Piracy, Not Consoles, Killed the PC Exclusive

[LiquidSolstice]

OK, first you break rule number one of forum debate, now this no-content response? What does this add to the discussion? If you do not give a shit when do not respond just to say you don't give a shit.

Oh, and you telling me I didn't have a shred of credibility is a content post? Or the part where you tell me I don't know what I'm talking about? Get over yourself.

Your characterization of Valve games remains nonsensical and needlessly inflammatory. It is just monumental ignorance to say all the valve games are just swapped textures or a basic-mod of Half Life 2. It's just patently false assertion which is backed by no credibility, you credibility you destroy by a spiteful and wholly unsuitable comparison with the worse scourge of humanity of the 20th century.

Here's an idea; instead of telling me I'm wrong, take all of three seconds and do some fucking research [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_developed_by_Valve]. Jesus, your ego and arrogance are appalling. I don't know why you think you have the nerve to insult me and tell me I'm wrong without doing an ounce of research yourself.

What I've said about Valve, regardless of how I said it, is completely true. If you cannot handle that fact, please refrain from just insulting me.

 

[brainslurper]

Someone please inform him that the PC has more exclusives this year then every current console combined.

 

[LiquidSolstice]

Xbox live bans are like Steam bans, you just go through another port. All the tricks to convince people to stay in good standing with online multiplayer networks by not pirating apply equally to console and PC.

No, you don't just "go through another port". That's not how Xbox Live bans work, but due to your hostility towards consoles, I'd doubt you'd know how it works.

 

[Sandytimeman]

Obviously the most well-known games will be pirated, I don't get what point you're trying to make.

That those companies despite being pirated the most also have the highest sales. So despite the Piracy happening if they just make their games awesome they will continue to sell and grow their sales.

I was using blizzard as an example because starcraft is a game I know me and all my friend bought multiple times through the years, and pirated it multiple times. Do to new computers, lost keys and disks, setting up lan rooms etc. Yet, its still one of the best selling RTS's of all time. (ie, the pirated copies didn't stop the company from becoming a powerhouse developer and releasing SC2 a pc exclusive 15 years later)

Piracy can sometimes be a sign of easier convenience, but when you evolve your system to be easier to use, safer and more convenient then pirates. A lot of those "pirates" will become paying customers. For instance using blizzard again, I no longer have to keep buying SC because its now on their battle.net server as a registered copy and I can download it anywhere.

In fact most of the games I have a passing fancy too, I can just click and pick up on steam when I'm bored. No need to drive down to gamestop or walmart. Instead its just point and click and play.

I imagine that the Music industry went through a similar evolution, with piracy and itunes. It's just that developers are too slow to change their methods or business models. They just want to make games harder and harder for paying customers to play, with nil effect on piracy anyway but a detrimental effect on sales.

 

[GoaThief]

Not had time to make it through all the thread, but let's focus on STALKER/Cossacks as many are using it as a shining example of the might of PC gaming.

GSC Game World (the devs) might well be closed by the end of this month as that is the final paydate for staff unless someone or something steps in.

These are series that sold extremely well on PC, were created by a Ukrainian developer, complete with cheap labour and everything that goes with it. If large sales cannot support them, there's about zero chance of "big" PC exclusives from studios based in Western Europe or North America unless you're doing an MMO... wait, that sounds familiar.

:S

Anyhow, I don't think piracy is the sole cause at all as there are various factors at play but let's not brush it aside or act as if it's benign or even beneficial to the majority of developers.

 

[LiquidSolstice]

Obviously the most well-known games will be pirated, I don't get what point you're trying to make.

That those companies despite being pirated the most also have the highest sales. So despite the Piracy happening if they just make their games awesome they will continue to sell and grow their sales.

