Molyneux: PC gaming is 'in tatters'

If PC gaming is in "tatters", then perhaps he'd like to spruce the platform up a bit with Fable 2, no?
I hope so...

=D

I find myself agreeing with him, to be quite honest.

DRM is retarded, super-mega-stupid even, but I can see why it's done. How can we, as a PC gaming collective, ask for the publishers trust when half of the PC users world wide are pirating whatever the hell they feel like, because they're too lazy to go out and buy it.

Too 'poor' to buy a PC game? Stop paying for the best service your ISP offers, you half-wit.

I agree its in tatters, it is. However i strong disagree with his accersion that drm is necessary since it doesn't stop a single copy right infringement it is NOT fit for purpose.

I understand why they would want to use DRM for games but I don't understand why are they using it? Games come cracked days before official release. It's obvious that the stuff does not work. Then why struggle to use it and drive even more to pirating?

Yes, obviously this has all been covered ad infinitum already, but to say 'I can see why they do it.... give them more confidence on the PC' is just lazy and ill-informed, since DRM in its current incarnation manifestly does not do that at all. That's what it is *supposed* to do.

A shame that someone like Molyneux would make such a throwaway comment about what is, after all, a very important topic. I suppose that now that he's no longer involved in PC gaming he doesn't really care/know about the issues involved there anymore. Still, he could at least just say that instead of giving the pro-DRM mob more ammunition....

not been funny but what the **** is he talking about, demigod, blackshark, iracing, dawn of war 2, starcraft 2, warhammer online, stalker clear skies, diablo 3, cryostasis,empire total war, new x3 game, gtr evolution, and these are just the PC exclusives i quickly thought off.
I mean 90% of all the good console games come out on the PC anyway. I mean who would have though burnout would come to the PC.
Why is it, its my PS3 that sits all alone and my two PCs are getting all the gaming done.

PC gaming isn't dying. Anyone who says otherwise is an idiot.

I believe the PC market is still very much alive for the publishers that make the effort to support it. That's Blizzard and that's Valve.

Ignoring the PC platform because of piracy is silly, as is overloading products with DRM. I know some Sony DVD's won't copy easily, designed purposely to give CRC errors if you try. This and the old CD key system is enough to stop Bob Public from copying the disk for their mates. Anything else is just punishing genuine customers.

Must say i agree mostly that the PC industry is in bad shape right now. not really dying, but not as good as it used to be.

Personally i put a great deal of blame on EA for this. with their double-whammy of buying out half the industry then running them into the ground, followed by their massively excessive and totally ineffectual DRM schemes :(

It's left developers so completely paranoid about piracy that they've started moving to consoles, even though piracy levels are pretty much the same as they've always been in the past.
It's the gaming equivalent of health scares / terrorism levels and so on

Originally Posted by Silver51
...This and the old CD key system is enough to stop Bob Public from copying the disk for their mates. Anything else is just punishing genuine customers.

+1

IIRC Oblivion didn't have any copy protection, or if it did it wasn't very strong.
i think that game did pretty well on the PC didn't it ?

I've never owned a console, and i've been gaming since the 80's....
Piracy is a problem, but adding restrictive measures for those who purchase the game is wrong.

Originally Posted by Silver51
I believe the PC market is still very much alive for the publishers that make the effort to support it. That's Blizzard and that's Valve.

Ignoring the PC platform because of piracy is silly, as is overloading products with DRM. I know some Sony DVD's won't copy easily, designed purposely to give CRC errors if you try. This and the old CD key system is enough to stop Bob Public from copying the disk for their mates. Anything else is just punishing genuine customers.

That isn't enough though in a community of sharers. It only takes one person who isn't bob public to make a rip and then that can be shared a billion times.

Hes partially right but I still think most of this recent PC bashing is by people trying to justify to themselves that turning their back on the industry that gave birth to their careers so they can make a bit more money on console exclusives isnt a morral problem. To be honest I wish theyd put up or shut up, your either part of the problem or part of the solution, whinging about a platform whilst doing nothing to help is doing more harm than good.

As mentioned DRM is only a problem for legitimate users, punishing them for daring to pay for a game rather than downloading one with the copy protection stripped off. If it worked I would have no problem with it but since it only causes problems for legitimate users it is farcical.

