Epic President: "The Money's On Console"

[soapyshooter]

eh no one cares about queers of war anyway. The first was decent 5 hours of gray, gray and 10 secs of brown. The 2nd sucked, i will not buy the third.

 

[Cody211282]

You're right, it is more prominent on PC, but it does exist on consoles too, in high numbers. I mean, more than a million people were banned from Xbox live when Microsoft went on a witchunt of cracked consoles.

You have a source for these "high numbers"? All the sources I've seen show a staggering amount of piracy occurs on the PC compared to the consoles - and that's before you take into account the fact consoles have much greater player numbers - an example:

I'm just making assumptions here, based on the Microsoft crackdown. Of course, no matter how high the numbers may or may not be, it's still undoubtedly lower than the PC, mostly due to simple convenience.

And Publishers seem to think every one of their PC consumers is a pirate, or going to be a pirate at a moments whim... and as such must punish them all.

Maybe if Publishers stopped treating the PC market like complete crap with things like DRM, ripping out things that make PC gaming fun and appealing, and releasing shoddy console ports, things would be different.

Yea but if they did that who would they blame when their piece of crap game didn't sell well, themselves?

Nah, probably weak marketing campaigns. I hear blaming those is a nice little excuse.

It would be nice to at least once hear a company come out and say "hey sorry about that last game. You know it sucked we know it sucked and we will use this as a learning experience for next time."

Do you know fast I would buy their next game?

 

[Irridium]

It would be nice to at least once hear a company come out and say "hey sorry about that last game. You know it sucked we know it sucked and we will use this as a learning experience for next time."

Do you know fast I would buy their next game?

Agreed.

Although if they did that the one who said it would probably lose their jobs, since it could harm profits.

Business is a ***** ain't it?

 

[nmaster64]

I have nothing else to say on the matter.

 

[Don't taze me bro]

I'm finding it interesting that some people are deflecting the argument from 'Piracy is killing PC gaming', to 'DRM is killing PC gaming'. Do you people really believe this crap you're espousing? Who has honestly not bought a game because the thought crossed their mind 'Oh, I'm not buying that because of the DRM'. If you have, then probably only for Assassin's Creed 2. Yes I have been annoyed at DRM in games, like GTA4, having to sign into multiple services to play the game but it hasn't affected my decision to purchase a game. Never.
This is a far, far smaller number than those who pirate a game, simply because they can. I have friends that will pirate any PC game they can. I used manage an EB Games store, and would occasionally have customers come in and browse the PC section and tell me 'I'm just looking at what's new so I can torrent it when I get home'..The issue is also, there is often no rammifications from their actions. My friends who pirated Borderlands can still play multiplayer with me online, and I purchased a copy. If they can't play online, they circumvent this by simulating a local area network through a peer to peer service.

I don't like DRM overload, but I see it as a necessary step to counter the proliferation of piracy.

 

[squid5580]

"the future of the PC market lies with games like Farmville."

I haven't even bothered reading past that point. All he gets is a +1 moron stat in my mind.

Why so? He most likely correct, I mean Farmville apparently has an average of 30 million people playing it daily. Wow, arguably the most successful game in the world, wishes it could have those numbers with a total subscriber-ship of around 12 million.

Because the market that plays Farmville is not the market that plays games as we know them.

Exactly the point. The market is changing. He could sell out like other companies have and will continue to do so to cash in on these other gamers. And if he was this passionless monster like people are trying to make him out to be then he would. The alternative is to move where he can stay out of the red and keep making the games he is passionate about.

No, the market isn't changing; they're separate groups.

And I seriously doubt that someone who solely games on a PC and played Wolfenstein 10 years ago now plays Farmville as his game-of-choice.

Why do you believe they owe you anything? Seriously why? They don't owe you a stitch of loyalty. Do you think that they will keep investing billions of dolllars to appease us? Consoles are going the exact same route. And the reason is right there smacking us in the face. Over the past 29 years (since I played my first game) they haven't changed. Sure graphics have gotten shinier, controllers have gotten more complicated and production values have skyrocketed. They haven't changed until recently. And look at the results. The Wii kicked everyone's ass. Farmville is the most popular game ever. So who cares if xXWolfensteinfanXx doesn't play Farmville? His voice is drowned right out by all the people who do play Farmville as their game of choice. This isn't 10 years ago. This is 10 years later. The mammals are takin over. And it will only get worse. If you look up you can see the meteor coming right for us.

 

[samsonguy920]

These people screw us over with that craptastic UT3 and then have the balls to act like experts or something? I don't think so.

 

[elvor0]

No, the market isn't changing; they're separate groups.

And I seriously doubt that someone who solely games on a PC and played Wolfenstein 10 years ago now plays Farmville as his game-of-choice.

Exactly the bane of these threads - "I doubt"; in other words you're just making this stuff up and have no evidence to back it up - not even reasoned logic. I think you'll find - out of those 30 million people playing Farmville - there will be some that played Wolfenstein 10 years ago the odds are stacked against you if you say otherwise...

