Duke Nukem Forever Leaks to Torrent Sites

[The Lugz]

well, you know what they say:
yo,-ho thieves and beggars...

ahem, anyway I vote going back to game cartridges and physically manufacturing the games let's see the pirates do that
( yes i mean a different physical architecture cartridge per game, not just a single programmable chip )
sure it would raise costs, but it would at least be effective and get red of the useless drm that wastes money and just serves to break games for the actual consumer

 

[Fangface74]

12 years in the making and the developers STILL didn't get to release it first!

 

[icyneesan]

>Duke Nukem Forever leaked to torrent site

I literally cannot believe this. I almost feel like I'm being trolled. I still can't believe Duke Nukem Forever is actually coming out AND that it is being pirated. But man, what happens if one of those torrents is from some troll like 5 years ago, and its all just viruses/porn.

 

[sir.rutthed]

Apparently, Even the Duke sometimes accidently comes earlier then he expected.

/thread. Good job, buddy.

OT: Funny stuff, that. But everyone knows this is just a pack of lies since THE GAME IS NEVER MEANT TO BE!!!!! I still think this is just the most elaborate trolling in the history of the webs.

 

[Waaghpowa]

Yes, PC gaming is dying because of piracy and this proves it.

Spoiler

That was sarcasm.

Huh, so I guess this means Piracy isn't the reason behind the abysmally low sales for PC games. Then what is causing such abysmally low sales for PC games? I guess if it isn't piracy, something that can theoretically be fought, they have no reason to even try for the PC.

Piracy isn't an example of how PC gaming is dying, incredibly low sales are. Piracy is just a way of explaining it - if you wanna say thats not the real reason, fine. So the incredibly low PC sales are now inexplicable but very, very real.

You should probably read this. The gist of it, sales figures for PC games were generally measured based on retail sales when almost half of them occur online on digital services.

 

[Panayjon]

well, you know what they say:
yo,-ho thieves and beggars...

ahem, anyway I vote going back to game cartridges and physically manufacturing the games let's see the pirates do that
( yes i mean a different physical architecture cartridge per game, not just a single programmable chip )
sure it would raise costs, but it would at least be effective and get red of the useless drm that wastes money and just serves to break games for the actual consumer

Sorry, but you can still hack that cartridge based systems, back in the Super Famicom days they had this device that plugged into the cartridge slot that you would feed floppy disks into... the floppy disks were not legit. In a more recent version of that one of the Nintendo handhelds could be hacked in a similar fashion by inserting a "magic" cartridge.

That said, it would curb piracy severely but it wouldn't be impossible. Pirates ALWAYS find a way.

 

[SCAFC Chimp]

I have to say this is one of the only times I have ever truly been ashamed of my pirate brethren. I don't care if it was only leaked to xbox or ps3, regardless its shameful. I hope you get whats coming to you, and by that I mean the Protect IP (PIP) ACT floating around in congress. don't know what I'm talking about? Google it, while you read sit back and watch the free information era of the internet die. acts like this only fuel the already mounting resentment towards software piracy.

There's resentment because we (those that pay for shit) get stuck with shitty DRM and things of that ilk that cause us annoyance because pirates don't want to splash the cash for something they believe they deserve for free.
OT: Oh poor Duke. At least theres a game to pirate after all these years.

 

[synobal]

Well people are pirating the game with their PCs (since there is no torrent client for xbox or PS3) so I guess the developers can still blame us.

 

[Mangue Surfer]

NO PC?! Even the torrents are dumbing down!

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

Doesn't really surprise me.

Even with all the negative feedback about the demo I'm still getting it. Although after playing the demo I did cancel my pre-order of the Balls of Steel Edition and just ordered the normal version. I think the game will be fun, just not £65 worth of fun.

 

[Dastardly]

Duke Nukem Forever Leaks to Torrent Sites

Permalink

It's kind of ridiculous. Of course, they were stupid to only provide the demo to people who've preordered. Demo =/= bonus. A demo is supposed to sell the product to people who aren't sure. Instead, they're preaching to the converted.

Of course, that has not much at all to do with the piracy. They could offer five hundred demos, and pirates would still want the whole game for free before "deciding" that it's not worth the money to buy it. Same bullshit, different game.

