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Games => General Gaming => Topic started by: MysterD on Tuesday, April 29, 2008, 07:09:52 PM
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Cevat Yerli mentions in an interview that b/c of the high piracy (of Crysis), there likely will not be any more PC Exclusives from Crytek...
...Though, they still will support games for the PC, of course. (http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/38372/No-More-PC-Only-Games-From-Crytek)
No More PC-Only Games From Crytek?
Apr 29, 2008 at 3:15 PM - Gary McLean - 35 Comments
In this interview with PC Play (http://www.pcplay.hr/modules.php?r=23), Crytek boss Cevat Yerli drops the P-word:
PC Play: How do you estimate the current state of the PC gaming industry? Some say that it's only a matter of time when it's going to finally die-off, the others say that "the big one" is only getting its comeback pace.
Considering Crysis is a PC-exclusive title, what do you think of its market reception and its future? Skeptics would say that it's pretty risky going PC-exclusive with such a high-profile title.
Cevat Yerli: It is certainly. We are suffering currently from the huge piracy that is encompassing Crysis. We seem to lead the charts in piracy by a large margin, a chart leading that is not desirable. I believe that’s the core problem of PC Gaming, piracy. To the degree PC Gamers that pirate games inherently destroy the platform. Similar games on consoles sell factors of 4-5 more. It was a big lesson for us and I believe we wont have PC exclusives as we did with Crysis in future. We are going to support PC, but not exclusive anymore.
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"We released this game aimed at hardware three years down *cough* that's what we tell you because we can't optimize a game or build a scalable engine worth shit*cough* the road and can't figure out why people don't want to pay for it!"
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"We released this game aimed at hardware three years down *cough* that's what we tell you because we can't optimize a game or build a scalable engine worth shit*cough* the road and can't figure out why people don't want to pay for it!"
I've said for many years that I think piracy is a major problem in the PC gaming arena. And again, just like with what happened w/ Iron Lore, it shows -- as the game is known for having high illegal download rates. (http://www.pcgamer.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=39472&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0) But, I don't think piracy is the only major problem w/ Crysis.
See, Crysis definitely also has that 2nd problem you mentioned -- high system requirements (for its original release). Honestly, the vid card was the really only high-end requirement there, if you ask me. But, who's gonna buy a game their PC can't run just b/c of a high vid card requirement? A select few will upgrade; a few might buy a new PC b/c its just their time for a new PC (like every 3-5 years or so, people buy new PC's). I think what really happens is that most will wait until its time to buy new PC or time to finally do an upgrade, then maybe down the line when they get a new PC and the game costs say $20 or less, they will buy it.
Put these two major problems together, and Crysis might be lucky if it breaks even -- even after 1 million copies actually sold. I'm guessing Crysis was not a cheap game to make, as well...
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Since the Crytek stuff is mentioned in this article, Epic's also made some claims about piracy.
Epic's Mark Rein is stating that there have 40 million attempts at illegitimate access using pirated CD keys for UT3 (http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/37203/98/)
Crytek, Epic lost billions of dollars because of piracy
Games and Entertainment
By Theo Valich
Wednesday, April 30, 2008 13:20
Zagreb (Croatia) - My former colleague Igor “Iggy” Gajic got the chance to interview Cevat Yerly, co-founder and CEO of Crytek. During the interview, Yerly was keen on keeping the lid of future projects, but he did not refrain himself from stating his views about the current state of PC gaming industry.
Said Yerli, “We are suffering currently from the huge piracy that is encompassing Crysis. We seem to lead the charts in piracy by a large margin, a chart leading that is not desirable. I believe that’s the core problem of PC Gaming, piracy, to the degree [that PC gamers who] pirate games inherently destroy the platform. Similar games on consoles sell factors of 4-5 more. It was a big lesson for us and I believe we won't have PC exclusives as we did with Crysis in future. We are going to support PC, but not exclusive anymore."
This statement confirms the attitude a lot of game developers discussed earlier this year at the 2008 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, CA. We spoke with Mark Rein, VP of Epic Games, and learned that the Unreal Tournament 3 servers received over 40 million attempts at illegitimate access using pirate keys. That number is huge, and the real magnitude comes when you calculate the retail price of $49.99 (59.99 for Collector's Edition).
If those 40 million players actually paid the full price, it would have been nearly $2 billion more in Epic’s pocket book. That is more than the quarterly sales results from Nvidia or AMD. To add another perspective, the government lost out as well, because no sales tax is earned on pirated copies.
When you take into account that Crytek saw similar levels of pirated copies, it is easy to see how big of a deal gaming piracy is. Between two games there were billions of dollars of lost sales. The natural instinct is of course to hit the platform(s) where they can actually earn money, which is looking less and less favorable for PC gaming.
40 million CD keys? Holy crap, that's a lot of CD keys -- especially if that was one person per CD key.
Though, I wonder how many of those CD keys were attempts by the same game-pirate multiple times; and how many multiple times they tried.
Regardless, that's an insane about of CD keys...
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That's silly to think 40,000,000 people are playing your less-than-a-year-old game.
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If those 40 million players actually paid the full price, it would have been nearly $2 billion more in Epic’s pocket book. That is more than the quarterly sales results from Nvidia or AMD. To add another perspective, the government lost out as well, because no sales tax is earned on pirated copies.
Ahaha. That is fucking awsome logic throughout. 40 million? Nvidia/AMD sales results? SALES TAX?!
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Ahaha. That is fucking awsome logic throughout. 40 million? Nvidia/AMD sales results? SALES TAX?!
LOL.
Maybe Epic and Crytek, should jump into the hardware business. :P
ATI and Nvidia don't have to really worry about digital piracy of their products like say a software company would.
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LOL.
Maybe Epic and Crytek, should jump into the hardware business. :P
ATI and Nvidia don't have to really worry about digital piracy of their products like say a software company would.
Haha we'll just go back to the good ol' cartridge days :P Sure you can still duplicate them but it's not as easy as a disc. People will find a way to copy the data off the cartridge and make it work on other media.
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Haha we'll just go back to the good ol' cartridge days :P
I didn't like the "blow in the cartridge" NES days. Bleh.
Today's CD/DVD is a much better concept.
Sure you can still duplicate them but it's not as easy as a disc. People will find a way to copy the data off the cartridge and make it work on other media.
Always have, always will.
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CD Projekt's VP of Marketing Tom Ohle speaks on piracy, Stardock, and games w/ high system requirements. (http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2008/05/a_cd_projekts_ohle_on_the_witc.php)
GameSetWatch: What do you think the future for the PC market is?
Ohle: I just wrapped up my work with Stardock, and one of the things I admire most about Brad and his team is that they’ve fully embraced the fact that piracy doesn’t have to be as big a deal as it’s made out to be. Yes, games will get pirated. This is purely speculative, but I don’t think that most people who pirate games are potential consumers anyway; if they couldn’t download your game for free, they’d just go pirate someone else’s.
