Piracy on PC is dying

I never said anything about total revenue, yes F2p is seeing the largest growth obviously with the massive china and russian market, it doesnt change the fact that other avenues of game sales are seeing growth also even boxed retail although small is growing again, you can discredit it or downplay it all you like.

Umm obviously, that was my point............ there is no way to know, so you treat it like a non issue and worry about your actual customers not the pirates.

@naz99: What's there to downplay? AAA titles the vast majority of the time sell far better on consoles. You don't even have to combine them. The whole F2P market was introduced in the first place to combat piracy.

which games out of many many games have you catalouged and compared to know for sure?......proof? links? also what does it matter? game sales are seeing growth on the pc ii never said anything about comparing game sales across platforms...... why are you bringing up pc vs console? consoles have nothing to do with this discussion.

And no f2p was not introduced to combat piracy, it became popular in heavy pirated markets because of it though.

Pretty much. Just because people aren't able to pirate something doesn't mean they will buy it. Anyone who was going to buy it wasn't going to pirate it. The cost to implement Denuvo likely outweighs the money they would've lost to piracy.

@naz99: Look up the financial reports for Ubisoft, EA, Activision etc. AAA sales of most games sell best on PS4 followed by either X1 or PC. The results vary depending on title. So how is PC finishing 2nd or 3rd on most sales regarding multiplats yet still first in overall revenue? It's because select F2P and MMOs dominate the revenue all of which eliminate the possibility of piracy.

You say that like it's not a viable business model. So games like League of Legends and World of Tanks (just released on PS4) don't count? They are games, they sell content just not the base game, same thing just a different way of doing it.

Why do you think all your precious 'pay to play games' are coming with micro transactions now? The answer is easy, because they can make more money from the micros than they do from the game sales. It's just the f2p games on PC are better than the consoles, like everything else.

At the end of the day the PC is still a bigger revenue pool than every single console available today combined.

lol please show me financial reports for EA and Activision if your so sure so you must have read them. Last time I check there wasn't a large difference between pc and ps4 sales from the last financial report on this forum. PC digital copies which is bulk of pc sales make more than console retails for publishers so you can sell in lesser amount but generate more revenue. And no console digital sales are no where near pc fallout 4 showed that on the first week.

Where your other alts? lol

@godspellwh: I don't have alts.. and you have no argument. You bring up Fallout 4? What about Witcher 3, MKX , Batman AK, Watchdogs, AC :Unity or about 90% of all multi-plats that sell best on PS4. It making more and selling more are two totally different things. Nobody release what platform made them the most money based off one game. Activision for an example makes far more money on CoD with consoles but they have Blizzard which almost solely focused on PC. If you want to actually argue most AAA titles sell better on PC you are beyond delusional.

@GarGx1: Of course it's a viable business model it makes loads of money it's just one I'd rather not see spread to consoles the way it has to PC. Big budget exclusives are far better then what's on PC. Paying 10X for a game that could be released for $50 doesn't appeal to me. I missed the days when you earned the extras as opposed to just buying them. It would be a sad day if F2P is the only option available.

Ah where are all these financial reports you read since you mention that in your argument.

Dude your acting as if ps4 sales are significantly huge when PC and PS4 sales have all been pretty close to each other for Ubisoft lately even AC Unity sales weren't even significant enough to make a big difference between pc and ps4 only watch dog was but that was way early in the generation when ps4 didn't have as much games and it also came with a ps4 bundle. Witcher 3 also came with a ps4 bundle as well but even sales didn't dwarf the pc version and nearly half of their revenue came from digital sales. Activision stated most of their revenue came from non console based game.

"It making more and selling more are two totally different things" Not sure what you meant maybe just poorly worded like your other sentences but publisher get more money on digital sales than retail copies so Ubisoft could easily made more revenue because of pc digital sales despite ps4 being slightly better in terms of sales.

Since this isn't a graphic thread your alts will most likely be there agreeing on the same thing lol

Piracy will not end and eventually Denuvo will be easier to crack.

People here are either young or have not been playing PC games for long.

There have been many forms of DRM that had promised to destroy piracy and at first they were extremely hard to exploit.

But hackers love a challenge and the harder you make something the more of them that will come to try and break it.

Eventually there will be someone with the right set of skills who will find a way to easily crack this.

If you don't believe me then just remember all the promises to kill piracy with SecuROM, SAFEDISC and StarFORCE.

