Ubisoft's new DRM scheme

Other Games
21

I agree - there will always be piracy and Ubisoft’s measures are overboard. But Ubisoft’s method has gotten the same level of flak as is Sony’s method on SOCOM FTB3, which is far less draconian. Each new copy of the game comes with a voucher for online access. Once activated, your PSN account will always have record of it, regardless of if you lose your old game or whatever. And if you buy the game used or pirate the game, you purchase a voucher on the store for $19 (yes, it’s a bit high). So even when companies look for more reasonable methods of protecting their software, people still whine and moan about it.

As for the store reference, piracy is a lot less like stealing in the traditional sense, and more like counterfeiting money. If you make copies of the money, the original is still intact, right? Yet nobody doubts the legality of counterfeiting (there of course is the deeper issue of fiat currency losing value with rampant counterfeiting, but similar arguments could be made with software - that software loses its inherent value if it can be obtained for free).

Just off the top of my head - only one of these has sold half-decently (guess which one?)

Resistance Retribution
Phantasy Star Portable
Dissidia Final Fantasy
Persona
Gran Turismo
GTA: Chinatown Wars
Little Big Planet

All of these were released in the last 12-14 months. Most have sold less than 200K in the US when their home console counterparts sell several times as many (despite the PSP having a sizable install base).

The problem with your argument is that you’re not only comparing apples to oranges (piracy is much less an issue in Japan than it is in the US and Europe), you’re also looking at incomplete data. Yes, Monster Hunter sold well in Japan. Piracy is not as rampant in Japan. But even then, how many sales were lost due to what piracy there is? It’s impossible to know without more research. But saying that Monster Hunter disproves that piracy is a problem is completely specious.

Again, what is each game’s “intended market”? PSP games sell well in Japan (well, a handful do). So are you saying that the vast majority of PSP games aren’t intended for the US or European markets? That would be ridiculous, considering that more PSP units have sold in America than in Japan.

And “make their products as worthy”??? GOW: Chains of Olympus is the highest rated PSP game. Sold less than half of what the PS2 versions did in the US. Chinatown Wars is the second highest rated. Sold less than 100K so far. Little Big Planet is not even close to reaching the same level of sales as the PS3 version, despite having a much larger install base.

Nothing is uncrackable, but yes - they’ve made it more difficult on more recent versions. But, that being said, the vast majority of units out there have been cracked. And the PSP is extremely prone to piracy because of the inherent features of the system. Expandable memory, USB attachment, etc. etc.

And the point about publishers not being allowed to protect their products was implied in your overall sentiment of “publishers shouldn’t bother with anti-piracy measures because it’s going to happen regardless.” Publishers have tried to come into the game with open arms. Did you hear about what happened on Demigod? They released the game with no DRM. And instantly, the servers were clogged with pirates, nearly shutting the game down with traffic. And though this is only a single instance, it’s one of the few times a publisher tried this approach and they instantly got hammered.

Nobody is arguing that Ubisoft’s methods are good. I’m simply taking issue with the tone of your original post in which you pretty much dismissed the issue of piracy. Yes, successful games are still successful. What you fail to consider is that those games would have been more successful, if piracy were less of an issue.

And yes, 360 versions of the same game fare better than the PS3 versions. What this has to do with piracy, I have no idea. Could it possibly be because of the much larger install base on the 360? Or perhaps the fact that a lot of 360 games are network-heavy, thus making it very difficult to pirate? Again, nobody is arguing that piracy kills all sales. It reduces sales to a somewhat unknown degree (there is no general percentage, though it is possible to make informed guesses based on trending, user awareness, torrent downloads, etc).

22

No, I wasn’t assuming how publishers think, merely stating that I don’t think it logical for publishers to use the number of downloads as a means of determining the number of lost sales.

Especially in this case, the data is unreliable. How can you determine the number of potential customers who turned to piracy because they were pissed off with the DRM scheme? How many of them wouldn’t have bought the game anyway? Was the amount of lost sales any greater than games that didn’t include this DRM scheme? Unless there’s a way of determining what the user was thinking when he or she downloaded the game it sounds like a lot of assumptions would need to be made.

A far better way of determining if the DRM scheme worked would be to compare actual sales of the game to sales of a similar, non-DRMed game. Or release two versions of the game, one with DRM and one without, and see which one sells the most.

23

I wouldn’t call any of those games AAA, and I imagine it’s Phantasy Star Portable that sold good considering it’s getting a sequel. Incidentally it hardly has competition in its genre, aside from Monster Hunter which is very different, but there also isn’t a home console version to make it look worse than it is features wise and what not.

