I really hate the usual forms of copy protection and DRM, and I have never found a situation where (strictly local implementations, meaning not involving the internet) either one has ever prevented me from doing anything I wanted to do.

That said, I think Brad Wardell is totally wrong here (about piracy and the health of the industry - he makes good points about other things). Piracy is cannibalizing the PC game industry. Pirating games is just too easy and too safe.

Correlating copy protection and piracy with sales is rather silly, since copy protection does not really affect piracy. And correlating "hardcore gamers" with high-end graphics cards is as dumb as correlating "people who like to drive fast" with "people who own Lamborghinis". They are not even necessarily overlapping sets - in each case, the second set is defined more by wealth or personal insecurity ("conspicuous consumption") than by actual need or usage of the product.

I'm a working game developer and I totally agree with Brad (CEO of Stardock) about how to deal with piracy. I sort of cheat by dealing with MMO's, but the basic principle is the same: Who gives a shit how many users you have? Our job as game developers is to make money (and also feel fulfilled artistically, they're not incompatible), so we need to focus on paying customers. Pirates are just a force of nature, and we need to manage them correctly (that thing that Titan Quest did where it crashed for pirates is just plain idiotic) instead of fighting a self-destructive war against them.

Further ramblings are available for the bored at my blog: http://doublebuffered.com/2008/03/20/piracy-customers-and-making-mo...

I've completely switched over to Firefox and OpenOffice and I own two copies of WinXP so I have absolutely no incentive to migrate to Vista. That alone caps my game purchases to DX9. Consoles now support HD resolutions and clearly the bulk of game development has switched over to them from PCs so the handwriting is on the wall. PC games will very shortly be composed of Console ports and tech demos. The dagger to the PC games heart will be when the PS3 starts fully supporting keyboard and mouse game play.

I like stardock

While various DRM measures had stopped me from buying any games, prior to that I had bought very few because they lacked immersion.

Because of the lack of immersion I had stopped upgrading my hardware, when I stopped upgrading my hardware I stopped being able to even look at some of the new games because I lacked the grunt needed, a real catch 22.

I see multiplayer, game reviews, immersion lack of continued support to be the real killers for me.

Multiplayer, we had initially developers putting it in regardless of how appropriate it was, such as in the Silent Hunter series i.e. u-boats. Now a game gets panned by reviewers if it does not have multiplayer regardless if the game needs it or not.

Game reviewers have a lot to answer for. I cannot say it better than this guy...
http://www.destructoid.com/why-video-game-reviews-suck-part-one-303...
http://www.destructoid.com/why-video-game-reviews-suck-part-two-304...

Red Baron II and Forgotten Battles I think showcases where we have come from where developers immersed the player in the experience to where you have you died hit replay and try again.

Publishers dropping support of their products while they still have glaring issues and then not addressing these issues in the next iteration of the series, again I think the Silent Hunter series is a classic example.

In SH3 they had a ridiculous 8000 metre horizon and as a result the maximum visual range for the AI was 3000 metres! This was moded out by the community so that the horizon was around 15,000 metres and the AI's maximum visual range was 11,000 metres.

So when Silent Hunter 4 came out 2 odd years after the community had rectified the horizon deficiency the ridiculous 8000 metre horizon was back and as a result the maximum visual range for the AI was again 3000 metres!

This is from a game that is sold as a simulation.

In the end, I don't pirate games but I rarely by one. It is not that I do not want to, it is simply I will not by rubbish or hollow meaningless games.

Cheers,

Teddy Bär

Accessible. Hate to bring in some corporate speak, but thats what these games are missing. Accessiblility to main stream market. COD4 was more simulation, than a game. UT3 was the same as UT2004, except they made it even more complicated, and the darker graphics made it seem even more intimidating.

The direction that Valve took the Team Fortress franchise is the way to go. Simplify. Not make more complicated. Results in more accessibility.

When I was a kid, I spent hours a day on video games. When I was in college, my god... I played games more than I went to class.

But I've grown up now, and I don't have a lot of time for games. I'm just too busy doing other things. I play the games from my childhood on my DS, usually, with emulators and similar homebrew.

I imagine kids now are in a similar boat - with the steady proliferation of the internet, there's just too much other, SOCIAL stuff going on for a single player game to be as much fun as scrabble on facebook.

I'm having more fun with my PS3/ Xbox360 on my HDTV than I would buying s tuff to upgrade my computer. Seriously, I can check my e-mails and surf the web anywhere.

A problem with games in general these days is that they're too short / not worth the money. If you don't care for online multiplayer, CoD4 is rather expensive - £35ish for approximately 7 hours of single-player gameplay. Yes, 7 hours, with basically zero replay value. Contrast this to the Orange Box, which gave me upwards of 30 hours of single-player gameplay for less money.

As good as CoD4 was, surely this trend is also contributing towards rubbish sales.

