Epic President Dumps On Used Games, Piracy

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
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Epic President Dumps On Used Games, Piracy


Gears of War 2 [http://www.epicgames.com/] on the PC is - get ready for a shocker - piracy and the used game market.

In an interview with GamesIndustry [http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/michael-capps-part-one], Capps said the used game market is a "huge issue" in the U.S., which has resulted in the growing trend toward activation codes and installation limits. "We don't make any money when someone rents it, and we don't make any money when someone buys it used," he said. "Way more than twice as many people played Gears than bought it."

He's reluctant to blame gamers for the popularity of the second-hard market, although he does point out that Epic has a "rule" against its employees buying used games. He also comes very close to equating used game sales with piracy, saying, "If people are playing games without buying them, then the games aren't going to keep coming."

"I think a little bit of it is education so people realize that the reason there's no PC market right now is piracy," Capps said. "I mean, Crysis [http://www.crytek.com/], for pirated to non-pirated use. So guess what? That's why there's no Gears of War 2 on PC, because there's no market, because copying killed it - and that's gruesome to a company like ours that's been in the PC market for so long."

Perhaps his most interesting statement refers to legitimate used game sales, which he readily admits is the most profitable part of the videogame retailing business. "Our primary retailer [GameStop [http://www.gamestop.com/], perhaps?] makes the majority of its money off of secondary sales," he said, "And so you're starting to see games taking proactive steps toward that by... if you buy the retail version you get the unlock code."

Why would Capps support actions that are essentially designed to punish his "primary retailer?" Digital distribution is growing by leaps and bounds but it's still far from ready [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/86197] to assume dominance over regular retail sales, yet Capps doesn't sound too worried about cutting his main distribution point off at the knees. Profit margins on new games and gaming hardware are incredibly tight, and unless that changes no game retailer is going to survive without rentals and used game sales. Why does this seem so hard to understand?


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Skrapt

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May 6, 2008
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OK, Seriously??!!

I'm sorry to say it but Capps is a fucking idiotic tool.

The second hand games market is much larger for console games then it is for computer games. And please can some more developers get this into their heads? Piracy is not the problem you make it out to be! Yes it's bad, but no way near as bad as everyone makes it out to be. 95% of people pirating the game would never have bought it in the first place so they aren't really losing a substantial amount of income.

And there are better ways to combat piracy, there are success stories out there. Learn from them!
 

shatnershaman

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May 8, 2008
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Capps needs to sit down,stop drinking the Crytek kool-aid and ride the brumak with Ted Price back into reality.
 

fix-the-spade

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Feb 25, 2008
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What he means is: The PC market oustside of Steam is impossible. We can't compete against their near non existent distribution costs, so we're not going to bother and blame piracy. Look, here's that figure Crytek plucked out of thin air to back me up.
 

Simski

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I believe that's pretty reasonable really.
If I created a game who I was selling, I would probably too be pretty pissed if more than half of it's users were playing pirated versions.

It's quite a clever move to not sell in on PC.
 

EnglishMuffin

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Oct 15, 2008
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Right it's the piracy, not the fact that most games out there are mediocre piles of shit. Not to knock on consolers, but a lot of the stuff on the console lacks the depth we would have seen on the pc 5 years ago. So they see the consolers eating that shit up and think they can put out the same mediocrity in the pc world.

Just stop making generic pieces of crap for the masses.
 

fix-the-spade

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Simski said:
It's quite a clever move to not sell in on PC.
Not really, they're opting out of a market because they feel too many people stole it. Given that they have no way to accurately measure the number of games pirated (nor does anyone else for that matter) they can just create a figure that sounds really bad and hope they are believed.

I think it has more to with Gears 1's mediocre PC sale, since much like Halo when it arrived on Pc it didn't seemed very special at all.
 

Nimbus

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Oct 22, 2008
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PC games are never rented and PC games are never sold used. I know that I'm generalising it a bit, but I am a whole lot more correct than he is right now.
 

runtheplacered

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Simski said:
It's quite a clever move to not sell in on PC.
That's clever? You're being sarcastic, I hope?

First of all, I've never even seen a Gamestop that sold used PC games, has anyone else? I even worked at one for a month and I never saw it happen. Secondly, why aren't people up in arms about Xbox 360 piracy? Is it a trend they're going to ignore until it's too late? Do they have a plan for that? If they're that concerned with it, why not only release it for the PS3?

Just not releasing a title for PC is anything but clever. It's idiotic and it's a trend that can ultimately go nowhere.
 

ElArabDeMagnifico

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I'm going to give you guys some copypasta from shacknews:

Personally, I find this ridiculous. While retail secondhand sales are pretty shady and deplorable, selling games secondhand is not a real problem.

Look at the music industry. They are whining about pirating, but they don't give two craps about secondhand CD sales. And if anyone has a real problem with the loss of sales due to secondhand stores like GrayWhale, they are sure not piping up about it.

Epic's method of capturing "first sales" is.... okayish.... however, they have guaranteed broken map to map online experiences because of it. It's either "SEE YA!" if you bought the game off eBay or something, or online people simply don't play the maps anymore because half of the people playing won't have them. Personally, I see this restriction on the Flashback Pack going away within 12 months.

If developers want to do this to attract first-sale buyers for a month or two after a game comes out, I see no problem with that. However, saying "Hey you! Pay $20 if you want to see the end of the game!" seems to me like "Hey buddy, I know you bought this car from your neighbor, but you're going to have to pay 100% more than you paid for the car to be able to drive it. Sorry! Should have bought new!!"

