Obvious cat is obvious? Really, I thought that most people would have realized piracy is the reason there are so few PC exclusives. It's kinda obvious.
Piracy, Not Consoles, Killed the PC Exclusive
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
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The dumb thing is the PC does not have 'exclusives'. Just games other platforms of the time could not handle. So now consoles are in the same ball park as PC's as far a processing, exclusives were always going to decrease. Piracy or not PC games sales are always generally going to be less than consoles sales, so people go to the bigger market. You can see this when you notice that most games now are designed for consoles and then ported to the PC after the fact.
The funny thing is that even when a developer, like Crytek, specifically says piracy drove them to consoles, people accuse them of "making excuses". In other words, lying. Despite the fact that Crysis was pirated at a rate of 15-1, pirated to legit. That couldn't have anything to do with the decision.spartan231490 said:
Incorrect. If it's not on another console, and it's not planned to be on another console, then it's an exclusive. Once they decide to put it on another platform, it's not exclusive anymore.ph0b0s123 said:
But piracy is a factor, in that it makes the sales even lower. Or at the very least, is more of a problem.
Not a very objective opinion you have there. I mean, "the reason, obviously, is the rise of the console". You're of course entitled to your opinion, but when posting News... its best to leave YOUR personal opinion out of it. At least in my opinion... maybe you could provide some proof? Some reason why you believe this? I mean, its not brain surgery... so it shouldn't be hard to prove.Andy Chalk said:Piracy, Not Consoles, Killed the PC Exclusive
The lead designer of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning says it's piracy, not the dominance of consoles, that makes big-budget PC exclusives impossible today.
Big-budget PC exclusives are pretty much unheard of in this day and age. They do happen but they tend to be either indie affairs, low-budget niche products or Ukrainian. The reason, obviously, is the rise of the console, which drove gaming from the computer desk to the far more consumer-friendly confines of the living room. PCs are expensive and complicated, consoles are cheap and easy - it's not exactly brain surgery.
But according to Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Lead Designer Ian Frazier, nailing the lucrative console market isn't necessarily the biggest impediment to major PC exclusives. "No, probably not. A game this big is very expensive, to be blunt about it," he told IncGamers [http://www.incgamers.com/News/30386/reckoning-dev-rampant-piracy-makes-big-budget-pc-exclusives-unlikely] when asked whether a game like Kingdoms of Amalur could make it on the PC alone. "The PC, with piracy being as rampant as it is, is really hard to make money from. My first game was Titan Quest, a hack 'n' slash RPG, which was PC only, but the amount that it was pirated was the difference between us staying in business and going out of business."
Frazier was a designer on marred by pre-release piracy [http://www.amazon.com/Titan-Quest-Gold-Immortal-Throne-Pc/dp/B000WCCURW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1328231129&sr=8-1], specifically an undocumented security check that dumped players out of illegal copies of the game. That led to some very negative word-of-mouth about its buggy, unfinished state prior to launch, which turned out to be inaccurate but still hampered sales and contributed to the studio's demise.
It's not impossible to do well by focusing on the PC but the bottom line is that the open nature of the system makes the risk of failure, even with a really good game, much higher. "It's really, really hard to be profitable by concentrating only on PC," he said. "Unless you're an MMO."
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning [http://www.amazon.com/Kingdoms-Amalur-Reckoning-Xbox-360/dp/B0044SA70M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1328231241&sr=8-1] comes out on February 7 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.
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That's why you keep opinions out of news posts.
However, I agree partially. Consoles are a factor into it. But they are not the only one, and piracy is also a factor.
In my personal opinion, the greatest factor in consoles>pcs for gaming, is that they are easier to design for, there is much less stress and worry what with all the different PC setups, graphics cards, manufacturers... when designing for consoles, because theyre all the SAME configuration. That provides easier work for game makers, and a more enjoyable (less frustrating) experience for players.
PC users cannot deny that blue screens of death, freezing, crashing, glitches, bugs and all kinds of tedious problems plague their gaming. Its a fact that consoles are almost free of these issues, at least when put under the microscope and compared to a PC experience over a long period of time.
Anyone ever bought a computer specifically for gaming, only to find out that it has major issues with CERTAIN games that you bought it for? HAYOO! *raises hand*. That's not fun, and the larger price tags and necessary technical know how required, make this.. "not brain surgery" and "obviously" a part of the problem.
That's interesting as it allows us to do some maths. Witcher 2 was 'estimated' by the dev to have been pirated 4.5 million times. The dev said Witcher 2 had had 1 million legitimate sales at that point.direkiller said:
1/20 th of 4.5 million is about 200000 extra sales that could have happened is if piracy was stopped. So an increase in sales of 20%.
The thing is Witcher 2 did not have any DRM, so the question becomes how much would have the DRM cost them to implemented in licensing, development and testing? It could have cost as much money as those 200000 sales to implement, which would have stopped the piracy but meant the company still made the same amount of profit.
In regards to PC exclusives being killed and whatnot, Not sure if this is acceptable and normally I wouldn't do this but this image helps explain the situation.
But ya, I feel this image shows that we shouldn't be worried about games on PC for a while.
But ya, I feel this image shows that we shouldn't be worried about games on PC for a while.
