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Crytek CEO Bemoans Software Piracy, Claims 20:1 Ratio

Posted 06/27/08 at 03:31:27 PM  by Paul Lilly

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In a recent interview, Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli blasted the PC industry as "the most intensely pirated market ever." By his own estimation, Yerli believes the sales-to-piracy ratio could be as high as 1 to 20, or in other words, for every videogame legitimately sold, 20 more are illegally downloaded or copied.

Yerli also critiqued certain aspects of Crysis, saying sales were hurt by mislabeling the game's visual quality settings. "Our medium could easily compete with any high, and very high should have been ultra high as a means of futurizing," Yerli commented. And he's probably right, given that Crysis can make even high end rigs cry for mercy when tasked with the highest quality settings and a high resolution. Because of this, Yerli wonders how many gamers have passed over the title waiting for the hardware to catch up.

Expect a less aggressive labeling scheme in Warhead, and though it might be an exercise in futility, Yerli also promises it will be harder to crack.

COMMENTS:7
TAGS: gaming, Software, piracy, Crysis, Crytek
COMMENTS
avatarGood luck to him, not

Submitted by blackdog on Sun, 06/29/2008 - 9:39am

Good luck to him, not advocating piracy but they figured HL2 would not get pirated successfully but has, there are people out there as clever as the developers when it comes to cracking games, unfortunately the solution will impact legit users almost as bad as pirates

 

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avatarhunting down cracking "scenes"

Submitted by warxsnake on Fri, 06/27/2008 - 2:25pm

this is a genuine question, not being a smartass, but why is it so hard to hunt down cracking scenes. a simple torrent site visit reveils that there are only a few cracking scenes involved in the whole deal of cracking games, not more than 10 groups maybe, youve probably all heard of razor1911 and FAIRLIGHT and other bulls*** like that. why cant we hunt them down and kill their operation, and send a message to any other crackers out there to stop. Last I checked what they are doing is illegal?

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avatarDoesn't matter.  The minute

Submitted by TheMurph on Fri, 06/27/2008 - 3:04pm

Doesn't matter.  The minute you take out a group like Fairlight (FLT), another immediately rises to take its place.

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avatarRight

Submitted by TheMurph on Fri, 06/27/2008 - 1:43pm

He's inflating the estimate, as he's the freakin' CEO of the company.  Piracy is a deal, yes, but I think the general disarray of the PC gaming sales market is more to blame for Crysis retail underperformance than anything else.  After all, a pirate != a guaranteed sale.  Just because someone steals your game doesn't mean that, given no way to acquire it for free, they would have been a solid buy.

Crytek is going to jump to consoles because it's a bigger friggin' market, period.  Consider this chart of the top PC game sales of 2007:

  1. World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade (Blizzard Entertainment) - 2.25 million
  2. World of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment) - 914,000
  3. The Sims 2 Seasons Expansion Pack (EA Maxis) - 433,000
  4. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Infinity Ward) 383,000
  5. Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars (EA Los Angeles) - 343,000
  6. Sim City 4 Deluxe (Maxis) - 284,000
  7. The Sims 2 (Maxis) - 281,000
  8. The Sims 2 Bon Voyage Expansion Pack (Maxis) - 271,000
  9. Age of Empires III (Ensemble Studios) - 259,000
  10. The Sims 2 Pets Expansion Pack (Maxis) - 236,000

 Now look at the console sales:

  1. Halo 3 (Bungie, Microsoft Game Studios, X360) - 4.82 million
  2. Wii Play with Wii Remote (Nintendo, Wii) - 4.12 million
  3. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Infinity Ward, Activision, X360) - 3.04 million
  4. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Neversoft, Activision, PS2) - 2.72 million
  5. Super Mario Galaxy (Nintendo EAD Tokyo, Nintendo, Wii) - 2.52 million
  6. Pokemon Diamond Version (Game Freak, Nintendo, NDS) - 2.48 million
  7. Madden NFL 08 (EA Sports, Electronic Arts, PS2) - 1.90 million
  8. Guitar Hero II (Harmonix, Activision, PS2) - 1.89 million
  9. Assassin's Creed (Ubisoft Montreal, Ubisoft, X360) - 1.87 million
  10. Mario Party 8 (Hudson Soft, Wii) - 1.82 million

'nuff said.  It's not piracy, Cevat.  It's cashflow.  And the consoles are simply the bigger piece of the pie.

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avatarDoes that list include

Submitted by shellpc on Fri, 06/27/2008 - 6:44pm

Does that list include sales via digital distribution such as Steam? From what little I've read on it, most of the analysts can't track those figures since Valve and other digital distribution companies don't usually release their sales figures to the public. I know CoD4 was released on Steam last year and I'm assuming D2D had it out around the same time as well.

 Even if that list doesn't include sales from digital distribution I can still see your point as I doubt digital sales would be anywhere near enough to make up the difference between the console sales. Im just wondering if the actual sales figures are being underreported though.

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avatarNope.  It'll be curious to

Submitted by TheMurph on Fri, 06/27/2008 - 7:50pm

Nope.  It'll be curious to see how much those play into the mix, provided the PCGA gets on the ball and starts doing... something.

 Still,  I think it's a moot point.  Console penetration and ease-of-use are steady, driving forces for their sales.

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avatarOoo Slam! Well said. Even

Submitted by Haipyng on Fri, 06/27/2008 - 2:25pm

Ooo Slam! Well said.

Even though the PC makes for better looking games, has a far better interface to play them on I am afraid that consoles will continue to level the field, eventually making PC games even less attractive to developers. Consoles are eating up front costs on what they make back in game sales sort of like printers and ink. Too bad they can do that with PC gaming rigs.

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