piracy on pc

Well why not?

Your audience has paid up to buy your console, you need to gouge them for all they're worth.

Once you've milked them enough, you release the next marginally better iteration of your console, force them to upgrade and milk them some more.

The net result of this will mean a flight to online-centric systems like BattleNet0.2, where the game basically compells you to log in online to prove you're not a pirate.
 
FoxEye said:
£35 is not an impulse buy. £35 is extortion. Set the price to 1/2 of this, and you could go a long way to fixing the whole piracy problem.
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I think the big games companies are well aware of what price point will give them the best return. I doubt selling this game cheaper than £35 (on release) would effect the number of sales/pirated downloads to any great degree.

As for the O/P asking why developers bother with PC games given the piracy issue...did you see the sales figures? There's still big money to be made, that's why.
 
Its also worth mentioning that the Wii is even easier to Pirate games for than the PC at that is still making money. Also if it wasn't for account sharing on PSN (two people buy a game on one id then login on both machines to download it) then the downloadable games like Sonic 4, Street Fighter HD remix, Outrun 2, etc wouldn't be making as many sales
 
Briton said:
I think the big games companies are well aware of what price point will give them the best return. I doubt selling this game cheaper than £35 (on release) would effect the number of sales/pirated downloads to any great degree.
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Never underestimate greed, and how it can make people completely lose all common sense.

Crysis 2 - Nano Edition - £120. Complete disconnect from reality if they think people are buying that...


I can't honestly believe someone would come here and say "lowering prices won't affect piracy". Do you work for EA or something?
 
Briton said:
I think the big games companies are well aware of what price point will give them the best return. I doubt selling this game cheaper than £35 (on release) would effect the number of sales/pirated downloads to any great degree.
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steam sales figues would probably disagree with you....im sure when steam games are on sale they sell a touch more than the average week.:p
 
Piracy is just a convenient excuse for developers who make **** games that don't sell well, "oh it's because of piracy that we didn't sell many".

The reason PC gaming is dying is because all they ever make these days are FPS clones, the only ones really innovating are Nintendo with Wii and their sales are blossoming as a result.
 
ubersonic said:
Its also worth mentioning that the Wii is even easier to Pirate games for than the PC at that is still making money
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The Wii is a dead market for most developers. Same with the DS. Only Nintendo makes much money out of them. The attach rate (how many games are sold per console) is really, really poor for the Wii, and the DS is now so heavily pirated that many developers have reduced or halted DS development.
 
To be fair nitendo's audience with the Wii is largely the casual/family market.

The vast majority of wii owning households pickup their games with the family shoping.

Piracy is just as rife on the console ofc, it's just the guys that download wii stuff are equaly matched, or dwarfed by it's buying populace.
 
PanMaster said:
How does a pirate play Battlefield 2 or Age of empires 3 online without a geniune CD-key ?

A valid CD-key != genuine CD-key and cracked servers don't count.
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Why not, I didn't enjoy CoD4 or bf2 significantly more than on the cracked ones, the only difference was I could follow my mates into every server, aside from that, cracked servers are fine really. It took a while until I bought them legally.
 
RedStarRiot said:
True guys but it defo highlights the massive issue. also metalface mark, is £35 really that much? I was paying 50+ for snes games in the 90's, that was expensive!
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No, I dont think so for a good game, but a lot of people do.

I bought Starcraft 2, but have only played it for about half an hour so far, Im sure they dont release stats from players like me!
 
Maybe if they would stop releasing games half complete and then try to charge us for the rest VIA DLC or Releasing cheap remakes of big named titles for easy money people wouldnt pirate so much.

Although thats not really a problem with SC2 but it does have many problems, besides MP is what SC is all about :)
 
The main reason for the decline of PC games at retail is that they can't be traded in and sold second hand at huge profits for the retailers.

Let's face it, most high street game shops are now glorified pawnbrokers specialising in video games. There's just not that much profit in PC games for them. Of course their focus on used sales will come back to haunt them when the next generation consoles go for digital downloads, or at least one-use codes to lock large parts of games to particular consoles/accounts (similar to project 10 dollar from EA), preventing, or at least making less lucrative, game trade-ins.

I shall laugh my head off when it eventually happens - they killed PC games at retail, so the DRM techniques pioneered for PC games will kill off their console market at retail too.
 
