[ DEBATE ] Blaming piracy for PC gaming's decline

Retail sales of PC games aren't what they used to be, although the indie game market and online gaming is still going strong. The reason for this, many in the industry seem to think, is piracy. In January, a community manager for Infinity Ward wrote about piracy on his blog when talking about the sales numbers of the PC version of Call of Duty 4. More recently, Crytek spoke about the effects of piracy when releasing PC-only games. Now, Peter Moore is getting in on the action, and spoke to GameDaily about canceling Madden '09 for PCs.

David Tinson from EA first talked about sales numbers. "So to give you an example... Last year, for every 30 copies on PS2, we'd sell one PC. And that's PS2," he revealed during the interview.

"If that consumer wants to buy sports games and they don't want to play on their televisions—I recognize that. We need to find different and innovate ways to be able to do that. And I need to protect my intellectual property," Moore said. "Piracy's a big issue on the PC. I can't turn a blind eye to the fact that it's very difficult for us... and we lose money making a game. At some point, I have an obligation not to bring out products that lose money."

Could we see a free football game based on the microtransaction model of Battlefied: Heroes? Anything is possible, and Moore doesn't sound like he wants to give up on the PC sports-gaming market. It's just that selling $40-$50 games for the PC at retail isn't working for these titles. There are ways to make money on the PC, and the folks at EA simply have to find what works for them.

The only question is which developer or publisher will be the next to bring up the boogeyman of piracy when talking about the state of PC gaming. Ignoring the pirates may work for some business models, but that is not a popular way to handle of the situation. We look forward to seeing what EA's plans for the PC are in the future.

Your thoughts?

This is very true but the companies need to realize that, from what I heard, it is possible to pirate on consoles as well. So they lose no matter what. I'm just surprised they aren't taking any legal action against piracy websites, they're easy to find and should be just as easy to shut down. Sure the codes are entirely useless but thats only because theres people out there that crack them and post them online.