I was using blizzard as an example because starcraft is a game I know me and all my friend bought multiple times through the years, and pirated it multiple times. Do to new computers, lost keys and disks, setting up lan rooms etc. Yet, its still one of the best selling RTS's of all time. (ie, the pirated copies didn't stop the company from becoming a powerhouse developer and releasing SC2 a pc exclusive 15 years later)

Piracy can sometimes be a sign of easier convenience, but when you evolve your system to be easier to use, safer and more convenient then pirates. A lot of those "pirates" will become paying customers. For instance using blizzard again, I no longer have to keep buying SC because its now on their battle.net server as a registered copy and I can download it anywhere.

In fact most of the games I have a passing fancy too, I can just click and pick up on steam when I'm bored. No need to drive down to gamestop or walmart. Instead its just point and click and play.

I imagine that the Music industry went through a similar evolution, with piracy and itunes. It's just that developers are too slow to change their methods or business models. They just want to make games harder and harder for paying customers to play, with nil effect on piracy anyway but a detrimental effect on sales.

Hmm. Touche, this is a very well written post, and I suppose I can agree with this, but there's only one thing I take issue with.

but when you evolve your system to be easier to use, safer and more convenient then pirates.

If you drop DRM altogether, how can anything be more convenient and easier than grabbing the same file off a different site without paying for it? Not trying to heckle you here, just trying to see where you're coming from. I get the "safe" angle, as it would be very, very easy to bundle in a keylogger or other malware app within a DRM-free game if posted on another site, but news on the internet spreads fast, and the moment someone posts a clean release (or the scene groups get a release out), then the choice will come down to someone asking themselves the following: "Should I pay $50 for this, or just grab it off MediaFire?"

And that's the question that game companies are terrified of hearing.

 

[Aikayai]

How do they explain free to play models like League of Legends then? PC exclusives just need to be clever. Single player doesn't cut it on the PC, and if you get a pirated version of a PC game you likely have a net connection. Give people a reason not to pirate it by providing a better service and experience with the game and people will take it up.

 

[M-E-D The Poet]

Angry PC gamer here to say that a pirated game is not the equivalent of a lost sale.

Yeah, it's a product being used that wasn't paid for.

True but there is a good chance it wouldn't have been purchased in the first place.

How is that a defense? Piracy is Nihilism short and simple. I'm not judging you (I know you won't believe me when I say that) but pirate morality is a joke.

so if I am poor and couldn't buy the game anyway

And I pirate the game, and play it, and enjoy it, and am possibly motivated to save up for the sequel because its such a good IP

My Morality is f**ed up

You do know.... that most pirates... actually buy the games they really really want right?


or another fucked up pirate mentality :
Fixing broken games

Pirates are so "Terrible" they dig into a games source from time to time to fix things that the publishers take months to fix

Terrible people yeah, I see

The problem is the rate of piracy compared to other platforms it is quite clear most pirates don't do if because they can't afford any games. Games are not that expensive, especially with steam sales. Especially how one game can come with so many hours of enjoyment and so many legitimately free mods. The cost thing doesn't stack up, PC hardware isn't cheap, how can they afford the hardware but not the software?

Also, piracy and fixing game-code are really quite separate. You don't have to download a game without paying to fix broken aspects nor do you have to spread those fixes by further piracy. Mods. Custom patches and configs.

If most pirates did buy games they pirated then number of illegitimate downloads would be barely higher than number of legitimate sales when that is NOT the case. And why would so many download games they don't "really want". I think most pirates do really want these games and don't want to pay, it's that simple. I think it's not very relevant bringing morality into this, the practicality is the developers need to make some money at some point if only for their beer and pizza fund.

Seems legit,

Or not

I know a lot of people who buy something when it's worth it, if they have the money

Those people sometimes however do not have so much money to spend, so they try things, then buy, or try things like them and then buy an afterproduct

See the thing is, you can't try a lot of things anymore, because nobody seems to care enough to release proper demo's

See if it were about boosting sales with being nice to your customer and not trying to screw him over then yes, you might have a point.
Now it's about grabbing money where you can, even if you don't deserve it

