News Epic: "PC piracy drove us to consoles"

Nah they need to concentrate on Gears of Bore 349593.

 

Heh, I'm now imagining Gabe swimming through his vault like Scrooge McDuck.

 

I don't blame them at all, but its sad that many developers around the globe are making games "Just for Consoles". I admit that i played many games made for consoles then ported to PC and sucked real bad like Test Drive Unlimited.
The type of games that are having a bad time to go Just for Consoles are FPS and Simulators. In the case of FPS, unless they create an input device that we don't need a table to support it and it is better than a Keyboard and a Mouse together i don't believe Hardcore players will ever play FPS in a console.
The opposite also applies, i am playing old Dreamcast games on my PC and i couldn't play well using the keyboard, i had to buy a 360 PC controller and the experience is so good that i forget that i'm playing in a PC.
For me the console games should be Simple, Original and Fun. In the PC i fancy more Car Simulators and FPS or 3rdPS games.
I've been playing a game using Dreamcast emulator, the "Tokyo Higway Challenge 2" and i could connect my G25 but i prefer to use the 360 GamePad, and why is that, its a car game so why a Race petrol head like me prefer to use the 360Pad than the G25 wheel?? It's simple, the game is so arcade, the Physics is so stupit but, it's so addictive and Fun doing those Battles on the Highway that i don't even bother using the Wheel.

 

PC gamers and Console gamers are quite different. PC gamers aren't going to buy the same diluted 'better graphic' same bullsh1t story FPS they have been trying to flog us since unreal, we'll just leave it on the shelf. Where as most of the console gamers I know will buy any game and think its awesome (P.S how crap was assassin creed 2? I mean come on do we need 3 hour of tutorials? anyway not the point I'm trying to make).

Tip to epic, bring out better PC games and we will buy them.

 

The piracy-argument is the lamest argument a company can make tbh, as a pirated copy is a copy that wouldn't have been sold in the first place.

If you look at the facts, then piracy has not lowered the income of any media-company (music / cinematic / games) in the last 15 years. It's a steadily increasing curve.

Additionally... even consoles can get pirated, if you don't play online, and games that require you to connect to a server can't be pirated on a PC either.

So the only reason for a move to consoles is, that it's easier to develop games for consoles.

 

They are right money is on consol. For example COD 6: 2 DLC 15€ each and nobody is complaining on console. Whereas for the same game PC gamer complain for the lack of dedicaced server.
I think that as long as rich idiot will play on console convinced they have the best, develloper will make crappy game for them.

 

Fact is, devs can't develop quality games anymore, so they just blame piracy for poor sales when the truth is that PC gamers have higher standards and look at every detail, afterall its second nature for PC gamers to look at every last detail when you have the ability to tweak so many things on the PC (unless you don't like to see what changes the settings make...)

 

yeah, if your a true PC enthusiast its worth the extra testing to have a far superior product.

And it would seem most companies *cough* EA *cough* don't bother testing, BF2 being a case in point,


Thinking about this a bit more, you'd have thought that developers would get more money from PC games. As console games, the console manufacturer takes a cut don't they?
This obviously doesn't happen with PC games. But then, PC games are cheaper aren't they, so thats why it comes out to about the same profit per game, (just remembered somebody said this earlier in the thread, )

@NikoBellic

I know what you mean, but IMO its getting harder and harder to create world changing games because alot of it has been done before. When PC gaming took off, it was much easier to create an absolutely mind blowing game as it probably hadn't been done before, and technology was developing a lot faster then.
But we now seemed to have reached a point where its getting harder and harder to get any new features on the techno side. And its getting harder and harder to think of new games.
Brilliant Case is Bad Company 2. Just installed that yesterday, started playing the single player, and instantly thought, hang on, have I got the right disc in, this looks just like COD4.

 

Right. IMO, most people care more about convenience than anything else. People will pay vast amounts extra to own a car, for example, rather than walk or go by public transport. The reason steam does so well is because it's so simple! Just a couple of clicks and bob's your gaming uncle. On the flip side, you can spend weeks trying to get a torrent to download, only to find the game inside doesn't actually work. Any game I really want -- as long as it's on steam! -- I will download basically as soon as it comes out, and am willing to pay the market price for it. If I were the sort of person who download torrents, it would be because I didn't care enough about the game to buy it in the first place.

I am willing to admit to downloading abandonware, though, as that's a genuinely victimless crime (unless you count the revenue lost from me playing old games instead of new, and since I buy every decent looking new game that comes out on steam, I don't think I really owe companies more new game revenue). There's a difference between acting as an ethical consumer and following all the rules to the letter...

