Epic: Piracy Drove Us From PC Focus

[fulle]

If you don't want to have your game pirated, the answer is simple. Offer online services for your game that only people that purchased the game legitimately have access to. A good example is Diablo II's usage of battle.net to play on the realm servers.
- Today the technology should be sufficient to make sure that users aren't able to access your internal servers and services with pirated copies. If people feel these services are worthwhile, they'll pay for them.

Blizzard's had this figured out for a long long time. I don't understand why the other developers are too stupid to figure it out.

 

[Guest]

Pirates are dirty. I actually realised that piracy would kill off PC gaming years ago and made a blog about it (that I can't find). I buy all my games and have done for some time.

Stop being a dirty pirating scum bag is all I can say. If you don't like a games DRM or the fact it doesn't have a demo, here is a tip, JUST DON'T PLAY IT.

 

[crobob]

The reality is its all about the money. The PC pool of the pot of money is less than 20% in the US... I think 17%. Console commands 60% of the money spent on video games. None of this includes hardware dollars. Its all in the numbers. Plus its easier to program for. Only 1 to 3 hardware configurations as apposed to an infinite amount. You have to have a real great game to sell well on the PC. While just about any game can sell well on console.

 

[dxwarlock]

[citation][nom]tayb[/nom]\Cool story about the amount of games you have supposedly bought. If only "hey I bought a ton of games back in the 80s" was a viable defense for illegally downloading games.You don't have an argument. If you think game prices are too high the simple solution is to not buy the game. If you think games are too expensive don't buy them. The only thing you are accomplishing when you download a game is to tell a developer that 1.) There is demand for this game and 2.) The demand isn't translating into sales, people are downloading it instead. You are delusional if you think that you are helping your cause by downloading expensive games. Well if that is your stance (last paragraph) please explain to me the phenomenon that is Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. 4.1 million downloads, 300 unit sales. You suggest that people downloading are merely "trying before buying" so are you concluding that literally 1 in 13 people thought MW2 worth buying? Really? When you compare this to console numbers (6 million sales, 900 downloads) the idea that the game isn't worth owning doesn't make much sense. How in the world do you explain crap like that?Once again, you are the problem and, ironically, you are here whining about the effects of yourself.[/citation]

I never said that was an excuse..your twisting my words into a weapon of retort. I was pointing out that I buy games worth buying. hell I've REBOUGHT lost copies of good games because I didn't feel right pirating a new copy.

plus for MW2, got tired of the 4000 army/ww2/combat clones years ago. didn't see it worthy of a purchase or a download.

what message do I send with that? that the game isn't even worth pirating in my opinion?
will that make them stop making thoughtless tossed together games?

I never said I wasn't part of the problem...but I did say the devs making more and more disposable forgettable games also contributes to it.

so dont lay the blame all on us..and ignore the rest.

Just because I fanned the fire, doesn't mean the fellow that set the blaze going is without blame.

 

[bison88]

I beg to differ that piracy destroyed the PC Industry. Overpriced games, crappy games being produced, riding on the previous success title and creating sequels completely name whoring the original while the output was pure ***, piss poor attempts with DRM to secure your work and make it friendly for the consumer, the inability to make the PC market attractive vs Consoles, and your constant blame on Piracy for piss poor sales destroyed the market.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. Come out and say MONEY is the reason why, don't add this extra bullshit to it and cry wolf. Piracy hasn't effective the music or movie industry (just check the recent records with groundbreaking gross profits). I go back to the very basic when 10 years ago the PC Industry claimed by moving to a DVD small case form factor was going to cut costs by $10. Did we EVER see that? NO! You don't even need to argue with the rest of the PC debate when they lied the first time 10 years ago. Instead we get games like MW2 that raise their price an extra $10 a month before shipping for NO APART REASON! Instead of full fledged Expansions each year we get 10 DLC's that cost $5-$15 each further milking their "fans". Ten years ago DLC's would have been called PATCHES and Updates people. I can't believe how traitorous the PC Industry has become to their fans. Every dog has its day, PC Gaming has always thrived from the NES to the PS3 or whatever is next...but just take notice, we don't forget. So when you come crying back to us when the console starts becoming stale again just remember its going to take a lot of ass kissing to make up.

