Make a good and innovative game instead of just slapping a new number on the title and bring the PC's graphics at the console standards and your game will be bought. Simple like that.

blah blah blah piracy this piracy that. its like they never heard of it until now..yet its been around for idk a very long time not even just computers? oivay.

Not exactly dying for this, i could care less about sports at all tbh. But geez, pirates aren't killing the pc gaming industry, people blaming pirates like this is killing the pc gaming industry.

Suddenly, JUST WHEN I GET MY OWN PC....
Piracy becomes apparent to all developers!
Make a good game, and they will buy.
Make a mediocre game which is off store shelves quickly, but still has a following due to all the hype, and they will pirate.
YARRRR!

Yeah, I like how nobody even was aware that the Madden games were also being released for the PC all these years, but now that one's not coming out this year suddenly people take notice.

Why don't these companies admit that they make more money on comsoles than on PC because MORE PEOPLE PLAY ON CONSOLES NOW THAN BEFORE>

UGH. sorry for capslocks.

It isn't because of piracy. Pirates won't make you lose money even though they haven't bought anything. If the game is good then the people that want this game will get it officially. Pirates don't make such a huge percentage that these companies would like you to believe.

It' like the movie industry. They make record profits yet they complain about lost revenue. You made more than last year! Stop complaining. If anything pirates are helping you make money by helping to spread the word. Think of it as advertising by word of mouth.

Piracy: the lone
scapegoat for a company
with far more problems.

Torrents didn't exist 20 years ago. Heck, how big of a problem was PC piracy 10 years ago? Not many people had the internet let alone owned CD burners. The people who did have the internet was on dial-up and probably had to use IRC to download software.

It's not piracy, the legitimate PC games market is dying. On a recent visit to PC World I discovered they had reduced the entire PC games section to a single bookshelf and 90% of the games there were various The Sims add-ons. The consoles however had rows and rows of games. If *PC* World is making more money on console games it shows the sorry state the market is in I think.

I think the reason PC gaming is dying is clear. Why bother with all the hassle involved in PC gaming when a 360/PS3 gives you almost the same hi-def experience? People don't want to download patches, update drivers and pay for a new high-end rig every 8-12 months just so they can play the latest PC game.

Start shipping well polished, well written PC product and you'll be halfway there. The other half of the battle is down to Nvidia and ATI shipping drivers that aren't full of bugs. For example when I buy Assassin's Creed for my 360, Gears of War doesn't suddenly run at half the frame rate it used to. But when I updated by Nvidia drivers the other day, that's exactly what happened. There's too much fiddling and hassle to bother with PC games these days and the software and hardware manufacturers only have themselves to blame for years of shipping substandard software and drivers.

For those claiming this is all a lie, try working in games retail. You'll sell maybe a handful of new PC games each day. It's very depressing, and yes I know most savvy PC people buy their games online, but I'm sure that's just more sales rather than being "good sales".

In my opinion, developers should start making their games Steam-exclusive and utilise that platform to combat piracy. I'd *love* to see the figures of Orange Box sales on Steam versus boxed retail copies. Wouldn't be surprised if it was 9:1 or so, if not more.

Anyay, I'm rambling. Downside is for people without great Internet connections, but then why not still sell the retail disc with a Steam product key so you don't download the game, just activate it ala Valve's releases since Half-Life 2?

it's has to be something else, like sales. I think people would rather pirate other PC games instead of madden. If nancy drew can survive, so can madden.

And cue the piracy fanboys... the worst fanboys of them all. While the regular fanboys only give their object of choice a bad name, the piracy fanboys try to justify killing off their market.

While there is piracy on consoles as well, it's not even on the same scale as computer piracy. When the GTAIV got leaked on torrents, whoever at kotaku checked it saw like a thousand seeders... a new PC game... good or bad... gets downloaded way faster than that. There's been games where they have seen more active seeders than actual copies sold... yet people claim that "if they had made better games people would have bought them" which is complete bullcrap. There's no justification for piracy. It does hurt the market and it almost makes me happy that PC gaming gets cut off from it since it's nowhere near as abundant on any other platform as there...

