Op Ed

GamePro - The Cost of Piracy. Thanks Mike Martinez.
Indeed, while it may not always be the case for every new video game, it's hard to imagine that piracy does not result in a significant loss of revenue. Infinity Ward's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which has recorded over 10 million copies sold, has been the target of piracy on the PC. In an online post, Infinity Ward Creative Strategist Robert Bowling ironically muses, "They wonder why people don't make PC games anymore." Bowling writes that while the number of PC gamers playing the last Call of Duty game was "fantastic," what wasn't fantastic was "the percentage of those numbers who were playing on stolen copies of the game." Piracy tends to be more rampant with PC games, and thus the platform serves as a cautionary tale for the rest of the industry.

Ars Technica - Why lack of StarCraft 2 LAN play still matters.
We'll see how many of those people break down and buy the game for the single-player campaign. What's clear is that a large part of gaming's past is being deemphasized. This story isn't over, but for now, LAN gamers are going to angrily shake our canes at the younger gamers and even—amazingly!—Blizzard, the company that used to be so welcome to frolic on our lawn.

BitMob - Badvertising: The Art of Abusive Marketing.
Both Blur and Saints Row 2 openly attack the games posing a threat to them. In both instances, the games they poke fun at happen to be obvious inspirations for their respective creation. Without the success of Mario Kart's power-up racing, Blur would likely have been a very different game. Without Grand Theft Auto, the similar Saints Row probably wouldn't exist. These commercials shouldn't be insulting their origins. They should be acknowledging them -- beyond saying "look how terrible this is" -- or simply ignoring them.

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Re: Op Ed
Jul 31, 2010, 13:53
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Re: Op Ed Jul 31, 2010, 13:53
Jul 31, 2010, 13:53
 
Kajetan wrote on Jul 31, 2010, 13:05:
Hyatus wrote on Jul 31, 2010, 12:05:
Doesn't Modern Warfare have a key or something that probably makes it impossible for people without registered copies to play online?
The more popular a game is, the more un-official servers it has. There are, for example, dozens and dozens of WoW freeshards, there are hundreds of non-Steam private servers for Counterstrike, TF2 and so on and so on. MP does not protect shit. In fact, the only protection you have is to make your game so bad, that no one wants it to play even for free.

If you want to make money with PC games, accept piracy. You cannot have the one without the other. And surprisingly enough, you CAN make a lot of money with PC games. Ask Blizzard, ask Valve. Every single one of their games is being pirated back and forth and they make millions, because people see worth in these games and therefore pay for them. Make your games worth enough in the eyes of the customer and he will pay. The customer matters. Nothing else.

Very true!

Beamer wrote on Jul 31, 2010, 13:08:
PC games don't sell because they're crap. Do a good PC game and it will sell.

Yup.
Of course, do a good console game and it'll sell more. Do a crap console game and it'll probably still sell.

Never any real rhyme or reason to what sells, anyway. Some great games don't sell. Some crap games sell like maniacs. One middle game will sell, one identical middle game with a different title won't.

Unfortunately also very true.

I don't think anyone can deny that if you make a good PC game you will get good PC sales. The truth however is that consoles still offer much more revenue due to a larger base of customers and less piracy. Even if PC piracy rates were the same as Xbox piracy rates games would still make more money on Xbox.

So why bother trying to make everyone happy enough to deem you worthy of money on the PC when you can just make a multiplatform game that's average and sell more copies anyway?
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