Piracy...can it kill PC gaming?

[Vault101]

Well, it certainly has scared of triple A developers doing PC-centric games.

Will it kill of the PC gaming as a whole? No. Will it scare of more Triple A studios? Maybe, though it feels like we already hit the bottom.

well there are lots of (hopefully) good games coming out for PC this year (dragon age 2, portal 2, bulletstorm the list goes on and on) plus theres always great older games ot go back to (Im going to get STALKER at some point)

BUT I can't think of many games coming out ONLY for PC, most of them are on consoles and we also miss out on great games (where is my red dead redeption?? I WANT MY RED DEAD REDEMPTION!!!) I think its because alot of the audience/money is on consoles so thats where the devs go

that said I honestly dont mind if we play the same games as consoles/ vice versa, as long as the games are good and at least take advantage of the benifits of PC (unlike saints row 2...but even then a bad port is better than no game at all)

 

[mikecoulter]

Yes, I believe it can ruin the future of pc gaming, it makes the platform look too risky for developers to release on (Crysis 2 for exxample) causing more and more developers to turn their back on the platform.

 

[Soraryuu]

If game sales are people, then piracy is violence. So yeah, it can kill PC gaming...

BUT. Nowadays, it's more like a slap to the face. It has to go way, way above this before it can threaten PC gaming as a whole. All the developers who are jamming their games full of DRM are just paranoid.
Now, consoles. THAT can kill PC gaming, and already is. Just look at how many games are made for consoles these days(and don't say this is to avoid piracy, because it ain't. it's to reach a much broader market that lacks great PCs).

 

[matthudson]

Honestly if anything is "killing" PC gaming... its PC gamers. I think it does a lot to put off people to have this constant superiority complex when it comes to PCs. People get this misconception that you have to have a 1000$ + gaming rig to even scratch min specs on games which is almost always false.

Certainly is today. No doubt this is due to the aging consoles not being able to handle anything overly impressive graphics wise.

 

[Vault101]

If game sales are people, then piracy is violence. So yeah, it can kill PC gaming...

BUT. Nowadays, it's more like a slap to the face. It has to go way, way above this before it can threaten PC gaming as a whole. All the developers who are jamming their games full of DRM are just paranoid.
Now, consoles. THAT can kill PC gaming, and already is. Just look at how many games are made for consoles these days(and don't say this is to avoid piracy, because it ain't. it's to reach a much broader market that lacks great PCs).

but if piracey isnt an issue then why not release on all platforms if its not a console exclusive?

from my point of veiw other than console exclusives and a few other titles I havnt felt like Ive been missing out on that much

I will say as Ive said before that there are less PC exclusive games, to be honest RTS MMO and FPS are not my favorite genres so that dosnt bother me as much

 

[SenseOfTumour]

Kill PC gaming? No.

Lessen the number of huge budget PC releases and increase the number of shoddy ports due to less investment in the PC format? Ooohhh yes.

I think you'll find indie devs etc carry on just fine however.

Yes I know they pirated to hell and back too, but they're more likely to be bought (No, I've got no evidence, I'm going purely on $10 vs $60), and there always the people who have the feeling it's ok to screw EA, but won't do it to indies. (It's not of course, but, it's an opinion.)

 

[Madman123456]

PC Gaming may arrive at a point where there are no PC exclusives and everything comes from the consoles. There will always be some People who buy PC Games and if a port of a game wont cost too much i don't see any Reason to not release it for the PC to grab that money as well.

Also, there are genres that still play better with PC controls. Unless you want the console turn into a pc even more (we already have patches, updates and the like, why nod add mice and fully grown keyboards?) those games will be seen on the PC.

Pc Gaming has always been just one of the things you can do with the PC. Pretty much everyone can afford a PC and has done so already. You can buy a machine that is as fast as a PS3 pretty cheap, you don't need a multi thousand $ machine to play games that look as good as they do on any console.
Unless the Developer screws up the port, like with GTA4. And even then there are tools to fix that. There are tools for GTA4 that remove several of the "gritty" graphical filters and then you can play GTA4 on a PC that is cheaper then the xbox and it even looks better.