They aren't separate groups at all - people can play both Farmville and Fallout you know...

Yes they can, but that doesn't make them the same market, I mean let's be honest here, the True Gamer (as in a enthusiast of the medium, like us lot), are as a general rule of thumb not interest in Farmville.

I like Megadeth, lets say for sake of example I also like Techno (I don't) Megadeth are not going to look at me and say, "Ooh he likes techno, the metal market must need that in it!" The two markets are still independent of each other, regardless of whether or not there is some cross over, there is always going to be some market cross over because that's what makes people individuals, that minority that crosses over (and yes true gamer to farmville cross over is very silm) should have no effect on either market.

Zygna aint gonna make Farmville more hardcore for the few True Gamers that play it, and Valve aint gonna make HL3 more casual happy farm based because some farmville players play HL2. Zygna do not market towards Hl2 Fans, and Valve does not market towards Farmville players, they're two different demographics.

 

[El Poncho]

That's depressing....

Not the PC-abandonment thing, but the fact that the title led me to belive Obama made an epic video-games based announcement

I feel the same, maybe one day!

 

[BlindChance]

For you all, some quotes.

People are going to stop making [games] on the PC because of my earlier point, what's happened on the PC with piracy. The economics are ugly right now on the PC. You're not going to see these gigantic, epic investments of dollars on the PC when it just doesn't work. The economics have to work.

Obvious but well stated: They have to be in it for the money, guys. They can't afford not to be. The money made on the last game pays for the game made this time. You need capital to make a game. If piracy is costing them money (and I don't think anyone is disputing that, the question is how much, and is the cure doing more damage than the disease) then this is a problem, not just for the sales of one game, but for the funding of the next.

Frankly, piracy is the reason why retail games are falling in popularity. Right now there is a mental shift in people about how they consume media, and if you think about the problems with piracy in light of this, inevitably you find that there needs to be a solution that requires people to look at PC gaming differently.

Yerli isn't quite so "piracy is dooming PC gaming" as others (he thinks the sales model needs to shift) but I like his emphasis on the "mental shift" as being the real problem: It's not so much that piracy is happening, but that it's become standard and accepted. It's become a social problem for PC gaming, and some of this does affect the makers of games. How much morale can they maintain when, after working hard to create a game, some 90% of people decide it's not even worth paying for?

I agree with those who say Mike Capps is wrong when he says it's all about money. It's not. It's about respect, to some degree, I agree that it must be awfully hard for PC game makers to respect their market given this situation. The 10% of gamers who actually buy the games should be shown respect, of course, but geeze, it's hard to pick them out in that thick brew, innit?

I think that people need to recognize that piracy is going to kill PC game developers. We will have to find the best way to defend our property without being harsh on legitimate clients.

Another nice quote, because it emphasises the problem that being harsh on legitimate clients has had. For every swing piracy has taken at PC gaming, DRM has taken a counter swing. Both have done damage to the platform.

Listen, for any reasons you want to go into, the call that "the money is on" consoles can't be denied. Look at Modern Warfare 2, where sales on consoles dwarfed that of PC. Nobody is disputing that consoles are where most paying gamers are playing. And I hope nobody is disputing that it's a complex issue: I think it's truer to say that a combination of piracy, over-the-top DRM, over-expensive game development and technical complexity will kill PC gaming for all but casual games and MMORPGs.

But nobody should dispute that piracy has had an awful effect on the platform. One last quote, this time from a pundit [http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_1.html] (previously mentioned in this thread.

So no, piracy isn't solely to blame for developers moving to consoles, there are other benefits for developers in doing so. But those benefits have been around for many years, and don't explain the large difference in sales ratios. Piracy is the only logical variable which seems to be playing the most significant part in the equation, by creating a large gap between the number of PC games sold as opposed to console games sold. As John Carmack says quite openly: "developing games costs tens of millions of dollars now and the focus just has to be on the consoles where you've got the chance to move more millions of units there." It seems that those 'millions of additional units' on the console are in large part due to the fact that although PC gamers may be playing as many games as their console counterparts, they're not necessarily paying for as many games.

 

[Arec Balrin]

Yes because we all know piracy only started existing in the past six or so years, didn't it Mr Capps?

 

[TOGSolid]

Dear Epic:
If Gears of War is the best you can do, then feel free to stay on the console. You guys haven't made a decent game in years.
Love, the PC gaming community.

As we all do so love to say: And nothing of value was lost. These big companies seem to think that we actually care when they leave PC developement, when that couldn't be further from the truth. Hell, look at what Ubisoft is putting out these days - Splinter Cell: Conviction is a gigantic joke of a game, Ghost Recon has turned into a frat boy shooter, Rainbow Six is quickly falling into the same tacticool trap that Splinter Cell/Ghost Recon have with it becoming more and more dumbed down, and Assassin's Creed isn't nearly as awesome as everyone makes it out to be.

Good riddance I say. Stardock is my lord and master now, and EA doesn't seem to have any intention of abandoning the PC any time soon, so all is good.

