Infinity Ward Loses Two More

[D_987]

Ubisoft and Activision are the new EA! ^^

How on earth are Ubisoft the new EA? The only thing they've done wrong is release some crappy PC DRM...they've made some of the best games in recent times (Assassins Creed 2, Splinter Cell : Conviction etc)

Well you just answered the point, the DRM is GOD AWFUL. Some people still can't play the new Settlers game, and the PC community is (yet again) being treated like criminals. Splinter Cell: Conviction is going to be awesome to those with a 360, but hell annoying to those with PC.

So because a small minority of the gaming market is ultimately effected Ubisoft becomes the new EA? EA were dis-liked for their unimaginative IP's more than anything else. This new DRM sounds bad, but at the end of the day if Ubisoft want to try and protect themselves they can do so - just don't buy the game, but they aren't half as bad as EA were...

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

snip

Well, they didn't really chose anyone, did they?
I mean, there was another IW employee who jumped ship not so long ago and he didn't join Respawn, he joined some other gaming company.
If West and Zampella were to choose the "elites" of the studio to go with them, why not take other people with you instead of having to go through the difficult process of starting a new team.
There are really two possible variations as to why those guys don't go away:
1) The allegations that Activision still hasn't payed all the royalties to the employees in Ensino, California are true and they can't just abandon ship.
2) They don't want to leave. Simple as that.

 

[duchaked]

They went from Activision to EA? Out of the fire and into the frying pan...

aha I see what you did there =D (maybe?)

but references to MW2's campaign aside...I know a lot of y'all hated it and everything, but I had fun and I really hope MW3 isn't totally gone (with a satisfying final kill but then a semi-cliffhanger...)

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

Ubisoft and Activision are the new EA! ^^

How on earth are Ubisoft the new EA? The only thing they've done wrong is release some crappy PC DRM...they've made some of the best games in recent times (Assassins Creed 2, Splinter Cell : Conviction etc)

Well you just answered the point, the DRM is GOD AWFUL. Some people still can't play the new Settlers game, and the PC community is (yet again) being treated like criminals. Splinter Cell: Conviction is going to be awesome to those with a 360, but hell annoying to those with PC.

So because a small minority of the gaming market is ultimately effected Ubisoft becomes the new EA? EA were dis-liked for their unimaginative IP's more than anything else. This new DRM sounds bad, but at the end of the day if Ubisoft want to try and protect themselves they can do so - just don't buy the game, but they aren't half as bad as EA were...

Small minority?
Hell, I am not a PC gamer and even I acknowledge that they are a pretty big minority (lol) and that Ubisoft is ultimately fucking them over.
EA might have been low on creativity but at least they weren't setting out to be jerks.

 

[Jared]

Feels like IW is a sinking ship...let's hope it's still got something left in it so it dosnt totally go under...

 

[fix-the-spade]

Senior IW staff jumping ship? More of them? Doesn't make Activision's counter suit sound too credible, given how the senior staff are evidently just dieing to stay on and get those fat bonuses they've been promised...

They went from EA to Activisionthen back to EA? Out of the fire and into the frying pan...

Then back to the fire!

 

[Jack and Calumon]

So because a small minority of the gaming market is ultimately effected Ubisoft becomes the new EA? EA were dis-liked for their unimaginative IP's more than anything else. This new DRM sounds bad, but at the end of the day if Ubisoft want to try and protect themselves they can do so - just don't buy the game, but they aren't half as bad as EA were...

Well at least they learned. Activision is on the highway to becoming a massive joke. But on the topic of Ubisoft, fair enough. They can't be as bad as EA was. But, don't forget this.

Calumon: Ubithoff!

Spoiler

 

[D_987]

Small minority?
Hell, I am not a PC gamer and even I acknowledge that they are a pretty big minority (lol) and that Ubisoft is ultimately fucking them over.
EA might have been low on creativity but at least they weren't setting out to be jerks.[/quote]

If you look at sales figures you'll see just how few PC games are sold, despite being cheaper and available at launch via both retail and digital distribution, when compared to the console market. Therefore the PC is a minority in the market...both Assassins Creed 2 and Splinter Cell are likely to receive higher piracy rates than most due to their lack of online multi-player - and the PC has by far the highest piracy rates compared to consoles - especially with the smaller user-base...

 

[Eldarion]

Thats what you do when you create the worlds biggest selling Mediocrity lol.

Zynga holds that spot actually.

