To date German developer Crytek has created games exclusively for PC, but piracy is forcing the developer to alter its platform focus.
"We are suffering currently from the huge piracy that is encompassing Crysis. We seem to lead the charts in piracy by a large margin, a chart leading that is not desirable. I believe that's the core problem of PC Gaming, piracy; to the degree PC gamers that pirate games inherently destroy the platform", Crytek boss Cevat Yerli told PC Play.
He added, "Similar games on consoles sell factors of four to five more. It was a big lesson for us and I believe we won't have PC exclusives as we did with Crysis in future. We are going to support PC, but not exclusive anymore."
What impact Crytek's move away from PC exclusivity would have on any future Crysis games we can only wait and see - if they even happen.
Crysis was originally planned as a trilogy, but future games in the series "largely depends on success of Crysis for PC", Yerli has now explained.
"As with every game or entertainment property, if the commercial success won't suffice, plans have to be revisited."
I say fair enough. I bought Crysis and loved it and if the consoles get to play it to then all the better. I do hope they dont let the consoles hold back the advances they can make on the PC though.
Valid excuse to jump on the console band wagon. It's not the least bit suprising. If they don't get the profits due for the work they put in why wouldn't they look elsewhere? If I got ripped off in the market like they have been I'd be doing exactly the same. If you get lazy ports to pc from now on you know exactly who to blame. Good job some of us still choose to pay for games or we'd all be f*cked wouldn't we?
Hope the pirating ass holes are happy. They can't even use the excuse that they wanted to try before they buy cus there's been a demo since the game came out. It really is pretty pathetic considering PC games cost less than console games anyway. If you can't afford it then don't play it. We need Chuck Norris to roundhouse kick these bitches!!
Completely agree with you lazarous. PC gamers did this to themselves. If there are lazy ports on the way, then good. You get what you pay for (very little as a PC owner).
It's like a few lads I work with... if I ask them why they stick to PC gaming and don't play on consoles, I'm told "because my expenses are only hardware upgrades, the games are free"... They religiously download every single new game that comes out, just to try it, regardless of review score or level of anticipation, because they can. They then turn around and give out about consoles getting games much sooner, or give out about s**tty ports or wonder why GTA4 isn't out on PC yet.
One of them said yesterday when I brought in my copy of GTA4 at lunch "Oh that's cool, you get a map with this one." ...erm, you get a map with all of them, but you'd know that if you'd actually ever bought a game in the last 5 years.
Piracy is undoubtedly the main thing killing PC gaming. There goes another respected PC developer, and I'm not surprised.
Professional Pirates, Arghhh! Me Hearties, *cough* sorry about that, will go where they can make the money i.e consoles.
Normal people will always pirate games, it's worse currently on PC as it's much easier. Consoles are moving towards HDD and online content and it makes their games easier to pirate.
Saying that a game similar to Crysis would sell 4-5x more on a console is BS. Release a game like Crysis which is playable on even a slighter lower spec PC and it would sell more units. Release a game that only about 5% of PC gamers can run and 95% of them won't buy you f-ing morons.
well if the game was a little bit more accessible IE wasnt so demanding, there are engines out there that are just a capable and as good looking that dont eat so many resources then i think the piracy for this particular title would not be as high. At the moment i have a pretty up to date gaming rig and yet Crysis is the only game i have to mess with to get best level of performance and balance of image quality. I imagine most people that "pirated" this game probably thought that there machine might not handle it even if they had minimum requirements so why waste Ł30 ?
There was a DEMO that was fairly well publicised and had a massive chunk of the game in it to find out how well it would run. Why are people moaning about having to mess about with the settings, CryTek said before the release that there would be very few (if any) pc's that could play the game at full graphics for a couple of years. But they did do a great job of scaling it and 3-4 year old machines would run the game on lower settings. I really don't see any excuse for pirating games, this kinda crap makes you realise why "Bioshock" had so many problems with security keys etc.
Yes piracy is bad but i think that Crysis was the master of it's own downfall by just being too damned demanding!