Who has honestly not bought a game because the thought crossed their mind 'Oh, I'm not buying that because of the DRM'.

Me. I have not purchased any of Ubisoft's games since they started their inane DRM scheme.

 

[ImprovizoR]

Right, because people are not pirating Xbox 360 games at all...douchebag. Piracy is not a PC exclusive problem. Xbox 360 has a fair share of piracy as well.

Assassin's Creed isn't nearly as awesome as everyone makes it out to be.

Whatever makes you sleep at night. But AC2 really is a great game.

 

[Worgen]

Ive seen another story saying that epic is really worried about the future of consoles also since no one can tell what the next gen is going to be like and really when it comes down to it the safest bet is and will always be pc, its much more open ended then a console is. Imagine if ms or sony decides to be really heavy handed in who it lets publish games for its systems or decides to really limit what kind of games they allow, hell working designs was put out of business by sony not letting them publish a game for reasons that escape me (altho they did make the mistake of too many eggs in one basket with it)

 

[permacrete]

Who has honestly not bought a game because the thought crossed their mind 'Oh, I'm not buying that because of the DRM'. If you have, then probably only for Assassin's Creed 2. ... This is a far, far smaller number than those who pirate a game, simply because they can. I have friends that will pirate any PC game they can.

I don't like DRM overload, but I see it as a necessary step to counter the proliferation of piracy.

I don't pirate games any more. I used to, almost 20 years ago. I would rent games on floppy diskette, install them, and then return the game, leaving it installed on my machine. I have more money and less time now than I did in college, so I buy and play only a few games a year. Maybe your pirate friends are simply poor. Not every pirated game is a lost sale - a lot of people can't easily afford $50 for a game every few weeks.

I don't buy games with aggressive DRM. Ever. No game is so damn awesome that it is worth loading a virus onto my computer, and single player games that require an internet connection are just insulting. If I had a lot more time, I might pirate them, just to avoid the DRM malware - I would rather run a cracked copy. I can afford the game, but I won't support malware, and you can keep your damn rootkit.

I buy all of BioWare's games. I buy all of Blizzard's games. I pick up a few others, here and there, but I've learned to check the DRM scheme out before I buy games now, and avoid the ones that get feisty. I am especially wary of any title ported to PC from a console, since most are half-assed ports, at best. I would have bought Gears of War if they had had some respect for the PC version, but alas, no.

My nephew has an X-Box 360, and he pirates every new game that comes out for it, it seems like. He hasn't ever bought a game for the console, and the only ones he has legally are the ones that came with it. He has a membership in some site, downloads the disk image and burns the DVD on his computer. Hundreds of games.

Now, my experience might not be representative. Your mileage may vary. In my experience however, for what it's worth, modern piracy is mostly a console thing, and DRM kills a lot more PC game sales than piracy ever could.

 

[unacomn]

Facebook saving PC Gaming!?
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say he was intoxicated while making that statement.

Has he even seen how other PC only games have sold in the last few years?

 

[MarsProbe]

Assassin's Creed isn't nearly as awesome as everyone makes it out to be.

Whatever makes you sleep at night. But AC2 really is a great game.

Crazy comment that indeed. AC2 would be infinitely more interesting than another dry PC RTS any day of the week. It amuses me the way this thread has managed to get all the PC diehards wriggling out of the woodwork. Their shrill cries are almost, if not quite, as annoying as those of that woman doing the Halo Reach beta intro.

Anyhow, no skin off my nose, I'll still be able to play Gears 3, so that's cool. No matter how grey it may be, even now with all that ash floating around.

 

[Superior Mind]

PC gaming's future lies with Farmville...

Now THERE'S a fucking depressing notion.

 

[DTWolfwood]

Honesty omg how refreshing! Thanks EPIC for actually admitting you're all in it for the money!

Ya thanks for being honest. Thanks for saying what no one else will admit to. Oh you think gaming shouldn't be all about the cash. What was the last free game Valve gave you? Give it a rest. Making games is a JOB. That is how they can afford to make more games, pay their bills and maybe have a bit of cash leftover for something they might want. Just like everyone else.

Just because a company wants to turn a profit and I dunno not go bankrupt doesn't mean they don't have passsion for what they are creating.

so what u think im jabbing the guy for being honest? Did i say they are ONLY in it for the money? Did i say they arent passionate about their product? Yeh get over yourself your assumptions and your cynicism. I wasnt being sarcastic

Curious tho as to where in that statement was Valve mentioned? BUT If u want to bring valve into this; Portal is free for a week (for a 4 hour game that might as well be free period), and all the TF2 updates are free which on console would have been charged DLC, game sales on a weekly bases. I dont see how you've made a valid point. They are making craploads of money for doing what every other retailers have been doing forever, OFFERING SALES AND VALUE FOR PRODUCT. And generally not treating your paying customers as criminals help too.

I much rather appreciate how not PC (politically correct if your too dense to realize) this statement is and its actually refreshing to hear. Rather them not make PC games altogether just stick to the consoles if thats what they want to do. Unlike those motherfuckers at UBISOFT.