Leave me alone PC gamers!

[Dr Hammer]

Hasn't it been stated that Witcher 2 is one of the most pirated games right now?

Yes, it's been stated... by people who've never gone back and looked over the numbers and assumptions used to calculate the claim.

So you are saying that in actuality, Witcher 2 HASN'T been pirated that much,

I'm saying that the calculations include some incorrect assumptions/estimates which wildly skew the numbers upward.

Any kind of statistical analysis is fraught with validity problems. I'd be interested to hear where you got the data on the incorrect assumptions that were made?

In any case, looking on the most popular Witcher 2 torrent (the SKIDROW one) currently on Pirate Bay there are over 1700 people (leechers and seeders combined) involved with it. And this is for a game well over a year old.

 

[FitScotGaymer]

I don't think piracy rates are really on topic here guys.

I mean, they don't affect PC gamers sneering at console gamers. Frankly I don't think PC gamers do, the only time ive seen it happen is along the lines of the Yahtzee joke about the Glorious PC Gaming Master Race and the Dirty Console Gaming Peasants.

 

[Soxafloppin]

Personally I think PC gamers can be a little bit jealous of console gamers "Blissful Ignorance", The fact that they can find great enjoyment in things that PC gamers consider inferior.

This is coming from a neutral, I'm not setting out to rustle anyone's jimmies.

 

[Curratum]

Wait... could it be possible to... play both on PC and consoles? *shock-shock*

I can't play God of War and MGSolid on PC and I can't play STALKER and Killing Floor on consoles. Heaven forbid I should own both platforms!

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Companies like money and things like multiple hardware configurations and piracy detract from that. So why not follow the money?

Believe it or not, your point of 'follow the money' is exactly why everything else is irrelevent. If something allows a compay to make cash hand over fist then any accrued 'costs' or negatives are ignored or papered over... hell, that's why console manufacturers can get away with selling development licences - publishers don't like them at all, but if that's the price of putting a game out on a popular platform that allows then to rake in tens of millions, then they're not exactly going to piss and moan and try to stymie development on that platform.

Conversely, it's also why most middle tier (between AAA and indie) publishing and development is done on/for the PC. Cost/Benefit analysis is decided under very different criteria and the barrier of entry is lower (economically speaking).

Another thing is this; if piracy was a major factor then you'd explain why handhelds, which have piracy levels at the very least equal to PCs, aren't treated with the same disdain by AAA level publishers as PCs are.

Also, if 'follow the money' is the only creed worth following then are we to assume that you're in favour of publishers eschewing consoles in favour of increasingly profitable mobile platforms?

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Any kind of statistical analysis is fraught with validity problems. I'd be interested to hear where you got the data on the incorrect assumptions that were made?

From the original interview article when the claim was made.

Crunched the numbers myself and there is one really big problem... for their estimations to work it would require tens of thousands of people to be simultaneously downloading, from public trackers, at average speed of 5Mb/s... which is theoretically possible but improbable and also requires an uploading bandwidth of 50Gb/s for every 10,000 downloaders (or leeches if you prefer torrent terms) which, again, is theoretically possible but even more improbable.

This is a problem when someone arsepulls some numbers and does some quick and dirty estimates and calculations in an interview, the resulting number of which is then faithfully parroted by many gaming journals as concrete fact.

Eventually 'The Witcher 2 pirated 4 millions times in 2 months' becomes gospel to the same people who also parrot 'Gaming PCs cost $2000+' and 'Gaming PCs must be upgraded every 6 months' and contributes to the masturbatory cycle of confirmation bias for people who have a bone to pick with PC gaming.

(note, I'm not saying the anti-PC crowd are the only ones with a masturbatory cycle of confirmation bias. all groups do)

In any case, looking on the most popular Witcher 2 torrent (the SKIDROW one) currently on Pirate Bay there are over 1700 people (leechers and seeders combined) involved with it.

Here's an interesting data point to chew on... almost every torrented version of The Witcher 2 was a cracked Steamworks version and yet Steam was also the majority of their digital sales and represented a significant portion of their overall sales.

Here's the question: Should CDPR be wringing their hands over their game still being pirated, high fiving each other that people still think it's worth stealing almost 18 months post-release OR ignoring it and working on Cyberpunk 2077?

 

[Dr Hammer]

I hope you don't mind if I consolidate the posts?

Believe it or not, your point of 'follow the money' is exactly why everything else is irrelevant...

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make here? Can you clarify?

Another thing is this; if piracy was a major factor then you'd explain why handhelds, which have piracy levels at the very least equal to PCs, aren't treated with the same disdain by AAA level publishers as PCs are.

