Epic: Piracy Drove Us From PC Focus

has nothing to do with the steady decline of the game quality you've been putting out correct?

piracy is the new buzzword for anyone not making money.
We cant sell games?
blame piracy!
we cant figure out why the box sells are horrible
blame piracy!

lets ignore the increasingly annoying DRM added to drive customers off..along with crappy ports to PC no one wants to buy.

I've pirated games I was going to buy BECAUSE of the DRM.
And to say going to console because of piracy? is just a cop out.

If a game keeps me entertained more than a few days. I go buy it. if not..it gets recycle bin treatment. and each year that goes by...there is fewer and fewer games that are worth installing..much less supporting and encouraging them to make more like it.

360 piracy is just as rampant. not one person I know with a 360 isn't modded for burned games and stopped buying them.
My sons Wii hasn't had a actual game disk in it for 2 years. but he gets all the new games.

so stop blaming PC piracy for your own shortcomings when sales are concerned.

This is such a lame, grossly over-used excuse.

First off, there's an enormous amount of piracy going on with consoles. Hundreds of thousands of people play pirated games on the 360. Wii games are even easier to pirate. Switching to consoles won't solve your "problems".

Another thing that's been covered by members here before. Just because somebody pirates a game, doesn't mean they would have bought it in the first place. I'll admit I've pirated my fair share of games, and every one that was worth playing I purchased for either PC or Console of some sort. It's ridiculous how they expect us to pay $70 for a mediocre online experience and a 5 hour campaign. Most of the people who pirate games wouldn't have bought them in the first place, therefore they're not losing more than 5-10% of sales.

The PC market is declining, and not due to piracy. Most people can't justify spending $700-$1000 for a PC to game on when they can spend $200-$300 for a console.

xbox 360 has 10x the piracy of pc, lame excuse...

You can't ignore piracy. It is an issue that all developers deal with but it is erroneous to claim that it is the 'only' reason for abandoning the PC platform. If you make a good game people will still buy it.

I don't know what you expect developers to do when their title sells only 300,000 units but is downloaded illegally 4,100,000 times. Compare that to console sales of 6,000,000 and illegal downloads of 900,000. Which platform would you develop for?

EPIC FAIL!

Epic...fail!

Cold hard truth.

ALL OF THE ABOVE ...

I don't need "Queers of War" anyway! How was that, guys? I can only take a guy named CliffyB so super seriously.

What? Are you people delusional? Console piracy isn't anywhere NEARLY as bad as PC piracy. It's not even close. http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_4.html

From the article, Fallout 3 was downloaded 270,000 times during 'x' period of time compared with 20,000 for the Xbox 360. COD4 was downloaded 560,000 times compared to 59,000 for the 360.

The idea that 'Xbox 360 has 10x the piracy of pc' is just insane.

Piracy is not the reason that devs and publishers leave the PC market, money is the reason that devs and publishers leave the PC market.

Sadly, the PC versions of many titles are simply afterthoughts to most developers. Also, if Piracy was really as bad for business as rage is saying, we wouldn't have a Movie or Music industry.

I think it was stardock who said "Customers aren't Criminals"... I wonder what would happen if some other publishers lived by that rule...

Just reading these comments makes me want to cry!

What will it take to make you guys stop pirating?

You just keep making up lies that it's someonelse's fault. It's the developer, it's the producer, it's DRM, it costs too much, it really isn't any good, I can't afford it... and on it goes. A virtually boundless number of excuses why it's OK for you to pirate and ruin PC gaming for the rest of us.

The question is tayb, out of those 560k downloads, how many were truly ever going to buy COD4? If they were smart they would go back to their old model of try before you buy (a beta if you will) and let people see the game. The reason they don't do that anymore? Cause then people see how crappy their games are and won't buy them at all. I must agree that piracy is wrong and that it is killing certain markets, but this is not the reason why epic is leaving the PC market. They are just to much of cowards to admit the real reason...

Customers aren't criminals but people like dxwarlock and others in this thread are not customers, they are criminals. I am always shocked about how many people come into these forums, openly admit to being the problem, and bash the developers for bailing. STOP F****** PIRATING. You are the problem. When a game gets illegally downloaded 13 times more than the actual unit sales there is a freaking problem whether the thieves in this thread want to admit it or not.

games like we had in early 90's..games that had a reason to buy.
games that didn't take longer to buy, install, and play than it did to realize you wasted 40 bucks.

there has been MANY games I pirated, then bought because I thought they was worth the effort.
and many many more I deleted because I thought the free version wasn't even wroth the diskspace to save them.

how are they loosing money by me pirating a game? seeing as how I wasn't going to buy it in the first place, and figured
"ill give it a try..if the reviews are wrong..then i'll pay for it..most the time I'm right in saving my money".

now a days maybe 1 in 20 games that come out I even deem worthy of trying to install, much less buy.
all rehashes of the same thing with most the time ported from console problems. or the "its a PC release..we can patch it later..let the players do bug testing" mentality.

