Thread: Piracy "killing" PC games ?

Piracy of games has finaly become the most promintent concern for games developers. Gears Of War 2 will not be released for PC and piracy is one of the major reason as claimed by Cliff Bleszinski (level designer). Crytek (as you all know developer of crysis and Farcry) has found out that the pirated to original games ratio is about 25:1 or higher. Epic Games and Crytek are now making Consoles as their primary base for building games. Ubisof and EA games have also said that they will do the same. Ubisoft's End War for PC has been postponded for Piracy concerns.

If this continues then I wonder what will be the fate of PC gaming. Its not that console games are always original. But in console games are much less pirated than that of PC games (which has exploded like nukes due to P2P network).

I think if the companies stop producing PC games then Console games are likely to face the same fate of piracy. Cause hackers and crackers will not have PC games to pirate so they'll probably start cracking console games.

What ever solution comes up ( If a solution comes up), I hope its a clever one and benifits both consumers and game developers.

consoles are harder to crack... (not speaking of xbox )...

i'm not surprised at this...

Originally Posted by StarryKnight

consoles are harder to crack... (not speaking of xbox )...

i'm not surprised at this...

I have seen pirated PS2, Xbox games.

But I do not believe in piracy. I admit that I do have some downloaded movies. But I always make it a point to buy them when I travel abroad. My experience with DVDs sold in India is not too good. Moser Baer is an exception because they are so cheap.

New members, please do read this report: Moser Baer Movies report.

Yes i too have seen pirated PS2 games ... its a pity that its forcing game devs to move to Consoles ....well it was the main reason sited by Rockstar for postponing/cancellation of GTA 4 for PC ...... Game devs should either move completely to consoles or stay with PCs ....

I think once console games catchs up in terms of usage we ll see a surge in pirated Console games .....

Actually i was referring to the ps3 for hard to crack.. xbox can either b flashed easily to run pirated games or be chipped... not so easy with the ps3... agreed the pirated games dvds for consoles are available, BUT they wud not run with the consoles (talking about non flashed xbox n ps3)

Originally Posted by StarryKnight

Actually i was referring to the ps3 for hard to crack.. xbox can either b flashed easily to run pirated games or be chipped... not so easy with the ps3... agreed the pirated games dvds for consoles are available, BUT they wud not run with the consoles (talking about non flashed xbox n ps3)

I am not a expert at Warez ....but have seen some yos displaying their pirated warez DVDs,PS2 etc ...

Pirated Consoles games have a major disadvantage. YOU CAN NEVER PLAY ONLINE. In pc games you can play pirated games in private network but its not possible for consoles games.

ya this is an added disadvntg... after all after some time u will wanna go online for a change...
i play my genuine nfs mw online a lot... jus rox!

Originally Posted by thats_me

Pirated Consoles have a major disadvantage. YOU CAN NEVER PLAY ONLINE. In pc games you can play pirated games in private network but its not possible for consoles.

Do you mean pirated games (media) or pirated console? Are there pirated consoles available too?

Originally Posted by just4kix

Do you mean pirated games (media) or pirated console? Are there pirated consoles available too?

these are the same consoles i was talkin bout... the flashed ones.. not exactly pirated.. u can flash a genuine one's firmware for it to play pirated dvds... this process is harder for ps3, xbox is easier..

Understood.

Originally Posted by just4kix

Do you mean pirated games (media) or pirated console? Are there pirated consoles available too?

OOPS...........

Corrected.

Originally Posted by thats_me

Pirated Consoles games have a major disadvantage. YOU CAN NEVER PLAY ONLINE. In pc games you can play pirated games in private network but its not possible for consoles games.

yeah u can play pirated games on LAN and you cannot play pirated games on XBOX LIVE .............I did not know that they even messed with the firmware to allow it to play pirated stuff....

Just recently i saw a site hosting pirated games for Sony PSP[play station portable] ....They manage to crack everything !

Pirated versions Farcry 2 and Fallout 3 have been released for XBOX 360. It seems PC alone can't be blamed for piracy.

Originally Posted by thats_me

Pirated versions Farcry 2 and Fallout 3 have been released for XBOX 360. It seems PC alone can't be blamed for piracy.

Not only these but many others hav been released, but all these won't work on a genuine non flashed xbox... thats the point.
On the other hand pirated games work like a charm on PC.

Copy protection like cd-checks and other DRM doesn't discourage piracy!
My opinion is if you make a good product and price it reasonably then people will be willing to pay for it.
Take the case of game publisher/developer Stardock, their games don't have any kind of copy protection but still lots of people buy their games and as a company they are successful.

Some interesting reading is the Gamers Bill of Rights put out by Stardock:

1. Gamers shall have the right to return games that are incompatible or do not function at a reasonable level of performance for a full refund within a reasonable amount of time.
2. Gamers shall have the right that games they purchase shall function as designed without defects that would materially affect the player experience.
3. Gamers shall have the right that games will receive updates that address minor defects as well as improves gameplay based on player feed back within reason.
4. Gamers shall have the right to have their games not require a third-party download manager installed in order for the game to function.
5. Gamers shall have the right to have their games perform adequately if their hardware meets the posted recommended requirements.
6. Gamers shall have the right not to have any of their games install hidden drivers.
7. Gamers shall have the right to re-download the latest version of the games they purchase.
8. Gamers whose computers meet the posted minimum requirements shall have the right to use their games without being materially inconvenienced due to copy protection or digital rights management.
9. Gamers shall have the right to play single player games without having to have an Internet connection.
10. Gamers shall have the right to sell or transfer the ownership of a physical copy of a game they own to another person.