News Call of Duty 4 piracy is rampant

At the end of the day piracy is everywhere and its never going to stop. Its like global warming and Obesity, people just dont care. The companies can complain all they want but even if they stop making pc games completely there will be some hackers who will just copy even more console games.
Its a bugger we know, is it going to stop? No.

 

There will always be someone that can crack any game and people who will be willing to use it.

 

Yeah - but just because a battle can't be won doesn't mean you should stop fighting.

 

But i think it might be time to though. If more support for a keyboard and mouse is developed for the PS3 in conjunction with the ability to mod games due to the HDD inside then i can see the PS3 killing PC gaming. Consoles have nearly all of the pros of PC gaming with less of the cons. You can play online, games are "guaranteed" to work with no need for costly upgrades, they're cheaper once you factor in the cost of a "gaming" mouse and keyboard and wide screen monitor.

If there was universal support for K&M on consoles the two genres that really require it, ie FPS and RTS, would no longer be "better" on the PC and i'd see no reason to keep spending money on my PC to enable it to play the latest and greatest games if my console could play them all after only one outlay.

From a developers point of view consoles are better for them as console piracy is thought to be much harder than PC piracy to the general consumer. I mean most casual/regular gamers will have had at least some experience of piracy on a PC but non of console piracy. To a developer this means they are more confident about being rewarded for their effort with consoles compared to PCs.

TBH, with the ever increasing cost of cutting edge PC gaming and the reduction of costs and mainstream acceptance of consoles i'll be surprised if the AAA gaming sector on the PC doesn't implode in the next 10 years.

 

The fact that one console has pros and cons over another though isn't the be all and end all though. HD-DVD is arguably a better platform than Blu-Ray, but still...

To say that the PS3 is going to kill PC gaming is both melodramatic and flawed and the draws of PC gaming are less to do with input and more to do with status as a historic, enthusiast platform with far greater potential to a hardcore audience and increased value for money (in terms of scope, mods and replayability).

Also bear in mind that the PC industry has an infrastructure to save itself from escalating costs and retail sales. Unlike console gaming which has either syndicated online networks (Live, PSN) and limited focus to a wider market, the PC has a wider focus on a market which is just harder to target and the opportunities for the growth of PC games is far to broad and varied to be summarised by people such as you and I who are, at best, on the periphery of the industry.

 

Oh, and Micheal Fitch has just posted this too. Mike was the Creative Director of Iron Lore Studios, the makers of Titan Quest, who had to had to shut down last year. It's in the news. I'm going to pop this in the Iron Lore discussion and the gaming forum too because I think it's very on the ball and, even though the first part only is relevant to piracy, it's a perfect example of how every little thing matters and how you can help support the developers you like by voting with money.

That said, I personally didn't care for Titan Quest.

 

^^ Thats a big quote.

 

A couple thoughts on that. First off, in regards to piracy they totally shot themselves in the foot, and he admits it while blaming someone else. He says they were dependent on word of mouth advertising, but they created issues for people who had pirated the game, and then when the pirates discovered those issues they complained the game was broken and others didn't buy said game. Let me shorten that a bit...

"We did something that made the game buggy for some users and they complained about it which caused other people not to buy our game"

One has to wonder how many paying sales were lost because of that choice to include anti-piracy measures. If they had realeased a game without security checks then people wouldn't be complaining about it and they wouldn't have gotten all the negative comments.

In that same paragraph he talkes about the user who had to update his BIOS to play the game without it thinking it was pirated. Maybe it's just me, but that seems to be asking a bit much of the customer. If someone pays good money for a game they expect it to work. Sure, that's a bit unreasonable, perhaps even unrealistic, but that's the expectation and if you can't meet that expectation you're going to have a pissed off customer (who can't return the game for a refund) and who is going to tell everyone they know what a POS your game is.

Yeah, it's hard being a developer in a time when 90% of people are pirates and everyone expects your product to run on any hardware out there. Get used to it. You can't change people so either adapt, or die. No, it's not fair, but no one ever said live was fair.

 

I have pirated games before but I buy my games now, normally play the demo and read reviews before getting a game.

I actually like to PAY for things. I like to OWN my game in cd case have the manual you know.

I have to agree with Glider that if the game makers tried to be more creative in the types of games that they came out with then there MIGHT be less pirating. But then I might just be completely wrong...

 

And they went belly up you say They don't advertise, no one buys it.