CoD4 will run on a 5-year-old computer, so I don't think high-end graphic card sales really apply. Ok, so it won't look pretty, but it runs.

1. Gaming industry needs 2 different markets with console and PC. It isn't the case. We have bunch of games that are released for both PC and console that would be easier played on a console for the mainstream people who don't have to worry about patches and bugs.

2. Lot of these games have no replay value for $40 -$50 a pop and is rather short. Once single player campaign is finished I wouldn't even look back. Either have single player that has more replay value or add a compelling multiplayer game that adds replay value.

3. Game needs to be FUN! If it isn't fun it's not a game. It's a chore. Graphics makes a game more immersive but it doesn't make the games more fun.

First, SoaSE kicks ass all over the place. It's the first RTS I've enjoyed since the original Age of Empires, mostly because it doesn't feel like an RTS--it's really different and with fast, regular and valuable updates to the game, it's well worth the $50. If you haven't checked it out, you should: http://www.sinsofasolarempire.com/

Secondly, Wardell's right on the money about system requirements and the quality of gaming experienced delivered. I enjoyed Crysis, but I have a $600 video card in a $4K system; most gamers don't have more than whatever their computer came with from the store. What kind of gaming experience can a $500 BestBuy box really deliver with Crysis? Or UT3? Or COD4?

Third, Stardock was one of the first companies to successfully make use of online distribution for their own products, letting them keep more of the profit from their games. Selling 300K copies of GalCiv II (another great game) and making 10 digits of revenue on a $1 million investment should be the kind of example that other independent game companies follow.

Congrats that a developer knows and admits that the whole "Piracy is reason why PC sales suck" is bogus.

I still the hold charge that the change of demographics, entrance cost for a gaming PC and loss of its key advantages over gaming consoles are what is really hurting PC as a gaming platform.

BTW, you know that majority of your classic PC titles from the golden days came from indie developers.

i guess it was easy to find a scapegoat, but finding a game that is really fun is like winning the lottery these days.

Actiontrip.com has a nice little tidbit about id software claiming more pc gamers are switching to consoles. And I dont blame them. I am having more fun on my ps3 than I would on wasted $$$ on a new video card.

The vast majority of "gamers" have average hardware. The reviewers have access to the top of the line hard, latest and greatest hardware. When the average or occasional gamer buys a high end game and it looks like crap on his $400.00 Dell, it doesn't take long for the word to get out that the game sucks. "It doesn't look like the screen shots I saw on blah blah blah web site". "you can't play this unless your have a $4000.00 computer".
When you have turn all the goodies off, set the resolution at 640x480 just for the game to run smooth, the game is not going to sell. No matter how wonderfull it is on the $4000.00 computer.
Maybe two versions of the game should be released; one for the reviewers with their $4000.00 computers, and one for everybody else.

Oldtech

wow I cant believe TR just gets around to posting this. This came out just abou the time douchbebag from epic complained about piracy as an excuse for the horrible sales of UT3, which i think everyone knows ITSELF was the reason why it didnt sell :(

oh well at least its new to all you guys!

It's devs like Stardock that will have the loyalty of the PC gamers because of their stand against restrictive CD copy protections that only really hurt the real buyers in the end. Wardell is completely correct in his points. SoaSE is one of my favorite games out there right now. I beat Crysis after one run through it and probably won't replay it. SoaSE has totally sucked me in and I've put in more hours in just ONE skirmish then I put in through the whole game of Crysis.

Function over form.

Pretty screenshots don't sell huge quantities of games. Good content will (most of the time anyway). If you can have both, then all the better.

Article from almost two years ago:
"Bethesda Softworks announced that its hit title, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion has achieved record sales, reflecting huge market demand for the title. Over 1.7 million units of Oblivion for the PC and Xbox 360 have been shipped since the launch of the game."
http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/10671/The-Elder-Scrolls-IV-Oblivion-B...

Crysis is gorgeous to look at. I fortunately have a PC that can show off most of what it has to offer. But, other than going back in and punching a bunch of buildings or chocking badguys and pitching them into the water, i really haven't played it again since beating the sp mission. Oblivion on the other hand pushed the technology envelope and was still incredibly fun to play. I can't tell you how many hours i put into that game. COD4 has an incredibly fun MP mode. It's pretty much all I play right now. And then there's the original Starcraft. :)

I guess my point is... creating a game that pushes the envelope of technology is something we really do need. It shows us what is possible. But if you don't put in the same effort to make it fun (ie Oblivion), then don't expect high sales numbers. COD4 and TF2 look horrible compared to Crysis, but they are oh so much more fun to play.

A huge TR SoaSE game would be awesome... or a disaster.

Well, duh Captain Obvious. This little bit seems dead-on to me. I have no desire to buy a console, and am not a hard-core gamer. I just want a past-time on my only PC. Nothing really compelling out there of late, and Sins sounds too absorptive.