Originally Posted by Evildead666
IIRC Oblivion didn't have any copy protection, or if it did it wasn't very strong.
i think that game did pretty well on the PC didn't it ?

I've never owned a console, and i've been gaming since the 80's....
Piracy is a problem, but adding restrictive measures for those who purchase the game is wrong.

You install it and it works. Just how a game should work.

Bizarrely I don't know anybody who has pirated oblivion. I own it twice for some bizarre reason. (One for PC and one for XBox 360)

Spore on the other hand... or in fact anything by EA. TBH I play Kane's Wrath every day and don't mind the bugs and the imbalances and having to have the CD in the drive because it's fun. But I couldn't say the same for games like spore where it's not that fun and it really is restrictive.

Originally Posted by liratheal
I find myself agreeing with him, to be quite honest.

DRM is retarded, super-mega-stupid even, but I can see why it's done. How can we, as a PC gaming collective, ask for the publishers trust when half of the PC users world wide are pirating whatever the hell they feel like, because they're too lazy to go out and buy it.

Too 'poor' to buy a PC game? Stop paying for the best service your ISP offers, you half-wit.

+1. Piracy might not actually be killing the PC games market, but it's killing the big dev's enthusiasm for it, which is tantamount to the same thing imo.

I say what is dying is creativity. There's no doubt that PC are much more versatile than consoles, but still, everybody insists in FPS games. They are as fun as fastfood. You play, you have fun, but after you leave the game, you don't even remember what was you playing.

Good games sell, average games get pirated and bad games, who cares?...

Originally Posted by liratheal
I find myself agreeing with him, to be quite honest.

DRM is retarded, super-mega-stupid even, but I can see why it's done. How can we, as a PC gaming collective, ask for the publishers trust when half of the PC users world wide are pirating whatever the hell they feel like, because they're too lazy to go out and buy it.

Too 'poor' to buy a PC game? Stop paying for the best service your ISP offers, you half-wit.

Because even when you put DRM on a game it will still get pirated. This has been gone over in many threads here, DRM =/= an end to piracy, all it does is anger customers who bought the game, and it also pushes people to pirate the game as well so they can bypass it.

While I agree that developers should be able protect their IP, look at companies like Stardock, no DRM there at all, the only thing is you need to register a CD key to an account to play online. Are they getting stung by pirates? Yeah, they are, but not really any more so that other companies who put this DRM in place. What EA is saying when they put DRM in place is, "Hey all you paying customers, we don't trust you, you little criminal shits"

Whereas Stardock go, "Hey, here's the game you paid for, oh you criminals, sure go ahead and steal it, it's not like we could stop you anyway."

Originally Posted by Yemerich
I say what is dying is creativity. There's no doubt that PC are much more versatile than consoles, but still, everybody insists in FPS games. They are as fun as fastfood. You play, you have fun, but after you leave the game, you don't even remember what was you playing.

Good games sell, average games get pirated and bad games, who cares?...

QFT

Originally Posted by CardJoe
That isn't enough though in a community of sharers. It only takes one person who isn't bob public to make a rip and then that can be shared a billion times.

But it's going to happen anyway, so why even bother wasting money on stuff like SecureROM, it's like building a little garden fence around a dragon. It's just gonna fly away anyway.

Originally Posted by Krikkit
+1. Piracy might not actually be killing the PC games market, but it's killing the big dev's enthusiasm for it, which is tantamount to the same thing imo.

Piracy has nothing to do with the big dev's enthusiasm. It's been there all the time and it only become problem when it's easier to download and play pirated game than to buy it and have endless problems with the game or realise that it does not worth the money.

Originally Posted by Veles

Quote:

Originally Posted by CardJoe
That isn't enough though in a community of sharers. It only takes one person who isn't bob public to make a rip and then that can be shared a billion times.

But it's going to happen anyway, so why even bother wasting money on stuff like SecureROM, it's like building a little garden fence around a dragon. It's just gonna fly away anyway.

Yes.

If it can be played or viewed, it can be pirated. Pirates have to be dealt with separately from your paying customers. All DRM does is annoy your customer base, or in the case of Spore, stop people buying the game in the first place.

Hehe, these "DRM in games" topics crack me up.

