Crytek, Epic lost billions of dollars because of piracy.

[Squall-Leonhart]

I call bull****. Crytec lost billions of dollars in their own mind, fact is i only buy a game if its worth it, Crysis just isn't.

I (what some would call) warezed Starcraft + Broodwar Before buying it, from a release group called Razor 1911, now heres the difference, The Razor release, wasn't the full product, it was missing both music, cutscenes and audio dialogue, Still the 200mb's was enough to get me hooked, so i went down and bought the battlechest, Its NEVER been off my hdd since. While i don't support piracy, or actual warezing, i do make allowance for a person to download a full version, if there is no decent demo available, at the time most of the Starcraft Demo's were offline As long as they delete it should they not want to buy it, or buy it if they do.

(and no, im not saying to go out and commit ludicrous acts of piracy.... anyone who reads it like that is an idiot and should be forced to walk the plank of my Space pirate ship.

If i was to download Crysis, if it was good, i'd buy it, but **** like that hasn't interested in me a long time, its just the same old dry fps crap, nothings changed since Halo. Which is why i would rather download frickin 32b ports of the build and source engines so i can play ole school Duke3D or Doom 1/2.

Crytec lost sales due to using the old boring, stale, and dry format of previous FPS games.

PCXL-Fan has sent me a pm saying i might get banzorred.

The rules while saying they don't support piracy, don't mention not naming Release groups, if this is wrong, it should be added to the rules.

Secondly, I own 1.05 and 1.05b copies of Starcraft and Broodwar and have since gotten 7 of my friends to also buy it. I feel that the right thing was done in the end.

[PCXL-Fan]

Honestly I think the possible sales lost were around 35-50%. So they would have sold 1.75 - 2.5 million instead of +1 million.

All the other people wouldn't have purchased the games.

Its only really worth it if you're an fps fanatic or have a great 'rig' as spyhop likes to call computers .

There aren't ANYWHERE close to 40million people worldwide with 8800/2900 equivalent cards out there.

[cottonvibes]

if a pirater can't pirate a game, they're not going to buy the game, they're just going to find another game to pirate.
its as simple as that.

so theres no potential sales loss, since piraters arn't willing to pay for the game in the first place.

[Squall-Leonhart]

so theres no potential sales loss, since piraters arn't willing to pay for the game in the first place.

Bingo, and instead they just end up hurting sales anyway as people who would buy the game after getting it free don't anymore.

[PCXL-Fan]

Thats not entirely true. PC Game sales aren't down [u]almost exclusively[u] because of poor games and/or competition from consoles no matter how much you kick and scream it is.

I know lots of people personally who prior to bittorrent, dc++, megauploads, etc were buying their games, and now don't, because they don't have to and it gives them more cash to spend on other interests and activities.

Not everyone is like this of course. Some still buy all their games, while others are somewhere in the middle, both buy and downloading games.

However, the amount of money lost on potential sales isn't nearly what the publishers want you to believe.

I'm not stating my opinion or stance on the matter. I'm just telling it like it is, unlike some people on this forum who are blatantly on 1 side or the other.

[Paratech]

I'm getting tired of DRM and being told I can't buy 2nd hand. If I own the legal CD/DVD and have the codes, I should be able to play the game !

[mudlord]

if a pirater can't pirate a game, they're not going to buy the game, they're just going to find another game to pirate.

Hey, I warez like a banshee yet I still buy heaps of games....So your logic there is kinda faulty.

I (what some would call) warezed Starcraft + Broodwar Before buying it, from a release group called Razor 1911, now heres the difference, The Razor release, wasn't the full product, it was missing both music, cutscenes and audio dialogue, Still the 200mb's was enough to get me hooked, so i went down and bought the battlechest, Its NEVER been off my hdd since. While i don't support piracy, or actual warezing, i do make allowance for a person to download a full version, if there is no decent demo available, at the time most of the Starcraft Demo's were offline As long as they delete it should they not want to buy it, or buy it if they d

Funnily enough, Razor1911 is still around these days.....

If I own the legal CD/DVD and have the codes, I should be able to play the game

Same here! No protection is gonna screw me around with my legit games. And no law is gonna stop me in letting me use my legit game.

[refraction]

Lets put something in to perspective here.

Crytek say "its all piraters fault crysis didnt sell well"

now lets look at reality.

If a good game comes out, millions will pirate it, maybe more so than those who got crysis. Yet these good games still outsell crysis. So can you REALLY blame piracy for the games downfall? not really. Crysis isnt some special case which the whole illegal community goes "oh i know, lets not buy this and all just download it, but lets take it easy on other games, kay?" If Crytek think that happens, they are morons.

If anythings its more due to the fact people are beginning to hate EA, making it the worst publisher they could release the game on

[emwearz]

If anythings its more due to the fact people are beginning to hate EA, making it the worst publisher they could release the game on

Beginning to? I thought we had hated them for many a year.

[Elite Knight]

If anythings its more due to the fact people are beginning to hate EA, making it the worst publisher they could release the game on

You right on that one there.

