Devil May Cry 4 "Pirated to hell and back!"

[Golgatha]

Here's the original article...

A quick search of TPB yields the following numbers.

PC Version, SE = 242, LE = 47

XBox 360 Version, SE = 57, LE = 310

Capcom in the US has admitted that sales of the PC version of Devil May Cry 4 are suffering due to severe piracy issues.

"I'm not sure about how Capcom in general feels but it's not doing as well as I would like in the US at retail," wrote Svensson.

"It's such a good version and it really deserves better sales. I know it's getting pirated to hell and back (it was up on torrents literally the day it shipped)."

Could it be that the game has already been out for a year and their core demographic has already purchased and played it already? Could it be that the PC gamer hasn't played DMC 1-3 because they weren't produced for the PC, and thus not interested in the continuing saga of the DMC series? Could it be the hype machine isn't as well oiled for the PC release as it was for the console version's release? Could it be that PC gamers play platformers, RPGs, fighting games, etc. on their console instead of the PC?

Given TPB numbers I found, the one reason I can't fathom is that the poor sales are due to piracy. Looks like piracy is pretty even for both platforms and the game sold well on XBox 360. As a recent purchaser of a PS3, I can tell you if I had a PS3 one year ago, I wouldn't have held out for the PC release. As it stands now, I had a choice between the two systems when I finally got a PS3. I got the PC version on sale for $40 instead of paying $60 for the PS3 version (I heard good things about updated graphics on the PC, and I already had an XBox 360 controller and a nice gaming rig to play it on).

I'm quite tired of "big bad piracy" being an excuse for bad business decisions. Their tired excuses do nothing more than take good games away from PC gamers, and I'm just about fed up with a-holes like Mr. Christian Svensson.

 

[teb468]

Originally posted by: Golgatha
I'm quite tired of "big bad piracy" being an excuse for bad business decisions. Their tired excuses do nothing more than take good games away from PC gamers, and I'm just about fed up with a-holes like Mr. Christian Svensson.

To bad the present day mindset of almost everyone in business or regular life is to blame someone else for their own mistakes. Has any game company actually admitted they've made a mistake on anything they've done?

 

[JBT]

I've got to agree with you guys. The game got a ton of hype for the console releases MONTHS ago. If you are a true fan of the series you have already bought it. I havn't seen any ads about its PC release. A big part of hit games is being able to talk about them to other gamers. If I have to wait months after words there is nothing to talk about anymore so might as well skip it.

 

[Modelworks]

Sadly I wouldn't take the time to even pirate the game on pc.

 

[Golgatha]

The only rebuttal I could think of for TPB numbers being equal was that the game was not a simultaneous release on the PC...so I looked up numbers for GRID.

Both the 360 and PC version have roughly 500-550 pirates downloading and uploaded at the moment (SE+LE). Nope, still don't buy playing the piracy card for DMC4.

 

[Golgatha]

Originally posted by: Modelworks
Sadly I wouldn't take the time to even pirate the game on pc.

Sadly, I wouldn't have purchased it if there weren't gameplay videos on YouTube and a demo available. DMC 2 and 3 weren't very good, but I absolutely loved the original DMC. At least Dante has badass skills and attitude without the need to say crap like "blast off!!!" every time you fling someone in the air now. Also, if I didn't have a kick ass PC and a wired 360 controller already, I'd have bought it for PS3 which would have taken a sale away from the PC version. This game pretty much requires a 360 controller.

 

[StevenNevets]

It's a good game.

 

[skace]

Look, the reality is that businesses are learning to go to these BT sites and look for seeds of their product. If they see a seed of their product that's been leached a few hundred thousand times then yea, they can make the comment. It doesn't necessarily mean the game would have sold better without that BT or warez in general, but it does have to factor into there "what went wrong" assessment.

