Piracy, Not Consoles, Killed the PC Exclusive

[w00tage]

(New here, but just had to reply to this)

Huh? I thought that with all the studies showing at the very least that the impact of piracy cannot be measured, that this kind of rhetoric was dead. I have the impression of reading something published 5 years ago.

Anyways similarly to Baresark, I pirated Titan Quest when it came out in the period where I bought one game a year and pirated all the rest, and didn't even play it to the end because it got too repetitive. Yet a while ago I purchased it on Steam, where by now I've purchased about every game that I pirated in the past, having finally some money to do it.

If I had ignored every game that I couldn't purchase back then, I wouldn't have had the slightest interest in purchasing them now... I would've gone directly with Torchlight or a similar game instead.

I think my 380+ games on Steam are a pretty good testimony that pirates often end up the biggest fans/customers. Not to mention that most software devs I know have become fans of games by pirating the shit out of everything they could get their hands on, and that's how they decided they wanted to study software engineering and go into games development. So piracy creates devs with a wide game culture for you as well dude! Stop complaining!

I have yet to figure out why game companies do not just go directly to pirate sites and engage them as distributors. Set up the game so it's substantially playable but with a paid unlock system, set up the pirates with a cut of the profits from the unlocks, and everyone is now a happy part of the production / distribution process.

 

[ph0b0s123]

The dumb thing is the PC does not have 'exclusives'. Just games other platforms of the time could not handle.

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.

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.

But piracy is a factor, in that it makes the sales even lower. Or at the very least, is more of a problem.

No exclusives are games that Sony or Microsoft don't allow on any other platform but theirs. All PC games have the potential to be ported to other platforms, they just don't becuase consoles of the time cannot handle the game or the control method required, eg RTS's. Exclusives are a console only phenomenon.

The fear of piracy is a factor as no-one has been able to give a concrete idea of how much damage it actually does. What is fact is the difference in sales on PC for multiformat games vs console sales for the same title.

 

[ph0b0s123]

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.

A good pc is actually many times more powerful than a console. That power wont get you much since we haven't had a game that chews up rigs and spits them out like Crysis since then though. Since most games are made for consoles, all that extra power goes mostly unused.

But the gap is not as big as it was in the PS2 days, when completely different versions of the same game were made for the console market verses the PC market. That's when games unique to the PC were more prevalent.

 

[Treblaine]

Pc gaming is on its last breath...

...

What incentive do developers have to create pc exclusives? None!

Wow, people can really make any baseless statement and get away with it without citing any sources.

http://www.1up.com/news/valve-more-profitable-google-apple-per-employee

Yeah, Valve is that profitable per employee from Steam. For PC gaming.

EA launches Origin, for PC gaming.

EA invests hundreds of millions (half a billion possibly) in The Old Republic. A PC exclusive.

PC has more exclusives than all the other home platforms combined. For both the past year and coming year.

PC hardware is now 10 times more powerful than PS3 or 360, it is easily a whole generation ahead in processing power. PC exclusive development allows their product to stand out amongst all others by its incredible graphical fidelity. It's the future.

PC is home to far more flexible business opportunities able to sell games at a whole continuum of prices, not just $60 or $15. Even Free-to-play is a viable and successful business model on PC.

So, do you still think PC gaming is on it's "last breath"?

 

[omicron1]

Poor Titan Quest...

Thanks PC gaming pirates... thanks for fucking that up.

I also find the last line interesting : "It's really, really hard to be profitable by concentrating only on PC," he said. "Unless you're an MMO."

Wasn't the idea of Kingdoms of Amawhatever supposed to be the intro for their MMO game?

Yeah, darn pirates, they ruin all the PC games, except for all those hugely successful ones.

Oh, hey, crazy thought, but maybe, just maybe, good games sell and bad games don't?

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.

On the other hand, ILE has reformed as Crate Entertainment and are trying again. Please support them this time, Internet!

I think it's more likely Titan's Quest didn't sell because it was a boring looking Diablo clone, who's demo proved that it was nothing new and nothing worth getting excited about.

And if the pre-release DRM hurt it so much, why did the same thing not happen to Arkham Asylum, or any of the other games that have done similar strategies? There aren't many of them, but enough to make that argument seem a little flimsy.