...the sad part is that the pirates still won't realize they're part of the reason and will keep on nailing that coffin until it's truly dead.

Madden? they don't do any changes besides roster updates, so a community mod of the last madden should work in theory

Infact I bet that is all EA does, make a mod for the new teams and reuse eerything, and the funny part is that I'm not even joking

@Tyheam: No, it's not "Simple like that"

People are all to ready to blame this on Madden's over-eagerness to use the same gameplay elements year in-year out.

The 'simple' thing about this is that piracy is the issue here, not whether people will buy the game or pirate it based on how good it is. Call of Duty 4 proved that. Can't remember which article it was around here where the lead dev came out and said how disappointing it was to have the game they poured their hearts into pirated to hell and back, with them not getting the ROI they deserved.

Piracy is to blame here. Fact.

If I was running a games publishing company, I'd ditch stuff that was losing money too.

I don't know if the PC market is getting smaller, I would guess that's it's just not grown in a meaningful way in the last 15 years.

It's worth noting (slightly declining, at least in the US) retail sales measurements, etc, don't usually include subscriptions (for MMORPGs etc) or digital sales (Steam, and also microtransactions), which are the big growth markets.

Personally, I doubt the PC market is dying, although it will be (and is) shrinking in terms of the percentage of the whole games market. What is happening, I think, is that developers are suffering from both making games like Crysis (with unrealistically high system requirements for the number of PC gamers they want to sell to), and from porting over console games which simply aren't up to snuff versus the relative standards of PC games developed for that platform in previous years (in terms of design, performance on hardware, etc).

To be honest, though, I can understand people pirating stuff like Madden - it's pretty galling to buy a game and see it superceded by a new version only months later, especially as it ruins any sort of residual resale value.

@MikeSheehan: Truth.

I predict that Starcraft 2 will be amazing, but unfortunately will be pirated like hell in the Western Hemisphere. Now I don't know about the piracy situation in the East other than China/HK but I reckon Blizzard will be looking to make back most of its investment in the game from South Korean sales.

@Tyheam:

I really doubt that piracy rates are related to the quality of games. Many PC gamers pirate almost every game. The only ones they buy are those that have to be played on official online servers.

I have workmates who tell me that I'm "stupid", "a zealot" or "made of money" for refusing to pirate my PC games. These are well-paid and highly-educated guys that can easily afford to buy all the games they want. They just see piracy as the rational choice, because you get the same thing whether you pirate or buy, and piracy is free.

And it's not just them. Piracy is so entrenched in the PC gaming culture that it's seen as the normal thing to do. Actually buying games is the anomaly. Just look at some of the comments that come up whenever the piracy issue is raised for evidence of that.

And to be honest, apart from the money, I can see why people do pirate games. It's actually harder to play PC games if you have the real thing. For one, there are all the issues with copy protection and having to deal with CDs and DVDs. Also, I don't know how many times I've tried to play online (or at a LAN party) with my workmates only to find that I can't join their server because I've updated to a version of the game that hasn't had a cracked release yet.

Hopefully Steam will change the PC gaming culture for the better. But until that happens, piracy is the norm among many gamers, and those of us who love PC gaming are the ones that suffer as a result.

Been hearing this excuse a few bit recently, and although it is very true there are ways to minimise piracy. The whole Steam system (I'm only going on my HL2 experience here and that was years ago) seemed to be a good way to combat piracy, needing a constant access to the internet would be a pain for some but is a better option than not giving PC gamers an option at all.

A hint to developers, Copy protection doesn't do anything but waste your money and hurt your customers. (PC Bioshock anyone?) Pirates are going to get around that program you paid so much for. Please, for the sake of the paying customers, get rid of copy protection. Just think of all they money you would save, you might just turn a bigger profit.

Will publishers soon announce that they will no longer be releasing "hardcore" games for the DS?

@el_rezzo:

Steam games can be cracked and pirated just as easily as any other game.

Despite this, I still think that Steam has the potential to reduce piracy by offering simple, easy access to games at reasonable prices. I'm sure that part of the reason piracy is so prominent in the PC gaming scene is that it's just easier than getting a boxed version of the game.

