Another PC only gaming company dies...

[omenowl]

I do not advocate or justify piracy. I think it hurts revenues of good games more than bad games as people actually want to pirate a good game they may have been willing to buy. I even give more slack to the small game developer who has a buggy game, but is constantly trying to patch it.

As for myself I want to try a game out before I buy hence I either watch my friends play it or I download the demo. However, for a casual gamer like myself if the download takes longer than I want to be online then I skip over it. The game company just lost a potential customer for that reason as I won't play or buy a game unseen.

As for a serious gamer I think it is one who likes to play all types of games. The person who only plays one game to exclusion isn't serious, but rather 1 dimensional or a serious player for 1 game. People who only play 1 game a year are not helping out the industry. It is the guy who buys 5-12 a year of all types. RPGs, adventure, FPS, MMOs, etc.

Crysis ran ok on my machine (a bit more powerful than yours), but still I felt Crysis's focus was on graphics rather than gameplay. If you didn't get the great graphics experience then the game was lost on you. I didn't find it anymore fun than many of the older FPS. It felt more about wanting to showcase an engine rather than to be a great game. Don't get me wrong though it is absolutely gorgeous.

If manufacturers put more time into their interface, features, drivers and optimizations rather than hardware specs people would buy their products. Compare vista to Xp and you see very little reason to upgrade (direct x 10 is about it). However, if you look at leopard vs. tiger there was a lot more reason to upgrade.

There are enough graphic designers, engineers and programmers who need more powerful machines. When your programs cost 1000-5000 dollars a license per program then putting down 4000+ on hardware that can run it faster (or more correctly) is more cost efficient than saving on the hardware.

I think the top 20 game list shows how much graphics plays into the selling of games. WoW, Warcraft 3 battlechest , the Sims. Yes, the FPS players want better graphics, but a lot of people just want decent graphics with good gameplay. and it shows in sales.

 

[infornography42]

All of these chest beating titles of true gamer or serious gamer are silly and distract from the argument.

A true gamer is someone who truly plays games. A serious gamer is a person who plays games intently and seriously.

Neither of these has anything to do with whether or not they pirate or how many genres they play.

A pirate is a pirate, but they can also be a gamer. Call it what it is rather than trying to create artificially constrained definitions for other things.

 

[omenowl]

Yes, the real point is why PC gaming declining?

One games company blamed piracy.

Another blames the state of the graphics in machines

Another blames putting too much effort (cost) into graphics

I am saying the developers are to blame by limiting their market. I also am saying the PC games industry needs to stop releasing buggy drivers, buggy games and an operating system that eats up resources.

Developers need to stop blaming the PC users for not buying their games. They need to focus on making games PC users want to buy.

 

[tsd16]

The reason software piracy is so hard to curb is because it is somewhat still in its infancy and most people in their mind do not think they are breaking the law whether conciously or unconciously. Why do you think probably 80 percent of the population with a computer does it? For some reason or another they have convinced theselves its not stealing.

 

[DannyBoy27]

Interesting arguments on all sides. I have read the entire post and the related articles ( I must admit the one by Brad from StarDock/Sins was right on the mark ). I have been a hardcore PC user/gamer since i was a kid and i love nothing more than taking my PC apart, troubleshooting it and upgrading when i can afford it - or when i need to.

The original post and the whole saga of blaming the demise of Iron Lore is somewhat a pretty dramatic reach. Sure, of course it just makes sense to attribute a variety of issues to piracy and how they relate to a gaming company's demise - but lets get real, if this fact could be varified then every game developer would be is serious trouble. This theory doesnt make much sense when you look at StarDoc's approach to DRM on their games - and they have been immensely succesful ( they havent even hit a EU release yet ffs!! ). That just goes to prove that its the good polished, fresh games which can be played on a wide spectrum of machines that sell. Not crappy unfinished same old same old rip offs with hindering anti piracy protection. I mean sticking with Sins as an example - its not a FPS or anything, its kinda niche being a 4x real time space strategy game which is certainly not everyones cup of tea for sure.

Another thing that i believe is the current ebb and flow of the console market. All three machines ( Wii, PS3 and 360 ) have all been released 'relatively'* recently and i believe are hitting full steam in terms of support and the amount of good games that are finally available to them. With the market not totally dominated by the Wii anymore the consoles are more affordable to boot. So taking this into consideration - i dont believe that PC gaming is on the way out at all, it just has major adversery in the market at the moment and so has to be game on for the challenge. If anything it will just improve the quality and standards of future games as they will be forewarned about the rough market.