 

[Trueno07]

We can argue all day about who bought games, but how do we, the hardcore PC gamers, STOP this shift over to the consoles?

Do we stop pirating? Do we just switch to consoles? Really, we can't do anything.

PC gaming's future won't be determined by us, the hardcore PC gamers, but by the casual gamers who play on their PC and maybe deiced that they want to try a few Pc games.

P.S. Before you try and tear me open tayb, i haven't pirated a game in 4-5 years, because i was busted by Comcast. It really showed me that i COULD get in trouble for it, so i stopped. I saw what my pirating could do to my criminal record, and i stopped. What did i do?

I only bought good games, and didn't pirate the bad ones.

 

[tayb]

I never said that was an excuse..your twisting my words into a weapon of retort. I was pointing out that I buy games worth buying. hell I've REBOUGHT lost copies of good games because I didn't feel right pirating a new copy.

plus for MW2, got tired of the 4000 army/ww2/combat clones years ago. didn't see it worthy of a purchase or a download.

what message do I send with that? that the game isn't even worth pirating in my opinion?
will that make them stop making thoughtless tossed together games?

I never said I wasn't part of the problem...but I did say the devs making more and more disposable forgettable games also contributes to it.

so dont lay the blame all on us..and ignore the rest.

Just because I fanned the fire, doesn't mean the fellow that set the blaze going is without blame.

Your excuses don't make sense and they even contradict earlier claims you have already made, as referenced below. If you think a game is too expensive don't buy it. Downloading it isn't a proper recourse for a game being overpriced.

"I've pirated games I was going to buy BECAUSE of the DRM. "

"sure piracy is wrong..but anything I think is worth the money. I buy a legit copy"

So which is it? You buy anything you think is worth the money? Well, I guess except for those that have DRM. Any other "exceptions" to this stellar rule you've got going on here? Price ceiling? Certain developers?

Well as long as you admit you are part of the problem that is a first step. The next step? Stop hurting the entire industry and stop downloading games. You are giving developers a false sense of demand in their crappy games. If you ignored them they would be seen as failures but instead they are seen as successful titles victimized by piracy.

 

[CoryInJapan]

Im sure its already been stated on here.
I purchased Unreal tourney 3 and it was just mediocre.It good but not as good as they were making us think it was going to be.The over hype killed it in my opinion.It didnt even do that well on consoles either.

Ive had the game for a few years now and only put maybe 20 hours into it.
They can not blaim piracy because there are still games that are "ACTUALLY GOOOD" that sell well on PC.Yes Piracy has gotten a little out of hand on all platforms.Just PC people are more picky because the majority are adults that know what a good game is.On consoles you got parents and kids buying games without researching them enough and doesnt remember the first half life,or unreal/unreal tourny 99.Or deus ex for that matter to name a few.Just make a good game and we will buy it.

 

[fulle]

PC gaming isn't going to go away. Its just going to be a while before Devs pull their heads out of their collective asses and start charging for services, and not software.

 

[skit75]

[citation][nom]MDillenbeck[/nom]Raw numbers are nice, but do you have stats for rates (number of pirated copies vs number of pirated and purchased copies)? I just have a suspicion that the raw piracy numbers might be due to the huge number of PCs in the world versus the number of console systems.[/citation]
I would be curious to see the breakdown of those numbers also. The linked article does not specify. The pattern does show a trend towards "piracy" growing.
It is time to attack the word piracy I think. I have downloaded software without paying for it, installed it, found it to be lacking or not of my tastes and then un-installed it. I wouldn't call myself a pirate though, I just like to try on my shoes before I buy them to wear all day. Leave piracy in the open seas where it belongs. I just want to make sure the product I'm buying fits! In my perfect world, I would be able to try any software without agreeing to flea-poop sized text in EULA's and waving my rights to my soul before ever making a purchase. I will start holding my breath .....now.