However, the main issue is that piracy is addictive. Once you are used to getting your games for free, actually paying money for them starts to seem like an extravagant waste.

Why would you regularly pay $50 for a new game when you could be getting every game that is released for free? Succumbing to that temptation is just too easy.

@UmeShoryu: I dunno. With Battle.net, if you don't have a legit CD Key you can't play online. If you can't play online, what's the point? After you beat the single player, all that is left to do is multiplayer.

It can't be said that Madden isn't selling well on the PC because it isn't popular. Of course it's not a good game. It's the exact same recycled product, but you still see people buying the crap out of it for consoles. To claim it's just a bad game so people aren't buying is blatantly untrue or they wouldn't keep making the franchise for the console.

It seems pretty clear that PC gaming is pirated to a ridiculous degree. It's also not like anyone can claim that they don't know what they're getting from a Madden game so they pirate it just to try it out.

If piracy is hurting these companies (and there's really no reason to believe otherwise after seeing torrent seeds,) they should feel completely justified in cutting them off.

It sucks if you're a PC gamer that loves Madden, but that's the way gaming is. I don't own a PS3, so I know I'm gonna miss out the latest Metal Gear game. It sucks, but it's the choice you make if you have to limit the platform you want to game on. Que sera, sera.

Besides, if you really want to play Madden on the PC, just play 08. It's not like there's a difference.

@Dielaughing:

One word: Hamachi.

That is unless Blizzard disable LAN play and make Starcraft 2 online-only.

Madden was on the PC?

Wait, I thought anti-Americanism was to blame. Or was that yesterday?

Honestly, how many people really buy Madden on PC? who cares

Oh please, PC gaming isn't dying.

The console market may be becoming much bigger, but PC games are still well and alive.

Since nobody seems to mention it I will: Stardock pwns all of this bullshit.
They don't use DRM at all and they do great business. Just read this Joystiq interview about what they think of the "death of PC gaming"

[www.joystiq.com]

Have I ever pirated games? Sure. Will I ever pirate a Stardock game? Never on my life.

Oh and the newest expansion for GalCiv2 just dropped. So pick that shit up!

Seriously I'm tired of hearing about EA's bullshit and all of these Devs crying about piracy and the death of PC gaming. They need to just wake up and smell the way the world is going to be in the future.

So if piracy is a problem, do something about it. Make it difficult for pirates and easy for the consumers. Make the games cheaper and the security of the games better. Steam is great for that, or at least it is going in the right direction...

@UmeShoryu: 10 years ago, here you just couldn't buy a game legitimately. Everyone, and I mean everyone in the whole country, went to "Multimedia shops", choosing from a big catalog which full-games or ripped games (more can fit on 1 CD) to be burnt on CDs for $8. The shop-keeper had a cluster of 56k modems, downloading iso and zip from FTPs (mostly of the Russian scene).
A couple of years later, finally they started selling legitimate copies, too - of the 3-4 bestselling games haha.

During and before that, as few people could afford a PC, everyone went to PC-clubs, paying $1/hour to play games (all of which were pirated). That's how I started gaming.
Only when a game-distributor was created (so people could buy legit) that piracy started decreasing a bit. [and whatever game still isn't available in the country - all people pirate it]. Only a few gamers here like me are not afraid (and can afford) to pay online to import. But mostly, people can't afford. Well, I'm in a shitty Eastern EU country with $150/mo salaries (and a game here costs $100)... so the 1-2 million gamers here just can't pay. Oh well, at least the PC-clubs are always legit nowaday, as the law here against piracy here is "it's ok to pirate unless you sell to others" - and if a club or office is rumored to break the law even a bit... they immediately get raided by a squad of black-commandos LOL (I'm not kidding... it's ridiculous)

But still... Madden was also on a PC?? If they follow their statement, they should avoid publishing on x360, Wii and PS2, too - as there are millions of pirates there too.

@phicaluk: Wait, I thought anti-Americanism was to blame. Or was that yesterday?

