Piracy is killing PC Gaming

[spamalam]

ID's Kevin Cloud Says Piracy is Killing PC Gaming
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3152680

During a QuakeCon Q&A panel, Kevin Cloud, co-owner of Id and exec producer on Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, responded to a question about PC games disappearing from retailer's shelves by saying that piracy was "killing PC games."

"It's the primary reason retailers are moving to the console," Cloud said, continuing on to say that ways to reduce piracy are in the forefront of every PC developer's mind, and citing World of Warcraft's subscription-based nature as an example of a possible solution to the problem.

Id CEO Todd Hollenshead went on to theorize that "&about seventy percent of the landmass in the world where you can't sell games in a legitimate market, because pirates will beat you to the shelves with your own game."

"Nobody knows," said Hollenshead, "but you may literally have more games being played illegitimately than being played legitimately." Hollenshead explained how this his the PC devs by explaining that retailers would rather give up their valuable shelf space to product that can't easily be downloaded elsewhere: namely console games.

I guess its the usual line, but i hardly think its piracy that's causing a loss in sales, particularly in ID "lets make a tech demo and say its a game" software. Last game of theirs i bought was Quake 2, and that's probably the last game they made before they started making concept games and what essentially is tech demos. Although i've probably taken a dig at any Quake 3 fans out there.

You can easily pirate console games so I really don't know what he's thinking.

I really think ids problem is ids games, i really can't see how its down to piracy or that piracy is in any way suddenly impacting any more than it did when it was a trivial matter of copying a floppy or bbs.

[Sajt]

I disagree with the tech demo thing, but anyway, I think piracy of PC games is a huge concern. There's no way you can just dismiss it...

[Tei]

I used to pirate games for Commodore 64 on 1987.

Its not like the problem is new.

About consoles. Well.. some people will flee and other will still create PC games...
..And PC games will kick'the ass of console games. _AGAIN_

[leileilol]

SIS and Intel onboard video is killing pc gaming, rather, as well as the fx5200

Most consumers buy like $600 dells (usually with vaguely described "128-bit video") and expect them to work with every game or so.

[FrikaC]

Music is still fairly easily pirated, but you don't see the music section in retail stores vanishing. The reason PC Games are dropping off the shelf is because console games are making PC Games a niche market. It costs many hundreds more dollars to have a top of the line computer to play the latest titles, but only a few hundred to snag a Xbox 920 or Playstation 47 or so. The conflicts and 'need to know knowledge' to use console games is also lower.

Thus, because idiots can use consoles and they're a lot of idiots in the world. In addition to the fact that consoles are inexpensive means the larger market for games will be the console market.

I can't speak to piracy 'killing' the market, since most of the figures the ESA digs up for this are hugely inflated by the rationale that every hit on a download counter at some piracy site was lost revenue, so multiply that by the retail price of that product. Then they multiply that figure by how many sites like this there *must* be and end up with a number greater than the gross domestic product of all the world's countries.

[Entar]

I can't speak to piracy 'killing' the market, since most of the figures the ESA digs up for this are hugely inflated by the rationale that every hit on a download counter at some piracy site was lost revenue, so multiply that by the retail price of that product. Then they multiply that figure by how many sites like this there *must* be and end up with a number greater than the gross domestic product of all the world's countries.

That's a good point. Most of the people who pirate games probably wouldn't get them at all otherwise, but they do since they're free. As such, the gaming industry isn't losing so much as people may like to say.

[Dr. Shadowborg]

I think the real problem isn't piracy, it's that all the games coming out for the PC just plain suck. These guys think they can keep pawning off half-made / tech demo games that lack in just about every area, often ship with horrible bugs or horrible scripted events, and yet seem to expect these things to sell like hotcakes.

[scar3crow]

These guys think they can keep pawning off half-life / tech demo games that lack in just about every area, often ship with horrible bugs or horrible scripted events,

Fixed that for you there

[Bank]

Piracy is definitely a problem as stated above, but I do not agree that it's killing the gaming industry. Let's take a look at a company like Valve. They've made one game during their entire existance as a game company. What scares me is that people cant see that they're merely milking a succesful idea instead of making good games. When Half-Live 5: Source is out, maybe the gaming industry will have released it's last dying breath.

