General Discussion

If game companies can figure out how many sales are lost due to pirating, why can't they figure out how many sales are lost due to their game sucking?

I would think the number would be lower, thats just huge. What would keep it lower is if every game had a real full version to play and not just small areas to try. People probably just say the games going to suck anyway I might as well have it for free mentality. Also demos are short and don't offer much and many probably want to try the full versions.

Originally posted by methane47

Baff I'm really tired of your stupid arguments.. You say COD4 made profit with their PC sales alone.. Sure.. Thats because the price is split between three platforms...

I can almost PROMISE you that if it was an ONLY PC title.. then they would not have made a profit.

Piracy and lack of sustainable sales on PC is the REASON why so many developers HAVE to put games on Console

C&C3, Oblivion, Monkey Island, Crysis, FarCry, HALF LIFE, Rainbow Six, FEAR, GRAW.... PC developers HATE consoles..

Valve among other companies complained for days and days about 360 development, Then they complained for days and days about PS3 development... But they HAVE to put their games on these consoles WHY? Because game development costs have sky rocketted... pretty much all mainstream games are now in the range of 10-20 million dollars. When you sell horribly like Crysis did (they sold 1m to retailers not to consumers)... And have a couple hundred thousand pirated copies. The PC business is just NOT sustainable without putting games on Consoles..

And guess what.. .Soon enough.. because of people like you who continue to deny the existance of any problems in the PC industry... people either outright leave.. OR they bastardize the game and make it simple for the console players.. which is exactly what happened with Rainbow Six, which is exactly what happened with GRAW (which sold like crap on PC btw), which is exactly what happened with the elder scrolls, which is what's about to happen with Sim City, which is what happened with COD4, which is what is going to happen with Battlefield Bad Company, Which is what happened with BioShock, Which is happened to Far Cry ala Instincts, Which is what's going to happen with the next total Annhialation/ Supreme Commander...etc etc etc...

 

 

http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/36...-Made-Us-Do-It

Quote:

Chris Taylor:Well one of the key things that is really affecting the economics and the success of gaming in general is piracy on the PC. So one of the reasons we'll see RTSs on the console is because people can't pirate it. I

 

And that right there shows Chris Taylor has no clue what the hell he is talking about. I can find every Xbox 360 game ever made as a pirate download with a couple of google searches. Same with every other console out there (not sure about PS3 and Wii, but all of the previous Playstation and Nintendo console games are available ).

Originally posted by windstrike1

If game companies can figure out how many sales are lost due to pirating, why can't they figure out how many sales are lost due to their game sucking?

They can. They just don't have the balls to be honest about it.

I think they need to form some sort of a standard with pc gaming... No longer shall it be a workstation/gaming machine.. They need a way to make it dedicate itself in some kind of mode switch.. Then they could find a better encryption method that doesnt have to rely on windows to read.. The console gmes CAN be pirated and ARE in some cases, but the hassle involved in decrypting the data and giving lots of hackers headaches , not to mention trying to have the console open and read this already decrypted data which it is not NORMALLY able to do..

But if they think console cant be pirated, then my question is WHY NOT make it like a console then? Consoles ARE PC's for the most part.. make a gaming mode for pc's, maybe as PART of windows of some operating system? Or it coud be standard on all of em like DOS, that can be flashed into a bios, and everytime a game cd is recognized it will automaticlly start copying files and booting the game, and when its over most of the core files are deleted until the game is played again.. Make windows reject exploring the cd if it is detceted to be a game..

They are smart enough to do it and so what if some people complain, if the companies biggest complaint is of pirates on the pc then they should DO SOMETHING about it, running away solves NOTHING...

Originally posted by baff

I can compare piracy of older years to todays I just did.

You found an article putting todays piracy at a level of 80%, I found one putting 1995's at 78%.

Consoles and PC's are still two completely different audiences. There are however people who still own and enjoy both and always have been.

 

I can believe console gamers will buy  Halflife 2.

But PC gamers still won't buy Halo.

 

Because what is innovative on the console, was innovative on the PC 3 years ago. It isn't a static market and the pecking order doesn't work in reverse. Gears of War is not about to sell 2 million copies on the PC.

 

Half life 2 was a best selling PC, it broke all previous sales records. Pc games bought it in it's millions. They are still buying it, 3 years on.

You might notice exactly how many games do break all previous sales records. The market is still growing, it happens 3 times a year.

 

Infinity Ward complained about piracy in a thread titled no wonder people won't make PC games. You understood that when you started this thread, now you are back peddling becuase it turns out their PC sales were actually excellent, their best yet, profitable in their own right and now the dev's just look stupid.

 

You can think of as many reasons as you like why Ubisoft made two versions. I will tell you the actual reason. Because their market research told them to.

They went the console route and it lost them their share of the PC game market for the Tom Clancy franchise. They wanted to get it back.

They asked the PC gamers what they wanted in the next Ghost Recon Title and all the PC gamers to a man said, "no more console ports". All the reviews of their console ports said "crappy console port".  When they checked their sales figures, they found that the console ports hadn't sold.

That's it. Thats the reason. No need for you to think. No need for me to address this with you further. Look it up for yourself if you like. No need for you to make idle conjecture.

Trying something new has nothing to do with anything. They made a franchise title. The object is not to try something new but to make more of the same.

 

 

MMORPG subscritption was widely heralded as the savoiur of PC gaming about 2-3 years ago. Is that an old interview or something?

At which point all the publishers, excited by the runaway and highly profitable success of WoW all embarked upon making their own titles.

