[Source Kotaku]

Piracy Makes Call Of Duty 4 Devs Sad

PC gamers pirate stuff. We all know that. But just how many PC gamers pick up their games via less-legal means? An astronomical amount, if some statements by a Call of Duty 4 developer are any indication:

On another PC related note, we pulled some disturbing numbers this past week about the amount of PC players currently playing Multiplayer (which was fantastic). What wasn't fantastic was the percentage of those numbers who were playing on stolen copies of the game on stolen / cracked CD keys of pirated copies (and that was only people playing online).

Not sure if I can share the exact numbers or percentage of PC players with you, but I'll check and see; if I can I'll update with them. As the amount of people who pirate PC games is astounding. It blows me away at the amount of people willing to steal games (or anything) simply because it's not physical or it's on the safety of the internet to do.

Piracy is a hell of a practice. It's nice to get free games, but not at the expense of the people who make the games to lose money.

Most of the people that pirate games would not be willing to pay for it even if the option of illegally downloading it wasn't there.

I also might be inclined to feel a bit more sorry for him if CoD4 hadn't shifted 5m units on consoles alone, despite being little more than a graphical upgrade of previous instalments (admittedly it is damn good though).

1. Learn to secure it better
2. ?????
3. PROFIT

 That really is no excuse.  If you don't pay for it you shouldn't get to enjoy it.  Why are the people that pirate it special and get to play the game for free over those people that actually pay for the game? 

If they really want to play the game they'll pay for it, otherwise, get the fuck out.

most people pirate because they can, the tech is their and can be easily done.

It's quite easy in my opinion to stop or at least reduce piracy, just remove all technologies that facilitate piracy, such as DVD burners and the like, but of course people want something to use to back up their data, and this is where 2 formats would be best, take for example the following:-
-Have the blu-ray format for movies and games only, with only console and dedicated players on the market, no blu-day drives for PC's at all.
-for the PC market have only HD DVD format, no blu-ray drives at all.

yeah it a very drastic measure and one that is good on paper but probably not in practice, and yeah their will still be piracy of PC games, but it would at least be reduced because films and console games are on a format no supported by PC's.

the only problem with my idea is that everyone just wants 1 standard format for everything.

@troll_monster
haha people dont burn the games to play anymore dude, they just download the iso file from the internet, use some virtual cdrom software to run it as a cd/dvd on the computer and play

I'd throw a fit if I couldn't watch blu-ray movies on my PC.

Well, as I've got the console game, I don't know about the security measures in place on the PC one. But, why can't PC game developers all use the same approach as Valve do. One serial key will work once, the game (and the users) details checked online every time the game is booted.

Sure, c'est a little nuissance waiting for Steam to sign-in but at least I can play some of the finest games on the market, for a two minute wait. Rather than watch the industry crumble.

-offtopic-
twesterm - I just read a preview to the ghostbusters game in the recent EDGE magazine. I have to say, it looks really nice.

Why don't we just become a dictatorship country while we're at it and have the companies rule the world?? That way we can make the big industries happy campers! In all seriousness, I'm pro free-enterprise but I believe those people doing those illegal copies help serve as check and balances to these companies.