*Slow clap*

 

Agreed.

You're full of it.  Your 'argument' can simply be summed up as:

Epic made one bad game I don't like, so I couldn't care less if they left.  Also, companies are making mad cash on the pc (Ignore my lack of statistics).

WHAT THE HELL KIND OF ARGUMENT IS THIS?  EVERY game company has made at least one bad game, if you hate a company due to one game you need to stop playing games fanboy!

Piracy IS an issue.  You have obviously never run a business with hundreds of thousands of people making salaries, that's pretty obvious.  The company that made World of Goo had 90% of the people using the game PIRATING it.  How is that not an issue?

It's pretty obvious that fanboyslike you will blame the company.  It could NEVER be the theif that stole from a company and never supported it could it?  Instead you bash companies for... one bad game.

Firstly, lets get this back on track since I feel we're getting off the issue at hand.  The President of Epic Games says that the big money in the games industry is on the consoles, and infers that the impact of piracy is responsible for this.
Secondly, I'm not defending piracy.  I find what they do disgusting.  I don't pirate games.  I don't condone piracy, and I actively go out of my way to call people out on it.

With that in mind, get comfortable; this is going to take a while.

Piracy has been 'rampant' on the PC ever since the 'COPY' command was instilled in MSDOS some many, many years ago.  With no copy protection and the incredibly unsafe 3 1/2 inch floppy disks being sold unmonitored thus enabling pirates, the PC platform must have died off!  Wait, no, it didn't - it exploded into a giant ball of money.  The Games industry is now the largest most profitable entertainment industry in the world today.

Do consoles releases make more money than the PC releases?  Sure do.  It also helps that consoles target a different breed of people altogether and are considerably more 'Main Stream' thanks to the efforts of Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo and their closed platforms.  PC Gamers sit on their computers, usually alone, and play their games for hours upon hours.  Console gamers sit on their couches often with others and play, sometimes for meer minutes at a time.  The two have some crossover, but make no mistake - PC Games != Console Gamers.

Saying that there is more money in the console market compared to the PC Market is the industrial equivelant like saying that there is more money in Major League Baseball than in the Minor Leagues.  Of couse there is! It's sheer deduction.
How many people play games on their PCs? 
How many of those PCs are capable of running the port of the biggest console releases?
How many of those people who own such PCs are interested in such games?
How many can afford the high price tag on the game?
The numbers get smaller with each additional condition.  However, on a console the only conditions are: is the person interested?  is the person able to afford the game?  Since people who buy consoles are usually focused on particular types of games (i.e. not PC ones) is it any surprise in a market saturated in console ports and 'accessible' titles aiming to appeal to more the lucrative console mainstream that they don't sell so well on the PC which, by definition of its population is different?  Of course its not.  On July 27th, 2010 Starcraft II releases.  I'll wager it sells a few copies.  But, my god, how can a PC titles possibly expect to sell enough copies to keep its Developer out of bankruptcy without a console version of it?  Gee, I don't know, how about make a good game and then support it?

Pirates pirate games.  They pirate any game, it doesn't matter to them - they're all free!  If they have a passing interest in the game, they'll download it and check it out and so the numbers of pirated titles are massive.  However, as you should be well aware, a pirated copy != a lost sale.  The people who were going to buy the game still bought it.  The people who weren't, didn't.

PC's are simply no longer the focus of the industry.  Nesrie, a fellow forum goes, helped me reach that conclusion in a thread I made about Games being easier/more accessible than they used to be.  Consoles have proven that games can be mainstream and make literally BILLIONS; something PCs could never quite crack even with their best titles.  This is why sales records are broken time and again.  World of Warcraft set some new records in its time.  Grand Theft Auto IV smashed them.  Those figures were then smashed by Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.  Both the latter were console focused titles while the former is just about the most successful PC titles that doesn't begin with 'The Sims'.  Expecting the open PC platform to perform the same as the heavily controlled and marketed consoles and using the lack of such performance as evidence of the platform having been killed by Pirates is simply unintelligent thinking.
Consoles were more heavily advertised and more heavily pushed than PC Gaming ever was and so they've grown the industry into something of a monster.  Now, a multi-platform non-PC title can sell literally millions of copies in a single day.  PC Gaming on the other hand, through sheer virture of its demographics and population breakdown, has a much harder time selling the same number of games.  Add into the mix that most PC Games today are console retreads or ports or simply dumbed down too far in a bid to try and achieve console-levels of mass appeal and you get PC titles that don't appeal to the bulk of the PC market.  Thus, they don't sell.  Piracy plays into that, absolutely.  But it is by no means the main reason.
Developers such as Epic have achieved monsterous levels of success on the consoles.  Their best selling PC titles couldn't hope to compete with the dollars 'Gears of War' has pulled in.  Then when 'Gears of War' released on the PC, it didn't sell.  Why?  Because it was made for consoles.  Was it pirated?  Sure was, and so was the Xbox 360 version.  Why are we supposed to be surprised that a console-focused title sold better on a console than on the PC?

