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EndWar Delayed Because “Piracy’s killing PC”
Written by John Walker on October 8, 2008 at 11:50 am.
Sorry to get into this again, but as much as I want to ignore it, this one’s significant. Ubisoft have stated that they’re artificially delaying the launch of EndWar on PC because of, you guessed it, piracy.
Talking to VideoGaming247, Ubisoft Shanghai director and former Total War “Evangelist”, Michael de Plater said,
“To be honest, if PC wasn’t pirated to hell and back, there’d probably be a PC version coming out the same day as the other two.”
He continues,
“But at the moment, if you release the PC version, essentially what you’re doing is letting people have a free version that they rip off instead of a purchased version. Piracy’s basically killing PC.”
This hardly seems worth saying, but of course we in no way endorse piracy. Illegally downloading games is, well, illegal. But what we want - what we want so much that our sides ache and our foreheads pulse - is for the truth to be at the centre of this discussion. We want people who make these decisions, who give comments like this, to present the facts and figures that back up their statements.
We want to see the demonstrable evidence for the harm piracy has on sales. Because if it’s true, then yes, action needs to be taken. But if it isn’t (and history suggests it very well might not be - the most successful formats in the last 30 years have always been the most pirated, with the DS currently proving this on a dramatic scale), then untold damage is being done to the PC platform by claims like this.
What’s fascinating here is to consider whether this is an isolated case, or whether this attitude is endemic amongst publishers. Is this why we’re not seeing Mirror’s Edge on PC until next year? Does this explain why GTA takes nine months to find its way onto our preferred platform? Are we missing out on Fable 2 because of a fear of the pirates? Halo 3? Has the reputation of the PC, so far entirely without corroborating evidence, hobbled it?
At the moment it feels like an out-of-control rumour is driving a steamroller over the PC. Increasing numbers of publishers, who frankly wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the PC, are jumping on board. And this is despite the continued huge sales on PC via the dramatic success of digital distribution. The perceived, received opinion is that, “If someone downloads a copy of a game, that’s a lost sale.” As much as this might immediately appear to make sense, a moment’s scrutiny reveals it to be, so far, entirely unfounded. (Stardock’s Brad Wardell wrote eloquently on this subject earlier this year). Surely the people publishing games should be desperately researching to find out why their PC games might not be selling in the volumes they might hope, rather than just assuming it’s piracy, and then declaring it as a fact. It might be piracy! It really might be. But without evidence, without facts and figures to back this claim up, it can only be considered hearsay, and deeply unproductive.
So come on publishers, put your mouth where your money is, and organise some research into this. Demonstrate that PC piracy damages console sales, and you’ll win our attention. From that point, we can start creating imaginative new methods of controlling the problem. Until then, actively hobbling the PC yourselves is quite the self-fulfilling tragedy. (Thanks to the GriddleOctopus for the tip).
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Join the forum discussion on this post - (13) Posts 264__________________
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John Walker says:
Yes, it’s because of my lust for my mother and hate for my father that I accidentally wrote a typo. Fixed.
October 8th, 2008 at 11:54 am
StalinsGhost says:
Piracy isn’t killing the PC. It’s the idiots who think it is who are. They’re fast becoming gaming dinosaurs, basically releasing the same old crap over and over on consoles anyway to be frank.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
grumpy says:
What’s ironic is that they could more or less solve the problem if they just put the game on Steam. But of course, that’s probably not prestigious enough for a big publisher. They need their game boxes…..
Still, when a solution exists, these claims end up sounding a bit silly.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Cigol says:
If they released it on PC first, everybody would pirate it, true. Because it’s probably crap. Like the Force Unleashed - which was released on every single platform known to mankind EXCEPT the PC. All because it was pants.
Would you rather pay for someone to take a shit in your face or do it yourself. Exactly; I did neither - but I know that some people actually paid for the privilege.
Endwar is looking ace by the way. [/sarcasm]
October 8th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Rev. S Campbell says:
Hang on - if piracy is in the process of killing the PC, then surely the longer you delay release, the worse it’s going to be?
October 8th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
John Walker says:
Ubisoft, especially, make the completely mad decision to release games on Steam in the US only. Not releasing your finished game for months, and then not making it easily available to willing customers. It’s hard not to think these might be factors when the game doesn’t sell!
October 8th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Cigol says:
~~~~ BUT IN ALL SERIOUSNESS ~~~~
Put ‘em to task RPS! Get your investigatory goggles on and start asking round and do a bloody feature on this self-fulfilling rumour.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Calabi says:
Well if their so stupid that they they dont want the sales at all. Perhaps the indy scene and the real innovative games can rise up through the drudge.
I think the playstation was hugely pirated as well and look at how popular that became.
Surely their making it worse with these comments all the time. “FINE IF YOU WANT ME TO PIRATE I’LL PIRATE” I wont but I’m getting tempted.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Whiskey Jack says:
You know what? If they don’t want to risk it being pirated (fuck, how I hate Pirates! And no I’m not a Ninja.) well let them be. As far as I’m concerned it is within their right.
