General Discussion

that's why some small companies that have good games fall because of that piracy...anyways from which country, piracy started?

I wonder what the piracy rates are in China/Japan... it's a shame.  I buy my games WHEN I do actually have enough interest in a game, or I test demos... for example I can't wait to dish out up to $60 for the PC version of Mass Effect in May even though I'm sure a rip of it will be up as a torrent by the afternoon of the release date

I know it sounds harsh but I wouldn't be surprised if PC gaming became a lot more strict with having to verify your game version online before playing, every time.  No internet? Sorry... play something else I guess... Verification is annoying? Sorry... piracy is killing the industry bit by bit and until there's a better solution, gotta do what you gotta do.

I know it punishes those who buy the game for the crimes of those who don't but at least those who want to pirate a game won't be able to enjoy quality gaming without purchase.  If a company decided to do this, I would honestly understand despite the annoyance...

I think it's important to remember that for cultures such as China, the very idea of a "copywright" is considered highly immoral. (A fundamental evil to be working for personal gain instead of for the greater good of society).

It's only recently that the country has begun to embrace them.

I don't think however that this has had a lot of impact on the games market. Not selling games in a country where you have never ever sold any games could be described as lost sales, but only to an idiot.

The effects of piracy on a market you are not involved with is quite simply irrelevant to software manufacturers. They make their profits elsewhere, and they make good profits. As much as they would like it to be so, what chinese people do with their software is none of their business.

At least, it's been that way until now. In the last 2 or 3 years the market for video games in China has suddenly flourished.

Online games sales have increased by 60-70% in the last year.

Here's a little article I read that relates to my earlier postings on the subject of Epic games, and how one of their staff is blaming piracy for the expected failure of Gears of War to sell well on PC.

In an interesting interview, Epic Games founder and CEO, Tim Sweeney, lashed at Intel accusing them of ruining pc gaming by selling integrated graphic chips that are incapable of running any decent games.

"PC gaming is in a weird position right now", said Tim Sweeney. "Now, 60% of PCs on the market don't have a workable graphics processor at all. All the Intel integrated graphics are still incapable of running any modern games. So you really have to buy a PC knowing that you're going to play games in order to avoid being stuck with integrated graphics. This is unfortunate, and this is one of main reasons behind the decline of the PC as a gaming platform. That really has endangered high-end PC game sales. In the past, if you bought a game, it would at least work. It might not have been a great experience, but it would always work."

"Intel's integrated graphics just don't work. I don't think they will ever work."

"They always say 'Oh, we know it has never worked before, but the next generation ...' It has always been the next generation. They go from one generation to the next one and to the next one. They're not faster now than they have been at any time in the past

http://www.megagames.com/news/html/pc/epicgamesceointelruinspcgaming.shtml

To my mind it has much in common with THQ's CEO flailing around for someone else to blame for his own failures to make decent games. (Here'sa little article on that one too, from the same source).

In a lengthy forum post, THQ's creative director Michael Fitch blamed game pirates, hardware manufacturers, game reviewers and end users for the closure of Titan Quest Developer, Iron Lore.

Given the length of Fitch's comment, we'll sum it up for you. Here are the main culprits behind the good studio's closure:

(The following are the opinions and beliefs of Mr. Michael Fitch and have nothing to do with MegaGames)
1 - Game pirates:
Titan Quest was leaked and cracked before its official launch and, apparently, the crack was a "quick-and-dirty" job. The crack missed several anti-piracy checks throughout the game which caused the cracked version to crash whenever you start certain quests.

"So, before the game even comes out, we've got people bad-mouthing it because their pirated copies crash, even though a legitimate copy won't. We took a lot of shit on this, completely undeserved mind you. How many people decided to pick up the pirated version because it had this reputation and they didn't want to risk buying something that didn't work? Talk about your self-fulfilling prophecy. "

2 - Hardware vendors:
"Trying to make a game for PC is a freaking nightmare, and these guys make it harder all the time. Integrated video chips; integrated audio. These were two of our biggest headaches. Not only does this crap make people think - and wrongly - that they have a gaming-capable PC when they don't, the drive to get the cheapest components inevitably means you've got hardware out there with little or no driver support, marginal adherence to standards, and sometimes bizarre conflicts with other hardware."

"CD/DVD drives with bad firmware, video cards that look like they should be a step-up from a previous generation, but actually aren't, drivers that need to be constantly updated, separate rendering paths for optimizing on different chips."... "and you get a lot of s***ty hardware out there, in innumerable configurations that you can't possibly test against. But, it's always the game's fault when something doesn't work."

3 - Game reviewers:
One of the reviewers missed a major feature in Titan Quest although. "Not only was this [feature mentioned] in the manual, and in the roll-over tooltips for the UI, but it was also in the tutorial." ... "When we - and lots of our fans - pointed out that this was the reviewer's fault, not the game's, they amended the review. But, they didn't change the score."

Another reviewer who received a pre-release version of Titan Quest complained about it crashing a lot. "After identifying the problem, getting him around it, and verifying that the bug was a known issue and had been fixed in the interim, he still ran the story with a prominent mention of this bug."