Why even bother with AM-Gamer

@godspellwh: Nothing is poorly worded you just lack basic reading comprehension... so let me explain it to you. We will use TW3 as an example( which had a XB1 bundle not a PS4 bundle yet still sold more on PS4.). So if TW3 sells a total of 10 million units and the PS4 sells 5 million yet the PC and XB1 sell 2.5 million a piece, well then the PS4 version sold the most however that doesn't mean the PS4 version made the most profit as GOG allows 100% profit for CDPR as they don't have to split revenue with a console vendor. That's the difference in sales and profits. Then you made a point to mention Activision which I already acknowledged will make more on PC due to SC2 and WoW. However all there AAA titles sell better on consoles with the exception of D3. There PC revenue is based off a monthly subscription service and an expansion of one of there most popular titles.

Regardless your reading comprehension is on par with your common sense. If I do indeed post from alts then I would have the ability to bring them in any thread I want. You will realize once you get away from a computer screen the people debating with you are not all the same.

"It making more and selling more are two totally different things" Really you should check the grammar here first lol. Well considering Witcher 3 never sold that much on ps4 and I honestly didn't really understand the rest of what your saying in the rest of the sentence I'm just going to ignore that until you can properly word it and do actual math and COG? What?. And If you actually didn't know that source was before D3 or SC expansion release back when COD sold much bigger than it did today.

Ah its called not trying to make it obvious of course your not always going bring them into every thread. Its also odd how three people show up at the same time agreeing almost exactly about the same thing when it comes to games even how they rank.

Piracy levels is not about DRM but rather accessibility for consumers. Dunovo protects conventional DRM and only applies to standard tools and processes used by the scene, not the current tools in the works and it's been bypassed already but it's updated so they don't last. Anyway 3DM is a P2p group, they crack only to get hits and DL traffic which means they can make half ass workarounds that work on most games, then take the credit. Jun is their only member that even attempted to work on Dunovo and quickly gave up and he cannot speak for the entire scene or other groups. Just because 1 guy gave up doesn't make it uncrackable. Once it's cracked however, Dunovo is done and must start something new. Of course people said piracy will die once DRM comes out, all DRM did was make piracy more ideal for consumers.

Besides, Reloaded and Skidrow are the more successful and favored warez groups by pirates. Praising DRM is a waste, praise the industry for finally adapting and making quick to download games and sales along with convenience. Remember it wasn't DRM or any protection method that saved the music industry but rather convenience.

And some companies are putting out games people want to pay money to play and they are swimming in profits.

@godspellwh: It sold more on PS4 then any platform...that is a fact what is yet to be determined is if it made more profit for CDPR. I'm not sure how else it can be written for you as you seem a bit slow. As for cog I meant GoG which is CDPRs version of steam, God forbid you figure that out. It also doesn't matter when that article was posted because my point still stands. The PC revenue from Activision comes from WoW monthly subscriptions. You can't read and you can't understand basic math so it appears this is a lost cause.

While we're taIking about alts I find it funny you, Jankarop,God and Robocopisjesus pop up in every thread and yet your name is GodspellWH. (What a coincidence) I think you just gave yourself away. At least you tried to change your posting style, to bad you couldn't come up with a different theme for your names. Regardless I have no alts and you can continue to think everyone who disagrees with you is the same person.

I don't recall any recent lifetime numbers for Witcher 3 announced and the fact you poorly tried to do math or better yet you didn't at all but just spatted random number in a incoherent sentence so you have really no idea either. Yet Activision also saw a huge surge in revenue that year when they released Starcraft.

lol when did all of them pop into a thread with me cuz you will rarely ever see me in a thread with all those guys at once and you realize how many users have god in their username here. I actually do have a gaming pc.

Damn your facts about Witcher 3 suck. The Witcher 3 sold 30% on PC at 6 million copies so if you were to adjust that to 10 million copies PC would have 3 million copies sold not 2.5m. The 25% was in regard to digital copies only which equaled 50% of the total sales/profit. And where are you getting these numbers for the ratio between PS4/XBox1? VGChartz? CDPR only provided consoles together with no breakdown between the two.

@godspellwh: 5 million plus 2.5 million plus 2.5 million is 10 million. I guess the .5 was to much for you I should have made it easier. As I said you can't read nor can you do basic math. Those are not official numbers I just tried to make it simple for you and you still couldn't figure it out. My point is a portion of the profit for every copy of TW3 sold on PS4 goes to Sony. While CDPR gets a larger percentage of the profit from Steam and GoG sales. So eventhough the game sold more on PS4 the PC version could still bring a larger portion of the profit.