I know several PC gamers who love FPS but didn't bother buying Crysis as the demo brought their systems to their knees, and they either couldn't afford to upgrade or just simply refused to for just one game.
Personally I think Crysis will be a slow burner in terms of sales as when people do get round to upgrading they will buy it. But i guess that's not good enough for the money men as they need sales now.
ps. i did buy it as i do have a system that can run it at a reasonable frame rate.
While i can't condone piracy, it has to be said that Crysis was its own worst enemy in that regard. the requirements for the game are insane. That was what caused their low sales, nothing more.
Thats a load of crap, there are several reasons why people didnt buy Crysis: 1. It runs like absolute crap, ok it has a great engine and huge potential, but high end non-SLI/Crossfire rigs can only run it on medium and not have a chug fest, it looks absolutely terrible on medium settings( compared to e.g. UE3 games ), it also needs to run at low resolutions. 2. The story is crap 3. The last 1/3rd of the game is crap, linear bug fest 4. Did i already mention the bugs? 5. The sandbox is fantastic and the gameplay in the first 2/3rd is absolutely fantastic, but the story is absolute thrash and the last 1/3rd of the game is astonishingly bad, especially that zero gravity junk.
At the moment theres no point in releasing a game that will only actually look good and be playable 1-2 years post release and just look generic and have gfx that arent even on a par with CoD4 on high end rigs on release and at the same time expect huge sales on the first day of release. PC titles, especially those that push boundries are slow burners and people will only pick them up when they upgrade their rig.
Id consider my rig at the lower end of what would be considered high end PC on the releaase of Crysis, 8800GT OC'd, 6400@3.5Ghz, 4Gig C4 DDR2, XFi, 22" Samsung 1680x1050 native etc. and on my first play through to the end this is what happened: Started with high settings @ 1680x1050->avg. 28FPS at the begining Reduced to 1280x960 with 2xAA ->Avg 31 FPS Played through and excluding all the bugs, got to the end, ->8FPS, WTF? had to reduce to 1280x760 and get 17FPS
In the end it was simply a tech demo of their CryEngine 2, besides they never planned Crysis to be exclusive to PC so i dont know what their on about, especially considering EA( lets release it on everything we can ) publishing it
piracy is bad and i dont support it in the slightest but i get the feeling crytek brought this on themselves. they made a game so demanding on specs that most people want to try it before they buy, i wouldn't pay for it until i knew it ran well on my setup. perhaps if they concentrated on a good game rather than game engine they would sell more!
Crysis may well be at the top of the Piracy charts, but it's also stayed pretty high in the regular charts too so it can't be selling that badly.
Smells like an excuse to me.
Frankly though, exclusivity is not something that I'm worried about. Gears of War made a great PC game and Mass Effect is looking the same way. Consoles and PC's are coming closer together all the time. In fact, the only bad thing about console games is that developers tend to dilute certain elements because they think that Console gamers are more casual (I'm looking at you, Assassin's Creed), which unless you're a Wii nut isn't true at all.
Er is this the same Gears Of War that deleted my save files twice and crashed about 100 times before I gave up on it? I havent played a game that buggy since the PC port of Double Agent but at least it never deleted my saves which is such an amazingly huge bug I just cant believe it got through. I read alot about it online and it was supposedly Microsoft LIVES fault.
It can continue down the same road they are going and fail.
Or all of the companies with vested interests in PC gaming can come together and revitalize PC gaming.
Drastic changes are needed and soon and it requires standardization and cooperation within the industry. Most hardcore PC gamers won't like the changes but they are the only chance PC gaming has outside of RTS and MMO genres which will eventually make the switch as well.
They need a rating system for PCs and PC games. A "1" rated PC would not be suitable for playing PC games and only be suitable for non-game media like video streaming and GUI effects. A "2" PC will be able to play games close to or at console quality at 1440x900 res. A "3" PC would be able to play most current PC games at high or maximum quality at 1680x1050 resolutions.
Now, game makers and PC builders should adhere to these standards and create games and PCs around the standards. A year could also be applied to the rating such as a "1 2008" PC would be suitable for most applications and media purposes in the year 2008, etc, etc.