Now, I’m not saying piracy isn’t an issue at all; it’s just that if you make games for a PC audience, you can still be successful. Look at Sins of a Solar Empire as a great example of that; The Witcher and Crysis are two other examples. Yes, the games were pirated, but they still sold well. If piracy didn’t exist, do we really believe that Crysis could have sold 5 million copies or something? Would Witcher be a 3-million-seller? I’m not sure about that.
The bigger issue in my mind is the ridiculous range of hardware configurations and the general chaos that make up the PC market. Games like Sins of a Solar Empire, The Sims and World of Warcraft– aside from being great titles – can do well because they work on such a huge range of hardware. If everyone developing PC games catered to such a broad user base, it would be much easier to gain mainstream acceptance.
We make demos to entice people to buy our games, but if I sent a demo of The Witcher to my wife’s brother -- a devout console gamer who owns a fairly new PC that he bought for $800 at Best Buy -- there’s no way he could play it. How do I show him how good a PC game can be? Everyone works on PCs (well, except for Mac folk), everyone has played Solitaire or some other casual game at one point or another. Their eyes could be opened to the amazing “hardcore” titles out there if there was some minimum standard for hardware and software compatibility.
Things are looking up in that regard, as companies like Dell, NVIDIA and Intel are all looking to improve the conditions for gaming in PCs. There’s the PC Gaming Alliance, which hopes to showcase the PC as a platform for gaming and address the challenges we face as PC developers. Too bad you have to pay to be a member. Anyway, I think the situation will improve in the coming years. As long as larger developers and publishers don’t abandon the PC or move exclusively to casual games or MMOs in the meantime, we’ll ride out the storm and everyone will just have to accept that PC gaming isn’t d00med at all.
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Brilliant.
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I've been pirating for many years, its not really the money aspect of it as it is the hobby and fun I get out of searching out something and making it work. The harder it is to find, the more fun I have fun looking for it.
40 million, eh? Thats an impressive number...its wrong, but impressive. As someone who has used CD keys online, I can tell you that theres usually only about 20 that work at any given time. One key might work one day and be completely gutted the next, one person might try up to 20 or even 30 CD keys before giving up at that time.
Anyways, piracy blah, blah, blah.
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What Nickclone said there is kind of an interesting idea. Piracy in itself is something of a hobby for many people. Personally, when I was a broke college student I was a hell of a lot more likely to spend the time downloading whatever than I am now when it is infinitely easier and faster to just go buy myself a copy of whatever it is I want. In short, I value what little free time I have and don't want to waste it trying to steal media.
Some people, however actually must enjoy the process of piracy as a means in and of itself, where the end result of consuming the media is more of an afterthought. Given that premise, anything but the most basic anti-piracy measures are a detriment to everyone involved.
1. Genuine consumers lose out because it becomes a pain to use whatever it is they just legitimately purchased because of extravagant anti-piracy measures.
2. Piraters win because the more complicated measures "feed the beast" so to speak, allowing them the fun of trying to crack the copy protection
3. Genuine consumers lose again because they are the ones who end up paying for (literally in a monetary sense) the developers to create the copy protection
Is PC gaming dying because of piracy, or is piracy just the scape goat blaming a shift in consumer preferences for console games?
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I firmly don't believe that PC gaming's problems can be attributed to piracy. Well, ok...piracy is part of the problem, but by no means the largest part. It's just that the entire setup isn't really consumer friendly at least. You can know absolutely everything about your computer and modern hardware, walk into a store, see some game you've never heard about because you might not check gamespot or the other news sites every day, check the min. and recommended requirements, buy it and still totally get burned simply because it doesn't run well or at all. Sure, I guess in the recent generations of consoles it's become a bit of a problem as well with freezing and patches, but you can't even argue it's anywhere on the same scale.
That's the thing in my mind: a complete lack of it being a consumer friendly industry. Games get released as betas all the time, and people sit on them so they don't get burned that way. Hardware is another issue altogether, but I actually think a lot of the current problem is it moves TOO fast. Each company has, what, two major GPU revisions a year? Those inter-idiots that claim your card from last year is OBSOLETE!!! aren't exactly that far off. Why would a developer spend time trying to find innovative ways to make a game run better when they can just jack up the poly count, particles, and post-processing so it runs worse, looks better in still frames, and claim that it's the engine of 2010? Online used to be a major draw, and it still is, but consoles are moving in. I assume it's only a matter of time before there'll be more servers active for two year old games console side than PC side...because most of the people left in PC gaming are the ones who don't stick to one game for any extended period of time. They play something and when something new and better comes out they buy a new card to play it. Go back to the old game? That's not why I bought my Geforce 19000!
Min requirements don't mean shit to anyone - even those who've been in this game for years. Every single company has a different standard of what min. and recc. requirements are. Beyond that some just seem to outright lie. It's a total crapshoot. And sure, there is truth to what many people say; even though your PC hardware doesn't last as long, if you keep upgrading you'll eventually surpass the graphics consoles are capable of within the 5 year active console lifespan. That's great and all, but a lot of the problem is a lot of people don't give a shit. You know what...if my card is hypothetically capable of better graphics than a PS3 now, why the fuck wouldn't it be for the entire lifespan of the card? Oh, thats right, because the console developers are spending hours upon hours thinking up ways to squeeze more out of the hardware, while the PC developers and PC hardware companies are jerking each other off while watching hardware sales and releasing games that look fucking great on the latest shit, but like Quake 3 with a lower frame rate on anything more than 6 months old.
I check sales a lot, and about once or twice a week I get my credit card out and start ordering an 8800GT or 9600GT for anywhere between $110-$150. But every week I stop because what's it matter? There's probably going to be like a year's total worth of games I can't play comfortably on my current 7900GS but can on that card before they start releasing games that don't scale to the new card either. Why buy it now when I can just wait, get those games bargin bin, and maybe stretch that out to two years worth of games?
In the mean time, Metal Gear Solid comes out, and for roughly $400 I can get the entire system with probably five years left in it and the game. Yeah, it's more than a video card, but not more than the five those fuckers would probably want me buying in the meantime. It's tempting and if I wasn't so against buying a new TV right now (I'm planning on waiting until after I'm done school completely), I already would have done it. Quality control is far better, shit is just tighter and more polished, the little indy games are on consoles as well now, and it's just generally a more user-friendly experience for the most part.
They can just blame piracy all they want, and I'm not going to deny that I've done it and I'll probably do it again, but you know what drives a lot of people to it? The fact that they don't know if it's worth it because they can even fucking play it. Those are the loss sales - not the total, not the people downloading games just because they can and it's easy - it's the people downloading games because they'd rather actually play craps if they're going to gamble rather than just roll the dice and hope your game is a.) fucking finished and b.) fucking 100% compatible with every piece of hardware in your system.
On a side note, I bought Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay a while ago because of how awesome all you guys said it was. You know what? The game is shit. Don't get me wrong: it seems like it's fun, it's just not in any way playable. I had to roll my drivers back a while ago because Doom 3 engine based games didn't like the newest (at the time) Nvidia drivers and I wanted to play Prey. Fine, did it, played Prey. Then, a month or two later I buy Riddick and try to play that....it doesn't like the Nvidia drivers I'm now using. If you guys could get both these fucking games working on nvidia's xbox hardware, where's the fucking issue here? "The publishers rushed us!!" And they rushed you on the non-broken xbox version too...hey, that one works.