It's easier for them to believe a convenient lie than the truth because the truth would make them responsible. Would make them have to accept the fact that there are consequences to piracy, and to letting your friends pirate without reproach. We are all of us culpable in this because we have created an atmosphere where it's ok to pirate because pirating can't possibly affect the developers or the industry. Pirating can't possibly cost them sales. It's easier to be willfully ignorant than it is to be an adult, that's why you meet so few of the latter nowadays.JonnWood said:
Once again pc gets the blame for piracy...yet i'm fairly sure it's always the console version which gets leaked first, yer if it's preloaded on steam then they can get there hands on the majority of it early but they still can't do anything with it. This is all i have to say, i'm fed up with pc getting the blame and trying to defend it.
whether this is out of context or not I think piracy occurs sometimes because pc games only come out weeks or months after their console counterpart.
It's simple, the PC version is way easier to pirate, you don't need to modify your system to run pirated software therefore the PC version will always be the one to get pirated the most. xbox vesrion of kingdoms of amalur was already leaked yesterday, but once PC version gets out it will beat the xbox version in downloads pretty fast. I'm a PC gamer myself, but these are the facts, our games are way too easy to download and play illegaly and no DRM can do anything about it, it can only delay it a few days at best. I'm eager to see what happens with diablos always online DRM, i'll laugh my ass off if it gets cracked easily and legitimate players gets screwed. But if it succeeds then i predict a sad future for PC gaming if other follow blizzards example.devotedsniper said:
But but...HOW WILL I GET DEAD OR ALIVE 5?!KrossBillNye said:In regards to PC exclusives being killed and whatnot, Not sure if this is acceptable and normally I wouldn't do this but this image helps explain the situation.
But ya, I feel this image shows that we shouldn't be worried about games on PC for a while.
Another butthurt dev saying "piracy is the reason my game doesn't sell" and, in doing so, pushing draconian legislature like SOPA? Whelp, that's ONE game I won't be investing in. Good job, Dev, in making me completely boycott your games library just because you were butthurt over piracy once.
I'd be more OK with this whining if it didn't come right on the coattails of the SOPA/ACTA/PIPA triforce of censorship. *sigh* It's devs like that that make me just want to never pay for anything ever again, just to give them the obscene hand gesture of your country's choice.
I'd be more OK with this whining if it didn't come right on the coattails of the SOPA/ACTA/PIPA triforce of censorship. *sigh* It's devs like that that make me just want to never pay for anything ever again, just to give them the obscene hand gesture of your country's choice.
In the case of Titan Quest, it's a good (great!) game that didn't sell. Why? 'cause they tried the same trick as Arkham Asylum - breaking the game for pirates - which made the prerelease pirates (as I recall, the game leaked through manufacturing) post "bug" complaints, which built up such a critical mass as to be mentioned in reviews... Game comes out, no legitimate customers are affected (iirc the "crash" only happened if you circumvented the basic security), but it was too late to save the game. ILE died, we never got a Titan Quest 2, and all the pirates and legitimate consumers alike suffered for it.Sylveria said:
On the other hand, ILE has reformed as Crate Entertainment and are trying again. Please support them this time, Internet!
Can anyone guess how many PC games I have not bought because of DRM? Or online activation? Or permanent online crap even when playing offline? Or that I have to install another program that does devil knows what on my PC?
A metric shitton.
I have not played some of my favorite game-series for sometimes several incarnations and I really really want to play the new ones. But I remain strong and do not support this crap.
But yes, go on about piracy. If people want to pirate your games, they will. If you then want to punish the ones who bought your game, go right ahead. You will lose sales for sure which is of course due to piracy, right?
Back to the consoles and old PC games for me.
A metric shitton.
I have not played some of my favorite game-series for sometimes several incarnations and I really really want to play the new ones. But I remain strong and do not support this crap.
But yes, go on about piracy. If people want to pirate your games, they will. If you then want to punish the ones who bought your game, go right ahead. You will lose sales for sure which is of course due to piracy, right?
Back to the consoles and old PC games for me.
What kind of logic is that?!?JonnWood said:
Correlation =/= causation
All Ian Frazier described was "the amount that it was pirated was the difference between us staying in business and going out of business"
That doesn't "specifically describe" anything and it doesn't mean without piracy it would have been a huge success as that assumes with no piracy there would have been all the sales they needed, especially how it fails to factor for how steps to eliminate piracy might have actually reduced the sales they did have, i.e. unpleasant DRM or a console-only release missing target audience or lack of publicity.
There are a lot of people who have no money but a lot of time, they spend it downloading games compulsivity - they're free, just download anything - and possibly try them. They aren't going to buy anything, even if they had the money they're too lazy to go down the shops.
Look at a piracy-free example: 3D Dot Game Heroes. Released on PS3 back when piracy was all but impossible (still impractical today), it like Titan Quest people might say it was somewhat derivative of a fantasy game that came before it though it was in fact quite good on its own, though not a great score. Yet it sold only 430k, which for a third-party boxed game, that's very bad.
No piracy.
Good game.
Failure.
And there are a dozen other examples of obscure Console-exclusive titles with absolutely no influence of piracy that still fail miserably, very similarly to PC exclusive titles. Even relatively big titles like Enslaved. The only reason they don't blame piracy here is because they can't.
You know what hurts games sales are things like obstructive DRM, unfocused development and delayed PC releases or no PC-releases at all!
The problem with piracy is the "cure" is worse than the disease. And it doesn't cure anything, people will buy good games if enough people know they are good. I am addicted to buying in steam sales, and I know I'm not alone in being more lured by "-40%" than "free". And of course that's not to say about the free-to-play model.
I am against piracy but mainly I am against over-reaction to piracy.
The music industry didn't lick piracy by releasing their songs only on Vinyl. The movie industry can't beat piracy by only ever giving their films cinema releases. Video gaming can't beat piracy by releasing games only on console, especially after it's been shown how Steam and GoG, the itunes of gaming, can change everything.