I think you left your Caps Lock Key on there.
Anyway, if you're going to summise my argument then please understand it correctly first.  You're over-simplification of my points only points out your simplifed thought process.
The example I provided of Unreal Tournament 3 wasn't an example of a 'bad game' as such.  It's a shit PC title and a shit title compared to Unreal Tournament 2004, however if it were a companies debut title it wouldn't be so bad.  Epic took Unreal Tournament and made it console focused.  As my wall of text above explains, and which you'll most likely not read, console focused titles don't sell on the PC.  Period.  Epic, who made the console-focused Gears of War, experienced low sales of Gears of War's PC release and Unreal Tournament 3's PC release and then advised it was due to piracy killing the platform.  They fail to address the high volume and continued success of Unreal Tournament 2004.  The game still sells, available on Steam for example, and consistantly outsells Unreal Tournament 3.  How can it sell if piracy is such a rampant industry wide disease?  Simple: because its a PC title for PC gamers and it was a bloody good game to boot!


Actually, that's not true.  Valve and Blizzard have never made a 'bad' game, but now we're simply nit-picking.  Please also explain how I'm a fanboy and what I'm a fanboy of?  I own Unreal Tournament 2004 and Unreal Tournament 3 and I own Gears of War and Gears of War 2 on the Xbox 360.  How, exactly, does speaking out against a false comment by the developer of those titles make me a 'fanboy', TheDarkNight2008?



Ignorning the fact that the largest game development teams in the industry max out at around 300 involved persons (some of those people are simply apart of the companies Legal Division, or PR Division, but we'll include them to make the point) and that you don't own Activision - and if you do I'm going to kick you in your fucking face Bobby Kotick - I agree in part.  Piracy is AN issue.  Not THE issue.  The World of Goo, developed by an independant developer, has experience a 1/10 sale ratio?  Please, provide me with the concrete details containing active torrent information showing complete download figures and then sales figures provided by the relevant sources for the same period - from launch would the ideal set.  I'd very much like to see them.


So, can you explain what I'm a fanboy of?  Please?  It's seriously confusing me.
Anyhow, as most people in the industry know, a pirated download != a lost sale.  If it did, a pirates 8gb iPod would be worth around US$700,000,000,000.00 in sales, according to the RIAA, and thus the most valuable item that has ever existed in the history of the known universe.  Yes, some people illegally download the games that they want to play.  And yes, some of those people would've purchased the game if they were unable to pirate it.  A small percentage at best.  In order to counter this you use the information provided by Cracked.com's article.  Ok, let's take a look at that.
We all know the internet is full of asshats.  Asshats exist on the internet because on the internet you're disconnected from your real life persona; you're annoymous.  As an asshat, a person is capable of anything.  A series of game developers bundle their games then target the digitial distribution section of gamers - those who are comfortable purchasing games online via the internet - and then tell those people they'll accept whatever they want to pay and the proceeds will go to charity.  Appealing to an Asshats sense of morality is like attempting to tune into an Earth Radio station while you're on Pluto; it's never going to work.  Of the small portion of people who viewed the bundle, a smaller portion liked what they saw and then the smaller portion who were comfortable with buying the games online who at the same time aren't asshats (and judging from todays online world this portion is roughly 1%) bought the game.  And the fact that they paid so little for it surprises anyone?  Under real world circumstances, where it was sold in a store and the charity in question had people there to look into your cold dead gamer eyes and judge you for the amount you paid for the bundle, the results might be different.  However, this wasn't under real world circumstances, was it?  It was online, in an envrionment where there are no consequences.  If you honestly expected a different result, you don't understand the way people's minds work.
I'll leave you with this, one of my all-time favourites. Enjoy.