Bottom line is, DRM doesn't do what its supposed to.
It DOES have serious side-effects like annoying paying customers and people who don't want to knowingly install rootkits etc on their systems.

Its the metaphorical equivalent of using chaemotherapy to try to cure a headache.
ie, Does more harm than good!

Originally Posted by Grasshopper
Piracy has nothing to do with the big dev's enthusiasm. It's been there all the time and it only become problem when it's easier to download and play pirated game than to buy it and have endless problems with the game or realise that it does not worth the money.

It might've been there the whole time, but thanks to the proliferation of Bit-torrent, and how easy it has become to pirate a game, I'm sure it's a rising problem.

Let's put it this way, if I went over my profit and loss accounts, the PS3 and 360 will look better than the PC, simply because it's harder to pirate games for them, and most people won't bother. How many people do you know who'd have no issues with pirating a PC game?

I can think of a whole bunch of people, and that's the bottom line tbh, people are prepared to pirate PC games because they don't think it makes a difference.

When you look at the number of PC releases lately, it's pretty poor compared to how it was 5 years ago.

Krikkit, just to be an ass :P

I actually see more people (that I know anyways...) working to pirate console games, just due to the fact that they are more expensive.

Originally Posted by Veles
Because even when you put DRM on a game it will still get pirated. This has been gone over in many threads here, DRM =/= an end to piracy, all it does is anger customers who bought the game, and it also pushes people to pirate the game as well so they can bypass it.

While I agree that developers should be able protect their IP, look at companies like Stardock, no DRM there at all, the only thing is you need to register a CD key to an account to play online. Are they getting stung by pirates? Yeah, they are, but not really any more so that other companies who put this DRM in place. What EA is saying when they put DRM in place is, "Hey all you paying customers, we don't trust you, you little criminal shits"

Whereas Stardock go, "Hey, here's the game you paid for, oh you criminals, sure go ahead and steal it, it's not like we could stop you anyway."



QFT



But it's going to happen anyway, so why even bother wasting money on stuff like SecureROM, it's like building a little garden fence around a dragon. It's just gonna fly away anyway.

Don't get me wrong - DRM can suck my man bits. It is a useless piece of ****, no argument.

However, when it comes to companies like EA they have to be seen to be TRYING to protect their PC game launches - They are a much bigger entity than Stardock. The fact that DRM doesn't work, and as is so rightly pointed out, just pisses people off (Myself included - Most particularly with Tages and The Witcher) doesn't mean a damned thing when it comes to big businesses. If they're not seen to be trying, someone will fire them. They like their jobs, or at least, the pay.

I bet my socks that the people making the game know just as well as you or I that DRM is pointless, and that it's the suits who're pushing these massive cheques into SecuROM for a useless bit of software.

We won't see the back of DRM, regardless of what happens with piracy. Even though, personally, I'd rather see pirates getting the shaft and us legit users getting the easy ride.

Krikkit: Reality doesn't agree with you (and the guy in the article): http://kotaku.com/5055676/week-in-games-super-tuesday

so DRM's a necessary evil huh? "OH THEY CANT BE PLAYING SPORE WITH THIS PROTECTION SYSTEM"

wrong... I saw people playing spore before it was even released... the crack was already out here and all they had to do was not let the game connect to the spore server...

spore's a singleplayer game... so... not much of a need for an internet connection unless you're dloading some stuff on the background... :P

Originally Posted by crozon
not been funny but what the **** is he talking about, demigod, blackshark, iracing, dawn of war 2, starcraft 2, warhammer online, stalker clear skies, diablo 3, cryostasis,empire total war, new x3 game, gtr evolution, and these are just the PC exclusives i quickly thought off.

yeah seriously, pretty much what i wanted to post after reading that quote.
Nothing on PC but Crysis, WoW and The sims? please, thats total bullshit...
I think the only time i've been 'jealous' of console gamers (in that they have a game i really want to play and PC doesnt) is GTA4, but thats out for PC next month anyway
pretty much every other game thats xbox/ps3 exclusive looks rubbish :\

Sigh, this has been beaten to death, when will devs find something better to talk about, like maybe how they can make it better instead of whining all the time. Sikc of this crap. Considering the sheer number if awesome games out and coming out for PC i think this has been one of the biggest exaggerations out there.

I think molyneux is an ass anyway, no one tells so mUch bull about their own game and doesn't deliver then him.