It's what they call an unstable market. Tomorrow it'll be due to a civil war in East Africa destabilising the price of CDs.

@Doupi wrote:
"So if piracy is a problem, do something about it. Make it difficult for pirates and easy for the consumers."

That's what Starforce claimed their copy-protection did. It was supposedly impossible to crack, but seamless for users.

And we all know how that turned out.

The PC version was dog shit anyway.

It's just another company who put out a crappy product then found their out by blaming pirates.

Finally, me posting my hatred for PC pirates in almost every kotaku post has new flame!!

Pirates, eh? I don't think that's a good reason.

If you bring it out for the PC, there will be legitimate sales. The pirates aren't going to buy it whether you release it or not, so already count them out. By not releasing it for the PC, you are basically giving up all those legitimate purchases.

The only reason not to make a PC release is if the expected sales are less than the cost of producing the PC version. In other words, PC gaming is indeed hurting.

Listen to Stardock: Copyright Infringers are not your customers in the first place! Or perhaps you just feel that since sales of what is a stale genre are down, infringers make a convenient excuse.

I refuse to call copyright infringers "pirates". Piracy is theft and other crimes on the high seas not a nerd downloading the latest whatever. Calling them pirates only serves to sensationalize a cause that many people are growing increasingly weary of. If you game is pirated, you'd better be damn well able to tell me what kind of boat they sailed away in.

I'm getting tired of that arguement. Piracy isn't unheard of on consoles, albeit more complicated... at the moment. But with the PS3 and Xbox 360 being more like a specialized PC than a classic console, it's only a matter of time.
Just make online registration mandatory like any Steam game does and piracy suddenly becomes much less of an issue. Downloads are the way of the PC future anyway.
But what do I care about Madden anyway. Not a sports fan, and if I was, I wouldn't be buying the newest edition anyway. Why pay full price when I can get a minorly worse version for 10 bucks?

Yes. But 20 years ago games didn't cost $300.000. Piracy hurts more as the developement prices go up.

@Impurethinker: Not to say that people don't pirate.

Everyone I know, bar one, who owns a Stardock game, does so because they have torrented it, or gotten the iso from someone else who as torrented it.

If I was a little more violent I'd probably stab them all in their collective faces.

@Nirual wrote:
"Just make online registration mandatory like any Steam game does and piracy suddenly becomes much less of an issue."

That doesn't really help. Steam-based games (such as Valve's) are cracked just as fast as anyone else's.

Starforce is the only recent copy protection scheme that held-out against pirates for any reasonable length of time... but there's no way I'd want a Starforce game on my PC.

@CyberSkull:

The term "piracy" has been used to refer to plagiarists and copyright infringers for hundreds of years. The earliest recorded use in this sense was in 1703.

It's a ambiguous term, but one that has been used in this sense for a very long time.

STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT!!!!

*Assumes fetal position in corner and cries*

I agree with Luke complete on this one. Yes, pricay was HUGE even 10-15 years ago. There were far fewer roadblocks (if any) to prevent you from just simply 'copy/paste' a new copy of Space Quest. The internet and newer equipment just made it easier as time went by.

This is more of a case of companies being too lazy to come up with new ways to combat the issue. They'd rather just not make the port then come up with something like Blizzard and other developers.

Its not like they didn't make a profit on the previous version of Madden on the PC, they just didn't make as much as the console versions. But lets blame the low sales on piracy instead of anything else, so we can save money on developing a port.

Good job EA, just keep giving your audience more reasons to take their money elsewhere.

@The Whaleman:

The GTA torrents were console, not PC.

If PC people stop making games, pirates will pirate 360/PS3 games.

Also, pirates would find a way to make their own XBL eventually.

I guess I've played the last NHL XX on my PC. Hopefully this year they release it on Wii, or I'm going to be awfully pissed.

This makes me remember Interplay. Back in the day, I knew they had a hard time, but I couldn't help but get the feeling that every game they made appealed specifically to the type of person who'd rather pirate a game than buy it. And then, well, we all know what happened later.