Theres something people seem to be forgetting in the equation of PC game sales. The user base of these platforms are NOT set for life. During the last decade many PC users have switched to a dual PC/console setup or gone straight to full console (with thier old PC for ancillary tasks like trolling internet forums). Conversly the number of console owners who "looked for more" that went to PC are few - usually kids who grew up with an xbox and wanted the "next level".

*Note this is all my opinion based on market trends and anecdotes and many forum posts I've read.

Therefore there are not that many pc hardcore left who are willing to buy GoW for thier PC (I did and would buy the rest if PC ported - I can appricate console games, but only on my improved game experince PC) but clearly the millions on PC don't want it. EVEN thier OWN piracy 'numbers' support this, its not like they are saying they lost seven million sales due to piracy (I hope - lol).

 

The end result is the PC returns to its roots before the action generation came along in the late 90s. Stratergy and RPG, depth and gameplay. Small groups of people dedicated on small games. As long as we have some PC only developers who don't think interfaces from 1985 are the height of usability then we are golden.

Epic can go tuck themselves in.

 

If piracy is so common on the consoles, explain why they still sell so many more games?

You can’t have your PC ‘bricked’ when playing pirate software, unlike the 360. And lets not forget that many a console user is about as technically capable as a baboon. That’s not to say piracy isn’t a problem for the consoles as well, but it’s a much smaller problem than it is on the PC. Otherwise, why are all these companies moving to cross platform, if not console exclusivity?

This post sums up the whole thread. Clearly, there IS a market for PC gamers. There ARE people willing to drop money on PC games.

However, it cannot be stated more clearly that PC is NOT the console for shovelware. Bringing your MW2s and your UT3s and your SupCom2s and you will be smacked commercially. This is why big commercial developers cannot succeed, and this is why indie developers are now thriving more than ever. You are either all in for PCs, or all out. You can't bring a half-console half-PC game like SupCom2 and UT3 to the PC and expect it to sell for both crowds.

You judge the size of the platform by the number of Computing Units sold.  You can't use that to judge the audience. 
I'll use my Baseball reference again, but I'll make it clearer.  How many people do you think like Baseball?  A few?  Ok, now, Major League Baseball is very different to games played in your local Baseball park, but both sets of people still love Baseball.  Do you think there are people out there who love those local games more than Major League? Sure are, a small number.  Everyone can go and see local games, but not all Baseball fans do - some like the big lights of the Major League.
The audience on PCs is similar to this; most people can game on their PCs exclusively however not everyone does, some people like sitting on their couch and playing games on their TV.  So, you can't use the number of PCs as an indication of the size of audience for PC games.  Consoles, however, are designed to play games.  Everyone who owns a Console plays games.  The install base is an indication in this situation of the size of the audience.


I'll address this point in particular since this also addresses some of your other points and will save us both some time.

