It's not just PR. The actions taken by both companies are quite different. We can debate about whether or not 2 million copies were lost compared to a perfect world where all prospective customers purchased, but the fact of the matter is the actions they've taken to secure those 2 million copies are (1) impotent and (2) invasive to paying customers.

I believe they'd better serve their customer base if companies were more like stardock. Others believe they'd be destitute and on the street if they took that path. I guess we shall see how impluse pans out in the future...

Last time I checked 2 million people didn't download Demigod. What a silly comparison.

And that somehow makes Crytek more of a company and less of a charity than Stardock? I don't see the connection.

You agreed with my point about the pirates activities and not pissing off your paying customer base. So, if we are to assume that the pirates would steal the same number of copies whether limited activations or more draconian measures are there or not, then why waste the time/money on it? Obviously you don't just make a torrent and say "cooome and get it!", but there is a point of diminishing returns. I believe companies like stardock have the right idea and aren't wasting extra resources or letting DRM get in the way of sales, while companies like crytek/EA aren't helping their customer base or aren't reducing piracy by any significant amount with the extra measures they've taken.

This comment was edited on Apr 17, 2009, 16:11.

They're a business

Last I checked, so was stardock. You can either treat your customers with respect and be rewarded with the loyalty that comes with it or you can treat them like criminals and be boycotted. Bottom line, pirates don't care either way. They'll steal your software with or without DRM. The only difference is whether or not you end up pissing off the legitimate customers who provide you with the sales.

Why the hell is it so absurd, it's 2 companies which both had their game heavily pirated. Again, people called Cevat a whiny greedy asshole, but everyone here has their deepest condolensces for Wardell and such.

Because if you've read press releases, letters or interviews from both companies, you get completely different attitudes.

Crytek: Piracy may affect our "PC exclusivity in the future". Translation: Sorry, PC gaming isn't interesting to us anymore. Even though you may have bought a copy, we don't give two shits about you because you're just not making us enough money.

Stardock: Our main concern is you who have purchased our games. Translation: We're here to stay. Thanks for your support.

No where do I ever see Stardock complain about piracy in the way you see Crytek whine. No where do I ever see Stardock threaten us with no PC games in the future because of piracy. In fact, it's the opposite. Meanwhile, time and time again we see developers threaten with no PC games in the future, more console ports, or heavy handed DRM. I can't believe you don't see the difference.

This comment was edited on Apr 17, 2009, 14:17.

You're basically being vindictive towards Crytek despite knowing it's not their fault. Just sounds like you have a bone to pick with Crytek more than anything else.

I was responding to Cavman's post which specifically compared Crytek to Stardock:

it's funny when Crytek bitches about 5 to 1 piracy, you guys say that he's a whiny greedy asshole, but when it happens to a company like Stardock, you all have deepest sympothies.

As a gamer, I don't really care about Crytek. Their games no longer appeal to me. I had a bone to pick with that absurd comparison with Stardock. I guess I should have just pointed out that comment as absurd and left it at that, since most of us here don't need a further explanation.

This comment was edited on Apr 17, 2009, 13:48.

Crytek doesn't make DRM and they don't publish their own games, get your facts straight

Crysis Warhead has limited activations. Let me know where I can get a copy without that DRM and just like a stardock game. Oh, EA publishes it? Wow, I guess that changes everything. Actually, it changes nothing from the point of view of a gamer looking to pick up a copy of their game and you know it. You just want to play forum hockey and get some points. I don't give a shit if the developer was forced to use DRM or not. Either their released game has it or it does not. It is that simple.

http://www.firingsquad.com/news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=20865

And you can bet your ass Crytek did need to spend development time integrating the DRM into their game. Don't even try to give them a pass. Anyone who tries to equate a 5 activation limited game with Stardock games is disingenuous at best.

This comment was edited on Apr 17, 2009, 13:37.

