Ubisoft Director: Piracy is Killing PC Gaming

[Frisbeetarian]

Gamers will never hear the end of developers and publishers crying that pirates are killing PC gaming sales.

It’s true: the subject has been beaten down to the point where it probably does turn away avid gamers from PC versions simply by the thought of it. With the endless war between creator, publisher and stealer ensuing in earnest, honest consumers either are left to deal with the side effects of anti-piracy embedding itself on their PCs, or suffer from a market that seems to get more scarce at the turn of each month.

Recently Ubisoft Shanghai creative director Michael de Plater fired off his mouth to VG247, all hot under the collar and pointing the death of PC gaming towards the pirates who leech from the industry. He said that the PC version of Tom Clancy’s EndWar would have shipped with the console versions had pirating not been an issue.

“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,” he told the website. “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.”

Although the PC version will likely ship later on, he seemed rather reluctant to mention that a release date even existed. But his words ring true, echoing the overall attitude towards PC gaming by developers and publishers alike.

In a recent interview with Tom Ohle of CD Projekt (formerly with BioWare before taking on The Witcher), he stressed that perhaps developers and publishers should focus on making great games that people will actually buy rather than worry about pirates. "Everything gets pirated, so it’s not limited to PC gaming," he told Tom’s Games earlier this year. "But really, you just want to put out a game that’s solid for your platform. If you’re making a PC game, make a great PC game and people will buy it. I don’t know of any pirates that buy games. They all seem to be pirates for life, y’know? So why fight it? Just make a good game that people want to pay for."

The problem now is that PC games are becoming the minority of the industry. Recently Wal-Mart scaled back its PC software stock altogether, and retail outlets such as GameStop and EB Games have limited the offerings to just a few racks. Already it seems like the PC market is steadily going down hill, and with anti-piracy software sneaking its way on consumers’ PCs as seen with the recently released Spore, gamers who once delighted in picking up a PC game might look towards the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 consoles instead

Yes, it’s the same old speech: tired, worn out and ready to be put out to pasture. It will continue to be in the forefront of PC gaming until the issue is resolved, whether publishers give up on the genre altogether or something is devised that will make everyone happy. Until then, PC gamers will have to dig in and wait out the storm.

So whats your opinion? Is piracy killing pc gaming or is it anti-piracy software like SecuRom.

[GMA forever]

I don't think piracy is killing the PC games, it is the high prices that are doing it. I don't understand why a PC game must cost a fortune so that the pirates will have their way.

A new successful PC game cost around 60 Euros in the country where I live, this is the reason why piracy is flourishing. An original game is much better in all aspects of quality and legality, but the prices are unbelievable.

Imagine the newest famous games cost something like 20 euros, will there be room for piracy still?

[Frisbeetarian]

I don't think piracy is killing the PC games, it is the high prices that are doing it. I don't understand why a PC game must cost a fortune so that the pirates will have their way.

A new successful PC game cost around 60 Euros in the country where I live, this is the reason why piracy is flourishing. An original game is much better in all aspects of quality and legality, but the prices are unbelievable.

Imagine the newest famous games cost something like 20 euros, will there be room for piracy still?

The blame for the high prices is to be dealt to the gready publishers. They take like 80% of the revenue and the rest goes for the developement team. Thats why online transactions are so popular; the same game will cost you like 30$ less if you download it via steam for example.

Sure the price is a factor, but also the complexity of playing games on the pc is quite the deterent for pc beginners. The drivers, the bugs, the updates, the patches, the hardware, the framerate. Its a big turn off for new comers. And now these *** wipes are adding all kinds of software protection to fight piracy, which are causing PC gamer numbers to fall rapidly. SecuRom is a traversty and should be abolished.

[Danny Z]

Originally Posted by GMA forever

I don't think piracy is killing the PC games, it is the high prices that are doing it. I don't understand why a PC game must cost a fortune so that the pirates will have their way.