Still, Gran Turismo didn’t even have the career mode the series is famous for. Dissidia Final Fantasy is about as AAA as Ehrgeiz, the last beat em up to include FF characters. Little Big Planet? Personally I find its big brother overhyped with some incredible stuff for the level editing but ultimately not very fun platforming mechanics. Why is it so hard for other companies to get their characters to control as great, yet require as much skill, as in a classic Mario game? Which Persona? 3? A re-release of a game people have played already? Why buy it again? And how much less than the original release did it sell, the series was hardly a multimillion shifter. Let’s add Soul Calibur to the mix, that also failed to include compelling single player gameplay like Gran Turismo while, as with the new trend Sony pushes, it offers no online play unless you also own a PS3. Why would I buy it (I did, but shit I regret it, and I love Soul Calibur yet haven’t had one since the Dreamcast so it’s not that I’ve had too much either, it’s just so lacking)?

As for Chinatown Wars, there’s a reason Grand Theft Auto’s popularity exploded when it went 3D. The mainstream just doesn’t like the old school top down gameplay. It was stupid to blame the DS for its initial low sales (which have grown to be rather good by now), and it was stupid to expect a PSP port with even less fan fare to do better given it has competition from what people perceive as the “real” GTA on that platform, which incidentally sold much much better than CW despite the dreaded piracy monster and with a smaller install base at the time. All three games are GTA, all three games are on the same so called piracy infested platform, why did two sell great and one failed miserably?

This stuff is hardly enticing for the consumer, especially since bigger, better versions exist on the home consoles. Maybe they should offer experiences that are unique instead of watered down? Who knows. Just a thought.

Metacritic rating doesn’t mean crap about a game’s worth to the consumer (or in general really) though. God of War PSP is an incredibly short experience with little replay value. Maybe if they launched it at half price it would have done better, I doubt it cost as much to develop as the first God of War game anyway, being all new tech and gameplay style at the time. As for LBP again, the hype had died down, imo the PS3 version sold only thanks to marketing than its own merits, but since that’s subjective, Sony had the hype machine rolling at the time, whereas the PSP version by comparison released quietly.

Since when do we assume reviews go hand in hand with sales potential? There are niche games that one or two sites that actually find them might score them highly but that doesn’t mean that a) the mainstream wants it and b) that mainstream have even heard of it, and under the right light to make them want it. That happens on all platforms. Hell, it doesn’t even have to be very niche or from an unknown developer, CAPCOM’s own Okami was great, yet it failed on PS2, and it failed (slightly less) on Wii. That hardly makes either platform bad for software sales. There are many examples.

By intended markets I meant stuff like Monster Hunter being more for Japan (though I’m sure they’d welcome Western success and they will attempt that with the next iteration), nothing that provoking really, at least I don’t think so.

I said what I said about the later PSP models because you said hardware sales keep being good and what not (I’d say it’s mostly in Japan that they keep being so good really, it’s the least - by a wide margin - popular system in the West), so with that, all the hardware sales of the last few years should have led into proportional software sales since most are at the very least tough to crack (if not impossible) as you agreed.

24

What do you think Monster Hunter is on the PSP ? .
And yet games like RE 4 can sell on the Wii, or the re-release of games on LIVE and PSN cane sell well ? .
I’ll over look the obvious point, that people buy handheld games , so they can play games on the move, and take it away with them , to anywhere in the world (with-in reason)

That maybe because it’s a Vs Fighter , be a bit impossible for Namco to model Thousands of Fighters , and hundreds of Area?s , don’t you think ?. Some games just don’t need a story mode , you know like Moneyball , Fifa ECT

Maybe that’s because the bigger better consoles , have more CPU power, better GPU , Better Audio , more RAM, and system storage , That tends to help developer to far more for starters
And I would imagine the play time for Home Consoles Vs Handhelds is that much the greater, for games designed to be played in the comfort of one home ?

25

I’m not really sure of what you’re trying to argue, clearly the MH games became a phenomenon there for their local co-op play, going above and beyond the home console iterations that only offered online play. It just clicked better like that, I’m sure CAPCOM didn’t expect it to become the goldmine it became when it was brought over to the PSP, so it’s quite the extreme example rather than something that can be seen as a rule for ports. To them, it became a better experience by being portable, and it sold great (that’s an understatement, the series basically single handedly revived the PSP in Japan) showing there are tons of people that buy their PSP games, if they seem worthy of it.

As for RE4 Wii, at least it had the incentive of the better and somewhat different experience than previously, whereas with a port-down to the PSP you get usually a worse experience due to not only lacking a better control scheme but also having a gimped scheme with the lack of a 2nd analog stick. But even so, RE4 Wii sold good but it didn’t reach the numbers of the original release either, and it was budget priced too.

