Ben and Rob discuss Crytek President Cevat Yerli's comments about the effects of piracy on Crysis and PC games sales in general.
 
Watch Video: http://www.tomsgames.com/us/site/f [...] iracy.html
 
Are PC exclusive shooters going the way of the dinosaur?
 
-Ben

A million sales on the game doesn't sound bad to me.  Especially considering you rated the game an 8.  I don't buy shooters that are rated an 8, especially when there are lots of better ones available.
 
Maybe I'm in the minority, but I honestly don't care that much about eye candy in my shooters.  I might turn them up and ooh and aah at the single player for a couple of hours, but I'm really only interested in the multiplayer.  I crank the graphics down to whatever will get me 60+fps steady and I jump into an online server and never have the time to look at the finer points of the graphics engine again.
 
I don't feel like this game would have done considerably better on the consoles.  The only thing it had on it's side was that it was the most graphically impressive game ever.  If you put it on a console it is mediocre gameplay meets mediocre graphics.  Why do they think they would have sold 5 million copies?  What is compelling about this game as a console title when it is sitting next to CoD4 or Halo 3 on a shelf at a game shop?  Bad story, standard gameplay, and mainstream graphics all in one!  Sign me up!

Well if you sell a game that doesn't work on the average computer, but PCs that are financially unobtainable, chances are you're not going to see strong sales. Blaming piracy is legit, but not the sole reason why they didn't see a huge revenue. Hell, I would have bought the game had it not been necessary to completely overhaul my PC. It's stupid to develop something that everyone can't play.  
 
I think Ben hit the nail on the head. PC gaming is all about pushing the limits, but there's a point where you'll actually push away the end-user because the effort is just too costly. I'm a good example of that.... I got tired of the contant upgrading that typically only stayed ahead of the times for a year or so.
 
Again, why would someone purchase a $500 card to play a $40 game? Might as well buy a Ps3 or X360.

Somebody tell me why I should care if they make games "ONLY" for PC.  As long as it runs on my PC I don't care who's console it plays on.

Yeah, I think most people will agree that sales suffered because the game really didn't live up to the hype and was underwhelming along with the fact that most people were disappointed with how it performed.  I think when you have a game that is getting such mixed reviews, is so graphically advanced, and has so much hype, I think it's just like putting a big "pirate me" sign on it.  I think if they'd made a better game, they would've sold more copies.  I completely understand them wanting to move to consoles.  It makes sense from a business stand-point.  I just hope they don't stop trying to push the envelope of PC gaming.  Make watered down console ports so that PC gamers still have the option to play with top-notch graphics that consoles envy.  The reality is most people can only afford to buy a few games a year, and in a year where you have so many high quality titles coming out on both PC and consoles, like Call of Duty 4 and Bioshock, other games are going to suffer in sales.  I think they just need to make a better game.  I feel bad for saying that because Crysis wan't a bad game, it just lacked something and I think Far Cry was a much better game in comparison.

 
I think we explained this in the video: Because if they're simultaneously developing for the consoles, then we won't have developers that try to push envelope and making cutting edge games.  We'll have games that are dumbed down with console-level graphics that run at 30 FPS and have console friendly interfaces (hello, UT3). That may not bother you, and that's fine. But I think that's a chief concern for gamers who love PC gaming but see more and more developers defecting to the console-first school of development.
 

 
 
That is what it all comes down to!

The claim of Piracy is surely overrated. I downloaded the demo and realized I couldn't take advantage of the eye candy in the game that is only a mediocre shooter with underdeveloped weapons. I'll wait till it's in the bargain bin and my PC is upgraded enough to run it Maxxed. On the other hand I tried the COD4 Demo and immediately ran out and bought it. BTW My system is not a clunker
 
AMD 64x2 4600, 3GB RAM, 2x250GB WD 7.2k SATA2 HDD, 2xBFG 7600 GT OC in SLI.

I think the biggest problem with this game is the high hardware requirements. You can't build a big community if only 10% of the PC owners are actualy able to run the game.
Console gamers don't care about this fact. I'm sorry to say but it's the console gamers that are dumb enough to believe the hypes and go out and buy games that maybe are **** but have a big promotional campaign. You can't fool PC gamers like that.
Games are becoming more like movies. You just walk around in them following the storyline, your skill doesn't realy matter as most people just go easymode and want to enjoy "the view".
If developers want to make games like this I'd be happy to see them go to the console market.

I don't think the requirements were THAT big of a problem.  The game had a wide range of graphics settings.  Everyone just wanted to play with the best graphics and when you see what the game is capable of, anything less looks like crap.

 
You have a good point there. They need to start taking into account the reality that most people with computers are using integrated graphics solutions or VERY old discrete graphics cards (mine, until recently, was an ATI X300).
 

 
Your computer is DEFINITELY not a clunker in the slightest and if IT cannot get good frame rates in Crysis..... the fact is that they put too much eye candy into the game for the normal person's computer to run it.

