Does the hunt on piracy piss off anyone else here?

[Jimmy Yakapucci]

To jump into the whole XBox 360 vs PC gaming thing: One reason that I have pretty much stopped PC gaming is due to the hardware requirements. Grab any big name PC game and check out the hardware requirements. Besides the CPU horsepower and memory, most of them require a particular couple GPUs. Most people, me included, find it easier to just buy a system that is guaranteed to play these games. Look at the Benjamins:

$300 XBox 360 vs $2k+ Computer -- You do the math.

After all, how many truly exclusive PC games are there?

JY

[ZeroAX]

$300 XBox 360 vs $2k+ Computer -- You do the math.

JY

2000$? really? you really don't know anything about computers do you? I bought my gaming rig for 700. and the fact that a pc game is always 10-20$ cheaper than the console version, plus free online should make up that difference in no time

[gtmtnbiker]

now I'm not accusing MS for stealing gamers from pc, that would be fanboyishly stupid (but I will never forgive them for ruining deus ex 2 for me), but piracy is hardly the problem. when people didn't download games they bought them at 1/10th the original asking price.

I think this is another good point. Windows PC is also the largest development platform, bar none. With that, you have many more publishers vying for those dollars such as: web content, free flash games, free downloadable games, shareware, discounted software found in stores like Staples, Kmart, etc, and lastly your modern PC games.

There are lots of options for a PC user.

[Limewater]

now I'm not accusing MS for stealing gamers from pc, that would be fanboyishly stupid (but I will never forgive them for ruining deus ex 2 for me), but piracy is hardly the problem. when people didn't download games they bought them at 1/10th the original asking price.

This may have been happening in Greece, but, to my knowledge, pirated software has not been sold on any sort of large scale in the United States outside of, maybe, New York City. I've seen it all the time in my travels to other countries, but I've not seen much at all in the US outside of shady flea markets (which are also not terribly common).

Instead, when people did pirate software when I was younger, they did it by just copying a friend's disk, or just borrowing them and installing them on their own machines.

[Jimmy Yakapucci]

$300 XBox 360 vs $2k+ Computer -- You do the math.

JY

2000$? really? you really don't know anything about computers do you? I bought my gaming rig for 700. and the fact that a pc game is always 10-20$ cheaper than the console version, plus free online should make up that difference in no time

Okay, maybe not $2k. But still compare $300 vs $700. Also, this time next year, what will you need to replace/upgrade to play the newest games? I don't understand the comment about free online. Please explain.

JY

[Kebo]

You can custom build a good PC that will play games better than Xbox 360 for $400 these days. 360 launched at $400, and has been $50 a year to play it online, so 4 years of that is $200. That's a $600 investment. A $600 PC at 360's launch would be better than 360. WoW shows the true popularity of PC games - but you can't really pirate it and get the same experience. While for most PC games, you can pirate them and more or less get the same experience as if you had bought them. The majority of people in 2000 and 2001 were still using dial-up, with their own home phone lines. AOL service peaked in 2001. Downloading full games was usually out of the question. Now dedicated broadband has been widely adopted, a lot of people have better PCs because they have become more integral to our society.



I mean really, let's get real. People also need to understand PCs weren't any cheaper for a good one in 2001. Especially back when the market was being converted to 3D videocards.

Xbox clearly has hurt PC gaming to some extent, but think of it this way. In 2001, PC gaming was 24.2% of game sales. In 2009, it was 2.7%. There is simply no explaining that away with Xbox. Xbox didn't even sell very many systems, only 24 million. The piracy rates are greater now than they used to be. More games moving to subscription models are driven by piracy. Strict, ridiculous DRM is driven by piracy. Honestly, does anyone here think game developers want to put in DRM for people that won't pirate? That's just nonsense. Developers talk about how piracy has hurt their sales (even the ones that don't use DRM! Don't use that as an excuse). The top selling PC game on Amazon a week ago or so was Bioshock 2. It wasn't even in the top 50 of game sales there.

Here's some interesting reading on a PC developer that had to resort to DRM because of 92% piracy rates on their game: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_i ... tory=17350

[noiseredux]

@kebo

great post. And I'm not biased. I don't play PC games. And I don't want a 360.

[Jimmy Yakapucci]

You can custom build a good PC that will play games better than Xbox 360 for $400 these days. 360 launched at $400, and has been $50 a year to play it online, so 4 years of that is $200. That's a $600 investment. A $600 PC at 360's launch would be better than 360.

But my question is this: Would that $600 PC that you bought at the 360's launch still be capable of playing today's games?

JY

[Kebo]

You can custom build a good PC that will play games better than Xbox 360 for $400 these days. 360 launched at $400, and has been $50 a year to play it online, so 4 years of that is $200. That's a $600 investment. A $600 PC at 360's launch would be better than 360.

But my question is this: Would that $600 PC that you bought at the 360's launch still be capable of playing today's games?

JY

Of course, my alternate PC I got back in 2006 plays games better than 360. Maybe not at max res, but certainly at resolutions, frame rates and detail that a 360 is playing them at. I'm not sure why people think 360 is this marvelous piece of technology. The PC I got in 2008 for $600 is so far ahead of 360 graphics now they aren't really comparable. So basically any year you buy a PC, it's going to outperform a 360, except they were close to on par with each other at launch.

Playing Crysis (a game that got pirated to hell) at max res shouldn't be the standard for 'today's games', and a lot of people use that standard to judge a PC. And how many big budget games are exclusively made for PC anymore? Most mainstream PC games are now on consoles. It's not as if 360 has gained power since its release. So if 360 can play 'today's games', a $600 PC from 2006 will be able to too.

[gtmtnbiker]

Here's some interesting reading on a PC developer that had to resort to DRM because of 92% piracy rates on their game: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_i ... tory=17350

Thanks for sharing the article. What it doesn't answer for me is how they calculated their numbers (92% pirated, etc). Also, when they made an update, how does it impact the older versions? Are you unable to play the older versions online or could one still play them?