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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
No, not everyone who pirates a game would have bought it. But when you can go to any torrent site at any given moment and see thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people downloading a game, even weeks after it came out, how can any reasonable person not accept that there were lost sales there?
Sure, we don't know what percentage of those pirated copies are lost sales, but just because we don't have that figure, does anyone truly believe that means the potential sales are negligible?
We know from firsthand statements that Ritual saw considerably more technical support requests from pirates than from legitimate customers on Sin Episodes. Does it matter if you thought that game wasn't good? No. Clearly, those pirates thought it was good ENOUGH to try to get it to work right.
It would be absurd to think that's an isolated example. Because every time anyone brings this up--be they a top-shelf developer, or a less prominent one--people think of a million reasons why that particular game or that particular developer just don't DESERVE the support of the discerning PC gamers. At that point, they stop being isolated examples, and they become part of a very clear trend.
Arguments like "Nobody wants to play this on PC" or "PC software is buggy" are ridiculous. If people genuinely didn't want to play it or already played it on consoles, they wouldn't pirate it. If PC software is too buggy, they shouldn't be pirating all those PC games.
The really sad and frustrating part is, the only effect this shit has is that more and more developers and publishers are just going to stop bringing their games to the PC. Why even bother, if the system is already such a pain in the ass, and the community is full of so many stubborn idealogues?
I'm not even accusing anyone here of BEING a pirate, although doubtless there are some. People just have this incredibly quick-tempered reaction as soon as piracy comes up, citing all these other potential factors, always the same ones--too buggy, game sucks, not right for the PC, etc. It doesn't matter. At the end of the day, if lots of people are still pirating it, those arguments are basically meaningless.
Sure, console piracy exists. But I would bet real actual dollars it's not remotely as much of a problem on home consoles as it is on PC. I mean, look at the PSP--there's a system where piracy is known to be considerably more widespread, and unlike the home consoles it's pretty easy to see the effect. Maybe it's because it's harder on home consoles (I haven't tried on either, so I wouldn't know), maybe it's just a psychological thing where people don't associate those systems with piracy.
But again, when it comes down to it, regardless of those factors, if PC software is consistently pirated more than console software, and it clearly is, it's going to continue to be a disincentive for full-scale game developers to put their games on the system.
And yes, you can point to Blizzard and Valve all you want. Not every developer is, or can be, a Blizzard or a Valve. In the real world, that's just how it is. Other companies can't really afford to sit around and generate twelve years of goodwill while they hope that their games turn out to be some of the best-selling titles of all time--not everyone is actually capable of that, and you shouldn't have to be stacked up against two of the top few companies in the entire industry every time this shit comes up. It's completely unrealistic.
So people can be self-righteous and smug until the cows come home, but it's not going to be doing anything good for the platform long-term.
I love the smaller, more niche, lower-budget PC titles, the ones like Stardock's that are less affected by this type of thing. Those are great. But I ALSO like the bigger-budget ones that just by virtue of how the world works need to sell more to make it worthwhile to put them on PC. I like being able to use my PC for a wide range of gaming. I like that companies are starting to take more chances on the PC again, finally. I don't like that when they do, and they run into the sad reality of rampant piracy, they're met with nonstop snarkiness.
I'm not even going to get into arguing against people who defend the piracy itself (rather than just attacking the developers who cite piracy), because those arguments seem self-evident. Fortunately I don't see much of that here to begin with, which is at least something of a good sign.
I can already envision what all the responses to this post are going to be, if this thread stays active! We'll see how it goes.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 214 replies.
Region restrictions.
DRM.
Poor quality releases.
Ignoring the ever increasing use of digital distribution.
Piracy shouldn't be seen as lost sales, it should be seen as a competitor! When pirates get a hold of your game they:
- Remove DRM.
- Release it to the entire world.
- Make it easily downloadable and available.
- Make it free.
What do most publishers do for their customers instead?
- Put DRM into their games that cause problem.
- Region restrict it (on digital distribution).
- Overpriced in a lot of locations.
- Ignore the internet.
Of course publishers can't make their games free, that would be silly, but what they can do is provide services that pirates cannot.
- Multiplayer (of course not all games can support it, not always within budget).
- Updates.
- Achievements and other little things.
- Support.
- Extra content?
- Community platform.
- Anyone else have some ideas?
Let's take Assassin's Creed as an example, a solid, entertaining game (some might disagree, but bare with me):
The choices are - Torrent, Steam, Stores. (Australia)
Torrent - get the game for free, but have to wait through slow speeds, updates take time to crack.
Steam - Reasonably priced, fast downloads, updates, wait what's this? Only available in the US? Next option.
Stores - Overpriced (double what it is on steam), a box (some people say this is a good thing), if something happens to the game you lose it forever (unless you make a copy, oh wait, DRM).
You could buy it from the store, but you prefer to eat this week, you could fly to the US and get it off steam or find someone to gift it to you, but that's more trouble than it's worth, only one choice left.
Still following? Pirates aren't the problem, they have always been there and always will be there.
You're seeing huge numbers of people downloading that torrent because it's available globally, it's easy to download, you're guaranteed no restrictions and no bullshit (unless it's a virus =] )
If publishers' heads weren't so far up their asses they'd be able to breath easier in today's digital world. There are a lot of pirates, there are a lot of people that won't buy the game regardless, but there is an even bigger group of people that they are screwing: their potential customers.
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