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Capcom Blames Piracy for Poor DMC4 PC Sales
by Aaron Linde, Aug 01, 2008 8:00pm PDTCapcom corporate officer Christian Svensson revealed that the PC edition of the company's demon-slaying action title Devil May Cry 4 (PC, PS3, 360) saw poor sales since it debuted early last month, owing in some part to rampant piracy of the game.
"It's not doing as well as I would like in the US at retail," Svensson wrote on Capcom's official blog. "It's such a good version and it really deserves better sales. I know it's getting pirated to hell and back (it was up on torrents literally the day it shipped)."
The executive added that he had pushed for more prolific digital distribution of Devil May Cry 4's PC incarnation, but was stonewalled by Capcom Japan. Despite the frustration, Svennson reiterated his commitment to bringing more Capcom titles to digital distribution outlets.
"For the record all CEI-developed titles will be distributed extremely widely via digital channels... I've spent the last year building up that channel," Svennson stated, noting that GRIN's downloadable side-scroller Bionic Commando Rearmed (PC, PS3, 360) would see "broad digital distribution for PC."
"I have a presentation I'm making shortly that I'm hoping will make that approach something we do with all of our PC content, even those developed in Japan, but no promises. It might not happen," he added.
Comments
Piracy is runs rampant with EVERY game released on the PC and 360, be it a smash hit or complete failure. Loss of sales to piracy is a guarantee in this industry. Every developer and publisher knows that they will have to write off X number of sales to piracy. They've been doing this for years.
Simple sitting there and blaming piracy for poor sales is a marvelous way to ignore every other inconvenient truth like:
1. Game was released on BOTH next gen consoles back in February. Most PC gamers have a 360, PS3, or both. This game most likely hit market saturation back in February. Anybody who was going to buy it probably already did.
2. Most gamers don't buy the same game twice, even if you add an extra bonus level or new boss. People don't go buy the next model year of their vehicle when it's released, even if the passenger sun visor now has a vanity mirror.
3. As cited, PC gamers are pretty much over the whole brick and mortar boxed game experience. A lot of PC gamers simply won't buy anything, aside from an AAA title, that isn't released via Digital Distro.
DMC4 was not a smash hit on the PC. Sales were lost to Piracy, that is not to be denied, but the real failure was with the release and marketing of this game - as Svenson stated near the end of the article.
Release DMC5 on 360/PS3/PC simultaneously with a decent digital distribution method in place and I bet your sales will not tank. You will of course still lose some to piracy, that's just a sad constant in this industry.
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