PC Dev: Piracy Crisis 'Overblown'

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/54578

PC Dev: Piracy Crisis 'Overblown'

by Blake Ellison Sep 04, 2008 5:30pm CST tags: Piracy Piracy is said to be public enemy number one in the games industry, if certain game studios are to be believed. It's been declared responsible for bad reviews, poor sales of PC ports of popular console games, and even shifts in business models. However, one strong voice of dissent has emerged.

"Rampant piracy is no longer the catch-all excuse it's often employed as," rebuts Penumbra (PC) game writer Tom Jubert in a blog for Edge.

Cevat Yerli, CEO of Crysis developer Crytek (PC), recently intensified the spotlight on the issue by claiming there were 20 pirated copies of Crysis for every one legitimate player.

The actual ratio, Jubert argues, is no worse than 1:5 in the Western world. To back up this claim, Jubert cites figures from GameShadow Metrics--a online service that automatically patches games and can detect altered .exe files--which show 1 pirated copy of Crysis for every 5 legitimate copies in the US and a 3:7 ratio in the UK.

"Of course, that's not to say that Yerli is wrong," concedes Jubert, "[it's] only that 1:15 is a potentially misleading statistic." He adds that it's difficult to measure the actual number of high-end gaming PCs in use, so claims like "consoles sell factors of 4-5 more" are equally unfounded.

Cevat Yerli, CEO of Crysis developer Crytek (PC), recently intensified the spotlight on the issue by claiming there were 20 pirated copies of Crysis for every one legitimate player.

The actual ratio, Jubert argues, is no worse than 1:5 in the Western world. To back up this claim, Jubert cites figures from GameShadow Metrics--a online service that automatically patches games and can detect altered .exe files--which show 1 pirated copy of Crysis for every 5 legitimate copies in the US and a 3:7 ratio in the UK.

blackdreamhunk

People sometimes reuse the original .exe files to apply patches, otherwise the patches may not work -- so that statistic is dubious.

Doesn't mean that Yerli isn't a drama queen.

Nice avatarElectricNZ

Thanks! :D

Really? Overblown? You don't say.

Really? Overblown? You don't say.

Cobra_nVidia

You're refering to Forerunner's avatar arent you. :)

[QUOTE="Cobra_nVidia"]

Really? Overblown? You don't say.

Mr_NoName111

You're refering to Forerunner's avatar arent you. :)

No, however upon reading this I viewed it. Then viewed it again. It's very nice.

Yerli has been pwned.Forerunner-117

[QUOTE="ElectricNZ"]Nice avatarForerunner-117

Thanks! :D

not really nice its only been on the internets for over 9000 years

[QUOTE="Forerunner-117"]

[QUOTE="ElectricNZ"]Nice avataricey6ch9

Thanks! :D

not really nice its only been on the internets for over 9000 years

Reaaaaally? Link?, oh and i c wut u did thar.

Just a couple things...

1) Those metrics from gameshadow only shows the people who use it, not everyone.

2) People who are pirating and using cracked exe's wouldn't try and update their cracked exe would they? I imagine the people who have pirated Crysis and tried to automatically update the game through that service only represent a smal portion of gamers.