Epic on Piracy and PCs

[medicnick83]

Epic president Mike Capps published in Edge Magazine E215, now on newsstands:

Speaking to Edge this month, Epic president Mike Capps opens up about piracy, and why “the money’s on console”. In a frank and open interview on Unreal 4, Gears of War and Bulletstorm, Capps claims that “piracy’s already had its impact”.

“If you walked into [Epic's Offices] six years ago,” said Capps, “Epic was a PC company. We did one PS2 launch title, and everything else was PC. And now, people are saying ‘Why do you hate the PC? You’re a console-only company.’”

“And guess what?” he says, “It’s because the money’s on console.”

“We still do PC, we still love the PC, but we already saw the impact of piracy: it killed a lot of great independent developers and completely changed our business model.” Capps discusses the rise of free-to-play microtransaction based games, like Farmville, the “biggest game of all right now.”

“So, maybe Facebook will save PC gaming,” he concludes, “but it’s not going to look like Gears of War.”

More on the story: http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2010/05/16/epic-president-the-moneys-on-console

 

[Kosmik]

The whole story of PC piracy and console is quite frankly crap in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, obviously piracy is rampant on the PC market but they way people carry on you would think that consoles are pristine machines. Well they're not.

Only a totally ignorant moron does not know about consoles and chips or homebrew scenes. Piracy is in every corner of the entertainment market. Why are publishing house happy to move to a console market? Because the console market is flooded with people who are happy to pay R700 a game, so even ignoring piracy, the publisher makes between 2-3 times more on a console game ( which is a much easier platform to develop for as your hardware remains constant thus saving design costs ) than a pc game.

Lets not kid the world eh, you want money and the console market gets you more money than the pc, irrespective of piracy.

 

[Lycanthrope]

The whole story of PC piracy and console is quite frankly crap in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, obviously piracy is rampant on the PC market but they way people carry on you would think that consoles are pristine machines. Well they're not.

Only a totally ignorant moron does not know about consoles and chips or homebrew scenes. Piracy is in every corner of the entertainment market. Why are publishing house happy to move to a console market? Because the console market is flooded with people who are happy to pay R700 a game, so even ignoring piracy, the publisher makes between 2-3 times more on a console game ( which is a much easier platform to develop for as your hardware remains constant thus saving design costs ) than a pc game.

Lets not kid the world eh, you want money and the console market gets you more money than the pc, irrespective of piracy.

+1

 

[medicnick83]

I wish piracy on consoles would get so bad then they'd have no where to run.

 

[DerpiesFreud]

pc has draconian drm stupid steam wants 2gb of "updates"
ac 2 wants 24/7 internet < maybe patched

but the fact is now i HAVE TO crack the games i legaly purchased
so if i crack it either way wats the point of origonal cept value and multiplayer nither of which apeal to me very much

 

[Zewp]

I wish piracy on consoles would get so bad then they'd have no where to run.

They'd just up the prices then.

Have you heard EA wants to kill the 2nd hand market off as well. They want to implement a system where a game is incomplete at install, and you have to activate it online to unlock the rest. Then if you get it second hand, you have to pay EA $10 for another code to unlock it again. Damn greedy b@stards.

 

[will1023631]

Inevitably piracy will just become worse. Where there is a pc, a bored program and a new anti piracy measure there will always be a pirated version of the game . They are fighting a losing battle. They should just give up and reduce game prices that way they will get people that will be HAPPY to pay for a game.

Everytime I see a new shiny game on the shelf and pick it up to have a look I put it down and fall to my knees in despair after seeing the price. The life of a student is tough. Scratch that. Very few people can belong to the elite circle of having all their games legit.

 

[kaaskop]

The whole story of PC piracy and console is quite frankly crap in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, obviously piracy is rampant on the PC market but they way people carry on you would think that consoles are pristine machines. Well they're not.

Only a totally ignorant moron does not know about consoles and chips or homebrew scenes. Piracy is in every corner of the entertainment market. Why are publishing house happy to move to a console market? Because the console market is flooded with people who are happy to pay R700 a game, so even ignoring piracy, the publisher makes between 2-3 times more on a console game ( which is a much easier platform to develop for as your hardware remains constant thus saving design costs ) than a pc game.

Lets not kid the world eh, you want money and the console market gets you more money than the pc, irrespective of piracy.

Couldnt have said it better!

 

[Fudzy]

They are yet to really crack the PS3 market, the Xbox is pretty much over afa piracy is concerned though.

What suppliers and developers have to really watch out for are delivery dates, if Joe NoScarm Blogs has to wait 2 weeks for buy a game legitamately rather than just pull it that night from a torrent server he's going to choose the latter.

 

[Joy-Energiser]

The whole story of PC piracy and console is quite frankly crap in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, obviously piracy is rampant on the PC market but they way people carry on you would think that consoles are pristine machines. Well they're not.

