diodegrey

@cybereality: Published. They're developed by someone else entirely.

@Netnavi: "If the game is good then the people that want this game will get it officially."

All of them? Every single pirate who likes a game will buy it?

@Doupi: The problem is that putting CP measures in increases the cost of the game. As for the protection itself; there's an old Dilbert strip where Dilbert says he's developed a program that keeps kids from seeing porn on the Internet. Dogbert points out that he's willing to pit his intelligence against the sex drive of every online kid on Earth.

That's what's happening here, except instead of a sex drive, it's intelligence and a sense of entitlement. People being paid can only do so much. People doing things for free move mountains. Complete with walking backward and mistaking it for progress.

@CyberSkull: You know, if you don't even like the euphemism people used so it's not called "theft", then your conscience may be trying to tell you something.

@Kajetan: Has one person, ever, pirated a game that they could afford and would've bought if they hadn't pirated it? If the answer is 'yes', then piracy hurts sales.

And just because something is "indistinguishable from statistical noise" doesn't mean it does not exist. Also, if you do enough studies, one will eventually support your desired conclusion. Like this one, which rides roughshod over yours. The Monkeys with Typewriters principle.

Jonn

Big World

Shad0X

PC requires a crack and possibly edit outgoing connections to block security checks. While the PS2 version (works for single player fine) can be patched to get across DNAS (for multiplayer) and the 360 version simply works any which way...

Right now the console with the least piracy is definitely the PS3, regular firmware updates that block out any possible edits making it a pain to constantly update cracked firmware. A BD drive that isn't able to be flashed (for the moment) and being a new storage medium that is expensive to copy.

If anything it just sounds like he's trying to drive sales towards the 360 as pirates know that's the next best alternative. Microsoft still makes a profit from the hardware sales and live subscriptions while developers get the royal shaft.

ReginaldTheSeventySecond

Gam3r

elislider

Dielaughing

Kyl Von Carstein

chorx

cybereality

...wait a minute!!

fourzerotwo

1. Stadiums are remodeled, added

2. Dev Teams work closely with PlayersAssociations to get the updated CharacterSheets accurate in a uncertain pre-season environment. Each yeah, in Madden alone, there are more "Players/Rookies" than there are "Monsters" in Oblivion. This means new stats, quirks, rendered faces, recorded voices, and play-strength AI.

2a. I would *never* enter an argument with the stance, "Oblivion is a better game than Madden." I'd rather cut off my own arms with a rusty hacksaw using nothing more than my teeth.

3. New plays. But that means nothing to people who don't get it. moving on.

4. Updated/New Graphics Engine(s).

5. New physics based on new code enhancements (modular or native).

6. Madden's AI team doesn't get a break. It's a 365 day a year job. They meet with REAL players who play a lot of Madden. They talk with coaches. Hell, they even consult Madden himself from time to time. Some of the most underrated AI in the entire Videogame Industry is happening in Madden development as we type...

rainofwalrus

Market forces (which exist) even in piracy state that eventually as desirability of PC games drops, and console games rises, more will pirate consoles.

Personally, for me, piracy is a balance between supporting the games I want, and making sure I don't get ripped off. How many times have you bought a $40-$60 pile of crap? Do that enough, and you'll want to "try before you buy" yourself.

I think the real reason is no one wants Madden 09 on their PC. Maddenheads prefer console, PC gamers prefer different games.

arstal

IMO, EA is purposefully *trying* to kill the PC market. Really, why would they just suddenly stop supporting the PC? I doubt PC piracy has gone up much since last year, although who really knows?

cybereality

fearing

zilo

Mr.SithNinja

ban_hammer

Bleentastic sees bandwagon and jumps

Hylian

CancerMan

Malevolentburrito

If anything EA has been looking for years to get out of PC Sports games, and this is the year they just decided to do it. Moore has already said that there are other games in the EA Sports line that won't be coming out on PC this year, so I would expect to also see cancellation announcements for NBA Live, NHL, and maybe Tiger Woods. If anything Tiger and FIFA will probably be the only 2 games released because FIFA is of course huge worldwide and PC golf has always been pretty popular.

