I jsut read a preview of Crysis Warhead,
here, and i've been left feeling quite worried and a little angry.
It's because of the comments of Crytek's CEO Cevat Yerli about piracy. For the record, I own a copy of the game, played through it on the lowest possible settings at a stuttering framerate and thoroughly enjoyed it..
Here's the first thing I had a problem with. Earlier on he noted that Crysis sold 1 million copies.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Yerli
Yerli noted that for every copy of Crysis sold there were as many as 20 copies that were pirated. (...) Yerli said. "I'm not disappointed by the people who support us. I know there are a lot of people who support us, and I'm grateful and I thank [them] for that. But there are 15 to 20 times more people who don't care right now."
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Does he really think that 20 million people illegally downloaded Crysis? Is he insane? No games are downloaded that much. Even WoW doesn't have 20 million subscribers. Also, why does he assume that somebody who doesnt buy the game does so because they pirate it. Can 20 million people even run the game? Add on top of that poor multiplayer, the fact that they've completely dropped support for the game, the fact that a lot of people didn't want to buy it because its "just good graphics" and the fact that a lot of people didn't like the demo and maybe he'd begin to see that 'piracy' isnt their problem at all.
Think about it Yerli. Your game has the highest system requirements out there. It's poorly optimised on top of that. The demo put a lot of people off. 1 million copies for a game that was widely acknowledged as being for tech savvies only is a brilliant number as far as i'm concerned.
The 2nd thing is even worse.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Yerli
To combat this, Crytek plans to strengthen copy protection in Warhead, but how it will do so remains murky for now. Yerli admitted that it's a very difficult task. "If you want to have an anti-piracy mechanic, you have to spend a lot of time at the risk of incapability here and there. So you will annoy some people, but you will delay the amount of piracy. You will make 10 people angry for 1,000 more people who cannot copy… It's a dangerous walk to walk because the 10 people who are upset, they will get loud about it. And this is where we have to be good about it, and it's difficult."
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If they even think about putting SecuROM into Crysis Warhead I can safetly say they've lost not just my sale, but many others as well. I know he's saying they don't want to be intrusive, but he's also saying the anti-piracy will probably annoy people. Thats all I need to hear. Why don't these companies realise that by putting intrusive copy protection in, all they do is make life difficult for their real consumers. It will get pirated anyway.
If they want to up the ante with anti-piracy then they should integrate the game with Steamworks and make it a Steam exclusive. Yes you'll still get cracked copys, but it's harder. To top it all it's convenient to the customers.
They're doing everything wrong when it comes to PC gaming (high specs, little support, their game's "It has good graphics therefore the gameplay cant be very good" image, using EA Downloader etc), and instead of looking at the problems they blame piracy.
I have very little respect for that guy after reading that article. Yes, he wants to protect their companies assest that they've spent millions producing. I understand and respect that. However he's going the wrong way about it as far as i'm concerned, and not only that but he seems to be completely ignoring all the other reasons for lost sales, and blowing the piracy problem way out of proportion.
Just had to have a rant.