Why I Am Alive is unlikely to launch on PC
"If only 50,000 people buy it then it's not worth it."
Post-apocalyptic survival game I Am Alive launches this winter on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade. Why not on PC?
For the game's creative director Stanislas Mettra, the reason is simple: PC gamers probably won't buy it, despite their moaning about it not being available.
"We've heard loud and clear that PC gamers are bitching about there being no version for them," Mettra told IncGamers.
"But are these people just making noise just because there's no version or because it's a game they actually want to play? Would they buy it if we made it?"
Ubisoft has had a troubled relationship with PC gamers in recent years. Many of its PC games force players to always be online to work.
Ubisoft game Driver: San Francisco came under fire recently for particularly stringent DRM that required gamers to be online all of the time. Ubisoft later tweaked this so an online sign-in was required once, at game launch; Driver: San Francisco can then be played offline.
PC game piracy, a subject Eurogamer recently investigated, is often blamed when publishers explain their PC-related decisions. Ubisoft has claimed its policy is a success, insisting it has seen "a clear reduction in piracy of our titles which required a persistent online connection".
Mettra said piracy makes porting games to PC financially difficult.
"It's hard because there's so much piracy and so few people are paying for PC games that we have to precisely weigh it up against the cost of making it," he said.
"Perhaps it will only take 12 guys three months to port the game to PC, it's not a massive cost but it's still a cost. If only 50,000 people buy the game then it's not worth it."
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Comments (76) Latest comment 6 months ago
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[link url=http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/3779/article/cthulhu-saves-the-world-bundle-sells-100-000-on-steam/http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/3779/article/cthulhu-saves-the-world-bundle-sells-100-000-on-steam/[/link]
"The creators of Cthulhu Saves the World and Breath of Death VII, Zeboyd Games, have announced that their bundle has sold 100,000 copies on Steam. This is after they were widely available on the Indie section of the XBLA, where they sold significantly less over a longer period of time."
But.. but... but.. PC piracy!
P.
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Look at witcher 2 it was released without drm they should have been bankrupt by know since us pc gamers only pirate our games.
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If the game is good it will countine to sell and will have peaks very so often due to sales and promotions. Maybe an extreme example but look at something like Half Life 2. Which was released in 2004, i bet it still is selling even today albeit in low numbers but i can bet more than the orginal Xbox which is no longer even made.
I know a bit bias off the cuff, but i think alot developers forget the fact the PC isnt static. They only look at the headline console "xxxxxx sold in xx hours" and forget about the big picture.
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This kind of idiotic developers should stop blaming piracy for their own incompetence.Good games sell with or without piracy. I don't see the makers of Cthulhu Saves the Earth, Torchlight, Super Meat Boy, The Witcher 2, Minecraft, Total War, etc. complaining about the PC gaming market.
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I highly doubt they get every penny of the sale price!
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TBH I think it's time Ubi moved on completely with the 90% drop in their sales I think it's pretty safe to say they have damaged themselves beyond repair with legitmate gamers on PC. Even if they went DRM free I honestly don't see how they can bring it back now, especially when Ubi has pricks like this fella constantly trolling the customer base. "Wah Wah no one buys our games therefore you are all pirates wah wah". Piss off.
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If only 50,000 people buy it, it's because you're insulting PC gamers day and night, you idiots, both with your piss-poor ports, and with your useless DRM. And most of your games are crap anyway.
Whatever. If you don't want our money, go sell more games for the consoles. You'll come back crying, just like EA and Activision are doing right now.
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I agree with him here as gamers who post on the internet have eyes bigger than their bellies.
Still shame it isnt coming to the pc
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For every Stanislas Mettra there are two people saying that XBLA and PSN aren't worth it because the certification is a pain in the arse and they don't get their games promoted properly. Never heard of this game before, incidentally.
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Tie your game to Steam.
There you go. No need for heavy-handed, always-online DRM that punishes the consumer.
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I have insurance on my car. Anyone who says that uninsured driver are a problem is talking BS.
But let's all carry on using our vast experience of only a couple of our mates to show that everyone else is wrong. There's no way a company would want to make money, is there? No, that's just crazy talk.
