SH5 overtakes Assasins Creed 2 in Steam Charts!!!

[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by John Channing

One way they are measured by the actual sales (a know number), compared to illegal downloads (as reported by torrent sites) and compared to the on-line players (also a know number).

If 4 million are consistently playing the pc version on-line vs. 270,000 paid purchases you pretty much have your facts there.

As I recall this is what happened with IL-2 by Maddox games.

JCC

yes, its pretty bad when you look at it. Those figures are pretty easy to find on the internet:

http://kotaku.com/5435876/report-the...-games-of-2009

http://kotaku.com/5426474/report-mod...00-in-november

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2009/1...re-2-pc-sales/

170,000 was november sales. Apparently, another 100,000 was sold through Steam. Total sales may be higher, but even if you double sales to say 500,000 and reduce piracy to 2,000,000, it is easy to see why piracy is killing the PC games market.

[Commie]

All these figures are a crock. The fact that The Witcher sold over 1.3 million copies despite being a single player PC only game from a small Polish developer, and easily pirated, and ultimately with a no DRM patch released shows that blaming piracy for lack of sales is just bull. If you sell crap then don't whine when it doesn't sell.

Check out torrent sites and see the traffic on those pirated games. You'll rarely find a game that has been downloaded more that a couple of hundred times, only the big so called AAA titles get into the thousands. Times that by 10 to get the majority of popular private and public game torrent sites and you still couldn't get anywhere near the ridiculous figure for piracy the companies quote.

Tired of all the PC gamer defeatism around here and other places. I mean who cares if the PC scene is 'dying' when most of the big games are pretty crap or just popcorn style entertainment? If I want to play I'll just get an eksbawks or pleystasiun! If EA, UBI and the rest leave for the consoles, it will just mean the the marginalised, innovative and interesting games released and ignored these days by small developers will come to the fore again. I'm sure Eastern European, German etc. developers will relish at the chance to be able to sell their games without being squeezed to the margins by the big boys. These are the regions that try to do things a little differently these days.

The PC will NEVER DIE! It will just be reclaimed by those that want serious, quality games.

[Sonarman]

It is pretty bad even for the smaller games like maritime business "Ports of call" it's creator Rolf Dieter Klein recently wrote on his forum....

"We have around 60% piracy of the platinum version and estimated 1000% of the boxed version (POC deluxe) - this killed the development for the boxed version as the distributor didn't get enough money out of the project."

[Rip]

Originally Posted by Sonarman

It is pretty bad even for the smaller games like maritime business "Ports of call" it's creator Rolf Dieter Klein recently wrote on his forum....

"We have around 60% piracy of the platinum version and estimated 1000% of the boxed version (POC deluxe) - this killed the development for the boxed version as the distributor didn't get enough money out of the project."

There is a new version of POC? I loved that game on the Amiga, I would absolutely buy a version with updated graphics that would run under Win7!

Rip

[Sonarman]

Originally Posted by Rip

There is a new version of POC? I loved that game on the Amiga, I would absolutely buy a version with updated graphics that would run under Win7!

Rip

Check it out here They even have adapted the old Amiga/PC POC to the iphone.

[John Channing]

Originally Posted by Commie

Check out torrent sites and see the traffic on those pirated games. You'll rarely find a game that has been downloaded more that a couple of hundred times, only the big so called AAA titles get into the thousands. Times that by 10 to get the majority of popular private and public game torrent sites and you still couldn't get anywhere near the ridiculous figure for piracy the companies quote.

Not to burst your bubble, and heaven forbid that we let facts intrude on your opinion, but you do realize those numbers that have been quoted are from the torrent sites, and not the publishers, right?

Modern Warfare 2 on PC, for example, may have disappointed at the register, but according to TorrentFreak's figures it's been downloaded 4.1 million times.

JCC

[Commie]

Originally Posted by John Channing

Not to burst your bubble, and heaven forbid that we let facts intrude on your opinion, but you do realize those numbers that have been quoted are from the torrent sites, and not the publishers, right?

What figures? The 4,000,000,0000,0000, pirated versions of MW2?

If they are indeed from pirate sites then why are you all getting in a lather about them? They are as believable as company PR!

Oh and I checked the torrent sites, and the total number of downloads for MW2 are far, far lower than the quoted 4,000,000 figures. Even if I doubled them, they wouldn't come up to anything even half what has been said. So your statistics are flawed old chap.

But hey, why let facts get in the way of promoting the old 'Pirate Bogey Man' right? Maybe you'll next quote 'Pirat34evah' from www.Ipirateeverything.com who says that SH5 has been pirated 11,000,000 times and that's why Ubi needed this DRM?

Originally Posted by Sonarman

It is pretty bad even for the smaller games like maritime business "Ports of call" it's creator Rolf Dieter Klein recently wrote on his forum....

"We have around 60% piracy of the platinum version and estimated 1000% of the boxed version (POC deluxe) - this killed the development for the boxed version as the distributor didn't get enough money out of the project."

Port of Call is ****house anyway, Data Becker quality, so old Rolf is just blaming a lack of talent on the bogeyman. Doubt that even a single pirate of that game (all 20 of them) would have bought it anyway. Wonder he didn't blame the 'J' word. Mount and Blade has also been massively pirated yet they are doing fine. Why is that?

