Epic say 'The Money's On Console'

snowdog said:
..snip..
Click to expand...
ok we'll have to agree to disagree and stay at that.. In the world of media piracy there can only be one losser.. The consumer.

I alsways find it quite ammusing that people are preapred to spend ££££100 on hardware yet won't fork out the software that runs on it.
 
Last edited:
Nickg said:
BUT conversely i bet there are more people who PLAY CODMW2 on PC than on PS3 in total - which means that a larger number of PC players have not paid for it,
Click to expand...

Seeing as IW control the matchmaking and the connection setup it would be pretty hard to play it online and not have paid for it. That was probably one of their main reasons for killing dedicated servers seeing as people could still run cracked servers, though there was barely any of those for mw1.
 
Admiral Huddy said:
ok we'll have to agree to disagree and stay at that.. In the world of media piracy there can only be one losser.. The consumer.
Click to expand...
Haha, I even disagree with that, the biggest losers are the publishers.
I alsways find it quite ammusing that people are preapred to spend ££££100 on hardware yet won't fork out the software that runs on it.
Click to expand...

If you are referring to me, I don't know what you are talking about, I've spent more of software in the past 12-18 months than on hardware, my steam account has many hundreds of euros in it and my shelf of retail games is growing, it just happens to be that I pirate stuff too occasionally ( though, barely in recent years, games worth buying I usually buy and the rest I cba to even download/waste hdd space on, I do download loads of films and series though) . I just don't give my money any more to companies that take it too far.
 
Last edited:
Admiral Huddy said:
ok we'll have to agree to disagree and stay at that.. In the world of media piracy there can only be one losser.. The consumer.
Click to expand...

Call me jaded, but I'm dubious about the effects or piracy.

I strongly believe that if EA and pals could eliminate piracy and 2nd hand sales, they would follow that by increasing prices.

Piracy is in effect their "competition".
 
Nickg said:
-snip-
Click to expand...

Huh? How could a demo be cracked and beaten into a full game experience? Sure if you look at a game like Torchlight where the demo gave full access but stopped you after so many levelups then theres potential there. But how exactly do you do the same for an FPS or RPG where you're given a small section of the story and the rest of it simply doesn't exist?

How can you not see what i mean? Some people pirate for a demo and buy it later, i know i did with Torchlight. Some people pirate because they can't afford them. Some people pirate because they've bought some games already and want to try this 1 out too. Some people pirate because they want the game and want it for free. The first 3 are not a lost sale, the last 1 is. If they couldn't pirate it they probably wouldn't get it at all, full stop.

Admiral Huddy said:
-snip-
Click to expand...

Whether you agree with piracy or not it will always be rationalised. At the heart of it is the developer doing there best to screw people over.

MW2 they know EXACTLY why those sales are not higher. And thats that the game was an overpriced console port designed purely to make money by cutting every corner possible. Look at MW, great game, brilliant single player, enjoyable (with exceptions...), free mappack, dedicated servers. Then look at MW2, rehashed, some more bells and whistles, no dedicated servers, 2 extremely overpriced mappacks.

PC gamers have at least some expectations and frankly i have no doubt the majority of people just pirated it to check out the singleplayer with absolutely zero interest in the multiplayer, even if they could get onto it which i don't think they can. MW2 is just a bad example.

Yes Foxeye i agree. They've aimed to screw over the second hand market, and i highly doubt they'd be so curtious as to maybe reduce the price of the game either initally or after release, they just want more profit.
 
FoxEye said:
Call me jaded, but I'm dubious about the effects or piracy.

I strongly believe that if EA and pals could eliminate piracy and 2nd hand sales, they would follow that by increasing prices.

Piracy is in effect their "competition".
Click to expand...

Agreed. UBI Soft have already started to charge upward of £34.99 for new PC releases, (cue there new DRM) I do remember many a PC title being released for £24.99 in recent times.

Also, hacked copies of top titles can, and does serve as a way for some to get the whole game and see if it can, and will run on their systems.. Metro2033 being one I freely downloaded to try it out.. I'd heard the horror stories of the game running poorly on even top end ATI i7 systems, so was rather pleased to see a hacked copy tun perfectly fine at 1920 x 1080 with pretty much all details in DX11 mode turned on..

Net result. One purchased game..!!

If piracy was wiped out and you were forced to buy software, we'd see prices raise. And, remember, if someone who downloads a game had no intentions of buying game, its not a lost sale, its just someone getting something they couldn't afford. Doesn;t make it right, but its not a lost sale.

Its when, if like me, who did, and I admit I did, downloads Metro 2033 with intentions of buying, but doesn't buy it after trying out the whole game via a downloaded copy... I did buy the game, it was worth the £19.99 I paid for it...

Its true when it was said, we pay ££££100's for hardware, yet scoff at £24.99for a game..!!