Still, I asked Abadd for the sales numbers of the original Persona release to see how far from the PSP re-release (I looked into it and see now he meant the original Persona on PS1 and its remake for PSP, not Persona 3) it is and gauge what it can be compared to better. From the little searching I did I see the original described as a “sleeper hit” while the PSP remake didn’t do too shabby, debuting @ #1 in the Japanese charts, so both versions seem to have had about the same reception, unless the original grew to sell much better later on while the PSP release dropped like a rock, so that aspect needs some light shed on it. Without that it’s hard to say anything one way or another really, but as I said before, duds have existed on all systems, and the reasons for a game’s failure aren’t as simple as the piracy scapegoat that is almost always implied (though Abadd himself does appear more rational about it than most company spokespersons).

When did I say anything about hundreds of levels or whatever? Soul Calibur on PSP doesn’t even have a freaking arcade mode, time attack mode, or conventional survival mode, or anything substantial to do in single player to feel some kind of progress other than a weird mode that is like an extended tutorial asking you to win fights with one or two specific moves or behaviours within a few seconds, and a mere vs CPU mode over a seemingly random list of weaker or tougher opponents with absolutely no incentive other than gaining arbitary titles. A far cry from Tekken: Dark Resurrection’s substantial single player which includes all those modes and more, including a mode that resembles the Dreamcast’s Soul Calibur quest mode (or whatever it was called, I forget) as you fight through different level dojos’ fighters to become their champion, increase your rank, earn points to buy unlockables, accessories, etc. That sold much, much better than Broken Destiny, though not as good as Tekken 5, which it was basically an enhanced port of.

CPU power and what not has little to do with the value of a game, just as we had “epic” experiences last gen, so can we this gen for the portables and Wii (or even a PC game that targets low specification machines to reach a broader audience, including Blizzard’s and Valve’s insanely popular titles). So the PSP isn’t as powerful as a PS2 but it still got full scale GTA and PSO and MH games (and all of these have sold great despite piracy, which is the point I was making all along really), and God of War’s, Broken Destiny’s, Gran Turismo’s problem wasn’t the lack of power for them to look better but the lack of gameplay value. They’re just very barebones. All the flaws I mentioned have very little to do with the system’s power and everything to do with design choices, lack of content and similar issues, it’s not hard to see. Even Assassin’s Creed, a rather high end game, could have been really good on PSP. The engine they crafted is pretty decent, and the sandbox gameplay was nicely portrayed, but they once again came short on polish and, more importantly, content. They just aren’t putting good efforts on these platforms, it’s not their specs, it’s the publishers’ attitudes. They reap what they sow, really.

Again, I’m not really sure of what you’re trying to argue though, you said nothing of the DRM or piracy or anything about the thread’s point at all, unless I missed it.

26

Nothing more than MH was port of a game, that many had played before .

C’Mon it sold over a million , on a machine that could play the Cube version no problem .

Maybe because its not a ‘Arcade’ game J/K

[quote]A far cry from Tekken: Dark Resurrection’s substantial single player which includes all those modes and more, including a mode that resembles the Dreamcast’s Soul Calibur quest mode (or whatever it was called, I forget) as you fight through different level dojos’ fighters to become their champion, increase your rank, earn points to buy unlockables, accessories, etc. That sold much, much better than Broken Destiny, though not as good as Tekken 5, which it was basically an enhanced port of.
[/quote]

Please remind me again how well Tekken 6 sold on the PSP ?

Not quite , for one thing GT 4 pretty much fills up DVD 9 , so it’s a bit much to expect a HH with a Gig of storage to off as much , and what’s the point when Hand held games , by their very nature, meant to be played in small bursts, never mind the developers costs shooting up , if you’re trying to put as much content as the Console versions

One could also if the PSP had more power and storage PD could have ported all the PS2 code over , and just added a few extra’s . I think the fact that one couldn’t share code , makes its harder for a developer .

Not really the PSP isn’t really as good as the DC , never mind a 360 or PS3 AC selling point was its Huge open world and the number of NPC’s in the game . Pretty hard to get that on a HH with a small screen and limited power imo

The best and only real answer to Piracy is charge ?5 to ?10 for new games. That I have always said is the real barrier to gaming , and why so many people pirate games , or are temped too

As for DRM, I don’t have a problem with it per say , only that I hate it , when it limits the number of PC’s you can install it on .
If you bought the Product , you should be able to install it, on as many machines as you see fit , though I understand the reason why that’s not really Practical

27

[quote=“Solo”]No, I wasn’t assuming how publishers think, merely stating that I don’t think it logical for publishers to use the number of downloads as a means of determining the number of lost sales.