Rob W. -- so you folks now understand the problem??  Come one guys, I find it hard for TG to suddenly come to this understanding that Piracey is killing the PC industry along with many other factors:
 
1.  Consoles doesn't require much knowledge, press button and play
2.  Piracey has always been a problem with the PC market and the bone heads that pirate copies are just that, boneheads with ZERO ability to think beyond 2 minutes in the future
3.  Vista and DX10 is total garbage, Microsoft haven't promoted a real gaming platform with Vista but only make DX10 available on Vista which is SLOWER and has higher hardware requirements
 
I brought this problem up many years ago and was pretty much laughed at.  Now that more and more and more companies are folding or moving to Consoles, this is suddenly a shock now??
 
Now all the boneheads here that do "Share" the games with other's cause they wanna be "cool" or "in with their friends" are now in denial, it's pathetic.
 
And TG, a long time ago did NOT moderate this topic and pretty much let their members advocate piracey posts and made ZERO attempt to address those that are Pro-piracey.
 
Now the **** has hit the fan in more than just a few PC gaming companies, these weasels are once again in denial and trying to come up with their own pathetic justifications for stealing and being a thief.
 
Anyway Rob W. -- too little effort on TG's part, and WAY too late.
 

 
agreed, the game was rubbish, the weapons felt like you were throwing stones at rhino's.

When the glut of games came out last fall-winter I bought the following: Crysis, the Witcher, Gears of War, Call of Duty 4,  and the Orange Box. I have played all of them multiple times...except for Crysis. Compared to the rest, I just don't feel compelled to re-play it for any reason whatsoever. It just wasn't that good. Technologically it is amazing, but it just didn't hook me, and after Fry Cry being so groundbreaking, I was really dissapointed. I agree with Rob, I loved Halo 3 (played on a friend's 360) a lot more than Crysis. Sorry Crytek, but like CGI laden movies, you need to have a reasonably good story tucked in there too, otherwise it's all just effects.

 
I appreciate your comments, V8Venom, though I'm not sure I understand entirely. I've been pretty vocal about my anti-piracy stance since I arrived year more than two years ago. And this isn't the first time I've addressed the issue with Ben in the ST videos. We've discussed it with the Digg controversy and HD-DVD crack, as well as Iron Lore's closure more recently. And to be perfectly honest, I've taken quite a lot of sh*t from readers, even long-time THG readers who I respect, for coming out against piracy (My view isn't a company policy, by the way. We have wildly different opionions of the matter here at the company). Expressing the view that piracy is hurting PC gaming is hardly a popular opinion here and on the Web in general. Check out the comments page for this video on Tom's Hardware and get a whiff of the reactions. Check out the guy that wrote Ben and I are on the take and are being paid off by Crytek. Awesome, thanks for watching. In any event, we continue to cover the issue in both print and video because we feel it's important, even if the coverage does earn us a considerable amount of scorn from our readership.
 
In any event, I'm we agree that PC game piracy is a problem. But I vehemently disagree with you that it's too late to do anything about it.

This is going to hit hard across the board.
 
If gaming publishers aren't going to push the limits, then the hardware industry won't be pushed as hard to make better performing hardware.
 
And it doesn't take a genius to see that if they don't make better hardware as often, then they are going to take a financial hit, which will lead to less development and less competition and less improvement.
 
I agree with Rob, the PC will maintain their player base with RTS and MMORPG's but for FPS, the future is gloomy.  And FPS are really what drove the PC hardware industry for the majority of it's existence.  Even MMORPGs are looking to cross platform these days, and that really will be a blow.

 
I'm going to have to disagree with you here.  Look at something like CoD4.  It still takes a pretty hefty machine to run it well and turn on all the eye candy, yet it was released across the various platforms.  Oblivion was the same way.  It was almost as demanding as Crysis when it was released.  The first cards that could handle it at its peak were the 8 series cards and they came well after it was released.
 
Crysis didn't inspire hardware producers to do anything.  They drive themselves.  People are always going to want a faster computer regardless of frame rates and hardware companies are going to provide it.
 
Graphics have gone main stream with the introduction of HTPCs and now even the new operating systems are using them.  Suddenly a whole new market has opened up for discrete video cards.  Games may have been the first thing to make the cards popular, but they aren't exclusive to PC gaming anymore.  I don't think they will suffer too heavily if game requirements manage to become reasonable in the years to come.
 
Besides if we lose 90% of the hardware companies we'll be better off.  The level of quality in the vast majority of products on the market is so low as to be pitiful.  Competition breeds improvement is a huge myth and it's been shown in many studies.  Competition breeds cost cutting and cheaper lesser quality products.

I don't think that the system requirements were unreasonable.  Why complain about the option for high-level graphics that the developers provided for the high-end enthusiast?  I couldn't run it with all the bells and whistles, but it still looked great on my $800.00 from-scratch build (now more of a $500.00 rig).  
 
Oblivion was at least as much of a system-killer but it did not draw nearly the ire that Crysis did for its hardware demands.  And it had many more glitches, IMHO.  Why the difference in the level of complaints?  If Oblivion had been PC only would it have been in the same boat as Crysis?  It probably would have been a better game in any case.....