On another PC related note, we pulled some disturbing numbers this past week about the amount of PC players currently playing Multiplayer (which was fantastic). What wasn't fantastic was the percentage of those numbers who were playing on stolen copies of the game on stolen / cracked CD keys of pirated copies (and that was only people playing online).Does it suck? Yeah. However...how are they playing online on cracked keys? Don't they run an auth check like every other game? If they know they are pirated, why aren't those keys banned?
Not sure if I can share the exact numbers or percentage of PC players with you, but I'll check and see; if I can I'll update with them. As the amount of people who pirate PC games is astounding. It blows me away at the amount of people willing to steal games (or anything) simply because it's not physical or it's on the safety of the internet to do.
I still don't see how it is stealing. Who am I stealing from if I (hypothetically, of course) download a game?If you do it from (crappy-ass programs like) STEAM or any other places authorized online to buy the game-for-downloading legally, then nobody -- hehe. :P I'd guess you'd be cutting into "their" exclusive online-buy-to-play business or whatever.
If I get it from a torrent, people are simply sharing the game with me.Right.
My take: pirating and stealing are two different things and are not equally wrong, though I will say that both are wrong. Don't take that stupid video at the beginning of (store bought) DVDs to heart.
But yeah, how are people playing online with a pirated copy? I thought that was the whole thing with pirating: you could play the SP but not the MP.
Maybe people just have some sort of issue paying 60 bucks for 4 hours of gameplay. Just a thought.
Yes, yes, I know this is multiplayer, which is a different story, don't jump down my throat.
A 4 to 6 hour campaign that was tighter and more full of action than the comparable 10-15 hour fare we're used to seeing. There's not a low point during any of the campaign. It has to rank up there with being one of the best (If not THE best) single player campaign in the history of FPS.Games of episodic length should definitely be priced as such.
Games of episodic length should definitely be priced as such.
Any gamer into ONLY SP gaming would be definitely boned here. No matter how great the SP is, you could finish that SP in probably one damn sitting and then want to throw the game away; especially if the SP is linear and has only ONE ending to it.
Really though -- if you're spending $40-60 on CoD4, you better be into spending a lot of time on the MP action. And, there better be a lot to the MP out the box, too. Also, there better be an SDK released so maps galore can be pumped out, since as it seems that is the MP component will likely get the most length out of the gamer; since they seemed to take the Halo 3 route of "lengthy robust MP, not-so-much SP."
Does CoD4 have any Achievements on the PC version??? Many games like Valve's newer stuff and HG: London have Achievements, to extend some challenges out there for gamers out there....
Regardless, I'll defiintely buy CoD4, when it's in MY price range...
I knew I should have kept my mouth shut. I won't devolve this thread into that mess again. Suffice it to say I look at both of your mentioned criteria, but a whole lot of one simply can't make up for a glaring lack of the other. If I go to a restaurant and get a couple of tiny morsels of food, it doesn't matter if they're the best ever. I'm still hungry. 5 hours of game is possibly a single sitting for me. I can't pay 60 bucks for that even if I wanted to.
So... carry on with the piracy discussion. We've all said our piece on the other.
I knew I should have kept my mouth shut. I won't devolve this thread into that mess again.
IGN: How about the biggest failure?
Cevat Yerli: I definitely think that we need to continue to educate gamers about our settings. As we've been saying all along, Crysis looks and runs great on medium and high settings on gaming rigs that are 2-3 years old.
I also think we would re-examine our anti-piracy measurements. We don't know what the answer is, but we're going to look into all of the possibilities in the future.
So with all these great games released on PC this year, the question is: what the hell happened to the gamers? What's most troubling about the PC market is the sales numbers. The best selling game in North America, according to NPD numbers, was the World of Warcraft expansion pack Burning Crusade. That was the only game on the list that sold over a million PC copies this year and its base product World of Warcraft the only other game to pass a half-million sold. The next best seller, The Sims 2: Seasons, was down around 300k. And check this, of the 31 games that managed to sell over 100,000 copies this year, 21 of them were released in previous years and 11 of them were Sims products. Command & Conquer 3, Supreme Commander, Lord of the Rings Online, BioShock were the only games released this year to sell over 100k that weren't Sims or World of Warcraft related according to NPD.