Especially in this case, the data is unreliable. How can you determine the number of potential customers who turned to piracy because they were pissed off with the DRM scheme? How many of them wouldn’t have bought the game anyway? Was the amount of lost sales any greater than games that didn’t include this DRM scheme? Unless there’s a way of determining what the user was thinking when he or she downloaded the game it sounds like a lot of assumptions would need to be made.

A far better way of determining if the DRM scheme worked would be to compare actual sales of the game to sales of a similar, non-DRMed game. Or release two versions of the game, one with DRM and one without, and see which one sells the most.[/quote]

I agree that the data is unreliable, but it is useful as an indicator. It’s useless as the only indicator, but a game that has been downloaded half a million times has likely lost more sales than a game that has been downloaded a thousand times. Or if a game, for example, has only sold 50K units in the first week, but has been downloaded 250K times. You can get a sense that sales have been lost, though how many is unclear. Then you do more research and, like you said, compare to other games that have similar scores and similar marketing spends, and see how the sales:download ratio works out.

My comment about your assumption was because you’re stating publishers should do these other things to measure the effects of piracy, rather than just count downloads… and I’m saying that publishers do do those things.

28

Ah yes, the “no true Scotsman” argument. Just because you don’t think they’re AAA doesn’t mean they are not. Any game with the GTA moniker is AAA. Little Big Planet is a key franchise for PlayStation (and has sold several million units worldwide - how is that not AAA?). Persona was the only iffy one that I included, but I included it because it’s one of the best non-FF JRPG franchises and caters to the hardcore, who claim to support developers. So what if it’s a re-release? Every FF re-release sells hundreds of thousands of units. Every re-release of Sonic sells hundreds of thousands of units. People enjoy playing their favorite games on new consoles. Gran Turismo is one of the most successful franchises in history. The long-awaited GT PSP was supposed to be a HUGE game on PSP. Yes, the quality wasn’t where it needed to be, but that hasn’t stopped many other big brands from selling. And I didn’t include Soul Calibur for a reason.

As for Grand Theft Auto - the first two actually didn’t sell nearly as well as the publishers had thought. Less than a million units in the US each, which is tiny for a GTA game at this point. And the only reason why those even sold that much is because it was still relatively early in the platform’s lifecycle and people were still buying games. The year on year sales of the PSP hardware is increasing, and yet the software sales are decreasing.

You can list all the potential issues you want, but fact of the matter is that those issues exist for any and all games, regardless of platform. The God of War games are traditionally short and have little replay value. The PSP game was exactly that.

And yes, game review scores matter. Not that your average person goes to metacritic to look up a game, but it’s all a part of the hype machine. While getting a high score does not guarantee high sales, it’s one of the requirements of reaching AAA sales (Wii casual titles being the exception to the rule, due to the nature of the target market).

Look, I could go point by point refuting everything you say because you’re basing your opinions on nothing but conjecture. LBP hype died down? What is this based on? Do you even know what the sales are? Do you even know how popular the DLC content is? You realize that the game still sells about 35K a month, right? That’s for a game released over a year and a half ago. And as I mentioned above, yes, scores do matter. Have you ever even done an objective analysis? The data clearly shows a direct correlation with sales and scores.

(Oh, and by the way, the NPD data you linked is a bit misleading to say the least. Yes, that month’s sales were low for the PSP, but you do realize that there are several more million PSPs out there than PS3s, right? And I’m talking just about America. Nevermind the rest of the world.)

29

That’s still less than it sold on GameCube which wasn’t even the most succesful version by far. Sure enough, the PS2 version was a port as well, but it was announced like a week before (or after? something like that) the GameCube version hit stores, with the extra content plans, which in turn crippled any potential the GameCube version had.

Not funny, just dodging the issue with the game with no argument.

I don’t know how much it sold on PSP, or what it offered as a game. I haven’t played it so for all I know it could also have a lack of content like Broken Destiny and unlike Dark Resurrection. Have you? I know the PS3 version didn’t sell half as good as Tekken 5, again without any piracy issues so perhaps it just didn’t offer much over 5?

[quote]Not quite , for one thing GT 4 pretty much fills up DVD 9 , so it’s a bit much to expect a HH with a Gig of storage to off as much , and what’s the point when Hand held games , by their very nature, meant to be played in small bursts, never mind the developers costs shooting up , if you’re trying to put as much content as the Console versions

One could also if the PSP had more power and storage PD could have ported all the PS2 code over , and just added a few extra’s . I think the fact that one couldn’t share code , makes its harder for a developer .[/quote]

Gran Turismo PSP has 800 cars and 35 tracks. That is more than enough to build compelling progression modes like a career mode in. But they didn’t bother. They just made it like a tech demo, able to play all cars and tracks right off the bat in single races. It’s similar to the Broken Destiny issue. It does have the content that needs the space, the fighters, stages, music, etc, but no actual gameplay modes. So, no, it had nothing to do with being unable to cram many levels or cars in (which is what takes most of the space, not a few lines of code for the modes), or being unable to port GT4. The art content is in but not utilised properly into gameplay content. It would be really helpful if you played these games so that I didn’t have to scrutinise the obvious.