There's 2 points I'd make here:

1. The PC (and piracy on it) is much more mature than any other iteration of gaming technology. Now, I haven't seen numbers comparing the 2 (as you've alluded to before, is it even possible to know exactly how much piracy takes place?) so I can't comment on which platform has it worse, but I do know that piracy has plagued the PC since way before Mark Hamill was appearing in Wing Commander 3. It will be interesting to see what handheld manufacturers and publishers do if this level of piracy continues, especially if they perceive that the level of piracy on the handheld to proportionally equal piracy at its height on the PC
2. I find it difficult to believe senior execs at publishers would treat the PC with 'disdain' as it implies some sort of emotional attachment. I've never met one but I would've thought the majority would be fairly hard-nosed pragmatists.

Also, if 'follow the money' is the only creed worth following then are we to assume that you're in favour of publishers eschewing consoles in favour of increasingly profitable mobile platforms?

On a personal note, I believe happiness is a priority, not money. With respect to commercial matters: I'm a consumer - I simply want the biggest range of highest quality products at the best price. However, I acknowledge the relationship between consumer and vendor is symbiotic. If a specific vendor doesn't meet my expectations I will give my money to a competitor. Likewise, if customers are behaving irresponsibly I'm not going to blame the vendor for going off to other markets. It would be foolish to expect otherwise of a commercial entity.

...require tens of thousands of people to be...downloading, from public trackers, at...5Mb/... which is...improbable and?uploading bandwidth of 50Gb/s for every 10,000 downloaders which [is even] more improbable.

I agree with your calculations in principle, but the 'probability' issue is murky at best. How many seed boxes were used? How many of those had access to VPN?s? What infrastructure exists where the people involved in pirating are situated? And so on. I think I read somewhere the global average broadband speed has eclipsed 6.5 Mbps. Incidentally, I would say confirmation bias is only restricted by having a brain capable of cognition. People generally choose what they want to believe.

Here's an interesting data point to chew on... almost every torrented version of The Witcher 2 was a cracked Steamworks version and yet Steam was also the majority of their digital sales and represented a significant portion of their overall sales.

Here's the question: Should CDPR be wringing their hands over their game still being pirated, high fiving each other that people still think it's worth stealing almost 18 months post-release OR ignoring it and working on Cyberpunk 2077?

Majority of torrents being a Steamworks torrent just says to me that it was a Steamworks version that was leaked/cracked and distributed the most widely first. And it's hardly surprising Steam sold the most versions of a PC game, is it? It is still the most popular digital distribution platform, right?

For the second point, it would depend on what I was doing for CDP. If I was an environment artist (and if I could be bothered) I might work out my personal losses to maybe equate to a couple of hundred Euros in royalty bonus' think 'Stuff that, I get to work on Cyberpunk!' and not give it any more thought. If I was a major share-holder I might be thinking more along the lines of 'I've done everything somebody can reasonably expect me to do to stop people pirating, but it?s still going on. What more can I possibly do??

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Believe it or not, your point of 'follow the money' is exactly why everything else is irrelevant...

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make here? Can you clarify?

The point is that companies will suck up any 'negatives' to a market if that market still allows them to make cash hand over fist... which is why we're not seeing any publishers abandon consoles despite all their crying about how 'Used Game Sales are costing them Untold Billions!!!!!fuckingELEVENTY!!"

Another thing is this; if piracy was a major factor then you'd explain why handhelds, which have piracy levels at the very least equal to PCs, aren't treated with the same disdain by AAA level publishers as PCs are.

There's 2 points I'd make here:

1. The PC (and piracy on it) is much more mature than any other iteration of gaming technology. Now, I haven't seen numbers comparing the 2 (as you've alluded to before, is it even possible to know exactly how much piracy takes place?) so I can't comment on which platform has it worse, but I do know that piracy has plagued the PC since way before Mark Hamill was appearing in Wing Commander 3. It will be interesting to see what handheld manufacturers and publishers do if this level of piracy continues, especially if they perceive that the level of piracy on the handheld to proportionally equal piracy at its height on the PC

No, it's not possible to ever know what levels of piracy any platform suffers. All you can do is take the publicly available numbers and extrapolate from there.

The publishers have a damned good idea of how bad piracy is on handhelds... but apart from trying to shut down 'cart' makers and the occasional "we'll brick your handheld if you even look at it funny' announcement from Nintendo, they don't really care because handhelds make them a mega-fuckton of cash despite high levels of piracy if their primary markets.

2. I find it difficult to believe senior execs at publishers would treat the PC with 'disdain' as it implies some sort of emotional attachment. I've never met one but I would've thought the majority would be fairly hard-nosed pragmatists.

You'd think so but the actions of certain companies make it hard to believe as an industry wide norm. Perhaps you'd prefer 'contempt'?

