Piracy, Not Consoles, Killed the PC Exclusive

[Treblaine]

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.

Err, a hacked console can connect to any port with or without microsoft's authorisations, the hardware limitations have been broken open. I mean open a port to a pirate network, not another port INTO Xbox Live.

-Those banned from Xbox Live cannot join with legitimate users on Xbox Live network.
-Those banned from Steam cannot join with legitimate users of Steam network.
-Those banned from Origin cannot join with legitimate users of Origin network.

It's the exact same disincentive on Steam or Xbox Live. And by the way there are ways for banned consoles/players to still get back into Xbox Live, and to a similar extent on the PC networks.

 

[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.

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.

Then to answer your question I only need to point to Steam (not that it is perfect, it is mearly good).
To buy a game on Steam:
1) Search for it.
2) Pay for it.
3) Download it.
4) Play it. (With full patching, dev, and community support)

To pirate a game:
1) Search for it.
2) Download it.
3) Run a virus scan (potentialy go back to step 2)
4) Install it.
5) Find a crack and download it (and virus check it)
6) Crack it
7) Attempt to play it (potentialy go back to step 2/5)

Can you see how things can be made more convienent and easyer? As has been pointed out by many people, people don't pirate because of cost (some probably do but as for how many is anybody's guess(and nothing but a guess)).

Now lets see the process with DRM.
To buy a game:
1) Search for it/drive to shop.
2) Pay for it.
3) Download it/install it.
4) Run it.
5) Verify it (again because you have already done it at least once during install/digital purchase)
6) Play it - IF the DRM lets you. Sure most people don't have any issues most of the time, but a lot of people do have legitimate issues. Of those that do...

7) Uninstall it, go back to step 3.
If still no luck.
8) Google it to see if it is just you and upon finding out it isn't, try and fix it. Or contact customer support and try and get them to help you.
9) Get pissed off and think, 'If I pirated this, then I would be playing the game right now...'
10) After a lot of piss assing about play the game.

I hope that this helps you understand why people who are not pirates get pissed off with DRM. I hope this helps you understand why people who pirate are not going to see paying for a game with DRM as being in any way easyer.

 

[Phoenixlight]

To be honest even when great PC games are made not that many people bother with them like Dawn of War 2.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Message to all bitching developers and publishers:

Stop fucking us over with DRM and people'll stop pirating your games.

Message to all bitching gamers:

Stop taking our shit without paying for it and we'll stop putting in DRM.


I swear people forget this DRM problem goes both ways.

It really, really doesn't. DRM in its current form makes no sense. There has never been DRM that hasn't been cracked and once it is, legitimate customers now have a worse product than pirates. If anything, it increases piracy.

 

[LiquidSolstice]

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?

Yes, but when Activision does it, or when sports games do it, oh shit, all hell is to be rained down upon them, right?

I didn't say there was a point. I said they're all essentially HL or HL2 (which you just agreed with me by saying they use the same engine). It's not "that's it", it's the entire fucking engine. Each of Valve's games feels the exact same, and most play the exact game, just different textures trick you into thinking otherwise.

 

[LiquidSolstice]

Then to answer your question I only need to point to Steam (not that it is perfect, it is mearly good).
To buy a game on Steam:
1) Search for it.
2) Pay for it.
3) Download it.
4) Play it. (With full patching, dev, and community support)

Acceptable. (Although to be annoyingly technical, Steam still is a form of DRM, but you're right, in that instance, it works well)

To pirate a game:
1) Search for it.
2) Download it.
3) Run a virus scan (potentialy go back to step 2)
4) Install it.
5) Find a crack and download it (and virus check it)
6) Crack it
7) Attempt to play it (potentialy go back to step 2/5)

Without admitting anything, if you know where to go, all of 3-7 happen within a minute or two as the release will be clean and will come with a proper NFO file. (I've been around the internet a few times myself )

Can you see how things can be made more convienent and easyer? As has been pointed out by many people, people don't pirate because of cost (some probably do but as for how many is anybody's guess(and nothing but a guess)).

Certainly, I can see how it is easier. But I still am not ready to believe that it "being pointed out by many people" somehow qualifies it as fact that there are even an theoretical higher number of those who do it because of DRM vs those who just want it for free.

Now lets see the process with DRM.
To buy a game:
1) Search for it/drive to shop.
2) Pay for it.
3) Download it/install it.
4) Run it.
5) Verify it (again because you have already done it at least once during install/digital purchase)
6) Play it - IF the DRM lets you. Sure most people don't have any issues most of the time, but a lot of people do have legitimate issues. Of those that do...

