PC game developers cry about rampant piracy yet release games nobody can run

[MatTheCat]

I realise I am probably bordering on fringe of forum rules here but hope that admin to not delete/alter this post as I am trying to make a valid point.

Have been reading through the Far Cry 2 min specs thread with interest.

It seems that most people are of the consensus that the recommended specs are REALLY the BARE Minimum and thus, even the 'reommended' will be unacceptable to many PC gamers who spend a lot on having contemporary up to date hardware and demand high gaming performance.

I both play games that I bought out a shop and also games that found there way onto my desktop via Newsgroups and I know for sure that amongst other important factors that affect whether I purchase a game or not is whether it will run at a high standard on my PC. In a time where PC gaming is generally in decline largely as a result of rampant piracy I really think that releasing a game that cannot run maxed out on the very latest hardware is nothing short of commerical suicide. For example, who wants to pay to £35 for Crysis when the game will barely run on your recently purchased £2000 worth of PC hardware. Much better just to pay £5 for a budget FarCry which will run maxed out at 60FPS.......Or, if you still want to check out the game (Crysis), like I said, there is always Newsgroups etc.

And if I aint right, then why is Crysis the most bootlegged game of all time?

Mind you, Crysis will be a great purchase in 3-4 years time when it is going for £5 on budget release and even yer grandmothers PC will be able to run it maxed. However, the budget PC games market is not where developers make their profits.

Perhaps as a result of PC piracy, games consoles (yeah, u get console piracy also but it is much more hassle than PC piracy) have come to dominate the gaming market. Depending on how you look at things this could be seen as good news because most PC games will be ports of 360 / PS3 titles. Therefore, any modern gaming PC will have no problems running these titles at a level which well surpasses the games console performance (with a consoles games performance ALWAYS being acceptable at the very least) .

 

[kid41212003]

Computer is the All-purposes system... A standard computer will run standard game at standard setting. A Gaming Machine will be able to play game just like a console.
With a hardcore gamer, who gonna spend $49.99 for a PC game, probably can spend 200-300USD for a Vid card. For a casual gamer, $49 is too much for a game. He/she probably will spend less for some older titles which are playable in their "Not gaming machine".
If you bought a standward computer in 2007, with technologies xxxxx, and xxxxx, all games which are based on these xxxx techs will be able to play on the "standard 2007 computer" with "standard setting".

Everything has its prices. Beside people own more computers than console.
You can't play PS3 games on an PS2 system, but in PC, you still can play 2007 games, in an 5 years old system, it just look really horrible. Lolz.

 

[DonInKansas]

It seems that most people are of the consensus that the recommended specs are REALLY the BARE Minimum and thus, even the 'reommended' will be unacceptable to many PC gamers who spend a lot on having contemporary up to date hardware and demand high gaming performance.

But you forget that game companies also have to market to the casual gamer who may be playing on a Walmart Gateway PC purchase. Not everyone is a FPS counter with res and settings at max on a 24" screen.

 

[v-zero]

Would you complaining about a book that contained words you did not know?

 

[Jeno]

i think making a game that pusses the boundaries of realism is a good thing!!
CRYSIS FTW

 

[DrPepper]

What happened to the days when the gameplay itself is what mattered and not the graphics... sure it was always nice when a game had jaw dropping visuals but back when I played zelda, age of empires gold, battlefield 2 and sim city 4 etc no one ever bought the game because it had good graphics ... they bought them because they were excellent games to play for example I still play battlefield 2 regularly but don't play cod4 anymore because I have lost interest in the multiplayer because it is so linear and repetitive.

 

[warhammer]

Console piracy is easy as, mod chip the console and run your pirate games.

As for crysis people read forums see there are many people having issues so they down load it to try it for free rather than spend there money and wast it.

 

[MatTheCat]

Computer is the All-purposes system... A standard computer will run standard game at standard setting. A Gaming Machine will be able to play game just like a console.
With a hardcore gamer, who gonna spend $49.99 for a PC game, probably can spend 200-300USD for a Vid card. For a casual gamer, $49 is too much for a game. He/she probably will spend less for some older titles which are playable in their "Not gaming machine".
If you bought a standward computer in 2007, with technologies xxxxx, and xxxxx, all games which are based on these xxxx techs will be able to play on the "standard 2007 computer" with "standard setting".

