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The Decline of the PC game market
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    DABhand posted on Jan 24, 2010 5:51:57 AM - Report post
     
    I think Neo posted that to try and keep the peace. Although there was no need

    I didnt say there was very little warez on the console market, I know there is warez. But foxxie, its not as big as the PC market.

    Take a look at games releases over the years, years back you could get a multitude of releases per month, even during the bleak summertime which is gaming hell time.

    So far 2010 has been good for the first couple of months, but after that? What else is coming out? Hardly anything yeah...

    But lets look at the console market for the coming months, its pretty steady all the way to the end of the year.

    For example Ubisoft and Assassin Creed games. Why do you think they released them to console first? Not because it was "easier" but because the publisher (being Ubisoft in this case) was getting some cashflow in through the console market, as they know as soon as its released on the PC, some will buy it yes, but the majority will steal it.

    And before you say it wouldnt matter if they released alongside the console versions, it would matter, they have to have more expenditure to press copies for the PC. Which costs more, and they have no idea how well the game will sell on the Console market to justify the PC publishing.

    Sure publishers sell their products via trade stores to major outlets and other minor ones. But the problem now is, some major outlets and minor also, have started to (here in the UK) stop stocking up PC games - Most WHSmith stores have done this, as did Woolworths before they closed. Why? They were not selling as well as the Console games. So in turn the Traders were not pushing their PC games stock so easily, which in turn means they asked for a reduced stock direct from the Publishers.

    That is why most Publishers release on console first. And why some titles nearly never made it to the PC. The ones that do are poorly developed sometimes because development teams dont want to work on something that is going to be mostly stolen, they need income to feed their families and pay for rent and bills just like anyone else, and if their company cant get the income in (although Developers are usually paid in lump sums from Publishers for rights) then those companies have to let go people.

    Many lost employment in many Publisher companies, EA was the biggest cut back last year. And now the major publishers are starting to become wary of the PC market on a whole.

    There is even more fallout from this, if the PC market becomes less and less fruitive, what games will Caliber be making trainers for? And how will Pwiz justify the upkeep of this site? And wonder why Wii Trainers pop up now and again?

    Its like a Domino Rally, push one and the rest fall.

    Eventually the PC will become a platform that supports Applications, Multimedia and Online MMORPG's as that is guarenteed incoming at least from players per month.

    And those that paid out hundreds to have the latest CPU and GPU etc, are then going to have rig's that are totally useless. So then Nvidia and ATI and Intel and AMD etc etc will fell the pinch also, why pay out cash for hardware that wont hardly be used?

    In a way the Governments would love this scenario, why? Well consider that if people (who steal games due to having cheap broadband and easy to get these days, compared to when they had to go buy from market stalls, which means less stalls in markets these days) finally cant get games so easily as there is nothing to get or little, they would be forced to buy console products. Which in turn means they have to earn money, which means they have to work and stop being lazy, which in turn means a stronger economy due to good workforces being utilized.

    And most people in the UK are becoming those lazy dont want to work people, and then they complain when companies hire foreigners etc? Why? Because they can do the work they cant, and dont want to sit on their backsides expecting to be paid from the government to keep them alive.

    Cause and Effects. Nasty stuff.
    Oh and Don't forget some tuts on ASM and defeating DMA

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    Lord Vader posted on Jan 24, 2010 6:09:06 AM - Report post
     
    u do make a compelling argument and yes..both console and pc game markets have piracy(for lack of a better word)..but pc has more. what pc game makers don't seem to understand is the price difference between duplicate copies and originals is so huge so as to make duplicate copies more desirable. reduce that gap substantially and u'll deal a death blow to piracy. simply abandoning a game platform because of it seems very escapist to me. another good way of generating more income is to explore new markets. simply giving priority to a handfull of countries is not going to do it. take India for instance with its 1 billion plus population. the computer market here is huge and its growing rapidly and so is the game market. and gamers here r still waiting for their copies of James Cameron's The Avatar(the legal copy) which was released weeks ago and the last time i checked with the store i was told i'd have to wait for a week or so more. and this is the case with just about every game release. how long do the game companies expect gamers here to wait. game companies need to get their act together rather than looking for an easy way out.

    [Edited by saurabhfzd, 1/24/2010 6:10:26 AM]
    "Do you know the difference between education and experience? Education is when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when you don't"

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    DABhand posted on Jan 24, 2010 6:20:03 AM - Report post
     
    quote:
    originally posted by saurabhfzd

    u do make a compelling argument and yes..both console and pc game markets have piracy(for lack of a better word)..but pc has more. what pc game makers don't seem to understand is the price difference between duplicate copies and originals is so huge so as to make duplicate copies more desirable. reduce that gap substantially and u'll deal a death blow to piracy. simply abandoning a game platform because of it seems very escapist to me. another good way of generating more income is to explore new markets. simply giving priority to a handfull of countries is not going to do it. take India for instance with its 1 billion plus population. the computer market here is huge and its growing rapidly and so is the game market. and gamers here r still waiting for their copies of James Cameron's The Avatar(the legal copy) which was released weeks ago and the last time i checked with the store i was told i'd have to wait for a week or so more. and this is the case with just about every game release. how long do the game companies expect gamers here to wait. game companies need to get their act together rather than looking for an easy way out.