So that was kind of gay...but fixable. The cool thing about Riddick is that there's like a game before you play the game. It's a bit more cerebral, but it works like this: if you're not using the latest hardware and it's not 2004 (or whatever) you have to figure out how to make this shit work. Stage one was pretty easy, search google for "working nvidia drivers riddick", get those drivers, uninstall and clean other drivers, install, reboot multiple times throughout the process. Stage two was kind of a bitch. See, you have to search google for "Open Gl error, Nvidia drivers xxxx, riddick". Aparently for these drivers recommended by numerous people for running riddick with my card you have to open up Rivia Tuner, go to driver control settings, and manually override the Open GL shaders to run an older version (1.5?). Actually to be fair, this might have had something to do with just getting the graphics bareable on a modern system.
Finding the search string for stage three was a bitch though. See, after passing the first two stages, there's the mysterious problem of the framerate of the game just suddenly dropping into the single digits for a while, staying there and then shooting back up for a few seconds. The ingenious part of this level is that it teaches you to throw all prior knowledge out the window. Since this is going on no matter what you're doing, you'd assume it was a driver problem again...but no my friends. See, the game just really doesn't like modern dual core CPUs. So, every single fucking time you boot the piece of fucking shit garbage up you have to open task manager, right click on the process, go to 'cpu affinity' and uncheck every box except for one of them.
Stage five (the number jumped from three to five because I forgot to include the initial 'patching' stage) was wondering why after doing all this, the game ran just about as well as Crysis on high on a flagship card released a good four fucking generations after the min. required card, a CPU twice as fast with double the cores of the min, and about ten times the required RAM. That's where I gave up.
You want to know why your PC games aren't selling as well? Because fuck you. You only stole $20 from me this time, but some kid bought that game at launch for $50 and couldn't play it because you lied right there on the box. No, it's cool he can play it when he upgrades his system. It's like a zero interest investment with no capital gains. Oh, yeah...he also can't play the fucking game after he upgrades his system either unless he upgrades right into the 12 month period of hardware releases that actually are capable of playing the game well and/or at all. You're fucking lucky I pay for any of your goddamn games.
Lesson learnt here: Steal old shit. It's smarter and way less time consuming. Morality is only really admirable when it doesn't end up in you getting bent over and raped...then it's just being a moron.
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Funny you should mention Riddick. That enjoys the distinction of being the only PC game I ever returned. It never worked on my system--not once, not for a millisecond. It went instantly to some error blurb, no matter what I tried. I still don't even know what the splash screen looks like.
You make good points. My take is that PC gaming isn't much more of a minefield than it was a few years ago. The real change is that consoles became a good alternative to high-quality content. Only the most stubbornly hardcore PC gamers are going to ignore it.
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Yeah, that's the thing I guess. I didn't get into PC gaming at all until 2001 or 2002 so I can never really say I was in on it when things were any better. You're right in that since I started, it hasn't really deteriorated, but console gaming has improved while it hasn't really. Hard drives, HD, polished online services, it all adds up to a much more enjoyable experience while they haven't really lost any of their weaknesses (simplicity and standardization being the main ones). I'd obviously still rather play a game on a PC, but that's assuming I can actually play it and the hardware I'm using which is susposed to be superior can run it better than one of last generations consoles.
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Well, I think that's a bit of a utopian look at it. I've had probably 20 times more problems with games on consoles in the last couple of years than I had previously in my entire life. You know, games that have crashed for unknown reasons, games that had problems with specific hardware, games that had to be patched, and some which had problems which were simply never addressed (Dead Rising's text bug in SD, for example). With the growth of console games has come a whole new host of problems, most of them similar to the problems you get with PCs. Sure, they're probably less common in general, but I'm not one to generally have problems running a PC game, either, so for me I'd say they're about on par if you look at it blow-for-blow.
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I think it's unfair to say PC gamers don't play old games. I have X-Com: UFO Defense and Deus Ex installed right now. I still play Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory from time-to-time.
I've never had quite the headache with Riddick, but I think it was in 2004 when I tried to play it, on my old PC. I'm not going to lie and say I've never had a problem getting a PC game to work, but usually when it happened I was skirting around the minimum spec (or even worse, an upgraded computer hovering around minimum spec) or was using an ancient driver. This also happened to be like fifteen years ago, so it's debatable whether or not it was just the relative immaturity of a good operating system at the time.
There's no question that console gaming is coming on strong, and hey I'm all for it. But the PC is good at some things consoles aren't and vice-versa. PC games are generally much more customizable, from audio and video settings right down to the actual content. Consoles are generally easier to pick up and play.
In any case, piracy is a sticky subject. In some ways, it gets blown out of proportion (lost sales figures). I mean there's no denying it happens. But I do think that anti-piracy measures are in fact increasing piracy. Think of Starforce for instance. This was awhile ago, but last time I checked it wasn't Vista compatible. So you have a game that would otherwise work fine, but because of the anti-piracy software "protecting" the content, you can't play it. I mean gpw wants to complain about timeframes that games are built for, no one knows how some of these techniques are going to affect the games in the future. It's another layer of potential incompatibility.
I don't think they should give up with anti-piracy measures, but make it something that just stops the casual pirate. Don't try to stop everyone because it doesn't work and just creates problems.
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When consoles became more like PCs in power and connectivity, they also inherited some of the ills. The biggest ones are the availability of patching being used as a crutch by developers, and the much greater complexity of the code. Add to that variations in hardware components, which may meet the tolerances specified by Sony or MS, but in practice can cause unexpected consequences. Even with the new problems, they still completely solve the problem of meeting realistic system requirements, at a consistent, relatively low price point. They standardize the environment and make it more widespread and accessible to common people. I firmly believe that if all piracy vanished tomorrow, consoles would still far outstrip PCs as a popular game platform. That would not have been the case even a few years ago. PCs presented a unique environment. In order to participate, anyone had to bite the hardware bullet and field the compatibility issues. I know. I was there. Consoles were one thing, PCs another. Now, on the game front, the differences have dwindled. Lack of mouse and keyboard can still hurt, but the huge rift is gone. No one in the know will claim that there is no difference. The technical superiority and better versatility of well-behaved high-end PC is obvious to those who know where to look. It's just not significant enough anymore for the bulk of the market. The huge cost difference certainly is.
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I think it's unfair to say PC gamers don't play old games. I have X-Com: UFO Defense and Deus Ex installed right now. I still play Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory from time-to-time.
I have Arcanum, Planescape: Torment, and Fallout 2 installed on my current rig. And from time to time, I do play them. Yes, they work fine on XP. :)
I've never had quite the headache with Riddick, but I think it was in 2004 when I tried to play it, on my old PC. I'm not going to lie and say I've never had a problem getting a PC game to work, but usually when it happened I was skirting around the minimum spec (or even worse, an upgraded computer hovering around minimum spec) or was using an ancient driver. This also happened to be like fifteen years ago, so it's debatable whether or not it was just the relative immaturity of a good operating system at the time.