I would be pretty pissed too to see thousands of people playing my game for free if 200 of my colleagues and I had spent two or three years of our lives and the company tens of millions of dollars to make it. And the fact that the game’s sales are profitable or not isn’t even part of the issue, and yes piracy IS theft, don’t start with that nonsensical attempt at an argument again.
I’m gonna play this one on my console with the microphone and I will simply play other games on my PC, as simple as that.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Ragnar says:
The logic of big publishers looks a bit like this to me:
If it hadn’t been for PC game piracy I would have been very rich.
Evidence: I’m not very rich and there is a lot of piracy of PC games.
Anyway. I still have a lot more games to play (that I like to play) on the PC than I have time to play.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Plinglebob says:
Considering Ubisoft were the biggest fans of Starforce when it was used, this latest action doesn’t surprise me. Sadly, it will likely mean the sales of the PC version will be lower than expected because people will buy it on a console instead. This will then lead Ubisoft (and possibly others) to say “LOW SALES CUZ OF DIRTY PIRATES!!!!!!!” and force more crap onto us.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Tei says:
Geezers. Another dumbed down game, that seems will not release on the PC.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Bobsy says:
@grumpy
I think publisher pride is worryingly endemic at the moment. There’s no reason why Lucasarts games aren’t on GOG.com, for example, and you can bet your life that GOG asked LA if they’d like to take part. LA aren’t selling their old games, but they’re hanging on to them on the possibility that they might.
Likewise Steam is one of the biggest, best and most accessible digital distribution platforms around, but many publishers aren’t keen because they think they can do it themselves and not have to give Valve a cut of the profit. Most publishers have proved they can’t get digital distribution right, but try telling them that.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
muscrat says:
Id rather play World in Conflict than another game raping the Clancy title.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
subedii says:
Oh what the heck? I thought we passed this kind of idiocy sometime ago but it keeps coming back.
It’s almost like they’re trying to sabotage their PC releases these days.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Dizet Sma says:
“But at the moment, if you release the PC version, essentially what you’re doing is letting people have a free version that they rip off instead of a purchased version.”
Wha? Does that mean that ‘pirates’ who have a console and a PC will throw up their hand and say “Arr, I’ll buy this version now and get me free Pee Cee copy later. Shiver me timbers, those crafty developers have foxed me again!”
I somehow doubt that the level of hacked copies is related to how many days / months later a PC version is released after the console version(s). There’ll probably be a pirated version out before the official release date anyway.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
John Walker says:
Whiskey Jack, saying something boldly doesn’t make it true.
Piracy is illegal. Piracy isn’t theft. Theft requires someone to have lost the stolen item when it is taken. Duplication is not theft - it’s duplication. This comes back to my central point above - there is no point in this debate if people aren’t willing to engage with the truth. Shouting “PIRACY IS THEFT!” doesn’t make it true. It is illegal. It is against the law to do it. But it isn’t theft, and so let’s not use that word to describe it.
And I’ll put this one out there: If I’d spent three years working with my 200 colleagues, I’d have been paid for my time. Unless I was on residuals, and I’m not going to be am I?, then that people are sharing/copying/downloading my game is pretty irrelevant. I got paid the same either way. (Were this piracy then to cause the sales of the game to not support further development, and thus the loss of my job, we’d have a problem again - however, that’s what’s unproven, and what I’m calling for publishers to research).
October 8th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Bobsy says:
@John Walker:
I’ve struggled with Ubisoft’s desicion not to Steam-distribute in Europe, and I can’t think of a good reason why. It makes double nonsense when you remember that half of Ubisoft is still based in France, where they first formed.
Have you tried asking them what their reasons are? Have they tried explaining it? If there is logique behind it, I’d love to hear it. I certainly can’t work it out myself.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
DarthS says:
Piracy is becoming the excuse of the moment for lazy publishers. It seems a bit naive to think mass piracy won’t follow them to the consoles.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
cliffski says:
You can never get accurate stats on this because you can’t do an A/B test with exactly the same game. it can’t be done. But when one of the biggest sites on the internet by bandwidth is rapidshare, and another is thepiratebay, it stands to reason that there is a hell of a lot of pc piracy going on, and a lot of it is games.
I’m certain if there was no piracy I’d be playing Company Of Heroes 2 right now. Yes, there are still publishers making games for the PC, like Valve, Stardock and the total war guys, but they are the exception now.
This guy is just stating what many in the industry think to be a fact, which is that if you make a multi-format game, there is a net loss from porting it to the PC, because so many potential console buyers pirate it for the PC instead.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Morberis says:
“the game’s sales are profitable or not isn’t even part of the issue”
Oh come off it they’re in the business to make money and that’s it. Ohhh it hurts me emotionally, you know deep down when unauthorized people play my games. You don’t see that excuse in any other industry, even music, and there’s a reason for that.
Until someone actually does a study on the ratio of pirated copies to lost sales is I’m not going to believe a word they say.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
cliffski says:
“If I’d spent three years working with my 200 colleagues, I’d have been paid for my time.”
errr…. that money is basically an investment based upon future sales. If piracy means no sales, then you wouldn’t invest. As someone who invests his own savings in making games, I can assure you that the attitude of “the coders get paid regardless” is irrelevant. The coders get fired the day a game isn’t profitable by a greater percentage than leaving the same money in a bank.
