Piracy, Not Consoles, Killed the PC Exclusive

MOnk said:
Please everyone knows that was just some random jagoff statement by a smaller dev that I'm sure everyone can agree was an extreme exaggeration.
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Orly?

Michael Pachter told Eurogamer that Ubisoft’s “PC game sales are down 90% without a corresponding lift in console sales.”
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Micheal Pachter is a research analyst. Not a 'small dev' or even part of Ubisoft.

Not only that, have you actually made the effort to go have a look at Ubisoft PC game sales recently. Most games' sales figures correspond with this.

Pr⊕phet said:
I fully agree, but it's only one part of the problem not the sole cause of the problem. It's still a symptom of a cause once you address that cause then we are partly there.

Ubisoft isn't a perfect example... In fact they are a brilliant example of how bad titles, sales and drm can affect you as a company. If they when with decent, zomg out of the world and light drm then they might have had better success. However there is still the other parts that must come to the party. That being gamers that will actually buy their titles, PR that would release when it's ready over rushing it out. Distributors that won't force off silly pricing models.

Now you can clearly see that DRM is only bit a part thereof. Even if it's just a cd check and the game gets released too early it won't contribute towards fixing the scenario. If it gets releases at good time and DRM is light, but most people pirate it it still would fail. This is excluding the fact that the title can be over priced or "split" in too many dlc or epicsodic. No one really wants to buy 3 separate games at AAA pricing where it could easily been one title...

So we all have to play our part, all factors have to be at the table. Just having a fence around your house doesn't stop crime in the country.
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Indeed, but one also has to remember, DRM is also a form of content management. If piracy were to drastically lower, or even stop entirely, I'd be surprised if publishers discontinued their DRM schemes.

I also believe the gaming industry should experience a total crash at some point. I'm not going to rewrite it all, so I'm just going to use this quote from a member on another forum;

At the end of the day, we're sitting with only a few outcomes ANYWAY, no matter what moral highground you may take, or what we discuss here:

1. The industry gets more draconian and eventually kills itself, to be reborn with new paradigms.

2. Piracy all but kills the industry as nobody buys anything anymore, and it is reborn with new paradigms.

3. Equilibrium is reached, 'acceptable losses' in piracy causes the industry to meander along happily until one side or the other upsets the equilibrium, and we're left with 1 or 2.

4. The industry brings in new paradigms from the get-go, and works WITH consumers to a degree that piracy becomes a thing of the past, like when Croatia had a boom of indie devs selling games for cheaper than pirate copies, which drove pirates out (since they couldn't make money), and funded tons of new startups making interesting games that we don't see, since they're culturally and geographically localized.
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The thing here is, there's three sides at fault. The gaming industry itself for having such a broken business model, the pirates for sitting at the heart of the causes which helped lead to the broken model, and the customers for continuing to support something which is obviously broken.

And that's not just DRM that's the issue, it's the AAA pricing system that's broken, and the way game releases are handled (rushed out the door half-finished, deadlines). And then my biggest gripe is the people working in the gaming industry. I'm not saying gamers make good businessmen, but if you want to be part of an industry, at least take part in it. Just the other day Kotick admitted that the only game he plays is a farming simulator. Say what?!
 
Micheal Pachter is a research analyst. Not a 'small dev' or even part of Ubisoft.

Not only that, have you actually made the effort to go have a look at Ubisoft PC game sales recently. Most games' sales figures correspond with this.
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Pachter often makes some wildly inaccurate statements, but whatever. As far as looking up sales go, where? Did you phone Ubisoft and get them to reveal their sales figures? If you meant to say you went to VG-Chartz, well I've argued multiple times about just how bullsht and inaccurate their sales figures are when it comes to PC sales.

Case and point;

Magicka
VGChartz
10,000

Publisher Report
1.3 Million


... so it's only off by 1.29 Million.
 
No, that's because Steam doesn't reveal sales statistics at all. That's why it doesn't reflect on VGChartz.

And Magicka is a Steam game that is only available for digital purchase. That 10k is from other digital sites that sell the code to activate it on Steam.
 
Graal said:
No, that's because Steam doesn't reveal sales statistics at all. That's why it doesn't reflect on VGChartz.

And Magicka is a Steam game that is only available for digital purchase. That 10k is from other digital sites that sell the code to activate it on Steam.
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Magicka can be bought at retail, it's not digital only.
http://www.takealot.com/gaming/magicka-pc-dvd-rom,9384384

Also you're not making the point you think you are considering you are telling me it's inaccurate because it doesn't count THE BIGGEST digital distributor which is a huge part of the PC market, which is exactly what I am saying.

Do we even know if any digital distributors release sales data? Only one I know of is Origin and that was only for their first party games.
 
