Piracy versus PC Gaming [Mar 09, 2007, 8:23 pm ET] – Share – Viewing Comments
Next Generation recaps a GDC talk titled "The Videogame Piracy Problem:
Fifteen Men on a Dead Man’s Chest" by id Software CEO Todd Hollenshead about the
impact of piracy on the game industry. They outline how Mr. Hollenshead says the
estimated $3 billion economic loss caused by piracy in 2004 does not include
piracy that takes place on the Internet. There is also an article about this
talk on
Joystiq that focuses on the statement that piracy is a factor in id's
embrace of consoles, quoting Todd as saying "Piracy has pushed id as being
multiplatform." On a related note,
Can PC
Gaming Survive in a Console World (thanks
Digg) recaps a panel discussion on the topic that brought up a similar
point:
Part of the problem is piracy. Big titles get stolen by cyber thieves, and it hurts revenue. "The market," said Capps, "that would buy a $600 video card knows how Bittorrent works."
Does that mean casual games, which exponentially outsell what PC gaming traditionalists think of as A-list titles, will one day rule? Hilleman made a point: casual is a poor choice of words. The average player on EA's Pogo "casual" game network plays "for 24 hours a week. There's nothing casual about that."
There is some light in the PC gaming world. World of Warcraft, for instance, is a massive hit, and the upcoming Spore looks not only creative and different, but promising. The MMO and other social networking games could become the norm for PC gaming, with big-ticket titles growing rarer with each passing year. Johnson added that MMOs are "successful because you can't pirate WoW. You cannot pirate an MMO. Period." Therefore, he said, "game design on the PC is going to bend toward persistence."
Just enough to be unique and push the bounderies of the platform. HL2:EP1 for instance.
Erm, I wouldn't exactly describe EP1 as pushing the boundaries of the platform. In addition, EP2, TF2 and Portal are also coming out for the 360 and PS3.
But let's look at all the high profile upcoming shooters:
Crysis: PC-only (for now)
STALKER: PC-only
Bioshock: PC, 360
Quake Wars: PC, 360, PS3
Frontlines: PC, 360, PS3
ShadowRun: PC, 360
Next Wolfenstein game: 360
Now let's look at all the formerly PC-exclusive shooters that have gone console:
Battlefield (Modern Combat, Bad Company)
Ghost Recon (2, GRAW, GRAW2)
Rainbow Six (Lockdown, Vegas)
Call of Duty (2,3)
What's really sad is that there are now more console exclusive shooters than PC exclusive shooters.
The unfortunate truth of the matter is that most FPS games are being cross-developed for the consoles or designed in such a way that porting them is easy. Will we ever see a PC-exclusive shooter that truly pushes the boundaries of the genre again, like Tribes did? Highly unlikely.
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