They certainly did. But if Crysis sold slower than expected while it was no.1 on just about every torrent list worldwide for weeks, the conclusion is quite logical.
I can only repeat my old argumentation: Pirated copies don't equal sales. The action genre, especially ego shooters draw quite some attention, people obviously like them, so it's only natural that they will be pirated more than other games, just as they usually sell more often than other games. Every developer, as well as publisher faces the piracy problem nowadays, so why do some games sell quite well and others don't? In this particular case the question is especially tricky. Because, as you said, Crysis sold slower than "expected". But were Crytek's expectations realistic? I don't think so. It's their first game, and before Crysis no one really knew Crytek. The requirements to play the game were fairly high which limits the customer base as well. So, I really don't think 1 million copies is thaaaaat bad. I'm pretty sure that over time a few more sales will follow. Of course there are ego shooters out there that sold more copies, but then these are big names, usually the second or third part of a game series. The times when games like Half-Life 1 sold "I don't know how many million copies" are long gone. The influence of piracy however is limited. It's obvious that it has an effect on sales, filesharing is growing since years, so yes - the industry is losing money - but I seriously doubt it is the only variable that influences sales. We have a growing console market and it is no secret that at least partly the customer base is the same. We have games like WoW and AoC that might further reduce the initial sales of singleplayer games, etc. There are so many factors, it's hard to say which one does or does not play a role.
I disagree. For AAA titles going multi-platform indeed automatically means more sales, or at least more revenue. It´s also much more efficient to spent another 10% of the development budget for each conversion and then use the marketing fireworks for all platforms. Another logical consequence they didn´t explicitly say: It makes sense to ship on a platform first which (a) is big, (b) has relatively low piracy (c) has a high average sales price for software and (d) high price stability. Today this means XBox360, tomorrow it might be the PS3. Example: Oblivion, Mass Effect.
The days of AAA games as PC-exclusives are over. They are the exception.
I'm sorry, you're totally right there. I was arguing from a purely theoretical perspective. Practically you'll probably always sell more games if you're going multi platform. But what I was aiming at was that a game which might not appeal to all too many people on the pc won't suddenly become a more attractive game just because you go multi platform. If you develop for the PC as well as for consoles your expectations in terms of sales will simple go up, because you know you can sell more. So the problem stays the same. Someone who expects to sell 3 million copies of a game for just the PC will probably hope that he can sell 6 millions if he goes multi platform. Fact is however that if you're selling just 1 million copies of the PC version, the real sales on consoles might also stay below your expectations. So can you sell more? Yes you can - but that doesn't mean that sales will automatically match your expectations.
Btw, I'm not opposed to multi platform development since I firmly believe that as console and PC technology come closer together, game mechanics will do so as well. I have to admit that I'm often sceptical towards console ports, but in the last few years I saw several examples of multi platform games that were actually quite good.
They certainly do, but it´s a complex topic. A lot of politics is involved. The dev might know it better but his publisher decides. The publisher does due diligance and their lawyers, who know nothing about games, come up with recommendations. The publisher might also be part of a big media company. The deciders there typically are close to 60, have learned their stuff in the analog age and are still retail driven, and thus reluctant to embrace digital distribution with its neglectable costs for manufacturing, packaging and distribution.
I agree, at least partly. I'm not sure if all developers have a profound knowledge of the piracy problem, to be honest, I seriously doubt it. They too just seem to pick out the aspects that are interesting for them or do concern them directly, and neglect everything else. Once in a while you hear some developer discuss the whole topic in a reasonable way, but that's really the exception (Valve, and some indies are good examples here).
I kinda reject this black and white dichotomy which says developers are the cool guys and the publishers are the bad guys. When most gamers think of publishers they seem to imagine the Kingpin from the Batman comics or something. Crytek is again the best example, if they know better, then why do they repeatedly say stupid things concerning piracy in their interviews? They could simply shut up or talk about something else. It's a bit of a tradition to blame everything on the publisher (we can see that in the music or movie industry as well). Most people think that publishers rip off artists, etc. and yes, in some cases that might be true... I don't think the structures in the content industry are particularily favorable for artists... but then again it's the artists' job to change something - who else should do it?
I very much agree with you that the industry doesn't think much ahead. They cling to much too traditional patterns of copy protection and copyright law. But it's not like they exist in a vacuum... everyone that wants to can read up on the topic. As I said, most material concerning the topic is available online, you just have to search a bit for it.
My personal opinion, after having read most of the stuff that's out there (and I really tried to stay neutral and read stuff from both sides) is that you cannot eliminate piracy. We live in a culture of copying. The content industry itself is based on the fundament of copyright infringement. Sharing is an absolutely natural thing and we won't get rid of it in the near future. If students live together in a college dorm the question is not
why they don't respect copyright law, the question is how they could
not share music, movies, software and games. But there is light at the end of the tunnel. Recently the warner Music Group has hired Jim Griffin, one of the first persons who came up with the idea of a flatrate to compensate artists and copyright holders, to create a plan for a so called music tax (everyone has to pay 5$ a month, you can download as much music as you want, you can keep it, share it, spread it, whatever...). What suprised me was how little understanding and support that idea has in parts of the population. The most grotesque thing I read was something that a music fan wrote in a forum. If this music tax will really come, he wrote, he would pirate the shit out of the music industry. Very obviously he has yet to understand that what he would be doing then, will be no piracy anymore. If such solutions would work for the software industry as well? I don't know... but I think it's worth thinking in non-traditional ways. A variable tax might be an idea - who downloads a lot has to pay a lot. There are organizations who speak quite favourably of such a solution. In any case I think that we need a reformation of copyright law - fast.