 

[dxwarlock]

[citation][nom]tayb[/nom]some text here[/citation]

I dont contradict..bottom line:
Stop whoring out overused over-hyped series of games..
the horse is dead..stop beating it. make games worth buying again.
I'm tired of spending 50 bucks to find out I could have saved 49 and bought a drink coaster instead.

I can think of 20 games that came out since q1 2010 off the top of my head.
2 of them was even worth the effort of installing and buying.

so your solution is to stop trying these games, have no idea how they was, and just ignore them? how am I suppose to get an idea if its worth buying with your suggestion?
trust the reviews from the game review sites? that are so deep in the pockets of he game devs that everything gets a positive rating?

less just agree to disagree, you have your methods of boycott..I have mine of try before you buy.

we will never agree.

 

[shin0bi272]

piracy isnt what drove them from the pc focus it was their desire for more money than just the pc. If you only release a pc game you are ignoring 3 other systems (4 if you count mac) so they wanted to expand their profits... yes I said profits... they are one of those greedy profit taking companies that liberals love to demonize. They saw that they were concentrating on a small slice of the gamer market and wanted to make their wallets fatter. Maybe we need to hire a lobbyist to start a congressional investigation into Epic, microsoft, EA, and several other companies for being evil and expanding their profit potential. Them blaming piracy is just the old standby answer for why so that they dont seem greedy.

 

[tayb]

Raw numbers are nice, but do you have stats for rates (number of pirated copies vs number of pirated and purchased copies)? I just have a suspicion that the raw piracy numbers might be due to the huge number of PCs in the world versus the number of console systems.

It's impossible to know the number of downloads that turned into eventual buys or, conversely, how many potential buys ended up in downloads. We can look at the numbers and make certain some reasonable guesses but we'll never know for sure how much business was lost or gained from piracy.

Take Modern Warfare 2 for example. 300,000 unit sales on PC (not counting digital sales), 4.1 million downloads. Well I can deduce that, at a maximum, 300,000 of those 4.1 million downloads ended in buys and 3.8 million did not. That's a pretty abysmal rate. I can also deduce that MW2 was either 1.) A great game that was in high demand but too easily available online or 2.) A terrible game that millions of people tried but the vast majority chose not to purchase. I can't prove either of those but the statistics from the console version (6 million units sold, 900,000 downloads) would lead me to believe that it was more of 1.) and less of 2.).

 

[TemjinGold]

[citation][nom]Blessedman[/nom]The question is tayb, out of those 560k downloads, how many were truly ever going to buy COD4? If they were smart they would go back to their old model of try before you buy (a beta if you will) and let people see the game. The reason they don't do that anymore? Cause then people see how crappy their games are and won't buy them at all. I must agree that piracy is wrong and that it is killing certain markets, but this is not the reason why epic is leaving the PC market. They are just to much of cowards to admit the real reason...[/citation]

More than the number that "try before they buy" and certainly a lot more than 0. No, piracy does not have as exaggerated an effect as people make it out to be. But don't kid yourself in thinking it has 0 effect. If you went to 560k people and offered to deliver to them free of charge a game that they desperately want to play and feel is worth asking price, some of them will go out and buy a legit copy. The VAST MAJORITY would not. That is simply how human nature works.

I don't pirate games and I don't judge. But I know enough people who buy online games ONLY because the free one won't work and won't buy games when the free one works fine. It has nothing to do with the quality of the game itself. It's a good thing not everyone completely subscribes to this piracy being okay thing or there would simply be no gaming industry left.

 

[rooket]

except that epic makes games for consoles that get rampantly pirated.