I really don't think this is as valid of an excuse as people make it out to be. Most people with consoles have a computer too. So you are looking at spending $200-$500(depending on how old the console is) on a new console that is only capable of playing games, and then spending another $400-$1000 on a computer for every day use. You can build a nice gaming rig for $700-$1000 that can play games and serve as an every day computer.

Raw numbers are nice, but do you have stats for rates (number of pirated copies vs number of pirated and purchased copies)? I just have a suspicion that the raw piracy numbers might be due to the huge number of PCs in the world versus the number of console systems.

I have bought more games since '85 than you've played Im sure. so don't assume I'm some 16 year old "pirate everything I see" because I can type.

either lower the prices to the level they need to be for the quality we get now a days..or release demos so we can see if we are going to waste 50 bucks on a game that entertains for 3 hours...

After 2005-2007 with the decline of games worthy buying,
I spent more money on games that didn't make it a day on my machine, than many people spent on other hobbies.
I learned my lesson.

sure piracy is wrong..but anything I think is worth the money. I buy a legit copy. the rest I see it as no demo, im not tossing 50 bucks at you before I test drive it.

Interesting article on piracy.

http://www.osnews.com/story/23153/ [...] e_Nonsense

What? COD4 was critically acclaimed. It was a great game. And what does it matter how many were truly going to buy the game? No one here made the claim that each download equates to a lost sale. What I can conclude is that because of the high download rate there was high demand for the game. This high demand did not translate into unit sales. Changing games here but do you expect me to believe that 4.1 million people just "wanted to try" Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 and then only 300,000 of them liked it enough to buy it? That argument is laughable.

I would like to make it clear that i don't pirate, so i have caused none of this; and the "Customers are not criminals" was directed at companies like Ubisoft, who feel the need to unleash their heavies DRM schemes on us.

Well, your gears of war on PC was sooo horrible, that if I'd paid for it, you would've been pirating from me. and I bought your Unreal Tournament 3 you whining little babies. Don't forget your routes Epic, if it weren't for the PC Platform, and us players, you wouldn't have half the ground to stand on as you do today. Unreal wasn't very fun. Unreal Tournament was great. Unreal 2, didn't really like it either. Unreal 2k3/2k4, great, amazing. And you can't play it online without a legit CD Key, so where's your piracy there? People still play UT2k4, legitimately. The Mod's out of that Engine, Unreal 2.0, Killing Floor, great games like Brother's in Arms... even Postal 2 on Unreal Engine 1, and IL2 Sturmovik on Unreal Engine 1... god you people are dinks. You still use PC's to make the games on the console. Blah Bulletstorm looks like t3h gh3y anyways.

Having read this (completely), I must say, I'm disturbed that PC Gaming is truly dying.

I am so god damn tired of hearing about consoles.

I hate console controllers SO MUCH!!
The boxed in experience is trash!!
There is no customization!

IM TIRED OF "DLC this & that". 15 bucks for a few maps? Go burn in hell.

I'm currently studying to be a Game Developer. What the **** am I going to do with myself in a console dominated world?

\

Cool story about the amount of games you have supposedly bought. If only "hey I bought a ton of games back in the 80s" was a viable defense for illegally downloading games.

You don't have an argument. If you think game prices are too high the simple solution is to not buy the game. If you think games are too expensive don't buy them. The only thing you are accomplishing when you download a game is to tell a developer that 1.) There is demand for this game and 2.) The demand isn't translating into sales, people are downloading it instead. You are delusional if you think that you are helping your cause by downloading expensive games.

Well if that is your stance (last paragraph) please explain to me the phenomenon that is Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. 4.1 million downloads, 300 unit sales. You suggest that people downloading are merely "trying before buying" so are you concluding that literally 1 in 13 people thought MW2 worth buying? Really? When you compare this to console numbers (6 million sales, 900 downloads) the idea that the game isn't worth owning doesn't make much sense. How in the world do you explain crap like that?