7) Uninstall it, go back to step 3.
If still no luck.
8) Google it to see if it is just you and upon finding out it isn't, try and fix it. Or contact customer support and try and get them to help you.
9) Get pissed off and think, 'If I pirated this, then I would be playing the game right now...'
10) After a lot of piss assing about play the game.

All due respect, that's a pretty skewed view of DRM-based games. Not saying that it doesn't happen, but I don't believe it happens as frequently as it's made a fuss about. The popular games that are filled with DRM aren't just best-sellers because they're popular. I'm willing to bet a ton of money that DRM works just fine with most people, and that only an adamant minority of gamers take issue with it.

I hope that this helps you understand why people who are not pirates get pissed off with DRM.

I was very much aware that PC gamers are angry about DRM, I never claimed to have not understood that.

I hope this helps you understand why people who pirate are not going to see paying for a game with DRM as being in any way easyer.

I never said this, I actually said the opposite; people who pirate now will simply see their piracy as a hell of a lot easier if there was NO DRM at all.

 

[LiquidSolstice]

And by the way there are ways for banned consoles/players to still get back into Xbox Live, and to a similar extent on the PC networks.

Individual accounts cannot get back onto live. Consoles can (but last I checked it involves the messy business of screwing over another legitimate 360 console). Consoles are not banned by MAC addresses or IPs.

 

[LiquidSolstice]

Message to all bitching developers and publishers:

Stop fucking us over with DRM and people'll stop pirating your games.

Message to all bitching gamers:

Stop taking our shit without paying for it and we'll stop putting in DRM.


I swear people forget this DRM problem goes both ways.

It really, really doesn't. DRM in its current form makes no sense. There has never been DRM that hasn't been cracked and once it is, legitimate customers now have a worse product than pirates. If anything, it increases piracy.

I don't understand why everyone is under the impression that pirated releases operate seamlessly and flawlessly and that the original DRM game is buggy, and glitchy, and "worse"...

 

[LiquidSolstice]

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

...no, at least in the used game defense someone has actually paid for at least one copy at some point down the line. Piracy is this on a much higher exponential scale.

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

Oh shit, the Swiss government said something and now it's become fact. Mind. Blown. Have you asked every single pirate in the world how much they spend on stuff? I'm just curious why you think anyone should believe in a pirate's "good intentions" if they didn't have the good intentions to buy the game in the first place.

That's like consistently saying your dog ate your homework and then getting upset when the teacher doesn't believe that you left your big project at home the day it was due.

 

[deadish]

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.

I didn't bother to read the whole thread either.

I agree with you though. I come to believe the ease of pirating DOES affect the profitability of the game.

Lets be realistic here, there are a lot of people with "flexible" morals. If it's easy to pirate, there is a good chance they will do just that instead of buying it - which is "harder" as you got to pay.

I'm no saint myself, pirated quite a lot of things in my life, but I'm not going to delude myself into rationalizing it as "not a problem".

I suppose a good way forward would be to :
a) make things harder to pirate - but for heaven sakes, watch it with the DRM; DRM that fucks up people's computer or destroy the game experience is a "no-no".
b) make it as easy as possible for people to buy your game
c) build people's confidence in your product - when they buy it they should feel confident that they are going to have fun and get their money's worth; this is where marketing, demos and actually delivering what you promise, comes it.

If after doing all the above and some guy still pirates your product ... well tough luck. The guy was just not meant to be your customer - if he is willing to jump through all the loops instead of just paying for it, he is probably broke; maybe consider lowing your prices.

 

[Treblaine]

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?

Yes, but when Activision does it, or when sports games do it, oh shit, all hell is to be rained down upon them, right?

I didn't say there was a point. I said they're all essentially HL or HL2 (which you just agreed with me by saying they use the same engine). It's not "that's it", it's the entire fucking engine. Each of Valve's games feels the exact same, and most play the exact game, just different textures trick you into thinking otherwise.

Now Madden series may BLATANTLY just chsnge stats and textures... BUT VALVE DOES NOT! HL2 Episodes are similar but they are sold as stand alone expansions at a lower price.


"you just agreed with me by saying they use the same engine"

Absolutely NOTHING of the sort, you seem to be critically ignorant on what a Game Engine actually is, it does not include any of the assets, designs, sounds, animations. Game engine is just the bare bones code on which to build the ACTUAL GAME on. You cannot honestly expect every new game to have a brand new engine, that is completely non-viable business strategy. Engines are VERY expensive to develop, they take years of research into optimising code for rendering, animation, lighting, etc. If you think having the source engine there is absolutely NO GAME there. Just the building materials.

Please give me an example of games that use the same engine that you don't consider mere mods but as truly distinct games.

"Each of Valve's games feels the exact same, and most play the exact game"

Really, how the hell does Team Fortress 2 play like Half Life 2? In ways that REALLY matter, not conventions of key layout.

