I was referring more to multiplayer aspects because that is ultimately what gives a game its longevity, but I take your point.
Exactly, as someone already said UT3 basically bombed completely, despite having a solid engine behind it.
Thing I don't get about Epic is that it was very clear than UT3 was pretty much a techdemo for their UE3, and while UT3 sold terribly, their UE3 is very very widely used, they must be raking in a fortune from it.
Don't forget though that Epic were also one of the first (if not the first) to start complaining about second hand games and likening them to pirated games. It's very clear that piracy is just a scapegoat that they're using as an excuse to pull out of the PC market.
If they didn't blame piracy, what else would they say? They're just trying to preserve their image by complaining about piracy, especially since you commonly get people who go on about how piracy is evil and is stealing (which it really isn't, and I wish people would get over it) and put their arguments forward in such a way they that they try to make you look bad for disagreeing with them.
People need to get over piracy and stop whinging about it, they don't seem to understand what it's really done to the industry. Additionally for those who are arguing it to the extreme, each pirated game IS NOT a lost sale, factually it isn't.
Firstly, it's common for some people to buy the game, but then leave it in its case and download and run a cracked one. Secondly, you've got the people who use them as demos.
You have the people who download everything and anything and never get around to playing any of the games they download. You've also got the people who wouldn't ever buy the stuff they download because they either can't afford it, or don't think it's worth it.
MW2 is a very very poor example to use too, a lot of people downloaded it out of spite for what was done to it, Same thing happened to spore as well, people only downloaded it to spite EA.
I downloaded MW2 around its release and I can say I would have NEVER bought it, I thought it was junk, played it for maybe an hour (and most of that was just trying to get the best time around the beginning arena) and then didn't touch it again.
Piracy is something that doesn't bother me, I know better than to think it's "ruining" PC gaming, it's simply not true, it pushes the good devs to do better and give people more, and better reasons to chose the "legit" ways.
Take a look at valve's policy on piracy, and you'll see they consider it just that, competition. Their methods against piracy are also working very well, to the point of it being transparent.
I find it hilarious that the only people who are "victims" of the anti-piracy methods generally used are the paying customers. Only those who purchase DVDs and BDs ever see the "PIRACY IS A CRIME AND IS STEALING BECAUSE WE CLAIM IT IS" "adverts".
Removed some of the double spacing, just for you Evilsod.
Downloading stuff for free is terrorist activity? Does it mentally harm the shareholders of these big conglomerates so much that they can claim it's terrorist actions against them?