Ubisoft: EndWar PC Impacted by Piracy [Oct 08, 2008, 09:31 am ET] – Share – Viewing Comments
Videogaming247 quotes Ubisoft Shanghai creative director Michael de Plater
on how piracy is a reason Tom Clancy's EndWar is appearing on consoles
first, with plans for a PC edition remaining vague (story). He
says this of a PC version of the voice-controlled RTS game: "To be honest, if PC
wasn’t pirated to hell and back, there’d probably be a PC version coming out the
same day as the other two," also saying: "You know, the level of piracy that you
get with the PC just cannibalizes the others, because people just steal that
version." He goes on to agree with dire predictions about the impact of piracy
on PC gaming: "But at the moment, if you release the PC version, essentially
what you’re doing is letting people have a free version that they rip off
instead of a purchased version. Piracy’s basically killing PC."
Is it because they are afraid that many console gamers would prefer to pirate the game on PC rather than pay for it on a console? Surely they aren't suggesting that Console gamers are all thieves too?
I think it's all about image. PC games getting pirated is a very obvious activity. I think console game piracy is something that is out-of-sight,out-of-mind. I think it's behind the scenes and since it does not appear to be a problem it doesn't get treated as one.
A big company that makes a big expensive game feels that seeing their new game paraded around like a whore on the bitorrent sites makes people less willing to pay money for it on other platforms. (Because it looks to be worth less than the asking price)
I think it embarrass's them, share holders or investors look at it and say, "Are we losing money?"
So I think the biggest reason for waiting to release a game on the PC is to preserve the appearance that the game is a valuable commodity. And it seems consistent that if a company holds back the PC release of it's software it means that the product is HIGHLY overpriced and they don't want the piracy / retail sales numbers to make it that much more obvious.
Good games sell well, and get pirated well.
Bad games sell like shit, and get pirated well.
Everything gets pirated.
This comment was edited on Oct 8, 2008, 16:26.
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