Next Generation reports that at a QuakeCon Q&A, id Software co-owner Kevin Cloud put some blame on why developers are shying away from the PC market and turning to the slightly less-hackable console market.
Cloud is quoted as saying:
"Piracy is hard. It's really -- from my opinion, destroying the PC market. ... when you look out there at the number of games that are getting pirated, it is just devastating. It's the primary reason retailers are moving to the console. It's something that's on every PC developer's mind -- on how to reduce [piracy]. Because, if you like the PC, you hate to see it fall lower and lower down."
Todd Hollenshead, CEO of id, expressed similar concerns:
"... the problem that this industry faces above all else is the piracy. There is about seventy-percent of the landmass of the world where you can't sell games in a legitimate market, because pirates will beat you to the shelves with your own game. ... you may literally have more games being played illegitimately than being played legitimately. So when you're giving up that much market to people who aren't paying for the games, or who are buying the games in ways in which the developers aren't getting paid for it, it creates a big challenge. Not only for the developers and publishers. But also for retailers, because they have to make bets when they buy their game inventory."
I still do it, don't get me wrong, but it's definitely stealing.
Developers have always said that piracy hurts their sales, most people who pirate a game aren't going to buy it if they couldn't pirate it. I don't know where these companies get their numbers from (if they can clearly see the pirates on MP why can't they stop them?), but I think it's crap.
Bullshit. Sure, maybe a percentage wouldn't buy them, but most would. Console sales for the same games that tanked on the PC this year, are much higher. If you just simply couldn't pirate a single PC game, you'd definitely be buying more to satisfy at least the curiosity factor.
If console games were suddenly as easily piratable as PC games, you'd see sales figures drop overnight.
Its not just about piracy, I don't pirate any of the new PC games anymore. Its not because I don't want to, its because my computer can't handle it. I can't keep up with the spec requirements, having to update every few months isn't worth it. Thats why the console games are beating the PC versions, all you have to do is buy the system and put the game in.
I'd second Cobra's above comment. It's disheartening watching, for instance, Aquaria get pirated all over the place. It's almost painful. This will dictate whether or not the two guys who made it ever get to make another indy title like it ever again, and Alec has been very vocal about his frustration at how little they've made.
Crysis doesnt sell well, but everyone knows its a system killer with its requirements. Whos going to pay $50 for something that, unless you upgraded in the last month, won't run very well? UT3 seems to have a similar problem. Also, those games came out during a very heavy game release season, both PC and consoles. Wallets are empty.
Sales numbers generally dont factor in digital sales such as steam or direct2drive. How many copies REALLY sold then? Hard to say.
Theres plenty of people that play PC games simply because they can play them for free. Those people wouldn't buy the game in any case. Its just impossible to judge that, though...so whatever. I think it would be more people than not.
Speaking of incentive, as I said in IRC: Its obvious people want these games. They have the rigs that run them, and the time to download them. I wonder if there is some kind of incentive that developers could add to make people want a real legit copy over a pirate copy.
What is funny to me is that people go to the cinema and pay $10 for a 2 hour movie. Most of these are college students are probably watch a movie in he cinema a week? These people can't pay twenty fucking dollars for a game like Aquaria?
Most of these are college students are probably watch a movie in he cinema a week?
haha...Haha this thread is like "That night, a forest grew..." hehe
I bet you woke up, and saw this thread, and were thinking... damn...
Games of episodic length should definitely be priced as such.
Any gamer into ONLY SP gaming would be definitely boned here. No matter how great the SP is, you could finish that SP in probably one damn sitting and then want to throw the game away; especially if the SP is linear and has only ONE ending to it.