Games publishers aren’t idiots, they invest money to make a return on that investment. Piracy eats into that return.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Shadowmancer says:
@ John Walker
The reason why Ubisoft doesn’t sell games was debated a lot on the steam forums, the answer was that Ubisoft make more money retail in Europe and the rest of the world rather than America, its down to currency rates average game in us is $30-40 (£15-20) but here in the Uk the average game is £30-40 ($15-20) they pull the old switchero with the currency, if ubisoft started selling steam games they would louse about £10 ($20) per game.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
cliffski says:
“Until someone actually does a study on the ratio of pirated copies to lost sales is I’m not going to believe a word they say.”
how?
And who do you believe then? The kids saying “I wouldn’t have bought it anyway” whilst furiously completing level 36?
October 8th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
rei says:
They do things like this, and when the game inevitably fails to sell well on the PC due to their own active discouragement of PC sales, they’re going to figure it’s because everyone pirated it and the PC is dying.
It’s almost as if they’re more interested in playing the martyr than actually selling their crap.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
subedii says:
Cliffski, I suspect the reason that you haven’t seen Company of Heroes 2 is because Relic are currently focussing on making Dawn of War 2. I know, I never heard of it either, but apparently it’s the sequel to their incredibly successful other RTS franchise? Just a possibility there.
You can’t just make blank statements of “oh if there were no piracy all game devs would make sequels to the games that I love.” You already know it’s not that simple.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Morberis says:
“This guy is just stating what many in the industry think to be a fact, which is that if you make a multi-format game, there is a net loss from porting it to the PC, because so many potential console buyers pirate it for the PC instead.”
That I buy, and I’m not opposed to that. I can’t help but think though that if digital download services like Steam and Impulse received as much products and attention as retail that we might not have this problem - or as much as a problem. It still needs to come with some tough, but reasonable DRM though (steam) if its intended for a market that does a large amount of pirating.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
rei says:
Is the editing feature gone? In hindsight I was going to change the “crap” into a less aggressive term, since my mom brought me up right :\
October 8th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
John Walker says:
Bobsy - I’ve asked Ubisoft why, and have never received an answer.
Cliffski - yes, I was speaking specifically about Whiskey’s example, of a multi-million dollar company with hundreds of employees. And indeed, I added that if piracy prevented profits, it would still be an issue. Hence wanting evidence for that. Obviously a small indie team relies on sales. An employee at Giant-o-Game Corp does not.
Shadowmancer - Steam offers regional pricing. The only way that logic applies is if Ubi (along with everyone else) don’t want to make it quite so obvious how much they hike prices in Europe. Which isn’t a particularly great reason.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
cliffski says:
or we could… you know… actually DO something about the torrent sites?
October 8th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Shadowmancer says:
If piracy is killing the retail sales then why dont they go down the digital distribution way exclusively, pros game doesn’t get pirated (steam games are all encrypted as well as back ups), also you save money by not having to pay for boxes and discs, cons who to deal with?, exclusivity, how much does the digital distributer want (this has caused many steam games that were to come but didnt, e.g. Pnumbra: overture and black plague) what software does the developer need to configure the game properly with (steamworks) to play the game propery, theres more but i can’t think of them.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Flappybat says:
I really scratch my head at the idea of doing things like this. There’s some kind of crazed fever that it’s ok to lose a paying customer if you also lose ten pirates with them, which is cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Gears Of War got released six months late for PC, had a subscription requiring multiplayer and fairly beefy system requirements and then they blamed it on piracy.
Also an interesting related story, 360/PS3 game Saints Row 2 which has a delayed PC release got leaked and is being heavily pirated for the 360.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Sol Invictus says:
PC gaming is d0med! So piracy’s basically killing the PC, but Ubisoft won’t sell their Steam games outside of the United States.
Good one, Ubisoft.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Cope says:
Agree with rei. Their doomsaying is doing more damage to the PC platform than piracy and the more they take steps like this the more they alienate their customers.
Here’s a thought. Maybe the PC version of new games doesn’t sell as well because not everyone has the hardware to play them. Every Xbox 360 can play every Xbox 360 game, but not every PC can play every PC game. But oh no, it can’t be anything but piracy.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
The Sombrero Kid says:
“i was going to steal this game on PC but then they decided to make it a console exclusive for a month, god darn it now i have to pay for it cause i’m physically incapable of waiting a month to steal it! then again i could steal it on the 360.”
not a statement you hear often.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Grill / Griddleoctopus says:
cliffski; that’s what I understood by the article as well. It does make a kind of sense, as there’s such a crossover of hardcore gamers; if they’ve got stats to back this up, then it would make sense. For PC-only releases, yes, delay of the announcement is stupid; but for the (surprisingly-piracy-proof) modern consoles, it does make sense to delay a cross-platform game’s PC announcement until the higher-profit consoles have had their bite.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
El_MUERkO says:
A game that’s console exclusive for a period of time screams ‘dumbed down for the kids’ to me.
