Andy_Howells August 29, 2008 PC 3 views Comments Print This Post  Email This Post

Alarm bells were ringing all over Crytek’s buildings this week after they realised that internet pirates are seriously damaging their business. While some advocates have been claiming that software pirates only download videogames in order to test them and then purchase later, the steadfast Germans are proving otherwise. Apparently “The number of users who downloaded [Cryteks] patches, there were a lot more active players than there were unit sales. And I think we can safely say if they were still playing the game by the time our latest patch released, and if they were playing on a pirated copy, then they were a sale that didn’t happen,” Engine Business Manager Harald Seeley told Edge-Online .

…Artists Rendering…

To the detriment of PC gamers, Crysis Warhead will be the LAST PC EXCLUSIVE from the devloper due to the fact they are losing so much business in the PC market.

Back in April, Yerli asserted that games like Crysis on consoles would “sell factors of 4 [to] 5 more.” This is not to say that the company is abandoning the platform, but that the company will branch out to support the consoles as well. “It takes nothing away from the PC gamer if the game is also available on another platform,” said Seeley.  While Crytek has stated that its Crysis games are PC exclusives, the company has rebuilt its CryENGINE technology for the consoles and demonstrated it running on the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 at this year’s Game Developers Conference. Seeley was impressed by the current generation of consoles and said “console technology has advanced a great deal since we released Far Cry, and our teams have since found it very exciting to push the boundaries of what most people today consider possible to do on those platforms.” Another aspect he admires about the consoles is the fact that it’s harder to pirate on, “…The consoles themselves are, in one sense, simply very good DRM technologies that consumers welcome and pay for, in order to receive the benefits that come with them…”  Regardless of the company’s plans to develop games across a wider array of platforms, Crysis, the companies $22 million dollar and much pirated game, still turned a profit . “If it wasn’t profitable, I wouldn’t be able to stand here,” Yerli said at this year’s Leipzig Games Convention. – IGN

So there you have it, if PC gaming does eventually die a horrible and gruesome death, you’ll know who to thank, the chubby cheapskates that would rather steal than buy brilliant games. Don’t let them hide behind the excuse that they want to try them out either, demos and betas are already there for that exact purpose.

Games developers are in the business of making games, they do it to make money, which begets more games, which begets more money. See how it works? They don’t spend all day at the office working hard so someone can steal what they have created, so why do pirates feel it is okay to do so? You are costing yourselves the opportunity to play new games because you make developers scared of working on PC gaming when they know that they will lose a hell of alot of business because of you. Stop stealing, you’re screwing yourself and everyone else over.

Don’t like paying for games you filthy assed pirates? Lump it.