Really though -- if you're spending $40-60 on CoD4, you better be into spending a lot of time on the MP action. And, there better be a lot to the MP out the box, too. Also, there better be an SDK released so maps galore can be pumped out, since as it seems that is the MP component will likely get the most length out of the gamer; since they seemed to take the Halo 3 route of "lengthy robust MP, not-so-much SP."
Does CoD4 have any Achievements on the PC version??? Many games like Valve's newer stuff and HG: London have Achievements, to extend some challenges out there for gamers out there....
Regardless, I'll defiintely buy CoD4, when it's in MY price range...
UT3 has TOTALLY TANKED on the PC, yet has done better on the PS3. Quake Wars has tanked as well only on the PC.Piracy may be a factor, but I'd say it's more likely that it's because it is a graphical update of a game with stale gameplay. I mean how different is it really from UT2004? And PC multiplayer gameplay has simply changed since UT was the big thing. I know TDM and DM still has its fans (like Que), but I think many more peoples' interest has shifted into the more modern game modes.
Bullshit. Sure, maybe a percentage wouldn't buy them, but most would.I completely disagree. I haven't pirated anything in a long time, but I used to have a pretty sizable collection of ISOs. We're talking like 200 GB. And that was just what was on my hdd and the time that I hadn't burned off to disc. I probably played 50% of the games I had ISOs for at all, 20% of them for more than a few hours. I probably would have bought 10% of them if piracy wasn't a possibility.
Console sales for the same games that tanked on the PC this year, are much higher.You bring up an interesting point, and that point actually contradicts what you are trying to say. Console versions of PC games are selling much higher and PC game sales are declining.
Most of these guys are complaining about the endings, or the lengths, which makes one realize that they aren't just pirating out of curiosity.
I totally pirated your game and I really did love it, and I would totally buy it too if...
I kinda agree with MyD on the episodic content pricing. Wasn't that the point of episodic games to begin with? That's my stance on expansions too. An expansion should cost no more than 60% of its Full counterpart's price. Some people argue that expansions should be half or less.
Agreed but lets be clear here D's comment about episodic content was directed at CoD4s length not an expansion pack. While CoD4s length is short and it is a con for the game its certainly not a deal breaker (given how great this game actually is when you play it) like D believes it should be.Yeah, to each his own I guess.. I thought it was a fantastic, albeit brief, singleplayer campaign.
I can't actually buy the game though; it's still banned here.I didn't know that. Is it because of violence in general, or its subject-matter?
I didn't know that. Is it because of violence in general, or its subject-matter?It was a mix between subject-matter and certain content. The general perception here is that the game is supposedly "Anti-Arab" or "Anti-Islamic." Which are unfounded claim backed by mere rumours.
I kinda agree with MyD on the episodic content pricing. Wasn't that the point of episodic games to begin with?Exactly. The point of that was to have shorter stand-alone games at lower costs. Valve succeeded with that idea. And, the biggest point of episodic gaming -- is to pump out more of it, way more often; Valve didn't succeed there.
That's my stance on expansions too. An expansion should cost no more than 60% of its Full counterpart's price. Some people argue that expansions should be half or less.I think that depends on expansion's game length, how much content is added to the actual game, and whatnot.
For me that certainly doesn't mean I'm going to run out and pirate something every time, but for a lot of people I'll bet it does. When you've been used to years of getting games that granted 10+ hours of game at the very least, 5 almost starts to sound like a joke.I agree 100% w/ that Que.
There are lots of factors involved here, and to lump everyone into one category and vilify them is a failure to recognize the climate and adapt to the changes. The price for that misguided mindset, as the recording industry has seen, can be catastrophic.
I don't doubt there are people who will simply refuse to pay for games so long as a method exists to obtain them for free. Well, the technology exists, it's not going away, and any attempt to make computers NOT do something is always fifteen minutes behind a new way to enable them to do that very thing. I'd like to see someone in the industry stop throwing around billion-dollar estimates and admit to a harsh reality: games are being played for free by people who, if piracy never existed, would never play the game at all.