Ravenger said:
The main reason for the decline of PC games at retail is that they can't be traded in and sold second hand at huge profits for the retailers.

Let's face it, most high street game shops are now glorified pawnbrokers specialising in video games. There's just not that much profit in PC games for them. Of course their focus on used sales will come back to haunt them when the next generation consoles go for digital downloads, or at least one-use codes to lock large parts of games to particular consoles/accounts (similar to project 10 dollar from EA), preventing, or at least making less lucrative, game trade-ins.

I shall laugh my head off when it eventually happens - they killed PC games at retail, so the DRM techniques pioneered for PC games will kill off their console market at retail too.
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This is something ive never really understood as under EU law its illegal for manufacturers to attempt to deny the original owner his statutory right to resell the product to another party, yet they do it all the time via DRM, Blizzard have it written into the terms of wow that accounts cannot be transferred or sold however anything written into a ToC that violates the law is void, yet they have never been pulled up on it whereas Microsoft are dragged before the EU commission every year to be fined for stupid things that no user cares about (browser choice, like I cant find Firefox without downloading a patch from windows update to offer it to me >.>)
 
ubersonic said:
This is something ive never really understood as under EU law its illegal for manufacturers to attempt to deny the original owner his statutory right to resell the product to another party, yet they do it all the time via DRM, Blizzard have it written into the terms of wow that accounts cannot be transferred or sold however anything written into a ToC that violates the law is void, yet they have never been pulled up on it whereas Microsoft are dragged before the EU commission every year to be fined for stupid things that no user cares about (browser choice, like I cant find Firefox without downloading a patch from windows update to offer it to me >.>)
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Accounts, that's the key word. You're not an owner of an account, technically you're renting it.
 
arknor said:
ultima online 1997

were you even playing pc games in the 90s? i swear all of you who claim there were less moders and less devs speak out of your backsides :P
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I started in the 80's actually. I know about Ultima, but a few rare MMOs back then isn't worth mentioning. Its nothing to what we have now....but carry on with the pedantry if you must.
 
In years gone by there was more creativity, more indivdiuality and inovation. In the days when you could make your own game, take it to the publisher and get it distributed are long gone mainly because publishers want 'names' harnassing on past successes without much work (i.e. sequels).

When I was growing up you could get full games on magazine tapes. If you wrote a good enough game you were given publicity as well and hopefully you could move full time into the industry.

Everyone now is on about how brilliant it looks, how realistic it is, how many FPS they get, but they're not on about how good it plays.

I'd much prefer going back to the era that gave us Ghosts n Goblins, Way of the Exploding Fist, IK+, Outrun, Stunt Car Racer, Dungeon Master, Bloodwych, Another World, Flashback, Sensible World of Soccer, Nemesis, 1942, Player Manager, Kick Off 2, Shadow of the Beast, etc, etc, etc. than have countless rehashed FPS's. The sad thing is that even with the photo-realistic graphics we have now Sensible World of Soccer has not been surpassed and thats a top down football game.

Where has the creativeness gone? I understand why people pirate games mainly because there is so much rubbish released on the PC you really need to try before you buy (and most demos only showcase the best bits).

If there is, genuinely, a decent original game then I'll buy it.



M.
 
m4cc45 said:
Where has the creativeness gone? I understand why people pirate games mainly because there is so much rubbish released on the PC you really need to try before you buy (and most demos only showcase the best bits).

If there is, genuinely, a decent original game then I'll buy it.
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Big publishers are extremely risk adverse due to the high cost of AAA game development, so it's the indie scene where most of the originality and innovation is taking place. Look at games like Amnesia, World Of Goo, or Gratuitous Space Battles, or any one of the thousands of decent indie games.
 
One thing I completely agree with is the creativity and innovation has gone from what it was, which is a shame. But when the industry gets its money hooks into things that is what happens. Big money and creativity don't usually mix too well. Even with that though, there is still tons of decent games and modding still about, far more than any other time but the huge dark cloud of mass market gaming is making it look bad. It's just that the whole industry has grown so much on other platforms as well.

The game industry in general is now the same as Hollywood/pop chart music....it's mostly manufactured for the masses type of crud from corporate suits, but there are still some real gems out there if you look.
 
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