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-=Cartoon=-
VIP Member
Posts: 8823
Location: South Pacific Ocean
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 Posted: Wed, 7th May 2008 04:28 Post subject: The general PC sales.. piracy.. etc "Debate" |
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Since this seems to be the hot topic at the moment on the boards/net with regards to PC gaming.. thought it deserves its own thread.
My views on the matter
-It seems for ANY game now "Piracy" is a excuse if it fails in the charts.. (If its a shit game.. it sells hardly any.. then its the pirates fault)
-There is a world outside the usa when it comes to games: EVERY sales figure we seem to get seems to be american ones.. and people should realise now the usa's PC gaming base has been low for a long time.... the witcher sold something like 50k in america.. yet more than a million overseas... heaps of games do this yet we only hear the us figures (case and point being crysis)... so just remember most sales figures you hear are american ones.. which nowhere NEAR reflect the true sales. (hencer why EA are cancelling madden for PC but keeping Fifa)
-Sales figures never include online dist figures and mmo figures... these alone would bump up the numbers .. but they are never included.
-Fucking stupid online checks/copy protection are not going to help.. hell put a cd key in .. i dont care.. its easy and has never caused a problem before (think of games like battlefield) ... but dont treat me like a criminal for buying your product. (Not all of us on nforce pirate everything)
- The gaming industry seems to be slowly turning into the music industry... its sad really.
- Support the guys doing it right.... i always buy things from Paradox , Steam/valve (ok not so lil) and stardock... these people seem to "get it" when it comes to distribution and piracy.
Soooory for the long rant.. just everyone seems to be so doom and gloom at the moment with PC gaming
Whats your views on the current situation nforce ??
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-=Cartoon=-
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Posts: 8823
Location: South Pacific Ocean
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| Posted: Wed, 7th May 2008 04:32 Post subject: |
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PS found this
"""a recent report from Jon Peddie Research (JPR) market tracking company indicated that the total available market (TAM) of standalone graphics cards increased to a record height in Q3 2007 along with revenues." In addition 67.33 million discrete graphics cards were sold in Q1-Q3 of 2007 with an average sale price of around $237.
For $237 you would expect most purchasers to have gaming in mind when purchasing their video card.
Extrapolate the 67.33 million sales to include Q4 and you would expect 2007 graphics card sales to be at least 90 million. To put this in perspective this figure (which is only for 2007 sales) is about 35 million more than the combined totals of the Wii, PS3 and 360 since launch.
On a worldwide basis in 2007 the PC was the top revenue earner for non-casual gaming across all platforms. This would obviously be even larger were it not for rampant piracy (though how much larger is unclear since we do not know how many pirates would have actually purchased these games had they not been available through illegal sources).
There is clearly a huge market for PC gaming, it is time this market was given is proper attention and respect."""
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| Posted: Wed, 7th May 2008 04:45 Post subject: |
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There is no "situation", just some developers trying to skip the blame train and try to justify their shitty excuses for games. If they don't like it in the PC scene, fine they can fuck off to consoles for all I care. There will always be people to fill their place, and bring me enjoyable games that I am willing to pay for. Simple supply and demand.
Sense Amid Madness, Wit Amidst Folly
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| Posted: Wed, 7th May 2008 04:59 Post subject: |
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there might have been 63.7 million graphics card sold but how many games were released during the same time period that you would actually buy if piracy didnt exist?
i could probably count a handful of games , mmo's have taken alot of sales away from devlopers of single and multiplayer games though (17million people are subscribed to an mmo in 2008, most of them probably dont buy any regular games)
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| Posted: Wed, 7th May 2008 06:22 Post subject: |
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If the game is shitte, it won't sell, protection or no protection.
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Dunge
Posts: 1201
Location: Québec
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| Posted: Wed, 7th May 2008 07:40 Post subject: |
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http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10254&Itemid=2
I know Crysis is not perfect, but it's a proof that even good games lose a big part of the market due to piracy. Console piracy exist too, but it's harder, hence less frequent. Personally I'm a PC fanboy and never bought any recent consoles, but I had to agree that if I were making the game I would go for a console. Look at GTA4, why is the PC version coming later? They know most people would just download the thing on PC instead of buying it for xbox. On another point of view, I would never know as much as I do about the gaming culture if it were not of piracy. Most people can't afford buying a boxed game per month, but with piracy you can just play them all and I guess most developers have no clues how popular their game really is due to low sales.