 

[matt87_50]

f*** you epic, maybe you wouldn't need all the money from the consoles if you'd STFU, fire all your useless PR people and just get back to work!

it never ceases to amaze me! all these companies were doing fine on the PC back in the 90s! surely even with piracy the PC market is only bigger now! they are so much cheaper ect. surely they could still survive just fine! its just greed. so just STFU.

its all well and good to take the moral high ground and say its piracy, thats what big publishers have been doing for years, but now we see them coming out and saying "second hand market is a bigger problem than piracy" and they are working even harder to try and stop this perfectly legal, and morally correct practice than they are to stop piracy! thus we got to see their true colours: they don't give a F*** about legality, morality or ethics, it really is just all about money! and its not like the money is even a necessity! its just greed! they all think they just have to get bigger and bigger to please their share holders! so F*** off, and STFU until you actually have something nice or useful to say to the gamers, you know, YOUR CUSTOMERS!

 

[tayb]

I dont contradict..bottom line:
Stop whoring out overused over-hyped series of games..
the horse is dead..stop beating it. make games worth buying again.
I'm tired of spending 50 bucks to find out I could have saved 49 and bought a drink coaster instead.

I can think of 20 games that came out since q1 2010 off the top of my head.
2 of them was even worth the effort of installing and buying.

so your solution is to stop trying these games, have no idea how they was, and just ignore them? how am I suppose to get an idea if its worth buying with your suggestion?
trust the reviews from the game review sites? that are so deep in the pockets of he game devs that everything gets a positive rating?

less just agree to disagree, you have your methods of boycott..I have mine of try before you buy.

we will never agree.

But you do. You did in this very thread. You made the claim that "When you try before you buy you always buy if it is a good game" and then you made the statement that "You liked the game you downloaded but decided not to buy it because of the DRM." That is the definition of a contradiction right there. You buy the games you like.... well only if you like them and they don't have this or this or this. (wink)

Chief example of the difference between my methodology and your methodology on a large scale.

Me: 4 million people are interested in Modern Warfare 2. No one downloads it. 3.7 million decide not to buy the game because there is no dedicated servers. IW is shocked at the commercial failure of the game and has nothing to blame but the lack of dedicated servers.

You: 4 million people are interested in Modern Warfare 2. 4 million people download it. 300,000 eventually buy the game. IW is shocked at the commercial failure of the game but, because of the massive amount or pirating, considers the game a failure due to pirating instead of a failure because of being a bad game.

Congrats. IW thinks that MW2 was an awesome game belittled by pirating. Who wants to bet they "learned their lesson" and ship the next game with dedicated servers? Or who wants to bet they "learned their lesson" and ship the next game with some form of draconion DRM to better protect their investment? Yeah, it will be the latter. And you and your torrenting friends helped lead them to that conclusion.

 

[dxwarlock]

[citation][nom]tayb[/nom]But you do. You did in this very thread. You made the claim that "When you try before you buy you always buy if it is a good game" and then you made the statement that "You liked the game you downloaded but decided not to buy it because of the DRM." That is the definition of a contradiction right there. You buy the games you like.... well only if you like them and they don't have this or this or this. (wink)Chief example of the difference between my methodology and your methodology on a large scale.Me: 4 million people are interested in Modern Warfare 2. No one downloads it. 3.7 million decide not to buy the game because there is no dedicated servers. IW is shocked at the commercial failure of the game and has nothing to blame but the lack of dedicated servers.You: 4 million people are interested in Modern Warfare 2. 4 million people download it. 300,000 eventually buy the game. IW is shocked at the commercial failure of the game but, because of the massive amount or pirating, considers the game a failure due to pirating instead of a failure because of being a bad game. Congrats. IW thinks that MW2 was an awesome game belittled by pirating. Who wants to bet they "learned their lesson" and ship the next game with dedicated servers? Or who wants to bet they "learned their lesson" and ship the next game with some form of draconion DRM to better protect their investment? Yeah, it will be the latter. And you and your torrenting friends helped lead them to that conclusion.[/citation]