What you're asking basically asking is why are companies like Bioware, previously focused on PC only games, making games for consoles and then why are they focusing on consoles more so?  You attempt to answer the question with piracy: piracy lowers PC sales so vastly that Developers are forced to develop for consoles to simply stay in business.
Firstly, because the console install base is large enough to support niche markets and thus large enough to see a returns on niche titles that don't appeal to the typical console gamer games sell.  Bioware, and any other company in the industry, are in the business of making games.  Since the Playstation and PS2 shot gaming into the social mainstream, console gaming has been making a lot of money.  And I mean a lot.  Tapping into that mass market is simply a business decision to make more money, which is what most business are out to do.  Its simple numbers.
The reason they stay and eventually change focus to consoles is merely because they're following the money.  Mass Effect on the PC is considered fairly average compared to the titles of yesterday, like Baldur's Gate II, while on Xbox 360 it's one of the best RPGs available.  Baldur's Gate II on the console would be considered too 'wordy' and 'slow'.  I, personally, appreciate both.  The Console market, being more mainstream, features around a 1/2 ratio of shovelware; half the games released during a consoles lifetime aren't really worth playing.  Look at the 360s release of Supreme Commander.  Also, look at the Wii, for another example.  Thus, titles that are merely good on the PC are exceptional by Console standards and thus make more money in the Console market.  Low Standards equates to more sales.
Why are Developers, like GPG, releasing Console ports of their PC centric titles that have a history of not selling so good on Consoles?  Because more money is simply better than less money.  The ease of porting a title to the Xbox 360, for example, from a PC is fairly simple thanks to the unified architexture of the systems Microsoft designed.  This means its fairly inexpensive to make a PC titles and then port it to the Xbox and vice versa.  Even if you don't sell many titles on the 360, because the market is so damn massive you'll more than likely make back your porting costs and then some.  Combined with the sales from the PC title, and the risk associated with producing a game decreases significantly.  It's smart business.  What Developers are seeing is - obviously - more sales on the Xbox and thus shift focus to where the money is.  See Supreme Commander 2, which changed quite a bit from its previous itteration to broaden its appeal.  Fans of the first one, like me, who would've laid down their money on launch for the title where put off, while Console gamers put off by the firsts one inaccessibility and terrible porting where treated to a superior game and thus they purchased it.  Now, Supreme Commander 2 also sold fairly well on the PC - clearly there is still a market there for it.  GPG's decision to focus on the Console market paid off.  Why wouldn't they continue to make console games for the PC if it reaps greater financial benefits?


This is going to sound backwards, but the reason why this is apparent because PC Developers who have made games for the consoles have tasted greater success with the latter; its not so much about the PC market being weaker, or filled with pirates, its that the console gamers outnumber the PC ones and outnumber their purchases thus creating demand.
Why do they outnumber their purchases?  Hard to really place a single definition on it.  Keep in mind its taken Consoles from the release of the NES to release of the Xbox to really step up to PC Gaming.  PC Gaming has no single marketing push, PC Gaming doesn't have the unified backing of a large multi-billion dollar company.  Advertisements for Xbox 360 games are advertising the Console as much as they are advertising the platform while a PC Game advertisement is pretty much just advertising the game.  When you buy a game console, you do it because you want to buy games.  When you a buy a PC, you do it because you want to do PC Stuff and possibily also play games.  A person who buys a console often doesn't just buy one game - what would be the point in shelling out the money for the console for one title - thus the purchasing habits are very different for both markets.


Agreed on that point, however if they were a hardcore JRPG fan the PC market leaves a lot to be desired with the best in the JRPG business - Square Enix - making titles for consoles for as long as I can remember.  This is my point.  The console has FPS, RTS, RPG, Racing, Shooters, Fighting, Casual, Download, Arcade, etc.  The average console gamer is going to cross genres and is going to own many different titles.
I own an Xbox and a PC and so does my sister.  On the PC, I play Torchlight and Supreme Commander Forged Alliance and I also play RPGs.  On the consoles I play FPS, Racing, Fighting, etc.  My sister on the PC plays The Sims.  On the consoles she plays RPGs like Fable II and Oblivion and Eternal Sonata and Blue Dragon, etc.
Now, the market for those titles exists on the PC, its just much, much smaller.  Racing fans - at least, the majority - probably watch racing events on their TV.  Sitting on their computers probably doesn't compare to sitting in front of their TV with their friends playing whatever racing game.  The industry has shifted, evolved.  It shifted because Consoles appeal to more people in more ways every day.  The proof is simply in the numbers and the attitudes.  I'm not saying one niche is exclusive to one platform and that niches don't overlap, I'm saying Consoles have captured the market from the PC.  The PC didn't lose it because of piracy it lost it because the consoles simply delivered what the majority wanted and continue to want.
 

In terms of per-unit sales The Simss series, thats number, number two and number three and all of their expansion packs and console releases combined, have sold more total units than the World of Warcraft franchise.
And actually thats exactly what developers like Epic are doing.  They're making console games like Unreal Tournament 3, releasing them for console markets like that of the PS3 and Xbox and then holding the PC platform to the same standards in terms of sales.  If games like The Sims and World of Warcraft continue to sell literally tens of millions of copies on the PC, then it stands as a clear indication that there is a market on the PC.  The problem is it requires a diffrent type of game than the larger, more lucrative console market and developing two different games costs twice as much as developing one game and releasing it on two different markets. 