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

Small minority?
Hell, I am not a PC gamer and even I acknowledge that they are a pretty big minority (lol) and that Ubisoft is ultimately fucking them over.
EA might have been low on creativity but at least they weren't setting out to be jerks.

If you look at sales figures you'll see just how few PC games are sold, despite being cheaper and available at launch via both retail and digital distribution, when compared to the console market. Therefore the PC is a minority in the market...both Assassins Creed 2 and Splinter Cell are likely to receive higher piracy rates than most due to their lack of online multi-player - and the PC has by far the highest piracy rates compared to consoles - especially with the smaller user-base...[/quote]
Still, is that a reason to determinately screw people over?

 

[Tharwen]

Well, goodbye Infinity Ward.
Thanks for eight years of high-quality gaming.
This is really making me sad.

It does mean that Call of Duty will be left to itself in a comfortable retirement home rather than spending the rest of its days slowly being drained of potential in Activision's dungeon.

 

[D_987]

So because a small minority of the gaming market is ultimately effected Ubisoft becomes the new EA? EA were dis-liked for their unimaginative IP's more than anything else. This new DRM sounds bad, but at the end of the day if Ubisoft want to try and protect themselves they can do so - just don't buy the game, but they aren't half as bad as EA were...

Well at least they learned. Activision is on the highway to becoming a massive joke. But on the topic of Ubisoft, fair enough. They can't be as bad as EA was. But, don't forget this.

Spoiler

Ok first of all if you're ever going to post something as large as that image please put it in a spoiler tag.

Secondarily, I don't recall the DRM being hacked on day one - in fact I recall Ubisoft bragging that it hadn't been hacked. Regardless, a game sells the most during the first week or so off launch - yes it's excessive but Ubisoft know they can gain maximum profit if they can stop the game getting cracked during that time period. Bear in mind The Escapist is, seemingly, a more PC-orientated site; they're bound to be biased in favour of both the PC and its players.

 

[D_987]

Still, is that a reason to determinately screw people over?

Is it justifiable trying to make the most money out of your few large IP's? Of course - the video game industry is just that - a business; so many people forge that - and ultimately if Ubisoft believe this is good business then they will continue to use such DRM; they obviously have full details of the system whilst we don't (we all have a biased view on it as gamers) so the people at Ubisoft are more inclined to make the decision based on business.

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

Still, is that a reason to determinately screw people over?

Is it justifiable trying to make the most money out of your few large IP's? Of course - the video game industry is just that - a business; so many people forge that - and ultimately if Ubisoft believe this is good business then they will continue to use such DRM; they obviously have full details of the system whilst we don't (we all have a biased view on it as gamers) so the people at Ubisoft are more inclined to make the decision based on business.

I'm sorry but the "as long as we're making money, customers can eat shit" business plan doesn't work or at least doesn't work in hindsight.
Yes, it is a financially-justifiable move but it is a good move business-wise and a bad move reputation-wise.
The profits will be gone as time goes on - the losses in reputation won't.
BTW, just to clarify - I'm not a PC gamer. I just can't stand when customers get treated like crap.

 

[D_987]

The profits will be gone as time goes on - the losses in reputation won't.
BTW, just to clarify - I'm not a PC gamer. I just can't stand when customers get treated like crap.

Spoiler

Game-Specific Piracy Data

The data above indicates the general scale piracy, but the issue at hand is an examination of the piracy of PC games. A reasonably robust method of gauging the approximate scale of PC game piracy is to look at the torrents for the pirated releases of recent big-name games. In most cases there are multiple torrents available for the same game, however below I simply post a brief summary of the numbers involved from only a few of the more popular individual torrents and what they add up to as of the start of December 2008, using the popular torrent search engine Mininova:

Crysis Warhead (released Sept. 16 2008):

Crysis Warhead Multi-11 Full-Rip Skullptura - 84,139
Crysis Warhead MULTi10 CLONEDVD-iMMXpC - 54,029
Crysis Warhead-RELOADED - 36,240
Crysis WarHead 2008 - 29,836
CrYsis Warhead [MULTi10][CLONEDVD][FullGame][CrackIncl] KaYz 2008 - 22,784
Crysis Warhead CLONEDVD PC [English] - 16,039

The sample of torrents above adds up to 243,067 downloads for the PC version in just over a two month period. Note that Warhead sells for $29.99 as opposed to the $49.99 for a standard game.