Your personal opinions on its quality matter little, if at all. Titan Quest routinely comes up in conversation in the same context as Torchlight - as a worthy Diablo alternative. Its metacritic score, likewise, is quite good, even with the aforementioned perception (GameSpot even acknowledged the bug reports as reasons for a lower score).
I believe the difference in outcome is a combination of relative hype levels and the way the story broke. While Titan Quest's security features were revealed weeks after the fact (I believe this story broke very soon after release, whereas piracy had been spreading its version for some time already), Arkham Asylum's features were revealed almost immediately as piracy countermeasures, and that's the story that was carried forwards. Same with Take On Helicopters and Serious Sam 3.
I don't really blame the publisher/developer for this, though - if they had shown their hand Pre-launch, it would have been circumvented by the time it became useful. The real problem was the leak, which gave less scrupulous folks time to sully the gamer's public perception.

 

[Treblaine]

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.

A good pc is actually many times more powerful than a console. That power wont get you much since we haven't had a game that chews up rigs and spits them out like Crysis since then though. Since most games are made for consoles, all that extra power goes mostly unused.

But the gap is not as big as it was in the PS2 days, when completely different versions of the same game were made for the console market verses the PC market. That's when games unique to the PC were more prevalent.

I have to interject here, the gap is BIGGER THAN EVER. John Carmack has gone on the record that PC gaming is capable of 10x processing load of any of the consoles (even PS3).

PS3 has 256MB of system memory. A typical PC today has 4 GIGAbytes of System memory that is much faster, that is 16x the capacity. And it's pretty common to find PCs with 8GB of system memory. 360's PowerPC based CPU is small potatoes compared to Intels beasts and AMD's crazy octo-core processors.

Completely different games ARE made, Battlefield 3 is a whole different beast on PC than on console. PC gets extra physics, DX11 graphics and physics plus extra model detail. I remember back in the day, Turok 2 and Quake 3 were the same games on Console and PC but just with differing levels of detail.

GTA Vice City and San Andreas had the exact same content between PS2 and PC.

 

[Alterego-X]

I doubt that he is right, based on how various PC-centic genres went out of mainstream gaming along with PC gaming itself. Turn-based strategies, adventure games, etc, all started to go low-profile at the same time as the system. If only the system itself was failing, than these could have taken refuge at consoles.

Sure, it would have been difficult to invent new controls for them, but they also said that about FPSes, and they still managed to turn into a console genre. Or even just add mouse and keyboard periherals to consoles. Or release a whole console with a PC-like design, but as a protected closed platform. If there would really be an audience of several millions demanding these kind of games, they would have figured it out. But there wasn't.

PC gaming's mainstream status wasn't lost on a technicality, but on a major paradigm shift from games-as-software, to games-as-media. From the desk chair, to the couch. From installing programs, to playing a DVD. From slow, precise, calculating gameplay, to rushing action-based gameplay.

The mainstream audience simply lost interest in the basic gameplay format that the PC represented.

 

[CrystalShadow]

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.

Does anyone not spot the irony of this statement? Sure, you can blame it on piracy... Because obviously the people that complained about this pirated it...

But the people that listened to the complaints weren't nessesarily pirates. And... What was the source of the problem? DRM.

So... DRM + Piracy = Reputation for having a buggy game...

Which leads people not to buy your product. Makes me wonder if people really consider everything that contributes to their own downfall, or just the parts that they can blame on others.

 

[geizr]

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.

I'm going to say something heretical, even to my own past statements: it sounds to me like it was the bad vibe generated by the anti-piracy measure that caused people to not want to buy the game.

 

[Dogstile]

If you are just trying to excuse the fact that the OP had to buy a new setup, and is entitled to free shit, then I guess you are in the camp that if I bought a record 20 years ago, I deserve a new tape, a CD and a Digital copy every time I clean out my room. THAT's the part that pisses me off. Just because you decide to change your setup, doesn't mean you are entitled to free shit.

Just because you buy something once, doesn't give you the right to receive new copies of them every time you break them, lose them, grow out of them, or replace the other things around you.

...are you serious? What you described are different copies, cassettes, CDs etc. He's talking about the SAME COPY OF THE GAME. He needs to reactivate THE SAME GAME HE BOUGHT, every time some hardware changes. He already bought the game, changing the hardware should have no effect on it.