"Feels the same" doesn't mean anything, Team Fortress 2 is so hugely different from Half Life 2, as is Left 4 Dead and Portal in design, assets, playstyle and stucture. They are COMPLETELY DIFFERENT GAMES from Half Life 2!

 

[Treblaine]

And by the way there are ways for banned consoles/players to still get back into Xbox Live, and to a similar extent on the PC networks.

Individual accounts cannot get back onto live. Consoles can (but last I checked it involves the messy business of screwing over another legitimate 360 console). Consoles are not banned by MAC addresses or IPs.

Yeah, this fits with my point that network-based anti-piracy are equal on console and PC: it is severe and both have various ways around it.

So for multiplayer focused games, piracy is not a major factor "losing sales" on ether console or PC.

 

[Treblaine]

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,
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.

I'm sorry, I don't see how a game can be worth anyone's time and effort but not even the couple dollars of a steam/GoG sale.

As to the try-before-you-buy, could you give evidence that games that have either a fully-featured demo or an open beta have significantly lower rates of piracy.

I see evidence to the contrary, Crysis 1 had a demo and the developers found the piracy exceptionally high. While I think some people do pirate for demos, the prevalence of piracy even when a demo/beta/free-weekend is available suggest they do not make up a significant proportion of piracy.

And please, do NOT bring morality into this, I'm not a priest (not that they are paragons of morality, but they do like to moralise), I'm looking at the practicality of the relationship between consumer and developer that they all get what they are seeking with suitable recompense. Ensuring that developers get enough money to make more games or otherwise further content.

While it is true that piracy can be a low-risk introduction to a series so that you can more comfortably invest in the rest of the series, that is entirely dependent on them buying the next game in the series rather than continuing on the path they have already gone. And they are discouraged from going legitimate from all the DRM that comes with legitimate copies, Ubisoft being particularly bad.

I think the industry (and consumers are part of this) should take more sustainable approaches to try-before-you-buy, like:
-free weekends
-extensive open beta (including minecraft low-paid access beta)
-Demo version (and really push them in the right places)
-Guest passes

Piracy may be a very comprehensive trial version with no financial risk, but the temptation must be there to just do the same pirating the sequels.

Demo versions should really be pushed and also WHERE they should be pushed, like place them on torrent sites and guarantee high seeds for a rapid download. I know it's competing with a pirate version that might be right next to it in the search results but they have to be right there as the legitimate option, smart move would be have the demo saves be transferable and when completing the demo you are given a discount code for the legitimate copy... and a direct link.

And for low risk introduction to a series, why not buy an earlier version of the series. Like I saw Call of Duty 4 going for only £10 in a steam sale. That is not a lot of money for a game that is so highly acclaimed. Come on, lets be responsible adults, we have to be prepared to spend a BIT of money for all we are being given!

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

Well, COD and other games are big money spinners because they are heavily online focused and on both console and PC it has been ineffective to pirate as you are so easily locked out from the rest of the community. Also, it's discouraging to admit but most of the money has been made on consoles for various reasons.

And is the very subject of this thread not how the Titan Quest developers went bankrupt?

These smaller devs don't want money just to blow on hookers and gold-plated yachts, they want money so they can make bigger games. They want to make the grand huge titles without being either unable to pay their rent or the bank hounding them to pay off their debts. These small companies want money so they can reinvest, not for personal greed. They want to be able to take a few years out needed to make a whole new game engine, like Valve had the luxury to do.

One also must realise that rightly or wrongly the industry, bank managers and developers see piracy as (if not one lost sale pers dowlad) definitely a huge indication of lost sales. So when the debtors come knocking and want to know why they can't pay their debts and they see the number of unpaid downloads vs legitimate it doesn't look good.

That is why I do not pirate ANY games. I wait for demos, free weekends, sales or whatever. Because I know how if they don't sell great then PC gaming's openness will be blamed, rightly or wrongly.

 

[Dustin Hampton]

Honestly games fail cause they fail piracy is easy to blame, but its funny mw3 was made for pc and sold 14million more copys than previous version. Soley cause it came out on pc too instead of being console exclusive.

Titan quest was outdated and gay yes it was as and no better than diablo 2 which was over a decade old at point of release. Where it had better graphics, function or flow was worse.

Honestly dont want pirates include a multiplayer and single player component and make game not suck.

While there will be underground servers multiplayer is hard to pirate plus if you make multiplayer you at best going to get couple 100 players for multiplayer pirated version ect making game crap.

People are pissed about piracy we cant live off this feeble amount since piracy has gone rampant. Gamers and people who buy games have increased buy nearly 400% and average gamer budget has gone up nearly 250%.