Fallout 3 (released Oct. 30 2008):

PC Version:

Fallout 3-RELOADED--cgaurav?-- - 75,152
Fallout 3 Full-Rip Skullptura - 72,987
Fallout 3-RELOADED.[sitenameremoved.org] - 48,926
Fallout 3 [PC] - 45,130
Fallout.3-RELOADED.[sitenameremoved.com] - 12,226
Fallout 3-RELOADED [Full ISO/RPG/2008] - 12,110
FALLOUT 3-TRiViUM - 5,032

I counted almost 90 individual torrents for the full PC version of Fallout 3. The small sample listed above adds up to 271,563 downloads in a one month period.

XBox 360 Version:

Fallout 3 USA XBOX360-RUiNS - 6,649
Fallout 3 READNFO XBOX360-Seed4ME - 5,612
Fallout 3 PAL XBOX360-GLoBAL - 4,220
Fallout 3 GERMAN-0x0007 - 2,336
Fallout 3 USA PROPER RETAIL XBOX360-x360inT - 1,171

I counted around 30 individual torrents for the XBox 360 version of Fallout 3. The sample listed above adds up to 19,988 downloads in a one month period.

PS3 Version:

I couldn't find any Fallout 3 torrents which were labelled as or appeared to be for the PS3.


Call of Duty 4 (released Nov. 6 2007):

PC Version:

Call of duty 4 [PC-DVD] [English] 3876100 TPB - 205,277
Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare Full-Rip Skullptura - 111,310
Call Of Duty 4 Modern Warfare [English][PCDVD] - 96,082
Call Of Duty 4 [PCFullGame][Eng-DvD][CrackIncl] KaYZ 2008 - 43,805
Call Of Duty 4-Razor1911 - 40,839
Call Of Duty 4-Razor1911 [sitenameremoved.com] - 21,456
Call Of Duty 4 - 18,295
++sitenameremoved com++-Call of Duty 4 DVD Modern Warfare - 17,212
Call of Duty(R) 4 - Modern Warfare - 12,300

I counted over 100 active torrents for the PC version of this game, a year after its release. The sample listed above adds up to 566,000 downloads in a one year period.

XBox 360 Version:

XBOX 360 Call Of Duty 4 Modern Warface [PAL] - 12,231
Call Of Duty 4 PAL FR XBOX360-PROPER - 11,758
[Xbox360-ITA]Call Of Duty 4- Modern Warfare - 9,702
Call Of Duty 4 Modern Warfare PAL FRENCH XBOX 360 - 9,277
Call Of Duty 4 Modern Warface PAL XBOX360-GAC[sitenameremoved.org] - 7,182
Call of Duty 4 [PAL - Spanish - XBOX360] - 5,194
Call Of Duty 4 ENG XBOX360 - 3,513

There were around 20 XBox 360 torrents for this game, and the sample listed above adds up to 58,857 downloads.

PS3 Version:

Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare USA PS3-PARADOX - 24,185
Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare PAL PS3-MRN () - 9,484
Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare PAL PS3-MRN - 6,876
Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare USA PS3-PARADOX[sitenameremoved.net] - 5,382
Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare USA PS3-PARADOX[sitenameremoved.org] - 3,683
Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare USA PS3-PARADOX[sitenameremoved.org] - 3,065

There were only 6 PS3-labelled torrents for this game, and I've listed all of them above, adding up to 52,657 downloads over the past year.


For those questioning whether these figures are even remotely accurate, one well-known piracy site recently released a Top 10 Pirated PC Games of 2008 listing, and they even went so far as to insist that torrent figures compiled in this manner should be highly accurate.

http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_4.html

"Bethesda Softworks, makers of The Elder Scrolls series and most recently Fallout 3 had this to say on the issue of the scale and costs of piracy-related tech support:

The amount of times we see stuff coming through where it?s like, the resolution to the problem was [the] guy had a pirated copy of the game? The amount of money we spend supporting people who didn?t pay us for the game in the first place?it?s f?ing ludicrous. We talk to other developers, guys who are [like] ?Yeah, it?s a third, it?s 50% of our [customer] support.? "

"The argument that removing DRM will result in a net increase in sales has no basis in fact based on the evidence at hand. Not only does gaming history show that unprotected games simply lead to more piracy, recent history also demonstrates clearly that simply removing DRM is not the answer to piracy. As we saw in the Scale of Piracy section, many popular games which have no intrusive DRM, such as Assassin's Creed, Crysis, Call of Duty 4 and World of Goo, also have some of the highest piracy rates in 2008. Indeed as I write this, the new Prince of Persia game was released yesterday for PC (December 10, 2008) with absolutely no DRM protection, and a quick look at torrents shows that the pirated version is available, and on two popular torrent links alone there are over 23,000 people downloading the game within the first 24 hours. The evidence is overwhelmingly clear: DRM does not cause piracy, piracy results in DRM.