So let's say for example your MP3 player breaks and you get a new one. Should your MP3's play? They should, nothing has changed but the hardware that plays them. By what you're describing, you should have to re-buy a game every time your Xbox breaks and you get a new one.

Again... Just because you buy something once, doesn't give you the right to receive new copies of them every time you break them, lose them, grow out of them, or replace the other things around you.

Same if you loose them, give them away, switch OS, replace the components that had bought the original merchandise to use. ect ect

If my xbox broke, I would still have the disks that I bought that have games on them.

If I dropped my hardrive into a vat of boiling water, batteries, and magnets... yes, I am shit out of luck.

So its perfectly ok for their DRM to intentionally fuck you over install limit wise, when other publishers seem perfectly ok to install DRM that doesn't limit you how many times you play?

The people who play games don't want a new copy every time their pc has a change in hardware (I mean christ, mines had to have two failing parts changed in the last month) They just want the copies they buy to not be intentionally sabotaged by the very company selling the product.

 

[MrTub]

Pc gaming is on its last breath...

...

What incentive do developers have to create pc exclusives? None!

Wow, people can really make any baseless statement and get away with it without citing any sources.

http://www.1up.com/news/valve-more-profitable-google-apple-per-employee

Yeah, Valve is that profitable per employee from Steam. For PC gaming.

EA launches Origin, for PC gaming.

EA invests hundreds of millions (half a billion possibly) in The Old Republic. A PC exclusive.

PC has more exclusives than all the other home platforms combined. For both the past year and coming year.

PC hardware is now 10 times more powerful than PS3 or 360, it is easily a whole generation ahead in processing power. PC exclusive development allows their product to stand out amongst all others by its incredible graphical fidelity. It's the future.

PC is home to far more flexible business opportunities able to sell games at a whole continuum of prices, not just $60 or $15. Even Free-to-play is a viable and successful business model on PC.

So, do you still think PC gaming is on it's "last breath"?

I do, lets taalk valve, whens the last time valve made a pc exclusive? Whens the last time PC cabability was pushed to its limit? Crysis maybe? 6 years ago?

How many triple A pc exclusives are there is the important question. Im sure your answer will be different.

I'm pretty sure that BF3 is pushing it to the limit since you need two 580 to play with ultra settings at 1920x1080 at 60fps.

And good luck trying to play bf3 with resolution over 1920x1080 at ultra settings.

 

[MrTub]

I'm pretty sure that BF3 is pushing it to the limit since you need two 580 to play with ultra settings at 1920x1080 at 60fps.

And yet the visuals dont really stand out, to me anyway. Just because it requires more computing power doesnt mean it has better visuals.

That wasnt the point really. You asked for a game that is pushing the computers to its limit.
And pretty much all modern games are doing that if you are just willing to play at settings higher then 1920x1080.

 

[Treblaine]

I see a lot of people saying the same thing about Andy Chalk's opinion on PC gaming's apparent fall from grace and the supposed causes of that.

And of all the things you can say about it, the last things surely is that he shouldn't have said it. Not least for freedom of speech, but also because PC gaming is quite simply NOT in such a vulnerable position that is cannot bear to have a negative word be said against it.

So, I may disagree with the man, but I'll fight to the death his right to say it.

 

[Inkidu]

You know honestly to me, the idea of a PC exclusive is stupid. Any exclusive really, but when it's tied up with the actual company you can't really get away from that. To the point, an exclusive solely for the PC is freaking moronic. I've played RTSs well on consoles, and I swear to anyone who will listen that I could put Total War games on console easy (despite what fans will say, which amounts to, "No, just no." with no real reason).

The PC is a diverse platform. It isn't beholden to one company alone like Microsoft or Sony, so if a developer can freaking do it, they should release it for any, any platform that they possibly can. Why? It's just smart. It gets the product out there. Exposure helps sales.

 

[MrTub]

I'm pretty sure that BF3 is pushing it to the limit since you need two 580 to play with ultra settings at 1920x1080 at 60fps.

And yet the visuals dont really stand out, to me anyway. Just because it requires more computing power doesnt mean it has better visuals.

That wasnt the point really. You asked for a game that is pushing the computers to its limit.
And pretty much all modern games are doing that if you are just willing to play at settings higher then 1920x1080.

