Call of Duty 4 developer Infinity Ward published an interesting blog recently from Community Manager Robert Bowling. In it, he passionately discusses the state of PC gaming, and the rampant piracy that he says cripples it.
The post is titled "They Wonder Why People Don’t Make PC Games Any More."
"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."
Piracy is piracy and it’s not going anywhere. However, I do think that the man is unavoidably correct. Maybe he’s just mad because it’s his company’s game, but he’s got a point. It’s somewhat ironic that many of the biggest fans of PC games are the same people who are familiar enough with the interwebs to illegal download the games they love.
In my opinion, the whole industry went and shot itself in the foot when they called it "Piracy." When they gave it a cool name, they gave the thieves a reason to feel cool for doing it.
I’m in college…I know what it’s like to have no money. But that’s not an excuse for stealing. If you want companies to be able to make amazing games like Call of Duty 4, they need support. It’s not charity. They’re doing you a great service in exchange for your money. And trust me, in COD4’s case, it is truly a great service.
In another bit of tasty irony, the most common excuse for videogame piracy is inflation of prices. "Sixty/Fifty dollars is too much." The ironic part is that were it not for piracy, the industry would be able to consider dropping prices.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I really hope Infinity Ward publishes the piracy statistics.