Each game should have 3 presets that are standard across all PC games. Low quality, Recommended quality, and Maximum quality. Each has settings changes that attain 30-60 fps at a given resolution depending on the game aka FPS vs MMO.
Anyways its pointless to write all this out.
The PC makers and game makers need to make standardized ratings to adhere to. This is really the only way PC games will grow and compete against consoles.
Right now there are too many combinations of PC components and game settings are not standardized aka Crysis vs CoD4 vs UT3. A computer that runs UT3 on high may get crushed by Crysis etc. This is the biggest problem for PC gaming.
Lots of people here are saying Crytek shot themselves in the foot etc. True as it may be, that doesn't change the fact that pretty much every major "PC developer" has said the same thing.
It can continue down the same road they are going and fail.
Or all of the companies with vested interests in PC gaming can come together and revitalize PC gaming.
Drastic changes are needed and soon and it requires standardization and cooperation within the industry. Most hardcore PC gamers won't like the changes but they are the only chance PC gaming has outside of RTS and MMO genres which will eventually make the switch as well.
They need a rating system for PCs and PC games. A "1" rated PC would not be suitable for playing PC games and only be suitable for non-game media like video streaming and GUI effects. A "2" PC will be able to play games close to or at console quality at 1440x900 res. A "3" PC would be able to play most current PC games at high or maximum quality at 1680x1050 resolutions.
Now, game makers and PC builders should adhere to these standards and create games and PCs around the standards. A year could also be applied to the rating such as a "1 2008" PC would be suitable for most applications and media purposes in the year 2008, etc, etc.
Each game should have 3 presets that are standard across all PC games. Low quality, Recommended quality, and Maximum quality. Each has settings changes that attain 30-60 fps at a given resolution depending on the game aka FPS vs MMO.
Anyways its pointless to write all this out.
The PC makers and game makers need to make standardized ratings to adhere to. This is really the only way PC games will grow and compete against consoles.
Right now there are too many combinations of PC components and game settings are not standardized aka Crysis vs CoD4 vs UT3. A computer that runs UT3 on high may get crushed by Crysis etc. This is the biggest problem for PC gaming.
Ive said pretty much the same thing before regarding performance of games on certain PC's. I think it neads a hell of a lot more than that though, PC's need to be sold with labeling on whether they can play those games and at what settings. Integrated gfx card PC's should be labeled as non game compatible out of the box 3DVantage which was just released yesterday should have filled this gap on actually stress tesing your PC's performance then have a database on what games you can play on low/medium or high and at 1280x1024 and 1680x1050. They really missed the boat on that one
I dont think PC gaming is an any downturn or whatever at the moment, all consoles are losing their exclusivity unless theyre artificially funded( e.g. extra GTA IV content etc. ).
Where the PC will lose out( and consoles as a result ) is that all technological advances are ALWAYS done on the PC and will always be done on the PC. This is going to create a huge impediment to gaming advances for the next generation of consoles if devs dont continue to try and push PC's as new hardware is released and if they just concentrate on porting to PC. Sure in the shortterm it works out great for the devs, but they'll be stuck when it comes to new gfx effects on the next gen of consoles. You only have to look at the 360 or PS3 to see that it always takes a minimum of a year and a half post console release for titles with stunning gfx to appear.
HL2 Lost Coast was the first mainstream title to include bloom/HDR effects in game in October 2005, following that the HDR revolution took off and you have it in pretty much every single title on PC and console now
It doesn't matter what you think of crysis as a game, or whether you consider that the fact it's had chart success relevant
What does matter is yet another PC developer has cited piracy as a huge problem. f**k the technical specs issue, if you wanted to try before you buy, a demo was made available.