While I haven't seen many good titles on PC lately, the good ones that are PC exclusive are really some of the best I've played. How Episode 2, TF2, The Witcher (my current game du jour) and yes, crysis. I'm waiting for a good RTS to top the likes of Company of Heroes, and from the looks of it, Dawn of War 2 will be it. Oh, and I'm looking forward to Jumpgate Evolution, and that is definitely not gonna be available on a console.

Originally Posted by Lepermessiah


I think molyneux is an ass anyway, no one tells so mUch bull about their own game and doesn't deliver then him.

I agree. I wish I hadn't bought spore. whats his next game out? just so I dont buy it...

Not releasing games for the pc = even less sales than if you release it and some copy it.

Originally Posted by naokaji
Not releasing games for the pc = even less sales than if you release it and some copy it.

Good point.
Though there is a fair bit of cost involved with 'porting' games to the PC which may not be offset by sales.
I doubt it though, unless the game is cack and nobody buys it in which case shame on them for releasing it in the first place... :D

Originally Posted by knyghtryda
I'm waiting for a good RTS to top the likes of Company of Heroes, and from the looks of it, Dawn of War 2 will be it.

Perhaps Starcraft 2?

I don't think PC gamming will miss all those "once big devs" that much.
It's only their wish for PC gamming to die. To "disarm" us, "PC pirates", and force us to move to consoles. So that we pay 150$ for mediocre games...

The PC market is worse than in the past but it's also more complex to develop a game now.

My biggest complaint about games in general is companies like EA that buy up all the talent then micro manage and pressure the devs to knock out a title that ends up flopping. DICE was one of my favorite companies then EA bought them out and rushed BF2 which later was abandoned for BF2142. It just makes me sick that what was once a great industry has now been torn apart for share holders and profit. I understand people need to make money but devs used to make game for the love of it not just profit.

IMO the whole blame piracy is crap. Easier access to games, less restrictions (DRM blah blah) and a quality game does make sales. GTA4 was pirated to hell and back yet Rockstar still made 500 million in sales. COD4 was pirated too and they had amazing sales. I support companies I like by buying games which I find worthy of getting my money. I've bought every FIFA title since FIFA 07 why?..because I knew EA FIFA dev team would improve the game not just abandon it for sales.

Great prebuyout companies: Westwood Studios, EA (with original CEO), Black Isle Studios, Maxis, 3DRealms, Blizzard, Squaresoft, Capcom, Redstorm Entertainment and tons of others I can't remember.

Originally Posted by Kúsař

Quote:

Originally Posted by knyghtryda
I'm waiting for a good RTS to top the likes of Company of Heroes, and from the looks of it, Dawn of War 2 will be it.

Perhaps Starcraft 2?

I don't think PC gamming will miss all those "once big devs" that much.
It's only their wish for PC gamming to die. To "disarm" us, "PC pirates", and force us to move to consoles. So that we pay 150$ for mediocre games...

Agreed on that one!

They also need to provide multiplayer components to their games so the online CD Key will become blacklisted soon as it is duplicated. There are only ever around 10-20 cracked Cod servers playing at anyone time (check gamemonitor.com) so this will make most people buy the game if it is quality and worthy of its price tag.

DRM is useless. Spore has the strongest DRM to date and it can be downloaded DRM free with ease. You just loose out on the online interaction with others. There is no stopping pirates. Put something in there, but not restrictions like Spore has.

Valve has the best model. Even then you can get the HL games Steam free if you so wish. But Valve prices things right and has the easiest install ever. I'll continue to support them.

I think Warren Spector said something recently about all the big devs moving to consoles (like himself) and he said the benefit is that all the indie devs do better, and I can't really complain if that happens.

The main problem with PC gaming is the spiralling costs of hardware associated with it. Yes in the long run, consoles and PCs end up balancing out on cost. But as a customer, using a PC is becoming more effort than it's worth. Most of the games are unoriginal and are focused on graphics. Lots of game releases are buggy as hell and take months to be patched to be working properly, and then you have problems with hardware compatibility.

This is one of the main reasons why they're not selling so well.