Take for example Assassins creed, We had


Assassin's Creed
Assassin's Creed II
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
Assassin's Creed: Revelations
Assassin's Creed: Altaïr's Chronicles
Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines
Assassin's Creed II: Discovery
Assassin's Creed: Project Legacy
Assassin's Creed: Lost Legacy (cancelled apparently)
Assassin's Creed: Multiplayer Rearmed
Anyway the franchise has been around since november 2007, it's now 2012 and the last game was released in november 2011

For those counting that means 1 a year for the main games and lots of portable and Ios ports between those

Anyway maybe I pirated assassins creed 2, I got interested and bought 1 in the bargain bin
Having become a fan I saved up my money for brotherhood,
Short on money I borrowed a copy of one of the DS versions of the game and tried it out
I didn't like it , tough luck for the handheld versions
Then I saw revelations coming and I was overjoyed, I saved up all my money and bought the collectors edition


People do that, you can't just say "All pirates are bad and immoral"

That's discriminating, that's the same as saying All black people steal and all white people are racists



Now for a new tough challenging point that this thread is bugging me for

People do not only pirate on the pc, yet I never hear any developer complain about console pirating (Bar microsoft, they shut up about it but they crackdown hard on that)

Now if piracy is such a big issue, how in the name of god could piracy have killed the PC exclusive

Seeing as piracy is platform wide, actually it's invested in every form of media.

This is why I argue against this kind of bullshit because either these developers are incredibly adept at satire, or they're greedy moneysucking people



A final fact : if a game such as crysis or assassins creed, or CoD . is so heavily struck by piracy

How come they're such big moneymaking franchises? where is the Gaming crisis, where are all the programmers getting fired .

The only programmers that get fired are those working for small studios with relative okay fanbases, being overshadowed by triple A titles constantly


And you know who's complaining about piracy? the triple A developer, the little small dev that's going to be a bum in the morning, you don't hear him ranting about people stealing his game, he's happy he created some great intellectual property, shite life that he's losing his job though, but that's not due to piracy and you won't hear him blaming it on piracy.




Sorry for my indiscretion and lack of intense grammar checking but I'm getting tired of all the "Heads stuck up arse" business that people portray on this site from time to time.

 

[M-E-D The Poet]

so if I am poor and couldn't buy the game anyway

If that was the case, than cheap games wouldn't be pirated just as much, and high end games wouldn't be pirated either, because if you can't afford the game, than obviously can't afford the hardware required to run those games.

And I pirate the game, and play it, and enjoy it, and am possibly motivated to save up for the sequel because its such a good IP

That doesn't make sense, why not pirate the sequel as well, and possible save for the third installment. Also the game might not get a sequel, because the first one was pirated.

My Morality is f**ed up

You do know.... that most pirates... actually buy the games they really really want right?

what evidence is there of this, and how does that change anything?

or another fucked up pirate mentality :
Fixing broken games

Pirates are so "Terrible" they dig into a games source from time to time to fix things that the publishers take months to fix

Terrible people yeah, I see

What? from time to time, FROM TIME TO TIME?!

Developer: "DUDE, Y U Pirate my Game!?"

Pirate: "It's cool bro, maybe I'll fix it, like, I roll this dice, and if you get a 6, than I'll consider, maybe, when I got the time, to fix something, or whatever, I do that from time to time".

your answer makes no sense

My argument is invalid because all pirates are terrible people? is that it?

So all black men steal? and all white men are racist idiots?

I mean that's comparable to what you're trying to tell me here

And no sir/madam , Triple A developer does not go : Y U PIRATE MY GAME?

Triple A developer goes : OMG ONLY EARNED ENOUGH MONEY TO BUY AN AUDI, DO WANT FERARRI AND ALSO A LAMBORGHINI, LET'S SEE WHERE I CAN MAKE SOME MONEY,HMMM LET'S RUB DOWN OUR CUSTOMERS BECAUSE THERE'S SOME PEOPLE WHO DIDN'T PAY FOR THEIR FUN AND I WANT THAT DAMN FERRARI
Indie/Small Developer goes : At least people are playing my game and liking it.. I wonder how I could get them to buy it next time, competition is tough with these triple A titles overshadowing me constantly, and I do want to keep on making games that people enjoy
Meanwhile triple A developer goes : MOARRRR MONEYZZZZZ



Thanks for reading, now go read my other post for a more elaborate explanation, I am a bit tired of having to play silly buggers/cannon fodder for people who wont listen anyway and will condemn me for even dare saying grace for a pirate once in a lifetime

 

[M-E-D The Poet]

Also if piracy is putting people out ofhouses and ruining exclusives

Then how come we can still have big Movie productions

Shouldn't everything be "Theater" Only nowadays then?