I was lucky, I never had issues w/ Riddick myself.
There's no question that console gaming is coming on strong, and hey I'm all for it. But the PC is good at some things consoles aren't and vice-versa. PC games are generally much more customizable, from audio and video settings right down to the actual content.
Which I think is a great thing, b/c you can change the settings to make the game run better and/or look better, if your PC can handle it.
On a console game, your stuck w/ whatever settings they built it around. Which is great for pick-up-and-play purposes as long as there's no framerate issues and that the designers did a good job around one set of hardware...
...but if say a PC game is ported quite badly and has poor performance on the console version (Quake 4 on the X-360, anyone?), you might be wishing you had the chance to just play w/ some settings just to get the game to run a little better.
In any case, piracy is a sticky subject. In some ways, it gets blown out of proportion (lost sales figures). I mean there's no denying it happens. But I do think that anti-piracy measures are in fact increasing piracy. Think of Starforce for instance. This was awhile ago, but last time I checked it wasn't Vista compatible. So you have a game that would otherwise work fine, but because of the anti-piracy software "protecting" the content, you can't play it.
StarForce fixed this Vista issue, actually.
I'll go find it; I got it somewhere on these boards.
Some companies that had SF-protected games removed the copy-protection in a patch b/c people running Vista (before the fix was really out there) wanted their games working on Vista and b/c a lot of people just hated SF anyways -- see Larian's Beyond Divinity and EgoSoft's X3: Reunion, for example.
I mean gpw wants to complain about timeframes that games are built for, no one knows how some of these techniques are going to affect the games in the future. It's another layer of potential incompatibility.
Very true.
I don't think they should give up with anti-piracy measures, but make it something that just stops the casual pirate. Don't try to stop everyone because it doesn't work and just creates problems.
100% agreed. If they do protect a game w/ copy protection, it should NEVER come at the cost of the legit gamer. The only one that should suffer is the pirate.
The other thing I think that happens is if a gamer say buys a game that has nasty protection built around it and this gamer is screwed-over by the protection so that their game won't work, I think what some will do instead of returning the game is just go online and see if there's a crack; if there is one, they'll just get the crack to avoid the nasty protection.
You know, I wouldn't be surprised if say when Mass Effect comes out for the PC that if it's cracked by someone (and word gets around the crack works well), we suddenly we see a major rise in the sales of the PC version. I really don't have the time and patience to be downloading games (especially HUGE-sized games) from services such as STEAM, as I feel that's time I could be spending playing some other game.
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I think it's unfair to say PC gamers don't play old games. I have X-Com: UFO Defense and Deus Ex installed right now. I still play Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory from time-to-time.
Oh, I pretty much agree. I almost exclusively play older games, but I think most of the people who are going to stick with PC gaming and still invest money into it are the guys buying every new video card for bragging rights and only playing the latest shit because anything without normal mapping looks like garbage to them. Sure, a lot of the classics like CS:S and DoD will always have a fan base, but even since I started playing PC games I've noticed a trend where PC gamers evacuate servers and move on to the next thing faster than they used to. I might be totally wrong in my assumption that it's a trend rather than an anomaly.
I'm also not saying I think console gaming is straight up better, I'm just saying it's more consumer friendly all around.
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I think it's all been said pretty well. I agree with scott's post: protection methods should exist, but they should be far, far less invasive and should focus on stopping casual pirates, not the hardcore ones who will find a way around *anything* that you do. You won't stop them because they're smarter than you pretty much no matter what you do, and they've proven it time and time again. And we've *seen* that these measures increase piracy. Look at our group here. We've got a fair number of people with PCs who are willing to spend a fair number of dollars on the hobby, and it's driving us away from sales. There are a number of games I won't buy because they're on Steam and I fucking hate Steam. There are a number of games I won't be buying because of all this "phone home" bullshit. No, fuck you. I won't do it and you won't make me. And if you think that you can strongarm me into doing it, I'll just steal your shit and that will be that. I mean, I support games. I bought Sins of a Solar Empire because it's an awesome game and it has no copy protection. I also bought Galactic Civilizations 1 and 2 and all their expansions. Ease up on the copy protection bullshit and I'll buy Mass Effect, too, which I've been looking forward to trying, especially with the PC enhancements. But if you tell me I have to buy into your line of BS along with it, then you can be assured that my money will stay in my wallet (at least until it goes to another non-EA product, strengthening your competitors).
And yeah, I play old games all the time. There are periods when I play far more old stuff than new stuff, even when I've got newer stuff I should be playing. It's a sickness. But hey, if they keep this shit up, maybe I won't end up spending as much on gaming going forward as I do now. That wouldn't be so bad.
Really, this is the same principle with movies. You want to force me to watch idiotic fucking ads before your movies after I've already had to deal with staff who don't give a fuck that I'm there, and totally unsanitary conditions because you can't hire a fucking janitor that speaks English and actually knows how to use a mop? Fuck you. That's why I stopped going to the movies. I haven't been in quite a while, and even when I do go it's a pretty long time between visits. I can't even remember the last movie I went to see.
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I think it's all been said pretty well. I agree with scott's post: protection methods should exist, but they should be far, far less invasive and should focus on stopping casual pirates, not the hardcore ones who will find a way around *anything* that you do.
Agreed.
You won't stop them because they're smarter than you pretty much no matter what you do, and they've proven it time and time again. And we've *seen* that these measures increase piracy. Look at our group here. We've got a fair number of people with PCs who are willing to spend a fair number of dollars on the hobby, and it's driving us away from sales.
Which is a shame -- b/c you will go buy your legit copy of the game, but it won't work b/c of the copy protection for whatever stupid reason....
But, if you go online and if the game's been cracked, you will have no problem with running it.
There are a number of games I won't buy because they're on Steam and I fucking hate Steam. There are a number of games I won't be buying because of all this "phone home" bullshit. No, fuck you. I won't do it and you won't make me. And if you think that you can strongarm me into doing it, I'll just steal your shit and that will be that.
I often will wait for a major price-drop or sale for games that are on Steam. I still don't like STEAM very much.
I mean, I support games. I bought Sins of a Solar Empire because it's an awesome game and it has no copy protection. I also bought Galactic Civilizations 1 and 2 and all their expansions. Ease up on the copy protection bullshit and I'll buy Mass Effect, too, which I've been looking forward to trying, especially with the PC enhancements. But if you tell me I have to buy into your line of BS along with it, then you can be assured that my money will stay in my wallet (at least until it goes to another non-EA product, strengthening your competitors).
If Mass Effect had less crazier DRM, I would've pre-ordered the damn thing already -- especially w/ that $10 off thing EA has it doing w/ GameStop and Gogamer.
Imagine how quickly I would've ordered it, if it was DRM-free and published by Stardock...
You know, Chris Taylor's Demigod w/out DRM sounds good, right about now...and I'm not even into strategy games...