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I'm pretty much the only guy that actually BUY my games. Most of my other friends just steal it of Piratebay.... and i'm in Iceland, wich isn't excatly a 3 world country.
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Thats because Indie section of the Xbox is rarely visited by the mainstream as it has no achievements in the games and tend to be low quality.
PC gamers will play anything. I mean, look at how popular Minecraft is. A terrible looking LEGO'esque game.
Consoles, while they do have piracy, sell a LOT more than they ever do on PC. Check any game chart sales and you'll see Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of games high in the chart while PC versions barely make it.
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Nope, but I might if someone else had made it
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The game that no less than Peter Molyneaux says is a work of genius and the best thing he's played in 10 years.
Excellent trolling. 10/10.
It's possible that you're not trolling, in which case I truly feel very sorry for you and your lack of imagination.
P.
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Oh, and if you're releasing it digital-only Mr Mettra, then you've got a much better chance of selling it on PC. Unless your game is boring, which you obviously think it is.
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Oh, wait a sec...
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Lets be clear, PC piracy is far easier than console piracy. I'm a tech savvy dude, but I couldn't tell you how to run pirated games ojn a 360 or PS3 (or if its even possible on both) because I haven't already looked into it.
My parents could tell you how to run pirated PC games, and the instructions would go something like this.
1. Download pirated video game.
End of lesson.
Stating that console piracy also exists is a bit of a red herring. Nobody is saying it doesn't exist, they are saying its not that significant or worrying for developers and publishers.
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Well, you can keep it, Ubi. Meanwhile Bethesda, CDProjekt, Valve, Blizzard, Mojang,EA, Square Enix, (insert another hundred companies) will get our money.
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It's really not easier. The majority of 360 pirates just buy a chipped box, and then download a game and burn it to disc. I know a few people that regularly download Xbox games, and not a single one of them would know how to pirate and install a PC game. Even if I tried to teach them they would not get it.
For PC, you need to know how to install and configure virtual drives, how to mount an ISO, how to copy over cracked content and run a keygen or disable your net connection. It's a lot more complicated than pirating console games.
I agree with you that it's a much bigger issue on PC compared to console, but the difference is that PC gamers are naturally more PC savvy, so while it may be a lot harder to do, a much higher proportion of people have the skills needed to do it, or are capable of googling it to find out.
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The days of the 360s dominance are fading and digital distribution on PC will soon be king and guess what Ubisoft and random ill informed game developer man, PC gamers, they know how to hold a grudge.
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Obviously he doesn't want my money. No, I won't get the PS3 version either.
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But what makes it a problem then? PC piracy IS piracy for some in the industry yet until this gen console piracy was just awful and everywhere, everyone was doing it way back to the SNES yet we have never seen the kind of customer retailation we see these days on PC in some areas. Why now on one platform only is it that some claim things are so terrible? Remember not everyone is having the same problem, sure piracy is there (like on the consoles) but I would put money on not many having the same sales problems of Ubi, indeed even in the face of piracy many still see growth or potential for growth.
Oh just because you are tech savvy doesn't mean a thing, you would be surpised how tech minded joe public becomes when saving money
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With a console when you open it to run copy games is more easy then on computer.
But even if this was true why are companys still making pc games ?
Is it cause the companys are lossing money on them and that's why they make it ?
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanis%C5%82aw_Lem
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The "piracy is killing PC gaming" crap doesn't fly anymore, asshole.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_(novel)
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Alright, I would say no "additional" DRM, then. Certainly nothing on the level of what Ubisoft or EA uses. Steam is the most lenient form of DRM, anyway.
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"It's really not easier. The majority of 360 pirates just buy a chipped box, and then download a game and burn it to disc."
How on earth is that as easy as simply downloading a program that will run on any unmodified Windows PC?
"For PC, you need to know how to install and configure virtual drives, how to mount an ISO, how to copy over cracked content and run a keygen or disable your net connection. It's a lot more complicated than pirating console games."