    [Edited by saurabhfzd, 1/24/2010 6:10:26 AM]

    Back in the 8bit days, games where cheap to start with, then they were copied and sold left right and centre, forcing the infamous protections to be born, but how can you do that for Tape Based games?

    Lenslock was the more unique, a plastic lens cut in ways for a particular game so when held up on the screen on some generated blocks it will show text. Cost of games went up due to this. Those things were not cheap to make and had to be specifically made. Didnt work of course with larger TV's and hurt the consumer.

    The olde Word from a book, had to have the original to have the manual to pick a word from. This was easily cracked with people who knew how to. And the worst case scenario for the legit buyer was loss of manual.

    Colour coded card, again easy for to be cracked to accept only 1 colour sequence no matter way, Jet Set Willy being the first I believe to use this. Again loss of Key Card was bad for consumer.

    Others had a free phone service (free to consumers but not to the publisher so prices had to be higher for that). Where the consumers would phone up to get an activation key for their particular copy. Still used today of course :P

    So prices went up, to protect their investments. Then Datel the makers of Action Replay's (yes they did exist way back then) had released the Multiface, able to use multiple joystick ports, specific multiface's could read ram drives, and the main thing it could debug games real time and be able to dump working memory dumps so you could backup games that had Speedlock loaders onto tape to replay them. Many market stalls sold these in that form (dual tape decks didnt really show up until later).

    So developers then moved to multiple level loading to combat the Multiface, but as said by then the dual tape decks appeared and people played on one and recorded on the other.

    So warez was started really far back then.

    And even SNES's were not immune, you could back up SNES games onto multiple 3.5 FD's with a Game Doctor and it could play different region games also.

    Oh and Don't forget some tuts on ASM and defeating DMA

    Clicky Here for them
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    Lord Vader posted on Jan 24, 2010 6:28:09 AM - Report post
     
    yea...i do understand that adding all the protections is not cheap. but in the day and age of mass production i'm sure the cost benefits can be easily worked out if u expand to newer markets and have legal copies readily available. u have to keep evolving constantly. running away from it is no solution. i'm sure there'll consequences.

    [Edited by saurabhfzd, 1/24/2010 6:28:42 AM]
    "Do you know the difference between education and experience? Education is when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when you don't"

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    DABhand posted on Jan 24, 2010 6:45:06 AM - Report post
     
    And before somebody says but Romantic Robot did the Multiface. You are correct, but they splintered and most went to form Datel. So in essence Romantic Robot is Datel. The ones left at RR then get hit with the copyright law that came in effect back in the 80's due to the Multiface's unique way of dumping memory/games.

    Thats right, "Anti-Piracy" started then. And your BSA, MPAA,etc were formed.
    Oh and Don't forget some tuts on ASM and defeating DMA

    Clicky Here for them
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    shianova posted on Jan 25, 2010 8:02:19 AM - Report post
     
    This is surely untrue if you look at steam and a lot of direct download site that are expanding. A lot of mmos who will be PC exclusive are announced to and don't forget that mmos are the most played games.
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    Lord Vader posted on Jan 25, 2010 8:52:18 AM - Report post
     
    quote:
    originally posted by shianova

    This is surely untrue if you look at steam and a lot of direct download site that are expanding. A lot of mmos who will be PC exclusive are announced to and don't forget that mmos are the most played games.

    i'm actually more worried about offline SP campaigns etc.

    "Do you know the difference between education and experience? Education is when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when you don't"

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    Fubar69 posted on Oct 12, 2010 7:27:56 PM - Report post
     
    Hi guys,

    Interesting topic so I decided to ask a gentlemen (some of you might know) named Cory Doctorow who is an advocate of online freedom and hates DRM about this topic.


    Here's his response:

    I guess my feeling is that games are an existence proof of every truism
    about copyright and tech:

    1. Left to their own devices, creators can find new business models that
    don't rely on restricting copying: viz the movement from FPSs to
    MMORPGS, which can't be "pirated" since the interaction is server-based

    2. Most creators will fail: witness the legion of game devs whose games
    failed to be too dull to steal, let alone buy

    3. You can sell stuff even when it's being freely copied without DRM:
    Minecraft man is a millionaire

    4. Cheap failure is the artist's best friend: again, Minecraft. Cost
    pennies to make the first alpha, dev was able to experiment in public,
    became a millionaire

    5. DRM doesn't stop copying: every DRMed game is cracked in seconds **maybe a little longer but we get the picture**

    6. DRM makes buying stuff less attractive: buy it and get a rootkit;
    steal it and get it without f***ing up your computer

    7. DRM locks distribution channels: from Xbox Marketplace to Wii
    Marketplace to Steam, DRM stops a dev from changing channels, stops
    players from following her to those channels, doesn't prevent piracy,
    but DOES transfer market power to the DRM vendor

    Thought this might be interesting for everyone to have a read.

    Regards,
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