 

[Golgatha]

Originally posted by: skace
Look, the reality is that businesses are learning to go to these BT sites and look for seeds of their product. If they see a seed of their product that's been leached a few hundred thousand times then yea, they can make the comment. It doesn't necessarily mean the game would have sold better without that BT or warez in general, but it does have to factor into there "what went wrong" assessment.

"It's such a good version and it really deserves better sales. I know it's getting pirated to hell and back (it was up on torrents literally the day it shipped)."

I'm pretty sure he's putting the blame on piracy for lack of PC version sales? IMO he's just trying to cover his own ass, with the higher ups and investors, for a bad business decision. I honestly think the sales numbers would be better with a simultaneous release for the PC (e.g. GRID). Of course, if they would have done a simultaneous release with the PC GRID style, they'd have lost out on revenue (GRID PC $40 vs. GRID 360/PS3 at $60).

 

[Auryg]

Originally posted by: skace
Look, the reality is that businesses are learning to go to these BT sites and look for seeds of their product. If they see a seed of their product that's been leached a few hundred thousand times then yea, they can make the comment. It doesn't necessarily mean the game would have sold better without that BT or warez in general, but it does have to factor into there "what went wrong" assessment.

Except they should be factoring it in to their business plans by now. So what...maybe a few thousand people downloaded it off the pirate bay, and lets be super super generous and say that 50,000 people downloaded it in general.

Now, maybe only 10% of those would have actually bought the game, so we're back down to 5,000. When a game is selling 500,000 copies or more, is it *that* big of a deal?

Note: The numbers I used above are totally off the top of my head and probably ridiculously off. Read at your own peril.

 

[teb468]

Originally posted by: Auryg

Originally posted by: skace
Look, the reality is that businesses are learning to go to these BT sites and look for seeds of their product. If they see a seed of their product that's been leached a few hundred thousand times then yea, they can make the comment. It doesn't necessarily mean the game would have sold better without that BT or warez in general, but it does have to factor into there "what went wrong" assessment.

Except they should be factoring it in to their business plans by now. So what...maybe a few thousand people downloaded it off the pirate bay, and lets be super super generous and say that 50,000 people downloaded it in general.

Now, maybe only 10% of those would have actually bought the game, so we're back down to 5,000. When a game is selling 500,000 copies or more, is it *that* big of a deal?

Note: The numbers I used above are totally off the top of my head and probably ridiculously off. Read at your own peril.

They should be considering this kind of stuff in their business plans, but I doubt any of them really do. Especially now that the market for video games in general is so huge, its become like the music industry. "Lets throw all kinds of crap at the consumer and they'll eat it up because its the next new thing, we can't go wrong and we'll make tons of money." is probably what some execs are thinking. So when games don't live up to their sales estimates, they need to look somewhere else other then their own company for blame.

Though I guess in a way the developer/publishers need to stand up for their IP and saying they made a crummy game might reduce their fan base in their own minds whereas that doesn't normally seem to be the case.

 

[lupi]

They day I see real scientific studies of people that d/l something that would have bought it if it was not available for d/l then I'll care about these types of things.

 

[CP5670]

It's such a good version and it really deserves better sales.

I don't know much about this game, but this quote is a gem. "Our game should have sold better, because we say it's good!" :roll:

 

[skace]

Originally posted by: CP5670
I don't know much about this game, but this quote is a gem. "Our game should have sold better, because we say it's good!" :roll:

IIRC, I think DMC4 was one of their best PC ports and we had a thread about it here. This is a company that usually botches their PC ports to hell and back.

What they should say is "We put a lot of effort into this port and although it didn't sell as well as we'd like, we hope people recognized the change in quality and direction because we plan to continue with that on future products. We really want to take the PC platform seriously now."

 

[nakedfrog]

They tend to view it through the rose-colored glasses of 1 copy pirated = 1 copy that would have sold, when the ratio is probably far off from that.