Originally Posted by Veles
The main problem with PC gaming is the spiralling costs of hardware associated with it. Yes in the long run, consoles and PCs end up balancing out on cost. But as a customer, using a PC is becoming more effort than it's worth. Most of the games are unoriginal and are focused on graphics. Lots of game releases are buggy as hell and take months to be patched to be working properly, and then you have problems with hardware compatibility.

This is one of the main reasons why they're not selling so well.

Spiraling cost? Costs for PC's have pretty much sataed the same for over a decade........................

Indie Devs do better? What Indie devs? There are none on Console, in order to develop for consoles you have to become a certified deveoper then geta dev kit, which costs hundreds of thousands, so indie devs dominant on Pc compared to Console. There is a reason new devs like Cd project (The Witcher) and most devs start on PC first. For every Dev that moves to console we get another Crytek, GSC or CD Project. Whoever said Indie game do better on console has no clue how the business works. GSC gameworld (Stalker) only recently became a certified developer for 360, said cose was a big issue when trying to become a certified dev for consoles.

I think that the online multiplayer part of a game should be made as one of the greatest aspects of the game. Using unique accounts that are tied to cd keys and all routed through a centeral system to make it so haxor tweens can't play online (hey i just realized i'm talking about battle.net)

Originally Posted by Lepermessiah
Indie Devs do better? What Indie devs? There are none on Console, in order to develop for consoles you have to become a certified deveoper then geta dev kit, which costs hundreds of thousands, so indie devs dominant on Pc compared to Console. There is a reason new devs like Cd project (The Witcher) and most devs start on PC first. For every Dev that moves to console we get another Crytek, GSC or CD Project. Whoever said Indie game do better on console has no clue how the business works. GSC gameworld (Stalker) only recently became a certified developer for 360, said cose was a big issue when trying to become a certified dev for consoles.

That's what I meant, on the PC

PC gaming being in tatters is a load of rubbish. We might not get many exclusives any more, which is a shame, but look what's coming in the next few months....Left 4 Dead, COD5, GTA4, Far Cry 2, Fallout 3, Dawn of War 2, StarCraft 2. All top quality games.

Originally Posted by Narishma
PC gaming isn't dying. Anyone who says otherwise is an idiot.

hahaha.. and we have a WINNAR! :D Thread over! ;)

Originally Posted by liratheal

Too 'poor' to buy a PC game? Stop paying for the best service your ISP offers, you half-wit.

Actually, I pirate games on a £14.99/month DSL connection...and I don't pay for the connection, either :)

It's apparently become vogue for developers to proclaim that PC gaming is dead/dying/on the ropes/whatever. Look at the releases for the last 2 years, and take into consideration how many were PC exclusives, and then look at what's in the pipeline.

It may be fashionable to say PC gaming is out, but I'd hardly call it an accurate statement.

"OMG, we've discovered we can make money on consoles, everything else is suddenly crap and sooooo yesterday!"

Also, given Mr. Molyneux's track record, I wouldn't really listen to much he has to say - the man would hype-up a glass of lukewarm water as the most revolutionary beverage ever.

Originally Posted by eternum

Also, given Mr. Molyneux's track record, I wouldn't really listen to much he has to say - the man would hype-up a glass of lukewarm water as the most revolutionary beverage ever.

Indeed. As his main selling point for Fable II is.... if you make a mark in a tree with a sword... that mark will STILL BE THERE in a few years. Durrr

Ask Valve whether the PC gaming scene is in tatters, i suspect that they will politely disagree. It will be interesing to see if EA release sales figures for Crysis and Crysis Warhead on Steam, compared to their own pitiful excuse for a download service and retail sales.

Originally Posted by Jasio
Indeed. As his main selling point for Fable II is.... if you make a mark in a tree with a sword... that mark will STILL BE THERE in a few years. Durrr

Ummm....not really

aww i ****ing loved theme hospital, loved the hair machine thingy

Originally Posted by boiled_elephant
Actually, I pirate games on a £14.99/month DSL connection...and I don't pay for the connection, either :)

A bit of an over-zealous generalisation on my part - But the majority of pirates are likely to be paying top money for their internet connection, all the pirates I know do, and I would be very shocked if they were in the minority.

take blizzard and valves games. None come with any form of copy protection. Valve is just your login for its copy protection . Blizzard is the same thing with its WOW games and all the rest are just cd keys.

They have been brought in there millions.