 

[Baresark]

The article itself takes the position that it's rare for console games to leak early, which is completely false. Since the 360 has been hacked (so for years) games have found early release on it. I played Darksiders at my buddies house like two months before it came out. The PS3 now faces the same situation. They only make a big deal out of certain titles for some reason, though. Now maybe we can do away with this whole "PC's are the primary focus of pirates", mentality. The fact is, it's incredibly rare to see a PC title leak early these days.

OT: It sucks that is happened, but I don't see why the demo makes a difference. It's almost like they are admitting that people will pirate a game to just try it. The fact that they limited the demo is completely stupid, regardless. Considering all anyone wants to track is the initial release sales (with rare excepion), they should want as many people pre-ordering as possible, it doesn't make sense to reward the per-purchasers with a demo, they already got the game.

 

[Waaghpowa]

Even if you accounted for that, PC sales they wouldn't scratch console levels in most cases.

Take Black Ops, best selling game of last year. On 360, 12.52 Million copies. On Ps3, 10.08 Million copies. On PC, 1.12 Million copies. Even if you doubled that figure, rounding out that 48% to 50%, it wouldn't equal one quarter of the less successful console version of Black Ops.

I don't like to use Black ops as an example since it's the kind of game that attracts the kind of people who would want to pirate it, no offense. Working in game retail you notice that the people who try to steal them tend to have similar tastes.

You said it was "incredibly low", which 21 million discrepancy is not. It would actually be better to take into account the number of users with PC games, since those numbers tend to speak truer than sales since digital services, like steam, don't require repurchase when a game is uninstalled and there being a lack of a used market. A lot of people will re-buy console games for various reasons, lost, stolen, damaged, defective etc.

Steam, being a PC platform, has an average peak of 3.1 million users daily and there are a total of more than 30 million ACTIVE steam accounts.
http://store.steampowered.com/stats/
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/10/18/thirty-million-steam-accounts/

Xbox live has anywhere between 2-2.5 million concurrent users. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/96096-XBox-Live-Hits-2-Million-Concurrent-Users
There are roughly 30 million Xbox live accounts total, but as to if that includes or excludes banned accounts they don't say. You can also easily make an Xbox live account and own no games, whereas you can't do that with Steam (well you could, but there would be no point in making one since you wouldn't be doing anything).

Considering how many people are playing something on steam everyday, I wouldn't write it off as "dying", and this is not taking into account other services. It wont die because all games are made on PC's using similar hardware used in PC gaming, as long as that hardware exists, there will always be a demand for the games.

Edit: I would also like to mention that console games have less "risk" in the sense that if you buy it, and get tired of it, you can trade it in. PC games, you buy it and get tired of it, tough shit.

 

[Nickompoop]

The sarcasm! It burns my eyes like a thousand suns!

 

[toapat]

Duke Nukem Forever leak could be more damaging because of the limited release of the demo, which kept it out of many gamers' hands, and the less-than-entirely-enthusiastic response among those who have been able to play it.

Dunno about anyone else, but I've been less-than-entirely-enthusiastic since I had the chance to play the demo.

to which i point out, in Duke 3, you are unlikely to use more then 2 weapons per level at any time, to conserve ammo. you get weapons when and where you need them, like you did in 3. if DNF is true to the third game, it will be fucking hard also.

 

[Metalrocks]

i am a hardcore pc gamer. cant deal with a controller. mouse and keyboard is the best way to play since you never have the same reaction with a controller then with a mouse.
anyway, to topic. i ma not surprised about the leak. but surprised that the pc version hasnt bin leaked. i have pre ordered it on steam and looking forward to it.
sure, console games are more in because they dont have to bother with upgrading the hardware etc. but with out the pc, there woulndt even be a console game. thats what many forget or dont think off.

but yes, it kind of sucks that the demo wasnt available to every one. that was a bad move of gearbox. but well. the game comes out tomorrow.

 

[LoopyDood]

It's also worth pointing out, I think, that while the 360 and PS3 versions of the game are running free, the PC version apparently is not. Maybe someone needs to explain to me one more time how publishers are shying away from the PC because of all the rampant piracy problems it suffers from.

While I agree with the sentiment, inserting the author's opinion in a news release like this does not display journalistic impartiality. One can, however, commend Andy for openly stating his opinion rather than subtle manipulation under the guise of objectivity like writers for some organizations.