Consoles are winning at the moment due to being so damn easy to use and shut the kids up for the evening.... Buy an Xbox360, give it to the kids with MW2 and a net connection, thats it.

Anyhow, what do I know... I just agree with some of the points in this thread.
 
I will pay no more than £30 for a decent PC game, no more than £20 for a poor port of a good console game.

This works for 90% of games that interest me, unlike on the console where I haven't bought a new game for over a year, include the flimsy £30-£40 controllers and it gets expensive on the "cheaper" platform
 
FoxEye said:
Call me jaded, but I'm dubious about the effects or piracy.

I strongly believe that if EA and pals could eliminate piracy and 2nd hand sales, they would follow that by increasing prices.

Piracy is in effect their "competition".
Click to expand...

Surely piracy is an effect of greed? Putting MW2 aside for a moment, if something is available for nothing then people will generally take it. Something for nothing.

They could increase prices as you rightly say but they could just as easily pull the plug on PC gaming altogether. If a majority of sales comes from consoles, then this would surely be no loss to them. Going back to my previous example of MW2, 3% may be substantial return but maybe something the could take a hit on given the extra costs involved etc. which is why I stated that the loser would be the consumer not the publisher or developer. Of course I have no facts on this, this is merely speculation but it seems obvious to me.
 
Huh? How could a demo be cracked and beaten into a full game experience? Sure if you look at a game like Torchlight where the demo gave full access but stopped you after so many levelups then theres potential there. But how exactly do you do the same for an FPS or RPG where you're given a small section of the story and the rest of it simply doesn't exist?

How can you not see what i mean? Some people pirate for a demo and buy it later, i know i did with Torchlight. Some people pirate because they can't afford them. Some people pirate because they've bought some games already and want to try this 1 out too. Some people pirate because they want the game and want it for free. The first 3 are not a lost sale, the last 1 is. If they couldn't pirate it they probably wouldn't get it at all, full stop.
Click to expand...


you just gave me a cast iron example oh one demo where u can do exactly what i described. others are like PES demos, plus numerous other ones.

some people steal because they cant afford to buy, some people steal because they feel above paying.

you seem to be hung up on what is defined as a lost sale. dont be, i dont care whether they would have bought it or not...

what im saying is that absolute sales are much lower on a PC despite far larger total installed userbase...so PC is a less competative platform to design for in that respect.

PC Gaming will always be one step ahead of Console gaming. The developers need PCs to develop console games ;x
Click to expand...

PS NET YAROZE disagrees with you!
 
Nickg said:
you just gave me a cast iron example oh one demo where u can do exactly what i described. others are like PES demos, plus numerous other ones.

some people steal because they cant afford to buy, some people steal because they feel above paying.

you seem to be hung up on what is defined as a lost sale. dont be, i dont care whether they would have bought it or not...

what im saying is that absolute sales are much lower on a PC despite far larger total installed userbase...so PC is a less competative platform to design for in that respect.
Click to expand...

Well yes Torchlight may be a perfect example, but how is this any different from cracking the full game...? Its only making more work for yourself, not only do you have to break the restrictions you've got to crack it too.

As for the rest of it, i fail to see your point. We already know that console is where you go for profit because they seem to be willing to swallow any old ********. I find it highly unlikely that if you include pirated installs you'd be reaching a higher number than say Xbox copies sold/pirated.
 
Loads more console games are sold than PC games. It's pretty simple. Owning a PC capable of running the latest cross platform games is a very specialist market. I don't agree that all a typical PC needs to play the latest games is a 5770. A typical desktop PC you would find in someones house would be a single core 1.6ghz-ish with 1gb or less RAM and maybe an AGP slot if you're lucky. Oh and these off-the-shelf PC's have very low rated PSU's often 180w-220w so you couldn't 'just' fit a 5770. I would also say that many newer home PC's that you might find are actually laptops.
 
Last edited:
Nickg said:
what im saying is that absolute sales are much lower on a PC despite far larger total installed userbase...so PC is a less competative platform to design for in that respect.
Click to expand...

Hmm. I hope you're not counting all those with PCs as "installed user base".

I'd be suspicious of anyone who claims there are more gaming PCs around than consoles.

I honestly can't imaging there being more PC gamers than console gamers, unless you count everyone who's played minesweeper or a browser game?
 
there's money on both and th line will slowly blur over time.


media pcs will be made into ready built boxes and will play a selection of games probably with a controller, and consoles will also merge into the media pc /light web browsing category.

Neither is going to die out.
 
Whether consoles merge into PCs and media centres depends on whether companies like Microsoft want this to happen or not.

I personally don't think MS or Sony or whoever want the lucrative console market, where they have total control over hardware and software, to evolve into something where they can't have overall total control.

And the average consumer would rather have the simplicity of buying a console off the shelf rather than having to worry about different configurations and what's actually on the inside.

So how these fundamentally different perspectives could merge into one is not immediately obvious to me, no matter how similar the hardware inside might be.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom