Publishers don't like to release any kind of figures... well, at all - but I know for a AAA title, it's a lot more than that. I would tell you how many we had to sell on LOTRO, but then I'd have to kill you
.Piracy and Small Game Developers
- Thread starter chimaera
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Publishers don't like to release any kind of figures... well, at all - but I know for a AAA title, it's a lot more than that. I would tell you how many we had to sell on LOTRO, but then I'd have to kill you
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Soldato
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Im making excuses for nothing, I don't pirate games. I downloaded the demo to try it again, Diablo clone it is and it is a nice game if I see it cheep I may pick it up. I don't think you can blame the low sales on piracy, if I remember to the first time I tryed it it played like a dog of my system. On the anti-piracy side of things I think the game devs need to think it out right. In a game like TQ they should have had a spawn that if you are playing a copy at a check point rather that cutting the game dead. The spawn should gank you then with one of your arms write something like "game over go buy a real copy". Or all the hit points for every mob becomes something like a million a piece, shouting something over and over like "ypoc laer a yub og". I mean do the dev not have a sence of fun?
In terms of how much developers get back from the front end sales figure, it's not that much.
Before losing interest, I collaborated on two payware route projects for MS Train Sim. These sold at retail through the publisher for £20 - £25, the developers got something like £3 - £4 per copy. That had to be split between the several members of the team plus offsetting costs incurred so ended up as something like 40p royalty a copy for the individual (which then also had to be declared for income tax purposes). Now train sim add-ons aren't Crysis for sure, talking probably max 2000 units so the money made by an individual probably amounted to less than UK minimum wage for the hours put in (though offset from the amateur POV by the kudos of name in lights).
Before losing interest, I collaborated on two payware route projects for MS Train Sim. These sold at retail through the publisher for £20 - £25, the developers got something like £3 - £4 per copy. That had to be split between the several members of the team plus offsetting costs incurred so ended up as something like 40p royalty a copy for the individual (which then also had to be declared for income tax purposes). Now train sim add-ons aren't Crysis for sure, talking probably max 2000 units so the money made by an individual probably amounted to less than UK minimum wage for the hours put in (though offset from the amateur POV by the kudos of name in lights).
Soldato
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Biggest problem i see is the fact that the dodgy copies always end up being available before they are in the shops. Eager gamers aren't very patient. If this could stop their games being passed around before release date I'm sure they'd been well on their way to solving this problem, or at least reducing it.
Soldato
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are you serious?
Console's sell more so it must be pirates who make up the difference?
what a completely ridiculous argument
PC FPS's used to be the only real mainstream online gameplay, now every console under the sun does it
so why would casual gamers bother with a pc anymore if a console does what they want, you can see this very fact from the ever increasing console sale figures
I would bet money on there being a correlation between console growth and the difference in the pc market being pretty close
This despite the fact i for one didnt buy bioshock on the pc in protest to the retarded copy protection, instead i put in the disc and i got to play the game with no hassle at all
Also basing your argument on someone who blames everyone and their dog for their games deficiencies is probably not a good tact
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I'm sorry but if it was such a good game as he makes it out to be then it would've sold, advertising helps too.
How many Titan Quest advertisements have I see in the past few years? None, but I'll be nice and say I might've seen one or two I just didn't remember, and then compare that to how much advertising I saw for other games this year like Bioshock and Call Of Duty 4 like he mentions. Must number in the hundreds.
If you don't advertise your game, nobody is going to know about it.
If your game is poor, and I'm not saying TQ is, nobody is going to play it.
I'd also like to know where they got their figures for % of piracy on each platform, as there is no way whatsoever to track how many times people have downloaded stuff like that. All that article sounds like to me is a developer looking for a scapegoat that they can blame their game failing on.
How many Titan Quest advertisements have I see in the past few years? None, but I'll be nice and say I might've seen one or two I just didn't remember, and then compare that to how much advertising I saw for other games this year like Bioshock and Call Of Duty 4 like he mentions. Must number in the hundreds.
If you don't advertise your game, nobody is going to know about it.
If your game is poor, and I'm not saying TQ is, nobody is going to play it.
I'd also like to know where they got their figures for % of piracy on each platform, as there is no way whatsoever to track how many times people have downloaded stuff like that. All that article sounds like to me is a developer looking for a scapegoat that they can blame their game failing on.
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Fair enough, but of the last 20 PC games I've played, I've seen TV ads for maybe 3 or 4 of those. I wouldn't have seen web adverts for most of the others either. As long as the publishers send out media/press releases/videos to gaming websites people will still find out about the games. I certainly knew what TQ was when it came out and I'm not particularly into RPGs (and haven't played it).
Average gamespot user review for TQ was 8.4 which I'd say is pretty good given the genre, above average.
I don't know the source for his figures and of course they could be wrong, but the 10:1 sales figures for COD4 on console/PC does back it up I think given that COD is mainly a PC series and there are far more PCs about than consoles. It's further backed up by looking at torrent sites and the numbers pirating COD4 on the 3 various platforms. It's enormously higher on PC, like twenty times higher.
So if you assume his numbers are at least ballpark accurate, then it's not hard to reach the conclusion that Iron Lore (and possibly other studios) would still be in business right now but for piracy.
Average gamespot user review for TQ was 8.4 which I'd say is pretty good given the genre, above average.
I don't know the source for his figures and of course they could be wrong, but the 10:1 sales figures for COD4 on console/PC does back it up I think given that COD is mainly a PC series and there are far more PCs about than consoles. It's further backed up by looking at torrent sites and the numbers pirating COD4 on the 3 various platforms. It's enormously higher on PC, like twenty times higher.
So if you assume his numbers are at least ballpark accurate, then it's not hard to reach the conclusion that Iron Lore (and possibly other studios) would still be in business right now but for piracy.
Caporegime
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Im not sure if I've ever seen a TV advert for a PC game. Didn't see any for Crysis or World in Conflict, even stuff like Bioshock it was only advertised because its on the 360.
CoD stopped had being a mainly PC Series by the time CoD2 came out hadn't it? 3 and the big red one didn't even come out on PC.
and now with the PS3 and 360 having online capability and both being cheaper than a PC capable of running CoD4 at full detail I'm not surprised it's sold much better on the consoles, even without piracy. How is it doing in 360 vs PS3? That'd be an interesting statistic as it must be much easier to get a pirated copy for the 360 than the PS3 and I wouldn't be surprised if it's sold better on the 360.
and now with the PS3 and 360 having online capability and both being cheaper than a PC capable of running CoD4 at full detail I'm not surprised it's sold much better on the consoles, even without piracy. How is it doing in 360 vs PS3? That'd be an interesting statistic as it must be much easier to get a pirated copy for the 360 than the PS3 and I wouldn't be surprised if it's sold better on the 360.
Caporegime
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The big red one was a last gen console 'adaptation' of COD2 by Treyarch because they couldn't handle COD2.
as for 360 vs PS3 sales, it sold 3.04 million on 360 according to figures here. Not sure about the PS3 figures, but as its not in that list, I'd assume its a lot lower. Install base will count for some of that difference of course.
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Here is an example of how not to stop piracy
Taken from the experience of a friend.
THQ release Company of Heroes , my buddy gets an unoffical copy of it , loves
the game , plays campaign and multiplayer with his mates he loves it.
He then goes an buys the game from a store because he feels it is worth buying
This bought version has a newer patch version the the version he used , great
more coding improvements ...... wrong.
The game now has to talk to a central server to allow the game to run or to
connect to multi player , not a problem until you are in the middle of a game
and their central server dies ( causing the game in progress to crash and end )
Kinda sucks that you pay for a product that is completely at the mercy of
someone else (in this case thq keeping their servers up )
Taken from the experience of a friend.
THQ release Company of Heroes , my buddy gets an unoffical copy of it , loves
the game , plays campaign and multiplayer with his mates he loves it.
He then goes an buys the game from a store because he feels it is worth buying
This bought version has a newer patch version the the version he used , great
more coding improvements ...... wrong.
The game now has to talk to a central server to allow the game to run or to
connect to multi player , not a problem until you are in the middle of a game
and their central server dies ( causing the game in progress to crash and end )
Kinda sucks that you pay for a product that is completely at the mercy of
someone else (in this case thq keeping their servers up )
Not really.
The recent Radiohead online album release kinda proves that for some people any price higher than £0 is unacceptable to them. Statistics showed that over 60% of people, when given the choice between paying something (even 1p) and nothing at all - chose the latter. Now this isn't necessarily definitive proof but it is indicative of the current trend.