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Bruno Bushnell of Atari talks about a new encryption chip that he thinks will help combat piracy. (http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/encryption-chip-will-end-piracy-open-markets-says-bushnell)
Encryption chip will end piracy, open markets, says Bushnell
Speaking at yesterday's Wedbush Morgan Securities annual Management Access Conference, the Atari founder suggested that game piracy will soon be a thing of the past thanks to a new chip.
"There is a stealth encryption chip called a TPM that is going on the motherboards of most of the computers that are coming out now," he pointed out
"What that says is that in the games business we will be able to encrypt with an absolutely verifiable private key in the encryption world - which is uncrackable by people on the internet and by giving away passwords - which will allow for a huge market to develop in some of the areas where piracy has been a real problem."
Bushnell thinks that piracy of movies and music, however, is probably unstoppable because "if you can watch it and you can hear it, you can copy it."
"Games are a different thing, because games are so integrated with the code. The TPM will, in fact, absolutely stop piracy of gameplay.
"As soon as the installed base of the TPM hardware chip gets large enough, we will start to see revenues coming from Asia and India at a time when before it didn't make sense."
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Cliff Harris gets answers from pirates on why they pirate games
Indie Game developer Cliff Harris of Positech Games asks Pirates directly why they do what they do. This is directly from his blog.
And he's decided to do a few things, to change things -- such as NO more of his games will have DRM (sounds very Stardock-like) and cut the price down on some of his games. (http://www.positech.co.uk/talkingtopirates.html)
ArsTechnica reports it and talks more about the issue of piracy
From ArsTechnica, talks about Harris and also piracy (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080814-you-want-to-know-why-pirates-give-indie-game-dev-an-earful.html)
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Money
This *did* surprise me. A LOT of people cited the cost of games as a major reason for pirating.
Oh, really? Big surprise?
I read the rest too, but that pretty much set the tone. Like many of his respondents, this guy is deluding himself. Piracy is mostly about money, or rather not paying any. I'm glad he's getting rid of DRM, though. That just pisses off the legitimate buyers. But if he expects to win over everyone besides the "few people" who admit to pirating to get free stuff, he's in for a rude awakening.
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Ok, back to this - fuck Riddick. I decided I wanted to try playing it again and went through the trouble of installing and it and all that jazz. It went a lot better this time, now that I actually know what I'm doing, but now all of a sudden I get a BSoD and complete crash every time I die. Fuck it, I'm done with it. I may buy it for Xbox at some point.
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Oh, really? Big surprise?
I read the rest too, but that pretty much set the tone. Like many of his respondents, this guy is deluding himself. Piracy is mostly about money, or rather not paying any. I'm glad he's getting rid of DRM, though. That just pisses off the legitimate buyers. But if he expects to win over everyone besides the "few people" who admit to pirating to get free stuff, he's in for a rude awakening.
I laugh when read random fanboys claim piracy exists because of DRM. Right, like DRM came before piracy.
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I laugh when read random fanboys claim piracy exists because of DRM. Right, like DRM came before piracy.
Hahah will come up with any number of inane arguments to back their claims.
DRM showed up becasue of piracy. The developers and publishers need to protect their property. But today's DRM is a little extreme. It's like airport security on crack.
The argument still remains: do we compromise our freedom and dignity for a more secure world?
A lot of literature and films address this question. One of my favourites being Equilibrium.
My stance is that you can't fight fire with fire. The more aggressive these DRM measures become the more rampant and plausibly justified piracy becomes.
Haha imagine if you couldn't open a book you bought from the bookstore until you log online, prove you own the book, and get an unlock key! Do you think Xerox and Kinko's would be legal establishments?
EDIT:
Hehe a weird science-fiction thought came up: Image the ultimate DRM; you must be blood-related to a member of the development team or publisher. Born from the idea that if you're not related to them then you're definitely trying to screw them and steal their product. A set of karyotypes (chromosome charts) are the "CD keys" of the future. When you buy the game you insert a sample of your blood and if you are unworthy your sample is blacklisted. It may only be revoked if you get a job working for them or if one of your relatives does. Dun dun DUN!
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I was watching an episode of The IT Crowd and it started with this anti-piracy ad (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTbX1aMajow) hehe
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I laugh when read random fanboys claim piracy exists because of DRM. Right, like DRM came before piracy.
Well, according to the developers of World of Goo, they have something like a 90% piracy rate. Yeah, the number is probably inflated, but that's not really the point - the point is that so many people claim they steal shit because they don't want to deal with DRM, or at least they feel justified because of DRM. Yet, World of Goo is a $20 game, widely available, and its undeniably been pirated like crazy. If you want to start talking about dignity, it's got to start with people just admitting that they pirate shit just because they can and it beats paying for shit.
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I think that's pretty much it for the majority. Why buy the cow when the neighbour's milking that cow and giving you the milk for free.
For those who claim the whole DRM is the reason, well you can still bypass it the same way you would if you get a pirated copy. Which I admittedly do with Far Cry 2 and Crysis WARHEAD; I bought the games but I still use cracks to play them simply to bypass the DRM.
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I pirated DOOM III, but I ended up buying it a week later. Interestingly, my purchased copy is still in shrinkwrap. I kept playing the other version, figuring I'd fulfilled my legal obligation. I crack some of my games just so I can forgo having to swap discs around in my optical drive.
So as far as this 90% piracy rate of World of Goo... where'd they get that number?
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We arrived at the 90% figure by looking at unique ip’s that have contacted our leaderboard server for any reason, at least once. So, this should rule out “multiple profiles per computer”. Of course, there is a lot of opportunity for error, like ip’s that change, playing at work/home/wherever, multiple copies being played from the same ip, etc, but it seems like a good enough fast and decent estimate. Then we divided that number into the total number of PC copies sold, giving us the percentage.
This was a week or two ago, before we released the Mac version. I’m curious to find out if Mac users are more or less piraty! I’m guessing less?
Unfortunately, I hear the 90% piracy rate isn’t all that uncommon, even (especially?) for games with DRM. I know it sounds like a gruesome number, but we like to tell ourselves “those people wouldn’t have bought it anyway”. The good news is, some have mailed us, telling us they bought the game because they first pirated it and liked it. Hurray for (some) humanity!
Even though our game is widely pirated, I still maintain that DRM is a useless symbolic gesture, like taking your shoes off at the airport and crawling under your desk when a bomb is about to go off.
I’m just happy people actually want to play our game at all
And
1. based on the number of unique IPs and unique player IDs, we found that on average, there are 1.3 unique IP addresses per player (there is 1 player id for each profile created on any installation that submits scores to our server)
* 76% of players have contacted the server from 1 IP
* 13% from 2 IPs
* 5% from 3 IPs
* 3% from 4 IPs
* 1% from 5 IPs
* 1% from 6 IPs
* 1% from more than 6
this tells us that the dynamic IP issue is a relatively small factor in this calculation
2. we also looked at how many players IDs were created (rather than used) from each IP address. given that the vast majority of player IDs are associated with only a single IP, this is a fairly accurate measure of how many profiles the average user created. on average, a player has 1.15 profiles per installation.
when we take the total number of player IDs (which is smaller than the number of unique IPs from which leaderboard entries came) and divide it by 1.15 (the average number of profiles per installation) the number of estimated unique installations drops by about 35% as compared to the estimate based on unique IPs. let us further say that the average user installs the game on 1.25 computers with different IPs (i.e. not behind the same router), which i think is a high estimate. that lowers the estimated unique installations by another 20%. after factoring both of these in, the piracy rate would still be 82%, and we should keep in mind that this number doesn’t include those who never opted to submit scores to the leaderboard (it’s an option that’s off by default). so while it’s possible that the actual piracy rate is lower than 90%, it’s unlikely that it’s significantly lower. 2d boy hopes this satisfies the more rigorous number crunchers out there
oh, and yes, these numbers are exclusive of the demo… those scores are submitted to a different server entirely.
