The Witcher 2 - GOG sells 35k, Steam 195k

I don't understand what you're saying. Their plan in releasing a PC version was to make it console exclusive in the future?

He's addressing the pirates who claimed that they were only pirating because of nasty DRM or lack of content or bad game, and said they'd buy a game that sorted that out. TW2 does, yet the DRM free version only sold 35k, so the pirates were lying. Quel surprise.

Consoles suffer less from piracy, so revenues are higher. This will be realised when the console version comes out, and we can expect development to concentrate on the revenue returning area in the future.

In short, CDP gave PC gamers a chance, but in some people's opinion we've blown it.
 
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Consoles suffer less from piracy, so revenues are higher. This will be realised when the console version comes out, and we can expect development to concentrate on the revenue returning area in the future.

Piracy really has nothing to do with consoles being lead platforms. It's all about sales. The Xbox has rampany piracy as well but games still sell extremely well for it. If the PC could say the same then it would be the lead platform for games like Skyrim.
 
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Piracy really has nothing to do with consoles being lead platforms. It's all about sales.

There could actually be a cause and effect relationship between these two statements. Fact is that games are for some reason selling a lot better on the platforms that happen to be less prone to piracy. There are probably also more gaming capable PCs out there than Xbox 360s, PS3s and Wiis combined. And yet the PC where pirating is by far the most convenient (Xbox piracy may be "rampant" but compared to piracy on the PC it is a pain in the ass to accomplish) is usually the platform with the poorest sales performance.

Sure. There could be many reasons for that but personally I believe that piracy is playing a huge role in all of this and that piracy is hurting PC gaming massively.

For example check out these most pirated games of 2010 stats. The no. 1 most pirated X360 game does not even come close in numbers to the no. 5 spot on the PC. Or look at the direct comparison of CoD: Black Ops which was pirated over 4 million times on the PC and "only" a little over 900K times on the X360. Stats for previous years are telling a strikingly similar tale so the trend is very clear.
 
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Fact is that games are for some reason selling a lot better on the platforms that happen to be less prone to piracy.

Not really, PS3 is least pirated and also sells less.

Anyway I agree there are a lot of people who would buy games if they could not pirate them. The whole "pirates will never buy games anyway" argument drives me nuts, they wouldn't just stop gaming overnight if piracy became impossible. That said DRM does not make piracy impossible, it does nothing. Which is why we are likely headed toward a streaming future.

In any event, the core of my point is that higher sales mean greater attention. The Xbox sells the most games, so the Xbox is the technology base for most games.
 
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Not really, PS3 is least pirated and also sells less.

Yes, but I don't think that has anything to do with the ease or the obstacles of pirating. The PS3 launched much later than the X360 and at a very unattractive price point initially. The X360 also had a good number of (at the very least timed) exclusives while the PS3 had almost none. The X360 install base is considerably larger than the PS3's today and a good number of multiplatform games works better on the X360, too, because the X360 is easier to develop for. The massive PSN hack probably didn't exactly help the PS3 either. At the end of the day Sony simply never managed to catch up with MS. So all in all it is no surprise that the X360 moves more volume in terms of games.
 
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I don't understand what you're saying. Their plan in releasing a PC version was to make it console exclusive in the future?

I was talking about in general on how most games on pc are going to be ports. Is that clear enough? More multiple releases equal more money.

Its the state of the gaming world nowadays. PC exclusive are almost nil unlees your a indie studio or fill a niche market. Three was that clear enough for you.

He's addressing the pirates who claimed that they were only pirating because of nasty DRM or lack of content or bad game, and said they'd buy a game that sorted that out. TW2 does, yet the DRM free version only sold 35k, so the pirates were lying. Quel surprise.

Consoles suffer less from piracy, so revenues are higher. This will be realised when the console version comes out, and we can expect development to concentrate on the revenue returning area in the future.

In short, CDP gave PC gamers a chance, but in some people's opinion we've blown it.

That to. Publishers love to use that as a excuse and while its true it a piss poor excuse. If anyone says pirating on a console doesn't exist and isn't easy you live in a dreamland.
 
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He's addressing the pirates who claimed that they were only pirating because of nasty DRM or lack of content or bad game, and said they'd buy a game that sorted that out. TW2 does, yet the DRM free version only sold 35k, so the pirates were lying. Quel surprise.

It's not that simple though.

The retail version was DRM free within... ten days? If you wanted a DRM free version you could just buy the disk after that point, you didn't have to go to GOG.
 
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Yes, but I don't think that has anything to do with the ease or the obstacles of pirating. The PS3 launched much later than the X360 and at a very unattractive price point initially. The X360 also had a good number of (at the very least timed) exclusives while the PS3 had almost none. The X360 install base is considerably larger than the PS3's today and a good number of multiplatform games works better on the X360, too, because the X360 is easier to develop for. The massive PSN hack probably didn't exactly help the PS3 either. At the end of the day Sony simply never managed to catch up with MS. So all in all it is no surprise that the X360 moves more volume in terms of games.

Yeah, that's the point. I think you are missing what I am saying. Sales matter most. The PC has the lowest sales of the three "HD" platforms, most of the time. Hence we get sloppy PC ports. Piracy is only relevant in that it might be a contributing factor to lower sales.

If you want to talk about why systems sell what they sell or whatever we can do that. The PC is in last because it's more expensive to buy into, requires some computer knowledge and is less convenient, among other things. The PS3 is in second for mostly the reasons you listed. None of that is really what my core point was about though.
 
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Piracy really has nothing to do with consoles being lead platforms. It's all about sales.
Yep, more people *play* games on the PC, it's just that more people *buy* games on the consoles.

That's especially a problem where you have additional costs per player, whether that's through servers or simply support costs.
 
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Because most people either don't give a shit about DRM or don't perceive Steam as the DRM it is.

Yup, I am one of those people. And Steam only uses 77 MB of my 8 GB, that is less then 1% of my memory, and it doesn't even register as using the CPU, so that is another less then 1%.
 
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I think STEAM has now reached the status of a game drive-by shooting for Joe Average.

Those who don't identiy it for what it is (I won't name it to prevent a flamewar, but you know what a software is called that prevents you from using your bought software the way you want it) have the client running like friggin facebook. And if sth interesting comes up it is their way of buying. Sad but true.

Retail boxed on the other hand still wipes the floor with all DD services combined - that is sth very satisfiying and comforting for me.

At least in the US, Digital Sales (for PC games in general) is about 50% of the total sales, according to the NPD for 2010. If it continues the same trend, digital sales might have actually beat physical sales this year in the US.
 
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I only use Steam for games that i absolutely cannot get any other way. What bothers me, is that it's becoming the only way as of late. A game in a retail box requiring Steam is total bullshit.

thats because Steamworks is a DRM, and a DRM that is 100% free for a publisher/developer to use. And the only DRM that actually has some value to the customer.
 
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