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dsergei
Posts: 4051
Location: Moscow, Russia
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| Posted: Wed, 7th May 2008 09:02 Post subject: |
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It's actually way EASIER to pirate games for the box.
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-=Cartoon=-
VIP Member
Posts: 8823
Location: South Pacific Ocean
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| Posted: Wed, 7th May 2008 09:25 Post subject: |
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| Dunge wrote: | http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10254&Itemid=2
I know Crysis is not perfect, but it's a proof that even good games lose a big part of the market due to piracy. Console piracy exist too, but it's harder, hence less frequent. Personally I'm a PC fanboy and never bought any recent consoles, but I had to agree that if I were making the game I would go for a console. Look at GTA4, why is the PC version coming later? They know most people would just download the thing on PC instead of buying it for xbox. On another point of view, I would never know as much as I do about the gaming culture if it were not of piracy. Most people can't afford buying a boxed game per month, but with piracy you can just play them all and I guess most developers have no clues how popular their game really is due to low sales. |
That post makes very little sense
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| Posted: Wed, 7th May 2008 10:09 Post subject: |
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I like Valves take on it. Their system is piratable, they're aware, but it removes zero day piracy so they still get sales. People who really really want it buy.
I'd be happy with an unwritten scene rule of no release until x weeks in the stores if it saves PC gaming. I'm happy enough to wait usually.
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| Posted: Wed, 7th May 2008 12:13 Post subject: |
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| dsergei wrote: | | It's actually way EASIER to pirate games for the box. |
Pirating games is easier, but the initial step (FW hack) isn't easy. And not many people will readily void their waaranty even if they can flash their box. Piracy on consoles is much, much less than on the PC.
I also think blaming piracy is the way to go these days. Always funny when a dev you never heard of complains about bad sale figures for a game you never heard of. But, I believe this kinda discussion on this kinda forum is useless. Piracy is hurting PC gaming, let's be real, but of course we'll never admit that.
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Sin317
Banned
Posts: 24322
Location: Geneva
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| Posted: Wed, 7th May 2008 12:37 Post subject: |
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the gaming industry needs more companies like valve and blizzard, whicxh may release less games than others (notably EA ...) yet ALL of their games are big hits and of superior quality. What "killed" (not killed, but sure gave a bad taste) to gaming in general are companies like EA, Ubisoft, Sierra etc, who "spam" the market with sequels of sequels of spinoffs of .. sequels .. and quite frankly its even worse now on console than on pc lol. Especially when it comes to "Sport" Games (incl. racing, tennis, football (the soccer one ^^), etc etc. On Pc there are way less of those, for a reason (nobody buys them lol).
anyway, i was very happy when i read that epic and id are fed up with pc's.. guess what, so are we .. with them 
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| Posted: Wed, 7th May 2008 13:39 Post subject: |
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Just wanna throw in my 2 cents... You know it's funny how protections on pc games make a big difference when it comes to deciding if one wants to buy or to copy. Take The Witcher, it's protected yes, but not by some über intrusive app, I started playing a copy of this game and soon found out that the game rocks! So... I went out and bought the collectors version simply because the game is great and I feel really good about supporting great development teams, especially new teams that shows the world that great quality is possible without enormous production costs AND without annoying protections.
Now I'm eagerly awating the release of Mass Effect by Bioware (One of the greatest game companies Imho), but yesterday I learnt that Mass Effect will be protected by some horrible protection ala Bioshock. So now I have gone from being a legal customer who want's to buy this great game, to a pirate just copying the game. Sad but true, but I simply don't want some fucked up protection which is likely to mess up the gameplay.
"Sometimes when you do things right, people are not sure you've done anything at all." -- God (Futurama)
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| Posted: Wed, 7th May 2008 13:45 Post subject: |
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| Mister_s wrote: | | dsergei wrote: | | It's actually way EASIER to pirate games for the box. |
Pirating games is easier, but the initial step (FW hack) isn't easy. And not many people will readily void their waaranty even if they can flash their box. Piracy on consoles is much, much less than on the PC.