Also, if 'follow the money' is the only creed worth following then are we to assume that you're in favour of publishers eschewing consoles in favour of increasingly profitable mobile platforms?

On a personal note, I believe happiness is a priority, not money. With respect to commercial matters: I'm a consumer - I simply want the biggest range of highest quality products at the best price. However, I acknowledge the relationship between consumer and vendor is symbiotic. If a specific vendor doesn't meet my expectations I will give my money to a competitor. Likewise, if customers are behaving irresponsibly I'm not going to blame the vendor for going off to other markets. It would be foolish to expect otherwise of a commercial entity.

So is that a yes or a no?

And of course, it doesn't require foolishness on the consumers behalf to get a company to pull up stakes and go courting new markets, only the perception on the part of that company that the new markets are more profitable.

...require tens of thousands of people to be...downloading, from public trackers, at...5Mb/... which is...improbable and?uploading bandwidth of 50Gb/s for every 10,000 downloaders which [is even] more improbable.

I agree with your calculations in principle, but the 'probability' issue is murky at best. How many seed boxes were used? How many of those had access to VPN?s? What infrastructure exists where the people involved in pirating are situated? And so on.

When you're dealing with public trackers, it's usually pretty easy to get a rough idea of both the higher and lower limits of the speeds leechers are able to download at, just read the comments for the torrent. Any torrent that has a lot of "WTF? 5kb/s?" and "STOP DISCONNECTING WHEN YOU HIT 100%, MOTHERFUCKERS" is extremely unlikely to be averaging 5Mb/s for everyone. Conversely, people tend to brag anytime they get over 1.5Mb/s on a new torrent.

Or to put it bluntly, the very nature of public trackers makes consistantly high download speeds very unlikely.

Here's an interesting data point to chew on... almost every torrented version of The Witcher 2 was a cracked Steamworks version and yet Steam was also the majority of their digital sales and represented a significant portion of their overall sales.

Here's the question: Should CDPR be wringing their hands over their game still being pirated, high fiving each other that people still think it's worth stealing almost 18 months post-release OR ignoring it and working on Cyberpunk 2077?

Majority of torrents being a Steamworks torrent just says to me that it was a Steamworks version that was leaked/cracked and distributed the most widely first.

You don't find that interesting considering the GoG.com version was completely DRM free? Or that the physical retail version had it's SecuROM DRM patced out after only 2 weeks? Yet it was the Steamworks version that was the most heavily pirated.

I find it very interesting.

 

[Dr Hammer]

The point is that companies will suck up any 'negatives' to a market if that market still allows them to make cash hand over fist... which is why we're not seeing any publishers abandon consoles despite all their crying about how 'Used Game Sales are costing them Untold Billions!!!!!fuckingELEVENTY!!"

Yes, a company will ultimately only pay attention to the bottom line. I don't think I've ever claimed otherwise? IMO the used game market has accelerated the prevalence of things like day one dlc, online passes etc. Anything the publishers can use to try to clawback some of that money (I don't think it's why they appeared in the first place. I think that is due to greed).

You'd think so but the actions of certain companies make it hard to believe as an industry wide norm. Perhaps you'd prefer 'contempt'?

I would prefer neither. As I said, I would imagine most senior execs to be pragmatists. Emotion and business decisions (any decision really, imo) do not make good bedfellows. If I were in their shoes I would look at my spreadsheets with all the numbers and think 'Something isn't right, here'. Which companies are you talking about? Ubisoft?

So is that a yes or a no?

When I said 'I would like the widest range etc' that was meant to be interpreted as a 'no' (if it means the console effectively dying as a platform). But not for any personal reasons, (I own 8 current gen console titles and 2 of those are Demons' Souls) it's simply because I want to see everything as well produced as possible on as many different formats, every different iteration taking advantage of it's platforms unique capabilities. However, if market forces dictate a wholesale move to hand held then so be it. I personally don't care for them, but I don't care too much about most mainstream titles anyway; I will find other sources of amusement.

I would also expect some publishers to continue releasing titles for console even after this switch happens, finding niche markets where they can leverage unique advantages of the platform and thrive. Personally I cannot see this switch to hand held for quite some time (if ever), but who knows, right?

And of course, it doesn't require foolishness on the consumers behalf to get a company to pull up stakes and go courting new markets, only the perception on the part of that company that the new markets are more profitable.

Your point is, of course, correct. But, if the demand for a product is still there and there is money to be made, what company is not going to go after that market? And business people tend to chew over decisions that have multi million dollar implications quite carefully, analysing reams of data before coming to a decision. Perception alone is generally not enough to make a decision of this magnitude on.

