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Crytek: Crysis Patches Prove Abundant Piracy, Consoles Are 'Very Good DRM Technologies'
by Chris Faylor, Aug 28, 2008 1:00pm PDTWhile some argue that piracy can increase game sales by letting players take a "try before you buy" approach, Crytek business manager Harald Seeley isn't one of them.
Based on downloads of the last Crysis patch, he argues, there were "a lot more active [Crysis] players than there were unit sales."
And since those pirates are still playing the game months after release, Seeley reasons that "then they were a sale that didn't happen but probably would have had it not been possible to obtain the game illegally."
Crytek, the studio that created the hardware intensive Far Cry and Crysis games exclusively for PC, has repeatedly stated that the upcoming Crysis Warhead will be its last PC-only game due to the abundant piracy of PC games.
But just because Crytek is no longer developing PC exclusives, that doesn't mean the company will abandon the platform. "We want to continue to provide our fans in the PC world a rich and engaging experience," Seeley explained to EDGE Online.
"But that doesn't mean we can't also release the same title on consoles. It takes nothing away from the PC gamer if the game is also available on another platform."
"Console technology has advanced a great deal since we released Far Cry," he continued. "Our teams have since found it very exciting to push the boundaries of what most people today consider possible to do on those platforms, both technically and artistically."
In addition, Seeley expressed his belief that things will be better on consoles as "consoles themselves are, in one sense, simply very good DRM technologies."
"Consumers welcome and pay for [consoles], in order to receive the benefits that come with them, such as the healthy variety of games which are able to prosper in such a protected environment, and the greater ease of installation, use and reliability."
Comments
Who are you people anyways, I have never meet anyone like you. I don`t know a single person who hasn`t pirated something and I`ve never meet anyone who was vocal against it. If you do exist and aren`t the hypocrite I think you are you should speak up in real life.
PC Gaming is going to change but it won't go away, just the shitty publishers who don't know how to innovate and just want to imitate and cash in. They can leave for the console, were seriously better off. The few publishers who get it will prosper. But the real future of gaming on the PC will be with indie developers. You don't have to spend millions to make a good game.
Piracy will always exist. Crying about it and pushing stronger DRM will do nothing. Make a better game, release more content for free, support it and build a community, make it less expensive and explore new business models and you will succeed. Continue to spend millions and do nothing innovative except for better graphics and you will fail, and you deserve to die off.
Now enough arguing about this I'm going to play TF2, love that free Heavy update. Gabe has said that keeping their customers happy has been the best way to advertise the game. Every time they release a new update their sales jump higher. Who would have thought that releasing a fantastic game, that scales well on all hardware, sold for a great price, while consistently releasing free content would actually increase sales. What a crazy world we live in.
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I'm certain there are more people who pirated just about every game than bought it, that's just how it goes. Piracy is an issue to all mediums, I don't know anyone who actually bought Microsoft Office or any other software for that matter. Stop crying about it already and find a way to survive or just give up and go away.
I did read about Call of Duty 4 developers commenting on piracy, but at least they don't continue to complain. They should be happy, it did sell quite well. Its still in the top 10 PC games in retail and in the top 5 games on Steam and its been out for 10 months.
ID is crying a little too much lately, especially when they started blaming the hardware manufactures for benefiting from piracy. What do they expect them to do about that and what was their point. I don't understand what they have to cry about. They haven't made a game since 2004 and they haven't made a good game for almost 10 years. Get back to making games and stop the pointless whining.
These days I buy way more than I pirate, back when I was in school I pirated almost exclusively. I got into PC gaming because I could get free games. I got BF1942 when I was in residence and loved that game. Since leaving school and now making more money. I've gone on to buy all the Battlefield sequels and many other games as well.
Piracy sucks and all, but they need to stop focusing on it and just try to provide a good service for a reasonable price and people will buy.
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