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."
I pirate so people like you, Mr Pirate Apologist, no longer have anything to pirate.
This kind of argument would work if piracy really did hurt the industry. But it doesn't. The PC gaming problem isn't piracy.
Also... the more intrusive you get with combating piracy... the more you piss off your legitimate customers.
Very true, people who play by the rules in pc gaming land have to put up with alot of intrusive DRM. I always wondered if the effort of protecting PC games is really worth it, especially since alot of protections simply get cracked in no time at all. Why not try other things, like fingerprinting executables instead of DRM? But i already know the answer, because DRM is a business on it's own.
2. Quit pushing the minimum requirements to play your game to where 80% of the potential market can't meet them. You're only slitting your own throats.
The only advantage of consoles above the PC is consistent system requirements, no more no less. Every other argument is in fact non existant. But that doesn't mean it isn't an important factor. In the early days every PC was capable of running games, but ever since the 3D era and the entering of 3D hardware acceleration gaming PC's have taken an increasing distance from the normal PC's. Gaming on the PC always requires the cutting edge, while, as mentioned before, normal tasks like browsing and e-mailing no longer benefit from more powerful pc's.
No normal mainstream machine is fit to play 3D games with decent graphics. IGP is still way behind mainstream graphics from Ati and nVidia. This makes PC gaming actually more expensive then console gaming. But that also depends on the amount of games you play, because console games are structurally more expensive then pc games.
This kind of argument would work if piracy really did hurt the industry. But it doesn't. The PC gaming problem isn't piracy.
Also... the more intrusive you get with combating piracy... the more you piss off your legitimate customers.
Very true, people who play by the rules in pc gaming land have to put up with alot of intrusive DRM. I always wondered if the effort of protecting PC games is really worth it, especially since alot of protections simply get cracked in no time at all. Why not try other things, like fingerprinting executables instead of DRM? But i already know the answer, because DRM is a business on it's own.
2. Quit pushing the minimum requirements to play your game to where 80% of the potential market can't meet them. You're only slitting your own throats.
The only advantage of consoles above the PC is consistent system requirements, no more no less. Every other argument is in fact non existant. But that doesn't mean it isn't an important factor. In the early days every PC was capable of running games, but ever since the 3D era and the entering of 3D hardware acceleration gaming PC's have taken an increasing distance from the normal PC's. Gaming on the PC always requires the cutting edge, while, as mentioned before, normal tasks like browsing and e-mailing no longer benefit from more powerful pc's.
No normal mainstream machine is fit to play 3D games with decent graphics. IGP is still way behind mainstream graphics from Ati and nVidia. This makes PC gaming actually more expensive then console gaming. But that also depends on the amount of games you play, because console games are structurally more expensive then pc games.
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