And please tell me who my alts are. You writing on a sheet of paper next to a random PC doesn't prove much.

PC gamers are just mind boggling.

Piracy is a non issue? Really.

High quality blockbuster single player games have nigh on been snuffed, with PC relegated to console ports (many lazy or deliberately held months back).

The focus of PC gaming in the last few years (including Valve) have been free2play multiplayer titles, casual and MMO.

What factor sets these aside from SP AAA budget games? Piracy.

PC's entire landscape has morphed specifically due to it.

If someone can commit what they consider a self-benefiting minor offence with impunity, they will probably do it. Stick a security camera up and they will think twice. Yea DRM doesn't work, that's part of the problem.

These people going on torrents shouting "master race" are the equivalent of watching a dog attempt to bite it's own tail.

Steam sales are killing piracy, not fast enough.

You realize Witcher 3 hasn't sold 10 million right? Your just spatting numbers that you got from nowhere and good math btw.

Here what inside of a gaming pc is if you didn't know. I'm no one alt lol Sorry to break it to you. I don't need one to agree with myself.

.

It will keep a portion of the pirates away but others will just find another game they can pirate

@godspellwh said:

@AM-Gamer said:

@godspellwh: 5 million plus 2.5 million plus 2.5 million is 10 million. I guess the .5 was to much for you I should have made it easier. As I said you can't read nor can you do basic math. Those are not official numbers I just tried to make it simple for you and you still couldn't figure it out. My point is a portion of the profit for every copy of TW3 sold on PS4 goes to Sony. While CDPR gets a larger percentage of the profit from Steam and GoG sales. So eventhough the game sold more on PS4 the PC version could still bring a larger portion of the profit.

And please tell me who my alts are. You writing on a sheet of paper next to a random PC doesn't prove much.

You realize Witcher 3 hasn't sold 10 million right? Your just spatting numbers that you got from nowhere and good math btw.

Here what inside of a gaming pc is if you didn't know. I'm no one alt lol Sorry to break it to you. I don't need one to agree with myself.

.

What gpu you rocking?

@arunsunk: And your reading comp sucks I used 10 million as an example I stated those were not official. He didn't understand the concept that just because a game may make more money on PC doesn't mean it sold the most on that platform.

The total sales on PC were 30% so even if the PS4 and XB1 were even that would put them 35% a piece and put the PC in dead last. VG charts physical sales are fairly accurate so it would most likely put the PS4 at around 45% the PC at 30% and the XB1 at 25%.

@godspellwh: Again I used 10 mill as an example. It's official sales were 6million after 6 weeks. Total PC sales including DD were 30% so that puts the PC in a close 3rd place or distant second either way my point is proven.

Again who are my alts?

That 30% was from the very first month of the witcher 3 not the entirety.

Vgchartz by July 25 2,299,509 ps4

Vgchartz by july 25 803,501 xbox one

These were from the end of the month

The over six million figure was announced during August if you go off of those numbers pc would have made a least half those sales by that time.

@AM-Gamer: At least use some factual numbers as a basis instead of making up arbitrary numbers and ratios just as an example.

"So eventhough the game sold more on PS4 the PC version could still bring a larger portion of the profit."

Could still bring? I covered this in a topic a while ago but the basic gist of it was PC Digital 25% (50% profit) + Retail 5% > 70% console sales. It definitely brought a larger portion of the profit.

Regarding your Activision/Blizzard comments you are forgetting Blizzard has its own storefront and as with GOG all digital profits would be 100% as well regardless of subscriptions.

*edit:

VGChartz is not accurate at all. 6 million total copies at the end of June, PS4 2,174,483 begining of July(VGChartz), and XBox1 770,983 beginning of July. That would leave PC with over 1.5m retail physical copies?!? Add on the GOG and Steamspy numbers during that time and you have PC > PS4 so no VGChartz numbers do not work. No matter how you run the Witcher 3 VGChartz numbers they don't ever mesh right with the official ratios.

it wouldn't really work with the 6 million figure that announced two months later.

@abtoxin: It is actually for the end of June that is where the numbers I am using are focusing on.

"Simplifying the end of June 2015. 30% units sold our newest title is the PC version and 70% are versions of the console."

The 6 million number is also the end of June as that is 6 weeks from launch.