Have you played the games we’re discussing? Again, AC on PSP has a VERY solid core, good engine, decent AI, large open levels, and all it lacks is once again polish, content and all the elements that would make it a great side story instead of a mediocre spin off.

@Abadd: if you want to ignore the games’ obvious issues and focus on how piracy harmed them over past succesful versions which apparently have all the same value just because they share the name or whatever else while lacking a lot of what fans liked, that’s fine, but don’t expect others to agree. I for one don’t.

Again, did the PSP version of LBP get the same marketing push the PS3 version did, and does it hold the same value to the consumer as the PS3 version did (I don’t know about that since I haven’t played it and will certainly not trust reviews since many rated GT and Broken Destiny great despite their obvious flaws anyone can see).

God of War may be relatively short on all platforms but God of War II still has double the play time of the PSP game. Maybe if it was also half price it would have done better.

That the PSP still sells is little indication to the software interest. The PS2 continues to sell, making its ludicrous install base ever larger, but that doesn’t mean its software sales are supposed to increase at this point in time, and they clearly aren’t. Besides, new PSP buyers are bound to buy the games they find worthy which are bound to be the games that have already sold well, especially since they’ll be half price or less by now, unlike the new flawed software like your so called AAA examples.

As for GTA, they’re both multimillion sellers worldwide, a far cry from ChinaTown Wars’ PSP version, which was the point of the argument. If multiple millions aren’t enough now, eh, lol. Perhaps what harmed them was their similarity to the last two PS2 titles, familiarity isn’t always good. Their review scores weren’t quite as high as the PS2 games either since you think they matter so much. And again, what marketing push did they receive? Clearly nowhere near that of the “main” home console games like GTAIV.

I can think of plenty games that had AAA scores but not AAA sales and vice versa as per the examples I already gave in my previous comment. Okami, Psychonauts, Beyond Good & Evil for the former, Mario & Sonic, Animal Crossing: City Folk, Carnival Games for the latter. It seems that “requirement” doesn’t do much on its own, does it? I did explain you can have great ratings for a game but little mainstream appeal after all, for tons of reasons anyone can see. Maybe it’s circumstantial. Maybe it’s all the other elements that have to click, and in turn that means that usually if those click then the scores will be good also (but not always as demonstrated here), but they aren’t what dictates the sales, and it’s the other elements that do that (hence good scores alone have rarely also had good sales, they had much more to them than that).

To assume piracy is the cause without any sort of proof other than that it’s certainly > 0 which is quite the spectrum is quite silly, especially since they clearly can’t fight that efficienlly so far, while they can certainly attempt to change their business practices and see if that has an effect (which in many cases, it has). These games generally don’t cost as much to make, they aren’t marketed anywhere near as much, they don’t have the same consuemer value, yet they’re put out there for the same price as the very best, and they’re expected to sell just as good because of what? Because publishers want them to? Hardly a good enough reason.

Many games are still succesful, since they can’t fight the bane of their existence, piracy, then try and fight those that are succesful by offering comparably valuable products. Simple. What does CAPCOM do? What does Blizzard do? What does Nintendo do? What does Valve do? What do all of these do when they’re not succesful? Try and do and avoid that respectively too, not with your c and d teams but your very best. Let’s also remember we’re in the middle of an economic crisis, as much as they’d want to entertainment industries to remain 100% unaffected, that is simply impossible.

30

Tekken 6 offers a lot of modes , like Ghost Mode, Arcade Mode, Challenge mode . For a hand Held fighter I don’t any Vs Fighter comes close to the content .

A port in a lot of cases will always sell less . RE4 sales on the Wii, was impressive for a game that was already out on 2 consoles .

Its not a pot of the Arcade game , is it ?

That’s what people want in a HH racer isn’t it , pick up and play . Now if the PSP had the power and storage of the PS2, PD job may have been far easier . In my view the lack of AI cars , and complete lack of Online modes are far biggger issues for the PSP ver, than missing content

A little bit rich coming from you . But yes I have played it , and its a shadow of the 360 version , which like 6 character on screen and GFX that wouldn’t look out of place in a PS game .
A game like AS is simply beyond the PSP tech

31

I’d say they’re equally bad, having one could have somewhat aleviated concerns over the other, but it lacks both. I did mention the lack of online play for owners who don’t also have a PS3 (to play PSP games online through it) is also a factor for these games’ failures but once again you seem to only latch on half my posts.