A new successful PC game cost around 60 Euros in the country where I live, this is the reason why piracy is flourishing. An original game is much better in all aspects of quality and legality, but the prices are unbelievable.

Imagine the newest famous games cost something like 20 euros, will there be room for piracy still?

Yes, everything for free is attractive, people will buy console games for 60 Euros just because they can't get them for free, so the cost has nothing to do with it, and note that there is no collusion or monopoly so if a game manufacturer can make a game cheaper to gain market share nobody is stopping him however a game costs a lot of money to manufacture that's why companies are not making the same game for all consoles and PC to make profit. 60 Euros is not a fortune, you can rent a game, you don't have to buy it, you can buy it used and resell it used and it will have cost you 10 euros to play.

[Red Phoenix]

i think game piracy in poor countries is not affected by anything apart from the poor factor.

but game piracy in rich developed countries is affected by the high price of games and latetly stupid online security checks like the ones EA used in Spore.

[GMA forever]

Originally Posted by Danny Z

Yes, everything for free is attractive, people will buy console games for 60 Euros just because they can't get them for free, so the cost has nothing to do with it, and note that there is no collusion or monopoly so if a game manufacturer can make a game cheaper to gain market share nobody is stopping him however a game costs a lot of money to manufacture that's why companies are not making the same game for all consoles and PC to make profit. 60 Euros is not a fortune, you can rent a game, you don't have to buy it, you can buy it used and resell it used and it will have cost you 10 euros to play.

Danny Z a movie like Batman Returns, which costed millions to produce, you own it for just 20 euros on DVD. An all time greatest hits collection from some of the legends of music will cost you also around 20 euros. Now you want to tell me a Spongebob game, a car racing game or a war game should cost more?

60 euros is not a fortune for you if you buy a game once or twice a year, but if you are an addict or you have kids at home, then yes the 60 euros every couple of weeks is indeed a fortune.

[GMA forever]

Originally Posted by Red Phoenix

i think game piracy in poor countries is not affected by anything apart from the poor factor.

but game piracy in rich developed countries is affected by the high price of games and latetly stupid online security checks like the ones EA used in Spore.

My interpretation is that piracy's effect on the gaming industry is not that bad, since the people who are buying pirated games are mainly the ones who cannot afford to buy the original ones, or are not interested to buy the original ones with the expensive price, but rather are buying the pirated ones just because it is cheap.

[Danny Z]

Originally Posted by GMA forever

Danny Z a movie like Batman Returns, which costed millions to produce, you own it for just 20 euros on DVD. An all time greatest hits collection from some of the legends of music will cost you also around 20 euros. Now you want to tell me a Spongebob game, a car racing game or a war game should cost more?

60 euros is not a fortune for you if you buy a game once or twice a year, but if you are an addict or you have kids at home, then yes the 60 euros every couple of weeks is indeed a fortune.

Did you know that Batman recorded three-day ticket sales of $155.3 million over its first weekend, 8 times more than it cost. say 120 millions goes to distribution, and movie theaters, the producers still made money of the first three days.
I am not telling you that sponge bob costs more i am telling that games cost a lot of money while they have less audience than movies, a movie is played in movie theaters worldwide then sent to to DVDs, the recipes from DVD are marginal, so whatever it fetches is good for the studio. To get the same revenues out of game than a movie a game has to be priced higher than a DVD movie.

[Raficoo]

hey i only buy Pirated games because of the price..and hey... there isn't even a store anywhere in Leb that sells alot of Pc/Ps2 games. for example, if i was in a DvD store and Piracy Police came, i would tell them "where the **** you expect me to buy games then???" caz i mean seriously.. there isn't a good place to buy alot of pc/ps2 games around here.

anyways, im Currently waiting for Blu-Ray copied discs to come out so that i can buy the Ps3 :P and watch HD Movies

[Boris®]

khaye resmela raw7a 3and Nino bel malla wou 10,000LL 3al dvd