Pr⊕phet said:
Maybe you should try to unnarrow your vision. DRM is a symptom, why do you think it's there? Take away that cause then part of the original problem is solved.
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The problem is that it's a symptom attributing to the death of PC gaming, it's an over exaggeration to a disease that was always there, piracy doesn't affect sales, it was never a sale to begin with. Ever since I can remember piracy was rampant, this is as far back as the mid 80's. Slapping on all this DRM isn't really helping anything, it's just making it worse.
 
Lupus said:
The problem is that it's a symptom attributing to the death of PC gaming, it's an over exaggeration to a disease that was always there, piracy doesn't affect sales, it was never a sale to begin with. Ever since I can remember piracy was rampant, this is as far back as the mid 80's. Slapping on all this DRM isn't really helping anything, it's just making it worse.
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Strange enough its only gamers that take this "view". Ask any developer and they will disagree.
 
MOnk said:
Magicka can be bought at retail, it's not digital only.
http://www.takealot.com/gaming/magicka-pc-dvd-rom,9384384

Also you're not making the point you think you are considering you are telling me it's inaccurate because it doesn't count THE BIGGEST digital distributor which is a huge part of the PC market, which is exactly what I am saying.

Do we even know if any digital distributors release sales data? Only one I know of is Origin and that was only for their first party games.
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Afaik, Steam is the only DD that doesn't release sales data. Greenmangaming, Gamersgate, they all release data.

As for the retail of Magicka. Yes, it has retail. But I'd be surprised if it had moved even 2000 retail copies. Magicka's base price on Steam for the version including all the DLC works out at slightly more than the retail copy's (which includes none of the DLC) price. Not to mention the fact that Magicka has been on sale at the very least 4 times last year and has been available on Steam long before the retail copy was even a glimmer in someone's eye. Steam is the primary place people bought Magicka.

Most Ubisoft games will not make the majority of their sales through Steam. They can, but it's highly unlikely. Besides that, compare current Ubisoft PC sales to Ubisoft PC sales of a few years back. Even without the Steam sales being taken into account, that's still a major drop. The only recent Ubisoft game that seems to have done exceedingly well is Anno 2070.
 
The developers' opinions and approach to piracy being skewed.
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Dev's saying every pirate copy is a lost sale are just as deluded as people saying no pirate copies would have been sales.

What do people think, if piracy could be stopped would pirates just give up playing PC games and go take up fishing?
 
Probably not, but those who turned to piracy because they couldn't afford to buy games in the first place still won't be able to afford it, and those who pirate games because they want to see if it's worth the money are simply going to give the games a skip entirely.

Not only that, but in its current state, piracy doesn't affect the industry, because it's a bunch of people who take what they don't want to buy. Unless a viable method is put in place to prevent piracy, this is the way it's going to stay. People will pirate as long as they are able to pirate. Therefore, their piracy does not affect sales, because they don't want to buy the games and there's nothing that prevents them from taking it for free. They're simply going to continue pirating because they can, therefore it is not technically lost money. Only potentially lost money.
 
Graal said:
But that's exactly what we're debating. The developers' opinions and approach to piracy being skewed.
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Surely if the Devs themselves are saying Piracy impacts sales, the people who are actually affected by any loss of sales, how can gamers then claim that it doesn't affect sales? Like Monk says; if we didn't have piracy would all those who pirate games suddenly no long play games? No they would have to either buy the title or not play, just like everyone who buys games has to make that choice.

As for the "I Download to 'try' it out & if its any good I'll buy it" argument I highly doubt anything more than a faction of those who do pirate actually adhere to this. Like I've said before, when given the choice of paying for something or getting it free the majority of people choose free. Which is why great games are still being pirated.
 
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Graal said:
Probably not, but those who turned to piracy because they couldn't afford to buy games in the first place still won't be able to afford it, and those who pirate games because they want to see if it's worth the money are simply going to give the games a skip entirely.
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Games are a luxury item, it is not food or cloths or other "must have" items. It is a Luxury, if you can't afford it then they don't have it. I can't afford the newest Laptop does that mean its ok for me to go take one? I can't afford the newest TV so I'll just find a store and take one. No you don't do that so why does it apply to games or films or music?
 
OmegaFenix said:
Games are a luxury item, it is not food or cloths or other "must have" items. It is a Luxury, if you can't afford it then they don't have it.
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That's in an ideal world. This is the real world, not the ideal world. People take what they can't afford. I'm not saying it's right, I'm saying that's what people do and there's nothing we can currently do about it.