It’s clearly not because the game they put out does a good job of recreating parts of the experience, and falls short in other areas. I really doubt you played it (or the other games discussed) but anyway, if you did, you’re just nitpicking it in stupid ways instead of the ways that matter. Of course it doesn’t look as good as the other AC games, it’s on PSP. No PSP game looks as good as anything at all on the other systems, but that doesn’t make all its games unworthy and the system 100% obsolette. The PSP still has had compelling sandbox open gameplay in the past, in the form of the first two GTA games. The AC game on PSP could have been at least as good as those since its base is solid enough (some of the models are horrible but that goes back to the developer’s skill in making low end content, Griptonite Games are hardly top tier), but they didn’t give it enough resources to make it a great game. Even if it was the technology that stopped it then they could have designed the game around it, making something akin to the Prince of Persia games, with more action and stealth and AC twists, but just as much quality and play value. They didn’t, so the blame is on them, not the PSP’s hardware specifications which all its games, good and bad, use.

What does that have to do with offering gameplay value to the consumer? They could have called it a story mode if that really bothers you. It’s also only one of the modes you usually find in such games and I mentioned plenty more. It’s a barebones fighting game with little of what past succesful versions had. That it’s not a direct 100% port of a specific arcade release doesn’t mean it’s ok to lack any of that. Fighters Megamix wasn’t even an arcade game at all, but still had all those modes and more. Almost every fighting game does, arcade or not. Home games usually attempt to have more gameplay value than arcade games, not less, hence why arcade ports tend to add more modes, not exclude modes the arcade had. With stupid claims like that it’s clear that you’re merely arguing for the sake of arguing, so I’m done with you.

32

Not going to bother trying to refute anymore, since your mind is already made up, in spite of lack of any hard data whatsoever. I’ll just point out the fact that you continue to ignore certain comments (i.e. high scores versus high sales - I explicitly stated that high scores do not guarantee high sales, and also stated that high scores do not matter for games targeted at the non-traditional audience, as is the case with most Wii games… both points which you mistakenly used as your examples of how I am wrong, yet nothing you said actually refutes anything I said. One last time - for games targeted at the traditional game audience, high scores as almost always necessary for high sales, but high scores do not guarantee high sales. And it’s obvious I need to point this out, but for every and any rule, there are always exceptions. But that is why they are called “exceptions.”).

For every argument you’ve used, I could pull up DS examples that refute (why bother with a side-scrolling Mario game when you’ve got Mario Galaxy? Why bother with Mario Kart DS when there are always console versions available?

Never once did I say piracy is the sole cause of the problem. Nor did I say there is a lack of proof. If you paid any attention to what I’ve been saying, I’ve said there are many tools at the publisher’s disposal for analyzing trends that give them a better idea on the damage that piracy causes. But, I suppose you and your plethora of data are right, and every single industry analyst in the history of the industry is wrong.

Very few games are “cheap” to make (with the exception of shovelware on any platform). Publishers do not expect all games to sell the same. Many games are priced differently as a reflection of their value. Never once did I say that there are no successful games. In fact, there are plenty of successful games. But the fact of the matter is that piracy has a large impact on all games - some more than others. Piracy is ONE of the many issues that makes it extremely difficult for developers to make games, given the cost of entry and the high price of failure. Not all developers can create the next Call of Duty. It’s absurd on its face to make the statement that developers should simply “try harder” (I’m paraphrasing here). That’d be like me telling you to not bother posting until you can write at the level of Mark Twain. REGARDLESS OF THE VALUE OF THE GAME, PIRATES DO NOT HAVE ANY RIGHT TO PLAY THOSE GAMES. PERIOD. Is that hard to understand?

33

If high scores don’t guarantee high sales then they aren’t the cause of high sales, it just so happens the publishers tend to only fill in the other parts of the equation for games that have the potential for good ratings among other things, only because quality tends to have a distinct relationship with the money spent for many of them (how long it was in development, what kind of studio was tasked with its creation, and in turn, if they have so much faith in it to do all this great, the marketing budget).

What does New Super Mario Bros. DS have to do with Galaxy? 2D Mario has always been far more popular and offers a different experience. The new New Super Mario Bros. on Wii is selling much better, much faster than Galaxy as well, despite having somewhat lower ratings. There’s also the install base difference from DS to Wii which you ignore, but are so eager to put at the forefront for the PS3 vs the PSP.

For the ratings part we can use the same games as examples. New Super Mario Bros. Wii has about the same ratings as Super Paper Mario, the same popular characters, and superficially similar gameplay, yet sells much better (Super Paper Mario sold much less than Galaxy even), showing the other parts of the equation are far more important than what some reviewers think. Hell, magazines are shutting down left and right lately, and don’t for one moment think that the average gamer, “hardcore” or not, spends his time on gaming websites trying to make informed purchases like the minority (us) do.