3 years on, it's to pay back the investors time and as we have seen with Microsoft dropping Marvel and Vanguard, that little investment bubble is over. MMOROG's are a saturated market with the current dominant product (WoW) so far in advance of the competition that new titles that can steal it's customers away are pretty unlikely. Publishers are dropping all those mmorpg's.

But someting along the lines of a requires login and authentication service is clearly the way forward if piracy is your prime concern. Hence the Battlefield and Quake Wars games, and the multiplayer elements of COD have all been pretty much unaffected by piracy.

 

COD 4 is not the best selling game of 2007. It's not even in the right league. to give you some idea, Wii Sports sold 17 million copies.

 

PC gamers won't buy halo? wow, shocking. Halo 1 was released on PC 2 years after its xbox release, so it's pretty difficult to stand out when your released with such outdated graphics. Halo 2 is no different, released 2 and a half years after release and it requires Windows Vista.

Infinity Ward was shocked at the amount of people pirated the game, they never even mentioned their sales numbers, They obviously weren't refering to themself because they still make games for the PC.

By the way you contradicted yourself. You claimed "What's new on consoles is 3 years old on PC". Really? If so, then why did you promote Half Life 2's vehicle sections as innovative? Halo had vehicle sections, and done them a lot better I might add.

And yes, some companies do innovate with franchises, much like how Ubisoft also changed the formula for Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six series. Advanced Warfighter is no different.

CoD4 multiplayer has been affected by piracy, do you even read the actual articles?

And call of Duty 4 IS the best selling game of 2007.

www.joystiq.com/2008/01/25/activision-call-of-duty-4-best-selling-game-of-2007/

Your wii sports comment is laughable. Wii sports comes with every Wii unit by default in Europe and America (and I think Japan includes it now as well). It isn't sold seperately.

Originally posted by Zorvan

 

Originally posted by methane47

Baff I'm really tired of your stupid arguments.. You say COD4 made profit with their PC sales alone.. Sure.. Thats because the price is split between three platforms...

I can almost PROMISE you that if it was an ONLY PC title.. then they would not have made a profit.

Piracy and lack of sustainable sales on PC is the REASON why so many developers HAVE to put games on Console

C&C3, Oblivion, Monkey Island, Crysis, FarCry, HALF LIFE, Rainbow Six, FEAR, GRAW.... PC developers HATE consoles..

Valve among other companies complained for days and days about 360 development, Then they complained for days and days about PS3 development... But they HAVE to put their games on these consoles WHY? Because game development costs have sky rocketted... pretty much all mainstream games are now in the range of 10-20 million dollars. When you sell horribly like Crysis did (they sold 1m to retailers not to consumers)... And have a couple hundred thousand pirated copies. The PC business is just NOT sustainable without putting games on Consoles..

And guess what.. .Soon enough.. because of people like you who continue to deny the existance of any problems in the PC industry... people either outright leave.. OR they bastardize the game and make it simple for the console players.. which is exactly what happened with Rainbow Six, which is exactly what happened with GRAW (which sold like crap on PC btw), which is exactly what happened with the elder scrolls, which is what's about to happen with Sim City, which is what happened with COD4, which is what is going to happen with Battlefield Bad Company, Which is what happened with BioShock, Which is happened to Far Cry ala Instincts, Which is what's going to happen with the next total Annhialation/ Supreme Commander...etc etc etc...

 

 

http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/36...-Made-Us-Do-It

Quote:

Chris Taylor:Well one of the key things that is really affecting the economics and the success of gaming in general is piracy on the PC. So one of the reasons we'll see RTSs on the console is because people can't pirate it. I

 

 

And that right there shows Chris Taylor has no clue what the hell he is talking about. I can find every Xbox 360 game ever made as a pirate download with a couple of google searches. Same with every other console out there (not sure about PS3 and Wii, but all of the previous Playstation and Nintendo console games are available ).

 

 

Originally posted by windstrike1

If game companies can figure out how many sales are lost due to pirating, why can't they figure out how many sales are lost due to their game sucking?

 

They can. They just don't have the balls to be honest about it.

Hey Zorvan, Why don't you download one of those Xbox360 games, burn it on a disc and try and see how well it works on an unmodded Xbox360.

Originally posted by Gameloading

I was quite shocked when I read this. According to this article, Piracy in gaming makes is around 80% in the US. In Europe, the number is 90% and in Asia it's completely off the charts.
it's no wonder that some of the smaller developing companies are struggling.

 

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It's no wonder that Epic Games is dumping PC games for the greener pastures of console gaming: piracy rates for the U.S. market alone are hovering around 80%!

And beyond the U.S., the piracy picture becomes even larger and more menacing -- especially if you're an independent developer without "Madden-sized advertising budget," said THQ Director of Creative Management Michael Fitch, who laid out his case against piracy and hardware manufactures in an epic rant at the Quarter to Three forums.

In the post, Fitch attacked pirates, the PC software security model and everything in between. In Europe, he said, piracy rates approach 90%. In Asia, those figures are "off the charts."

"I didn't believe [the data] at first. It seemed way too high. Then I saw that Bioshock was selling 5 to 1 on console vs. PC. And Call of Duty 4 was selling 10 to 1. These are hardcore games, shooters, classic PC audience stuff. Given the difference in install base, I can't believe that there's that big of a difference in who played these games, but I guess there can be in who actually payed for them," Fitch said.

These are hard numbers for any PC developer to ignore, and from the tone of Fitch's message board rant the other day, things are likely to get much worse before they get better. Or should that be "if" they get better?

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www.gamepro.com/news.cfm

 

 

Don't believe everything you read.