Yeah....but that is not the point I was making. Developers make games for just a few main reasons. One of the most important is that they want to MAKE MONEY. To make money, people have to buy the game. Whilst piracy affects both consoles and PC's alike, with the PC, bootlegging a game is actually less hassle than buying the game whilst console priacy involves tampering around with the hardware which many people will be not keen on doing. Therefore the sad fact is that with PC gaming, the developer is relying largely on the goodwill of the consumer who has a very real choice whether to pay for the devs software or not.

A minority of people will only ever play games that they pay for. A large amount of people will only ever bootleg games, and everyone else in between (that makes for majority those who pay for PC games) will play both bootleg and legit games. So for example, say a couple of tasty release come out at once, both offering online play (for which legit code is usually necessary), One (COD4) runs like a dream with all eye candy maxed out on your PC, the other although technically amazing (Crysis), runs like a piece fo shit forcing you to turn off all the options which makes the game in an attractive proposition in the first place.

WHICH ONE ARE U GONNA BUY AND WHICH ARE U GONNA BOOTLEG?

But you forget that game companies also have to market to the casual gamer who may be playing on a Walmart Gateway PC purchase. Not everyone is a FPS counter with res and settings at max on a 24" screen.

Yes, but EVERYONE knows the min specs are a croc of $hit.

Console piracy is easy as, mod chip the console and run your pirate games.

As for crysis people read forums see there are many people having issues so they down load it to try it for free rather than spend there money and wast it.

EXACTLY.

But it just aint Crysis.....lots of games are like that when they are at point of release. I remember how badly I used to be able to run BF2. I would just not tolerate that in any game now..no matter what it was.....

If devs want to profit from PC games, ten they have to bring there software into line with current hardware....REALISTICALLY into LINE, Not 30 FPS with settings on medium in line...cos that is unaccepatable to a large amount of gamers.

Whilst console piracy may be easy the fact that you have to open up your console and solder a chip onto a PCB makes it inaccessible for many.....hence piracy is less of a problem and therefore it is only natural that games devs will focus more on consoles than PCs.

i think making a game that pusses the boundaries of realism is a good thing!!
CRYSIS FTW

Me Too!

I just loved pissing around smashing things to bits and blowing up sheds on my bootleg Crysis. But I will be damned if I am paying for a game that my fairly avante-garde PC cannot even run properly. If the game run too a decent standard on my rig, then I would have purchased it. In the real world, the developers can only look at themselves for losing the money I would have paid to use their software and also the money of countless millions of other gamers.

 

[cdawall]

i get to point this out in every i need a $2000 computer to pay whatever games i played crysis med/high 1024x768 on a single core 3000+, 1GB of DDR400, and a 7800GS not exactly top of the line and not exactly expensive.

 

[MatTheCat]

i get to point this out in every i need a $2000 computer to pay whatever games i played crysis med/high 1024x768 on a single core 3000+, 1GB of DDR400, and a 7800GS not exactly top of the line and not exactly expensive.

I said £2000

In your money, that is $4000.

All my PC parts new (at time of buying) are probs actually just a little more than £2000.

For this money, I EXPECT a high quality gaming experience. No Medium settings, No 30FPS. NEVER.

 

[cdawall]

oh so now you have to have the best settings because you spent alot of money? i could easily spend $4000 and get a mac and not even be able to run crysis on med and now i can play it all high for ~$700 toss in another 4870 and you could easily play it all high and i dont see how you dropped $4000 on your rig bro you got ripped off lol

 

[Jess Stingray]

For this money, I EXPECT a high quality gaming experience. No Medium settings, No 30FPS. NEVER.

Dude, quit whining. Crytek said that this game was intended for systems built in like, 2009. If you expect to go spend loads of money and get good performance on everything maxed out, especially the latest games, then you need to go learn WHY the game was made in the first place - to pish hardware to it's limits and encourage further hardware development to improve performance. And just because your system cost £2k when you bought it, for all we know it could of been 5 years ago - would you still be expecting to play it maxed out then?

 

[DrPepper]

For this money, I EXPECT a high quality gaming experience. No Medium settings, No 30FPS. NEVER.

Well tough, games come out that require more than the hardware in your pc. I doubt people who got 2 7950GX2 which cost about £1000 or something at release can play crysis at the same level as a 8800GT but they can't complain because technology moves on and leaves them in the dark.