This kind of attitude is what turns people off to developers anyway. This disconnection from what everyday, casual gamers are dealing with only makes it seem like our industry is even more stuck up and snobby than it needs to be.

In my opinion, every game developer should be trying to connect with their fan base on a regular basis by any means necessary. The farther a developer gets from "We love games" and into "We make games", the lower the quality of their games gets and then we start to see whining about piracy and secondhand sales.


Thank you "Sir_Brizz" [http://www.shacknews.com/laryn.x?id=18420918]
 

Simski

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Aug 17, 2008
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fix-the-spade said:
Simski said:
It's quite a clever move to not sell in on PC.
Not really, they're opting out of a market because they feel too many people stole it. Given that they have no way to accurately measure the number of games pirated (nor does anyone else for that matter) they can just create a figure that sounds really bad and hope they are believed.

I think it has more to with Gears 1's mediocre PC sale, since much like Halo when it arrived on Pc it didn't seemed very special at all.
Surely they measured it a way other than guessing.
Why would the number matter to us anyway, it's their choice not ours.
If they're that terribly wrong about the number, then they'll just have to blame themselves for missing out on these sales.
I trust they know what they're doing... not that it matters to me really.

Also if the Pc sale of the first gears on PC was mediocre, then why risk it again?
I will still say that it's a clever move.

runtheplacered said:
Simski said:
It's quite a clever move to not sell in on PC.
That's clever? You're being sarcastic, I hope?

First of all, I've never even seen a Gamestop that sold used PC games, has anyone else? I even worked at one for a month and I never saw it happen. Secondly, why aren't people up in arms about Xbox 360 piracy? Is it a trend they're going to ignore until it's too late? Do they have a plan for that? If they're that concerned with it, why not only release it for the PS3?

Just not releasing a title for PC is anything but clever. It's idiotic and it's a trend that can ultimately go nowhere.
Don't know about gamestop, don't have them around here where I live...

Never the less, 360 piracy is most likely alot less of a concern than PC piracy.
Why?
Because 360 piracy is firstly terribly risky as it gets you banned if you're caught, secondly it's much more complicated than regular PC piracy.

Also I doubt they'd switch from Microsoft to Sony just like that.
 

szaleniec1000

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Nov 11, 2008
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Nimbus said:
PC games are never rented and PC games are never sold used. I know that I'm generalising it a bit, but I am a whole lot more correct than he is right now.
I rarely see PC games sold used except on eBay and Amazon, and never see them available for rent. The model for the larger games tends to be sell full price for a while, then re-release as a budget edition a year or so down the line - this way the publishers and developers do see some money from the people who are unwilling to pay full price but still willing to buy the game.
 

Zrahni

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Oct 24, 2008
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Skrapt said:
OK, Seriously??!!

I'm sorry to say it but Capps is a fucking idiotic tool.

The second hand games market is much larger for console games then it is for computer games. And please can some more developers get this into their heads? Piracy is not the problem you make it out to be! Yes it's bad, but no way near as bad as everyone makes it out to be. 95% of people pirating the game would never have bought it in the first place so they aren't really losing a substantial amount of income.

And there are better ways to combat piracy, there are success stories out there. Learn from them!
It is true about the 95% of pirates not buying or not even playing the game for more then an hour or so.
GIVE US FREAKING DEMO VERSIONS TO SEE THE FREAKING GAME YOU HYPED FOR 2 YEARS OR SO AND YOU WILL SEE PIRATING DECREASE.
 

Calamity

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Aug 22, 2008
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Oh look, It's the ol' insert a statistic someone pulled out their ass to make my argument seem valid trick.

Funny how if I tried to pull that I'd fail the project or paper I'm writing, while he gains credibility with all the uninformed nitwits that take a company Presidents words as that of a god.
 

DirkBelig

The Belligerent One!
Jul 9, 2008
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Epic Games has become the Metallica of game developers - it doesn't matter what the actual quality of their product is, they've become such pompous jackholes that we wish a Brumak would sodomize them just to shut them the fook up!

I'm currently playing thru Gears of War 2 and it is quite impressive. However, this does nothing for the fact that UT3 was a half-assed, unfun, bugfest that was unstable at launch and totally broken and useless now on my PC. It was the worst $50 I spent in 2007 and Dude Huge, Tim Rein and everyone else at Epic needs to get stuffed IMNSHO for their arrogant laziness. Screw 'em!

There are two ways for game devs to act and Epic is doing the wrong one. The first is to treat the gamer as a valued customer to whom they are dedicated in providing a quality product, assured in the knowledge that they will be appreciated for their good will and rewarded with purchases. The other way is to treat the gamer as a thieving parasite who should be thankful that the dev is even bothering to make them something to play. Then they *****, piss and moan about how people are trying to save a few bucks by buying used and that they DESERVE that money, too. "GIMME GIMME GIMME!!!", is the motto of these tools who resent retailers and gamers for wanting to make or save a buck.
 

Nimbus

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Oct 22, 2008
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Simski said:
Never the less, 360 piracy is most likely alot less of a concern than PC piracy.
Why?
Because 360 piracy is firstly terribly risky as it gets you banned if you're caught, secondly it's much more complicated than regular PC piracy.

Also I doubt they'd switch from Microsoft to Sony just like that.
He wasn't talking about piracy. In fact, only one paragraph even had a mention of piracy.