Piracy to Blame for Downturn in PC Game Sales? Or…. 3
I’m inspired to blurt some more rants from my bile-ridden lips by this story and this discussion over at Anandtech’s excellent forums. In summary, Epic games blame pirates for them focusing on console development. Interesting. So let me get this straight, over the years the prices of PC games have crept up and up, then the developers have decided that actually we need adverts in there too to keep the coffers flowing, and then of course there are additional charges for gaming multiplayer sometimes, there are subscriptions in the case of MMORPG’s, then don’t forget that we all need to buy the Limited Extra Special Edition of just about every game launched now and somehow they don’t get enough revenue from PC gaming? OK So you (the game publishers, devs, etc) blame pirates. HA! It’s ridiculous to think that any more than about 10% of the world are actually capable of the hacking required to get most pirated PC games running these days. Then multiply that factor by those that actually want your game in the first place and you are talking tiny, tiny, tiny numbers. Now call me crazy, call me anything you like in fact, but here are a few suggestions why your games are not selling on the PC format. This does no apply to just Epic, this is aimed at every single developer and publisher of PC games out there.
- Your games are bug-ridden pieces of shit. Seriously they are. All of you know deep down that every game you have released in the last 5 years has been released in a progressively shoddier and shoddier state. I don’t care what your excuse is (and yes I do understand the complexities) but average Joe Consumer does not have a clue what a patch is, they do not want to spend several hours hunting down obscure fixes, they are scared shitless by the thought having to uninstall or update drivers, they want to put in the disc and play (preferably without installation for god sake!). As a techy I am more patient than most, but time is becoming ever more precious to me and I am not inclined to spend a couple of hours patching the hell out of a brand new game just to get it to work. I can probably count on the fingers of one hand how many games I have installed to ‘Just work and work as advertised’ in the last 5 or 6 years.
- Your games never deliver on their promises. How many times have you picked up a box that promises (for example) drivable vehicles only to find that actually they will be introduced in a later patch (SWG), or ‘The most advanced physics ever’ which happens to mean that you are constantly getting stuck in walls due to clipping issues (GRAW, Splinter Cell Double Agent), or that the ‘extensive multiplayer’ is actually non-existent unless you pay a subscription (every MMORPG).
- Having a paid for and bought game actually means that you are less likely to be able to play it these days than the pirated versions! Your copy-protection schemes stink for the average user like DRM stinks for usability in Music and Films. There have been many times when I have bought a game for the PC, only to find the only way to get the thing working was to crack it (I am looking at a large percentage of EA games in the last 5 years here, especially the sports ones).
- And finally, whereas the PC used to be the premier development platform, where the games were designed and developed for the PC (then later ported to consoles), they are now designed for the console and then you try and sell us PC users a bad port from the console version (Rainbow 6 Vegas and GRAW are two immediate examples that come to mind… Ubisoft both of them… I am not surprised).
The day you guys start releasing games worth the £40 price tag is the day people will start buying them again, the day you start releasing FULLY REPRESENTATIVE demos BEFORE the game’s release is the day many will stop pirating, the day you stop screwing your customers for more money, for a worse product, is the day people will pay any attention to your whines about pirates. /rant
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Amen, brother.
Everyone will give themselves a so-called legit excuse to steal. I often wonder how does cracking a game actually make it play better. Cracking a game doesn’t make it play better, but it definitely makes it more easily distributable.
I cracked many games and yet none of them seem to work any better or have the so-called improved speed, graphics, and game play. All the people who commented on the forums of other web sites have said the same thing that it makes the game more playable, when in fact comparing the legit and pirated side-by-side, there’s no difference.
I heard pretty much all of the crap. No money, can’t find the CD, the developers deserve it, the developers already make too much money, there are full of bugs, I’m missing specific driver, therefore must not purchase the legit one and keep copying to benefit myself but screwing developers is legit.
This is common speech for criminals, period.
PC games cost $500K to $1 million bucks to develop.
If company A took out a loan for 1 million bucks, they need the PC sales to pay off that loan. When piracy of the game runs rampant, there’s no rich dude to offset the lost revenue, there is no insurance. So they’re basically throwing money down the toilet and putting themselves in debt, and everyone use just blows them off and gives them the finger.
But guess what the pirates will ALWAYS make up an excuse accusing the developers as the BAD GUY, and them as the GOOD GUY. So developers make a game the legit way, customers get the game the illegal way and here I hear developers labeled as the BAD GUY for trying to do it legit, and pirates labeling themselves as the GOOD GUY.
So obviously PC developers are going online so they can sell multiplayer games instead of a true single player experience.
All software has bugs. Name one, one piece of commercial software that is very popular and used today worldwide that has ZERO software bugs, NAME ONE. Like I said, pirates will always make up excuses, because criminals are exactly the same.
Hey Dfrag
Lots to chew on there but I think you are confusing two seperate issues.
Everyone knows there are bugs on release and even after a multitude of patches. I program a lot of stuff myself and am well aware fo the complexities. But toooften developers use this as a crutch.
The analogy we make at work is the old car one. Cars are incredibly complex machines, they also now have a lot of software running in them. To expect a new car design to hit the streets without any problems is impossible. But you know what? The SHOW STOPPERS will always be smoothed out. The ABS system works, the car starts, the airbag system will have the crap tested out of it. A bug with the Radio or milometer isnt so important.
Everyone accepts that, pirates and all
The point being on day one the new Ford will be drivable and safe even if the CD player may have a glitch when skipping a few tracks.
Software should be the same. It should start, perform its basic duty and if there is an error in the AI then fine. As I said above though… I have not bought one EA Sports game in 5 or 6 years that has worked at this basic level. 9 times out of 10 the thing just doesnt launch. This has been on an enormous range of hardware and Windows versions from 95 to Vista.
The ONLY way these games have worked for me is by finding and downloading a crack! The irony is that the problme is always the copy protection system which is teh problem and consequently sending me running into the arms of the piracy rings!!!