It all evens out eventually and in a few years when the consoles are falling behind the PCs will be in full scope again - a couple years down the line the next gen consoles will be release to catch up and the cycle will revolve again. Its hardly rocket science.

The thing about piracy is its so damn easy. And god forbid you have a fast Broadband. You can pretty much get a new pirated game fully patched and running before you could go to the shops and buy it and be back with it in your hands So there is a challenge out there in that regard. But its hardly new and i dont believe there has been a sudden upsurge. If anything im noticing a lot more arrests of little piracy group members which is a good thing - as it eliminates the anonyminity of piracy and alludes to a bit more risk when piracy. Stop game piracy you say - simple, change the mandates and erase torrent sites ( in particular member only specialist sites ) in the same manner that kiddie porn/racism sites are removed. Or just monitor some of the good ones for eg. keep the TV and mods and freeshare stuff but get the admins to admin for a change. Its all down to the ISPs who need to get their act together.

So in conclusion i agree that piracy has a negative affect on developers but as its been said before a pirated copy doesnt neccesarily mean that a purchase was going to take place anyway - so you can hardly consider it a lose potential sale. Its just so easy and accesable to rip the game while browsing a torrent site.

My 2 cents. And i do sympathise with Iron Lore. TQ kept me entertained for a whole weekend - even had the online servers been full wouldnt have mattered as it got a bit bland after a few acts, and when i realised what a poor immatation of Diablo was. Not all companies succeed so its a cop out to blame it all on piracy - so man up.

Another gaming company bites the dust - which does suck at the end of the day for the gamer...

 

[razor512]

since theres no new creativity and companies don't listen to the consumers for creativity, the gaming companies try to compete by wou ever can give the best graphics.

when they focus on just graphics, no one buys it because most of the people who can get the game will wind up running it on low to medium settings which completely removed the effect of the cutting edge graphics, and since they only focused on graphics, the gameplay sucks also so the only users who will have a reason to play the game will be the ones that dumped $3000 into building a new gaming pc (and there not many of them)


pc gaming was really good before because requirements for games stayed with in a range where most people could buy the game.



there are currently 6.8 billion people on earth. when you make a new product or open a pizza shop, do you expect 6.8 billion customers?

game developers shouldn't also

game developers complain about there being billions of computer users and they only sell 100 thousand copies. with out thinking, those were probably the only 100 thousand that could run the game



i wouldn't mind having games with graphics similar to doom 3 and half life 2 and many other easier to run games, if it would mean that there would be a much larger user base which would increase the number of people buying the games.

also you notice that games are looking better, getting bigger and file size and becoming much shorter.

i don't like spending $50-60 for a game that will only last me through the weekend.

what they need to to is not focus as much on graphics and focus on game play.

every new game presentation and trailer and teaser has been focused on showing off graphics and not game play.

if i want cutting edge graphics, I will go out side and admire how realistic the trees look

when i get a pc game, i want it to look good but i also want it to have good gameplay and run smooth


the most popular games have been games that people were able to run with out dumping a few thousand into a gaming pc


DRM makes things worst as it only adds a 1-2 delay in piracy of the game, while the legit user is bothered by it for the entire time they have the game

piracy involves removing the DRM.

there so many risks with piracy that DRM is just a drop in the bucket for pirates
99% of the pirated games out there are infected with a number of trojans and viruses and spyware

you have a really high chance of getting a infected copy

DRM pushes people to take these risks even more as with piracy there only bothered for a few hours then never have to worry about any problems with the game anymore,

legit users have to deal with the drm crap every single day with their games.


instead of drm, give people a better reason to go legit.

you don't see companies launching DRM for their electronics because they already offered reason enough to go with the legit ones

you can go with a $20 4GB kingston SD card or you can get a $5 4GB sd card with a name written in chinese

kingston knows that it wont effect them because their quality is all the DRM they need. the chinese one will last you a few weeks. the kingston one will last you years (PS in the city you will find chinese versions of sd cards for like $5 especially in queens NY, you will find items with look like the real thing but you will find misspellings on the info and chinese crap on the casing. there generally 80% cheaper but the quality is not there they wont last long. (i bought $ 4 sony headphones that broke after 3 days (i needed them to listen to lectures before a test (since my schedule has classes at 8 in the morning and at 6 at night with classes in between so i couldnt do it at home. i knew it was a knock off and didn't expect it to last, the sound was muffled and it broke in about 3 days. the wire got a break in it and the other ear bud just started to give a lot of noise like it was blown out)