Right, well what Im trying to get at is that having 10 times the computational power doesnt exactly equate to "FUCK ME THIS IS THE BEST LOOKING GAME IVE EVER SOON *JIZZZ" if you know what I mean. I was just using it to counter the argument that processing power somehow counteracts the sad state of pc gaming

I can personally say that I see a huge difference between consoles and my pc, and it might be since that I'm playing at 5760x1080 but for you say that consoles = pc is very very wrong, doesn't matter how you frame it and what do you mean that pc gaming is in a sad state?

 

[Wargamer]

Reasons not to pirate a PC game:

1) It rewards developers by paying them.
2) Less chance of malware and other shit being put onto your comnputer.

Reasons TO pirate a PC game:

1) Some PC developers DEFINITELY put malware on your PC.
2) Pirated copies don't need an internet connection to play OFFLINE SINGLE PLAYER games.
3) Pirates don't treat you like a criminal.
4) Pirates don't charge you £40 for a product worth £4.
5) Pirates don't blame their shitty, unpopular products on developers.

 

[Thoric485]

But there are a lot of PC exclusives. Hell, there are entire PC exclusive genres.

And i find it hilarious that developers constantly ***** about piracy, yet the only example they have of a company that went down due to it is from 6 years ago. The gaming industry went unscathed through the entire recession, when other businesses were dropping left and right, and yet they act like they're fucking starving.

Fun fact: the X360 version of Kingdoms of Amalur is already leaked on torrent sites and cracked, the PC version isn't.

Also:

 

[Ayay]

Joining in with a few other in this thread. As soon as i saw Iron Lore
i went AHA. They screwed up 40k and the Original Titan Quest was
horrible ..after a friend bought me the Expansion thou it was fun.
But then it was to late , and thats on them, But hey he can cry about
pirates if he wants it is his right .On the plus side my choice of
waiting to buy Kingdom until it shows up in a steam sale just became
much easier

 

[Treblaine]

Pc gaming is on its last breath...

...

What incentive do developers have to create pc exclusives? None!

Wow, people can really make any baseless statement and get away with it without citing any sources.

http://www.1up.com/news/valve-more-profitable-google-apple-per-employee

Yeah, Valve is that profitable per employee from Steam. For PC gaming.

EA launches Origin, for PC gaming.

EA invests hundreds of millions (half a billion possibly) in The Old Republic. A PC exclusive.

PC has more exclusives than all the other home platforms combined. For both the past year and coming year.

PC hardware is now 10 times more powerful than PS3 or 360, it is easily a whole generation ahead in processing power. PC exclusive development allows their product to stand out amongst all others by its incredible graphical fidelity. It's the future.

PC is home to far more flexible business opportunities able to sell games at a whole continuum of prices, not just $60 or $15. Even Free-to-play is a viable and successful business model on PC.

So, do you still think PC gaming is on it's "last breath"?

I do, lets taalk valve, whens the last time valve made a pc exclusive? Whens the last time PC cabability was pushed to its limit? Crysis maybe? 6 years ago?

How many triple A pc exclusives are there is the important question. Im sure your answer will be different.

You have to actually ask about Valve's PC exclusive? Dota 2, last month. Also Alien Swarm. Team Fortress 2, not just to move to free-to-play but ALL the extra content being PC exclusive.

Do you have ANY clue what you are talking about? How do you form such breathless opinions about what you clearly know so little about.

PC was last pushed to its limits with Crysis 2 (2011) running the most advanced DX11 rendering and then Battlefield 3 also pushing the limits to the point where console gamers have complained about how much inferior their version is by comparison. Do you have ANY clue about PC gaming??!?!?

And what the hell is a "triple A" exclusive in actual definitive terms? That is 100% subjective. Hawken is a Triple-A exclusive by any standards. How about Diablo 3, Starcraft 2, Star Wars The Old Republic? The smallest speculation about these games have gotten headline stories on this site, is that not Triple-A worthy?

And what Triple-A exclusives have we got to look forward to on Xbox 360 by comparison? Halo 4?

Please, terms like "Triple-A" are credit ratings. Not game categories.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Is it my imagination or has piracy become the go to thing whenever we need something to blame?
Lack of PC Exclusives?
Piracy
Huge traffic accident on Highway 5?
Piracy
Today's forecast calling for cloudy with a 70% chance of showers?
Piracy