If the pirates cannot be stopped, the best we can hope for as PC gamers are lazy console ports, and even these may become rarer (why release if the platform doesn't turn a profit)
This would also be bad for console gamers. Without the PC pushing technology further and providing a benchmark, the next generation of consoles is more likely to be a baby step onwards rather than a mighty leap
Even if you don't buy into any of the above, PIRACY IS WRONG YOU THEIVING GYPSIES
Software is a product just like an item of clothing or a bottle of whiskey. To use pirated software is exactly the same as walking out of a store without paying
I think Microsoft should work on an extension of Vista or the next up and coming O/S that is basically a secondary Shell designed purely for gaming that concentrates all available resources into the game that is running, it could potentially cut cost of hardware as you may need less to get a satisfactory leveldetail/performance.
I agree with them to an extent, but many didn't buy the game purely because the hype surrounding it consistently implied that you'd need all the latest hardware to play the thing at decent settings. It put a lot of people off.
PC gamers have been killing the PC gaming industry for a long time now with Piracy. When publisher attempts to protect their investment with some form of piracy protection, PC gamers bitch and moan (see Bioshock dibacle).
The folks saying the sales aren't that far off are fooling themselves.
Console Titles like CoD4, Assasin's Creed and even Oblivion sold 4 to 1 over the PC versions.
Yes, piracy happens with 360 titles as well, but Xbox Live mitigates a lot of the risk by banning modders. I say Hurrah for banning pirates. Saw a guy in line for GTAIV the other night who said he could have burned it to disk a week before release, but he really wanted to play it online, so he was buying it. Titles that do sell well for the PC are online games like WoW that combat piracy using the unique, forced CD Key verification.
So be sure to thank your l33t "hacker" friends next time you see them. They are killing PC gaming, slowly but surely, the same way they killed the Dreamcast.
Now is the time to bring back computers like the ST and Amiga, something with set hardware that publishers can fully push to the limit before moving on. Something that levels the playing field for everyone everywhere.
A market where don't don't have ridiculous Ł100 network cards aimed at the market like this.
Crysis was okay, didn't really play it for long enough to form a concrete opinion to tell you the truth.
Piracy is a lame scapegoat for the real cause of PCs problem. Piracy is a ubiquitous problem across all platforms, it's not exclusive to PCs. The real problem is, in a nutshell, people generally aren't as willing to go through the hassle & expense of upgrading as they once were as consoles have reached a level of sophistication where it's unnecessary (in many people's eyes).
Crysis is a game based on an old-school model that doesn't work anymore. It's much harder to survive on PC games alone these days because the upgrade bubble has finally burst and for a game like Crysis, which basically demands that you upgrade, most people reluctantly say "f**k off". Piracy is a secondary factor and an easy whipping boy for self-righteous devs.
Oh, and Crysis still won't be coming out for consoles.
PS: To anyone who doubts this, ask yourself this: do you really think piracy is any worse now than it was 5 years ago? Neither do I. So what's changed? Yeah, exactly...
No, I'm afraid it's the upgrading issue that is the real scapegoat. This is the PC we're talking about after all. I mean, what the hell do people expect. No PC gamer I know in the real world (and very few on internet forums) upgrade their machine on a monthly - or even 6 monthly - basis, and very few I know spend as much as me, and I only spend what I do because I'm an enthusiast (and at most I think I only spend a few hundred a year on average). As I say, IMHO the cost of upgrading is a red herring.
I have no sympathy for people who pirate games (in particular - f**k it, I'm biased) and if Crytek have been seeing that large numbers of people are using their software that don't match up with the sales figures then I completely understand why they would be more than a bit frustrated. I hope they don't turn their back on the PC as their primary platform of choice - regardless of what some of the more picky gamers around may be saying about Crysis I think the developer would be greatly missed if they changed their focus away from us.
On piracy more generally; we are now in a time where games are sold in a cheap DVD box with little in the way of packaging and/or interesting extra content to make the retail version more attractive than a torrent. Publishers really aren't helping themselves out here and I strongly suspect that (casual) piracy would be greatly reduced if people saw that the product as a whole - and not just the code on the disc - was worth handing over hard cash for.
Well, considering they were making a console variant of the Crytek engine months and months ago, I think it's just an easy way of announcing it.
The piracy argument is old and boring. PC Gaming isn't dying at all, we hear stories about it all the time but what you don't hear about is the amount of digital downloads because there is no way to currently monitor it.
