Crytek CEO - No more PC exclusives

I stopped gaming ages ago me as its gone down hill on the PC now imo, its just not like it used to be, we used to get loads of decent games coming out nearly all the time, i used to buy one nearly every week/couple of weeks or so, but you can't do that now, the decent ones are few and far between, and they always get delayed for months on end, you hear about a game coming out, start to look forward to it, then the dreaded news comes, blah, blah, blah has now been pushed back to xxxx now. :(
 
Just because Crysis may have gone platinum and sold a load of copies, it doesn't mean that it made the developers/publishers any money.

I would imagine that developing and marketing Crysis cost a substantial amount and that any piracy that occurs will have eaten into any profits they made from the game, especially when you consider that the game only cost £24.99 when it was released in the first place - a typical console release costs £39.99

Infinity Ward reportedly had the same issue with COD4, but they also launched simultaneously on PS3 and 360 as well as PC, and both these versions cost significantly more than the PC version. They had something to cushion any lost sales on the PC platform due to piracy.

Both of these are big companies who can weather a few beatings from piracy, but spare a thought for the small studios, such as Ironlore, who were forced to close, partly due to piracy issues.

Ok, so Titan Quest didn't set the world alight, but it was a pretty good game as Diablo clones go and the devs obviously put a lot work into the game and the engine that powered it.

AWPC said:
Even the witcher & stalker outsold crysis yet they were also heavily pirated. The difference is that they were more playable games which the pirates felt compelled to buy.

I agree that this motive to pirate games probably exists, but just because a game doesn't live up to the hype, it doesn't condone the act of piracy; you either buy the game and play it or you don't - not pirate the game and then try and justify it by saying it's the developers fault for making a bad game/setting the system requirements too high.
 
Console games cost more, because a portion of that money goes to Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo. Whereas that money can't go anywhere on the PC.
 
I agree that this motive to pirate games probably exists, but just because a game doesn't live up to the hype, it doesn't condone the act of piracy; you either buy the game and play it or you don't - not pirate the game and then try and justify it by saying it's the developers fault for making a bad game/setting the system requirements too high.
Yeah what I meant to say was that even though those 2 games were heavily pirated people were still compelled to buy them anyway because they enjoyed the experience. I have always bought my PC games and never pirated any but get annoyed when others say its ok etc etc as I know the bottom line is all our expensive hardware is going to gather dust as the chances of getting PC games which need our hardware are become less and less so poor console ports are here to stay or worse still we get nothing. Its obvious now that the only way they are going to get on top of this is do something like Bioshock did were you have to download certain files to activate it. I would prefer that if it means it protects the devs income as otherwise it will just go the same way the Amiga went very quickly. ID, Epic, Infinity Ward & Crytek have all complained in the past few months about PC piracy so it is becoming an important issue to resolve.
 
The biggest mistake publishers do, is when they presume software sales are down because of piracy. Let's just imagine, for a second, that somehow PC platform reached the stage where one couldn't pirate games - a dongle, hardware restriction, whatever - you can't pirate games. Would we see major increase in sales? I don't think so. The £29.99 will be just as unaffordable to the vast majority of the world where minimum wage is around £100 a month as it is now. Most of Asia, Latin America and Africa would just stop playing. You can't translate piracy into "sales lost" because it doesn't work that way. It's like calculating people who found newspaper on the bus as "sales lost". Just because they read it when they found it for free, doesn't mean they were on their way to buy it in the first place.

Console market is very finite. There is only that many men, with steady income, that have nothing to do but occupy living rooms and whack some aliens after work. Trendiness of consoles at the moment is a mixture of social acceptance of frat lifestyle, platform underpricing (consoles are sold at loss to manufacturers atm), high definition transitional boom and overall market starvation ie. relatively limited availability of certain genres/titles. Perfect example of the last - Bioshock - it was a hit on consoles, but on PC it simply wasn't such a good game compared to what was already on the market, so it didn't sell as well. But, when console market reaches the stage where there are 20 FPS releases a year, there is no guarantee that a game that runs like crap and has shoddy story will do just as well as it would now. That market will become picky as well. What I'm saying is - impression that you can make money on any crap, just because it's console, is a wrong one to have.

What I do find disheartening though, is how selling 1,000,000 units at £25 doesn't constitute as profitable these days. I know that game development can take years and eat amazing resources, but even if we presume there is £5,000,000 profit and counting there is something horribly wrong with the company stracture if 5 mln doesn't come across as market worth investing into.
It wasn't long ago when 1.250.000 resident evil games sold across few years among 21 million GameCube owners would be considered as massive success. Now 1 million in 3 months is "at loss to piracy"? Seriously. Either companies grew too big for their own good, or the whole sector needs serious rethink and outsourcing.
 
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The £29.99 will be just as unaffordable to the vast majority of the world where minimum wage is around £100 a month as it is now. Most of Asia, Latin America and Africa would just stop playing.

Good post, just don't agree with that one bit. If someone can afford a pc to run the latest games, they can afford to buy the latest games. So, to say that in a country with low wages shouldn't, and or wouldn't, pay £30 is a bit suspect. In my opinion anyway, hope you see what im trying to say.
 
I think Tek is looking at the trend rather than a black and white how-things-are. PC gamers expect much more out of a game in terms of longevity, this doesn't mean that there aren't quick half hour in-and-out games on the PC anymore than there aren't games on consoles that are out now and will be getting played in years to come (GTA IV is ar pretty recent example).

On the absolute surface of it length is irrelevant, it is about where the game will be a year from release, if you have just relased a game with 10-20 hours worth of singleplayer content... then it could be the best game in the world... but a year from then it will be forgotten, a nice memory for gamers looking back over their collection. Multiplayer is where games translate to potentially decade spanning life cycles, which is why you see a lot of the now most successful FPS games released being nothing but a multiplayer game, they are a shot in the dark, even if based on a prior success. You have may have made a game that people will want to play for years and will have a large player base to support it, or player numbers will dwindle from day #1, it may never truely die but only a handful of people will ever experience it. Then with your larger communities you have more of a chance of people whom are knowledgeable of coding / modelling / texturing etc coming together to create mods, which will only further drive that games community.

Half-Life is probably the best example of this, do you think if nobody had decided to pick up an SDK and go and make counter-strike and all the other amazing mods from HL that steam would exist? I'm sure Half life 2 would have but it wouldn't have been a fraction of what people anticipated, as whilst a lot were looking forward to the SP a good proportion were also thinking "I can't wait for [insert mod] to move to this engine". It's Longevity has translated to what is now a half dozen individual products, each having a sizeable amount of players, with more games on the horizon expecting to be smashes.

So Crysis? peoples critique of its storyline isn't relevant... what matters is that whilst it was a good game, the developers never gave the PC crowd a reason to play it beyond that few hours of singleplayer. I happen to like its multiplayer, but at the same time all I can see is how not much thought went into it... you have an engine capable of having vast conflicts play out over very large areas using air / land and sea vehicles. This didn't even have to be super suit orientated, there were US vs NK battles occuring simultaneous to the main story line, that the multiplayer could have covered nicely. The multiplayer however was a clear after thought, my two meager ideas for it alone are a drop in the ocean to what they could have done with it if they had wanted to, and if they had of? i'm sure Crysis could easily have taken off in the MP scene, the community it would have created and the array of mods that could have been spawned are all now never to be. It is a shame for us as gamers and them as developers, it would have provided us with an amazing experience and would only have driven their sales over a much much longer period of time.


Well said, if they had any sence they would have made 2 mods for the game with one or two maps each. Releasing them a few months after the game is released to get the mod seen on the go.

http://www.mechlivinglegends.net
 
Good post, just don't agree with that one bit. If someone can afford a pc to run the latest games, they can afford to buy the latest games. So, to say that in a country with low wages shouldn't, and or wouldn't, pay £30 is a bit suspect. In my opinion anyway, hope you see what im trying to say.

anyway the games don't retail at the same price in those countries. The UK prices more compared to rest of the world. it isn't fair, but it's the truth. (although Australia isn't great either)
 
Well said, if they had any sence they would have made 2 mods for the game with one or two maps each. Releasing them a few months after the game is released to get the mod seen on the go.

http://www.mechlivinglegends.net

criticising crytek for basically poor mod support is ludicrous, its all well and good looking back at half life and saying oh look how many mods came out for it, the mod scene has changed a lot since then, look at half life 2 its barely got a quarter of the mods the original half life had and its been out 4 years now and its simply because they require so much more time and resources these days

crytek actually released the pre-alpha sdk to a select few mod teams up to a full year before crysis hit retail, so when the mods start hitting towards next christmas time some of them will have been worked on for 2 years, you link to the mechwarrior mod for crysis you think they have done all that since february 22nd when the public sdk was released? they've had the sdk from at the very least the beginning of november 2007 and get assistance direct from crytek in helping to create the mod

so they've had the sdk for 6 months already , have got a 20+ man team and are still only looking to release around november 2008, i dont think you understand quite how much work is involved in making a big mod these days
 
criticising crytek for basically poor mod support is ludicrous, its all well and good looking back at half life and saying oh look how many mods came out for it, the mod scene has changed a lot since then, look at half life 2 its barely got a quarter of the mods the original half life had and its been out 4 years now and its simply because they require so much more time and resources these days

crytek actually released the pre-alpha sdk to a select few mod teams up to a full year before crysis hit retail, so when the mods start hitting towards next christmas time some of them will have been worked on for 2 years, you link to the mechwarrior mod for crysis you think they have done all that since february 22nd when the public sdk was released? they've had the sdk from at the very least the beginning of november 2007 and get assistance direct from crytek in helping to create the mod

so they've had the sdk for 6 months already , have got a 20+ man team and are still only looking to release around november 2008, i dont think you understand quite how much work is involved in making a big mod these days

they don't indeed, i made a unit for supreme commander, model and all and that was a freaking nightmare, and supreme commander is proberbly one of the most moddable games around at the moment, takes many many hours of patients and most importantly, simple trial and error, and those who say crysis is crap, there are lots of people that liked the game (me included) it gave better visuals than well, anything and campaign wise it was SO much more engaging that that heap of w**k that is call of duty 4, which everyone seems to rave about 24/7. ive played both through several times, played the much hyped COD4 multiplayer and i can happily say the overhyped game was COD4, not crysis :)
 
I do also agree PC gaming has gone down hill greatly, I think when we had that small burst of COD4 and Crysis before Xmas it brang back that initial buzz for Pc gaming and sales naturally soared and then died down since no new interesting games really arrived.

We get the odd new one every few months it appears, we need BF3 and new expansions every 6 months oh and BF3 on DX10 engine and maxing out graphics to the point its simply freakin Real life would help.

I feel still Pc gaming has changed its not like Quake 1 days where it was just about Quake 1 and Duke nukem running around blowing each other to gibblets for endless hours and endless years, now were spoilt to the point were fussy and still bored ;)

Perhaps idsoftware needs to "redo" Quake ? :)
 
Already reported you once, nothing happened:(

And LOL! Always have to laugh at those who say that "everyone" either has pirated software, or has had it. Grow up.

Get over the fact the thread was allowed, Mr Goodie 2 Shoes (sure).

Is this thread primary about Crysis or about Warez in general ?.

If its about the latter, I hope Mr Goodie 2 Shoes goes and locates every single screenshot thread and reports all users (not just myself) who posted screens of a game not released at time of posting.
 
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Get over the fact the thread was allowed, Mr Goodie 2 Shoes (sure).

Is this thread primary about Crysis or about Warez in general ?.

If its about the latter, I hope Mr Goodie 2 Shoes goes and locates every single screenshot thread and reports all users (not just myself) who posted screens of a game not released at time of posting.


So glad you're not banned, you do make me laugh at times:p



Sorry if it offends you that I don't think people should be allowed to post about using pirated games/software, it's just the way I am. Don't really care if you think im a "Goodie 2 Shoes", there are worst things to be...



As a side note, if you read the thread you'd see that I didn't link to you. It's not just me that this annoys.
















Oh, and i'm laughing at you, not with you by the way:)
 
Because if you want to draw in people, you need graphics and graphics are constantly changing to meet hardware changes, which means massive expenses. Also PC gamers expect large games, lasting a long time, where consoles are more for your quick fix.

Well yes, most games these days need graphics. I haven't played a text adventure since the 80s.

However, I think I know what you mean, and I think you are wrong. By making a game that uses the latest graphical effects and only runs on the very latest hardware, you are massively limiting your audience.

I had a look on the Steam hardware survey last night, and as far as I could tell most cards were somewhere around the mid range GeForce 6\7 level.

If you make a game that targets current or even slightly older hardware, rather than the bleeding edge, you will have a lot more potential sales.
 
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