With consoles coming ever closer to reaching the level of graphics quality that formerly only a PC could provide, people have been predicting the demise of hardcore PC gaming. Unfortunately, it looks like gamers may finish the job off themselves. Piracy has become rampant and is taking a huge toll on PC games.
Fourzerotwo, the Community Relations Manager for Call of Duty developer Infinity Ward ran some numbers and was shocked to see just how bad it’s gotten. He recently wrote this on his blog:
On another PC related note, we pulled some disturbing numbers this past week about the amount of PC players currently playing Multiplayer (which was fantastic). What wasn’t fantastic was the percentage of those numbers who were playing on stolen copies of the game on stolen / cracked CD keys of pirated copies (and that was only people playing online).
Not sure if I can share the exact numbers or percentage of PC players with you, but I’ll check and see; if I can I’ll update with them. As the amount of people who pirate PC games is astounding. It blows me away at the amount of people willing to steal games (or anything) simply because it’s not physical or it’s on the safety of the internet to do.
Infinity Ward is not the only company suffering because of software pirating. It doesn’t seem to matter whether the game is an FPS or an MMO expansion, gamers are openly pirating games and posting about it freely. Take for example this discussion on the Infinity Ward blog:
I know all about PC pirating I’m fully aware it’s not exclusive to Crysis. A ton of people myself included had the Burning Crusade client a week before the game came out. Difference was that some people bought it as well and just didn’t want to go through the installation. Hell I have a pirated copy of System SHock 2 just because I don’t feel like paying 100 bucks for a boxed copy now.
I grew up with PC games, and in a lot of ways the industry has learned, grown and matured along with me. It’s a shame to think that PC games may expire before I do.
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- Call of Duty 4's Double XP Weekend for the PS3
- Call Of Duty 4 Public Beta Coming In August
- Activision and Infinity Ward Confirm Development of Call of Duty 4