Oh no your only making 1000% of what you would have 10 years ago I am so sorry for you guys. I mean inflations a ***** and all but its not that bad.

 

[LiquidSolstice]

So... its ok to screw over the developers and publishers by a lesser amount by paying gamestop 55 dollars instead of 60 for a new game, while pirates do the same thing without giving gamestop 55 dollars to continue their exploitation? Righto then.

Do you know how gamestop originally obtained the game? Or if it didn't come from gamestop, where it was first obtained to be sold? Hint: It involves someone down the line paying for it. A used game may get sold and resold realistically 5 or 6 times at most. A pirated game? Bought once, pirated at least 10 times that, if not more (and it's usually more).

And I have talked to a number of pirates who I know for a fact spend a good deal of money on games movies and music (mainly because I know them in meatspace and on steam)

Oh damn. You've talked to a "number of pirates". I'm sure that's an adequate sample. Have you ever looked up the meaning of "anecdote"? It applies to you here.

But yes, I am more likely to believe a government study on the matter more than one man who released two crappy games and blamed his own short comings on piracy (kind of like your example! His work couldn't measure up so he blamed it all on his dog eating it when he flunked so his parents would blame the dog and not him!)

No, that's just baseless fucking bullshit spun up by people like you who are looking for another reason (that seems to always come down to "his game wasn't selling lololol" ) because you don't want to believe his. You don't know that his work couldn't measure up, you just want to think so otherwise the entire platform you're standing so tall on would crumble.

 

[LiquidSolstice]

Honestly games fail cause they fail piracy is easy to blame, but its funny mw3 was made for pc and sold 14million more copys than previous version. Soley cause it came out on pc too instead of being console exclusive.

Titan quest was outdated and gay yes it was as and no better than diablo 2 which was over a decade old at point of release. Where it had better graphics, function or flow was worse.

Honestly dont want pirates include a multiplayer and single player component and make game not suck.

While there will be underground servers multiplayer is hard to pirate plus if you make multiplayer you at best going to get couple 100 players for multiplayer pirated version ect making game crap.

People are pissed about piracy we cant live off this feeble amount since piracy has gone rampant. Gamers and people who buy games have increased buy nearly 400% and average gamer budget has gone up nearly 250%.

Oh no your only making 1000% of what you would have 10 years ago I am so sorry for you guys. I mean inflations a ***** and all but its not that bad.

Ah, the usual "oh, they're making plenty of money anyway" bullshit. Because that's how a business is run, right? "We're doing alright, no need to try and do better".

 

[LiquidSolstice]

Now Madden series may BLATANTLY just chsnge stats and textures... BUT VALVE DOES NOT! HL2 Episodes are similar but they are sold as stand alone expansions at a lower price.

So, Valve doesn't, but it does, but it's ok because they're standalone and sold at a lower price? Want to make up your mind, bud?

Absolutely NOTHING of the sort, you seem to be critically ignorant on what a Game Engine actually is, it does not include any of the assets, designs, sounds, animations. Game engine is just the bare bones code on which to build the ACTUAL GAME on. You cannot honestly expect every new game to have a brand new engine, that is completely non-viable business strategy. Engines are VERY expensive to develop, they take years of research into optimising code for rendering, animation, lighting, etc. If you think having the source engine there is absolutely NO GAME there. Just the building materials.

Right, because the same candy covered in caramel instead of chocolate and wrapped in a different colored foil is obviously an incredibly different candy. I don't expect EVERY game to have a new engine, I expect that for once, they'd make a new engine instead of building upon their older games. *gasp* CoD LOGIC APPLIED TO VALVE. (head explodes)

And again, if Activision does it, it's bad, but if Valve does it, it's ok. Alright, got it.

Please give me an example of games that use the same engine that you don't consider mere mods but as truly distinct games.

Every single FPS they make.

Really, how the hell does Team Fortress 2 play like Half Life 2? In ways that REALLY matter, not conventions of key layout.

They play the exact same way. Almost same UI, slightly different guns, exact same controls, etc etc. In the same way that every CoD game I've played feels the same, and every Forza game I play feels the same, and every BF game I play feels the same way, and hell, every RTS I've played feels the same way, All the Valve First Person games feel the exact same to me.

"Feels the same" doesn't mean anything, Team Fortress 2 is so hugely different from Half Life 2, as is Left 4 Dead and Portal in design, assets, playstyle and stucture. They are COMPLETELY DIFFERENT GAMES from Half Life 2!

No, they're not. They have different textures and only slightly different objectives (with Portal being the only unique game). You can rant about this all day (it's obvious you won't hear anything against them, which is fine, most PC gamers love to criticize the "same-y-ness of mainstream shooters but feel mortally offended when anyone remarks anything slightly negative about Valve).