I also think blaming piracy is the way to go these days. Always funny when a dev you never heard of complains about bad sale figures for a game you never heard of. But, I believe this kinda discussion on this kinda forum is useless. Piracy is hurting PC gaming, let's be real, but of course we'll never admit that. |
i havent had a console for years but when i had a playstation everyone i knew who owned a playstation had the mod chip installed
when i had a dreamcast almost everyone i knew with one atleast had the boot cd
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javlar
Posts: 1921
Location: Kalmar, Sweden
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| Posted: Wed, 7th May 2008 13:50 Post subject: |
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I pirate everything except projects that I feel deserve a buyer. And by that i dont mean GTA, Crysis etc because I know those have buyers. I'm talking about stuff like flight sims, certain rpg's and so on, stuff that has a small audience.
Gaming - Intel Quad Q9450 @ 3.2GHZ | Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB | SB X-Fi | PC6400 8GB | 300GB Velociraptor
HTPC - Antec Fusion Remote | AMD Athlon 7850 X2 | PC6400 2GB | 74GB Raptor
Server - Athlon 64 X2 4200+ | Radeon HD 3450 | SB X-Fi | PC5300 2GB | 4TB+ total space
XBOX360 Gamertag: javlarmate
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| Posted: Wed, 7th May 2008 13:55 Post subject: |
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i agree with the whole notion that piracy is an excuse for low sales, good games will always ALWAYS sell good, and always give good profit in return.
Bad games not only get sold less but also pirated less, so when crysis sells a million , it wont be downloaded only 120 times.
But what they assume is that all the pirated downloads are lost profit, Also they assume harsh copy protections will force ppl to buy it, but that only works if the person really wants to play the game , has the money and isnt put off by the protection , cause as Bioshock has proven very very few gave in to the waiting for it to be cracked , but even more refused to eventually buy it, it will always backfire.
If there wasnt a possibility to download games i would probably already have given up on PC gaming altogether, there are barely demos that reflect the true aspect of a game , hyping makes me not trust game ratings at all, for example crysis ... it was so bad in my opinion it was a chore playing it, now if i went with the hype i would have bought it only to realize the same day i wasted 50 bucks...Cause i do buy games, as do most on this forum, cause Nforce community is anything but a bunch of 1337 kiddos bragging about how they play games for free, we just enjoy the privelage to try them out before anyone else 
Is PC gaming dying ? it never will, but if it does , i wont give a tear about it. IT did get alot worse the past few years quality wise, only improvement we saw was graphicly.
Games didnt get that much more complex, but they are so much more buggy and simply incompleted, not only that , after you bought the game thats incompleted and buggy , you realize there wont be even a patch comming out ( pun towards EA ) .Console gaming used to be immune to that cause of no way to patch it , but now with the newest generation we have to deal with it also.
The days are over that companies make games cause they love making games, and at the same time were able to make a living out of it. Most have been bought out and taken over by big corporations not caring about games, but caring about the money there is to be made, no matter what.
How can a company justify having you to spend 50 bucks , wait for the game in the mail , keep the cd in the drive , having to reactivate every week .... or download it within the hour the game is out for free and not having to deal with any copy protection, gamers have an easy choice.
Now what if there is a game that cant be cracked or has a protection ala mass effect forcing you to buy it , but also go through the hassle of the protection all the times?
Very simple , they can shove it , it can be the best game ever , but its just a game and i wont support you , and many many feel the same , cause gaming is just a hobby , not my life.
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dsergei
Posts: 4051
Location: Moscow, Russia
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| Posted: Wed, 7th May 2008 17:39 Post subject: |
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| Mister_s wrote: | | dsergei wrote: | | It's actually way EASIER to pirate games for the box. |
Pirating games is easier, but the initial step (FW hack) isn't easy. And not many people will readily void their waaranty even if they can flash their box. Piracy on consoles is much, much less than on the PC.
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Fw flash isn`t any harder than plugging off your drives to avoid blacklists and you only have to do it once. If done properly it won`t void your warranty.