When it eventually does make it’s way to the shops i have little interest in it, the only way i might consider purchasing it is after trying it so they best release a decent demo 
Gears of War is a perfect example of this, huge on the 360, ignored on the PC, two different markets and if people don’t cater to them equally they can expect to see their product ignored on the system they treat as second class.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Shadowmancer says:
@ cliffski
There are plenty of legal torrents out there mate but what about non-game stuff in torrents, I occasionally use torrents to update my tv shows to watch the latest ones cos here in the UK you need to pay at least £50 to sky per month to watch tv eps that are a month old in the US while with torrents I can watch it the next day.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Switchbreak says:
I have no idea how they would even start to statistically prove something like that. BioShock launched simultaneously and sold 1.5 million copies. With greater critical acclaim and a similar marketing presence, should it have sold 4 million copies like Gears of War did, but for piracy? Or did Gears of War sell more because of its multiplayer and the more mass-market friendly big angry man with a chainsaw as a protaganist? There’s no possible way to control for all the variables when comparing games that launched multiplatform and games that didn’t.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Nallen says:
“Until someone actually does a study on the ratio of pirated copies to lost sales is I’m not going to believe a word they say.”
Which is impossible as cliffski said. Ergo, they’ll just keep pumping the line out.
The truth, I suspect, is that PC development offers a poor ROI vs consoles (I can’t believe what console games cost, fucking incredible) so they’d like to drop the platform. Piracy probably contributes to some lost revenue and is illegal so you just say that’s the reason.
For instance, I own a PS3 and PC. If Mirrors Edge is out on PS3 6 months before PC then the chances are I’ll buy it for £49.99 rather than £34.99. If it was same day I’d buy the PC version. So you can set aside all this Piracy nonsence and there is a perfectly clear economic reason for the move to delay PC releases.
They’d just rather call us a bunch of c*nts (pirates) than admit they are (greedy) themselves.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Dizet Sma says:
It’s an interesting take on business that a company would rather not sell a game on PC and make £0 back on their development rather than getting their cut of £40 x n copies, even if n is reduced by p.
Make buying a game the better option - add extras for registered users, not just patches. Allow the mod community to release stuff via your own digital streams that require a non-hacked CD key, etc., etc. Then the kids completing level 36 might have an incentive to shell out for a copy to take them to level 236.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
cliffski says:
fine. set up a site called legaltorrents which doesn’t allow anonymous uploading. If it’s all legal, why do you need to be anonymous exactly? Set up a lifetime account using a credit card and charge them $1.
problem solved.
I don’t see ‘legaltorrents.com’ as up there in the web traffic top 10 though.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
John Walker says:
It’s not impossible to do *research*. It may be impossible to get absolute proof, but you can do something at all. You can do large-scale anonymous surveys, which are one of the most common, and most effective, methods of data sampling. You can do experiments. You can ask your customers. You won’t get definitive proof, but you will get close to an understanding of the reality. The point is, no one’s even trying. People are just assuming piracy, and then drilling holes in the bottom of the boat to try and let the water out.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
GLOWi says:
Please, explain this:
1) PC gaming is dying or not ? If it is not dying, why number of pc exclusives (or developed primarily for) in pc genres like RPG or FPS is going downhill ? Why most multiplatform titles has weakest sales on pc?
2) If it’s dying and piracy is not a cause what is a cause then?
3) If t’s not dying why developers and publishers are abandoning the biggest market? There must be reason behind that and please don’t feed me with theories about “lazy and stupid” developers. I would understand if for example IDsoft would go multiplatform because of the increasing development costs, but PC is not their primary platform anymore.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Shadowmancer says:
@ Grill / Griddleoctopus
Yes consoles can be pirated too but it costs money and can get your console banned, I remember that some kid hacked xbox live and got into the halo 3 multplayer beta (before the crackdown one) and several of the employees who were playing were baffled at the kid, a week later microsoft banned his console and xbox live account forever this would mean that he would have to buy another one and register another account but microsoft contacted all the game shops in the state and told them not to sell to him or his family, the ps3 on the other hand is regional free meaning one can buya game in any country but its too early to be hacked yet same for the wii.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
cliffski says:
Although it distresses me to argue with anyone called Dizet Sma (even if spelt wrong 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diziet_Sma), their business sense is sound. You are ignoring ‘Y’ the amount that console sales are reduced by when people with PC & console pirate the PC copy and thus do not buy the console one.
THAT is their reasoning. You can argue that they have their numbers wrong, but I suspect most big publishers have a stack of data on what sells to who when how and why.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Real Horrorshow says:
All publishers need to do to sell PC games is make PC games for the PC. People own PC’s because they want to play PC games, not because they like spending $1000 extra on their unit to play console games on a monitor.
When I buy a Wii I want to play games where I flail my arms around like an idiot.
When I buy a 360 I want to play overdramatized FPS’ oozing adolescent macho fantasy.
When I buy a PS3 I want…to watch Blu-Rays.
When I buy a PC I want to play very pretty, complex, deep, long games made with 18+ gamers in mind (not just in vulgar content, but in maturity).
You can’t tell me piracy is ruining PC games because Gears of War or some other generic console port sold like shit, not when there are other games like The Witcher, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., The Orange Box, Crysis and World in Conflict that are so successful commercially (in spite of what the developer of one of those games would have you believe).
