The Demise of PC Gaming

Are PC gamers just an insignificant bunch of unforgiving pirates?

It's sad, isn't it? It would appear that we have become materialistic sweat-bands soaking up as many goods as we can get our hands on. It has got to the stage where aspects of this have altered the way the industry views consumers. You see, not all of us have the money to obtain everything we want when we want it. It's not feasible, particularly when it comes to software. I'm sure you can see where this is going.

Piracy. There are many excuses for it. Some are seemingly legit, others are blatant bullshit. The end result is the same. Piracy is driving the industry away. To put this into perspective, let's delve into some of the reasons why piracy is so popular in this day and age.

The most obvious is that free stuff is, well, free. It's not uncommon to have an innocent conversation with acquaintances regarding music collections, and how large each others are. Many people download every song they know illegitimately, then add it to their collection, regardless of their musical tastes. It's like the musical equivalent to e-peen, short of being a dedicated audiophile with myriads of $600 digital audio cables. They're very much alike - being obsessed with something that makes no sense - and on the other hand, very different, since one pays a fortune for their passion, while the other refuses to spend a cent. Despite this, music is the least of our concerns. Music isn't restricted to any particular platform, and as reckless as the music industry likes to be, the lack of DRM has kept the legit buyers happy so far.

There's also 'demo'ing' or testing a piece of software before purchasing. Sometimes there are no official demos for a piece of software, and it's unclear whether it'll be suitable. A torrent later, and it's all settled. Is that a legit cause? Maybe so. But who determines what a "demo" encompasses? And when do we finally say, "hey, I think I'll now part with my hard earned cash"?

Notwithstanding, the main reason for piracy is lack of availability at reasonable prices. Countries such as Pakistan and Brazil do not have an array of legit games at their mercy. Much of what is sold is illegitimate copies from dodgy dealers at a fraction of retail cost. Or, users decide to torrent the software to avoid paying full stop. To put this into context, Brazil has only very recently launched the Playstation 2. Yes, the console prior to the current PS3. And not cheaply either, at $461USD. This is why piracy and the grey market are so huge in these countries.

For years the PC has been the epitome of all gaming platforms for 'serious' gamers. The graphics are superior, the controls are flexible, and the choice of games is massive. Unfortunately, this may all change due to piracy.

Recently the game 'Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2' was released. The game caused a huge stir before it had even been released, for one major reason.  No more dedicated servers. That's a massive drawback for a FPS in general, not to mention a full fledged realistic combat game. Expectations were high, after all, this franchise has been a crowd favourite for years. So why would they tell PC gamers to go shove it? Their reason was piracy. "Pssh!" I hear people hissing. Let's look at the figures for COD:MW:

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare: 830,000

That's a fuck load of downloads. Let's assume each copy is worth $50 retail. If my maths is correct, we're looking at a staggering $41,500,000. And that's just the PC torrent figures.

But if these people wouldn't have bought it anyway, then they didn't really lose any money, did they?
True. If you put everyone in the one basket. The fact of the matter is, some people feel that they're entitled to obtain software for free, despite their financial status. Sure, a huge chunk of that 41.5 million dollars wouldn't have made it to the publisher with or without the advent of piracy. But that's still millions of dollars of lost revenue. Now look at these figures from the viewpoint of the developer and publisher. They're businesses, just like any other in this world. Their aim is to make the most amount of money possible. They don't have to care about the consumer, provided they make a profit. It's not hard to see why Infinity Ward, the developer of COD:MW2, decided to handle the games release the way they did. Instead of catering for the PC market by tweaking the game for optimum PC use (no, not just mouse control), they made a direct bare-bones console port. Fast and cost effective.

This outraged gamers far and wide. Partitions were formed, pre-orders were cancelled, and a bad reputation was smeared across the pages of high traffic communities. No one wanted a "console port", especially at the price of $100. The game was effectively ditched completely by the online masses. The developer snubbed PC gamers, and they were snubbed back. There were even calls of people proudly proclaiming their intention to pirate the game. A recipe for disaster right? Surely the PC market is worth enough in revenue that these quality issues are a concern?

Apparently not. In fact, COD:MW2 has become the best selling game of all time. $550 million dollars was made in the first five days of release. But how can a seemingly flawed game possibly make that much money? Contrary to seemingly fallible logic, it actually makes perfect sense.

Hit them where it hurts
Infinity Ward knew their franchise was very popular. A fair amount of people were going to buy this game no matter what. This, and the fact that there was a lot of controversy about a very violent scene, was a guarantee for good revenue. But record breaking revenue? There was more to that. You see, most people have both a PC and a modern gaming console. Interestingly enough, only the PC version was getting all the bad press. So most of the consumers who opted to 'boycott' the game ended up getting the console version. Because let's be honest, who wants a game that's cut down? Conveniently, piracy on the PS3 platform is not yet feasible. And as for the Xbox 360, piracy is a sure fire way to get yourself banned from Xbox Live. Infinity Ward played their hand correctly, and pushed a fair amount of players to the comforts of two tightly controlled platforms. There's no arguing that the reason was piracy, they even said it themselves.

The end of PC gaming?
This question is on the lips of a significant amount of gamers. I mean, think about it. How many PC exclusive games have been released recently that are worth buying? Heck, how many aren't console ports? Not as many as you'd expect. The sad reality is that consoles are getting priority. Not only are they easier to develop for, but they're the main source of revenue for developers and publishers. Why port a game to PC when it costs time and money to do so, for a small piece of market share, of which many steal the games?

But does this really translate to the demise of PC gaming as we know it? If a developer such as Infinity Ward is capable of raking in record amounts of money with little appreciation for the PC platform, it's only to be expected that other companies will follow suit. Whether they do so is another story, one which I, for one, will follow with great interest.

What does this mean for legitimate PC gamers? It's hard to tell. Nonetheless, it's safe to say that it's going to result in an interesting turn of events. To who's advantage, is the concern.