While God of War: Ghost of Sparta is nearly complete, developer Ready at Dawn is not very delighted about it. Why? Because the company says that piracy on the PSP is way out of control and really hurts sales of even big PSP titles. Speaking to VG247 (thanks PlayStation Lifestyle), Ready At Dawn creative director Ru Weerasuriya lamented about dealing with piracy as a marquee PSP developer.
Weerasuriya said that it is "getting to the point where it doesn’t make sense to make games on it [PSP]." He also said that the PC has better ways of dealing with piracy such as "connectivity and multiplayer" - we assume he is referring to services like Steam. He also mentions Battle.net as a good example of how to combat piracy using a network connection.
You can read the rest of the interview here.
Comments
Re: Piracy Makes Ready at Dawn Sad
We're through the looking glass here, people.
Re: Piracy Makes Ready at Dawn Sad
Hmm I'm thinking his game sucks ass and he wants to have an excuse on why its not going to sell well.
Re: Piracy Makes Ready at Dawn Sad
But I thought consoles were the only safe bet when it came to making a profit in games?!? /s
When will these pinheads realize that if it can be unlocked on their terms, it can be cracked as well? Pissing on a peice of cake to discourage people from stealing puts off your customers from buying it too. If they want to continue selling copies, they're going to have to come to terms with the fact that not every copy in circulation is going to be paid for. They should be finding ways for getting paid to make the game first, then release it. That would boil down any filesharing to free publicity and distribution. I've never seen a contractor or landscaper do the whole job without a check, yet these developers complain when people distribute their hard work without payment. Well pal, you did the work and then put it out there, knowing full well that it would be cracked and copied. It's entirely your fault for not having a plan to take advantage of it.
-Greevar
-Greevar
"Paste superficially profound, but utterly meaningless quotation here."
Re: Piracy Makes Ready at Dawn Sad
Here's the thing. Developers do get money up front, some money anyway, when they make a deal with a publisher for a game. However, most of the money they expect to get will come from royalties. If they don't sell well, they get far less money from royalties. In that way rampant piracy will negatively impact how much money they make. I'm not arguing that every pirated copy is a lost sale. But some of them are and piracy on the PSP is huge.
Blaming the developer for not making enough money before finishing and selling their product is ridiculous. Blaming the developers for wanting to get paid for their work and being unhappy when people steal it is even more ridiculous.
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Chris Kimberley
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Chris Kimberley
Re: Piracy Makes Ready at Dawn Sad
While I don't buy the argument that it's entirely their fault -- not all plans work out, after all, and just because piracy is inevitable doesn't mean pirates are absolved of fault -- I agree with your larger point. DRM doesn't stop piracy, it only inconveniences legitimate customers. That doesn't mean that going DRM-free and aggressively promoting your game will automatically make it a success, but it's a much better start than assuming you can lock down ones and zeroes against duplication.