October 8th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Shadowmancer says:
@ cliffski
Most uploaders arent anonymous! its the downloaders.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
John Walker says:
cliffski - no one is claiming that piracy isn’t massive, or that piracy doesn’t affect sales. You’re arguing against a position that no one’s making. The question being asked is: does piracy make a significant difference to sales? And: does delaying the release of a game make any sense in the face of possible piracy?
October 8th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Nick says:
To be fair, Ubisoft is no great loss. Their track record to releasing quality (even finished..) games and PC Ports is mostly pretty damned awful over the past few years, not to mention post release support.
Check out the awesome bugs they even managed to release onto the PS3 version of R6 Vegas 2 for example (thank god you can patch PS3 and 360 now! No more extra expensive QA required for console releases!)
October 8th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
cliffski says:
Hey I did a large scale anonymous survey!
No publisher ever contacted me asking for any data though. You are right, that they don’t seem to care what the PC gamers have to say 
It helped me anyway, I think.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Nallen says:
@John Walker
The crux of my point was that I’m sure they know it’s not piracy and they know they can’t empirically prove it is, so why take the risk of indicating something via research that might remove a mechanism for making more money.
If this research is done, and I really think it should be, it wont come from the Publishers because they have nothing to gain.
It would be expense to research and the net result would weaken their position or not improve it. Because even if they prove they are right, what happens then? We all say oh, okay, sorry. Thanks for finding that out.
And everything carries on as it is because they assume they’re right already.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
John Walker says:
Exactly cliffski. Which is why you’re my developer hero! It’s so devastating that not one publisher has approached you.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Ignatius J. Smiley says:
GLOWi - PC gaming is not dying, but there is more money to be made on consoles (because of higher game prices, less need for technical knowledge and, dare I say it, lower standards).
That in itself can explain many publishers’ preference to console developing.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
The Sombrero Kid says:
@cliffski
you forget that buying the cheaper PC one instead of the expensive & inferior console one is also motivation for the publisher and doesn’t criminalise the pc games playing public.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Grill / Griddleoctopus says:
@ Hitler’s gay dad
Pirate less games then!
October 8th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
GLOWi says:
@John Walker
Yes, in my opinion piracy makes significant difference in sales. Often at PRS laughed at Crytek said, that there was 20:1 pirated to sold Crysis ratio. If only every 20 th pirated copy was bougtht there were doubled Crysis sales.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
John Walker says:
Glowi:
1) Where are your figures to suggest that the numbers of RPG/RTS games on the PC have gone down?
2) It doesn’t appear to be dying. However, it’s not as profitable as the consoles, now the consoles are competitive with the PC.
3) The PC is now far less likely to receive exclusives because it’s financially imprudent for a publisher to do that. Until the latest generation of consoles, the PC was always significantly advanced, and thus the top-end games could only exist on PC. Now the playing field is more level, it makes sense to develop your game for the largest audience possible, which is cross-platform.
Again, I’d need to see figures to demonstrate that the PC is selling poorly before I could try to figure out why.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Shadow Aspect says:
You can try, as has been tried with Pirate Bay, I recall their server centre (or whatever) was actually raided. Obviously they’re still running though.
I would say that saying these sites have large bandwidth use due to PC games is a bit misleading, not that I’ve researched it, but there are also an awful lot of films/etc available via torrent.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
The Sombrero Kid says:
@ GLOWi
yeah but is the figure every 20th or every 200th or every 2000th or every single one we just don’t know the extent of it and no ones interested in finding out, because publishers relies that most people will shift platforms with the game as long it’s not across the 360 ps3 battle line.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Orberi says:
@cliffski
That would only make sense if the torrent sites were doing anything illegal. Something which has yet to be tested in the courts.
I think my problem here is that the industry is crying foul but with no evidence (as JW says). It’s very easy to come up with an argument for either side based on assumptions and anecdotal evidence what annoys me is that these arguments are used to treat gamers badly with late releases, dreadful DRM etc. (I wont buy Spore for instance.. that’ll show ‘em) If the industry did as JW suggests and actually proves their point then may be there would be far less animosity between them and the gaming community. If piracy is such a huge issue then I would have thought some proper research into it would be in the interest of all sides.
The more paranoid among you may think that the fact that the industry has never done this research before is an indication of how they feel it might go. I couldn’t possible comment.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Nick says:
I think the only real answer to this is more restrictive DRM and Oblivion with guns.
October 8th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
GLOWi says:
@ Ignatius J. Smiley
You contradict yourself. if there is more money on consoles and developers are leaving to them then PC gaming is dying/declining, at least in AAA games area.
higher game prices are not the reason definitely, there are platform holder fees.
October 8th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
The Sombrero Kid says:
as a result of multiplatform development it makes sense to shift the majority of people onto the most expensive platform, the publishers realise it’s fairly easy to shift sales from PC to 360 or PS3 but certainly not between the two back to the PC and since the PC is only cheaper to develop for if it’s the only platform and the returns are lowere due to a lower installed base of games capable machines and lower sale price, it doesn’t make sense for them to do that.
October 8th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Lollerskater says:
2DBoy took some chances by putting no DRM whatsoever on World of Goo. I’m curious as to how this will impact sales and piracy for them, seeing as so far I haven’t found any pirated copies of it floating around.