As for COD4, it's a few hours long singleplayer, did the storywriter die a day or so after starting the story, we got the intro then it moved into what seemed like the main story and then it ended. The multiplayer, levels and perks? lol Shame I am not 12 anymore

 

^^^ that and i look in a surprised way when devs panic like headless chickens when anti-piracy measures prevent paying customers from playing the game and pirates are playing it nice...... i wonder why.... :edit: on this, i think if they spent less on anti-piracy measures they would profit more...

[rant] and about the price being made for the market and that current prices are fair...... that is BS... really, how can you ask 50% more money for a game/console/software/music/album in a place were people earn less and then they put their hands on their hands when they see the levels of piracy? don't they know that people know the prices of stuff in other countries and how they are cheaper? don't they know money is not elastic for people with shallow pockets (aka almost everyone) ? "THEY ARE NOT BUYING OUR EXPENSIVE STUFF!! IT IS PIRACY FAULT! IT IS NOT US, IT IS THEM!!!!" [/rant]

IMHO i consider piracy as a side effect of some phenomenon.... like when you are have the flu and get a fever, in the case of the industry the side effect of what is wrong is piracy.... they just need to figure out what is wrong and fix it before it is to late..... and i think it is already to late.....

 

QFT!!

 

As I said though, you guys are here saying this stuff, yet you too will be affected and hurt if the PC games industry collapses because of attitudes like your own - then you'll have nobody else to blame.

I agree it's a case of adapt or die - but you can't logically put that in the same sentence that you tell a developer not to include anti-piracy measures as a way of adapting. For this developer, they tried to adapt on a the only scale reasonable to them and they died because of it. If they hadn't put these measures in then they would have died faster. (Iron Lore did advertise btw, but advertisements were targetted and mainly in print magazines).

At the end of the day, I don't care what arguements you put up to support piracy because the reality is actually quite simple. A lot of people work very hard to make games. You steal games. That is a crime and just because you likely won't get caught doesn't mean it is any less wrong or damaging to the industry for many of the reasons in the above quote. The affect of that crime damages a past time I, and many others (including yourselves probably) hold dear. In order to encourage creativity in this industry all you need to do is stop committing doing something illegal and stop defending it, popularising it and avoiding the core of the issue with excuses about demos, advertising and "make good games and I won't steal them" answers.

Bottom line; you are committing a crime. That is wrong. You are taking money away from people who have earned it and who often deserve it. I don't know what you guys do for a living but try equating it into your own industry. Personally, if somewhere like Kotaku ripped off an article of mine then I know I'd be pissed and justifiably so.

I'm not going to take this rant any further right now. I'm honestly just very disappointed in anyone in the bit-tech community who continues to pirate after seeing a developer like this, to give just one example, go down partly as a result of piracy - or who sees COD4 become more consoleised as a result of piracy. Maybe I'm naive, but I thought bit-tech readers were better than that.

 

To be honest I would be more inclined to take the guys rant seriously if EVERY single reason he gave wasn't some ones elses thought.

no one brought our game its must be the reviewers fault for giving a review that wasn't favorable

our game doesn't work with the hardware its all the hardware developers fault

no one ones buying our game therefore every one MUST have copied it illegally

our game doesn't work on your system its your fault.

I apologise for sounding over the top but asking some one having to update their bios just to get a game to work sounds over the top.

so to take his rants (i mean points 1 at a time)

1 reviewers = everyone entitled to their own opinion. If the reviewer thought that he didn't like the game then so be it. I don't think everyone is going to read 1 or 2 reviews and then say "nope never buying that games its so bad", however if you have 3 or 4 bad reviews all saying the same thing then people are going to take notice and so should you have and tried to find out what they thought was wrong with it.

2. Hardware = hardware is CONSTANTLY being updated everyone knows that and its the reason must game companies try to anticipate whats going to be developed next see dx10 as an example.

3. Pirates = yes, they may have cost the company a huge chunk of the games profits however other companies seem to be able to make a profit despite the pirates and I'm not saying pirating something is right or wrong I believe that its something for each individual to decide for themselves.

4. audience = yes, some people will have ridiculous expectations as to a game status after all i would like elite to work in full graphics using dx10 and using my pc's hardware to its limits and i would also like a flying horse but its never going to happen. However when a game is produced surely its only common sense to program it to fit the most common pc setups or the widest combination of hardware possible to increase your audience.

if for even one second he had said "as a company we believe that percentage x of the reasons I have mentioned have caused the company to fail, however in hindsight we could have done something before it got to that stage or could have planned for it slightly better". I would have more sympathy for him. Yes its sad the company failed no one likes seeing more people out of work but some of the blame surely has to fall on the people running the company and their lack of understanding of how much damage would be caused to the company by the 4 points he mentioned.

and sorry i know that the thread was originally about CoD4 piracy but the huge long quote got my goat for some reason.