 

[Sandytimeman]

Hmm. Touche, this is a very well written post, and I suppose I can agree with this, but there's only one thing I take issue with.

but when you evolve your system to be easier to use, safer and more convenient then pirates.

If you drop DRM altogether, how can anything be more convenient and easier than grabbing the same file off a different site without paying for it? Not trying to heckle you here, just trying to see where you're coming from. I get the "safe" angle, as it would be very, very easy to bundle in a keylogger or other malware app within a DRM-free game if posted on another site, but news on the internet spreads fast, and the moment someone posts a clean release (or the scene groups get a release out), then the choice will come down to someone asking themselves the following: "Should I pay $50 for this, or just grab it off MediaFire?"

And that's the question that game companies are terrified of hearing.

Right, but there are some things that make me more likely to take the official say steam client one over the downloaded version. One it gets supported with patches, DLC, Achievements, and ability to easily access multi-player over steams network.

If all I cared about was ramming my way through a story then, yes your argument is very valid and some people will always choose a free product. Just as some people will always steal radios, cell phones, computers...you'll never ever get that number to nil, so I cannot argue away your point developers will lose some sales to people choosing the free version over the pay to play.

I suppose what I was arguing is that if your service offers more, ie using steam as an example here, then it makes yours not only safer (like you mentioned of malware and etc) but the better service, worth paying for with simple achievements, social networks, and easily accessed bug patches and updates.

 

[AhumbleKnight]

Obviously the most well-known games will be pirated, I don't get what point you're trying to make.

That those companies despite being pirated the most also have the highest sales. So despite the Piracy happening if they just make their games awesome they will continue to sell and grow their sales.

I was using blizzard as an example because starcraft is a game I know me and all my friend bought multiple times through the years, and pirated it multiple times. Do to new computers, lost keys and disks, setting up lan rooms etc. Yet, its still one of the best selling RTS's of all time. (ie, the pirated copies didn't stop the company from becoming a powerhouse developer and releasing SC2 a pc exclusive 15 years later)

Piracy can sometimes be a sign of easier convenience, but when you evolve your system to be easier to use, safer and more convenient then pirates. A lot of those "pirates" will become paying customers. For instance using blizzard again, I no longer have to keep buying SC because its now on their battle.net server as a registered copy and I can download it anywhere.

In fact most of the games I have a passing fancy too, I can just click and pick up on steam when I'm bored. No need to drive down to gamestop or walmart. Instead its just point and click and play.

I imagine that the Music industry went through a similar evolution, with piracy and itunes. It's just that developers are too slow to change their methods or business models. They just want to make games harder and harder for paying customers to play, with nil effect on piracy anyway but a detrimental effect on sales.

Hmm. Touche, this is a very well written post, and I suppose I can agree with this, but there's only one thing I take issue with.

but when you evolve your system to be easier to use, safer and more convenient then pirates.

If you drop DRM altogether, how can anything be more convenient and easier than grabbing the same file off a different site without paying for it? Not trying to heckle you here, just trying to see where you're coming from. I get the "safe" angle, as it would be very, very easy to bundle in a keylogger or other malware app within a DRM-free game if posted on another site, but news on the internet spreads fast, and the moment someone posts a clean release (or the scene groups get a release out), then the choice will come down to someone asking themselves the following: "Should I pay $50 for this, or just grab it off MediaFire?"

And that's the question that game companies are terrified of hearing.