To be honest, I don't really think the number really matters though.
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My current install of Oblivion might have come from questionable sources, or it might have only been that originally, and I know for a fact that the Shivering Isles expansion was questionable. But I own both of them, boxed and sitting on my shelf proudly, both awesome products. I just went the questionable route in order to get them early. I've done that with a number of games.
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Guys like Scott and Que who still buy their games after downloading pirated copies have more willpower than 90% of the people out there. :P
To be honest, I don't really think the number really matters though.
This is like the gay marriage thing. You will never change opinions. ;)
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I believe I've already adequately argued why the numbers can't be properly qualified in many cases. It's indicative of a problem, and I don't think anyone would say it isn't a fairly serious issue, but the true severity is really unmeasurable, and simply quoting high numbers doesn't really prove anything of substance.
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I believe I've already adequately argued why the numbers can't be properly qualified in many cases. It's indicative of a problem, and I don't think anyone would say it isn't a fairly serious issue, but the true severity is really unmeasurable, and simply quoting high numbers doesn't really prove anything of substance.
I don't disagree, and that's why I'm saying the number really doesn't matter. What matters is that these guys did everything that every self-righteous gamer claims publishers and developers should do, the Stardock method if you will, and they're still scratching their head. Can you really blame EA for at least trying?
This is like the gay marriage thing. You will never change opinions. Wink
Obviously, when you start out right why would you want to change?*
*I don't think you fully got what I'm saying about gay marriage.
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I don't even remember what you said about it.
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I don't disagree, and that's why I'm saying the number really doesn't matter. What matters is that these guys did everything that every self-righteous gamer claims publishers and developers should do, the Stardock method if you will, and they're still scratching their head. Can you really blame EA for at least trying?
Obviously, when you start out right why would you want to change?*
*I don't think you fully got what I'm saying about gay marriage.
I don't even remember what you said about it.
The you in "This is like the gay marriage thing. You will never change opinions. Wink" wasn't directed at anyone in particular, and was just a general statement. The statement would have probably been better served had I used the word "One" instead...
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I think with World of Goo they might be basing the numbers on how many users connect via the "Goo Factory" which is the quasi-multiplayer section in WoG. Basically you're trying to build a tower with your rescued Gooeys and you can see other players' towers in the background. They're probably estimating the "90%" based solely on the number users connected.
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According to TorrentFreak, these are the most pirated games in 2008 (http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/56285)
The Top 10 Pirated PC Games of 2008: Spore Leads
by Nick Breckon Dec 09, 2008 1:51pm CST tags: Piracy, PC Gaming, Spore
EA Maxis' Spore was by far the most pirated PC game in 2008, according to a list compiled by Torrent-tracking blog TorrentFreak. The title, surrounded by controversy over its anti-piracy DRM, was illegally downloaded over 1.7 million times.
Electronic Arts took a beating in capturing four of the top five slots, with EA Maxis' The Sims 2 taking the not-so-coveted second place by reaching over 1.1 million downloads. The EA-published Crysis and Command & Conquer 3 came in at fourth and fifth, respectively.
Ubisoft's PC port of Assassin's Creed grabbed a reluctant third place with over a million downloads. The game was leaked to torrent networks over six weeks ahead of its retail release in April. Ubisoft later sued disc replicator Optical Experts Manufacturing (OEM) for $10 million in damages, believing that an OEM employee was responsible for the leak.
The rest of the list follows:
1. Spore / 1,700,000 / Sept. 2008
2. The Sims 2 / 1,150,000 / Sept. 2004
3. Assassins Creed / 1,070,000 / Nov. 2007
4. Crysis / 940,000 / Nov. 2007
5. Command & Conquer 3 / 860,000 / Mar. 2007
6. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare / 830,000 / Nov. 2007
7. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas / 740,000 / Jun. 2005
8. Fallout 3 / 645,000 / Oct. 2008
9. Far Cry 2 / 585,000 / Oct. 2008
10. Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 / 470,000 / Oct. 2008
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Moral of the story? The more bullshit you try to foist on someone, the more likely they are to get a cracked copy.
Interesting to see GTA:SA and Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 on there.
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Interesting that the top two games are EA games.
And I'm guessing that Pro Evolution Soccer is due to international piracy, considering everybody hates soccer here in the U.S.
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I would guess GTA:SA is up there since up until recently it was the newest GTA, but also it was most likely the unedited Hot Coffee version. Also it seems that MultiTheftAuto only worked on that unedited version.
The soccer one...you got me.
The Crysis one is funny. Didn't the crytek guy say it was a 20:1 ratio of pirate copies to legit? Crysis sold rougly 1.5 million copies. I know torrents arent the only way to get pirate copies and these numbers probably ignore the downloads made in Nov/Dec last year right after the game released...but still interesting.
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Moral of the story? The more bullshit you try to foist on someone, the more likely they are to get a cracked copy.
Interesting to see GTA:SA and Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 on there.
You could say that about Spore, but Crysis, The Sims and Assassin's Creed had the most basic of copy protection schemes.
The Crysis one is funny. Didn't the crytek guy say it was a 20:1 ratio of pirate copies to legit? Crysis sold rougly 1.5 million copies. I know torrents arent the only way to get pirate copies and these numbers probably ignore the downloads made in Nov/Dec last year right after the game released...but still interesting.
Well, considering the game sold a million copies during those two months, it is fair to assume that the bulk of piracy also happened during that period. But it was probably still a far cry (no pun) from the 20:1 ratio.
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This isn't directed at anyone in particular, but I still don't buy the argument that people who pirate games wouldn't have bought the game in the first place. Are you then saying that, if console piracy were readily available to the populace, that sales wouldn't drop?
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Moral of the story? The more bullshit you try to foist on someone, the more likely they are to get a cracked copy.
(http://Moral of the story? The more bullshit you try to foist on someone, the more likely they are to get a cracked copy.)
I'd say the moral is that the more people want your game the more they're willing to steal it. I don't think DRM has a (notable) effect on piracy in either direction. Sure, it doesn't really work, but anyone who claims they stole the game because of copy protection would have just stolen the game anyways. That or they're a complete dumbass who doesn't realize that not only does it send the completely wrong message to publishers about DRM, they also could have bought the game and just downloaded the crack in 99.9% of the cases.
Sure, a shitload of people have pirated Spore, but at the same time it was the highest profile game to come out for PC for a few years.