Don't focus on the people whose money was never in your pocket. Instead, work on winning the customers whose gaming dollars exist and are actually at stake. Win over the gamer who doesn't want to waste his occasional gaming purchase on something he'll play for six hours and then discard. If you can't help but make that six-hour game, figure out what your game is actually worth; don't lament your game's popularity in the used market. (Getting developers to stop making games people trade away is another rant entirely.)
Stop blaming others for your lack of success, or limited success, or God forbid, overwhelming success to which you just can't help but add a sour note. The question is "how do we win over more gamers?" Eliminating piracy has never been a realistic or feasible answer. More importantly, if you don't answer this one important question, you might eliminate piracy, only to find your game less played, less well-known, and not really pushing any more copies.
And I hate to see games stubbornly refuse to get better.
Hence why I mentioned that if you want CoD4, you REALLY better plan to be into MP gaming, planning to spend time w/ the MP portion. B/c otherwise, if you're only into SP gaming -- is it really worth its pricetag of $50-60, no matter how amazingly fantastically great it is or isn't??
See, Bungie (Halo 3) and Infinity Ward (CoD4) are setting a new scary trend
It's not like you don't have an option here, you can wait for the game to drop in price. In the meantime they're obviously going to charge full in hopes that people will buy it for the MP or just the SP and decide it's worth the cash to them. Splitting it into 2-3 SKUs costs money and the current system seems to work as far as their concerned end of story.
There's no injustice here, the market dictates what they can and can not charge. If they can get away with selling a 4 hour game for full price, then so be it. I've played 4 hour games without MP that I think are worth 60 bucks. There seems to be some air of entitlement with certain posts here and it's pretty stupid. Just like anything else you vote with your dollars, and just like anything else you do your research before buying so you know what you're getting into.
There's no injustice here, the market dictates what they can and can not charge. If they can get away with selling a 4 hour game for full price, then so be it. I've played 4 hour games without MP that I think are worth 60 bucks. There seems to be some air of entitlement with certain posts here and it's pretty stupid. Just like anything else you vote with your dollars, and just like anything else you do your research before buying so you know what you're getting into.
Exactly. No one is forcing you to steal it.I finished it in about 5½ hours. Awesome.
But it took me about six hours to finish COD4. I can't see anyone finishing it in 4!
Hehe imagine a world where our food is creative flow and movies, books, and games are a major source of nourishment Tongue
As for Portal, yes it was a 4 hour $20 game... and yes on a level of innovation and artistry, it is worth a lot of money. But I can't imagine it cost a fraction of what it cost to make COD4.
Yes (http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B000JLL3UQ/ref=pd_bbs_sr_olp_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1200479614&sr=8-1) those are (http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B000Q6J51S/ref=pd_bbs_sr_olp_2?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1200479614&sr=8-2) really hard (http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B000B69E96/ref=pd_bbs_sr_olp_3?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1200479614&sr=8-3) to find (http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B0009K7ESC/ref=dp_olp_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1200479614&sr=8-5).
...
But I hear you. I've gotten some classic games that way that are either impossible to find or cost hundreds of dollars to get a working copy.
Anyway, I still think you guys aren't really trying to look at the length issue from a reasonable viewpoint. No, this is not an explanation for every instance of piracy, but don't you think it could be a big factor? I'm a hardcore gamer who buys tons and tons of games new and even at release, many that have up until very recently been considered short. A 10 hour campaign was a huge negative for most people as little as a year ago... and for some still is. I spent a lot of time defending The Darkness against those who claimed it was ultra-short and not worth the money, much the same way a lot of you guys are defending CoD4. But even for me 4 - 6 hours is just not worth the cabbage. That doesn't mean I'm going to pirate it, but you're almost cutting in half what had become the new standard for FPS games (a standard that a lot of people felt was totally unacceptable since many FPS games before that had offered around 15 - 20 hours). You can't tell me you don't see how that's going to burn people even with a game that redefines a genre.