I am confused with your post. You say "If you drop DRM altogether, how can anything be more convenient and easier than grabbing the same file off a different site without paying for it?". This is the bit I don't understand. DRM only effects the paying customer. If you drop DRM it will only effect the paying customer. Advocating the removal of DRM as a paying customer means that I am seeing the product with DRM vs the product without DRM. The pirated version will be on MediaFire either way.

 

[LiquidSolstice]

Obviously the most well-known games will be pirated, I don't get what point you're trying to make.

That those companies despite being pirated the most also have the highest sales. So despite the Piracy happening if they just make their games awesome they will continue to sell and grow their sales.

I was using blizzard as an example because starcraft is a game I know me and all my friend bought multiple times through the years, and pirated it multiple times. Do to new computers, lost keys and disks, setting up lan rooms etc. Yet, its still one of the best selling RTS's of all time. (ie, the pirated copies didn't stop the company from becoming a powerhouse developer and releasing SC2 a pc exclusive 15 years later)

Piracy can sometimes be a sign of easier convenience, but when you evolve your system to be easier to use, safer and more convenient then pirates. A lot of those "pirates" will become paying customers. For instance using blizzard again, I no longer have to keep buying SC because its now on their battle.net server as a registered copy and I can download it anywhere.

In fact most of the games I have a passing fancy too, I can just click and pick up on steam when I'm bored. No need to drive down to gamestop or walmart. Instead its just point and click and play.

I imagine that the Music industry went through a similar evolution, with piracy and itunes. It's just that developers are too slow to change their methods or business models. They just want to make games harder and harder for paying customers to play, with nil effect on piracy anyway but a detrimental effect on sales.

Hmm. Touche, this is a very well written post, and I suppose I can agree with this, but there's only one thing I take issue with.

but when you evolve your system to be easier to use, safer and more convenient then pirates.

If you drop DRM altogether, how can anything be more convenient and easier than grabbing the same file off a different site without paying for it? Not trying to heckle you here, just trying to see where you're coming from. I get the "safe" angle, as it would be very, very easy to bundle in a keylogger or other malware app within a DRM-free game if posted on another site, but news on the internet spreads fast, and the moment someone posts a clean release (or the scene groups get a release out), then the choice will come down to someone asking themselves the following: "Should I pay $50 for this, or just grab it off MediaFire?"

And that's the question that game companies are terrified of hearing.

I am confused with your post. You say "If you drop DRM altogether, how can anything be more convenient and easier than grabbing the same file off a different site without paying for it?". This is the bit I don't understand. DRM only effects the paying customer. If you drop DRM it will only effect the paying customer. Advocating the removal of DRM as a paying customer means that I am seeing the product with DRM vs the product without DRM. The pirated version will be on MediaFire either way.

The comparison was between people who might buy the game and people who might pirate it, not the consumer who has DRM right now versus a theoretical consumer that gets a game in the future that doesn't have DRM. Should have clarified that.

 

[LiquidSolstice]

Also if piracy is putting people out ofhouses and ruining exclusives

Then how come we can still have big Movie productions

Shouldn't everything be "Theater" Only nowadays then?

"If we have life-saving drugs that can cure cancer, how come all the people with cancer haven't taken them yet?"

Blanket statements are retarded. Please try not to engage in them. The world isn't separated into businesses and "big movie productions".

 

[LiquidSolstice]

unnecessary raging bullshit snipped

I'm not sure how you connected a lack of trust in a pirate to being racist, but it's pretty obvious which side you stand on.

Newsflash; if you can't trust someone to pay money for something that is supposed to be paid for, trusting them to do anything else beneficial for the game is a logical stretch of the imagination. Assuming otherwise is utterly naive.

 

[LiquidSolstice]

Seems legit,

Or not

I know a lot of people who buy something when it's worth it, if they have the money

Yes, generally when the two criteria of A) something being worth it and B) being affordable are fulfilled, people will purchase something. Good work, detective.

Those people sometimes however do not have so much money to spend, so they try things, then buy, or try things like them and then buy an afterproduct

Yes, because there are LEGITIMATE ways to try something before buying it. Pirating a game is not a legitimate way of "trying before buying". It's a scapegoat excuse used by most pirates to defend their piracy and seems to be the consistent "white-knight" defense from people who claim they want to try it before buying it.