Once again, you are the problem and, ironically, you are here whining about the effects of yourself.

If you don't want to have your game pirated, the answer is simple. Offer online services for your game that only people that purchased the game legitimately have access to. A good example is Diablo II's usage of battle.net to play on the realm servers.
- Today the technology should be sufficient to make sure that users aren't able to access your internal servers and services with pirated copies. If people feel these services are worthwhile, they'll pay for them.

Blizzard's had this figured out for a long long time. I don't understand why the other developers are too stupid to figure it out.

Pirates are dirty. I actually realised that piracy would kill off PC gaming years ago and made a blog about it (that I can't find). I buy all my games and have done for some time.

Stop being a dirty pirating scum bag is all I can say. If you don't like a games DRM or the fact it doesn't have a demo, here is a tip, JUST DON'T PLAY IT.

I never said that was an excuse..your twisting my words into a weapon of retort. I was pointing out that I buy games worth buying. hell I've REBOUGHT lost copies of good games because I didn't feel right pirating a new copy.

plus for MW2, got tired of the 4000 army/ww2/combat clones years ago. didn't see it worthy of a purchase or a download.

what message do I send with that? that the game isn't even worth pirating in my opinion?
will that make them stop making thoughtless tossed together games?

I never said I wasn't part of the problem...but I did say the devs making more and more disposable forgettable games also contributes to it.

so dont lay the blame all on us..and ignore the rest.

Just because I fanned the fire, doesn't mean the fellow that set the blaze going is without blame.

The reality is its all about the money. The PC pool of the pot of money is less than 20% in the US... I think 17%. Console commands 60% of the money spent on video games. None of this includes hardware dollars. Its all in the numbers. Plus its easier to program for. Only 1 to 3 hardware configurations as apposed to an infinite amount. You have to have a real great game to sell well on the PC. While just about any game can sell well on console.

I beg to differ that piracy destroyed the PC Industry. Overpriced games, crappy games being produced, riding on the previous success title and creating sequels completely name whoring the original while the output was pure ***, piss poor attempts with DRM to secure your work and make it friendly for the consumer, the inability to make the PC market attractive vs Consoles, and your constant blame on Piracy for piss poor sales destroyed the market.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. Come out and say MONEY is the reason why, don't add this extra bullshit to it and cry wolf. Piracy hasn't effective the music or movie industry (just check the recent records with groundbreaking gross profits). I go back to the very basic when 10 years ago the PC Industry claimed by moving to a DVD small case form factor was going to cut costs by $10. Did we EVER see that? NO! You don't even need to argue with the rest of the PC debate when they lied the first time 10 years ago. Instead we get games like MW2 that raise their price an extra $10 a month before shipping for NO APART REASON! Instead of full fledged Expansions each year we get 10 DLC's that cost $5-$15 each further milking their "fans". Ten years ago DLC's would have been called PATCHES and Updates people. I can't believe how traitorous the PC Industry has become to their fans. Every dog has its day, PC Gaming has always thrived from the NES to the PS3 or whatever is next...but just take notice, we don't forget. So when you come crying back to us when the console starts becoming stale again just remember its going to take a lot of ass kissing to make up.

We can argue all day about who bought games, but how do we, the hardcore PC gamers, STOP this shift over to the consoles?

Do we stop pirating? Do we just switch to consoles? Really, we can't do anything.

PC gaming's future won't be determined by us, the hardcore PC gamers, but by the casual gamers who play on their PC and maybe deiced that they want to try a few Pc games.

P.S. Before you try and tear me open tayb, i haven't pirated a game in 4-5 years, because i was busted by Comcast. It really showed me that i COULD get in trouble for it, so i stopped. I saw what my pirating could do to my criminal record, and i stopped. What did i do?

I only bought good games, and didn't pirate the bad ones.

Im sure its already been stated on here.
I purchased Unreal tourney 3 and it was just mediocre.It good but not as good as they were making us think it was going to be.The over hype killed it in my opinion.It didnt even do that well on consoles either.

Ive had the game for a few years now and only put maybe 20 hours into it.
They can not blaim piracy because there are still games that are "ACTUALLY GOOOD" that sell well on PC.Yes Piracy has gotten a little out of hand on all platforms.Just PC people are more picky because the majority are adults that know what a good game is.On consoles you got parents and kids buying games without researching them enough and doesnt remember the first half life,or unreal/unreal tourny 99.Or deus ex for that matter to name a few.Just make a good game and we will buy it.