It's funny when Crytek bitches about 5 to 1 piracy, you guys say that he's a whiny greedy asshole, but when it happens to a company like Stardock, you all have deepest sympothies.

Maybe it's because Stardock spends its time and energy on giving their legitimate customers a better product with fewer hoops to jump through, while companies like Crytek waste their time and money on ineffective and invasive DRM with limited activations directly affecting only legitimate customers who don't use torrent sites. If we need to explain that to you...

This comment was edited on Apr 17, 2009, 13:18.

That sounds retarded. Is that retarded?

No more retarded than being unable to authenticate your steam game on release day. But in this case the connections were actually unauthorized resulting in something similar to a DoS attack. And this is nothing new really, MMOGs find this problem as well when exposed to the masses on launch day and they find a bottleneck that was not anticipated when the testing was being done on a much smaller scale. Those are some interesting numbers and from what I can tell they're at least quick to do something about it.

It's free, numbnuts

Well excuse me fanbois. I clicked the link and saw "Purchase on steam" and didn't click it to see it was actually talking about L4D itself. And this overhyped thing is still $49.99? Whatever. I guess they agreed with me that L4D needed to be shipped with alot more content, which as usual from Valve comes months after I'm sick of even looking at the game.

This comment was edited on Apr 17, 2009, 08:45.

Can I just have the SDK instead?

Same here. I didn't think there was enough content in the original L4D release and I don't like the idea of having to pay for more of what should have already been there. I'll probably pass on this.

This comment was edited on Apr 16, 2009, 23:45.

Interplay is a company only on paper with a skeleton crew and no cash. There's nothing to see here.

This comment was edited on Apr 16, 2009, 16:40.

I haven't read reviews or seen Demigod myself, but it is impressive to see such a quick turnaround on problems given what we've seen in these past weeks with other games.

This comment was edited on Apr 16, 2009, 10:46.

Wow, paying for a game that no one can run. And it's been going on for months? That's pretty bad.

This could be a good thing if you'd like to see a variety of games using engines other than U3.

It's $28 on amazon in the states, so it's the same price here. I'd rather go amazon or impulse myself. Screw the steam servers.

You can't fix a game that's fundamentally flawed in design. If you haven't purchased this game, don't. Single player consists of uninteresting missions surrounded by vehicle travel filler thrown in to make the game seem longer than it really is. This thing has nothing to do with Far Cry and is one of the most repetitive games I've ever played (and I've played many MMORPGs).

As a sandbox/tech demo type game, it's interesting. I like the weapons, graphics, special effects, and the AI. However, it would seem they spent all this time working on the engine. FC2 makes id software games look like brilliantly detailed productions. I had to force myself to finish it just to be sure that the entire game was as bad as I thought. This is probably why console FPS games don't translate to PCs very well. Consoles have much lower standards.

This comment was edited on Apr 8, 2009, 11:20.

The deals at gogamer look more interesting to me: DoW II for $30, FEAR 2 for $28, and some other deals there.

I kinda feel bad for the one guy on the stationary bike powering the steam server clusters. Hopefully, they'll be able to hire a replacement for him soon.

The fact that Dave Perry is getting involved adds less credibility to this service being technically and economically feasible.

Being "practical sometime between 2013 and 2015" sounds more reasonable to me. Maybe more of us will see Verizon FIOS and AT&T U-verse around our areas by then.

It's not going to stop them from trying to find alternatives though.

That's what I meant. The boycotts might have had success against draconian DRM like starforce (personally IMO the small market starforce game titles themselves couldn't afford to lose any customers, which is why there was such an effect), but I doubt MoreLuckThanSkill is going to be happy with any kind of DRM. EA isn't about to drop DRM any time soon from their AAA titles. And of course, steam is form of DRM and I know you have no problem with purchasing games through it. DRM, in one form or another, is here to stay for the big titles at least.

This comment was edited on Mar 31, 2009, 20:19.