A $400.00 PC capable of running Crysis 2 to the same degree as the Xbox 360?  By all means please point out this incredible machine.  A Widescreen monitor alone will set you back around $150.00.  And that plays into the appeal of the consoles; console gamers just want it to work.  They don't want to tinker, they don't want to mess around with drivers; PC Gamers don't mind any of that, in fact some of us prefer it that way.
Crysis was so successful for Crytek that it allowed them to develop an entirely new cross-platform engine to provide them with even more money.  How is this evidence of priacy killing Crytek and forcing it to the consoles?  The allure of the success of Grand Theft Auto IV, Halo 3, Uncharted II and Call of Duty had more to do with a developers change in direction than piracy.  I promise you the advertisements of Crysis pushed its technical achievements quite hard; most people probably pirated it to see if it ran and how good it looked, even people who weren't going to buy it.  Again, part of the issue.  Piracy pushes some impressive numbers, however this doesn't equate into those same numbers as lost sales.  Weird things happens when you make something free, and this has to be taken into consideration.  People who wouldn't have bought a title download it since it costs nothing.  Thus, the number of pirated copies increases.  This cannot be used as an indication of lost sales.
How many TV shows or movies have people watched simply because they were on TV.  It doesn't cost anything apart from time to take a look.  Similar thing here.  As I've said, piracy is a problem, but it's not the problem.


Which is why they don't sell.


Sudden shift? Clearly you don't know your history.  Why did Microsoft make the Xbox?  Why did Sony make the Playstation?  Piracy?  They did it because they saw the potential that developers are catching wind of; to turn gaming into the largest possible industry on the earth.  This isn't some massive, overnight trend that pirates created - it happened because companies like Microsoft and Sony paid a lot of money to help it happen.
Once they had their consoles in peoples lounge rooms, developers learned that in order to broaden the appeal and make more money the games had to be simpler, easier to pick up and play.  Long winded tutorials and hour long exposition pieces from PC titles didn't fly, so the game quite literally changed.
Now, with everyone gaming on their couches, the backlash is reaching breaking point.  PC Gamers want PC titles, and we're not getting them.  We're getting games dumbed down to broaden the appeal to try and get more profits because developers have seen that its possible.  Getting a 50% return your game's development was probably considered at one point a pretty good return.  Now that profit margain expectation has jumped thanks to the success consoles were able to achieve, and developers are expecting PC titles to keep up.  Its a trend that has been happening for a long time.  I've addressed it many times.  It has little to nothing to do with piracy.


They're not deserting, they're changing focus.  They're following the money and releasing PC ports or multi-platform games.  Development costs have sky-rocketed thanks to the expectations for visual presentation, voice acting and general polish.  Making normal maps wasn't an issue ten years ago.  To keep up, they need to make more money from their games, thus they must either target the biggest market - consoles - or lower their games technical prowess and be prepared to accept less profits.  Again, piracy doesn't enter into the picture.  Once you add it in, it places additional support for console focused development, but it in no means provdies the only or the biggest reason.


Targeting the largest market is simply good business for companies looking to make money.  Why do you think chasing the money means they're running away from piracy when these companies still make PC games?


Bingo.  Why?  To increase profit margins.  Piracy doesn't enter into the picture.

Sorry, you're simply not understanding the market forces at play. 
Piracy didn't create consoles.  Piracy didn't create the Xbox or the Playstation. 
(Actually, I read an interesting piece about how chipped PSOnes became so common they actually created a larger intended audience for the Playstation 2 (can't find it on Google, sorry).) 
Anyway, there's more money on Consoles because, as I've said, companies like Microsft, Sony and Nintendo have spent billions making it that way.  They moved gaming out of the basement on PCs and into the lounge room on Xboxs and Playsation and are making a god damn fortune because of it.  Why does this market change suddenly mean piracy killed the PC market?  The PC Gaming Market declinded because of the efforts of Consoles infringing on their market and delivering what the majority of customers wanted, not because Piracy pushed Developers to make games for the Consoles to stay in business.


Hahaha, what?
"Oh my business? Don't worry, she's going great.  We're just dead, is all".
How can you claim that the PC Gaming Industry is dead because of piracy, but that PC Gaming Industry is also doing just fine?