And about console pirating - check the public trackers when a major game is released you`d be surprised to see that the average leecher numbers for the box games the are bigger than for any pc game. The box developers don't whine because they can't really do anything, can they and the sales figures are still great. It's up to MS to take care of pirating. So clearly pirating isn't the biggest factor.
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| Posted: Wed, 7th May 2008 18:19 Post subject: |
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| maul_inc wrote: | Just wanna throw in my 2 cents... You know it's funny how protections on pc games make a big difference when it comes to deciding if one wants to buy or to copy. Take The Witcher, it's protected yes, but not by some über intrusive app, I started playing a copy of this game and soon found out that the game rocks! So... I went out and bought the collectors version simply because the game is great and I feel really good about supporting great development teams, especially new teams that shows the world that great quality is possible without enormous production costs AND without annoying protections.
Now I'm eagerly awating the release of Mass Effect by Bioware (One of the greatest game companies Imho), but yesterday I learnt that Mass Effect will be protected by some horrible protection ala Bioshock. So now I have gone from being a legal customer who want's to buy this great game, to a pirate just copying the game. Sad but true, but I simply don't want some fucked up protection which is likely to mess up the gameplay. |
mmmmmmmmmmmmmm the witcher, just got my copy a couple weeks ago  , it had a pretty nasty protection as far as scene shit went getting it out, but you wouldn't know it as it was near invisible, I think the only issue there was with it was the protection didn't like some SATA drives, which plays fine in mine. |
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CaptainCox
VIP Member
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Location: A Swede in Germany (FaM)
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| Posted: Wed, 7th May 2008 18:23 Post subject: |
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Just ordered Mass Effect from Amazon...I felt really good clicking the "order" button
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CaptainCox
VIP Member
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Location: A Swede in Germany (FaM)
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| Posted: Wed, 7th May 2008 19:12 Post subject: |
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Don't know if it has been posted here (to lazy to look) but | Quote: | | NVIDIA games boss Roy Taylor believes we're at a point where he doesn't believe anyone could possibly justify pirating a PC game. |
SOURCE
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| Posted: Wed, 7th May 2008 19:22 Post subject: Re: The general PC sales.. piracy.. etc "Debate" |
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| -=Cartoon=- wrote: |
-Fucking stupid online checks/copy protection are not going to help.. hell put a cd key in .. i dont care.. its easy and has never caused a problem before (think of games like battlefield) ... but dont treat me like a criminal for buying your product. (Not all of us on nforce pirate everything)
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I see nothing wrong with online checks. Shure from my pirate side of view they pose a problem in pirating games, still I don't look at them as a wicked and unfair protection. Imo they work exactly the same way that cdkeys in mp game. You want to play battlefield online, you need a working cd key that you then must not share it with 1000 people. Same goes for online checks. You insert your cd key and you get to play the game. It works whenever you want, and it will not stop working unless you share it with half the internets. Even sharing cdkey with couple of friends works.
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spankie
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Posts: 2958
Location: Belgium
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| Posted: Wed, 7th May 2008 20:34 Post subject: |
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i keep repeating what i always say... They blame piracy for decreasing sales, but piracy is not the problem...
a) they saturated everyone 5y-70y in some years. Games were new, everybody bought it. Now you only have a new generation coming that is a new target audience. I dont think Apple will blame piracy if they sell less Iphones in 2 years. Everyone has an iphone, so they dont sell anymore.
b) But there are new games coming, so why dont people buy a new game? Well if companies keep making crap sequels, why buy them? I enjoyed FIFA1998, but im not going to buy 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 because the names change each year
c) The media market/enternainment market is much more fractioned than 5 years ago. 5y ago there were PC games and music CDs. Now there is cellphone ringtones/DVD/Music CD/PC games/Console/Blackberry applications... Of course revenues drop in PC and Music, but in general they keep selling more.
And CD protection is the dumbest thing ever. There is such a discrepancy between cost and benefits. They never protected CDs in the past and they were selling CDs. Some started copying the CDs, but the die hard fans kept buying it. Some smart programmers thought, "lets create a new need, Securom, SF etc" and they started CD protection companies and all of a sudden everything was protected.
