'If gamers have a reason to buy a game, they'll buy it', says producer.
PC piracy is a "huge concern", Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 producer David Silverman has warned.
Speaking to VideoGamer.com in an interview to be published later this week, Silverman, who also works as a presenter for C&C TV, said that a "different approach" that includes digital distribution and micro-transactions will help tackle piracy on the PC in the future.
AdvertisementHe said: "In all honesty piracy is a huge concern. Luckily people haven't figured out an easy way to pirate on consoles, otherwise you'd be telling me, 'oh, the console market's dying!'. It's a big problem and it's hard because you've got people like Greg (Black, lead balance designer) and a lot of guys on the development team who have been spending countless hours and someone just goes to download on a torrent site and they get the game. It's an unfortunate likelihood and it's one of the penalties that broadband came out. But unlike the music industry which went about it in an interesting way, we're trying some new things and I think we'll be productive in the years to come."
PC piracy is one of the industry's current hot topics. Recently Lionhead boss told VideoGamer.com that the PC gamer market was in "tatters". LucasArts explained to us in an interview from earlier in the year that it wasn't doing a PC version of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed because of the vast differences in power of PCs in people's homes and the lack of scalability of the game.
And Ubisoft Shanghai creative director Michael de Plater has told VG247 that a PC version of EndWar would most likely be shipping alongside the console SKUs if it wasn't for rampant PC piracy, and that copyright theft is essentially destroying the PC games market.
Silverman, however, believes that the PC gaming industry can tackle the problem of piracy by taking a different approach.
He said: "Things like digital distribution, things like doing micro-transactions, things like that really find a way to get people involved and then also keep them interested. It's also a challenging thing on our end to make the game more engaging to people. If you give people a reason to buy the game they'll buy it. It's what happens. I use the music analogy again. If I'm an artist and I have an album with 14 songs and only two of them are good, then my album is probably getting stolen, but if every one of the 14 songs is awesome and you keep releasing maybe a new song or what not for people who bought it, I guarantee people will be buying my album. So it's just a different approach and a different way in how we have to look at it in the future."
Also speaking to VideoGamer.com, C&C: RA3 lead balance designer Greg Black suggested online play, which requires authentication, as a primary weapon in the war against PC piracy.
"I think one of the best ways to fight piracy is to have a compelling online experience," said Black. "Because you have to authenticate your copy to get online, and that's something we've tried to do with (Red Alert 3's) cooperative campaign. If you really want to fully experience Red Alert 3, you want to jump online and play the campaign with a friend, and you're going to need a legit copy of the game to do that. So I feel on the creative side that the future for PC gaming is online and that's how we're going deal with the piracy problem."
While the PC version of RTS Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 was released on last Friday, the Xbox 360 version won't be out until November 14. A PS3 version is currently in the works but without a release date.
dreamhunk wrote at 15:03 on 05 November 2008
Online is the best way to fight off pc pircay, online play is the best way to fight off all pircay even console pircay. As for picay on console there is alot of it. People know how to mod their console even play on the internet with their moded consoles. Even if you stop making pc games pirates would just start pirating consoles more. The reason console games sell better is because not everyone has money to buy a high end pc. The rest of the world is not rich so chances are they pirate more games on console than they do for pc. There is no hard facts to know what is really going on.
i hear the psp is real bad
I think that EA, Ncsoft and blizzard should work with the pc gaming allince on this iussetoo because they are the biggest companies on the market.
may have stuff like you have go online to down load major contnet of the game only giving part of the contnet. I am sure you game devs can think of stuff.
Netmind wrote at 15:23 on 05 November 2008
I buy PC games instead of PS3 games mostly cause I like PC gaming best, but also cause it's alot cheaper. I mean there is about 23£ difference in my country.
PC gaming is BEST, and I know many 'pirates' thinks that as well, so don't fking skrew this up - think when it dies, oh noes then you gotta pay 23£ more to play cause you refused to pay a smaller price for a game on the PC.