Sorry dude, I dispute that. No doubt there are anecdotally some games that will fulfill that list of requirements, but they are not in the majority. Most cracked PC games just run with no extra dicking about required.
P.s there is a huge caveat hanging over my typically bold statement above, which is "unless things have changed dramatically since I played PC games and pirated anything, both of which I've not done for years"
"but the difference is that PC gamers are naturally more PC savvy, so while it may be a lot harder to do, a much higher proportion of people have the skills needed to do it, or are capable of googling it to find out"
Well perhaps we splitting hairs here. This feels like a conversation with an "but that is only because..." floating toward it. For whatever reason, the average PC is more ably equipped to pirate games than the average console user. Whether that is because console piracy requires the purchase of new HW, or because PC gamers can "find stuff out more", the reality is what it is.
The root of this whole discussion is surely whether this dude is correct in his assertion about expect PC sales (with piracy being a factor that we introduced). If we say "yes piracy is rife on PCs, but only because XYZ"... we aren't actually disagreeing with him, we are just putting an negative emotional slant on facts we present that actually back up what he is saying.
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"But even if this was true why are companys still making pc games?"
Well I guess it is because they can still make a profit at it. But it feels like the number that invest heavily in that sector is reducing, and those that do are feeling less comfortable with their investment and laying on DRM with a big spoon.
Maybe games development has just got more profitable over the years and so the gold posts have shifted. Maybe back in the day you could make £10 for every £2 invested making PC games and you were fine with that and piracy and everything else involved. And maybe these days you can make £20 for every £2 invested in console game development, and the publishers are looking at their £10 return on PC games and thinking "I'm taking my money out of this" or they are thinking "I want to push that £10 nearer to £20, because I'm not happy with £10 anymore".
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You complain about them not wanting to do it due to cost/piracy, but I bet if Ubi set up a Steam-like service (let's call it "UbiSteam"
Not everyone wants to give a chunk of their profits to Valve just to host their game on Steam!
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Well, let's agree to differ on that since I think we agree on the substantive points.
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As opposed to giving a chunk of their profits to Microsoft or Sony for hosting the game on their systems?
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So yea, probably. Maybe if Ubisoft weren't such cunts your games would be worth buying. Being a cunt to pc gamers just makes them A) not buy your game and B) Pirate it more. So well done, you stupid cunts.
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Just look at the sales for games like The Witcher 2, Football Manager 2012, Skyrim, Civilisation V, Minecraft (some 4 million people have played it so far?).
Take your console fanboy bullshit and shove it.
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@Blitzkraig..You are a NOB, full stop.
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http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/11/23/ghost-recon-online-being-free-to-play-is-a-counter-to-piracy-says-ubisoft-producer/
They need to go I mean it.They are constantly insulting the customer base now, they confuse us with what DRM they will screw people with, the quality is poor when we do finally get games. Piracy or not their attitude just stinks it is absolutely no shock to me as a consumer that no legitmate gamers buy their games absolutely terrible company with no real clue on how to sell to "customers" at all it seems.
If all you are gonna do is publically "bitch" to and about consumers and treat THEM like crap with DRMs and late poorly ported titles or these little trolls telling us we are pirates (depsite many of us shouting to you "CHANGE AND WE'LL BUY!!" ) just sod off to the consoles. Please. Go on, we honestly will not miss you anymore and you seem a lost cause. Bye bye now we all have end of year sales and need to worry about throwing money at other games makers..better games makers, with better PR mouthpieces than you bunch of fools.
You deserve everything you get and I look forward to the day you get off the platform (no doubt you'll claim because of piracy), that one single PC gamer spends with you is a crime to gaming even bigger than your shitty DRM.
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I don't buy Ubisoft games. I don't pirate them either, I just don't play them. I would suspect I am not the only PC gamer out there who feels this way.
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PC game sales hit record high in 2010 - report
So.. what were you saying about the decline of pc gaming?
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Is that the reason why the torrent forums are full of cry babies that can't get their versions to work and don't even know what unwrapping a file means and have no clue how to use a keygenerator?
Saying only; Download pirated video game. Won't work, not in the slightest bit. Your parents and you are wrong in that bit.