 

Its funny you say that we will push people to develop for consoles by pirating

But its far far easier to pirate a console game, why? because everyone relies on the console hardware, pop a £40 chip in and all the protection is gone, its as easy as ripping/burning the CD/DVD
The 360 and PS3 have made this much harder due to firmware updates, but the modchips/hackers have adapted

Piracy is an interesting subject, but because its illegal, getting legitimate (or even decent) facts is nigh on impossible

 

I bought Company of Heroes for 50 €. Then came the Opposing fronts which I bought for 40 €. After spending 90 € on a goddamn pile of code I'm kinda expecting to get a working game, but nope. The Relic Offline works as intended and drops two-three times a day and nowadays one has to be online to even play the singleplayer. This kind of experiences set a poor student back quite a lot. I love the game and if only it worked, the somewhat wasted 90 € wouldn't bother so much.

I loved the CoD:UO and kinda liked the CoD2 and decided to try CoD4 as well. I found it not working and thus didn't bother buying it either. The demo worked, but was ridiculously short and the real thing fails to start. I'm happy I didn't buy it. I guess there's a way to get it work, but tbh I couldn't be bothered to read through forums just for some tricks to get a game to work.

I feel the pain of the game industry, but can live with the fact that most people have downloaded games/programs/movies. Most of the games suck anyway

 

But to the average consumer getting a modchip isnt something they would even consider let alone know where to start looking. Plus the fact that 1st and 2nd generation mod chips require a fair amount of soldering to get them to function something that the average console gamer would find incredibly off putting. And if there are specialist services that offer to solder them on for a fee there's always the risk that you're gonna get ripped off and they'll steal your console which you couldnt exactly report them for other wise you'd have to say why you were voiding the warranty and installing an illegal piece of hardware. Plus once you have a chipped console you still need to find game roms to burn or have an inbuilt ripping method.

This contrasted with the much simpler method of PC piracy which is download torrent with cracks included. These leads me to believe that console piracy is much lower than PC piracy and i dont see that changing any time soon.

 

the hardware itself isn't illegal otherwise it wouldn't be manufactured.

you can I believe download console games via torrents as well (I don't play consoles so I'm not a hundred percent sure but a quick search though torrent finder seemed to find a load of PS2/PS3 etc Games.

to be honest I don't think its EVERY going to be possible to say how much of game company losses are down to piracy and how much is down to people just not liking the game enough to buy it as we will never know how many people truly only copy games with no intent of buying the original.

 

i will tell you a story:

there was once a guy, who got a nice new PS1 with a mod chip and 10 games for 150€, he then proceeded to download and buy pirated games, the end.

if things are now as they were those days..... watch out! let piracy remain on PCs, if it jumps onto consoles it will spread like wild fire.....

what i feel about the industry is that they are in a glass room that is getting hot.... and hot.... and hotter... they should get of their asses and do something efficient about it, maybe open a door or a window.... what do they do? they blame sweat.

PS: went to a common torrent site to see if they had xbox 360 and ps3 ISOs.... yeah..... they have some....

edit: i am going to try to make a paralel analogy

the pie maker is happy, he selling lots of pies, but times change and his customers want their pies cheaper and/or better and/or more modern, what does he do? instead of making pies the way the customers want and sell them the way the customer want he gets out of the pie business and enters the pizza business.... and the people loose those amazing tasty pies.... that could be a lot better.

 

Yes torrenting is how you get your console roms but the point is that torrent, mount/burn, install is much easier than chip, torrent, burn, play. And whist the mod chip itself is not illegal in most countries (its completely illegal in france if i remember my purchase of one) i think the installation of one is, hence the ban on a discussion of this nature within the forum.

The main point i'm try to get across is that when you buy a PC you buy all the hardware tools you'll need to pirate games and the software is free or at least pirateable. But to do the same thing on a console there is the need for additonal expense in the form of a mod chip, the cost of buying pirated games and the hassle of finding someone who sells them OR the cost of a PC with internet to do your own piracy. Its inheritantly not as easy to pirate on a console compared to the PC.