Steve wrote at 16:53 on 05 November 2008
If / When PC Gaming dies people who pirate games will only turn their attention to consoles and start finding ways to crack and pirate them. So to stop supplying the PC Market is a bit of a weak ass'ed approach.
dreamhunk wrote at 17:06 on 05 November 2008
checks this out I just found this right now.
http://kotaku.com/5077110/dsi-hacked
online is the way of the future so you can protect your games.
Bloodstorm wrote at 17:34 on 05 November 2008
What has this got to do with Red Alert 3 and piracy?
I'll admit something, i WAS tempted to download R.A.3 just to see if i can run it well but my internet bill had to be paid so....cut off i was, obviously i'm going to buy it for the online so.....now i'm gonna wait for a review.
When will a review be up?
Woffls wrote at 17:46 on 05 November 2008
"Posts: 4,294,967,292" - very funny :P
I wrote an article about this a few weeks back.
Ultimately it is just a case of convincing people that your game is worth buying. And I think a root problem for this is plaguing DVD as well, thankfully music is starting to realise it. All you get is a box, a disc and an instruction manual! If you got a couple of cool extras in the box, perhaps people would be more inclined to part with their cash. Even something as insignificant as a map with GTA on PC.
Digital distribution is AN answer, Valve got it right years ago, and I think It's every publishers responsibilty to establish a unified distribution platform. It should integrate into Games For Windows, and a true platform should arise from it. It BAFFLES me that Microsoft hasn't taken advantage of this yet by implementing a more advanced distribution platform into Vista.
Doink wrote at 19:06 on 05 November 2008
Sigh, the only time this crappy sire posts anything about PC it is about Piracy, dieing, or bad sales based on wrong data, and people wonder why PC has a perception problem? Piracy is an issue on console as well. It is worse on Pc yes, but the constant negative BS about PC is just that. PC needs someone to market it and advertise it like the last gen consoles.
Anon wrote at 23:06 on 05 November 2008
Idiots like David Silverman are the ones responsible for PC's sorry state. He has no clue what he's talking about, plus RA3 sucks ass.
f00kVGIndustry wrote at 23:07 on 05 November 2008
Woffls : Ultimately it is just a case of convincing people that your game is worth buying
That is EXACTLY the point. I sure as hell am not going to pay 60 bucks for the same game from a decade ago, only with "better" graphics. Seriously, this RA3 is plagued with the same issues that we forgave back then, cuz we didn't know better... now that the tech is here, the games just aren't.. most developers nowadays are from our generation (i.e. grew up with atari/nintendo) and their ****ing minds are stuck on the 80's: eternally spawning enemies, bad AI, forget-me-not colors palette (sp?), non-reactive environments and the new scourge of the everyday gamer - lack of game testing.. fallout 3 bugs for lunch, anyone? do you really feel like paying hard earned cash for subpar, unfinished and blemished products?... Well, at least you 'll think you are "helping the industry".
As for the specific case of RA3: war bears? man cannons? samurai robots? would it really have been too hard to get actual anime/manga designers to do te entire Empire of the Rising Sun army? Of, course, after EALA coffers were emptied by the "stellar cast" in their oh-so-amazing videos, it's obvious they didn't even have money to get decent programmers. This thing is tripe, unless you are REALLY HARDCORE on the nostalgia.
The only game worth buying that i've played thus far is FarCry 2. Of course, it has its issues, but what's done right is done really ****ing right. Have yet to try Dead Space (which looks like another contender for my money, even though i shit in EAs face) and falloot3 (from the looks of it, it's a mircle you can get past the main menu).
dude wrote at 00:12 on 06 November 2008
And yet in another news article video games are set to take over movies and music and our most purchased entertainment item, with £4.6 billion being spent on them in the Uk in one year alone, the industry has never been in better shape.
pc_gamer wrote at 12:44 on 06 November 2008
HEY EA! I GOT AN IDEA! TRY MAKING A GOOD GAME FOR A CHANGE, SEE HOW THAT WORKS!
ggggaaaa wrote at 15:47 on 06 November 2008
HEY EA! I GOT AN IDEA! TRY MAKING A GOOD GAME FOR A CHANGE, SEE HOW THAT WORKS!
yes i downloaded via torrent and must delete afte 1 hour of play its very bad game
Ed wrote at 19:09 on 06 November 2008
To be honest, RA3 is good, but a bit over the top with the silly-whackiness.