if you want to stop piracy them make it so that it is easier to just go legit. the risk of infections and having to spend hours removing a infection is enough to deter many people, but only if the legit doesnt have anything to make it inconvenient like DRM. (thats just choosing between 2 problems, it is like asking someone, "how do you want to die? shot in the chest or hung" both suck, but with piracy and drm that is changed to (how do you want to die? live a normal life even though there risks that could get you killed or get shot in the chest. both ways you will eventually die. one just sucks more than the other. with piracy, theres risk involved but with drm theres no risk, your just screwed. like when you jump into a active volcano, theres no risk, your just sure to get killed)

 

[Pist]

Its so much easier to blame it on piracy then it is to look at the facts.

The PC game market is flooded with poorly made game that will never see the support it needs, the developer won't patch their games like they should so when the games doesn't sell like it should they blame it on piracy, do they think gamers are stupid and that they will just buy anything released.
Then you have games that just suck, sure some people might download these game to play it but not like they would buy it anyways so you can't blame bad sales on them.

Look at some of the crap game developers are forcing on us these days, look at BF2142 and ET:Quakewars, they force streaming advertisement's on us and log ip# plus how long we play the game and how long we look at the advertisement's on billboards (like 6-8 billboards per map), they then dial home and report that info.
Do they think gamers actually want that kind of crap in their game which they pay full price for, they don't even give you a choice, so anyone that doesn't like that stuff in their game will only have one choice and its not to buy the game.

Stop blaming it all on piracy when theres other reason why people don't buy games like they use to.

 

[shrapnel_indie]

I Know this is an old thread. BUT... I have my $0.02 to toss in here.

FIRST: I have the prospective of being a gamer and someone working on getting into the creation of them.

SECOND: People lie and twist facts.

THIRD: The RIAA, MPAA, BSA, etc. LOVE to follow the second... I'm sure the Game industry does the same as the rest of the entertainment industry... that is embellish the facts, massage the data, anything to make it look like the losses are catastrophic.

FOURTH: Piracy is real, we got enough people who admit to it. Piracy does hurt, but I seriously doubt, looking at statements two and three, that the piracy figures are even close to spot-on. IF they were, why aren't these guys patenting and marketing the process. I'm sure it could be adapted to any other marketing/sales field out there.

FIFTH: Industry locks down everything. Even after the "life cycle" says their dead and nothing more is to be made, especially in comparison to "the latest and the greatest." Reasons given are due to current IP could be stolen by deciphering the old. Since most people don't think of eBay, CraigsList, or even the local paper's classifieds, people tend to chuck 'em in the trash when they're in the way one time too often. This creates a vacuum for those who want them and never had them.

SIXTH: Corporate America (& the New World Market corporates) only care about the fast buck and the big bonuses. If your game idea is too new, or too different, they don't want anything to do with it (until they see someone making money from it, then it's buy, steal, kill the original, (in that order,) the idea or product)

SEVENTH: points five and six look as if to promote piracy. Nope, just to point out Corporate greed for profit at any cost.

EIGHT: DRM is more about control than piracy, and it has gotten to the point where it can make a legit consumer feel like they are on-trial and about to be executed.

SOLUTIONS:
Corporate America doesn't need dump the old stuff in the Public Domain, even though Id does license their old-tech game engines under the GPL. They could let it go as copyrighted freeware. meaning one can have the old game for free, but like when it was new, and as with all other new product, cannot be reverse engineered, modified, or used for-profit. IF they don't like that... how about a repository for old games, where they can be downloaded cheap (and at a reasonable cost for their age.) Storage has gotten cheaper. 1TB is can be had for less than $100 when you look hard, and at the time this thread was started, it was way more. As noted already too, bandwidth is getting more reasonably priced too.

UNFORTUNATELY Corporate Greed at our expense is going to be as hard to wipe out as piracy. Only thing is right now, that greed isn't illegal until it makes itself into an ENRON, or takes loans from our government and then rewards the top execs. (That last one SHOULD be illegal anyway) While piracy which actually helped Microsoft get to where they are, is in all forms. This is not an excuse for piracy though, just a glass house and stones statement.

In short, it's easy to blame piracy for your problems, outdated distribution and counting systems, etc. especially if it can give you more power. It's better to concentrate on content as much as graphics, and better management with an eye on all-around good product and service in the long run.

 

[Mousemonkey]