Of course I pre-ordered it months ago; I was just looking out of curiosity. As a game designer myself I follow all the debate about DRM and software piracy closely. We released a game not too long ago. Our game had some form of copy-protection on it. And wouldn’t you know it: it popped up on all the large torrent sites a day before release…
October 8th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Hypocee says:
I have no interest in EndWar or in half-arsed Ubi PC ports, so in this case thanks for keeping your stink off the shelves for a while guys.
Nallen, the extra 10/20 pounds mostly goes to the console manufacturer. They charge beaucoup wampum for the privilege of putting discs in their machines. It’s you getting the PC version for 10 pounds two months later for basically no reason, or of course P-wording it, that brings a twitch to the publisher’s cheekbone.
October 8th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Radiant says:
What are the torrent/piracy numbers [hereon known as Gillens] for Trials 2 or Team Fortress 2?
You know if people do not value your game enough to buy it months after it’s console release why not package it with 3 or 4 other games late to release?
There are so many revenue streams to be utilised with the connectivity of a PC to willfully ignore them and rely solely on the two weeks your game is ‘hot’ and on shelves to recoup the years invested in it is pretty prehistoric thinking and speaks volumes about the publisher.
October 8th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Tom says:
Excellent article. I think the whole things tragically amusing really. A bit of a viscous circle. There’s little doubt in my mind that at one point piracy was small, and the dent it made on wallets was minuscule. However, money grabbing tossers who didn’t really understand what they were looking at kicked up a big fuss and now it is general knowledge that these options exist. I’m not saying it wouldn’t have increased in time and more PC users become savvy, but I reckon the put it in to fast forward.
October 8th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
The Sombrero Kid says:
@Nick
i’ve lloled (literally laughed out Loud, instead of the common figurative one) twice at what you have to say today, good job.
October 8th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Radiant says:
Also End War along with Hawx are guaranteed to be shit. If I just wasted 2 years of my life on them I’d be bitter too.
[I'm not sure any such thing is "guaranteed". Careful now - Ed]
October 8th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Dan Lawrence says:
I think this is a PR mistake for Ubisoft if they want to make money from PC users. They’ve essentially added ‘J’ number of PC gamers to the list of people who will look less favourably on this game and spread bad word of mouth about it among their less game-internet-o-sphere aware friends. The resulting lost sales that that amounts to has to be added to ‘S’, the amount of lost sales due to people no longer wanting to buy the game due to its percieved ‘oldness’ in the ever faster which game is hot news cycles. Then added to that is the amount of lost sales ‘V’ on future games by ubisoft created by damage to the ubisoft brand through PR mistakes and lost sales.
If those numbers added togather are greater than the number of sales added by pirates rejecting piracy for playing a game sooner then I guess they are =1in the money stakes.
Personally I think his words sound a bit mean and as a primarily PC-centric user I feel I’m being punished for crimes that I may or may not have commited. Also he sounds a bit out of date. In light of the fate of the music industriy (note last weeks establishment of a musicion’s ‘union’ as a partial replacement of the record labels) when trying to combat piracy with fire I expect publishers are going to have much more success with the itunes model. Consoles seem safer at the minute but how long will that safety last if the same problems exist in the buisness model?
October 8th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
GLOWi says:
@The Sombrero Kid
Yes, every 20 th copy is a guess, but in my opinion a reasonable guess. There’s no way to find out the real percentage of potential buyers.
If a developer/publisher says every pirated copy is a lost profit I say crap. If they say every 20th pirated copy is a lost profit I say fair enough.
October 8th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Optimaximal says:
How much does Microsoft/Sony/etc take as a license cut on a game sale? That way we can work out true value of a license-free PC game vs. a console game.
October 8th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Dizet Sma says:
“Although it distresses me to argue with anyone called Dizet Sma (even if spelt wrong)”
Yeah, I know it’s missing an I, but Diziet is a girls name
Cliffski, if Y is the amount of sales lost due to piracy and negates any amount of actual PC sales, then why bother putting money into development of a PC title at all?
I could understand the decision to not develop on that basis, but this “release it later” thing sounds like a “have cake, eat cake, have more cake” scenario.
October 8th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
The Sombrero Kid says:
why is there a picture of mirror’s edge up there? i swear they’d shove in any old graphics if they thought they could get away with it, how lazy! just as well i pirate RPS on the PC instead of paying for it on the consoles like all you losers!
October 8th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Ignatius J. Smiley says:
@ GLOWi
I was just pointing out that consoles are more profitable than they have ever been, and therefore are more attractive to publishers. This doesn’t mean PC gaming is dying, it just means it has stronger competition.
Are PC games selling significantly less than they used to? Wikipedia’s list of best-selling PC games doesn’t seem to indicate that, seeing as it has a good mix of old and new titles.
October 8th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Mogs says:
I am deliberately NOT going to buy this now just because they’ve insulted my intelligence with such absolute BULLSHIT!
They’re trying to maximise console sales because the margins are lower for consoles and they don’t want any prospective console buyer to be tempted into getting the cheaper PC version.
[Bother to] you Ubisoft.