When you're dealing with public trackers, it's usually pretty easy to get a rough idea of both the higher and lower limits of the speeds leechers are able to download at, just read the comments for the torrent. Any torrent that has a lot of "WTF? 5kb/s?" and "STOP DISCONNECTING WHEN YOU HIT 100%, MOTHERFUCKERS" is extremely unlikely to be averaging 5Mb/s for everyone. Conversely, people tend to brag anytime they get over 1.5Mb/s on a new torrent.

Or to put it bluntly, the very nature of public trackers makes consistantly high download speeds very unlikely.

Oh come on, you're not seriously suggesting we use the comments left on a torrent as an indicator of upload speed are you? There are many different reasons for torrent performance and I hardly think that the people commenting are the most representative sample. Without having admin rights to the tracker site/the ISP's of everyone involved and/or a sophisticated traffic analysis tool any claim about speed is, at best, conjecture.

You don't find that interesting considering the GoG.com version was completely DRM free? Or that the physical retail version had it's SecuROM DRM patced out after only 2 weeks? Yet it was the Steamworks version that was the most heavily pirated.

I find it very interesting.

Do I find it interesting the GoG version of Witcher 2 was DRM free? Not really, that's been their stance for some time, hasn't it? I was more surprised to hear there were versions of it with DRM. I was ignorant of the physical copy DRM, but I suspect CDP saw it wasn't working and decided they had more to lose with keeping it on there and thus removed it. Again, the Steamworks version being pirated most suggests to me it was cracked and distributed first. What is it that you find so interesting about it?

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Do I find it interesting the GoG version of Witcher 2 was DRM free? Not really, that's been their stance for some time, hasn't it? I was more surprised to hear there were versions of it with DRM. I was ignorant of the physical copy DRM, but I suspect CDP saw it wasn't working and decided they had more to lose with keeping it on there and thus removed it. Again, the Steamworks version being pirated most suggests to me it was cracked and distributed first. What is it that you find so interesting about it?

CDP have said that the DRM on the physical copies was put in at the insistance of their international distributors (most notably Namco Bandai, who later filed suit against CDP for removing the DRM) and that it was only meant to be in place to reduce 'casual piracy' during the game's first two weeks of sale.

As for what I find interesting, it's that a DRMless version of the game was released at exactly the same time as a Steamworks DRM version and yet it was the Steamworks version that ended up as the source of most pirated copies. The GoG version didn't need to be cracked and could have been pushed out onto the public torrent trackers in next to zero time but it wasn't, it was the DRM shackled version that got cracked and so 'heavily' distributed. That's a situation I find interesting in the implications you can draw from it.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Oh come on, you're not seriously suggesting we use the comments left on a torrent as an indicator of upload speed are you?

Well no but I'd rather not risk ModWrath and detail how to get a good sample pool.

 

[Dr Hammer]

As for what I find interesting, it's that a DRMless version of the game was released at exactly the same time as a Steamworks DRM version and yet it was the Steamworks version that ended up as the source of most pirated copies. The GoG version didn't need to be cracked and could have been pushed out onto the public torrent trackers in next to zero time but it wasn't, it was the DRM shackled version that got cracked and so 'heavily' distributed. That's a situation I find interesting in the implications you can draw from it.

I'm still not totally sure what you are implying, but I have a possible explanation for what happened. The DRM free version was available via GoG, I'd imagine? Anybody buying it from there instead of Steam would probably feel some kind of affinity for CDP and want them to succeed as much as possible (CDP wouldn't have to pay Steam/Valve their cut). I'd think it unlikely that people of this mindset would be willing to put up a torrent of the game. They would just want to play it ASAP.

Conversely, SKIDROW crack games for prestige. They are one of the most consistently successful and visible 'scene' groups and have been for a long time. They do what they do for the challenge and the resulting esteem from others acknowledging their competence. There is only pride in cracking the Witcher 2 version with DRM and distributing it as widely as possible before anyone else can do the same. And pirates waiting for the game see only that a torrent is up and off they go. The DRM version of Witcher 2 becomes a very popular torrent.

With regards to release dates, it is entirely possible cracker groups had access to pre-release code to work on and had cracked it some time before official release (this is conjecture, but if they are cracking DRM within hours they are very good programmers)

 

[mjcabooseblu]

I, for one, can't wait for a game to be released exclusively for console, not because of piracy, convenience, or any other excuse, but because the developers woke up one day and thought to themselves, "You know who really needs to get fucked? PC gamers."

 

[Bat Vader]

I always felt that gamers should not be prejudiced against because of how they play their games. I think that only divides the gaming community as a whole. To me, a gamer is a gamer. Whether that's on a console, PC or a handheld. I personally don't understand the need to take offense with others on how they choose to play games either. :x

I agree 110% with this comment. I prefer to use a PC for gaming but I also love consoles. I want to get a PS3 to get some of the games that are now out on it and to also get some of the upcoming games as well.