post-release support.
Rampant system requirement lies
Scamming pre-orders with the promise of an exclusive APC.
 
Dethred said:
Did you guys like the claimed 20:1 ratio for pirated installs? That means that 20 million people have played the game, and a little over 1 million bought it. I know 3 people that bought it, 1 person that pirated it, and about 10 that tried the demo and didn't even finish that. The whole idea that even 10:1 or 20:1 piracy is insane to me. I have about 15 friends that are PC gamers, and only a few ever pirate games. Maybe I'm a minority here, but from my experience, blaming piracy is a cheap way of excusing poor sales on a poor game.

Needless to say, I won't be playing Crysis Warhead. Cevat Yerli is a real piece of work, and to know that one penny of my money will go to him after all the BS he's pulled... hell no. And to say they'll improve copy protection? Crysis' implementation of Securom was the most aggressive I've ever seen. My freaking DVD drive started acting up after a few times loading up the game (cooincidence? Ha!). I had to use a no DVD crack just to avoid ruining another drive.

Let me list a few reasons why it probably sold poorly:

Crappy MP support
Buggy MP
Crappy MP dynamics
High System requirements.
Incredibly stupid AI.
Terrible post-release support.
Rampant system requirement lies
Scamming pre-orders with the promise of an exclusive APC.
Click to expand...

What ever happened to that APC i paid an extra $10 for?
 
Just because people may download a game for free doesn't mean they would buy it if they couldn't pirate it.
 
I was so hyped up before the game came out, but after seeing trailer after trailer day in day out, and screenshots all over the place when it finally came out i was sick of it and never bought it, to this day. I felt like i played it already lol. I might pick it up when it drops to 19.99 or if they bundle it with Warhead though.
 
So many people conflate pirated games with actual purchases. Many people who download pirated games would never have purchased the actual thing in the first place.

Crytek - take a page from Stardock and openly advertise you have no copy protection and that people can copy games but buying the real thing gets you online and support. Sins of the Solar Empire had great sales.

Finally, I think it's obvious what it takes to make money on the PC - good multiplayer and online features that require a key. Crysis with more innovative or good multiplayer would have had more sales. Hell, most people couldn't run it when it came out. Why not delay another 6 months to improve multiplayer?
 
Didn't Oblivion do very well? There wasn't anti piracy stuff in that game was there?
 
With regards to piracy, I've noticed PC gaming is more clear-cut than movies or music. In PC gaming, people seem to either pirate everything, or pirate nothing. This is different from movies and music where almost everyone pirates a little bit here, buys legitimately there, depending mostly on how certain they are that they want something, and how easy it would be to pay for it. I suppose some people do a mix of pirating and buying, usually these are college kids who sometimes have money (when student loans just came out for example) but are usually broke (three weeks into semester after buying books and realizing they've spent $1000 partying in a month.)

I used to pirate a lot of games when I was younger and had no money. Now that I can afford to buy, pirating is not worth the hassle, the risk, and most of all the nagging feeling of being a shithead that starts to really grow when you're on your 20th hour enjoying something you didn't pay for. Better to pay for it and not deal with the feeling of being a lowlife.

For the record I'm starting to notice it's a bit of a litmus test for personality. Generally, the bigger a shithead someone is, the more pirated and stolen shit they have. The biggest shitheads are the ones who "steal sattelite" by buying fiddly card flashers and stuff, going through all this hassle to steal something when they could just pay $60/mo. and not deal with all the headaches of hashing their card, etc.. fucking idiots.
 
I for one regret buying Crysis -- it was pretty, it was buggy, was boring as hell.. so boring it had to fight to keep playing to see if would get any better. I read so many "good" things about it but none of them came to life. I had fun with the game here and there amusing myself by teasing the AI and doing things that were not scripted.
The main reason the sales were bad is that the game wasn't all that good and the replay value was nil, and multiplayer was a joke -- isn't multiplayer the reason PC games are around in the first place? LOL.

 
Dethred said:
Cevat Yerli: Well, commercially, we had hopes that were not met. But the real expectations were actually met. As a developer we made a profit, so we're happy. Critically, we achieved goals. The [reviews] were slightly under the critique-level that we wanted to have, but that's life. We may have failed a little here and there, but overall Crysis I would say it didn't do excellent, but it did good."
Click to expand...

I hoped to make a million dollars this year.. looks like my hopes aren't met. However I expected to make around 40k which was met. Should I quit my job? :rolleyes:

Crysis sold as well as I would expect any decent game to sell. I loved it personally yet we are all snowflakes and have differing opinions.
 
I think Yerli over-hyped it to the point that he believed it would be the best game ever. When it didn't sell well, or course it was because people were stealing it. I am sure he was thinking "everyone WANTS to play Crysis, so: everyone-sales=piracy."
 
i pirated crysis. it ran like shit on my better then average gaming rig... so i didn't even think of paying for it.
 
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