Piracy slowly killing PC games
In May 2008, Crytek announced that it will be abandoning PC exclusivity due to problems with pirated copies of Crysis. Now, Ubisoft Shanghai creative director Michael de Plater revealed to Videogaming247 reasons why the copany won’t bring the anticipated EndWar to the PC.
Ubisoft has been having such big problems with piracy of Assassin’s Creed that they sued the disc’s manufacturers, Optical Experts Manufacturing. This is because the PC-version was leaked to the public two months before the official April 2008 release of the PC game. That was reported originally by Gamespot on August 5, 2008.
Epic Games’ Lead Game Designer, Cliff Bleszinski, noted in an interview with TotalVideoGames that piracy is a big problem in regards to higher-end gaming on PC. He also revealed that there is no possibility of Gears of War 2 making the jump from the Xbox 360 to the PC. Yes Gears-fans who have only a PC to game on, because of piracy, you’re going to have get a console if you want to play this game.
Piracy is a problem, obviously. Due to technology, it’s a bigger problem for PCs than it is for your standard consoles like the Xbox 360. Then again there are still people who get the games legally and only have a PC. Developers get into game development to make games that are going to be played by as many people as possible. The choice to not release EndWar and Gears of War 2 for PC are completely cutting out that market of gamers.
Yes, it is a matter of business. Then again cutting someone out of the mix, like Ubisoft and Epic Games are doing, will lead to other problems. It could lead to a rush of hackers/programmers to make emulators of all the new systems. Then people just need someone with a copy of the game that could make an ISO of the disc for them.
After a while both the game system developers and the game developers would start losing potential profits anyway. Even torrents really wouldn’t become the threat to profits that they are thought of now. This is true because emulators and ISOs/ROMs don’t need torrents to be distributed. They could just be solely browser-based downloads.
Read [Game Daily] Also Read [videogaming247] Also Read [Gamespot] Also Read [TotalVideoGames]
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Here, in Argentina, a new PC game could cost up to $300 (pesos, something near a hundred bucks). It’s not really cheap to buy an original. 300 pesos for us it’s like if you had to pay 300 dollars for a game.
on October 10, 2008 at 11:21 AM - LINKNot disputing the fact that it is expensive. Then again, prices drop-especially if the product isn’t selling. Also with gaming it’s an industry seeking out the next best thing(s). So if a game starts being old news, to get more sales, price would drop as well.
Regardless of the fact that there is a free and easy way to get PC games, albeit one that is seen as illegal since it infringes on copyright laws, there are still people who prefer to either wait for the price to drop or would just get the game if they can afford it. Cutting out an entire demographic because there are those who do find pirated copies of games seems a bit extreme.
Either way, it’s not like it’s impossible to get pirated games for consoles either. All you really need is either a copy that’s able to support the emulator and the ISOs/ROMs or the willingness to put a mod chip into their console.
on October 10, 2008 at 11:49 AM - LINKoops. Last paragraph I meant all you need is a computer that’s able to support an emulator, not a copy.
on October 10, 2008 at 11:50 AM - LINKUhh…. emulation for the modern systems is not going to happen anytime soon. N64 emulation is still very buggy Dreamcast emulation is nearly non-existent (but they’re working on it.)
A much more likely scenario is people burning downloaded games to a disc and then playing them on modded consoles. It would be very complicated, though, mostly because of firmware updates but the hacking/modding/pirate community are a resourceful bunch, so it will become less of a problem later on.
Anyway I don’t know why these developers are complaining, they act like it’s actually possible to stop piracy.
on October 10, 2008 at 02:11 PM - LINKPirated console games are available too but piracy PC games has like, exploded over past few years. Its definitely a problem. Hackers are too smart and always find a work around. I think hacking teams should be contacted to release the cracks and pirated copies at least 6 months after the game is released. Its sounds crazy but might just be worth a try.
Prices of games drop over time and eventualy becomes afordable in few months. If the game companies compensate on their part on the price of the games a little then more users would buy original games.
Anyways if a solution does not come up soon PC games might get killed.
on October 11, 2008 at 03:23 AM - LINKActually Midway Games is also lessening its PC title development as well because of piracy problems that they had with Stranglehold and Blacksite: Area 51.
on October 20, 2008 at 11:20 AM - LINKIf I was going to pirate Video Games which I totally don’t do, it’d be because of the ridiculous prices. My computer cost me £300, which is perfectly reasonable as it’ll last me a good few years, but when a game, such as call of duty 4 costs £40 and will last me 4 hours and has no replay value, why the hell would I spend 1/8th of my PC on 4 hours? I wouldn’t. They’re ridiculously expensive.
on October 26, 2008 at 01:08 PM - LINKI meant to add; I purchased Call of duty 1 and I’ve played well over 1200 hours on it, it has massive replay value and is great fun. That was a game I’m glad I purchased, it cost me £10. That was a reasonable price, I’d be willing to spend £20/£30 on CoD1, but CoD4 has #### all replay value, all it has going for it is the graphics, I would happily sacrifice graphics for playability.
on October 26, 2008 at 01:09 PM - LINK