CEO of Infinite Interactive (Puzzle Quest): Expansion on PC?

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Mozgus
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CEO of Infinite Interactive (Puzzle Quest): Expansion on PC?

Post by Mozgus »

Just spotted this on the Puzzle Quest forum.

http://forums.infinite-interactive.com/ ... php?t=1614
Hi All,

We don't have a version of the expansion available for PC yet.

My apologies to all the PC players, but the problem with a PC expansion goes something like this:
a) An expansion for PQ is a very difficult thing to sell on PC, because it will be VERY heavily pirated
b) If it gets heavily pirated, then people won't buy it on XBLA
c) If they don't buy it on XBLA, then we can't cover the costs that it takes to develop an expansion

What that means is that it's going to take a while before we're able to see it on PC. My ideal scenario would be to roll it into a PC Gold Edition at some stage (and maybe release it free to existing customers as a mod), though we don't have any announcements about anything like that right now.

Cheers

-Steve
Is anyone else getting sick and tired of this argument yet? When are devs and publishers going to realize that pirated copies and downloads DO NOT EQUAL lost sales? Sorry, they don't. The vast, VAST majority of people who pirate games have no intention of buying the games in the first place. I pirated Puzzle Quest. And for the first 5 hours, I felt guilty because it seemed like a great game. Then it got very old, very quickly and I didn't play it anymore. I would have been annoyed if I paid for that. As I've said before, there have been times when I pirated surprisingly amazing games, and then rushed out and bought them. If it weren't for piracy, those developers would have never gotten my gaming dollar. I've done this about a dozen times. That's a dozen games I would have otherwise never purchased.

I mean, listen. There may have been a day where piracy was an actual issue (I can only refer to America here), but the fact is, the gaming audience has grown older, gotten jobs, and can easily afford video games. We're no longer at that stage when all the pirates are just 13 year old's who are leeching the latest warez via IRC Fserves so they can avoid begging their mommies to buy the game for them.

I'm also tired of the PC being specifically targeted as such an easily pirate-able medium. Who started this? These people clearly haven't played a PC game in the last 15 years. We no longer are asked to simply recite lines from the manual texts. Let's see the average PC user pirate a modern game. Try to explain what disc images, image mounters, virtual drives, drive maskers, sub-channel data and the like are. I dare you. The average PC user can't find the fucking MP3s I send them because they don't know what a "My Documents" is.

Console piracy on the other hand generally involves nothing more than installing the mod or exploit in the console for the average joe, and showing him what the "Copy Disc" button looks like in Nero. That's all there is to it. From that point on, he's got the hang of it. I'm not trying to promote console piracy, but honestly guys, it's not hard, and its not some super secret cult-like society. They're called soldering irons, and a lot of fucktards wield them.

I'm just angry because I also recently saw Capcom blame piracy for bad sales of the PC version of DMC4 as well. Ya know what might have helped sales, Capcom? If your legal demo actually booted on my machine. Instead it gives some complicated Direct X error and dies. Capcom didn't care, and ignored the issue many of us had, and guess what? A piracy group fixed their game for them. Lo and behold, after installing the cracked exe, TADAH! It runs. Hilarious. So no, you lost my sale. Tough luck. The pirated copy works better for me.
Last edited by Mozgus on Tue Aug 05, 2008 7:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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racketboy
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Post by racketboy »

I dunno. I think there is some validity.
While I don't know a lot of people at work that play games regularly, but I'm amazed at how many people that are a good 10 years or more older than me that openly admit to pirating music and movies....
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Mozgus
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Post by Mozgus »

racketboy wrote:I dunno. I think there is some validity.
While I don't know a lot of people at work that play games regularly, but I'm amazed at how many people that are a good 10 years or more older than me that openly admit to pirating music and movies....
Of course they do. We all do. If you don't, then you must make a lot more money to throw around than the rest of us. I never said mature people don't pirate. I said mature people don't pirate compulsively while buying absolutely nothing. That's a completely different type of pirate.

We live in an age of overpriced entertainment, man. Hardly any of this shit is worth the going rates.
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Post by philipofmacedon »

I've actually been holding off buying Puzzle Quest for the PC because they've not released an expansion. I've no intention of putting down money for one version and then finding out I picked the wrong one. It's such a new game that I don't feel right about downloading it, so I'll just do without.

I find the whole, PC piracy will hurt XBLA sales a bit ludicrous. Most of the people I know who play games either use one or the other. I don't use XBLA and don't plan to in the near future so I guess I'm just left out in the cold.
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Post by Mozgus »

philipofmacedon wrote:I've actually been holding off buying Puzzle Quest for the PC because they've not released an expansion. I've no intention of putting down money for one version and then finding out I picked the wrong one. It's such a new game that I don't feel right about downloading it, so I'll just do without.

I find the whole, PC piracy will hurt XBLA sales a bit ludicrous. Most of the people I know who play games either use one or the other. I don't use XBLA and don't plan to in the near future so I guess I'm just left out in the cold.
It's even more true for the vast majority of PC/360 titles because the PC versions will not run on general video chips that you find in all retail machines. I'd have literally LOL'd if Capcom claimed they delayed the PC version of DMC4 to avoid harming the 360 sales. Seriously, who has a high end gaming PC as well as a 360? Despite both running under Microsoft, you could not find a more split gaming audience. It's probably because they are so similar that it's not justifiable to own both.
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