Console Game Piracy - Learn to Love the PC again | PlayNoEvil

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Game consoles seem to have piracy problems, just like PCs. What should an indie develop his game on? Image via Wikipedia

Consoles. The apex of modern computer game development. The place to be. Safe. Profitable. AAA.

If you build your game on a console, surely, you?ll thrive.

Eurogamer has a really damning report out on console game piracy.

It is not a pretty picture.

Microsoft has been plagued by DVD drive spoof attacks almost since the launch of the Xbox 360.

Sony dodged the bullet for a while with Blu-ray, but really the lack of console sales until recently really were their ?security system.

The PS3 got a bit successful, and hackers hacked away.

The Wii, well, no one but Nintendo seems to have broken the code on building great games for the Wii.

If you want to make money selling games, you need a lot of customers, low development costs, reasonable time to market, and a reasonable expectation that you can sell your games for a reasonable price.

? and, of course, you?ve got to have a great game.

For a long time, the propaganda of the console manufacturers was that they protected your games from piracy.

If you bothered to look at the data, you?d find two things:

1. Consoles don?t protect you from piracy.

At least not very well.

2. Consoles create this little thing called a ?used game market?.

The used PC game market is negligible.

Other parts of their pitch are comparably absurd.

There are far more PCs than any console.

Especially if you lower your specs to something behind this years latest and greatest (see the huge success of Blizzard with World of Warcraft and Valve with pretty much everything).

And, if you build to the platform, you won?t have a ton of compatibility issues?. push tech hard, and it will definitely bite you back.

Development costs, way lower on the PC?. no dev kits to buy.

Time to market ? no ?certification? process, no approvals. You build the game you want and sell it how you want. Update it, modify it, it is totally under your control.

Oh, and you don?t pay for the privilege of selling your game on the platform with a per disk/cartridge royalty.

The only other tempting platforms out there are the App Store babies ? iWhatever and Android (and Kindle soon enough I?m sure).

? which suck for most developers since no one wants to pay more than $0.99 for anything.

What consoles did do very well was freeze out indie game development. The tool costs and publication made the world safe for big publishers and their endless cycle of? AAA FPS incestuous clones.

Its great to see indies are breaking the code. Get your new computer game on the PC.

Who cares about high PC piracy rates. If the market is 1000s of times bigger (or more), 80 percent piracy is nothing.

For more on fighting game piracy, check out my Game Piracy Resource Guide.

Where are you going to develop your next game?

Is piracy a consideration in which platform you develop for?

Let me know in the comments below.

And to keep up on the latest in protecting your game, click here to subscribe to my newsletter.

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I?ve worked at the intersection of security and business for over 25 years of experience: led product launches, re-engineered business systems, programmed, developed web sites, filed patents, advised startups, and done some hardcore security work. For the past decade, I?ve focused on the game and gaming- helping traditional computer games, online games, social games, MMOs, promotions, skill games, and iGaming.

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Source: http://playnoevil.com/2011/10/05/console-game-piracy-learn-to-love-the-pc-again/?source=rss&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=console-game-piracy-learn-to-love-the-pc-again

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