I see your point..just we have different views on how to approach the situation.

and I didnt buy the game with DRM, because it saw the 3 install limit as ruining the game...so hence it wasn't a good game anymore.
the hassle of installing it, getting it to start correctly 1/2 the time ruined the experience of enjoying it.

friend had it, and complained 1/2 the time he wanted to play... DRM gave him BSOD or refused to start and just goto a black screen to A-C-D out of it.

thats not a good gaming experience worth paying for to me.

its just like:

xavier vs magento
or
MLK vs Malcolm X

same goal, same long term views..
different ways to approach it. and both see the other as misinformed about their approach of it.

 

[slimkiller]

Yea, thats why gears is on ps3. The reason is because MS paid for exclusivity, nothing else.

 

[Guest]

Everyone : "BAWWW NO MONEY IN PC ANYMORE PIRATES EVERYWHERE"

Valve : "Make good games, no pirates, make money."

Everyone seems to be jealous of Valve IMO.

 

[Guest]

tayb is just a troll and yur takin him srysly! LOL!

 

[stromm]

About 10 years ago, I saw the PC game development dying off. As Epic says, it's all about money.

Now, it's not the piracy effect relative that's the problem. They WANT us to believe that so they have a morally acceptable excuse.

The real motivation is development cost. Lower that and you increase your profit margin (per unit sold), which is all the bean counters care about. The times of a company being satisfied making a small, but stable and steady profit are over. It's all about the quick bang, which as we all know is very short sighted.

Anyways, what I'm saying is that game companies don't want to develop for PC's because it's too costly to do so. Total support investment over a given timeframe is many times higher than on a console. This is mostly because of the plethora of hardware on a "PC" vs. a console.

Not that I like this trend (bring the freaking keyboard/mouse to the 360 once and for all!!!), but would you rather worry about a few hardware items or thousands when you create a game?

 

[duckmanx88]

[citation][nom]matt87_50[/nom]f*** you epic, maybe you wouldn't need all the money from the consoles if you'd STFU, fire all your useless PR people and just get back to work!it never ceases to amaze me! all these companies were doing fine on the PC back in the 90s! surely even with piracy the PC market is only bigger now! they are so much cheaper ect. surely they could still survive just fine! its just greed. so just STFU.its all well and good to take the moral high ground and say its piracy, thats what big publishers have been doing for years, but now we see them coming out and saying "second hand market is a bigger problem than piracy" and they are working even harder to try and stop this perfectly legal, and morally correct practice than they are to stop piracy! thus we got to see their true colours: they don't give a F*** about legality, morality or ethics, it really is just all about money! and its not like the money is even a necessity! its just greed! they all think they just have to get bigger and bigger to please their share holders! so F*** off, and STFU until you actually have something nice or useful to say to the gamers, you know, YOUR CUSTOMERS![/citation]

calm down. the goal of any business should be to make money. that's how the world works. do they still make a profit on the PC? sure. but when I can make a significantly larger profit and see less of my games pirated on a console versus a PC, well I'm going to develop for the console, just like any rational person would.

 

[JOSHSKORN]

[citation][nom]dxwarlock[/nom]has nothing to do with the steady decline of the game quality you've been putting out correct?

piracy is the new buzzword for anyone not making money.
We cant sell games?
blame piracy!
we cant figure out why the box sells are horrible
blame piracy!
...
so stop blaming PC piracy for your own shortcomings when sales are concerned.[/citation]
Maybe there's a guy named "Lars" that works for EPIC. Oh, and a "Bob".

 

[gpace]

I think another possible way to slow down piracy is to sell the game in small chunks and have small, easy to download demos. Example: Gears of War 2, instead of $60 for the whole game, sell the Single player section for $30 and Multi-player for $30. The problem is that the game isn't developed in chunks, so multi-player might have cost less to make the multi-player then the single player, but then the pricing could change to reflect that.