 

Gears of War drove me to decent games. Epic hasn't made a decent game since UT 2004. Get lost, dudes. We know you're too lazy to make quality games and that the only people who will actually buy the crap you put out nowadays are console gamers.

 

and BC2... but the community have taken over BF2 with the new patch and that is what makes PC gaming! I had a 360 for a few weeks last year and I got sick of not only the stupid control pad while trying to shoot someone but the lack of community, I want vent and teamspeak. Dedicated servers and clans that is what makes most games for me now! After playing through the horrible first week of BC2 I can safely say that yes PC games are going to be buggy and yes they do take time and about 3 billion patches to get right but I will NEVER move to a console ever again!

Oh, and valve do not have to make any money on their games... they are still awesome in EVERY way. Steam runs like a subscription model for them giving them cash to spend on epic games made by the best developers in the world

 

This argument is a load of BS, Yes, not near everyone who pirates would buy, but i can guarantee if piracy was not an option many would buy the game if they had no other option, you expect everyone would just quit gaming, even games they really like if they could not pirate? BS.

As for developing on PC, it is NOT TRUE it is more expensive, any independant small studio starts off on PC why? It is open, and free for anyone to develop on it.

It took a company like GSC gameworld (Stalker) years before becoming a certified console dev which entails a large financial investment just to get a dev kit.

 

Piracy is just as rampant on 360 as it is on PC, check the torrents!

 

Piracy has had an impact but I don't think its had the kind of impact that gaming company's like to complain about. For the most part people only pirate a game they would never have spent money on in the first place.

The number of actual sales they lose is minimal. You can see they are now blaming the 2nd hand games market for lost sales. It's pathetic. It is an excuse so they can continue to produce below par games on consoles because its cheaper. A lot of console owners just don't know any better and lap it up. PC users know better.

I think the basic problem is games are costing more to make, but still sell for the same price they did ten years ago. They dare not risk putting up prices and losing customers. So we have the whole 'make naffer games for consoles and make piss poor DLC to make up the extra profits' thing going on. Piracy to me is just an extra excuse they use, to try to justify their actions.

 

I really don't understand why people get so angry at developers who denounce the PC platform.

Honest question to all of you: Do you think these guys have some sort of unsubstantiated vendetta against the PC? That they go home each night and think of ways to screw PC gamers over?

It's business folks. If you used to sell a huge amount of copies on one platform, than that number started steadily eroding, wouldn't you switch to a platform that has increasing numbers?

A little while ago I was lucky enough to go for a drink with a couple lead designers for a major UK games studio (the company I work for is owned by the same conglomerate as theirs). When these guys can talk openly (without fear of their words getting published), it's crazy some of the things you learn. Like what the numbers are exactly or which platform manufacturer they receive the most support from. You end up concluding one thing: be glad you're not a game developer.

Xbox piracy does exist, but if you think it's just as rampant then you're crazy. 'Hacked' Xbox's make up a small minority, a dip in the ocean compared to PC.

 

That's exactly what I've heard/read.

[RANT]Bloody console-tards ruining our precious PC gaming! I have a friend who owns a PS3 and he told me that he couldn't see the difference between the PS3 and games I play on PC! Suffice to say I was not amused.[/RANT]

 

You just won the thread Alex

I dunno about this... on one hand, I can see where they are coming from, and on the other, I feel like a company moving to favour consoles over the PC platform (IW, I'm looking scowling @ u guise ) over piracy is just another excuse to make more money. Look at what EA did about piracy, look at what Valve did about piracy. At the end of the discussion, I really think it's just about money. It would probably have cost Epic more money to write good piracy protection software than it did to hire the programmers and writers who were able to bring them a bigger share of the console market.

 

Didn't EA just say that console pre-owned sales are crippling their business model, hence they're charging a tenner to be able to access online servers on your pre-owned game.

 

I don't think the price being too low is an issue. Valve does fine selling their games cheap, they are making lots of money. Look at tf2, they constantly update it and they have even sold it a couple of times for next to nothing.

 

This ^. Rake in the cash on the console version, and do a PC release later when you've had time and money to test it properly. We'll wait, the PC version's always more advanced.

Also this ^. I guarantee that if people were as likely to get away with shoplifting as they are with download piracy, theft of every medium would skyrocket. People like free stuff, but when it's not free they don't just give whatever it is up. People want to play games. If they can get them free - and they are a 13-year-old 1337-artist who thinks torrenting is 4w35uMm!!!1 - then they might well pirate them. If they couldn't, they might only buy one game a month instead of pirating four, but that's still one sale that's not being made at the moment.

EA made a billion dollar loss in 2008, despite a 15% rise in turnover, and plan to fire 1500 people. They're grasping at straws here.