Pc gaming is still and will always be the online gaming captital. Fps games is the same thing.
fable 2 on pc ? id guess microsoft payed big bucks for it to be exclusive.

i bought every single game i owned up untill they started using all the drm crap.
rise of nations, command and conquer generals, age of empires. i used to buy those games because i liked that.
now with drm it pisses me of that i pay for something that doesn't work the way it whould.
i remeber those top titles costing 30 euros at there release. gevin inflation over the years it should be at around 35 but instead it's 60-75 for a top title game here in belgium.
what the hell happened? since all i can see that has changed is drm. i mean wtf guys? 25 euros premium for drm somewhere someone screwed up.
sell at a lower price with a cd key and i buy every game i like again.

I don't mind if PC gaming went back to it's core with just a few developers making (high quality) games for it.. Remember the Quake days, where everybody played Quake because there was nothing else? I don't mind if we went back to those.

All I need is my Valve, Blizzard, and Relic games, all the other crap can move to the consoles if you ask me..

The pc is a better platform but piracy runs rampant on it. Anyone that knows how to navitage to a torrent site can obtain the latest released and I am beginning to understand why developers are becoming reluctant to develope for the pc.

The console offers much more in terms of return - Modding your console isnt as straight forward as simply downloading the game readly cracked and playing but requires effort and risk: flashing your firmware or adding a modchip etc mess with the console and people are reluctant or not as knowledged about such things in comparison to the pc...which is....unfortunately for developers, much easier.

A game will still however be a hit on the pc and generate allot of income if its good enough, e.g bioshock....although i question how good it is, but regardless it's a fine game and shows if you can make a decent game it will do well....its just that it will probably do better on a popular platform such as the wii.....

Molyneux needs to get his head out of his ass....

People wouldn't pirate if the games were decently priced for what they were (i.e. ~60 for Assasin's creed? I mean... great graphics and gameplay, but it was short and had little replay value).

Then you have WoW (yes monthly fee) but, you can get the game itself for 20$ and then go play on private servers if you don't feel like paying.

PC gaming isn't dieing, the big companies have just gotten into a repeating spiral in which they screw us over.

Originally Posted by chrisb2e9

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lepermessiah


I think molyneux is an ass anyway, no one tells so mUch bull about their own game and doesn't deliver then him.

I agree. I wish I hadn't bought spore. whats his next game out? just so I dont buy it...

erm... molyneux didn't design spore... that's Will Wright's game... O_o

-----------------------

anyway, if PC gaming's dying then what about consoles? I mean come on, GTA 4 was leaked out onto the tubez 2 weeks prior it went to sale (yeah the "oh they don't pirate anything" console owners had the ISOs available and there where already 5 thousand dloaded copies of it in the 1st day it showed up online);

every single day you look at torrent sites and you see a crap load of console games being shared...

but hey, guess what, PC gamers are the bad guys here, not console gamers... I mean... geesh, a PC gamer might dload some games, but he ends up buying one or two, console gamers, as soon as they get those consoles chipped or software patched its bye bye to buying games and hello to dloading ISOs and converting/burning them (which, btw, can easily be done by so much software out there as easy as the click of a lil button and 1h later voilá... you have yourself a properly burned and usable copy for your chipped console)

-----------------------------------

and then the industry goes like... "wha? copied console games? are you insane? that's not possible"

but I'm pretty sure than soon they'll start thinking about DRM for consoles... that's when the *beep* will hit the fan and the console fanboys are all gonna start whining as all the proper gamers currently do...

Maybe the best thing for PC gaming would be if we all went out and pirated console games. The developers don't have to know we DLed them and then deleted, they'll just see the massive number of downloads and then maybe PC development will look a little more attractive ;)

I lost faith in Peter Molyneux after I waisted my time with Black & White. PC gaming isn't in tatters, but rather Peter Molyneux understanding of today's PC gamer. Now, excuse me whilst I go and play Trackmania, a game that is free for all to download an play, yet one in which I purchased cause it's simply ****ing awesome.

Peter, if you're reading this, not all of us play "The Sims" and "WoW". If anything, I still play Theme Hospital, a great game that you made before selling out.

Originally Posted by rollo
id guess microsoft payed big bucks for it to be exclusive.

Not really, they own Lionhead

But then again I suppose the did, they had to pay the money to buy them, then pay the development and publishing costs.