I can't afford the newest Laptop does that mean its ok for me to go take one? I can't afford the newest TV so I'll just find a store and take one.
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Bad analogy because stealing a physical object and stealing a digital product is two entirely different things. In one case, you take the object and after the theft there is still only one. In the other you make a copy, so where there was one there is now two. It's not essentially 'stealing', because you're not taking something, you're copying it. It's two entirely different offenses.

Besides that, you're missing my point. I don't know how else to express it, so let me break it down in a bulleted list.

1) Person A does not want to buy a game. He has the means to pirate it and nothing can stop him.
2) Developer Y cannot do anything to prevent Person A from pirating the game, because they have no means of preventing it.
3) This means Person A does not intend on trading cash for it and is going to pirate it anyway.
4) There is no 'sales' loss, because no matter what anyone does, Person A is going to pirate it simply because he can.

Whether he would buy it or not if piracy was not an option is irrelevant, because piracy is currently an option and so far nobody can do anything about it. While piracy is an option, there is no way Person A is going to buy the game. Therefore, no lost sale.

Stop piracy and you stop the issue. If you can't stop piracy, stop making piracy your main concern.
 
OmegaFenix said:
Games are a luxury item, it is not food or cloths or other "must have" items. It is a Luxury, if you can't afford it then they don't have it. I can't afford the newest Laptop does that mean its ok for me to go take one? I can't afford the newest TV so I'll just find a store and take one. No you don't do that so why does it apply to games or films or music?
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Because people have this sense of entitlement and have this belief that duplicating something (i.e. not removing the original) makes it okay.
 
Strifehart said:
Because people have this sense of entitlement and have this belief that duplicating something (i.e. not removing the original) makes it okay.
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It doesn't make it okay, but it's not in the same class of offences as stealing a physical object from a store.
 
Graal said:
That's in an ideal world. This is the real world, not the ideal world. People take what they can't afford. I'm not saying it's right, I'm saying that's what people do and there's nothing we can currently do about it.



Bad analogy because stealing a physical object and stealing a digital product is two entirely different things. In one case, you take the object and after the theft there is still only one. In the other you make a copy, so where there was one there is now two. It's not essentially 'stealing', because you're not taking something, you're copying it. It's two entirely different offenses.

Besides that, you're missing my point. I don't know how else to express it, so let me break it down in a bulleted list.

1) Person A does not want to buy a game. He has the means to pirate it and nothing can stop him.
2) Developer Y cannot do anything to prevent Person A from pirating the game, because they have no means of preventing it.
3) This means Person A does not intend on trading cash for it and is going to pirate it anyway.
4) There is no 'sales' loss, because no matter what anyone does, Person A is going to pirate it simply because he can.

Whether he would buy it or not if piracy was not an option is irrelevant, because piracy is currently an option and so far nobody can do anything about it. While piracy is an option, there is no way Person A is going to buy the game. Therefore, no lost sale.

Stop piracy and you stop the issue. If you can't stop piracy, stop making piracy your main concern.
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Ideal world my ass, its this "We can't stop it so why even try." attitude that keeps this issue around. We are too compliant, too eager to debate away the issue, to busy looking for a technicality to justify it. People are the problem, a fact long since established? Like Strife said, people feel entitled to games. It has nothing to do with ideals or some morally superior high ground of trying to stick it to the man - its greed, plain and simple. A fact that is so very ironic when you consider how many gamers are among the ranks of people "protesting" corporate greed.

Dress it up however you want. Taking something, digital or physical, without paying for it is stealing no matter what technicality you wrap it in. I create something, you take it (whether the physical or the digital product) without paying me, who made it, you are stealing from me. If cut all the bullshit that what it comes down to.

We can't cure cancer but that doesn't stop us from trying. I find the "They can't stop Piracy so they should just stop trying like a cadet sitting in the kobayashi maru simulator and just going "Oh well I can't win so I may as well not try."

Strifehart said:
Because people have this sense of entitlement and have this belief that duplicating something (i.e. not removing the original) makes it okay.
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I'm with you dude.
 
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Stop piracy and you stop the issue. If you can't stop piracy, stop making piracy your main concern.
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How do you stop piracy if you don't concern yourself with it? It's not like some magical solution will just arrive on your doorstep the one day.

While piracy is an option, there is no way Person A is going to buy the game. Therefore, no lost sale.
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So you are saying because there is piracy it's not a lost sale, but if there wasn't it MIGHT be a sale but then you say developers shouldn't be concerned with piracy. Surely this is the exact thing developers are concerned about that each pirated copy might have been a sale, hence there are potential lost sales hence they want to stop piracy so those potential lost sales turn into actual sales.

Like the article Fenix linked earlier, even if 1 out of every 100 people who pirated the game bought the game it could mean the difference between making a sequel or going out of business.
 
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