Hey games industry -

sue the whole world if you like. Don't bother me none.

But can I get back some of the $100s (if not $1000s) of dollars I've spent on absolute crap games over the years as a trade-off? Games that should never had been on store shelves that I had no way of getting my money back for?

It's been so bad I can't remember the last time I bought a new release. Why should I, when chances are better than 50% I'd be throwing away my 50 bucks.

Oh wait - I can remember the last new release I bought: it was Gothic 3.

Why don't they ever learn? Really.... this didn't work for the music industry, It won't work now either. Are they all mentally retarded or do they just not pay any attention to the VERY RECENT PAST?

*sigh* I don't even pirate anymore an this pisses me off. The vast majority of pirates are in countries that don't even penalize for this sort of thing and are untouchable by a lawsuit. How can they not realize that?

It needs to rage on.

Free games for all, then buy if you wanna play more or multi-player.

It's just turning into Blizzard and Valve = PC Gaming. Everyone else is garbage.

Also, just thought I'd mention I never hear anything about the PC Gaming industry dying except on these forums, so it really seems to be a sort of attitude held here.

One of the saddest days of PC gaming was when EA acquired Bioware.

Heya,

Quite honestly, I don't care what happens to the industry. They're games. Yea, it's someone's job. Yea, it's someone's livelyhood. But it's a game. When it comes down to what's important, a game is not. And while that may sound like a wash, that's how most people think and why they don't give a rats butt if they're `stealing' a game off the internet and hurting a `market.'

I love playing games. I love great deals too though. The Orange box for example was monumental and had me shelling out my hard earned $$ for that great release. If the industry looked at that and said, "Wow, we could make a killing. When it's a great deal and a great series, people will actually buy it." Sure, folk still pirate that thing. But for $40, you get it all, and even steadfast pirates can't argue with such a good deal in games. I'm over joyed that I waited a long time to buy into HL2 because instead of spending the money each time something came out for it, I got the whole bundle for cheaper. Just like now, I can go grab battle chests for blizzard games and get all the titles for like $50. I don't need the brand new released game right now. I'll get to it eventually. I just like knowing it's there. I like to see if it's worth actually buying before shelling out. I don't want to fuel an industry of "let's see how pretty we can make it, even though it's the 1,000th version of the same game."

I think game producers should ditch publishing. They spend so much in publishing that they could put that into a nother method of distribution. People are torrenting. So why not use that. Sell your game online for a much smaller price, since they can do that and still bank profit since they knock a large price off distribution and packaging. And they can even bank on bandwidth as gamers torrent the thing themselves.

Consider this. Most stores out there are getting at least 50% profit from each sale, otherwise, they would not put that thing on the shelf as it would not be worth their time to buy and distribute the merchandise, regardless of what it is. So if that new game was $50 on the shelf, that store probably only paid like $20~25 for it initially. Of that, how much of it actually is costed by the publisher? Another fair chunk. In the end, how much does the publisher pay for the actual content to publish? Very little. If the desingers just published on the net and distrubted via the net, using bit torrent, they could sell it for the same, if not more, and not have the hassle.

Sure, people could still pirate. But the thing is, a lot of folk would be far more likely to actually whip out their credit card and pay $10 for an online game, full access to it, and be able to download it without even leaving their house.

They could just buy into a membership. Pay $X and you get download access to various content. A lot like how Steam works. But on a larger scale and using the users' bandwidth as an option (torrenting).

Finally, I'm not keen on them going purely into consoles and leaving the PC platform for the biggest selling companies who can remain affloat even with mass piracy due to their games just being so damn good and them being so damn popular. Only those trying to break into the market will go to the PC release after a long while and might strike it big or lose out horribly to the big wigs and piracy. Me? I'm not interested in buying a stupid console. I like to do all kinds of things with my PC. Gaming is one of them, but not the only thing. Sure, you can do several things with consoles now, but that still doesn't have me wanting to spend $200~400 on a console. Hell, my computer costed like $500 and it plays all the games out there just fine. Why would I want to buy a console, controllers, and other crap that is just one more damn thing in my house taking up space, when I could have it all on ONE machine, the PC? I'm just not into consoles. I likely never will be until I have no option.

Sad too, I wanted to really play Force unleashed, but frankly, if the game is just a bore and nothing innovative beyond the cool factor of force pushing storm troopers through walls, I'll probably not be too sad.

Very best,

You guys forget that the market won't allow for a large gap where PC gaming is. It will always adapt, and the companies that are rolling with that are the ones that are incredibly successful. Then you have companies that can't cope, and they're just trying to add restrictions to their products like the RIAA and MPAA, rather than simply changing the distribution methods, or even the games themselves. Multiplayer is where it's at for PC gaming. It adds replayability, and allows for validation of CD keys/accounts without being invasive. For games where the core focus is single player, and the companies are spending more time trying to be restrictive in number of installs, etc., you're going to see failure. They'd like you to think that just because they're failing, the industry as a whole is doing poorly, but that's simply not the case.

All the anti-piracy people seem to be buying into this as well. Consider that single player games are going for $50 with 4-8 hours of playtime, while the big companies are releasing huge multiplayer titles for the same cost. If you want to be successful right now, you have to go multiplayer.

i need to get on this 3d mark...lol

but yeah totally agree about the piracy/lost sale, ea/rockstar, valve/blizzard etc etc

i personally stopped pirating, but see, i don't buy the games anyway. so basically, im not doing anything except trolling these forums.

i also agree with the stop publishing method... hey, you can see in game advertising that im PRETTY SURE brings the company some decent revenue, soo... IDEAS ANY?