Since pretty much everyone who can afford a console can afford a PC and many People have done so, the PC Market is very large. Even if your Game gets pirated a lot, at least a small percentage of the PC users will buy your game. And a small percentage of the many many People who have PCs will bring in quite a lot of money.

 

[5t3v0]

It does annoy me that developers blame low PC version sales on Piracy. Sure, numbers are higher, but they dont take into account steam sales, and the fact that the PC market share is only 7% now thanks to the advent of the modern console.

I had one console gamer call PC gaming stupid because "All I had to do was go to pirate bay and download any game I want" despite being an honest person who rarely pirates games, only those that are IMPOSSIBLE to find, such as old games. I hate how there has been so much anti-PC gaming propaganda flung around because of developers conherant hate for the platform, despite many of them starting out as lowly-PC developers (Infinity ward, anyone?)

 

[KalosCast]

Studies have shown that people who pirate music also (on average) buy more music than their fully legal counterparts. It's not impossible that piracy may also help spur game sales (unlikely, but possible).

 

[hazabaza1]

Only if everyone starts pirating.

 

[veloper]

The pirate to legit ratio used to be much worse, only up until this millenium.
PC gaming survived that and unlike now, there existed consoles then (SNES) that were actually better than the PCs of the time.

PC game sales have gone up relatively and absolutely. There is no problem.

 

[Nexoram]

Eventually if it got too great, it would kill gaming that you and I enjoy playing. You know, the (sorry for using the word) "hardcore" games. However, games like Farmville and Bejewled appeal more to the casual crowd and won't change.

 

[Antari]

Right now piracy is the least of PC gaming's worries. Poor production quality, and half finished projects are. If these companies would start making better more origional and interesting games, what little damage piracy could do, would be unnoticable for the sales they'd make with a decent game.

 

[EllEzDee]

It's unjust to punish all of the legitimate buyers, simply because of a developer fault. Either add some sort of anti-pirate measure(Steam)or just don't care at all.

Steam isn't an anti piracy measure. Take a look at every single game released with steam, and then check your favourite torrent site for that exact game. There's, to this day, no such thing as anti-pirate software. It can delay pirates for a week, maybe. But that's about it.
The only certain anti-piracy measure would be for developers to stop being such lazy fuckers who release half a game at full price before selling the other half of the game as DLC.

 

[Gigano]

Hardly, but the traditional forms of it can help kill some smaller less financially stable producers before they take off the ground, and limit the amount of money available to put into development of new games, and thus also how willing developers are to experiment and take risks with their games.

So it's certainly harmful to the industry (though it does probably also help advertise franchises and create new fans of them to some uncertain degree), but it's not something that'll break it.

Doesn't help that the concept covers very different situations, not all of which are remotely harmful; There's considerable difference in someone in China pirating a French indie title that'll never ever see release there, or Crysis 2. It can only be harmful when there's a market position it takes away from, yet no such distinction is generally made in copyright laws. Making "piracy" a hard term to discuss or unanimously condemn.

 

[veloper]

As you can see the general gaming spend is about 50% on the PC platform overall, even in the US, which is dominated by consoles, about 20% for boxed and digital products, 10% from MMOs and 20% from web-based "gaming portals". In other countries the PC dominates even more.

It also says they even included used sales and rentals.
Used sales make the publishers no money and are huge in console land, while almost non-existant on the PC.

So consoles = (10,6 - used) divided by PS3, 360 and wii

Mainstream/core on PC = 2.1(boxed) + 2.5(steam and other others) = 4.6 billion.

That would make the PC the #1 mainstream gaming platform in the US by far, if the survey is correct.
Add MMOs and casual online games for an even bigger market share.

Nice. Also Valve must be doing very well.