PC piracy levels are "astounding" says Call of Duty 4 Developer

[Alpha]

"We pulled some disturbing numbers this past week about the amount of PC players currently playing [Call of Duty 4] Multiplayer (which was fantastic)," writes Robert Bowling, on the game's community blog. "What wasn't fantastic was the percentage of those numbers who were playing on stolen copies of the game."

 

 

"The amount of people who pirate PC games is astounding," he added. "It blows me away that people are willing to steal games (or anything) simply because it's not physical or it's on the safety of the internet to do."

 

PC games sales have decreased in recent years due to rampant piracy of software and other digital goods over internet sharing sites.

 

Source: http://www.gamepro.com/news.cfm?article_id=156948

I was talking to Gryph about this not too long ago. I think people have forgotten about PC Gaming, and that it is still alive, but with a slow heart beat.

 

Is piracy killing gaming on the PC? You bet it is. Do people give a damn? Beats me.

 

I think what pisses me off the most is that you can't run the games completely off HD. That is what made "NoCD" patches so great with the games I BOUGHT with my own money. I bet more people would buy PC games if they would lay off with all this "DRM/SecuROM" mumbo jumbo. But hey, it's my opinion. Take it with a grain of salt.

[Inky]

I agree Piracy is killing PC gaming. its just so darn easy. even my 60 year old mom can download a pc game and install it with the included key and cracks. but I don't think piracy is really hurting console gaming because of the difficulty of modding most systems.

[BlackKnight]

Gaming PCs cost too much. Its that simple. Take whatever you'd shell out for the hardware to play CoD4, and then factor the cost of the game itself... I think with PCs people are trying to cut costs wherever they can- the software side being the easiest to.

 

Another thing for me is this: I could pay the same $99AUD and buy a game, say Gears of War (bad example- old game, but whatever), for my Xbox 360 or for my PC. If I buy it for my Xbox, I know I'm getting the exact same game as everyone else gets. If I get it for the PC though, I know Im going to get dodgier graphics and sh!ttier framerates, and overall more sluggishness than all the guys out there with better computers than I have. In terms of value, I wouldn't get the sense that I'm getting the game as it was meant to be played, even if it has the potential to run better and at higher resolutions on the PC, simply because I won't get that kind of performance on my machine. I think this is an issue in the back of the minds of everyone who doesn't have the latest hardware.

[Inky]

yep I know my pc won't play stuff very well so why should I pay retail for a painful experience. and if I dump the money in to have a pc worth playing the latest stuff on there is no more cash left to buy the games anyways. it's a catch22.

[Sybarite Paladin AxL]

Piracy's not doing jack sh!t to PC gaming. It's the annual lowering of standards in the game industry is what's doing it. Developers are running out of ideas, doing sh!t rehashes (looking at you EA), and are simply being lazy ass mofos, not willing to take their damn time to come up with a great game. That, and the freakin monthly new updates in the GFX card department, and gigantic system requirements is what's killing PC gaming... Piracy's just weeding out those people/companies who aren't willing to spend the time and effort into creating something good.

 

There are simply no good games coming out, games that are freakin worth a buy. That's the deal. If I find a game that's worth my money, I'll buy it, plain and simple. But these days that's not the case. Even if I can't buy it now, I'll buy it later, because I know it's worth it. I wouldn't buy Gears of War for instance, but I would buy old classics like the Heroes of Might and Magic series, or newer ones like the Legacy of Kain and Prince of Persia series.

 

Speaking for Gears of War, it's actually a better version than the 360 one, with more content and so forth. Sure, you'd need a monster PC to run it at full capacity, but that's another story. Oh, and PC users can't fight 360 users online, which I found crap...

[GodPigeon]

I <3 Gears of War for PC. Im buying it.

[Gryph]

I buy all of my PC games now for what it's worth. :/

[CJ Jackson]

Well PC Gaming is more expensive than console gaming on a small TV and I can agree to that, HD console gaming is only worth playing if you got a 42" TV with HDMI which totals roughly £1,300 (including the Xbox 360 ) and that amount can get a decent graphics card (~£250, OEM), a decent motherboard (~£80) with a couple of ram (~£30 2GB), a decent hard drive (~£60, 500GB), a decent DVD-RW drive (~£50), a decent CPU (~£100) with a decent cooler (~£10), keyboard & mouse (~£10), 22" monitor (~£200), a decent case (~£40) and a decent power supply (~£50) which totals at (~£880). The PC games are a lot cheaper than the console games.

 

Anyway I don't think it is piracy that killing PC Games, I think it's all down to lack of motivation and innovation!

Edited January 21, 2008 by Hexter

[GodPigeon]

Well PC Gaming is more expensive than console gaming on a small TV and I can agree to that, HD console gaming is only worth playing if you got a 42" TV with HDMI which totals roughly £1,300 (including the Xbox 360 ) and that amount can get a decent graphics card (~£250, OEM), a decent motherboard (~£80) with a couple of ram (~£30 2GB), a decent hard drive (~£60, 500GB), a decent DVD-RW drive (~£50), a decent CPU (~£100) with a decent cooler (~£10), keyboard & mouse (~£10), 22" monitor (~£200), a decent case (~£40) and a decent power supply (~£50) which totals at (~£880). The PC games are a lot cheaper than the console games.

 

Anyway I don't think it piracy is killing PC Games, I think it's all down to lack of motivation and innovation!

a "Decent" computer cant run anything the way a 360/PS3 can.

[OverlordMondo]

Well PC Gaming is more expensive than console gaming on a small TV and I can agree to that, HD console gaming is only worth playing if you got a 42" TV with HDMI which totals roughly £1,300 (including the Xbox 360 ) and that amount can get a decent graphics card (~£250, OEM), a decent motherboard (~£80) with a couple of ram (~£30 2GB), a decent hard drive (~£60, 500GB), a decent DVD-RW drive (~£50), a decent CPU (~£100) with a decent cooler (~£10), keyboard & mouse (~£10), 22" monitor (~£200), a decent case (~£40) and a decent power supply (~£50) which totals at (~£880). The PC games are a lot cheaper than the console games.

 

Anyway I don't think it piracy is killing PC Games, I think it's all down to lack of motivation and innovation!

 

Flaws include the versatility of a television, cost of the television (quality doesn't deteriorate much between televisions), and the fact that those decent parts are going to be crap within a year, while the television could easily last ten or twenty, and the console up to five.

[CJ Jackson]

a "Decent" computer cant run anything the way a 360/PS3 can.

 

Yes it can, almost every game will run perfectly on a PC with 3Ghz of CPU with a 2GB and an Nvidia reference Geforce 8800 GTX overclocked to match the Ultra speed. What I meant by "decent" was "high-end" and a quality brand name!

Edited January 21, 2008 by Hexter