Most games suck now with a very few making it over the "This is a waste of time" mark.

[Baker]

Piracy is rather pervasive.

Some of it makes sense, like abandonware. QME comes to mind. Old DOS games. MAME emulator ROMs. Home of the Underdogs.

Some of it is a gray area. Are the Mission Packs abandonware?

Btw, something funny I noticed. There are actually 2 links in the Quake Wiki to CheapAlert's favorite illegal Quake download package, and maybe funnier is that there is a link to that in the QuakeDev Links page.

I think a couple of real problems that arise in regard to games is that companies should adjust prices of their games to a realistic level after the life cycle of the game has come to an end.

Maybe I feel that way because of how Quake drifted into the void where from 2002 to a month ago, the original Quake wasn't sold in stores (just that obscure and nearly secret link at ID's site, at an unreasonable price without so much as getting the CD because it was an instant download).

Piracy does kill games, it is one of the securities of consoles and why game developers tend to focus on those anymore (plus, like FrikaC said, consoles always work).

[Spirit]

Most games suck now with a very few making it over the "This is a waste of time" mark.

Signed.

[Quake Matt]

Most games suck now with a very few making it over the "This is a waste of time" mark.

Also signed.

I'll happily buy any PC game that looks worth having. Anything else I'll just pirate or, if I can't do that, I'll ignore. No point spending money on a sub-par game.

On the other hand, of course, some games NEED to be pirated, regardless of how good they are. Plenty of times I've had to download something I'd rather buy, just because the commerical copy's infected with Starforce...

[scar3crow]

The protection hoops a paying customer has to go through sometimes gives one more initiative to pirate... Has anyone tried to install the HL goty pack ? Or whatever it was... It had older versions of everything, with their respective patches on CDs for other installations, integrated within the content. I had to install damn near everything to just play 2 things. And then being a Valve product, had no replay value.

Starforce is honestly another reason to in fact pirate a game, Im not playing HoMM5 because of it, which makes me sad - but then again HoMM4 sucked which also makes me sad, but thats beside the point.

Whats killing PC games is the increasingly lowered standards on two fronts. Weve grown accustomed to movies that do nothing beyond what they are told to do - and mistake this for good game design, just look at PCGAMERs 98% rating of HL2. However due to the popularity of consoles, people are designing for them as well, and designing to their weaknesses in control, accuracy, and speed.

PC games are being hurt because the only thing people are making anymore are sandboxes (Will Wright) or train trestles (Valve), or just expanding upon a franchise. Games need a blend of guidance and freedom. Honestly, allow me to sound like a politician, games themselves are like children. Let them be open, free and roaming - they will lack purpose, and the player will have a hard time relating to any initiative he may need to take. But lock them into place, and he has no reason to play them again. Why pay $50 for something that I can play multiple times, but honestly only get one play experience out of, especially when the plot it is so rigidly built around is at best on par with SciFi's made for tv movies. The fact that I am paying $50 for either a movie or a weak level editor (why play The Sims when I can make a map and populate it with my own people, unless you just like those limitations that refute the sandbox theory).

I enjoy playing people's vision, but it would be nice if that vision had a little pre-emptive hindsight on the matter. I dont play recent games because quite simply, it doesnt feel that it matters if I play them. In the sandbox, Im the only thing that changes, on the trestle, my progression is fixed by the world and thus my input doesnt matter.

I thoroughly enjoy PC games, but aside from a few unique exceptions, I have had little reason to purchase anyone of them in the past several years... in fact my best purchases have been bargain bin... Ghost Master is a very inventive game with a lot of replayability just in how creative you can be in accomplishing your clear objective, and Nosferatu though randomized provides a unique enough experience of fear and concern that I approach it simply on load far differently than most games.

[SkinnedAlive]

(plus, like FrikaC said, consoles always work).

My second PS2 just died again. I guess Sony products are an exception to the rule.