DRM doesn't prevent piracy, it prevents game re-sales.  If DRM prevented piracy there wouldn't be a problem, now would there?  Thats its intended purpose; to prevent reselling of games to maximise profits on PC titles to bolster the total sales of a PC title.  They're doing the same thing to Console titles, as well.  Why, is piracy killing console gaming too?


You've missed my point entirely: remove piracy from your thinking, because its an issue, not the issue.

Consoles were made because they appeal to a different market than PCs.  Nintendo realised this way, way back with the NES.
Consoles now make more money per title because console gaming appeals to more people than PC gaming.  Thus, more sales on the Consoles compared to the PC in total.  Why?  PC Gaming appeal to people who like computers and games.  Consoles appeal to anyone who simply like games.  More people like games than the number of people who likes games who also like to game on their PCs.
Console ports make developers money by increasing the number of potential customers to inclusde all platforms.
Low PC sales result because PC Gamers don't like console games, which have replaced PC Games, which is kind of why the console market was created in the first place.
So, now we're supposed to believe that it actually piracy that has caused PC Gaming's numbers to drop?

Damn, if you use the Back command on your browser the forum usually saves your post, at least for me.

Anyway, I have the visible shift from a PC Gaming focused Games Industry to a Console Gaming focused Games Industry as evidence to my claims and theory which is then supported by the meer existance of multi-platform Developers and the continued existance of profitable PC Releases.

You have no evidence, no facts, no theories and nothing substantial - not even logic - to support your claims that the existance of multi-platform developers is evidence of widespread, industry destroying piracy.  The existance of a multi-platform developer is evidence of a multi-platform industry - it is not evidence of one platform being filled with pirates and thus your entire argument falls apart.  The shift from PC to Console centric design is explained in my post and solidifies my argument.

You've failed to present a rebuttle to any point I've made.

Since you want to act like you have logic Zehdon, let me ask you a logical question:

How is it that some internet kid in a forum, like yourself, knows more then developers and executives who look at their bottom line, know who is online, and if they are pirating, and then has to adjust thing accordingly?  So all of these developers and executives who see all of this are just full of crap, and some kid is right because 'the devs make mad money'?

I for one can easily admit that I don't know all the facts, and I could possibly be wrong.  Maybe it could be some huge scandel.  But I for one trust the words of good developers and bean counters who manage their own money and know what is going on over some internet kid who thinks he is right.

Are you honestly serious with that first reply?  A monitor is specific to a pc, so then how do you watch a console game?

Who gives a crap if pcs come with monitors?  You are once again making ASSumptions, going as far as COMPLETELY MISSING THE POINT THAT HARDWARE DOES NOT COUNT AS A DISPLAY!

Either way, you have to have a display to view a pc or a console, so you can't count a monitor with a pc unless you also count a display with a 360.  You are just full of it.

Btw, most tvs today can also be used a pc, so try being less ful of shit the next time you respond.

Present me Crysis running on the Xbox. Crysis 2 will run on Consoles with an engine that hss been improved. Console games usually run at 720p without the fancy stuff like AA and so on.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/ati-radeon-hd-4670-review/9

With an ATI 4670 Crysis runs at medium setting at 1280*1024 (probably more than Xbox settings with 720p) at 44 fps. Your're talking about a 50$ graphics card here.

But if you're talking about maximum settings than present me a console that would even run Crysis with those settings (or even 1600*1200 with some AA). When comparing consoles to PC you would have to take into account the graphics settings consoles display. Take GTA IV for example. IIRC minimum to medium settings for PC equal the settings for the Xbox.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/952150-grand-theft-auto-iv/54408592

Consoles have been around for a few years and nowadays it is basically possible to get a PC for 300$ that is as powerful as a nextgen console. And then almost everybody has a PC even it is just for surfing the interwebs. So you just need a mainstream graphics card (50 to 100$) and you could start playing AAA games...

I think the size of the piracy issue in reality may differ from the size of the issue when talked about in company board rooms, if you get my meaning.

Well yeah. Every marketing suit is going to say that piracy was a huge hit to sales when the game doesn't sell well. IMO part of the reason they say this is to 1) kiss ass to inveigle themselves into better positions that pay more and 2) keep their jobs.

 

"I don't grin like a moron, I grin like a sociopath." | Clinicalizing everything makes you sound like a genius or an ass.