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Forget 'I Am Alive' on PC, Thank Piracy
Uros "Vader" Pavlovic
02:50 pm EDT @ November 23rd, 2011
The downloadable title I Am Alive won't be making its way to PCs, as you probably are aware of by now. The game's creative director, Stanislas Mettra, said they gave up on the PC edition for good reason. "It's hard because there’s so much piracy and so few people are paying for PC games that we have to precisely weigh it up against the cost of making it."
He also added: "Are these people just making noise just because there’s no version or because it’s a game they actually want to play? Would they buy it if we made it?," "Perhaps it will only take 12 guys three months to port the game to PC," Mettra said. "It’s not a massive cost but it’s still a cost. If only 50,000 people buy the game then it’s not worth it."
So there you have it. The truth kind of comes out doesn't it. Piracy is the evilest of all evilsies. Hm, didn't we all know that already?
28 post(s)
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perhaps it sucks than?
These past few months I've played more interesting freeware games than what this Ubisoft whore can ever hope to create. HOW ON EARTH do freeware pc game developers do it, hmm ? Veeery fishy.
I for one gave up any thoughts of playing it from the last report, they really messed up what could have been a fresh and exciting new game.
...and I for one know what its like when everyone thinks your dead.
Might as well blame piracy rather than admit that your game isn't going to appeal to enough PC gamers.
Let's look at numbers shall we? How did the PC versions of SKyrim, Batman, Ass Creed, Warhammer 40K, and...oh I don't know, Dead Space 2 do for sales numbers, profit/loss, etc?
When creating a business model, there needs to be taken into account acceptable losses due to people not buying a game for what ever reason.
My further counter argument is that gamers will buy games they like and want to play. If your game isn't likable, then people won't buy it regardless whether it comes out on console or PC.
If game developers are whinging about piracy and only create for the console, they must not have heard about how console versions of Skyrim and MW3 were up on torrents earlier than PC (if I remember correctly).
Seriously, this Stanislas Mettra should consider getting out of the game development arena and go into something "safe" like banking or politics if this is views on PC/console game creation.
Does that involve peg-legs and hooks?
the thing is knowing how to get someone buy your fucking game, putting PC gamers out of the picture won't do it... it sounds like console users are the only legitimate gamers in the world.
who the fuck is Stanislas Mettra?
Millions of people do in fact buy PC games, especially when they are worth buying.
i;ve become the past years due to economical reasons a console player, since investing in a new rig for gaming always came second to ...basically everything,even my motorcycle or car's gas...anyway...i wanted to say this...saying that a game won't sell is the same train of thought of not having sex even with a condom becaouse there is that 1% -something-ish chance it will break....combine it with another small chance the girl has std's.....and the another very small chance of actually dying cause of said std and the reason is...stupid:
"i will not have sex even with a condom with any girl because there is that astronomically small chance that even with a condom,i will die because i had sex."
So,in short,it will suck for ALL, and will be even below DNF....which was crap,but fun crap.He made it clear.
What the fuck, man? Did that nonsense really sound sensible in your own head?
Mettra and his studio are making a business decision. It's real easy for you to sit there and say they should be more optimistic with their sales projection when it's not your professional career and livelihood that's at stake... it doesn't take much at all to bankrupt a mid-tier studio in this era of video-game development.
"Perhaps it will only take 12 guys three months to port the game to PC," Mettra said. "It’s not a massive cost but it’s still a cost. If only 50,000 people buy the game then it’s not worth it."
This is a key statement right here. It speaks volumes, on a number of subjects. And you all need to note it very carefully.
You wonder why the PC versions of games are too often given short shrift? Just assumed (irrationally) that the studios have some sort of malicious grudge against the PC platform? Wrong. HERE is your answer.
Even with only 12 guys pushing out a PC game port on a short schedule -- or in other words, development overhead cost-cutting down to the bone -- the costs of that mere 3-month cycle will STILL prevent turning profit a 50,000 units sold.
That's how much game developers are getting paid these days (and they do deserve it, a lot of these guys work 60-70 hour weeks), and that's how expensive even bare-bones development costs are for the PC platform.
I don't think many of you realize just how much more expensive video-game development has become over the last years. Its gone up exponentially for the triple-A productions.
And so then when you throw in rampant piracy on the PC... well, it's only natural developers and publishers balk at PC development, either cutting it completely or cutting-costs however they can.
they need to drop the price of games when there released back to 50 or lower and they'll sell more and still make a profit.
iv downloaded games from torrent sites but only because they are not on the market anymore or i may not like the game. which i didnt like some of the games i downloaded.
i also download games via torrents if iv already bought the game so i dont have to reinstall from the disks and keep the game on my USB HDD.
I doubt I Am Alive is going to be a very good game. It's taken too long to develop, its changed studios mid-way through, and its being finished by a studio with a dubious track record (Ubisoft Shanghai is like Ubisoft's C-team, they do not inspire a great deal of confidence).
Indeed, Mettra sort of lets the cat out of the bag a bit with that cynical 50,000 units sold example. And he's probably right. I expect I Am Alive to get mediocre reception on the consoles, and then any later theoretical PC port would surely suffer for it, even without considering piracy.
This guy is either trying to deceive himself or you - a PC port that only sells 50,000 copies is only going to sell 50,000 regardless of piracy. Piracy is not the issue here.
Pirates don't look for shitty games to play anymore than normal customers do. Skyrim has made a gigantic quantity of sales, and the torrents released for the game are sitting at around 150,000 downloads, if you add up the numbers on all the different torrents on all the websites. That's only 150,000 pirated copies, compared to the 3.4 million said to have sold in 48 hours...
The deeper issue is that he doesn't believe in the quality of the game itself.
"It's hard because there’s so much piracy and so few people are paying for PC games "
Stani's full of shit, isn't he ? His game has a chance of failing on the pc for the following two reasons ONLY:
1. it's sub-mediocre (it sure looks like it + going from full priced to XBLA is also a bad sign)
2. tons of money got wasted during it's fucked up development
So who's more likely to be responsible for that ? The developer, the publisher, or pc gamers ? Yeah, you know where I'm going with this...
Stani is just being a pathetic coward. Of course he's right to be afraid for his future, but the only thing his bullshit argument does, is make him look like someone who's panicking because he fucked up.
Just ask Activishion, They are still laughing there arses off on how much money they made of MW3 with NO IMPROVMENT AT ALL.
Pointing out that titles like Skyrim and MW3 can still make it is so besides the point that it's not even on the same page. Those are massive games with huge backing selling at volume.
PS3 hack to allow to play backups ??? (with a simple usb key) Yes...
Dose not piracy exist in the music industry ? Yes... And did artists stop to make new albums ? No...
Wtf ? There will always be piracy. Everybody speaks about piracy, but IMHO i think there will always be more legitimate gamers than the evil ones... or they would have stopped making PC games a long time ago...
conclusion : un om bun> +1
Ok, don't do it on PC, your game is not awaited as being the new overwhelming-candy-eye-perfect-gameplay-story-etc game, so... what else ?
Going by his own numbers:
12 guys * 3 months = 2000$ wage * 12 * 3 = 72000$ spent
50000 ppl buying * 30'$ (already a low price) = 1.5 million $
Not worth it?!?!
I get that there's piracy and all. I'd be ready to defend that unless you have a top top game, making a pc EXCLUSIVE is probably hard nowadays.
But ports? You have the whole story, graphics, scripts, etc. The extra work is always worth it even if you don't sell a million copies like the top games do.