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NVIDIA bombards PC game pirates

How can you "possibly justify it"?

Dark blue icons of video game controllers on a light blue background
Image credit: Eurogamer

NVIDIA games boss Roy Taylor believes we're at a point where he doesn't believe anyone could possibly justify pirating a PC game.

Speaking exclusively to Eurogamer, Taylor said it was "really unfair" to be stealing from and effectively killing the developers trying to keep the PC market alive.

"I think that we've arrived at a point now where I don't know how anyone could ever possibly justify pirating a game. I just don't know how anyone could consider that a cool thing to do - it's not. It sucks," Roy Taylor told Eurogamer.

"One of the things that I find frustrating is that PC gamers tend to be very passionate, and they love the people that make great PC games. If you ask any PC gamer what they think of John Carmack, they'll say he's a hero. What do they think of Tim Sweeney? He's a hero. Ken Levine is a hero. And yet many of them, sadly, will go and steal from them. I just don't get that, I really don't."

Taylor believes one way to combat this is by ramping up digital authentication, and to offer more post-launch content only available to legitimate, registered owners.

"I think that we're going to see more digital authentication, and we're going to see more of an approach that says that PC games aren't products - they're a service," added Taylor.

"You're going to start out with a basic service, which is the game, and then increase the value of that service through patches, mod packs, expansions, maps and so on. That's the direction it's going to go, because the pirates are just killing the developers - and I think it's really unfair, what they're doing."

BioWare recently revealed that Mass Effect PC will require an Internet connection in order to revalidate your CD key online every 10 days.

Roy Taylor's concerns also follow the recent decision by Crysis developer Crytek to stop making PC-exclusive games because of "huge piracy" problems.

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