Anyway, I still think you guys aren't really trying to look at the length issue from a reasonable viewpoint. No, this is not an explanation for every instance of piracy, but don't you think it could be a big factor? I'm a hardcore gamer who buys tons and tons of games new and even at release, many that have up until very recently been considered short. A 10 hour campaign was a huge negative for most people as little as a year ago... and for some still is. I spent a lot of time defending The Darkness against those who claimed it was ultra-short and not worth the money, much the same way a lot of you guys are defending CoD4. But even for me 4 - 6 hours is just not worth the cabbage. That doesn't mean I'm going to pirate it, but you're almost cutting in half what had become the new standard for FPS games (a standard that a lot of people felt was totally unacceptable since many FPS games before that had offered around 15 - 20 hours). You can't tell me you don't see how that's going to burn people even with a game that redefines a genre.
One solution would be to sell SP and MP games separately.
Some gamers just ain't into MP -- so, how many gamers would purchase just the CoD4: SP Campaign for say $20? I think $20 for a SP component that's 4-6 hours makes sense; especially since that's the episodic gaming price for that kind of game-length.
Though, the next question is -- how much would gamers pay for the CoD4: MP Alone, which seems way more robust than the SP???
It could be a topic about Jessica Alba having steamy lesbian sex, and he'll go on a rant about STEAM.
I think of you like Butters from South Park
Now that it's been said I’ll shut up as I don’t want D to feel unwelcome or that I hate him and I certainly don’t want to drive him away.
I agree with Cobra on the whole D thing. Even though he likes Mulholland Drive for some whacked ass reason, he does contribute a lot and it's not really fair for everyone to jump on him at once. If he posts something that annoys you, bring it up at the time or ignore him. It's kind of a dick move to have like 4 people all of a sudden start picking someone apart - like a mob smelling blood once the first person grew the balls to throw a rock.
Jedi it seems like you always post just to contradict or argue with D.
Jedi it seems like you always post just to contradict or argue with D.
I agree with Cobra on the whole D thing. Even though he likes Mulholland Drive for some whacked ass reason, he does contribute a lot and it's not really fair for everyone to jump on him at once. If he posts something that annoys you, bring it up at the time or ignore him. It's kind of a dick move to have like 4 people all of a sudden start picking someone apart - like a mob smelling blood once the first person grew the balls to throw a rock
Hey welcome to the internet. There's few places D can go and post the way he does here without either getting banned or totally insulted. Look I agree he contributes a lot and some of it is good and the bad I can ignore... but only for so long. He can't just keep posting stuff like that and just get away with it every time. Hes gonna need a slapping around every now and again or he'll never learn.
Im still getting the general impression that the people who haven't played the game still feel the need to knock it for its length, and in this case its because of piracy. I still disagree whole heartedly. So its a short game, they certainly didn't half ass their way out it, the game is essentially 5 to 6 hours of quality gaming and every ounce of attention went into everything and it shows. You guys are making it seem like this is the beginning of a new era of 5 hour length and PC gaming is going to go down the tubes because piracy will run rampant. I will say PC gaming continues to be dwarfed by the console giants which im sure is another factor in the piracy, but game length I think is such a tiny fraction of it all. People have been pirating games for years, CoD4s popularity is pretty much all to do with it.
Also Cobra I don't see how an expectation guideline is going to work at all amongst a dev community. Are they really going to critique their own game and say how many hours are worth paying for and how many aren't? Thats ridiculous.
Did I miss something? What did he post that would get him banned at other forums?
I've never seen D have a problem with anyone, I don't see why everyone is conspiring against him now. I'm still on your side D! I'm used to getting ganged up on so it really doesn't bother me.
Hey welcome to the internet. There's few places D can go and post the way he does here without either getting banned or totally insulted. Look I agree he contributes a lot and some of it is good and the bad I can ignore... but only for so long. He can't just keep posting stuff like that and just get away with it every time. Hes gonna need a slapping around every now and again or he'll never learn.
Yea Pyro! Why you so mean? hahaha. :P