Update: As yet another example of removing DRM not leading to any reduction in piracy, the game Demigod has been pirated so heavily in its initial release period that it has caused the game's servers to effectively go down. Out of the 120,000 connections made to the game's servers, over 100,000 were by confirmed pirates, leaving only around 18,000 legitimate purchasers. The game is released by Stardock, a relatively small company which has a lot of public support due to the mistaken perception that Brad Wardell, CEO of Stardock is anti-DRM (see the bottom of the next page for more details of Stardock's actual position). Demigod is widely considered to be a good game, it's available as a digital download priced at under $40, and has no intrusive DRM - yet not only has this not stopped the game from being rampantly pirated, preventing legitimate purchasers from playing the game, but has also resulted in poor reviews, potentially affecting future sales of the game."

Read the whole thing - it's very interesting and tends to back up its sources: http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_1.html

I'm all for treating the customer in the right manner - but the figures show a ludicrous degree of piracy...

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

The profits will be gone as time goes on - the losses in reputation won't.
BTW, just to clarify - I'm not a PC gamer. I just can't stand when customers get treated like crap.

Spoiler

Game-Specific Piracy Data

The data above indicates the general scale piracy, but the issue at hand is an examination of the piracy of PC games. A reasonably robust method of gauging the approximate scale of PC game piracy is to look at the torrents for the pirated releases of recent big-name games. In most cases there are multiple torrents available for the same game, however below I simply post a brief summary of the numbers involved from only a few of the more popular individual torrents and what they add up to as of the start of December 2008, using the popular torrent search engine Mininova:

Crysis Warhead (released Sept. 16 2008):

Crysis Warhead Multi-11 Full-Rip Skullptura - 84,139
Crysis Warhead MULTi10 CLONEDVD-iMMXpC - 54,029
Crysis Warhead-RELOADED - 36,240
Crysis WarHead 2008 - 29,836
CrYsis Warhead [MULTi10][CLONEDVD][FullGame][CrackIncl] KaYz 2008 - 22,784
Crysis Warhead CLONEDVD PC [English] - 16,039

The sample of torrents above adds up to 243,067 downloads for the PC version in just over a two month period. Note that Warhead sells for $29.99 as opposed to the $49.99 for a standard game.


Fallout 3 (released Oct. 30 2008):

PC Version:

Fallout 3-RELOADED--cgaurav?-- - 75,152
Fallout 3 Full-Rip Skullptura - 72,987
Fallout 3-RELOADED.[sitenameremoved.org] - 48,926
Fallout 3 [PC] - 45,130
Fallout.3-RELOADED.[sitenameremoved.com] - 12,226
Fallout 3-RELOADED [Full ISO/RPG/2008] - 12,110
FALLOUT 3-TRiViUM - 5,032

I counted almost 90 individual torrents for the full PC version of Fallout 3. The small sample listed above adds up to 271,563 downloads in a one month period.

XBox 360 Version:

Fallout 3 USA XBOX360-RUiNS - 6,649
Fallout 3 READNFO XBOX360-Seed4ME - 5,612
Fallout 3 PAL XBOX360-GLoBAL - 4,220
Fallout 3 GERMAN-0x0007 - 2,336
Fallout 3 USA PROPER RETAIL XBOX360-x360inT - 1,171

I counted around 30 individual torrents for the XBox 360 version of Fallout 3. The sample listed above adds up to 19,988 downloads in a one month period.

PS3 Version:

I couldn't find any Fallout 3 torrents which were labelled as or appeared to be for the PS3.


Call of Duty 4 (released Nov. 6 2007):

PC Version:

Call of duty 4 [PC-DVD] [English] 3876100 TPB - 205,277
Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare Full-Rip Skullptura - 111,310
Call Of Duty 4 Modern Warfare [English][PCDVD] - 96,082
Call Of Duty 4 [PCFullGame][Eng-DvD][CrackIncl] KaYZ 2008 - 43,805
Call Of Duty 4-Razor1911 - 40,839
Call Of Duty 4-Razor1911 [sitenameremoved.com] - 21,456
Call Of Duty 4 - 18,295
++sitenameremoved com++-Call of Duty 4 DVD Modern Warfare - 17,212
Call of Duty(R) 4 - Modern Warfare - 12,300

I counted over 100 active torrents for the PC version of this game, a year after its release. The sample listed above adds up to 566,000 downloads in a one year period.

