Capcom trying to blame piracy for poor DMC4 (PC) sales?

[ZenfoldorVGI]

Core console-first games made in Japan that tend to be focused towards the console market for years, tend to have trouble generating the same gross revenue as their console counterparts. A few reasons.

1. PC games are usually cheaper than console games.
2. Piracy exists. Pretending it's not a problem is unacceptable.
3. Japanese games are usually released on console first because of piracy stigma.

4. Not taking advantage of digital distribution.

Now, like I've always said, being a PC fanboy is fine. However, we must hold PC fanboys up to the same light we hold console fanboys. When we rattle off cherrypicked facts like "The PC is the highest grossing gaming device" we can't act like that's not a cherrypicked statement. Of course the PC is a great source of gaming revenue. However, it's not gonna sell Madden like the consoles, ever, and a ton of that revenue is from older, more casual, and online games, like World of Warcraft.

Telling a developer to develop their 20m budget HD game exclusively for PC, is telling a developer to lose money. While the PC, yes, sells more software, that gross income is spread out over a lot more product.

It's equivelant to telling 3rd party developers, "The Wii sells the most software, you should develop for it exclusively," and not explaining certain facts about who makes most of the software it sells, or what type.

http://www.dragonagecentral.com/single/1216167900

Dragon Age will eventually hit Consoles, most likely, as will every game capable of being ported that EA things it can make a profit at.

However, it seems like for every new PC exclusive "core" title, there are 10 console exclusives that don't get mentioned.

PC gaming also has a target market, just like consoles. To a point, it is a universal gaming machine that targets everyone, but certain genres do outperform things like, say, Japanese action games. SPORE, for instance, or any "sim" type game. RTS, Online, and casual/card games are all huge on PC.

I won't fall into the trap of arguing "why" PC gaming isn't the end all savior pro-PC entheusiasts claim it to be. Those are simply opinions. I will present these examples, however:

Mass Effect: The game, with rumored anti-piracy measures, angered the PC gaming community. It seems that most core titles must be very careful not to upset or get itself in the sites of this community. The core PC gamer feels "entitled." So, companies take steps to appease them. They often release their PC version last, in order to minimize perceived piracy losses. Remember that word "perceived." They release the game at a cheaper price, as most PC core titles are forced to do, due to the community and perceived value(which is a major reason games LIKE THIS, core expensive titles, sometimes gross less on the PC than their console counterpart, along with later launch dates). They also release the game with extra content, which would have been an expensive download on a console.

PC gamers, however, would have none of it. The backlash over the install restrictions, caused PC gamers to threaten en-masse to "pirate" the game in order to teach EA a lesson. Enough so, that EA had to back down off some of its piracy restrictions.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed: The problem of piracy is a large one. However, what is an even larger problem for any platform is stigmatization. Let's look at the Wii, for instance. If 3rd party developers believe their game won't sell on the Wii, then they won't make it on the Wii. That's the problem a lot of developers have with the PC. They see rumors for big budget games that have failed, and believe piracy is to blame. They don't develop their games for PC, because they hear people like CliffyB flaming PC as a platform, and they hear other PO'd developers say "PC gaming is dying" and they hear about all this piracy, so they believe that a PC version launch release would actually hurt their sales on other platforms. The stigmatization of non-profitability and loss is greater than the actual.

PC gaming will probably never again be the monolith it once was, in the way we want to perceive it. In the days when the PC had all the great exclusives. The Half-Life days. Now, it is simply more profitable to release your games across all platforms, with the ease of ports and the similarity between PC and console architecture. Look at The Orange Box, and imagine how many more copies it sold because it was released on PS360, or how much more gross profit it made, more importantly.

Consoles simply once weren't capable of running these games.

The old tired argument of "games are always better on computer" also has lost a little tread recently. For every advantage to computer gaming, there is a disadvantage. Graphics? Local multiplayer, family fun. Cheaper games? Plug and play, ease of entry. Keyboard and mouse? Support increase on consoles. Patches? Consoles have em too. Extra content, huge back catelogue of software? Earlier releases in many cases. Lack of a first party. Glitches. Non-uniform software and hardware.

There was a point when PC gaming was without a doubt, the market leader for core and casual gaming. Not only could you emulate everything on any console, but you could play many other exclusive games with much better graphical fidelity. It's not as much of a dominant force as it once was, imo. It might still be the leader of the pack, but it's playing in the same ballpark, for the first time.

However, a little competition never hurt anything. I think a little piracy protection that simply wouldn't allow the often elitist PC gaming community to always get their way, wouldn't be a bad idea. Consoles are only going to get more and more similar to their PC counterparts, and since the core audience is growing much more slowly than are budgets for core titles, graphics are only going to increase at a much slower pace than in the past, a major advantage of the PC for core gamers.


As for this situation. If Capcom lost money on their game going to PC, why should we flame them?

"I have a kickass PC connected to my 65" 1080p TV in my living room. It'll destroy all of my consoles and ask for seconds in terms of performance. I know there are others out there like me that similarly enjoy that experience," Svensson wrote. "We are members of the PCGA. As a company, we strongly believe that the future of the PC is bright."

The guy wrote that, btw. The one that you're flaming for whining. I don't think we can classify it as such. In fact, I think Capcom has done well in releasing this game on PC. As spiteful as PC gamers can be, I think deep down, despite all the capcom hate they spew, they would be a little sad if capcom dropped out of PC gaming alltogether.

When you say, "Oh well, they will just be missing out on that money." Listen to yourself. You sound like you want to turn console wars into Jerry Springer.

Recently, Crazzy said that if developers want to make their games 360 exclusive, even timed, they should and would be punished by Crazzy pirating their games on the 360, because they should have known better than to spite the superior PS3.

Now, why, when Crazzy says it, is it one of the most appauling and fanboyistic things ever uttered on the interenet, but when the PC gaming community says it en-masse, it must be the developers fault.

The same light. Nothing less.