This isn't directed at anyone in particular, but I still don't buy the argument that people who pirate games wouldn't have bought the game in the first place. Are you then saying that, if console piracy were readily available to the populace, that sales wouldn't drop?
I agree. Obviously some of them wouldn't have been able to buy the games in the first place (coincidentally, people who want things but lack the means to purchase them is a key factor of supply and demand that confuses the hell out of a lot of kids in first year econ classes). But there are obviously a shitload of people out there downloading games who, if getting them for free without consequence wasn't an option, would end up buying them.
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Well, the real moral of the story is that people will pirate your game regardless of what you do. There will be a certain number of people that pirate your game. It's a fact of life. Now, beyond that, you may try to control those numbers. But the reality is, at the moment, no one can do a good goddamn about piracy. All they end up doing is pissing of people that would legitimately purchase their games. And what does that drive those people to do? Pirate their game. Not all of them, but some of them. The end result is that these measures that they are implementing don't do anything. For every person that they actually stop from piracy, they drive 10 more to commit it. It's pointless. And I'm amazed that they can't think of more creative ways to stop it. I'm certainly not for piracy, but I'm not for what they have been doing either.
In the end, I'm amazed by their complacency. It's inane. DO SOMETHING. Jesus.
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For every person that they actually stop from piracy, they drive 10 more to commit it.
This is the part I don't wholeheartedly agree with. I'm not saying DRM does anything to prevent piracy, it doesn't and it's detrimental to sales, but I have a feeling that most of the people who either claim or outright convince themselves that they're only pirating because of a publisher's decision to include some form of DRM would have found something else to bring themselves to that decision anyways, whether it be the price of gas, traffic, the length of the game, or the fact that it's raining outside. I could be wrong, and there could be a percentage of people out there who buy games because it's more convenient or what not, but really I think it comes down to a moral choice, and if anyone is swayed that easily, well.....
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Well, I do agree with you on that, but only because my wording wasn't correct. What I was trying to get at is the fact that DRM and what have you only increase the drive against total anti-protectionism on the part of these companies. It's a failed policy in it's current implementation.
Now -
I'm not saying DRM does anything to prevent piracy, it doesn't and it's detrimental to sales,
I have to think that the fact that DRM has continued for so long means that it actually helps sales. If not, we would see it no longer. The people running these companies aren't completely stupid, and they understand the results of their actions. DRM has some effect. It's just hard to see it here, on overwritten.net. We aren't exactly sympathetic to their cause.
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I don't think that has anything to do with it. I think this stuff is implemented in part because of stubbornness, i.e. the inertia of early efforts has simply carried them along this road like a current, and now they find themselves at the end of the road, realizing more and more as they slow down that what they're doing just isn't working. That, and they're still more or less bound to try and do something to protect their product so that they aren't sued by their shareholders.
Ultimately, I think this will someday result in government control and legal penalties where P2P is concerned, and that's what I'm most afraid of. But as with many things on the internet, I think eventually the ignorant will vote it into chains while the protests of the more informed go unheard.
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As much as I love torrents etc, how much of it is used for legit. purposes?
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As much as I love torrents etc, how much of it is used for legit. purposes?
It's true the majority do use it to acquire large amounts of illegitimate files. However, I think BitTorrent is an excellent distribution method. A few sites use it as one of their download options, I think more ought to put it to good use.
MGS Online (the multiplayer part of MGS4 on PS3) uses BitTorrent to download updates and content.
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I have to think that the fact that DRM has continued for so long means that it actually helps sales. If not, we would see it no longer. The people running these companies aren't completely stupid, and they understand the results of their actions. DRM has some effect. It's just hard to see it here, on overwritten.net. We aren't exactly sympathetic to their cause.
It's probably impossible for them to measure in any way. As such, I've kind of always just assumed that they've stuck with DRM and copy protection methods simply because they look at the piracy numbers for a game and understand that there is a lot of interest in that product. Now, if only there was some way they could make all the people downloading it pay....
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It's probably impossible for them to measure in any way. As such, I've kind of always just assumed that they've stuck with DRM and copy protection methods simply because they look at the piracy numbers for a game and understand that there is a lot of interest in that product. Now, if only there was some way they could make all the people downloading it pay....
Well, some downloading it do pay -- through Steam, Direct2Drive, Impulse, Metaboli, etc...
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As much as I love torrents etc, how much of it is used for legit. purposes?
Percentage-wise, I have no idea. But I always download things like Linux distros and OpenOffice.org releases from torrents. Oftentimes when a game has a large patch, I grumble to myself that there is no torrent.
Torrent is a completely legitimate and useful method of download. But because of pay-to-download services like Fileshack charge for extra bandwidth and shorter queues, it doesn't get a lot of mainstream support.
DRM may or may not drive people to piracy, but I think it drives away more customers from sales than people think.
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Another article (http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_1.html).
I didn't really read it, but I liked this quote:
Don't blindly support Steam. Steam is a good digital distribution platform, but at the moment Valve has an effective monopoly on digital games distribution. In the absence of a real competitor, prices will remain high and Valve will have no incentive to pressure publishers to both lower digital prices and remove redundant DRM on Steam-protected games.
Theres like 10 pages if you're bored and want to read it.
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Idol, that was absolutely hell of a goddamn article.
Thank you for that great find.
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Physical Theft vs. Copyright Infringement
One significant difference between intellectual and physical property rights is that physical property is composed of finite items, and can only exist in a single place at any time. Intellectual property on the other hand can be effectively infinite in quantity, and can exist in as many places at the same time as required. In practical terms, this means that if you own a car and it's stolen for example, you can no longer use it. However if you own a game and someone copies it from you, this doesn't affect your ability to use that game. This is actually a fundamental issue because it underlies much of the debate surrounding software piracy. In essence the argument is that piracy is a 'victimless crime' because there's no actual loss of property, no loss of the materials used to produce a good or service, and no affect on other consumers of that product. We examine these types of claims in more detail in the Economics of Piracy section, but for now it does bear noting that strictly speaking, it is correct to say that piracy is not theft. As noted earlier, piracy is copyright infringement, and this is distinct from theft of physical property.
You don't see that in print very often, especially worded so well. Reading on . . .
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Is This Really a Problem?
After all the information above, I can imagine people might be saying something along the lines of "So what if developers focus on making games for consoles... let them. As long as we get a PC version, what's the problem?". The problem is that there are already several observed negative impacts stemming from this shift in games development. The problem with multiplatform games is that the PC versions are usually hamstrung with the design decisions intended to accommodate the hardware and control limitations of ageing consoles, as well as suiting the more casual gaming style of many console gamers. This results in potential issues for PC gamers such as:
# Fewer options for properly configuring and adjusting the various graphics and audio parameters in a game. Consoles are a fixed hardware platform, hence don't require as much fine-tuning as PCs, nor have as much scope for improving visuals.
# Framerate caps built into the engine.
# Poor performance because the engine is optimized for fixed console hardware not a variety of PC hardware.
# Graphics compromises necessary for consoles but not for PCs. Examples include lower resolution textures, forced texture streaming and aggressive distance LOD systems, resulting in less immersive graphics.