October 8th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
John Walker says:
Mirror’s Edge is there because I mention it in the following paragraph, and it just looks so pretty!
October 8th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
futage says:
About time someone said this stuff. Refreshing to see someone approaching piracy intelligently and honestly.
October 8th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
John Walker says:
Let’s not lose track, AIM. The post above is not about having a go at Ubi - it’s about asking why. As I’ve said above, they could be right. Piracy might be destroying their console sales, and they might be quite legitimate in their fears. Or they might be completely wrong. What we need is for someone to step up and do some serious research into this. We don’t need people shouting at people and calling them names, which I’ll delete from now on.
October 8th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
ILR says:
Is this EndWar an FPS or an RTS? If so, then yes, it will lose a certain nontrivial amount of sales due to PC piracy if released on that platform.
The core of Ubisoft’s argument seems to be that releasing a PC version concurrently with console versions is not only a minor profitmaker compared to consoles, but actually eats into the amount of copies sold on consoles as well. A position that sounds plausible.
There might be some guys who hold their Xbox360/PS3 as their primary console but also have a relatively well-equipped PC for obvious reasons. They also might consider EndWar a game that’s not on top of their most anticipated releases, but somewhat on the radar nevertheless. Faced with a choice between getting the game for $70 on their primary gaming platform vs. torrenting it for their secondary platform, a sizable lot might choose the latter. If Ubisoft has a reasonable fear of that happening, then they’ve just made a sound business decision. The problem, as always, is the dearth of reliable data, and the difficulties in compiling it.
On the hypothetical scenario that I might pirate a game, my personal threshold for torrenting a PC game would be significantly higher than torrenting it for my trusty old Xbox (not that there’s too many of them coming up any longer). My affection for all things PC runs much deeper and would be a major factor in that decision. I don’t find it too hard to imagine that a lot of people might feel the opposite.
October 8th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
dan23e says:
By delaying the PC release of a game for three to six months surely the publishers must understand that that on it’s own will hurt sales.
The games industry isn’t split along clear pc/xbox/ps/nintendo lines. The majority of people I know who play games on a PC also have at least one other console. Now to me it stands to reason if you delay for six months the release of a game on PC which is esentially a straight port of the console game unoptimised for keyboard and mouse input gamers are going to get savvy quickly. They will buy the console version and not the PC version. why would anyone want two copies of the game?
So by delaying of course you are going to sell less copies on PC that stands to reason as a percantage of your target audience will already have bought the game on another format. Maybe they would then pirate the game to see any differences but it still doesn’t equate to a lost sale.
Even if 20% of your target audience owns the game on another format that equates to a likely 20% lost sales on the PC..
October 8th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
mpk says:
Surely there should be some sort of outcry in the specialist press. If Gamer or Edge or another high circulation PC mag called these companies out repeatedly, surely they’d be obliged to reply with a little bit of substance instead of sensationalism? Surely?
October 8th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
futage says:
@Ignatius J. Smiley
I don’t think it’s all about sales. Different parties say PC gaming is dying for different reasons. And it’s true in some ways. The PC (in terms of gaming) isn’t what it was for various reasons, some of which JW has mentioned (what it was is dying).
And PC gaming is dying in that… there really is a lot of shit about at the moment. Lazy console ports and that. Even the unlazy console ports have a little too much of the console about them to really feel like PC games, let alone good PC games.
But alongside that there seems to be a new wave of ‘indie’ stuff happening. Partly thanks to new means of distribution and partly due to the above stuff. So there’s a little bit of death about it and a little bit of renaissance about it, which makes sense really.
October 8th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
TooNu says:
So this game will be a slightly better looking BF2142? Can’t we as gamers just take a, “I couldn’t give a flying shite about this game” approach to things like this? Sure it sucks we didn’t get it first or even along side the consoles but does it REALLY matter?
Most people are too busy to play every game ever released on their favourite platform and even then they usually have a back catalogue of games to go through once more or continue playing.
Further more, clearly there are much needed answers to be had from company exec’s that shy away because either 1) They don’t like to admit anything or 2) Consider any publicity good or bad, good publicity because something like this always gets an internet buzz. It would be nice to get these answers but then what? Knowing the truth or not is more than likely not going to change the decision made to push back a release date. Perhaps they use this extra time to work on security features which is only needed for the PC release. Maybe that extra time is for research into piracy, maybe all they do is check, triple check and quadruple check their game can work on a number of PCs, or do even more testing.
I say again. It is BF2142, but shinier, who gives a toss?
October 8th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
cliffski says:
that wouldn’t change their business decisions one bit. Such decisions are made by spreadsheets. Or in my case, staring at my inbox.
October 8th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
GLOWi says:
John Walker:
1) Were there any other AAA PC exclusive FPS except Crysis (And Valve titles which are not exclusive, but at least they’re not ports, which is quite easy as Valve is not pushing thechnical limits)? Any RPG except Witcher? Will there be any in the near future?
2. Well it’s not dying, but in my eyes appears declining. publishers and developers are moving to consoles. I wonder then why there are more money on consoles when PC market is definitely bigger. You can say that problem is in wide variety in PC configurations. Ok, then behind declining of pc platform are technical issues.