XBox 360 Version:

XBOX 360 Call Of Duty 4 Modern Warface [PAL] - 12,231
Call Of Duty 4 PAL FR XBOX360-PROPER - 11,758
[Xbox360-ITA]Call Of Duty 4- Modern Warfare - 9,702
Call Of Duty 4 Modern Warfare PAL FRENCH XBOX 360 - 9,277
Call Of Duty 4 Modern Warface PAL XBOX360-GAC[sitenameremoved.org] - 7,182
Call of Duty 4 [PAL - Spanish - XBOX360] - 5,194
Call Of Duty 4 ENG XBOX360 - 3,513

There were around 20 XBox 360 torrents for this game, and the sample listed above adds up to 58,857 downloads.

PS3 Version:

Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare USA PS3-PARADOX - 24,185
Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare PAL PS3-MRN () - 9,484
Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare PAL PS3-MRN - 6,876
Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare USA PS3-PARADOX[sitenameremoved.net] - 5,382
Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare USA PS3-PARADOX[sitenameremoved.org] - 3,683
Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare USA PS3-PARADOX[sitenameremoved.org] - 3,065

There were only 6 PS3-labelled torrents for this game, and I've listed all of them above, adding up to 52,657 downloads over the past year.


For those questioning whether these figures are even remotely accurate, one well-known piracy site recently released a Top 10 Pirated PC Games of 2008 listing, and they even went so far as to insist that torrent figures compiled in this manner should be highly accurate.

http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_4.html

"Bethesda Softworks, makers of The Elder Scrolls series and most recently Fallout 3 had this to say on the issue of the scale and costs of piracy-related tech support:

The amount of times we see stuff coming through where it?s like, the resolution to the problem was [the] guy had a pirated copy of the game? The amount of money we spend supporting people who didn?t pay us for the game in the first place?it?s f?ing ludicrous. We talk to other developers, guys who are [like] ?Yeah, it?s a third, it?s 50% of our [customer] support.? "

"The argument that removing DRM will result in a net increase in sales has no basis in fact based on the evidence at hand. Not only does gaming history show that unprotected games simply lead to more piracy, recent history also demonstrates clearly that simply removing DRM is not the answer to piracy. As we saw in the Scale of Piracy section, many popular games which have no intrusive DRM, such as Assassin's Creed, Crysis, Call of Duty 4 and World of Goo, also have some of the highest piracy rates in 2008. Indeed as I write this, the new Prince of Persia game was released yesterday for PC (December 10, 2008) with absolutely no DRM protection, and a quick look at torrents shows that the pirated version is available, and on two popular torrent links alone there are over 23,000 people downloading the game within the first 24 hours. The evidence is overwhelmingly clear: DRM does not cause piracy, piracy results in DRM.

Update: As yet another example of removing DRM not leading to any reduction in piracy, the game Demigod has been pirated so heavily in its initial release period that it has caused the game's servers to effectively go down. Out of the 120,000 connections made to the game's servers, over 100,000 were by confirmed pirates, leaving only around 18,000 legitimate purchasers. The game is released by Stardock, a relatively small company which has a lot of public support due to the mistaken perception that Brad Wardell, CEO of Stardock is anti-DRM (see the bottom of the next page for more details of Stardock's actual position). Demigod is widely considered to be a good game, it's available as a digital download priced at under $40, and has no intrusive DRM - yet not only has this not stopped the game from being rampantly pirated, preventing legitimate purchasers from playing the game, but has also resulted in poor reviews, potentially affecting future sales of the game."

Read the whole thing - it's very interesting and tends to back up its sources: http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_1.html

I'm all for treating the customer in the right manner - but the figures show a ludicrous degree of piracy...

I'll have to admit - you have something in there...
However, not everyone pirates games, do they? Why should normal, paying customers get penalized?

 

[D_987]

I'll have to admit - you have something in there...
However, not everyone pirates games, do they? Why should normal, paying customers get penalized?

In an ideal world they wouldn't - but life isn't fair and companies need money now (especially after the recession) to fund the next title.

If you wish to discuss this further please PM me - we've kinda taken this news thread completely off-topic.

 

[lightsier]

Maybe Treyarch will make a zombie terrorist mode!

 

[hamster mk 4]

While the sinking of Infinity ward may spell doom for quality in the Call of Duty franchise, imagine the awsomeness that these people could create now that they are free of the obligation to creata a game that has the words "Call of Duty" in the title. Arn't these the same people who jumped ship from Medal of Honor franchies to create the orriginal Call of Duty?