Piracy makes cod4 developers sad.

[Gazz]

PC gamers pirate stuff. We all know that. But just how many PC gamers pick up their games via less-legal means? An astronomical amount, if some statements by a Call of Duty 4 developer are any indication:

On another PC related note, we pulled some disturbing numbers this past week about the amount of PC players currently playing Multiplayer (which was fantastic). What wasn't fantastic was the percentage of those numbers who were playing on stolen copies of the game on stolen / cracked CD keys of pirated copies (and that was only people playing online).

Not sure if I can share the exact numbers or percentage of PC players with you, but I'll check and see; if I can I'll update with them. As the amount of people who pirate PC games is astounding. It blows me away at the amount of people willing to steal games (or anything) simply because it's not physical or it's on the safety of the internet to do.

He labels the post "They Wonder Why People Don't Make PC Games Any More". Which says it all, really.

Interesting stuff there. Of course there is no way of figuring out how many people play illegal copies of COD4 online on their 360 since they don't rely on the same system as pc games do. Those people can even play on ranked servers and it might be a hint to focus on that group since they even enjoy some privileges that pirates on the pc don't. Since their addresses are known (billing addresses) it might be easier to follow up on warez on live then tracing ip numbers to people. If they have enough money to waste money for a live subscription then they can be sued for even more

The biggest issue with playing pirated games on a pc is that the pc offers everything you need. Where the barrier of burning a disc and taking a risk of logging into xbox live might be a big obstacle for some, this issue does not exist for pc games. Mount an iso file in Daemon tools, install game, copy crack and play, its even faster then trying to install a dvd from your drive if you have a dvd drive thats 8 x or less. That said, I don't believe that the biggest number of people who got this game would have ever paid for it if they had no choice. They probably would have been playing some free game like enemy territory or picked up BF1942 for 5 bucks from the budget bin since they don't believe that games are worth 50 dollars or more.

I immediately believe that there must be a huge number of people who get this game as warez, but if you just look at the 5 million+ copies of their game they sold (and thats consoles only) its pretty logical that a game of that status will also get a huge pirate following. With that many games sold they probably shouldn't be whining at all.

[Richard_Rahl]

Originally posted by Gazz@Jan 15 2008, 07:39 PM
With that many games sold they probably shouldn't be whining at all.

True
And 5 million+ copies is more then Crysis and Unreal Tournament 3 together (or probably even more)

[AKADeadly]

You can get X360 games just as easily now. Only reason stopping me is the online play, i kinda like to do that

I need more demos to really tell me if ill enjoy a game... dont really like spending $50 for a POS

[Schwarz]

I agree that with a few things the devs. are saying.
I don't like great games being pirated.
I have pirated my fair share of games but game developers have brought it upon themselves.
There were some crappy games back in the Nintendo days but I remember when I could read a legit review of a game in an EGM or whatever.
PR have started developing techniques to rip off us as gamers, started charging us the cost of their stupid advertisement.
I mean, I never saw a commercial of Final Fanatsy 3 on TV even though to me it is still the greatest game of all times.
Look at gamespot recently.
A guy gets fired because he made a bad review of a game that deserves a bad rating.
I'm tired of those hyped up paid off reviews...
And then there is DRM and BS like that coming in between.
The game I have been the proudest to pirate was BioShock.
They wanted to pass on the cost of some very discusting protection system.
Screw them.
Anyways my whole point here is that the industry has brought it upon themselves.
I mean first off if a companie does a good game, the gamers will know about it, they don't need to hype it up, pay for good reviews, and pay for some intrusive protection systems.
Therefore I think that could lower the price of games to an more interesting price level for everyone.
Not everyone has 69 bucks (CAD) for some game that you don't know if its good or not.
You can't even trust what is said on forums anymore.
Some people are paid to open accounts on forums and use some viral marketing techniques to hype up games.
I mean I thought BFN with their KillerNIC was doing some ridiculous things like that.
I saw on sites like newegg users with the handle "True Gamer" "real Gamer" give a perfect score to the card.
Its discusting but then again doesn't mean they did it.
I'm just sharing my opinion on the take...
But its all that put together that makes the end user discusted in the end result.
We dont like getting screwed and I think the relation between us and the industry has become NIL.
We see them as money hungry baboons who dont give a crap about the gamers.
They just rush out a product hype it up and sell it.

[Akherousin]

Maybe if they wouldn't charge the same for the PC version as they did for the console version, it would not have been pirated that much. They are fucking greedy. One year ago PC games were considerably cheaper than console games but that does not seem to be the case anymore which quite frankly pisses me off. Only the Wii has reasonably priced games anymore,

[Gazz]

One of the biggest reasons why games are so incredibly expensive is because developers keep inventing the wheel again and again. They keep making new code for some basic stuff like the effect of wind on objects or bulletdrop for example. If those parts would be standardized, then costs would drop considerably. It would also free the way for indy developers to get some good games released that don't look like a game from the mid 80's. Games for the Wii are so cheap because the Wii really isn't that different from the gamecube and developers have mastered that process already.

Developers also like to use piracy as an excuse to make their games more expensive and the pc seems to be the biggest scapegoat.

EDIT: apperantly it is worth it to make a version of COD4 for the mac, another system known for huge piracy. Activision just announced it will be on that platform.

[Magus]

Would be nice to have on the mac, so i can play it from time to time when i'm booting leopard

[Richard_Rahl]

Originally posted by Magus@Jan 16 2008, 09:12 PM
Would be nice to have on the mac, so i can play it from time to time when i'm booting leopard

Did you buy a mac pc, or did you make a Windows/Leopard dual boot?

[lens]

Originally posted by Schwarz@Jan 16 2008, 01:35 PM
The game I have been the proudest to pirate was BioShock.
They wanted to pass on the cost of some very discusting protection system.
Screw them.

I had a wee prob with Bioshock, the day I bought it (release day) I went home & tried installing but lucked out first go because I entered the wrong code (dont'cha hate the 'is it an o or an 0' :P , 'part from that not a prob & I enjoyed gaming bliss for next next week or so.

Not everyone has 69 bucks (CAD) for some game that you don't know if its good or not.

Ha!, you are lucky if you get 'em at that price. Down here it's $100 - a ludicrous price to ask... no wonder there are soo many Jack Sparrow's

I don't mind paying bullshit prices if the game holds over 100 hours of gameplay, new code don't cut it for me unless it's really new code & lot's of it[i]

SHOW ME THE MONEY!! :dennis:

[KamisoriX]

Well, what IW forgot was that we, the PC gamers, are sad to have shelled out money...unless it's a good game