3) Well, you contradict yourself. Now you’re reasoning the decline of PC exclusives/developer migrations when in 1) you refused to believe that there is such decline. I don’t mind multiplatform titles, but I want games developed primarily for PC, not ported back. If there are no such titles I say PC gaming is declining.
October 8th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
dan23e says:
The cynic in me thinks ir is to maximize profit.
Generally console games are sold at a higher price premium than PC games so therefore by delaying PC release they are hoping that a percentage of multiplatform users will buy the console version.
October 8th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Lukasz says:
small contribution:
Local shopping center.
You can buy games in these shops
EB games (removed one shelf not long ago as well as one table where PC games where)
Game (removed one whole shelf. only one is left compared to 5-7 for PS2, 2 for PS3, 5 for Xbox360 )
Dick smith’s electronics (one huge shelf was removed just last week. one is left only)
Big W (shop which sells everything. from sweets, to movies ending on car tyres. PC game segment practically non-existing not counting sims)
JB-HF (nothing changed recently. one big shelf comparably in size to ps2 or xbox360. a bit smaller maybe)
Retailers are moving away from PC game market. at least here in australia. reason is cause they don’t sell as well as console games.
if piracy is the reason? or maybe digital distribution, distributors stupid decisions?
not sure. but it is harder to find a pc game to buy.
October 8th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Ignatius J. Smiley says:
@futage
I don’t really buy into that - to my mind there has been loads of good PC games recently, and a lot of stuff I’m looking forward to on the horizon, indie or otherwise.
October 8th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
GLOWi says:
@ Ignatius J. Smiley
I agree that better console competion can be the reason for developer migrations -> less to none pc exclusives.
But still, developers leaving and almost no AAA games developed for pc in my eyes looks like declining. Definitely not thriving.
October 8th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
futage says:
@Ignatius J. Smiley
Aye, I don’t fully buy it either. Though I do think there is truth in it. I do think the dross:gold ratio is particularly high, currently (ignoring the indie stuff). And I certainly think there are distinctly fewer true PC games currently (i.e. games which wouldn’t really work or would be a significantly different experience if played on another platform), which is perhaps important. I realise this is partly due to the consoles becoming more PC-like in some ways (having internets for example) but it’s also because developers design a game to be playable on both PCs and consoles which (for me, anyway) always seems to result on something which doesn’t feel quite right on PC - doesn’t take advantage of the stuff a PC can do which a console can’t (I’m talking mainly about UI/control stuff here, not graphics and that).
October 8th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
GLOWi says:
@Ignatius J. Smiley
Depends on the genre. There are a lot o f indie games, strategies, MMOs and adventures.
But no AAA FPSes except for Valve and Crytek (so far) titles a and only a few AAA RPGs: Witcher and Diablo 3 on very distant horizon.
October 8th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Strelok says:
What the Ubi guy says makes perfect sense.
A lot of hardcore console users have a PC. Why tempt them with a day zero pirated PC version when you can easily delay the PC version, get your console sales, then release it and capitalize on any crumbs left.
It is so obvious, why even bother to discuss it?
October 8th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Dolphan says:
So simultaneously release it on Steam and just postpone the boxed version if they’re that worried.
October 8th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Shadowmancer says:
@ Lukasz
I agree buying pc games in retail is hard now even though I would prefer a steamed copy of the said game online, an example would be the witcher enchanced edition I can’t buy it anywhere new however CEX and gamestation sell it 2nd hand, other shops (which dont have 2nd hand departments) have virtually non existant range of pc games except the sims and anti-virus software, pc gaming is dying in retail sales but not on online distribution sales at the moment the pc gaming industry is moving towards complete online sales as for developers leaving the pc I predict that some russian companies which are emerging will save the day (cryostasis I’m looking at you) sure they may be buggy at first but they will be new ideas comapred to bog standard corridor shooters.
October 8th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Malagate says:
@Glowi, I would bring into question how many AAA FPS titles there are full stop, on any and every platform. I can think of a whole bunch that came out fairly recently but not many of them were that good, despite lots of expensive developement. Incidentally, it’s getting less financially sound to release exclusives on the PC, what with AAA game developement now costing as much as some blockbuster movies you will want to maximise returns and hence be on as many platforms as possible rather than limiting your market arbitrarily (and it is arbitrary to favour one platform over another if they can all run the game, aside from certain financial incentives).
October 8th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Strelok says:
@Dolphan: Steam protection was cracked ages ago. Releasing on Steam means getting a pirated version out there immediately.
October 8th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Cataclysm says:
@GLOWi
John didn’t say PC exclusives, etc were declining or not, he just mentioned a couple of possible factors to take into account that would effect the increase or decline of them.
October 8th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
mrmud says:
There is absolutely nothing preventing research into the question if piracy hurts console sales. Its just that if you want to do something slightly more substantial than a survey then you probably need to invest a bit to make it happen.
And you would obviously not do an internet based survey either. It is possible to gather reasonable statistics from properly conducted surveys, you just need to add a little bit of professionalism.
October 8th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
“Increasing numbers of publishers, who frankly would exist if it weren’t for the PC”
Ooooo, Freudian.
October 8th, 2008 at 11:52 am