@arstal: That it was the console version was teh whole point, had it been a PC version there had been a hundred times as many seeds up. While piracy exists for consoles, it's not a plague-ridden landscape like the PC gaming is today. On consoles piracy is currently just a litte rust on the edges, while on PC it's the fricken flood popping up everywhere. As already stated previously on topic, it's not uncommon for legal purchases to be the abomination on PCs. I know people look at me for being crazy for owning hundreds of CDs, games and DVDs (thousands if you add them all together) when you can get the same content for free. It's not a minor problem, it's everywhere and only fools pretend it to be anything else.

Please, people, is there any hard evidence, any proof (!), that piracy ist hurting sales?

Films are downloaded in Zillions, but last year Hollywood has made a new profit high. So. please, would you stop repeating this old lie and myth, that piracy is hurting sales? Because it's not true. There is NO PROOF! No evidence. Only assumptions and wild speculation.

@Kajetan: Let's put it this way... if there was no way to illegally obtain games... do you think the pirates would refrain from gaming completely? Of course it hurts sales, assuming anything else is just naive.

No more madden on the PC? Finally piracy has done something good for gamers. :P

@Kajetan: Yeah, there was some post on Kotaku from some casual-game company. They happened to be able to do a controlled test and found that when people were able to pirate the game, vs not able to pirate the game, the difference in sales was tiny. (The difference in users were huge - 80% or something of the people who played the game before had pirated it. But what happened was that the 80% just went away when they couldn't get the game for free.)

@TKWarrior: Sure piracy was huge - as a kid I had a legit copy of King's Quest 4, and very good it was too, but I also played KQ 1-3 and all the Space Quest and whatever and you can be sure I didn't pay for all those. On the other hand it was a little bit harder because back then most people didn't know how to use a BBS, never mind get an internet connection. So you basically had to know somebody who knew the game, or know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody, etc.

Overall though I doubt it has changed. People who couldn't afford games pirated them, people who could afford them mostly bought them, people in the middle made a choice either way. I suspect poor PC game sales are just because nobody wants to play games on PCs, and piracy rates, certainly piracy-by-people-who-would-have-paid-otherwise rates, are not particularly higher than before.

I have plenty of money and could easily afford a gaming PC and PC games. The fact that I don't buy them is nothing to do with piracy.

One thing I do suspect is that the types of people who are guaranteed to pirate games, i.e. impoverished students, are also the types of people most likely to choose PC as a gaming platform. They have the time and effort to get the things running, their parents bought them the PC, and games are free. In other words a large reason for playing PC games at all is that they're easy to pirate...

Blizzard Entertainment's games have been some of the most pirated over the past decade and a half... Yet they seem to turn profit every quarter. Wonder what they're doing right....

@The Whaleman: Sure piracy must hurt sales as the likelihood that 100% of the people who pirate the game would not have bought it otherwise is very low.

But piracy also clearly helps sales. There's the traditional example - somebody pirates a game, likes it so much they buy a copy which they wouldn't have done otherwise - which does happen but probably not that often. There are other routes too - for example, if a student gets heavily into gaming because it is free, then get a well-paying job and figure they might as well just order games online instead of bothering to keep up with all the torrent sites and whatever, that's a big sales bonus.

So the question as to whether piracy overall hurts sales or helps them is an awful lot harder to determine. As mentioned, I've only ever seen one case that's anything like a controlled experiment, which showed that piracy hurt sales by a minute fraction (despite consisting a huge majority of usage of the software, before it was prevented). Is that experiment enough to draw conclusions about the effect across the entire industry? Certainly not, but it does indicate that the situation is not a clear-cut one.

@quen: PC gaming piracy wasn't hard back in the good ol' King's Quest days. Take me, for example. My age was in the single-digits and I could "defeat" their "piracy protection", which usually consisted of having to enter a certain string of words or phrases from certain pages of the user manual. I called it "rent the game and photo-copying the manual". Of course, I grew up and learned doing so was bad, got a job, and put a stop to that.

Piracy does hurt games, and in this day and age, I can see why PC game developers are raising concerns more often. BitTorrent and other file sharing methods have made it that much easier.