4 - Gamers:
"There's a lot of stupid people out there." ... "Basic, basic stuff, like updating your drivers, or de-fragging your hard drive, or having antivirus so your machine isn't a teetering pile of rogue programs. PC folks want to have the freedom to do whatever the hell they want with their machines, and god help them they will do it; more power to them, really. But god forbid something that they've done - or failed to do - creates a problem with your game. There are few better examples of the "it can't possibly be my fault" culture in the west than gaming forums."

Citing that Call of Duty 4 console versions outsold the PC version by 10 to 1, Fitch concluded that he "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."
"So, if 90% of your audience is stealing your game, even if you got a little bit more, say 10% of that audience to change their ways and pony up, what's the difference in income? Just about double. That's right, double. That's easily the difference between commercial failure and success."

Originally posted by Gameloading

Oh, and Baff:

Pc gamers sure hate Call of Duty 4, don't they?:
kotaku.com/366712/pc-sales-charts-feb-24-+-march-1

And that the comments to this effect were made by idiots who draw pictures on computers for a living and not by anyone with any insight into the market place.

also in asia the piracy rate is so high...

Piracy is not the issue.

Games are producing crappy titles with nothing worth owning. According to one Stardock employee, some of this stuff is new to console gamers, so it's selling well to them. Even for the few slightly original PC games, they require monster PCs to run. I just spent $1500 on a computer upgrade. Whereas my 360 so far has cost $700 in hardware accessories and the online service. That leaves a lot more room to buy games!

Blizzard is making games that run on crappy systems. Rag on WoW's graphics all you like, they're easy to understand and very informative and run on low end systems. They also focus on what a lot of game makers neglect: Polish. So many games I have played feel so clunky that the experience itself feels stilted and awkward.

I go from playing CoD4's (console - Bought it before my computer upgrade) excellent multiplayer and racking up the kills to trying Battlefield 2142's ugly spawns, crappy map design, and overabundance of vehicles that literally leaves me like spawning without a gun (enemy team has 20 tanks, I just spawned with a rifle and no nearby empty tanks. WTF am I supposed to do?). Or STALKER's weird shooting mechanics where enemies can shoot me from 100 yards with an automatic weapon with infinite ammo while I have a hard time hitting them while couching and taking cover behind a dead vehicle and using a (supposedly) more accurate pistol leveled straight at their torso from 10 yards away.

Even looking at Crysis, now that I have played the game, the only thing going for it is graphics. The gameplay itself offers nothing really great. The enemies are too deadly on normal and super powers too lackluster to make using them very interesting.

Originally posted by Gameloading

Actually Call of Duty 4 did get pirated alot, to the point where Infinity Ward even spoke out against piracy. CoD's target market isn't 15 year olds, the game is rated Mature for a good reason and it's appeal is in the multiplayer, not the singleplayer. The game scored 92.6% on gamerankings (pc version) and has won multiple game of the year awards. Saying it's quality is an issue is downright ignorant.

What Kazaa and bittorrent show is that people want to play the game for free, not that they suddenly want to pay for their game by credit card and spend hours and hours of downloading large files.

 

Bioshock doesn't require DirectX10 either, nor does it require Windows Vista.

I know this topic is a bit old but looking threw some old ones and I read this and HAD to respond. COD4 was a total rip off of a game for the price. I know many retailers that (when talking to them ) said their sales were well below what they expected. I just said one thing, "well what do expect when you throw a game togather with about 6 hours of game play and expect the mp to be worth 50+ bucks ?" Now that the game has dropped to 30 bucks it sells, well for 30bucks the mp might be worth it, but shows gamers actually have a brain, thank god!

I laugh everytime I see mention of this game or it's ratings by most media outlets. Just as other titles, if they pay to advertise they get the rating, we have seen more and more of this and even some got caught in their own lies. We the gamers know a peice of crap when we see one, when the statement of "this game was aimed at 15 year olds" was made, I was right in agreement. Only the ignorant would pick up this peice of crap for the price it was going at.

I think many here get the main cause of most of these development houses woes, their games suck, plain and simple and I use to buy a new title every few months, now I am lucky if I buy more then 3 a year.  You want to know what a good game is? Pick up titles like "the witcher", "sins of the solar empire" and you will see companies who definitly see piracy in those titles but also see loyal gamers who will purchase their product because it's ACTUALLY worth the money.

There is a concept, something worth my cash? Wow what an idea!

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Originally posted by baff
And yes of course I think 50k a year is good pay for someone's first job. I think it's fantastic pay. You won't find young people with as much money in any other industry on the planet. That's 50 k for a job you can walk into with no qualifications, just a portfolio you made up in your school holidays. What are the other 18 year olds, stacking shelves at Tesco or working behind the bar making? $20k?

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Ah, 18 year-olds aren't even tool designers (the lowest ranking dev). Studios want college grads, with a very strong background in math -- very true in 3D animation and all of that ugly vector work (which luckly today is mostly done with software and special inhouse tools, unlike in the old days when it was painfully had crafted!).

I'd kill to work as a 3D designer, but alas, the price of the software alone keeps me from persuing that work. If I had the software, I'll remodel Deus Ex! lol