This also demonstrates that just because they have “Mario” they don’t all share the same selling power, and aren’t all AAA products, much like Gran Turismo PSP isn’t an AAA product just because it’s called Gran Turismo.

I never said all developers should make the next Call of Duty, but if their game is not the next Call of Duty then they shouldn’t have that high hopes for its sales either. I mentioned plenty of successes for smaller developers in my first comments here. They knew their ability, where they fit in the industry’s food chain, what niche they should focus in, and they spent enough to achieve their goals, expand and grow. See Stardock.

I also never said pirates are entitled to free video games (I guess it’s hard to understand for you then), I only said that they aren’t only not eliminating piracy with their decisions, they also put off paying customers. Not to mention eliminating piracy wouldn’t make more people think that same software is more relevant to their interests and therefor worth paying for. It seems you’re the one who has made up his mind already really.

34

I’m a glutton for punishment. Just wanted to ask something: source? Where exactly do you get this information from? Can you point me to a study that states this?

Didn’t think so.

35

Common sense, it’s not my fault if you lack that. If resources and time spent developing has no bearing on its quality, why don’t they sprout out all games, Final Fantasy XIII or not, within a year and expect apparently the same exact outcome for ratings, sales, and all the good stuff? Hey, they could even outsource the next game to some Russian studio, labor is cheaper there I hear (THQ seem to think so!). That would totally save the industry, but instead they like spending? Fools! Glad you ignored the rest of the post.

36

Right, I pretty much agree with all of this, although I don’t see how the indicator you mention can provide a great deal of accuracy in relation to lost sales. For example, say there’s a game without DRM that is downloaded 200K times, and one with DRM that is downloaded 400K times, but the game that was downloaded less sells more. Does that mean the DRM turned people to piracy? Would the game have been downloaded that many times anyway?

On the other hand, the actual game sales numbers all relate to real sales, real customers. So, if the DRMed game sold less than the non DRMed, this could indicate that the DRM contributed to the lesser sales (although we can’t confirm this 100% either, I admit).

I’m just trying to the truth of the matter here. Obviously I don’t know how the publishers gather their statistics, I am merely pointing out what appears to be a logical fallacy.

37

How many NPC’s in the PSP Version Vs the 360/PS3 ? . AC is way beyond the PSP and its clear to see for anyone that played and owned both versions.
I had MotorStorm: Arctic Edge for Christmas and again there you might say they managed to recreate parts of the experience , like its in 3d and off road Great ! .
One problem its a shadow of the PS3 experience , so other than being able to play it on the move, I’ll stick with the PS3 versions , more so whey they’re not much more to buy .

You start to name me VS Fighter that offer half as much Content as Tekken 6 on consoles , never mind PSP.

No I was making the point they sold well , even though people had ‘played’ them before .

So what do ‘they’ want ? . And unless I missed something the last Burnout game on the PSP sold poor , how well did TOCA Race Driver 3 sell on the PSP even with deep carrier options ?, same goes for Test Drive Unlimited

I take it you don’t have a PSP Go ?. Try downloading the like of GT , you’ll be shocked at how big some of them are, UMD is only just over a Gig after all . I’ll stand by my point, that if the PSP had tech to that of PS2.
PD Job would have been easier , for a team trying to work on GT 5 , and we never would have had to wait so long .

What on earth or you on about ?. FM had basics modes , not much over what we had seen before in the likes of VF II onthe Saturn (bar the number of secret characters) . Compared to the modes and amount of Characters the PSP version of Tekken 6 offers its nothing . Last Bronx on the Saturn had 2 CD’s worth of content , yet sold worse than Fighters MegaMix

Oh I agree. I also think there’s a different mindset for Console games Vs hand helds. I don’t think people expect the amount of content and playtime to the same in their HH games, to that of Console games . Due to like the Arcade games , the Adverage Playtime is that much different
How well did Valkyria Chronicles 2 sell on the PSP , even with all its new content ?. Pretty crap from what I’ve seen so far , and even less that the launch sales of the PS3 game , and they were bad .

38

First quote: Yes, the game is unworthy because it doesn’t have 100 NPCs or whatever the max setting was on the PC, I forget as it’s been a while… If only that was its biggest issue, then it probably would have done much better sales wise as well.