[Cid Highwind]

Well actually EA did admit they screwed up in the past, but they're trying to better their lives. Unfortunately recent news about Mass Effect didn't bring them much positive attention.

Anyway, I do think that if a game has decent copy protection it will help sales, but making it too restrictive will only have the opposite effect. Still, many people would get pissed off with their failing pirated works they'll buy the legit one after all. But if you definitely want to do protection right, you should give added value to a game, like making it require a code to play online.

Copyprotection done right:
Call of Duty 4
Test Drive Unlimited (offline isn't too exciting, online it's the best racer ever)
Neverwinter Nights (CD check removed, key needed for online only ever since a 2004/2005 patch)

Copy protection done wrong:
Bioshock: Okay, I could argue like above, saying that many went out to buy it anyway, but pissing off your customers such a way really makes me wonder if it was worth it. Don't bite the hand that feeds you.

[cottonvibes]

Originally Posted by Cid Highwind

But if you definitely want to do protection right, you should give added value to a game, like making it require a code to play online.

thats the best way to prevent piracy IMO.

just do what warcraft does and require a valid serial for online play.
if piraters use the same serial, then that serial gets banned.


only problem is, that this dosn't work on primarily single-player games like bioshock.

[mudlord]

Neverwinter Nights (CD check removed, key needed for online only ever since a 2004/2005 patch)

Same with Doom 3 and its expansion, and Quake 4.

[Samor]

Originally Posted by Cid Highwind

Call of Duty 4

still, the COD4 developers also complained about piracy.

...and the truth is somewhere in the middle.
PC games are easy to pirate, and and if they weren't more people would buy a game. You can see this with console game sales, where it's harder to pirate (not impossible, but harder).
On the other hand, there are other reasons, such as sys reqs and the inability to judge wether a game will run well on your system.

I do think the PC is losing out on big exclusive titles. There will still be good games on pc, but maybe less than before, and most of them probably ported, released only after the console versions have been out for a while.

A danger is that to lower costs, the porting will be done sloppy (actually, that happens a lot already), and then people won't buy a game, a developer will blame it on piracy, and then you have a downward spiral.

I doubt pc gaming will vanish entirely, though.... it will probably stay like it is now, or maybe a bit worse, but there are smaller developers and online games that can keep it going for quite some time, IMO.

[Cid Highwind]

Originally Posted by mudlord

Same with Doom 3 and its expansion, and Quake 4.

Never played those, so I wouldn't know

Originally Posted by Samor

still, the COD4 developers also complained about piracy.

...and the truth is somewhere in the middle.
PC games are easy to pirate, and and if they weren't more people would buy a game. You can see this with console game sales, where it's harder to pirate (not impossible, but harder).
On the other hand, there are other reasons, such as sys reqs and the inability to judge wether a game will run well on your system.

I do think the PC is losing out on big exclusive titles. There will still be good games on pc, but maybe less than before, and most of them probably ported, released only after the console versions have been out for a while.

A danger is that to lower costs, the porting will be done sloppy (actually, that happens a lot already), and then people won't buy a game, a developer will blame it on piracy, and then you have a downward spiral.

I doubt pc gaming will vanish entirely, though.... it will probably stay like it is now, or maybe a bit worse, but there are smaller developers and online games that can keep it going for quite some time, IMO.

Agreed, it's the spiral that I'm afraid of as well, and I wish I could think of a suggestion, especially for single player games, but I know of none. In any case.

[cottonvibes]

Originally Posted by Cid Highwind

Agreed, it's the spiral that I'm afraid of as well, and I wish I could think of a suggestion, especially for single player games, but I know of none. In any case.

i guess the solution is having the games on Steam or something similar, that you must log-on in order to play the game.

i don't like it, but its better than not having PC games period.

[Samor]

I kind of like Steam... it has the potential to be for PC what XBLA and PSN are for the consoles, unlike MS' own very crappy Games for Windows - Live.

[mudlord]

i guess the solution is having the games on Steam or something similar, that you must log-on in order to play the game.

Well, Steam has been cracked time and time again, and there is releases of Steam games around, like Audiosurf, in the usual channels, as well as some forums...So Steam hardly hinders piracy when the core components can be cracked or emulated.

[cottonvibes]

Originally Posted by mudlord

Well, Steam has been cracked time and time again, and there is releases of Steam games around, like Audiosurf, in the usual channels, as well as some forums...So Steam hardly hinders piracy when the core components can be cracked or emulated.

i'm not saying its 100% un-crackable, just that its harder to do.

for a regular game, a pirater can just download a torrent with the game already cracked.

if the game was steam exclusive, it would probably be more complicated for the pirater to make the crack work.
most-likely have to read a few texts on how to configure the steam-crack.
and have to download the steam-crack and the game seperately or something.

i'm not sure how it works, but i'm sure it would be harder to setup the crack than just un-zip and play.

this would prevent people that arn't so tech-savvy from running the cracks.
so maybe it will reduce the number of piraters for those games by around ~30%.