"The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt sold more than 6 million copies during its first six weeks"

@godspellwh: VGChartz deals with strictly physical sales. It doesn't count DD on any platform. Regardless the official sales they were 70/30 so I don't see any way the PC catches up with that no matter how you spin it.

Good. Pirates are seriously holding back the most important system to gaming.

I bet they spend more trying to stop pirates than they lose to pirating.

You honestly think Digital sales are anywhere close to the pc on console even fallout 4 digital sales weren't anywhere near the pc for both the xbox and ps4 combined in the first few days and the game is a larger IP than Witcher 3 that shipped more units. According to those VG number it still put pc at roughly around half or if your include console digital sales which would be a few 100 thousand at best it would be a bit less than that and those number go beyond those stats timeline.

@godspellwh: how are you getting those numbers? They have PC physical sales at 540K and PS4 at 3.2 million. They also said 75% of total sales were physical so it would have had to sell 2.5 million on PC just to equal PS4 and that's assuming no PS4 copy was bought digitally which is doubtful since you get it for $19.99 on PSN during holiday sales.

That 75% only accounted for the early weeks of the Witcher 3 not the six or seven months after the game released. The pc version was discounted much more and can be bought for less than 15 dollars right now.

........ The fact of the matter is I will never have sympathy for any of the developers and publishers in the industry.. They are in a business industry in which the customer is treated like dirt compared to basically any other retail based industry.. Where the developer and publisher can basically get away with lying to peoples faces about their product with no repercussions outside some negative pub.. Meanwhile if this were any other industry, there would be mass recalls, refunds, and even replacements on top of possible lawsuits.. Here we only see that shit when the worse of the worse happens, and it has only started happening extremely recently... A few years back if you bought into Gearbox's bullshit about Alien Colonial Marines, you were shit out of luck and the best you could do is try to warn other people out there... No other industry forces legitimate buyers through the amount of hoops one has to go to use their product..

Hopefully people would realize this and stop ass kissing the publishers and developers who can knowingly release broken products, lie to the consumers face, and have absolutely no repercussions outside of some negative publicity..

This isn't condoning or saying piracy is ok, but I am playing the world's smallest violin when ever I hear a develop cry out about piracy..

Kinda in the middle when it comes to piracy.... theres some games i would never have taken a risk to buy and ended up did buying it after trying out a pirated version. Im sure some simply can't afford to buy games either and thats why they pirate them, or live in a place they can't get games shipped to them like in highly censored countries like China.

If this lowers the price of PC games i'm fine with it, just I'm really worried about DRM that effects the performance of games.

The first 30 days after release is all that really matters. Many developers have died out due to initial sales despite huge sales in the long term. It's like owing your rent payment despite you making millions a year later, you're still kicked out. Same for publishers...remember G.O.D. games? Sad that hundreds of developers have long been defunct due to poor initial sales. Those lenders want their money by the due date

Agree. It used to be worse if you recall. Starforce low level DRM alone actually caused drastic spikes in piracy numbers (it also prevented me from writing anything at all to a CD) as did Sony's shady rootkit DRM . 2005-2008 was pretty darn bad for PC gaming. It only makes sense that if a game is too buggy or has scary DRM, people will pirate it. Why? Because we gamers want the best version available and if that best version is a pirated copy, so be it.

But like I said before, it wasn't DRM that saved the music industry despite what Napster's numbers were showing. Convenience and service has shown conclusively to curb piracy levels to the point of making excellent profits. Game Publishers know they need to provide quality, service and convenience but with DRM, they still seem to think they can slack on that and not worry so much about quality. Some games are so bad that even pirates either don't download it or they play it for 5 minutes like everyone else and put it down....except they win because no money lost but heaven forbid a publisher might theoretically lose money on a crappy game huh.

This. No matter how tight or foolproof the anti-piracy security measures might seem, hackers will always find a way around it.

It will play out as:

- People who werent planning on buying the game in the first place will not pirate it

- People who might have be interested in the game will not buy it (they could release a demo for those)

- People who do not want DRM will not buy or will till it is $5 during a steam sale

- People who will buy it regardless of drm or whatever else is on it, will buy it

Only corporate shrills think this is a good idea, as this will not benefit anyone in the long run.

Thankfully, i don't buy Ubisoft games as they make shitty games to begin with.

It is definitely down but to attribute all that to Denuvo is dumb. I know plenty of these websites, most of the games that have Denuvo get cracked; there are a few exceptions

Also, Denuvo cost way too much for small companies

well damn,, this thread got shut down fast. GG.