PC

id and Epic about Piracy - Devs. Going Multiplatform

Piracy is making PC game developers' lives hard, except for those who make MMOs

By Filip Truta, Games Editor

19th of March 2007, 11:05 GMT

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So like, this is the sign that scares pirates away right?

You bad hackers you...! Happy now? You've upset everyone with your pirating PC software and games. Especially Epic's Michael Capps: "PC gaming is really falling apart. It killed us to make Unreal Tournament 3 cross-platform, but Epic had to do it [...] the market that would buy a $600 video card knows how Bittorrent works." id Software CEO Todd Hollenshead is also concerned

about piracy and stated that "piracy has pushed id as being multiplatform."

Is this true? It certainly is. Although that's not so bad for console gamers. They're the ones gaining something out of this whole PC piracy issue. Game developers are afraid that their work will be exploited more with PC hacking rather than console hacking, so they turn their heads towards consoles like Microsoft's Xbox 360 or Sony's PS2, PS3 and even PSP. Even if some manage to hack into every machine, it's a bit harder with consoles, so that at least buys developers some time before evil minds destroy their work.

Still, there are some who predict a brighter future for PC gaming. Firaxis designer and programmer Soren Johnson is confident about PC development and states that "game design on the PC is going to bend toward persistence," also adding that MMOs like World of Warcraft are "successful because you can't pirate WoW."

That's not entirely true if I may add. First of all, hackers can pirate anything from a GameBoy cartridge to the most advanced software that NASA uses to find planets sustaining life, in the universe. They can do it, all they need is the time. What Soren Johnson was probably referring to was that piracy doesn't do that much damage to MMO developing companies. That's true. They require an account and if you have pirated copies of your MMO, then you have to join pirate severs.

All this being said, console gamers should be in for the time of their lives if PC game developers turn their work towards consoles as well. This, or they'll all switch to developing MMOs.

TAGS:

id Software | Epic | Unreal Tournament 3 | WoW | MMO

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