My hopes are for a good SDK to be released. I want to mod RA3 now! And don't give me the previous CnC3 limited bullcrap with XML bloat, it's an old joke which won't work.
dreamhunk wrote at 00:34 on 07 November 2008
http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/11/...re-to-bla.html
Coh
The waning popularity of PC gaming can be directly attributed to overzealous PC gaming developers, believes Company of Heroes senior producer Tim Holman.
"I think one of the things that hurt PC gaming is PC developers," Holman told Edge in a recent interview. "If you make a game with such high-end requirements that only people with a $6,000 PC can play it at a decent framerate, of course your sales are going to drop."
"I think PC developers shoot themselves in the foot to a large degree. A lot of companies are guilty of that," Holman added, before citing the low system requirements of Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft as a good example of PC development done right
Bob wrote at 14:55 on 10 November 2008
Most pirates are either too broke to pay $50 for a brand new game or have doubts about the game quality. If you pirate just to steal, that's too bad, but if you are pirating so you can determine whether or not your PC can run a game or just to make sure it doesn't totally suck, buy it if you like it. I love online multiplayer so if I was to download a game just to check it out, I'd be missing most of what I like.
Blackbeard wrote at 18:19 on 13 December 2008
"Pirates" are neither broke nor have any doubts about any quality. We KNOW quality of most modern game sucks, or new games are full of lags and bugs, so we refuse to waste 50 bucks for an average-to-bad game. For example, games like red alert 3 and GTA4 suck badly, and are way worse than their predecessors. Thanks to all those needless renovations (in style and gameplay), most of which serve as a means against piracy. For instance, GTA4 is heavily protected in such a large scale, that its graphics run slower than normal, and if you crack it it plays "normally". Personally i have bought MANY original retails, and putting aside only a handfull of them, all others were not worth the fortune i wasted. Piracy rules, and all others saying otherwise are either hypocrites, or haven 't tried this "craft" yet. Or they simply are some lousy aristocrat *******s that can afford a million dollars for games, while 3 people out of 10 out there die of starvation. Peace.
Black Bart wrote at 18:31 on 13 December 2008
And something else. Half of you in this page also use piracy too, and most of you accusing it do so in fear of good games and companies running out of money and stop releasing nice games. Or because you are related perhaps to the economic progress of aforementioned companies/the pc gaming industry. Wearing masks and playing roles is the ultimate craft of humankind, after all. Everyone loves free stuff. Proof? The many torrent sites that house millions of members or leechers worldwide. But most games are no lifers too. Download the game, and spend your money out, with a GF, or with your friends. IF you have any, that is... Nerds.
Dan wrote at 23:50 on 14 December 2008
Simple solution, make a kick-ass demo to really give potential consumers a feel for the game. I'm sick and tired of seeing either NO DEMO'S at ALL for games, or half shit ass ones that actually make me NOT want to buy the game.
A demo is such a damn important promotion tool, stop spending all your damn money on PR and stupid "adver-torials" in magazines and editorial support/sponsorship money...
MAKE A DAMN GOOD DEMO INSTEAD!
The best promotional tool is social networking promotion by making one kick ass demo and letting it go rampant with major influencers in the pc gameing scene...
I dont even play PC games because of this... why spend 1000$+ on a half decent PC when i can spend 400$ on a PS3 that can contend with a 4000$+ PC, not to mention in only 2 years of it being released it has over 200+ titles, xbox has well over 400+ now!