Recently, five gaming companies, including Codemasters and Atari, sent notice to 25,000 file-sharing internet users, demanding 300 GBP each or risk court action. It seems that they were looking to get some cash back from the rampant piracy of their games.
Alex St. John, CEO of WildTangent, feels that the blame should be placed on the industry, and not the consumer.
"Console gamers spend more time playing PC games but they spend one third of the money on the PC," he said to GamesIndustry.biz. "One reason for that is that the content is free on the PC because it's easily pirated but that's another way of saying that the business model on the PC has to be different."
St. John says that an ad-supported sales model for PC gaming might be the answer:
"For example: if the games were free sponsored by advertising then what would the value be to a pirate in pirating it? The business model is wrong and consumers are finding a way around it..." he said. "The people sending those letters are blaming the consumer for getting their media for free in an open environment rather than saying 'Hey our business model's f*cked, come up with a better one'."
I don't know: is piracy a good indicator that the model is f*cked? Wouldn't the price of PC gaming hardware be another indicator?
What do you feel has to change for PC gaming? Or, do you think it's fine as is?
Contest:
12:24 PM on 09.08.2008
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For one thing, the whole "race to produce the fastest GPU" needs to be curtailed a little, so that should reduce the costs. Secondly, acknowledge the fact that PC gamers aren't console gamers.
Otherwise, I think Valve/Steam is doing a great thing for the PC market, in striving to get great quality games and services to the most users, not the highest quality games to the elite few (thereby increasing the sales of the latest GPUs from the future)
I. DRM
A. It puts legitimate customers at major inconvenience.
B. It doesn't do shit to actually stop piracy.
II. Crysis (Bad Optimization)
A. While most people do have computers, most people don't have 2 HD4870's running in Crossfire.
B. "Minimum requirements" should be able to get thirty frames stable on minimum graphics settings, not FIVE.
I could go on.
When your method to deter piracy is actually deterring SALES, WHILE FAILING to deter piracy, someone fucked up.
2) Who would listen to this guy, he run Wildtangent, the makers of shitty little glorified flash games that are chock full of spyware
DRM has never done anything to stop downloads. It never has, never will. By pulling absolutely comically moronic stunts like limiting installs and requiring online activation they make the situation worse.
Bleeding customers dry (if you don't buy 'protection' on EA downloader you'll have to pay for the game again after 6 months if you want to reinstall) won't make them like you.
Releasing shoddy products that need multiple patches to work well won't make people like you.
The industry has done nothing to stimulate the market in years, look at how fractured the digital download space is. The response most seem to have is "We won't adapt or change, we'll just go to the closed systems of consoles instead, because we can exert more control over that market".
PC gaming model is not fucked. I mean, just take a look at all the goodies we're going to get in the upcoming period. Fallout 3, Dragon Age, Stalker Clear Sky, and so on and on... We're entering in to the Great Golden Age of the PC gaming, and it's here to stay with more that 255 million PC machines sold each year worldwide. People who have problems with keeping their PC's up to date at low cost should thank their own ignorance for buying 250 bucks piece of shit at the local grocery store. Some people just don't have what it takes to be a gamer, but hey! they can always resort to button mashing on consoles. Super Smash Bros. Brawl awaits them eagerly.
If you have problems with DRM, just pirate your shit. Hell, I remember the days I bought 7 copies of Planescape: Torment to give away as birthday presents to my friends, back in 2000. They still thank me for it. On the other hand, I pirated Mass Effect and Spore and have no intention on punishing myself or inflicting pain on others with the original versions of the games. If you really think that developers deserve support, think again. Who do you really support when you buy three-times-activation crap?
Besides, ATI and nVidia are having the time of their lives. Maybe they should start caring... no, wait.
1) DRM - it does nothing but punish those who legitimately purchase the game, and does absolutely jack shit to protect the game from piracy after the first week at the very, very most. Sins of a Solar Empire has proven that DRM does nothing positive. No online registration, no security software installing in the background, no entering stupid product keys. Just give us the damned game and let us install and play it.
2) Building games around bleeding edge hardware - Having beautiful graphics and highly intelligent AI mean nothing when you have to spend thousands of dollars in order to play the game at decent framerates. Forget appealing to the "hardcore" PC gamer who upgrades their PC once a month, give the rest of the gaming crowd a game they can play on a real gaming PC, one that we can actually afford!
3) Good game first, pretty graphics second - having the best looking, most intelligent, most complex game means nothing if it's unplayable from the start. Give us something that's fun to play and has REAL replay value (not that collect-a-thon bullshit) that we can invest money in, instead of "play it once and put it on the shelf".
4) Give us a reason to buy - on the one hand, we've got a game we can't return just because we don't like it, and can't trade in when we're done with it. On the other hand, we've got a means to play the game completely free of charge. All that crap about it being " the right thing to do" goes out the window when you realize how much $60 can get you. Give us a reason to invest, an incentive to trust you with that $60. Give us something cool that pirating can't.
The PC business model is not fucked. It's tarred by console focused publishers, but for actual, honest to god PC games? Things are fucking great right now, and getting better all the time. The only "problem" with the PC is bad press thanks to fuckups like THQ and EA, and console fanboys in the gaming press spreading bullshit and believing the NPD numbers when the NPD doesn't even try to claim them as the true facts of the matter- they openly admit to not registering non-retail sales, and non-retail is the bread and butter of the PC industry. Steam and Impulse game sales, indie sales, ad-supported games from Korea and subscription supported MMOs, PC clubs in Japan where gamers rent PC time to shoot each other in Counterstrike... PC gaming is huge and growing fast.
If gamers couldn't pirate on the pc, they'd simply leave the fucking pc.
Who could justify the cost when HD consoles exist for a fraction of the price?
only a fucking retard.
Yes, because absolutely no PC gamers buy games. The 11 million WoW subscribers, 15 million Steam users, hundreds of billions made by Blizzard, the 2 million copies STALKER sold, all a lie.
You're a fucking retard and "HD Console" is a fucking laugh when you're comparing it to PC.
Hint: it wasn't piracy that killed those machines.
* slapme7times: "Who could justify the cost when HD consoles exist for a fraction of the price? "
Because you can do more with a PC than just play games, and that means you can switch back and forth between games and other things instantly?
A $100 video card will run practically any game these days. You just might have to turn down the pretty bloom effects and run it at *gasp* less than 1600x1200 to do it. How horrible. Be glad you didn't grow up in the 80's like I did, and have to pay $2000 just to get 256 fucking colors, because the game wouldn't run on a 16 color PC at all.
and they only do at low HDTV res like 720 p or 1080p.
Looks the ps3 RSX based on old ass nvida 7800 series PC and xbox 360 gpu that has likw only 48 stream units!.
when i can get a ATI 3870 with 320 stream units and 512mb texture memeory the entire amount of a xbox 360 and ps3 total memory for like $150 and the 512 mb memory is just storing pretty GPU DATA!>!>!
then i get to pay $10 extra on every game that goes to microsoft for there loss on all the console crap! =$10 more for maps and crap you get free on PC again towards microsft on like all games... FUN!!!>!!>
No dude i think you guys are the morons.