@awhite33

Piracy existed before Torrents. Torrents aren't even the core way things are gotten these days, just the "scene kids" use them.

Of course it's overestimated. Companies have been using "piracy" as propaganda to get corporate favorable laws and anti consumer policies put into effect for decades.

"Piracy is making us broke we need to raise game prices to $70 and have online passes!"

"Cost of development is making us broke we need to raise game prices to $70 and have DLC, micro transactions and season passes because we can't seem to find a profit after selling 5 million copies of a game."

"Used game sales are making us broke we need to raise prices to $70 and lock out used copies even though the money goes back into the new game market"

Sound familiar? It's all just corporate / lawyer propaganda.

Just goes to show that mainstream publishers and developers have inflated development costs to ridiculously unneeded levels.

Development costs are not skyrocketing. Development SPENDING is skyrocketing. And too much reliance on crap like Metacritic and formulated metrics by suits who have no actual knowledge of the industry.

Crappy dubstep = of course it's fake. Billion dollar corporation is not going to use terrible music whose 15 minutes were up well over a year ago to sell their next generation.

@gufberg Everyone I know who bought a 360 at launch has spent more money between XBL and replacing dead consoles than I have on my PC playing modern games. $60-80 a year for online lol, excusable under no cirstances, no thanks.

Cheaper games over the course of a generation = PC gaming cheaper than consoles. Literally no reason other than ones self to not be PC this coming generation.

What about the millions of dollars they fleeced out of idiot sheep by microtransactions in a single player game? Was that less than expectations?

Publishers are going to exploit and give the short end of the stick to independents every time. The same stuff happened several times to devs like Obsidian because they refuse to accept buyouts.

It's just a collusion among the few major publishers left to strong arm indies into selling out all their assets and get in under the umbrella. Until you sell out you're going to be behind the 8 ball with short development times, low budgets, poor marketing, and nothing you can really do about it.

Just OWNING a Vita is a toilet management sim.

@2bitSmOkEy

They buy the same game every year because they love bad games and know 7 million other idiots will be buying it so they will be part of the bandwagon.

Seriously with other genre's that have tons of reading, teaches critical thinking, typing, spatial perception, the LAST genre you want to try and put on a soapbox by a no name study is a FPS. "FPS makes people smarter" - said by absolutely no one ever since 1992.