Result? Regular users have problems installing and playing the games they buy!! And why? Those who copy/download always know how to circumvent the protections. 95% of the gamers have no clue how to download/copy a game and will buy the game anyway. I mean, my dad buys games and DVDs that i downloaded, because he likes the original packing better and wants the manual...So why they keep investing in protection, i have no clue. The result is the same anyway. The kiddos buy, the downloaders download it anyway.
Sony is smart, they dropped protection on music CDs... And wasnt sony the one who was always complaining etc etc? Finally they realise the same.
And those companies always go "1.000.000 downloads, *cry cry* we lost 50.000.000 revenue. Riiiiight. I downloaded NHL 01 02 03 04 05 06 07. But do they really think i would have bought it? i even never played it. But hey i was young, and it was cool to have them all lined up. And do they really think it would have paid 7 x 20 € for some stupid sims expansion? I played the sims all together 20h in my life. Why do people download and play? because it is free. That is not lost revenue. That just more eyeballs on the game and mouth to mouth advertising
| Sin317 wrote: | the gaming industry needs more companies like valve and blizzard, whicxh may release less games than others (notably EA ...) yet ALL of their games are big hits and of superior quality. What "killed" (not killed, but sure gave a bad taste) to gaming in general are companies like EA, Ubisoft, Sierra etc, who "spam" the market with sequels of sequels of spinoffs of .. sequels .. and quite frankly its even worse now on console than on pc lol. Especially when it comes to "Sport" Games (incl. racing, tennis, football (the soccer one ^^), etc etc. On Pc there are way less of those, for a reason (nobody buys them lol).
anyway, i was very happy when i read that epic and id are fed up with pc's.. guess what, so are we .. with them |
I cannot agree more.
You guys know Nintendo? Of course you do. They never whined about piracy. They understood the situation.
Market it saturated -> new target audience: Wii games can be played by women, kiddos and grandpa/ma
Always the same game over and over -> new user experience: keep it simple, make it fun: Wii tennis, brain academy, Mario @ olympics. Dont go online with a console, bring people together
Sequels make people not wanting to pay again -> Most of the games on the Wii are Wii only. This creates both a need for the Wii and a need for the game. "people think, Wow, only on the Wii, i will buy it, it is a special game". Just look at Zelda. People buy a Wii just to play Zelda and people buy Zelda because it is only on the Wii.
And of course it is a quality game. Mr mikomatoshokikoki or whatever his name is. He makes 1-2 games/year (zelda/mario/pikmin...) and all major blockbusters instead of shitty sequel crap.
And after years of whining by sony/microsoft, nintendo, who never whined, is the biggest and made a huge record profit.
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SycoShaman
VIP Master Jedi
Posts: 24468
Location: Toronto, Canada
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| Posted: Wed, 7th May 2008 20:54 Post subject: |
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I really dont think piracy is that big an issue in NA and western europe. I mean, I buy games i like.
What devs should do is give you like a 3 day test period. Where you can play the game and decide if you like it or not. I dont like the idea of dropping 60 bucks on something i may not like and its not like i can trade it back in for the same value.
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SycoShaman
VIP Master Jedi
Posts: 24468
Location: Toronto, Canada
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| Posted: Wed, 7th May 2008 21:39 Post subject: |
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| snop1050 wrote: | | SycoShaman wrote: | I really dont think piracy is that big an issue in NA and western europe. I mean, I buy games i like.
What devs should do is give you like a 3 day test period. Where you can play the game and decide if you like it or not. I dont like the idea of dropping 60 bucks on something i may not like and its not like i can trade it back in for the same value. |
3day test period would bankrupt most devlopers. most games dont even take 3 days to complete 
shows you how shit value for money is |
okj, maybe not 3 days, but some kinda test period that is long enough so you can actually get into the game you know and see if you like |
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| Posted: Wed, 7th May 2008 23:10 Post subject: |
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A good way to go after piracy would be take action on the end users instead of the higher level distributors. Kinda like the RIAA/MPAA is doing against college kids and home users who download music/movies illegally.
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if Crytek don't want to believe that then fuck them.