See the thing is, you can't try a lot of things anymore, because nobody seems to care enough to release proper demo's

Boo-fucking-hoo. Cry me a river. And when you're done, maybe you'll realize that's still not justification enough to pirate.

See if it were about boosting sales with being nice to your customer and not trying to screw him over then yes, you might have a point.
Now it's about grabbing money where you can, even if you don't deserve it

It's not your fucking job to decide what's worth money to a developer. If you don't want it, or have a problem with it, you don't buy it/pirate it. You leave it the fuck alone and watch it die. You as a consumer are not entitled to anything. You don't deserve anything especially if you have no intention for paying for it.

Take for example Assassins creed, We had


Assassin's Creed
Assassin's Creed II
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
Assassin's Creed: Revelations
Assassin's Creed: Altaïr's Chronicles
Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines
Assassin's Creed II: Discovery
Assassin's Creed: Project Legacy
Assassin's Creed: Lost Legacy (cancelled apparently)
Assassin's Creed: Multiplayer Rearmed
Anyway the franchise has been around since november 2007, it's now 2012 and the last game was released in november 2011

For those counting that means 1 a year for the main games and lots of portable and Ios ports between those

Anyway maybe I pirated assassins creed 2, I got interested and bought 1 in the bargain bin
Having become a fan I saved up my money for brotherhood,
Short on money I borrowed a copy of one of the DS versions of the game and tried it out
I didn't like it , tough luck for the handheld versions
Then I saw revelations coming and I was overjoyed, I saved up all my money and bought the collectors edition

Oh, well shit, you bought it out of the bargain bin (which probably didn't give a cent to the devs anyway) after pirating. I guess that redeems you. /sarcasm

People do that, you can't just say "All pirates are bad and immoral"

Yes, he can. You were the one who couldn't pony up the $20 it would have taken to have grabbed AC2, you're the immoral guy for being so cheap. Please stop trying to convince yourself otherwise.

That's discriminating, that's the same as saying All black people steal and all white people are racists

No, that's actually the same as someone saying it's fucking immoral to experience something paid without paying for it. It has nothing to do with racism, it's just within your overly scapegoating/pirate apologist mind that you think otherwise. I can't fucking believe you just tried to compare piracy with racism.

Now for a new tough challenging point that this thread is bugging me for

Oh this should be good.

People do not only pirate on the pc, yet I never hear any developer complain about console pirating (Bar microsoft, they shut up about it but they crackdown hard on that)

Oh. So you're not the only one to do it, therefore it's ok. Got it. Also, console piracy, at least on the 360, is much riskier because of how internet-based the games are these days and how easy it is to get banned.

Seeing as piracy is platform wide, actually it's invested in every form of media.

You mean seeing as you just made up a fact with no proof whatsoever, you don't actually know that it's invested in anything.

This is why I argue against this kind of bullshit because either these developers are incredibly adept at satire, or they're greedy moneysucking people

Such a fucking self-entitled attitude, I can't even believe I'm hearing this. People don't like their hard work being taken for granted. Oh no, MONEYSUCKING GREED CORPORATIONS THE MAN OMG OMG OMG.

A final fact : if a game such as crysis or assassins creed, or CoD . is so heavily struck by piracy

A fact! How cheeky of you to call it that.

How come they're such big moneymaking franchises? where is the Gaming crisis, where are all the programmers getting fired .

Newsflash - mainstream games are way more popular than other games, and because of that, their piracy will rise with their popularity. The point is that they could have made a hell of a lot more than they already have if it weren't for the piracy. It doesn't matter if you think they are greedy, they are a business, and maximized profits is their ultimate goal.

The only programmers that get fired are those working for small studios with relative okay fanbases, being overshadowed by triple A titles constantly

Oh no! The evil popular kids are overshadowing the shy meek guys. How sad.