 

[MatTheCat]

Dude, quit whining. Crytek said that this game was intended for systems built in like, 2009. If you expect to go spend loads of money and get good performance on everything maxed out, especially the latest games, then you need to go learn WHY the game was made in the first place - to pish hardware to it's limits and encourage further hardware development to improve performance. And just because your system cost £2k when you bought it, for all we know it could of been 5 years ago - would you still be expecting to play it maxed out then?

Missing the point.

So Making a profit is not important to Crytek?

Fair enough, they made a game to push hardware to its limits and stated that we can not expect to have an affordable desktop PC that can run this game until 2009.

So if Crytek were quite happy to release a game that nobody could run, why are they whinging about the amount of people bootlegging their game.

I WILL STATE AGAIN, IF A GAME DOES NOT RUN WELL ON MY MACHINE, I AM NOT GOING TO PAY FOR IT. Or in otherwords, if developers want people to buy their product and not opt for bootlegging it, then it is their (real-world) duty to themselves to ensure that their product runs well on contemporary PC's.

Well tough, games come out that require more than the hardware in your pc. I doubt people who got 2 7950GX2 which cost about £1000 or something at release can play crysis at the same level as a 8800GT but they can't complain because technology moves on and leaves them in the dark.

Totally Missing the point........

Why then (considering Crysis is almost 1 year old) can a Quad Core Extreme Dual GTX 280 system not run Crysis maxed out?

 

[MadClown]

I payed $50 for it, and played on low quality at 25-30fps, dont be a little bitch.

 

[Darren]

Mat, although I agree with the majority of your posts there is a little fuzzy area which you fail to understand. Game development companies make money off endorsements from third party companies such as Nvidia, ATI, Intel, AMD etc hence why they push the boundaries with system requirements because they have the above listed companies whispering in their ears and ensuring that only their new 48xxx or G2xx is advertised as the forefront of maxing out games. e.g. load up an Electronic Arts game and you'll get the splash screen stating best played with Nvidia, or load up another game and best play with X processor or Y graphics card. So to re-iterate games development companies get paid to endorse new hardware for hardware manufactures. These endorsements may be more money than from sales alone, and even if they made optimised games which are capable of running on average systems at max detail and resolution the annual revenue would be lower than with an Nvidia endorsement deal. So do not get mistaken game developers make their money whether you pirate there games or not.

I WILL STATE AGAIN, IF A GAME DOES NOT RUN WELL ON MY MACHINE, I AM NOT GOING TO PAY FOR IT. Or in other words, if developers want people to buy their product and not opt for bootlegging it, then it is their (real-world) duty to themselves to ensure that their product runs well on contemporary PC's.

Who cares whether you pay for it, download it, rent it, or stick the game up your bum bum, hardware manufactures endorsement deals brings in more revenue than sales from fully optimised game with no endorsement deal.

 

[xu^]

i notice forums full of threads saying such and such a game is bugged to hell and it wont work on there pc ,when all the other games they own do ,thats total rubbish imho.

in the 10 yrs or so ive owned a PC ive "never" had a game that i couldnt play ,maybe my PC was underpowered but it pld them ,i think its more a case of ppl owning PCs and simply not maintaining them properly ,old drivers installed ,probably half a dozen viruses , badly fragmented hard drive etc etc ,then they wonder why games crash or wont run at all.

if people looked after there PC properly then i think most ppl would be fine ,ofc theres bound to be the odd compatibility problem now and then,but overall i think its the users fault,not knowing how to properly setup and update a modern PC ,then when it doesnt run,they dash off the the games forum and start slating it.

couple of m8s of mine dont even look at min specs when they buy a game ,makes me laugh watching 1 of them play company of heroes,he seems totally oblivious to the fact that its jerking along at about 5fps and happily carries on playing.

 

[MadClown]

makes me laugh watching 1 of them play company of heroes,he seems totally oblivious to the fact that its jerking along at about 5fps and happily carries on playing.

Hey, atleast he's enjoying it right? lol

 

[Urbklr]

Dude, why are you crying about Crysis? Your rig should handle it at 1680x1050 no problem...or try a cfg.