[John Channing]

Originally Posted by Commie

What figures? The 4,000,000,0000,0000, pirated versions of MW2?

If they are indeed from pirate sites then why are you all getting in a lather about them? They are as believable as company PR!

Oh and I checked the torrent sites, and the total number of downloads for MW2 are far, far lower than the quoted 4,000,000 figures. Even if I doubled them, they wouldn't come up to anything even half what has been said. So your statistics are flawed old chap.

But hey, why let facts get in the way of promoting the old 'Pirate Bogey Man' right? Maybe you'll next quote 'Pirat34evah' from www.Ipirateeverything.com who says that SH5 has been pirated 11,000,000 times and that's why Ubi needed this DRM?



Port of Call is ****house anyway, Data Becker quality, so old Rolf is just blaming a lack of talent on the bogeyman. Doubt that even a single pirate of that game (all 20 of them) would have bought it anyway. Wonder he didn't blame the 'J' word. Mount and Blade has also been massively pirated yet they are doing fine. Why is that?

Lovely chatting with you.

JCC

[Commie]

Originally Posted by John Channing

Lovely chatting with you.

JCC

Oops, sorry about that John, didn't see your caveat. Teach me to read all the posts next time. Sorry.

[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by Commie

But hey, why let facts get in the way of promoting the old 'Pirate Bogey Man' right?

exactly, why let pesky, easily verifiable facts get in the way, especially when they prove what a huge problem piracy is.

much easier to just make up your own, right?

[Commie]

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

exactly, why let pesky, easily verifiable facts get in the way, especially when they prove what a huge problem piracy is.

much easier to just make up your own, right?

Where's the easily verifiable facts? From Torrentfreak?

I see you decided to ignore my VERIFIABLE facts about The Witcher game sales and those I posted recently about Galactic Civilizations II. Seems that the anti-piracy brigade likes to make up things and ignores reality themselves, right?

I like how you also ignore the fact that supposedly much more pirated games like Battlefield, Warhammer, Supreme Commander etc. STILL top the Steam charts! Funny that, I would have thought that since they are supposedly massively pirated then why are they topping the sales charts?

Funny how the anti-piracy brigade forgets verifiable facts when they don't suit their false thesis. Better to just blame mythical pirates and not poor quality, buggy, repetitive, poorly supported, often sloppily ported games for the PC's decline! :YAWN:

[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by Commie

Where's the easily verifiable facts? From Torrentfreak?

I see you decided to ignore my VERIFIABLE facts about The Witcher game sales and those I posted recently about Galactic Civilizations II. Seems that the anti-piracy brigade likes to make up things and ignores reality themselves, right?

I like how you also ignore the fact that supposedly much more pirated games like Battlefield, Warhammer, Supreme Commander etc. STILL top the Steam charts! Funny that, I would have thought that since they are supposedly massively pirated then why are they topping the sales charts?

Funny how the anti-piracy brigade forgets verifiable facts when they don't suit their false thesis. Better to just blame mythical pirates and not poor quality, buggy, repetitive, poorly supported, often sloppily ported games for the PC's decline! :YAWN:

my figures are quoted a bit farther up from several well known sites which all say the same thing. You can also do your own Google search and find several more articles that all say the same thing about CoD:MW2.

If you have any figures to back up your claims, post them and we will be glad to verify your backup. Otherwise, all I see is a lot of hot air.

[janh]

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

yes, its pretty bad when you look at it. Those figures are pretty easy to find on the internet:

http://kotaku.com/5435876/report-the...-games-of-2009

http://kotaku.com/5426474/report-mod...00-in-november

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2009/1...re-2-pc-sales/

170,000 was november sales. Apparently, another 100,000 was sold through Steam. Total sales may be higher, but even if you double sales to say 500,000 and reduce piracy to 2,000,000, it is easy to see why piracy is killing the PC games market.

JC, I agree that there are apparent gaps. Even if only 100.000 (5%) or 200.000 (10%) of those piracy download would have converted into sales if customers where honest, or the pirating didn't happen, than this is a 20-40% sales lost based on the 270.000 to ca 500.000 total sales estimate. That number does sound pretty reasonable. It, however, is based on a number of assumptions that all need testing. I don't expect companies to have a much better estimate, since that would strengthen their claims the public.

My opinion on piracy is that it is a symptom, not a root cause. Companies have to work on customer moral, loyality and binding through service, open ears and support. They need to start selling customers what the want to buy, and not selling what the want to sell. And they need to get away from the "patch me if you can on the release date" strategy, but do more thorough testing before. I would assume people are less and less willing to pay since it lacks quality, novelty, is not predominandly what they look for, or that as a pirate you are simply better off than as a paying customer. As a customer, you don't have any added-value. They are also less willing to pay for additional content that should have been part of the original release as it was intrinsic part of previous releases already. I would say for a customer, this whole strategy does not quite add up. But that's just my two cents, and future will test that argument no matter what.

And the PC market was said to be dead already many times, BTW. And as long as there is demand, it won't die. But maybe we'll see changes, maybe back to smaller developer studios with less running costs and more specialized content. Like Madminute games, or Matrix. Maybe the consolidation strategy of major publishers just was the wrong approach for such a diverse and split up market. But who would anyway have expected that many products such as a submarine simulation would ever be of real attraction to the majority of casual gamers? I'd be surprised...