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EndWar PC Coming After Consoles Due to Piracy; PC Pirates Would 'Cannibalize' Console Sales
by Chris Faylor, Oct 08, 2008 8:12am PDTFollowing up on yesterday's report that a PC release of Tom Clancy's EndWar is likely, creative director Michael de Plater has now revealed that piracy is to blame for the delayed PC version of the Ubisoft Shanhai-developed voice-controlled RTS game.
"To be honest, if PC wasn't pirated to hell and back, there'd probably be a PC version coming out the same day as the other two,"
Plater told VG247. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 editions of EndWar arrive November 7.
"The level of piracy that you get with the PC just cannibalizes the others, because people just steal that version," he elaborated. "Piracy's basically killing PC."
In addition to Ubisoft, publisher Electronic Arts is also known to delay PC versions until after a game hits consoles, though it has not explicitly cited piracy as the cause.
For example, EA Redwood Shores' Dead Space hits PS3 and Xbox 360 on October 14, with the PC version coming the next week. And DICE's Mirror's Edge, once slated to ship simultaneously on consoles and PC, will now hit PS3 and Xbox 360 on November 11 while the PC version is targeted for a vague "winter" release window.
Comments
I'm a pc developer. I love playing pc games, and making pc games. However when I see massive piracy numbers on a pc release, it is something that as a developer I have to acknowledge. There are a hundred different reasons for why someone pirates a game, but regardless of the reason it still hurts me as the guy on the other end.
Is switching to consoles the answer? It is a temporary answer because the piracy market for consoles is so much smaller than for the pc market, but it isn't a fix to the problem. At the core, it is not the consumer wanting to stick it to us developers. It is a problem where it's easier and more convenient for an end-user to buy a low-cost illegitimate copy of a pc game, or download a copy online, than it is to purchase a valid version.
Fortunately, we are at a stage in consoles where we can push the console to impressive limits and deliver the experience we want the consumer to have. When you combine higher sales numbers with the ability to deliver that experience, it is a huge draw to publishers and developers. Yes there are good solutions out there for PC like subscription-based games and Steam, but until there is a solution that works for the majority of pc titles, publishers will probably continue to steer their millions in developer funding toward the safer route of return.
And these are my personal views, I'm not speaking on behalf of my company. This is a topic I care about, from both the developer side and as a pc gamer.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 9 replies.
10-15% are you kidding me? It's not because people can't afford games, once again, people pirate because they are selfish and think that they world owes them.
Why do you think console games sell more copies (its common for a game to sell millions of copies)? Why do you think developers arent turnign away from consoles? I just find it irronic since most PC gamers seem to think that console games are inherently inferior to PC games.
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