About piracy, yes, it is ruining pc gaming. I am I pirate, I download games, I have no money. People like me cannot pay for $50 games, because we do not have the money, and we really wanna play the game...that is a big one. Instead of running to EB and buying the game that you have on your mind, we run to the bay and walk away with it for free...That's how it works with a lot of gamers.

Game devs, get better anti-piracy protection. Steam is great for this(unless you download a certain version of "Steam" and get the .gcf's).

 

[Morgoth]

matthecat
ur a jurk i am a game devloper and i dont cry abouth piracy
but piracy is bad
talking abouth performance crysis is made for highe end hardware not for your shity pentium 2 with sli voodoo 2
crysis has a great moding community
my self i'm in source busniss as leven designer
and when i make a map i also need to polish the map and optimize it for low end machines, but also great grapical detail for high end grapics

in crysis its tottaly differend
crysis is an open field map moost of the time it needs to render more there is no fog in moost of the time every thing gets rendered

 

[Urbklr]

matthecat
ur a jurk i am a game devloper and i dont cry abouth piracy

Maybe not you, but have you heard what Yerli has to say about it...he won't release Crysis 2 if we pirate Warhead like we did with Crysis(Bribing us much.....QUICK, EVERYONE GO AND PREORDER WARHEAD, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!!!!).

 

[DonInKansas]

Morgoth, if you're going to flame, please run the spell checker first.

On-point:

Piracy is going to happen no matter what. There have been law breakers as long as there have been laws. It's been the same since friggin caveman days, so it's pointless to argue it.

 

[MatTheCat]

Who cares whether you pay for it, download it, rent it, or stick the game up your bum bum, hardware manufactures endorsement deals brings in more revenue than sales from fully optimised game with no endorsement deal.

Yeah, good point that I may have overlooked. PC gamers spend a hell of a lot more on hardware than any other home PC or console user. If there were not the games to play this obsessive PC upgrading culture would soon die back so it stands to reason that the hardware companies and the games devs will be in cahoots in that respect.

Dude, why are you crying about Crysis? Your rig should handle it at 1680x1050 no problem...or try a cfg.

About piracy, yes, it is ruining pc gaming. I am I pirate, I download games, I have no money. People like me cannot pay for $50 games, because we do not have the money, and we really wanna play the game...that is a big one. Instead of running to EB and buying the game that you have on your mind, we run to the bay and walk away with it for free...That's how it works with a lot of gamers.

Yeah, my rig handles it ok, but that is with a top gfx card that has only just been released (crysis is year old) and it doesn't run it at nearly an acceptable enough rate for a FPS. Whilst I have spent a fair bit of time spellbound by the visuals and the physics in Crysis because overall the game runs below acceptable standards, I have never really tried to play it properly and never will until I have a rig that can handle the game at near to full pelt. By then Crysis will be a budget bargain bin title.

P.S. Steam is Sin-Bin of companies attmepts to stamp out piracy. Have to install Steam with associated Ad-Ware on your PC (causes conflictions with XP64) have to have internet connection to install game, even have to have online access to boot the game up...Totally shocking and utterly unacceptable. I purchased Speedball 2 a while back and was that disgusted with the whole STEAM thing that I took it right back to the store from which it was bought (GAME). However, the manager refused to allow me to exchange it so I snapped the DVD and threw it in his face and will never shop at that store ever again. (An I shop for PC, Wii, games/accessories quite often).

Maybe not you, but have you heard what Yerli has to say about it...he won't release Crysis 2 if we pirate Warhead like we did with Crysis(Bribing us much.....QUICK, EVERYONE GO AND PREORDER WARHEAD, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!!!!).

If Crysis Warhead runs well on my PC and is a great game to boot, then I will happily shell out £30 for it. Otherwise it will be another Newsgroups job.

 

[Urbklr]

1. There are NO standards when it comes to PC gaming, dev's are open to do whatever they please. Crytek wanted a game that looked amazing, and as hardware got better, more settings could be turned on. If you don't like that, and want standards, sell your rig and get a console...

2. Warhead is optimized to run at high on a $500 PC, and is coming at $30...so it is much more affordable, and playable.

Back to Crysis, the game runs smooth at 25FPS+, and is playable, stop watching your frame-rate and play the game already...you may enjoy it.

 

[Cuzza]

Have game developers ever considered putting out hardware locks with games like they do with ultra-$$$$ design software and other stuff?