Advertising costs money too. Fact is games companies/publishers develop games when there is already projected revenues & costs on the table, they don't spend months writing a game and then say "let's see how much this makes then".
I also doubt those that say "if it's good after I've tried it I'll buy it". The people who do this - good on you, but it has to be few and far between. The amount of resolve it takes to pay for something you already have in your possession in that point (i.e. basically just wasting money to all intents and purposes) is huge.
With the proliferation of torrents, Usenet and 1MB broadband in the home being the bare minimum it's never been easier to get this stuff illegally. Way back when you would have to get dodgy rip versions of games over 56k modems on non-freephone ISPs with most of the media missing, which translated to a tangible loss in overall experience vs buying the game - nowadays direct ISO copies are the norm, and you're literally missing nothing and many argue even benefitting from escaping the draconian enforcement of having to have the game CD in the drive, and other copy-protection influences.
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There's a big difference between downloading music legally and illegally though.
Unfortunately yes, but it must be done if you want to sell your product.
I'm one of those people and I think it's very common behaviour.
I have a feeling piracy would drop quite a bit if developers put more demos out.
Those statistics the finger pointing folk is using - XBOX vs PC, and COD4 outselling 10 to 1 on Xbox360, is slightly misleading. First of all Xbox stats are taken from Xbox Live, whereas PC figures, if I understand correctly are taken from main distributors only and don't include electronic and online sales. Then there is the choice factor - Bioshock wasn't particularly good game, it was repetitive, and once you saw the demo you practically saw it all. On PC, it was just average, and you could pick from 20 other games released about the same time, on Xbox360, your average gamer pretty much waited for Halo3 and Bioshock that year, it's safe to presume most of Xbox360 owners bought both, it's not like they had better games to buy.
Second thing - the "given choice 60% of people will pay nothing" Radiohead album example - is also misleading. It's actually prime example of how you can't presume sales losses to piracy. I downloaded Radiohead album, chose to pay 0, because I could- I listened to maybe 5 minutes of it and never ever returned to it. I wouldn't buy it or even approach it in a bargain bin, since it was free I thought I would see if they progressed anywhere with their music, they didn't, so no loss.
I think it's the same with games - a lot of demos I play fall under "I would maybe play it again if it was released as white label for £5". If I had free access to them, I'd probably play them, but not for £29-39. It doesn't mean studio lost customer to piracy, my wallet wasn't there for them in the first place.
Second thing - the "given choice 60% of people will pay nothing" Radiohead album example - is also misleading. It's actually prime example of how you can't presume sales losses to piracy. I downloaded Radiohead album, chose to pay 0, because I could- I listened to maybe 5 minutes of it and never ever returned to it. I wouldn't buy it or even approach it in a bargain bin, since it was free I thought I would see if they progressed anywhere with their music, they didn't, so no loss.
I think it's the same with games - a lot of demos I play fall under "I would maybe play it again if it was released as white label for £5". If I had free access to them, I'd probably play them, but not for £29-39. It doesn't mean studio lost customer to piracy, my wallet wasn't there for them in the first place.
Caporegime
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Thats the most absurd thing I've read this year. Could you list these 20 games that came out at that time last year that are better than Bioshock then please?
I'll admit to this..
Tried Bioshock, bought it. Tried trackmania, bought it. Tried FEAR, bought it. Tried Quake, bought it. Tried geometry wars, bought it. Tried Q4, bought it. Tried C&C3, and when the expansion pack comes out I'm buying it.
Funny thing is, a *large* number of the games I play are free..
Urban Terror, Soldat, Savage, Q3 mods, HL2 (free with my old 9600
), UT2k4 mods..
Soldato
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in no particular order for 2007, seeing as we are basing bioshock sales up to Q4 2007
1. Crysis
2. Orange box
3. World in Conflict
4. COD4
5. GoW
6. UT3
7. Supreme Commander
8. The Witcher
9. QW:ET
10. CNC3
11. WOW: burning crusade
12. MOH:airborne (arguable)
13. Tabula Rasa
14. BF2142
15. Medevil 2: Total war
16. Guitar Hero 3
17. Resident Evil 4
18. Doom 3 (arguable)
19. F.E.A.R
20. Pirates of the Burning Sea
No less absurd than you basing your conclusion that bioshock sales were because of piracy because it didnt sell as well as a console lol...
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