 

[imported_Imp]

A lot of people have consoles now, even me. Before my PS3, my last console was a Sega CD. Thus, I bought and loved DMC4 for the PS3. Why the hell would I wait for a console to PC, gimped port when I can buy the designed for console version and not have to give performance/compatibility a thought.

Hate to say it, but consoles have come so far that I don't even want to upgrade my PC anymore. Oh, and DMC4 on console is only $40 new here now.

 

[jonks]

Originally posted by: Imp
Hate to say it, but consoles have come so far that I don't even want to upgrade my PC anymore. Oh, and DMC4 on console is only $40 new here now.

I grew up with consoles, when platformers were the best game in town. But now 3D FPS is king, and I hate playing them with a controller. I also play RTS and using anything but a mouse is a nightmare. I have a 360 gamepad for sports games, action titles and console ports, but I'll always upgrade my PC to play the latest FPSs.

 

[Dumac]

A lot of people did pirate the game, but they probably wouldn't have bought it anyway. Despite this, the game really is a great port.

I wonder, if pirating games we somehow made impossible, would all the piraters actually start buying games?

I have friends who pirate pretty much every game they play, and when they see stuff like this they always say "Well I wouldn't have bought it anyway." Well, of course you wouldn't have bought it since you have 50+ other pirated games to play. So basically, if it was impossible to pirate games, I wonder if my friends would actually buy games or just give up gaming.

 

[BudAshes]

Its a console port, nobody wants to play another shitty console port.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: BudAshes
Its a console port, nobody wants to play another shitty console port.

Even if it's a decent one, this is what we all expect the game to be, so no one buys it.

For a console game like this, if I want it then I'll buy or rent the console version.

Plus the 6 month? year? delay for the PC version didn't help either. Anyone who wanted it probably already bought it.

Yet another feeble blame-the-pirates excuse from a publisher.

 

[Piuc2020]

The PS3 is the promised land of zero piracy and yet sales are the same or lower on that platform and all developers are going for the 360 as well and leaving PS3 exclusivity.

This means that even developers know piracy is not such a big issue, if it was, they would be flocking to the PS3, the only console in the world to have zero piracy.

It makes me sick, piracy has become nothing more than a scapegoat and game quality and new releases are taking a hit because of it.

 

[coloumb]

It's just as easy to pirate games on the DS, PSP, PS2, etc... but you don't hear the game companies complaining about it - do you?

Just another lame reason to blame piracy for their lack of stellar sales for ...what BudAshes said - "another shitty console port".

 

[soybeast]

Ya the piracy argument is a lame excuse for poor sales. Probably a more valid argument is that the pc market demography is different, and the fact that the pc version was released so much later and probably had most of its sales cannabalized by the console version.

But I don't see how how it's a 'shitty console port' either. Because you can't play the game with a keyboard and mouse? Why would you want to do that in the first place? Gimme a fukin break and bitch about something that makes more sense.

 

[mindcycle]

Poor sales are blamed on piracy by every retarded developer/publisher out there. It's just an excuse. Piracy has and will continue to exist no matter what, no matter what the platform is. I'd say it's no worse now then it's even been. What they really need to look at is the lack of good titles on the PC. All we get anymore are ported console games. Some are decent, but most are garbage. They should be happy anyone buys those ports at all. ..and in the long run it's still making them a decent amount of money on top of the millions they already made on the console release of the game, so are they really losing out there? Greedy bastards.

Sins of a Solar Empire is proof that piracy is a non issue if you produce a quality product.

 

[Canai]

200-some seeders on the bay is NOT 'pirated to hell and back' - DMC4 is a shitty console port. That's why nobody bought it :laugh:

The whole piracy excuse is getting ollllld now. The lying fucks at Crytek are ditching the PC because of 'piracy' - even though Crysis has sold 1.5mil + already, ONLY on PC.

The more the dev's and publishers bitch and moan about piracy, the more I'm going to laugh and go buy stuff on Steam.