Why Do You Pirate Games?

Call it a clever marketing tactic or an actual crusade to explore the reason behind piracy, the developer at Positech Games decided to ask people why they pirated his games. Ofcourse, the response he got was overwhelming and certainly makes up for an interesting read.. Read more

John Carmack on PC Gaming….

With everyone and their grand-mother passing judgment on PC games and gaming, how can the legendary programmer and the man behind DOOM/Wolf3D be left behind? In an interview with Tom’s Hardware, Mr.Carmack took a good amount of shots at PC Gaming, though he was smart enough to present them in a polite way while making some good points across the board. According to Carmack:

Well, it’s hard to second guess exactly what the reasons are. You can say piracy. You can say user migration. But the ground truth is just that the sales numbers on the PC are not what they used to be and are not what they are on the consoles.

That gets a big “No shit”. Comparing 3 platforms to a single one (One that is often orphaned and left to dry) is hardly smart. But anyway, the good news is id Software will continue to release games on PCs and support the platform, though with their uber-cynical rantings, one has to assume the clock is ticking before id goes full consoles and tells the PC platform to fuck-off like so many other devs have.

PC Gaming - Midyear Report

Press Release:

Resonance-Gaming today released its midyear report on PC video games within the next 6 months. The report combines data from several external sources to provide a simplified data analysis.

Contained within the data are the four main topics which will affect gamers in the next 6 months. This includes Game Genre Distribution, which is the generalized chart using 10 games in each month leading up the end of the year. The chart shows which genres are currently being developed the most, and as a result, which are being developed the least. Read more

Microsoft: Xbox360 More Important Than PC

Despite running Games for Windows campaign and being a member of PC Gaming Alliance, Microsoft has admitted prioritizing releases and favoring their game console - Xbox360 instead of PCs. Yes, hypocrisy is a wonderful thing…atleast in Microsoft’s perception.

On a global scale the Windows Vista business is as important as our Xbox 360 business. But in Germany for example, we want more gamers to buy our Xbox 360. If we launch a game that is on 360 and PC simultaneously, we basically shoot ourselves in the foot by allowing the German market to choose to play the PC version – because they are more likely to buy that than spend their money on the Xbox 360. On a global scale the PC is very relevant to us. And I would say that 90 per cent of the games that are pitched to us are on console. We’re strongly perceived as a console publisher because we’re the first-party publisher even though the Windows operating system is equally important to us. If we launched a Halo game on PC and 360 in Germany simultaneously, 80 per cent of sales would be on the PC. So we need to pick and choose our formats.

Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures Tops PC Sales Charts

Funcom’s MMO is doing really well in sales, infact, Age of Conan is now No.1 best selling title on the PC platform in Germany, UK, Australia, Italy, Sweden, Norway and Spain. Impressive.

Funcom is proud to announce that Age of Conan rises to number 1 on the PC charts, and the game even competes very well on the all-format lists. The normal edition is now sold out in many outlets due to the initial success of the game, and Funcom aims to resupply new boxes as fast as possible. With more than half a million customers, Age of Conan is already one of the biggest ever western MMO games, and this happens just a week after launch.

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Hardware based encryption chip to cure Piracy?

All the lousy pirates can now get ready to walk the plank as hardware based encryption will soon make PC games piracy impossible. Speaking at Wedbush Morgan Securities annual Management Access Conference; Nolan Bushwell, founder of Atari, revealed details about the hardware based anti-piracy measure:

There is a stealth encryption chip called a TPM that is going on the motherboards of most of the computers that are coming out now,” he pointed out

“What that says is that in the games business we will be able to encrypt with an absolutely verifiable private key in the encryption world - which is uncrackable by people on the internet and by giving away passwords - which will allow for a huge market to develop in some of the areas where piracy has been a real problem.

Har har!

Now On Steam - Sam & Max: Season 2

The lovable furry detectives Sam & Max have invaded Steam!

Sam & Max: Season 2, the latest in Telltale’s flagship episodic series, is now available on Steam, a leading online platform for the distribution and management of PC games.

The complete Season 2 set is available for just $34.99, and the Season 1 and 2 complete sets are available in a collection for just $59.99.

To celebrate the launch of Season 2, all of Telltale’s Sam & Max episodes are available for 10% of their regular price during for the first week of Season 2’s availability on Steam.

Sam & Max: Season 2 Complete Steam Store Link ($31.49)
Sam & Max: Complete Steam Store Link ($53.99)

Burnout: Paradise PC Trailer

Criterion games have released the first trailer for the PC port of Burnout: Paradise. The trailer shows 18 seconds of gameplay footage, captured at 3840x1200 (dual monitors) resolution. But don’t worry, the trailer is encoded at 1920x600 resolution. Here’s the low quality FLV version. HD 720p and 1080p versions after the jump.

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Steamworks Developmental Kit Now Available

The Steamworks SDK is now available to game developers and publishers worldwide. Press release below:

Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Half-Life and Counter-Strike) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source),
today announced the release of the Steamworks Software Development Kit (SDK).

Steamworks is a complete suite of publishing and development tools that offers PC game developers and publishers access to the game features and services available through Steam. These include product key authentication, copy protection, auto-updating, social networking, matchmaking, anti-cheat technology, and more. The features and services available in Steamworks are offered free of charge and may be used for both electronic and tangible versions of games. Read more

Crytek going multi-platform due to rampant Piracy

In an interview with PCPlay Magazine, CEO of Crytek; Cevat Yerli has revealed that they longer will remain PC exclusive. The rampant piracy of Crysis and the high-development costs have forced the german developer to this decision. Full quote below:

Cevat Yerli: We are suffering currently from the huge piracy that is encompassing Crysis. We seem to lead the charts in piracy by a large margin, a chart leading that is not desirable. I believe that’s the core problem of PC Gaming, piracy.  To the degree PC Gamers that pirate games inherently destroy the platform. Similar games on consoles sell factors of 4-5 more. It was a big lesson for us and I believe we wont have PC exclusives as we did with Crysis in future. We are going to support PC, but not exclusive anymore.

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