# A lack of modding tools, often a complete lack of even the ability to apply basic modifications to the game engine, resulting in even less flexibility and longevity.
# Inappropriate or unmappable control layouts due to the controls originally being designed for console controllers not a keyboard/mouse combination.
# Console-orientated user interfaces resulting in awkwardly large or badly placed HUD or menu elements on the PC for example.
# Artificially restricted areas, less complex gameplay and storylines, highly scripted linear gameplay, automatic aiming systems, and shorter games with far less replayability. All designed to satisfy not only the hardware limitations, but more importantly the more casual gaming style of the mainstream console audience.
A-freakin'-men.
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Is This Really a Problem?
After all the information above, I can imagine people might be saying something along the lines of "So what if developers focus on making games for consoles... let them. As long as we get a PC version, what's the problem?". The problem is that there are already several observed negative impacts stemming from this shift in games development. The problem with multiplatform games is that the PC versions are usually hamstrung with the design decisions intended to accommodate the hardware and control limitations of ageing consoles, as well as suiting the more casual gaming style of many console gamers. This results in potential issues for PC gamers such as:
# Fewer options for properly configuring and adjusting the various graphics and audio parameters in a game. Consoles are a fixed hardware platform, hence don't require as much fine-tuning as PCs, nor have as much scope for improving visuals.
# Framerate caps built into the engine.
# Poor performance because the engine is optimized for fixed console hardware not a variety of PC hardware.
# Graphics compromises necessary for consoles but not for PCs. Examples include lower resolution textures, forced texture streaming and aggressive distance LOD systems, resulting in less immersive graphics.
# A lack of modding tools, often a complete lack of even the ability to apply basic modifications to the game engine, resulting in even less flexibility and longevity.
# Inappropriate or unmappable control layouts due to the controls originally being designed for console controllers not a keyboard/mouse combination.
# Console-orientated user interfaces resulting in awkwardly large or badly placed HUD or menu elements on the PC for example.
# Artificially restricted areas, less complex gameplay and storylines, highly scripted linear gameplay, automatic aiming systems, and shorter games with far less replayability. All designed to satisfy not only the hardware limitations, but more importantly the more casual gaming style of the mainstream console audience.
Hahahaha, what a load of shit.
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You don't see that in print very often, especially worded so well. Reading on . . .
I don't personally think I've ever seen it worded so well. I remember covering a class on price theory that brushed over the differences between physical theft and what it referred to as 'non-article based' theft (or something like that). Horribly, horribly worded and focused entirely too much on opportunity cost and lost sales. I mean, both do factor in, but I guess the question is (and always will be), where does that line get drawn and should anyone ever bother trying?
Framerate caps built into the engine.
While this is true, I personally don't see any problem being locked at 60.
# Artificially restricted areas, less complex gameplay and storylines, highly scripted linear gameplay, automatic aiming systems, and shorter games with far less replayability. All designed to satisfy not only the hardware limitations, but more importantly the more casual gaming style of the mainstream console audience.
I agree with Pyro - this point is just total bullshit.
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While this is true, I personally don't see any problem being locked at 60.
Same here. 60 should be fine.
Though, I do believe I should be given the option to have a Frame Cap Limiter ON or OFF -- and set it the max framerate to be whatever I want.
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# Artificially restricted areas, less complex gameplay and storylines, highly scripted linear gameplay, automatic aiming systems, and shorter games with far less replayability. All designed to satisfy not only the hardware limitations, but more importantly the more casual gaming style of the mainstream console audience.
I agree with Pyro - this point is just total bullshit.
Of course it is. But isn't that exactly his point?
The problem is that there are already several observed negative impacts stemming from this shift in games development. The problem with multiplatform games is that the PC versions are usually hamstrung with the design decisions intended to accommodate the hardware and control limitations of ageing consoles, as well as suiting the more casual gaming style of many console gamers.
He's agreeing with you that it's bullshit. You get a product dumbed down from what the same game would be if targeted to PC gamers first, to accomodate the kiddies and the rest of the Great Unwashed. It's definitely evil bullshit, because as more of us migrate to consoles, there will be an increasing market for less spoonfeeding, not that there weren't console players with brains in their heads before. But instead, the trend continues toward the likes of Prince of Persia (the new one), good as it otherwise may be. Think about that game for a minute, then read the offending bullet point again.
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I can't really say, I haven't played it.
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I can't really say, I haven't played it.
About making games more accessible, there's those game gimmicks many have when dealing with "death."
With PoP, I think what Cobra is referring to is Prince's helper, Elika. I don't think there's an option to turn off her support for help -- it would be a good idea for veteran PoP players and hardcore gamers who want more of a challenge to be able to turn her support off. Anyways, any jump you miss or if you need some sort of assist -- boom, she magically grabs you and saves you. As interesting as that mechanic might be and as cool as that might be, in some regards -- do veteran PoP players and hardcore gamers need her saving you every single time? Doesn't that kind of stop the challenge of the game? If a patch came out which allowed the player to turn her support off, I'm sure platformer veterans would rejoice to have the option to throw more challenge in their platforming.
No, I don't have PoP 2008...yet -- but I know plenty about the Elika mechanic already.
When you die in Assassin's Creed for whatever reason -- whether you get killed in battle or say miss a huge jump which takes a wicked long fall to crash to your death -- it sends you back to your last auto-save. Basically, the game auto-saves anytime you perform a side quest, find a flag, and do a main quest thing. I think many hardcore gamers would prefer that kind of mechanic.
Bioshock's another example here. The Vita Chamber -- anytime you die, you get sent back to the nearest one -- which are littered all over the gameworld. And also, when you die, whatever remaining health the enemy has left, it still remains. So, you could die 15 times on Hardest difficulty, it'd only be a matter of time before you slay same enemy you're battling. In a patch though, 2K Boston did give the option for those chambers to be turned off -- since people wanted it so bad. Kudos, 2K.
About inaccessible areas, see Fable/Fable TLC. All these areas in the game, you can really only move around on a "pathway/road" to get to another area. You can't actually walk in the actual woods itself in some areas, but can only walk on that "pathway." It's not like an open world Oblivion where you can walk basically anywhere on the map -- even in the woodsy areas littered with trees galore around you while not walking on some "road" to get you to your next area.
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Jason Holtman of Valve talks about piracy; digital sales and regular retail sales; pirates are undiscovered customers; and about sales and piracy in Russia; etc etc. (http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/news/valve-pirates-are-just-underserved-customers/?biz=1&page=1)
"We take all of our games day-and-date to Russia," Holtman says of Valve. "The reason people pirated things in Russia," he explains, "is because Russians are reading magazines and watching television -- they say 'Man, I want to play that game so bad,' but the publishers respond 'you can play that game in six months...maybe.' "
"We found that our piracy rates dropped off significantly," Holtman says, explaining that Valve makes sure their games are on the shelves in Moscow and St. Petersberg, in Russian, when they release it to North America and Western Europe.
There are, concludes Holtman, "tons of undiscovered customers," because publishers look very narrowly at the Western market.