Gaming PC game developer has radical message: ignore the pirates

[The Helper]

One of the popular reasons given for sometimes-sluggish game sales on the PC is piracy. If people can get the game for free, why would they pay for it? Go to any popular torrent site and it will likely have many more games than your local gaming store. The situation led the community manager for Infinity Ward to recently complain about the number of people playing Call of Duty 4 online versus the number of copies the game has sold for the PC. Brad Wardell, CEO of Stardock, has a much different point of view: the pirates don't matter.

"So here is the deal: When you develop for a market, you don't go by the user base. You go by the potential customer base. That's what most software companies do. They base what they want to create on the size of the market they're developing for," Wardell writes on his blog. "But not PC game developers."

His approach is not to think only about the "cool" games, but to make sure what the company does create can be profitable. What good is spending years on a top-tier game that gets all the buzz, is on all the magazine covers, but that very few people have the hardware to run? Furthermore, the people who have spent that much on their PCs know where to find the game for free if they like. It's a small user base, with a smaller customer base.

PC game developer has radical message: ignore the pirates

When trying to make a living creating PC games, ignoring the pirates might be …

arstechnica.com

 

[Rad]

Finally they starting to realize you can not stop piracy? It's going on with software and music too.

Gaming is the only industry where you can actually see how many people are doing it. For music and movies, the companies can just see the lower sales.

But one things surprising when they are comparing the number of players online compared to paying customers, usually pirating a game is one thing - but playing it online is totally different.

You need to bypass a whole new wave of security. CD-Keys, patches that disable cracks, and lets not forget all the copy protection.

 

[Jackal]

[YOUTUBE]GVXCr6upWUo[/YOUTUBE]

 

[Varine]

Finally they starting to realize you can not stop piracy? It's going on with software and music too.

Gaming is the only industry where you can actually see how many people are doing it. For music and movies, the companies can just see the lower sales.

But one things surprising when they are comparing the number of players online compared to paying customers, usually pirating a game is one thing - but playing it online is totally different.

You need to bypass a whole new wave of security. CD-Keys, patches that disable cracks, and lets not forget all the copy protection.

A REAL pirate would know about KeyGens and the ever-popular opening the box in the bathroom and stealing the keys from there.

 

[DuckieKing]

I get bootleg copies. If I like the game, I buy it.

I call it an "enhanced trial version".

edit: pic barely related, but funny
"Pirate of the Oregon Trail"

 

[MeRcChRiS]

fyi, you cant play online with an illegal version of almost every game. Unless its like 8923742908347 years old or something and there are no such thing as patches and cd keys.