Only a totally ignorant moron does not know about consoles and chips or homebrew scenes. Piracy is in every corner of the entertainment market. Why are publishing house happy to move to a console market? Because the console market is flooded with people who are happy to pay R700 a game, so even ignoring piracy, the publisher makes between 2-3 times more on a console game ( which is a much easier platform to develop for as your hardware remains constant thus saving design costs ) than a pc game.

Lets not kid the world eh, you want money and the console market gets you more money than the pc, irrespective of piracy.

Exactly.

Who does that idiot think he's fooling ? Oh must be the console readers.

 

[dal2000]

Glad you all believe it's crap. If it's such crap, then why is there so many PC ports and so few PC exclusives? Oh I guess Epic decided to change to a console company cause it was a fun idea

 

[Nerfherder]

They'd just up the prices then.

Have you heard EA wants to kill the 2nd hand market off as well. They want to implement a system where a game is incomplete at install, and you have to activate it online to unlock the rest. Then if you get it second hand, you have to pay EA $10 for another code to unlock it again. Damn greedy b@stards.

That will kill EA. They are overestimating their customers want to comply.

The console is a simple toy... get disk, put in console, play game.
Tampering with that will cause complications, you need to make it better for people to comply... not harder.

 

[Fudzy]

Glad you all believe it's crap. If it's such crap, then why is there so many PC ports and so few PC exclusives? Oh I guess Epic decided to change to a console company cause it was a fun idea

I really want to play Red Dead Redemption but I either pay a premium for the PS3 version or wait in hope for a PC version to come round. Rockstar was another development house that were devoted to the PC.

 

[Kosmik]

Glad you all believe it's crap. If it's such crap, then why is there so many PC ports and so few PC exclusives? Oh I guess Epic decided to change to a console company cause it was a fun idea

Nope, because as I said even without piracy they make more money and is cheaper to develop on a stable platform.

 

[dal2000]

I really want to play Red Dead Redemption but I either pay a premium for the PS3 version or wait in hope for a PC version to come round. Rockstar was another development house that were devoted to the PC.

Yeah, unfortunately gaming has become more expensive along with the graphics and overall development size of the games themselves. Pricing has gotten out of hand without a doubt.
My solution is to buy second hand games
I never ever pay 600 for a game, let alone 800. Alternatively I check Amazon.co.uk. They had Splinter Cell Conviction going for 29 pounds brand new. Would probably end up being 400 or so including shipping. You still save, that is however just my opinion

 

[Zewp]

The gaming industry is the only industry childish enough to see piracy as lost sales. They'd rather have less people, paying a fOckton of money, than have more people paying affordable prices. It doesn't help that the majority of games can be completed within a weekend nowadays.

 

[Nod]

Often you don't get the value you paid for.

I only play MMORG's these days. Haven't found anything worth playing other than that. Plus, with age my fingers are not as fast, so getting your as kicked on everything FPS is not fun. MMORG's are more forgiving in that aspect.

PC Game prices are maybe not as high as the console games, but it played better. I'm however tired of MS Live, Steam, and other DRM they use. It is like they want to make it as difficult as possible to play a game, and sometimes impossible to play offline.

 

[AstroTurf]

Everytime I see a new shiny game on the shelf and pick it up to have a look I put it down and fall to my knees in despair after seeing the price. The life of a student is tough. Scratch that. Very few people can belong to the elite circle of having all their games legit.

+1

I stopped playing games because a console is not as versatile as a pc and because a pc that can play today's (and tomorrows) games is way above my budget.

The prices are insane for most new games.
I occasionally dig through the bargain bins and there you can find a treasure or two at least.

Bigger companies are also to blame for killing the smaller companies (have a google about bullfrog as an example).
Freaking pirates blaming pirates.

 

[rippedoff]

xbox games have been cracked for years are they stopping xbox as well ?
Pratt!

 

[will1023631]

+1

I stopped playing games because a console is not as versatile as a pc and because a pc that can play today's (and tomorrows) games is way above my budget.

The prices are insane for most new games.
I occasionally dig through the bargain bins and there you can find a treasure or two at least.

Bigger companies are also to blame for killing the smaller companies (have a google about bullfrog as an example).
Freaking pirates blaming pirates.

+1 I remember the whole bullfrog saga. Was a bummer that they went down they made so many epic games that I enjoyed as a mcuh younger lad:'(. But it's a monopoly in the end. I find myself rather waiting till the game ends up in the bargain bin as you do. But soon it will completely stop for me. I mean I did a pc upgrade a year ago and already I have to completely revamp the entire damn thing just to play some of the newer games at atleast medium settings. And that upgrade is going to set me back at least 7 grand. Unless I can pull distinctions for my subjects to get a bursary I'm not gonna see that money and not gonna see that upgrade anytime soon. I've even contemplated going to console gaming but again like you said it just isn't as versatile>.< I wish someone could come up with a solution At this rate the gaming industry will go under