There have been reports that Steam had an increase of 75% of paid downloads last year and this has been increasing year on year, whilst retail sales of the same games have been slowly decreasing. This doesn't mean PC gaming is dying, it simply represents the change and movement in direction in taking on digital downloads - an area in which the consoles have only just started taking on..and mostly with budget games.
Well, considering they were making a console variant of the Crytek engine months and months ago, I think it's just an easy way of announcing it.
The piracy argument is old and boring. PC Gaming isn't dying at all, we hear stories about it all the time but what you don't hear about is the amount of digital downloads because there is no way to currently monitor it.
There have been reports that Steam had an increase of 75% of paid downloads last year and this has been increasing year on year, whilst retail sales of the same games have been slowly decreasing. This doesn't mean PC gaming is dying, it simply represents the change and movement in direction in taking on digital downloads - an area in which the consoles have only just started taking on..and mostly with budget games.
He did actually reiterate in that interview that Crysis wouldnt be coming out on consoles, but im sure theyll do some sort of version and call it Crysis: The New Wave or some crap
Im still enjoying my replay through it. I can do my own looking back and i can say 100% i would never ever have bought it on release when i know now what i didnt know then
Piracy is a lame scapegoat for the real cause of PCs problem. Piracy is a ubiquitous problem across all platforms, it's not exclusive to PCs. The real problem is, in a nutshell, people generally aren't as willing to go through the hassle & expense of upgrading as they once were as consoles have reached a level of sophistication where it's unnecessary (in many people's eyes).
Crysis is a game based on an old-school model that doesn't work anymore. It's much harder to survive on PC games alone these days because the upgrade bubble has finally burst and for a game like Crysis, which basically demands that you upgrade, most people reluctantly say "f**k off". Piracy is a secondary factor and an easy whipping boy for self-righteous devs.
Oh, and Crysis still won't be coming out for consoles.
PS: To anyone who doubts this, ask yourself this: do you really think piracy is any worse now than it was 5 years ago? Neither do I. So what's changed? Yeah, exactly...
Piracy does occur on other formats, but it's that much harder to achieve, often necessitating hardware modification, that mony (most?) never bother.
PC piracy is a mouseclick away.
I do think this has become more significant in the past 5 or so years and the reason for this is the increasing prevailance of broadband. A few years ago, it is less likely that you'd download quake 3 over a 56k connection, now any game you want is downloadable easily.
This is exasperated by an increasingly savvy general populous. 5 years ago, the only people ripping stuff off warez sites were the cognesti, now 8 year old chavs are filling their ipods full of fiddy cent
There is no defence for this, anything I hear put forward amounts to "I want this for free". How, or even if you justify this is of no interest
Regarding the download success of steam, this offers real hope but doesn't explain the decline in hard copy sales fully. Hopefully more and more companies will move to the steam type model and piracy will suffer
something with set hardware that publishers can fully push to the limit before moving on. Something that levels the playing field for everyone everywhere.
As people have stated before me piracy is a scapegoat. Crysis sold over 1 million copies. For a game to be deemed successful on the PC it only needs to sell 200,000. So basically the game was successful just not enough for the greedy guys funding the game and now they want to go over to consoles because they can expect a higher rate of sales.
There are 2 simple and easy ways to combat piracy which hardly any pc gamer has anything against.
The first is simple. Just release your game on STEAM. It is almost impossible to pirate games on Steam. Just not worth the effort.
The second is the Company of Heroes system which requires you to logon to an online account (you have to create when you first buy the game) every time you start the game. This isn't as problematic as it sounds. Those of you who have played CoH (and it's quite a few since it's one of the best selling titles) know it's fast and easy. Only takes a second.
Problem sorted. The fact is now that console gaming is becoming even more prominent we'll start to see a lot more cracked games on them too especially considering the extortionate amounts they have to pay to buy a game.
something with set hardware that publishers can fully push to the limit before moving on. Something that levels the playing field for everyone everywhere.
Sounds awfully like a console to me...
Sounds like an Amstrad CPC, Amiga, Atari ST, Spectrum and Acorn to me.
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