What's also funny is that Madden on PC last year was flat out the best version of Madden available. YES it still had the PS2 engine in terms of graphics but it by far had the most features, best AI, and overall package. Which brings us back to the real reason these games are being canceled, they just don't sell enough.

I love PC gaming, and I enjoy sports games. But I'm not oblivious to the fact that sports games on the PC do not sell well and there has to be very diminishing returns on making that particular game. If EA Sports really thinks that's the reason, then they should just come out and say it instead of using piracy as a convenient excuse. I mean are you seriously going to expect me to believe that you're cancelling Madden, NBA Live, NHL, and whatever else ALL because of piracy? Give me a break. You might as well cancel every game you develop then outside of The Sims, Civilization, and (presumably) Spore, because those are the only games you publish that will sell a lot.

It's a legitimate excuse that piracy is hurting the PC industry, because any RATIONAL person obviously knows that's true. It's too easy for people to pirate on PC, and anyone with a lot of gray area in their morals are going to find a way to justify downloading something for free that they would normally have to pay for. And if you don't think it would be the EXACT same situation if piracy was as easy to do on consoles, you're pretty delusional. And to me it's only a matter of time before that happens. What was a big culprit in the demise of the Dreamcast? Piracy. It was incredibly easy to play backup DC games.

All of you people who try to brush off piracy as just this little thing that doesn't have much of a dent in this industry are, well I don't have a word for what you are. Because "stupid" is way too kind. It's tearing apart PC gaming, and like I said it's only a matter of time before console gaming gets hit in the same way.

mva5580

Piracy. Lulz.

BlackDove

Hey... maybe piracy IS killing PC gaming - counter-piracy measures are driving users off en masse! Makes as much sense as the conclusions they jump to anyway...

fuchikoma

anyway, Xb2 is pirated aswell, so thats no excuse for not bringing out games on the pc..

devilhunterx

That's the reason you don't see radios around anymore.

Fulgurator

The last holiday season was the last nail in the coffin for you boys, when virtually NOBODY actually purchased Crysis or UT3 for those PC's.

Congratulations, morons - you finally killed the PC as a high-end gaming platform. Hope you enjoy your mainstream Myst-style adventuring from now on! At least you won't need to upgrade your machines for a few years again.

FeisarPS3

And I feel some of your Driver pain, although much of the Driver problems you mention seem, IMO, improper removal of previous drivers (e.g. clean registry).

When running a tiddy box, I rarely have problems with any driver/patch release. And I play a lot of PC games (industry insider, not pirate).

You're right. The average users is falling behind. And fast.

rainofwalrus

TheHun

TheHun

I'm not a PC gaming pleb, I've been building and overclocking my PCs for years. I've been swapping drivers around for all that time and they're definitely getting worse. There is always something broken in some game or some feature omitted or the image quality has been compromised for performance. If it exasperates me I don't know what it's doing to your average PC user.

Whether or not this is making people computer illiterate I don't know, but I do think it is driving people away from PC gaming.

photoboy

Maybe he's realizing that PC Gamers may be a little more sensible about their gaming purchases.

If EA bought into that, you'd NOT see increased push for their Command and Conquer series, which is predominately on the PCs, as well as The Sims franchise.

It's no wonder why I am as much a fan of his, as I am for Howard Stringer. (Yes, I am still up for having him "quartered"!!!)

Soldier_CLE

"but my toaster wont make tomato and basil bruschetta!"

use your broiler!

"what's a broiler?"

rainofwalrus

and with mod chip torrents appearing for console games just as quickly as PC games now its not that people arn't aware that priacy affects things its more a ever looming presence that feels like a cop out when coming from publishers as the sole reason for these things happening. Especially considering there are sucess stories on the PC platform such as steam, stardock and blizzard.

