PC Gaming Piracy Still Dangerously Out Of Control

The future of PC Gaming could rely on a combination of traditional marketplaces with or without DRM like Steam and GOG but also on increasingly pro-consumer, fair yet powerful DRM systems built-in to products like Xbox Anywhere, Xbox Games Pass, PlayStation NOW, in order to allow AAA publishers to mitigate risking millions in the budget for a PC Version that’s just going to get pirated.

[TheOptimist]

Let's see..... I agree shitty games or games that PC gamers aren't interested in, won't sell. CoD and AC are shitty games, RE7 I can't be sure, since I am not a horror fan.

Coming to GTA, not really fair because it launched on PS3 and Xbox 360 with huge huge hype, and many people just experienced it there, since it didn't launch day in day out with the PC. Heck the PS4 and Xbox One version came out about 6 months before the PC, so not really a fair comparison.

Now let's take good games, both Witcher 3 and Dark Souls 3 sold most on PC with PC getting 40% units sales share on PC.

In short, if you make good games, there will be less piracy. Try spending less in anti-piracy methods and make better and more optimized games, your games will sell

PS- I buy every game I play.

[2pacalypsenow]

When those "Shitty games" sell millions on consoles, developers just focus on consoles.

[kevnb]

great, consoles can get all the focus for call of duty they want (farm simulator was outselling it on pc)! This article is also quite dangerously misleading and probably using vgchartz, re7 sold 370,646 copies on steam according to steamspy. Most big aaa games have sales that are highest on ps4, second highest on pc and then xbox one follows that up.
So this article is FAKE NEWS.

[Deep-throat]

PC users have high standards. They grow up enjoying great interactivity, not movie games that filled with roller-coastered gameplay.

It's easy to impress console folks with pretty presentations, especially who started playing in 2005 or later.

[zaherdab]

@deep-throat i am sure the genes on PC gamers are way more advanced than the ones in console gamers... after all PC gamers have to spent a lot of time tinkering with graphics settings and upgrading their hardware to even bother playing games!
can you however name some of the games with too much interactivity to be released on console and share their sale figures ?

[zaherdab]

And yet PC gamers whine when "Shitty games" don't get released on PC... yet they label them as shitty to justify pirating them... Most of these games have decent versions on PC so there's no reason to label them shitty!

It is ... what it is ... pirating games on PCs is a prominent problem and no point in making excuses for it and just saying that you buy the games you play doesn't make it unreal!

[TheOptimist]

CoD and AC are fundamentally and mechanically shit games, so I dunno what you are going on about "decent versions on PC".

[yarbie1000]

Only game I ever pirated was No Man's Sky just so I could see how shitty it was. Wasn't about to give those people my money, and I sure don't regret it hahaha

[zaherdab]

@theOptimist i am pretty sure this is "Opinion" not fact. check reviews of multiple assassin's creeds games on Steam and you'll clearly see mostly positive reviews and that's coming from other PC games ( my self included btw) if the game controls better with a gamepad doesn't make it "Flawed".

As for COD there's enough hate for those on consoles and PC but in my opinion it's not warranted but again the keyword is ( fundamentally and mechanically) opinion .

[crazychris4124]

Games are so cheap that there is no reason to pirate unless you're a scumbag. I just bought Homefront 2 a couple weeks ago with the season pass for only $12. Took me 17 hours to beat. It was pretty good and for a game that came out in May it was too good to pass up. Only ran into a handful of minor bugs.

I don't buy full price games anymore unless a bunch of friends are getting the game and it runs well.

[rocketpanda]

You bought a game that devalued in price very quick. On release games not dirt cheap. When games initially come out that is when money is made and they are expensive, especially on psn and xbl. Why do the same multi platform games sell for less in PC than on PC?

Publishers even try to entice gamers to buy games day one with pre-order nonsense to maximize sales.

So no games aren't dirt cheap unless you wait a few weeks or months. On the end we have games that are free to play and publishers make money from whale users.

[annoyedgamer]

I though Steam DRM solved piracy? Was I lied to?

Corporate greed it also dangerously out of control, guess which one poses a greater risk to the industry.

[brich233]

They eventually get cracked months later.

[acekaze]

They do, but normally thats also when people dont care about them anymore, we all know the big atraction of games is mostly at their release, if they take months to crack a game, most people who pirate will normally just buy the game, so I think the Denuvo is still helping for strong sales on pc.

[annoyedgamer]

I was being sarcastic.

[XbladeTeddy]

Don't listen to this crap. If you want to know if PC games sell just ask Gabe Newell.

[Einhander1971]

The funny thing is the PC master race are killing there own market. They Like to think they are clever pirating but all it does is stifle development, and spoil it for the rest.

[lelo2play]

Seriously... still with the master race naming? How old are you? 12!

Looks like those dumb kids calling each other names.

[AnubisG]

They are called "master race" for a reason. Many, but not all PC gamers feel a sense of superiority over console gamers because of the capabilities of PCs and they don't hesitate to rub it in your face and constantly crying that consoles hold back gaming. So that name is well deserved.

[starchild]

Okay, so how is that fundamentally different than what Sony fans do to the Xbox and Nintendo fans? Why do some of you act like it's perfectly fine to say a console is superior but if someone says the PC is superior then suddenly it's "elitist"?

[Ogygian]

Fake news. Resident Evil 7 has around 370,000 Steam owners according to Steamspy. And these are all sales.

Also, comparing it with GTAV and Diablo 3 is stupid, because GTAV has seen major sales, while Resi7 has not yet. Furthermore, GTA is a much bigger franchise, and Diablo 3 is a PC exclusive title which has been out for years.

Misleading article which is either not well researched, or intentionally lying in order to push a biased point.

[InKnight7s]

How about anime games? Final Fantasy? Metal gear? Sport? Racing? Just admit it MMO, strategy, and mod-able freeroam games is the main industry of PC.

[kevnb]

phantom pain sold 1,307,976, ffxiii sold 684,412 even being released so late when all the hype turned into backlash, project cars sold 817,220 (not bad), but yes I cant find a sports game that did all that well.

[AnubisG]

@kevnb

Have you checked FIFA sales?

[TheOptimist]

People buy FIFA for consoles tbh.... I mean, I myself don't put money into buying small increaments in the name of FIFA. Part of the reason for PC gamers not buying FIFA is because of it's samey nature over 3-4 iterations. I myself don't buy FIFA because the servers will be shut down the next year because they released another iteration with about 10% changes.

As for anime games, there are many games that got new life on PC, most of the FF, Senran Kagura, etc sell very well, and these statements come from the developers themselves.

Also Nier Automata has a bigger player base than either Watch Dogs 2 or For Honor or Ghost Recon Wildlands or Mafia 3 or many of the other games that released last year. So yeah, good games do sell on PC, but bad games or games with bad business structure like FIFA don't sell.

[AnubisG]

Diablo 3 is not a PC exclusive. I own it on PS3 and PS4 as well.

[kevnb]

It seems some gamers are so threatened by pc gaming they have to make up misleading blog posts SAD

[samden]

Terrible article with zero validity. The author makes really poor comparisons that frankly don't even make sense, and they don't disclose where they received the information either. AND they only use 2 new games and 2 old games for comparison. Move along people, nothing worth your time here.