And you know who's complaining about piracy? the triple A developer, the little small dev that's going to be a bum in the morning, you don't hear him ranting about people stealing his game,

Yes, because an indie developer can afford to complain about piracy and indie dev stories ALWAYS reach the mainstream news sites.

he's happy he created some great intellectual property, shite life that he's losing his job though, but that's not due to piracy and you won't hear him blaming it on piracy.

Yes, those inferior indie game devs. How DARE they think they are worth anything more than the dirt stuck to our shoes. They should be scrounging for anything they can possibly find. I like how you casually shrug off the fact that "he's losing his job". I guess that goes to show how disposable you feel game devs are.

Sorry for my indiscretion and lack of intense grammar checking but I'm getting tired of all the "Heads stuck up arse" business that people portray on this site from time to time.

*looks at your entire post again*
*looks at your last few words*

Heads stuck up ass business, huh? Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.

 

[DayDark]

I hate breaking up quotes, so I will just do numbers!

1 Cheap games are pirated a lot along with the big name games, and the second part of your argument is utterly fail. You know how I got my first high end PC and console? They were hand me downs. I had the hardware but few games. You know how my friends get THEIR high end PCs? I give them my hand-me-downs. SO apparently in your world gifts don't exist.

exactly, cheap games are also pirated, which means the poor pirate excuse is void.

You have got to be fucking kidding me, how about getting the games as hand downs then? at least someone bought it.

2 The cheapskates that buy used games use this same defense and help the publishers just as much as pirates.

I don't see how that changes anything.

3 Pirates spend more money on average than others, most likely because the anti-piracy hordes spent so much money on their high horses, I hear they are quite expensive. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2397173,00.asp

No they don't and that is not what the article is saying. the article is saying the money get spent elsewhere, how the fuck is that good? That is still hurting the developer. How is it helping the PC game industry that people are spending the money they were going to spend on PC games, on fucking movies, or music, or going to the cinema, or games for consoles. This also shows that they do have the money, they just don't give a shit.

Also you just said your hardware was gifted, do you call that spending more money?

 

[GoaThief]

Single player doesn't cut it on the PC

And people wonder why developers are moving away from the PC as a viable gaming platform when thinking like this is the norm. Good news if you're an MMO developer I guess... where have I heard this before?

 

[Treblaine]

OK, first you break rule number one of forum debate, now this no-content response? What does this add to the discussion? If you do not give a shit when do not respond just to say you don't give a shit.

Oh, and you telling me I didn't have a shred of credibility is a content post? Or the part where you tell me I don't know what I'm talking about? Get over yourself.

Your characterization of Valve games remains nonsensical and needlessly inflammatory. It is just monumental ignorance to say all the valve games are just swapped textures or a basic-mod of Half Life 2. It's just patently false assertion which is backed by no credibility, you credibility you destroy by a spiteful and wholly unsuitable comparison with the worse scourge of humanity of the 20th century.

Here's an idea; instead of telling me I'm wrong, take all of three seconds and do some fucking research [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_developed_by_Valve]. Jesus, your ego and arrogance are appalling. I don't know why you think you have the nerve to insult me and tell me I'm wrong without doing an ounce of research yourself.

What I've said about Valve, regardless of how I said it, is completely true. If you cannot handle that fact, please refrain from just insulting me.

I didn't JUST say you had no creditability. I also contributed by showing how you are wrong that Valve has no variety in their games.

All you have done now is link to a list of Valve games. That doesn't prove they are all just texture swaps as you asserted. You ARE wrong, and I don't see why I shouldn't say you are wrong and it is NOT insulting to say you are wrong when you are. Insulting would be to call an entire fanbase fascistic... like YOU did.

Have you ever modded a game in your life? I don't think you have any idea how different Left 4 Dead and Portal and Team Fortress 2 are from Half Life 2. They use the same engine, that's it. It's standard practice in this industry to reuse game engines, what is your point?

"What I've said about Valve, regardless of how I said it, is completely true."

You can say the sky is green all you like, that doesn't make it true. You repeatedly stating something patently false about games made by a developer won't change that either.