I don't have a research department infront of me or patchers godlyy skills, but from my perspective at least. the combination of inaccessability (vista, driver cluster fucks, system requirements.) competition from the console market, piracy and publishers and evelopers INABBILITY to alter their business models to produce DESIRED profits from PC gaming are the factors leading to these announcement.

the piracy alone comment as I said sounds like a cop out when you realise people are still turning a profit here PC land.

Consoles also have going for them the downloadable content sales as iceing on the cake for many of the larger companies. Content that was once rather than paid for Free with patches on the PC OR user generated by fans.

The debate on the core topic of this news post isn't really what gets people worked up. More the fact PC gamers are never going to get the press release or interview which states all these factors as the reasons

trunk3h

On topic: There is a better reason not to port Madden to PC ever again: IT NEVER SELLS WELL. Hell, I'd go a step further and say Madden PC isn't even PIRATED often. :P

rainofwalrus

rdj

A console game removes so much of the headache for piracy, testing different configs and the like. Its easier to turn a profit. And at the end of the day - they are in a business.

Too many gamers make that "oh the piracy excuse" comment to a story like this- but infact many of them are part of the problem as they have the cracked games - no matter the reason they do it - they still pirated the game.

Limafoxtrot

Sailorcancer

In the past they couldn't count on console sales to carry the day - but given they are much harder for an average joe to pirate, have fewer configuration variables and now sell more - it doesn't surprise me that devs are looking at the financials and saying - nope PC versions not worth the money

Limafoxtrot

Please, read this:
[www.unc.edu]

This study comes to the conclusion, that downloading affects the sales of music only in such a small amount, that it is nigh impossible to distinguish it from "statistical background noise".

Therefore i say, piracy in form of private downloading or swapping hard drives does not hurt sales, so that the companies have to worry. But ... piracy is a perfect scapegoat, so companies will use it as they please to cover up own mistakes or unpopular strategy changes.

And second, i am tired of hearing that pc gaming is dying. This is simply not true. It is just changing. People spend a lot of money an PC-MMO games, buy games via digital distribution plattforms like Steam or Reflexive ... but the official sales figures from the NPD group are looking only on the retail sector. And there, you can clearly see, that people spend more money on console games, because console games are becoming more and moe popular! And NOT, because of P2P or piracy. It's just a change of customer preferences, nothing more. It happens to Commodore and other producers of so called homecomputers, who lost against the uprising PC at the beginning of the 90s. Now it's the age of consoles. Piracy has NOTHING to do with it. Everything digital is being "pirated". You cannot stop that. In fact, you should just ignore it and concentrate your efforts on making good products for those people, who have the money and the will to buy these products.

Whining about lost potential revenue, because maybe (!) some pirate would have bought a product, if it wasn't freely available, is just greedy daydreaming and stupid! This kind of thinking takes you nowhere! It is paranoid, it concentrates your actions on people, who would not buy your products in the first place. So why bother?

Kajetan

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.

Captain Impulse

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

Papa Midnight

@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...

quen

lollercoaster

The Whaleman

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

The Whaleman

BtownDesignGuy

francisrizzo3

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.

arstal

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.

TKWarrior

*Assumes fetal position in corner and cries*

KM91

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.

Marlor

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.

CyRevenant

Vidunder

Nirual

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.

CyberSkull

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.

Apreche

K-Squad! (Badass Edition)

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

Manny

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.

Marlor

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.

aldo_14

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.

somarix

Doupi

[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.

Impurethinker

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

Antihippy

pb00

phicaluk

Nillard

One word: Hamachi.

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

Marlor

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.

deviantCharles

Dielaughing

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.

Marlor

NimbusTLD

TorchedIce

el_rezzo

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.

Marlor

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.

UmeShoryu

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.

aldo_14

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.

IronsUK

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.

MikeSheehan

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

ban_hammer

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.

The Whaleman

akilshohen

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?

Kazzahdrane

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.

photoboy

UmeShoryu

Dorphat the Insomniac

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.

Netnavi

Mikintosh

Bicro

Gantz: Your Trusted Friend in Science.

Raziel Dune

Tyheam