Some interesting arguments but to suggest that the PC pirating is the reason why the industry is moving to console based games is simply not true..
Read this article and this report and you'll see why the PC maybe a bad boy but its not the baddest...And thats not to excuse piracy in anyway at all.
In page 6 of this very good tweakguides article on piracy we have these paragraphs...
So on the one hand we have an industry claiming that piracy is the reason the PC is being negelected, even though the single most pirated platform is the Playstation and yet we have them saying "we can charge more for the same product on a console and its cheaper to make" and yet we have been repeatedly told that piracy is the only issue for not supporting the PC user?
I suspect its a bit of both but more about the profit margin if truth be known.
In support of the PC we have this argument...[URL]http://ctrlclick.com/2010/05/piracy-...ing-pc-gaming/[/URL] and I agree with the conclusion which states "pirates go to whatever has the largest market share" So if the games industry pushes out the PC platform all they will do is push the pirates to another platform which will most likely be another console platform.
Ultimately there is no denying these figures [URL]http://www.npd.com/press/releases/press_100920.html[/URL] which clearly shows a steady decline in purchased PC gaming figures.
But Many argure that this decline itself is a symptom of the lack of support that has been given to the PC platform.
Indeed the figures themselves are being driven by the gaming industry due to an effort to force gamers away from PC games in general...Again the console model is far more profitable than the PC.
But there is light at the end of the tunnel if this article is to be believed..[URL]http://www.totalpcgaming.com/latest-...ure-of-gaming/[/URL]
In closing I would say that the gaming industry as a whole needs to do far more itself to remedy piracy other than blame it all on a single platform because all they are doing is boxing themselves into a corner rather than tackle the issue head on.
The PC is the mother of all gaming and considering it's userbase, versatility and power it would be nothing short of foolhardy for the gaming industry to turn its back on her.
Read this article and this report and you'll see why the PC maybe a bad boy but its not the baddest...And thats not to excuse piracy in anyway at all.
In page 6 of this very good tweakguides article on piracy we have these paragraphs...
However PC game piracy is by no means the only reason why developers are moving to consoles. There are other benefits for developers, which several of them have spoken about. For example John Carmack of id explains that the PC has various drawbacks compared to consoles:
While a high-end gaming PC is many times more powerful than current generation consoles and you could in theory do significantly greater things on it, the downsides of the platform are having to support multiple generations of different hardware [and] driver interface layers.
PCs by their vary nature are a widely diverse collection of hardware and software, whereas consoles are a fixed hardware platform. This makes development, testing and tech support much easier for consoles. But before anyone suddenly jumps to their feet and exclaims "Aha! So that's the reason why they're all moving to consoles!", consider the fact that lower development costs have nothing to do with differential PC to console sales ratios. Console games may be cheaper to develop than PC games, but they're priced higher then PC games and they sell in far higher numbers - something which logically shouldn't be occurring given the similar install bases.
Furthermore the benefits of console development have been known for at least ten years now, why would there be a sudden mass exodus of major PC game developers to consoles within the past year or two?
Why for example would Crytek develop a PC exclusive like Crysis in 2007, and then on the basis of faltering sales, announce a sudden switch to console development in 2008, then expend a great deal of time and money backporting their existing CryEngine 2 to console?
If they're lying and just using poor sales as an excuse to cover up their true motives, wouldn't it make sense for them to have already developed CryEngine 2 with consoles in mind to begin with, or released Crysis as a multiplatform game, if their real motives were always to move to console development?
So no, piracy isn't solely to blame for developers moving to consoles, there are other benefits for developers in doing so. But those benefits have been around for many years, and don't explain the large difference in sales ratios. Piracy is the only logical variable which seems to be playing the most significant part in the equation, by creating a large gap between the number of PC games sold as opposed to console games sold.
As John Carmack says quite openly: "developing games costs tens of millions of dollars now and the focus just has to be on the consoles where you've got the chance to move more millions of units there."
It seems that those 'millions of additional units' on the console are in large part due to the fact that although PC gamers may be playing as many games as their console counterparts, they're not necessarily paying for as many games.
So on the one hand we have an industry claiming that piracy is the reason the PC is being negelected, even though the single most pirated platform is the Playstation and yet we have them saying "we can charge more for the same product on a console and its cheaper to make" and yet we have been repeatedly told that piracy is the only issue for not supporting the PC user?
I suspect its a bit of both but more about the profit margin if truth be known.
In support of the PC we have this argument...[URL]http://ctrlclick.com/2010/05/piracy-...ing-pc-gaming/[/URL] and I agree with the conclusion which states "pirates go to whatever has the largest market share" So if the games industry pushes out the PC platform all they will do is push the pirates to another platform which will most likely be another console platform.
Ultimately there is no denying these figures [URL]http://www.npd.com/press/releases/press_100920.html[/URL] which clearly shows a steady decline in purchased PC gaming figures.
But Many argure that this decline itself is a symptom of the lack of support that has been given to the PC platform.
Indeed the figures themselves are being driven by the gaming industry due to an effort to force gamers away from PC games in general...Again the console model is far more profitable than the PC.
But there is light at the end of the tunnel if this article is to be believed..[URL]http://www.totalpcgaming.com/latest-...ure-of-gaming/[/URL]
In closing I would say that the gaming industry as a whole needs to do far more itself to remedy piracy other than blame it all on a single platform because all they are doing is boxing themselves into a corner rather than tackle the issue head on.
The PC is the mother of all gaming and considering it's userbase, versatility and power it would be nothing short of foolhardy for the gaming industry to turn its back on her.
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