News Call of Duty 4 piracy is rampant

Greetings!

Some torrent trackers do show the downloads number.
Checking Mininova, for example, it has ~180.000 CoD4-PC downloads for the most popular... "versions". Once you imagine the numbers from other torrent sites and other P2P delivery systems you get an idea on how prevalent P2P freeloading is.

Console games are more expensive and they sell better.

If you find PC games are too short, change genre.
Total War games, for instances, would have to be priced at $1.500€ for them to have the same price/hour ratio as Crysis.

 

yea i know and i question those numbers because nobody has given a source for them, as far as i can tell hes just picked that number out of the air...

 

But a torrent is often tracked by mulitple trackers who count all download/completion as soon as one file is done. This means that if a file is tracked by 5 trackers and is completed twice each tracker will count 2 completes which makes it look like there are 10 downloads when in reality there are 2.

Console games sell better because consoles have become more mainstream than PC gaming atm, also they're cheaper in the long run (had a link somewhere that tried to prove this but cant find it now) and there are less compatibility issues for less informed people. You buy a console game and its expected it will run at certain standard on the console but with a PC game there is less certainty due to the numerous hardware configurations.

 

what (kind) of scares me is that fact that consoles are becoming more software based, so that you don't need mod chips anymore, just install a crack on the main OS or something....

 

Greetings!

My understanding is that the download number displayed in torrent sites is of the the ".torrent" file downloads from that particular site, not the actual content or from other sites.

Console games have become more profitable to developers than PC games. Higher selling price, better sales per machine, less support needed, etc.
If the trend continues, I fear for the AAA PC gaming market survival.

That would depend on counting as console expense the HD display. To me, proper console gaming would be a lot more expensive. Already need a decent PC, so might as well put a 8800 card in it.

 

That is including the cost of buying a nice TV for the console and a 22inch display for the PC. Here's the link so you can read yourself and make your own mind up.

 

Greetings!

Thanks for the link. Sadly, some of his assumptions dont apply to me and he forgets to factor an important aspect of PC upgrading.

Assumptions:
- The gaming PC is being purchased instead of a basic computer that would have been purchased anyway. -> I already need a decent system so one basic computer scenario is out.
- The console PC requires a larger/better television than what would have been purchased anyway -> I am happy with my old 51cm TV set, dont usually watch TV and dont feel the need to replace my broken living room DVD player.
- For all scenarios four full-priced games, and one discount game (50%) were purchased each year - I usually buy more than four full-price games per year (50€ for PC versus 70€ for console).

And, he doesnt factor the resale value of old hardware pieces. My six month old 22", for example, cost me 85€ net (once I subtract the resale value of the old 19" from the 22" price).

PS: Sorry for the offtopic.

 

Its just for an average consumer which means it'll fit no one exactly but will explain the market as a whole. Yes he excluded PC component resale but he also exclude duff game resale so that in some way evens it out. And you have to exclude some things to make a model work otherwise they become so complex they explain nothing.

And sorry to everyone else for dragging this OT.

 

I actually found this place by googling accidentaly but all i have to say is..

Im actually laughing at how pathetic and ridiculous it is that you guys are here circle jerking eachother off flaming pirates

You're right it's wrong, but apparently it should be obvious we dont give a **** what you think LOL. Seriously, it's funny all the whining that's done in this thread

And "Will" i actually lol'ed at you deleting your flatmates games and was questioning why in gods name your flatmate didnt punch you right in the face

But then i realized you're from UK and the ammount of ****** that are in europe, and apparently geeks as well!


Enjoy getting mad at my flame/trolling

I wont come back to read a bunch of emo's trying to find ways to try to seem less pathetic, but i'll take solace in knowing how much you guys will whine and keep whining!


peace <3

my ip is 68.38.217.15

 

protip: if you're going to troll, dont inform people of it
kinda defeats the object

 

I don't know if my town is crazy, or what, by where I live, PC games are cheaper... they run about 50 bucks, whereas console versions run around 70-80.

 

Why thankyou.

 

Why didn't that post get deleted? I know it was reported???

 

It's a valid post IMO that reflects the attitude of many in the market and, although it is inflammatory, it is so in a way which is relevant to the discussion and illustrating a core problem about piracy - I.E ****tards.

I've censored it a little more to help avoid offending anyone further, but my own view is that this is an attitude which any realistic and sensible discussion about piracy must sooner or later face.

 

And of course its not like you can stick a chip in an xbox or PS3 is it? How are people managing to play with a cracked version of cod4 online on a punkbuster server? Dont believe it tbh.

 

Where have you been living?
Google mod chips for Xbox360 and PS3, they were available soon after the consoles first went on sale, it is however a cat and mouse game between the console developers and the mod chip developers to counter each others efforts, the same for the PC except that it is purely software based, however the new PC motherboard chipsets coming out in the next couple of years will incorporate hardware DRM to try and make it harder for pirates who will find a way around it anyway, either by software (or firmware) hacks or someone will develop mod chips for the PC, either way the piracy will continue and the paying customer/consumer will suffer the inevitable problems that will ensue as they try and make use of their legitimately bought and paid for software that has been crippled by anti-piracy methods that don't work because ALL of them can be hacked eventually no matter how sophisticated they are.





The figures quoted for piracy rates are most likely just pulled out from somewhere dark, smelly and in a difficult to view place around the back somewhere.

They failed to mention or even consider how many people hire games to play them on consoles and PC's so of course the sales figures versus player figures would be out of whack.

How is copy protection like the limit of 3 installs for Mass Effect PC going to affect people hiring games to play or the people who run the businesses hiring out the games when they get complaints from the 4th person to hire the game that it will not install/play and they have to make an international phone call to the software developer to get it activated just so they can play it for a night or 2.

Then there is the problem of re-saleability as a second hand product, when I buy a game I expect to be able to re-sell it later on and the person I sell it to also expects to be able to play the game and not have issues with getting a legitimate game to work.