Originally Posted by Cthippo
Maybe the best thing for PC gaming would be if we all went out and pirated console games. The developers don't have to know we DLed them and then deleted, they'll just see the massive number of downloads and then maybe PC development will look a little more attractive ;)

There will still be a massive amount of sales though, and that's all they really count. They see a drop in sales by 20k. It's not due to the fact their game is ****, or they loaded it up with intrusive DRM, alienating their customers, or the fact only a fraction of people have the hardware to play the game. Nope, it's the pirates. ARRRR!!!

Originally Posted by Tyrmot
Yes, obviously this has all been covered ad infinitum already, but to say 'I can see why they do it.... give them more confidence on the PC' is just lazy and ill-informed, since DRM in its current incarnation manifestly does not do that at all. That's what it is *supposed* to do.

A shame that someone like Molyneux would make such a throwaway comment about what is, after all, a very important topic. I suppose that now that he's no longer involved in PC gaming he doesn't really care/know about the issues involved there anymore. Still, he could at least just say that instead of giving the pro-DRM mob more ammunition....

What would Molyneux know about the PC gaming industry anyway? He's only been in the business since the beginning and generated for revenue from it than any ten people here can claim! sheesh!

All of this is just a pathetic attempt to cover devs laziness. Developing for X360 is far easier than for PC, takes less money and time. PC games pirating? Come on, I know quite a lot Xbox owners and I have never seen ONE original game. In eastern Europe it's even hard to buy unmodded Xbox/PS3/PSP, there are more shops selling modded consoles AND they are actually cheaper.

Originally Posted by n3mo
All of this is just a pathetic attempt to cover devs laziness. Developing for X360 is far easier than for PC, takes less money and time. PC games pirating? Come on, I know quite a lot Xbox owners and I have never seen ONE original game. In eastern Europe it's even hard to buy unmodded Xbox/PS3/PSP, there are more shops selling modded consoles AND they are actually cheaper.

Yet sales of console games are still higher than PCs. This is the thing they're getting at. They can make more money developing for consoles than they can for PCs. Piracy debate is irrelevant to this point. The fact of the matter is the PC market can sometimes barely make them any money back with the mammoth cost of developing AAA titles, all this piracy talk is just trying to lay the blame on what is causing that lack of sales. It doesn't matter if piracy is the cause of this, in black and white, AAA games don't make a whole lot of money on PC, so developers are less inclined to develop them for the PC. Like it or not, this is a business, developers need money to make games.

Yes, there is console piracy, no-one is denying that. But console piracy is much less widespread than PC piracy. With a PC, almost anyone can pirate a PC game, for completely free no less. With consoles it involves voiding your warranty and paying money to do so, you need to buy the chip and you need to buy the media. You also can't play the games online (on the 360 at least) as xbox live detects you running the hardware required to run pirated games and stops it connecting to xbox live forever. Since online play is a massive draw for modern games, this is a big detriment to wanting to do it.

I don't see why it's "lazy" to develop for consoles. So it's easier. So what? Do you realise how stressful and time consuming developing a game is? If I were a developer, I'd much rather develop for the platform that has one hardware configuration across all units and makes me money than develop for a platform that has thousands of hardware configurations to take into account and makes little money. The choice is pretty obvious.

Ya, PC is in tatters alright, this is why an indie developer like Games Faction released a damn good RTS on Steam versus a console..

If I knew how to code, I would be tempted to rip a game, and insert a hard drive wiping virus with a message that says something along the lines of tsk tsk, you shouldn't have pirated the game should you. I would make it delete all their files it could when they were playing the game so they would be unaware of it happening. The only problem with doing that is the developer could end up with the blame.

PC gaming is not in tatters, it is going strong and always will be. I can't think of more than a couple of upcoming titles for the consoles that I want (FFXIII) and few that have already been released (DMC and MGS) and yet there are several PC games that are upcoming (Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, Fallout 3 , X3: Terran Conflict, Left for Dead) and many that I just don't have the money to get yet (Crysis, Stalker, Civ IV, Spore (even with the DRM), RA3) and they just keep coming.

Greetings!

Veles in post #63: Spot on! ;)

Then, companies add absurd DRM schemes and alienate even more the paying PC gamers.