Second quote: Tekken 5 probably has “at least half” as much content as 6. Again, 6 didn’t sell nearly as good as 5 on PS3 either. Perhaps people didn’t want more Tekken by then? Perhaps they felt burned by Namco’s Broken Destiny and didn’t want to give it a shot? Perhaps it wasn’t marketed well? I didn’t follow it that closely. Did you? What’s your conclusion? Not that it has much to do with anything, I was merely challenging Broken Destiny’s worth as a so called AAA game, which I don’t think it is. Maybe Tekken 6 is. Lots of other things could have gone wrong still. Maybe Tekken fans have both a PS3 (more of them by now than when Tekken 5 was out, due to the price cuts) and PSP and opted to buy the PS3 version? Again, who knows for sure? Nobody is my guess.

Third quote: And I was making the point ports often don’t sell as well as the original release, and you disputed it bringing up MH and RE4. I never said those didn’t sell well, and we still don’t have numbers for the sales of Persona on PS1 vs the Persona on PSP to talk either way, aside from the references I found which indicate it did pretty decently on both, making the original point nonexistent in that case.

Fourth quote: What does having a PSP Go have to do with anything? You do know you can download games on the previous models just as well? The UMD isn’t “just over” a gig, it’s “just under” 2 gigs. 1.8. Of all the games I’ve downloaded off PSN, the biggest one is a PS1 game, FFVIII, and it’s still within the single UMD limit. Not that they couldn’t release a game in two. Sure, that’s still much less than a DVD, but then again the PSP doesn’t have as high quality and complexity art and sound assets either.

Fifth quote: Yes, FM had basic modes, when did I say it didn’t? And yet, it had more compelling modes than Broken Destiny, which you disputed it shouldn’t have an arcade mode because it wasn’t an arcade port. Never did I compare FM to Tekken 6 so I have no idea why you responded as if I did that at all.

Sixth quote: I’m glad you agree. Valkyria Chronicles 2 doesn’t appear to have done much, if at all worse than Valkyria Chronicles in Japan:

2 debuted at #2 in the charts with over 94k sales. The original debuted at #3 with over 77k sales. The next week 2 fell to #5 with 118k sales total at that point. The original’s second week yielded a total of just over 102k sales.

After those weeks both games remained in the charts but lower than the top ten so Media Create didn’t release detailed numbers for either, but with the data they did release I don’t know where you get your numbers claiming the PSP sequel has lifetime sales worse than the original’s first week, since in their first two weeks of sales it was ahead of it (but dropping faster indeed, yet the numbers by then were too low to really matter unless something caused a boost for the first game - perhaps a price cut?).

We also have more or less no data about its marketing campaign but I wouldn’t be surprised if SEGA fucked it up somehow, while the bulk of the original’s sales happened in the US, and after the price cut. We’ll see how it does and how it’s handled.

39

This is moving away from the topic, but I find the problem with handheld games is that they cost too much for what they are. That’s not to say that you can’t have a deep gameplay experience on a handheld, but if you have a console or PC anyway, is there really a “need” to buy games that are trying duplicate that experience?

I think Apple has a great strategy with handheld games on the iPod Touch/iPhone (and soon the iPad). The games are cheap, and because of this there’s no expectation for a deep or lengthy experience. Gamers don’t need to take a huge gamble with their money when they buy a game, so there’s less of reason to pirate or not buy the game.

This could be one reason why the PSP has the troubles with software sales that Abadd mentioned. Although this doesn’t take the DS into consideration… from my understanding, it’s really easy to copy DS games as well.

40

Exactly the number of NPC do make a difference . Owtherwise the PC version would have had the same number as inthe PSP .

I don’t know why you keep on bringing BD as they’re different VS Fighters . I would agree than many console players have had they fix of Tekken .
But on HH ?, We’ve only had a piss poor GBA version (though I’m sure you’ll say they brought over the experience ) and 2 PSP versions . Now what extra content do you want in Tekken 6 PSP to make it sell better ?

PSN PS games are different m they’re not meant to fit into UMD storage and you know that . Is the stoarge of UMD more like 1.5 ?, when factors like The security programme , and any firmware updates (that also have to be included ) , Some say its even less , I would’nt know .

It was a J/K and no its not a Arcade game , so I would expect a Arcade mode , truth be told

Yeah sold like crap again , even though some make RPG can sell better on HandHelds , and the PSP is a massive seller in Japan . I’ll look over the small userbase of the PSP at VAL launch , compared to the userbase of the PSP and VAL II .
So even with all new content,and being on HH is sold like crap. Maybe Abadd has a point ?

Its pee easy to copy Wii and DS games . I think the PSP low software sales are for a number of reasons . After all the Hype , the machine is nothing more than PS with a nice screen, too many of the games were ‘lesser’ versions of what 1 could get on the PS2 , huge trouble with load times (NCL to their credit, got that one right with Carts) .
But I see it the same as the Wii,Many are just happy to buy 1 or 2 games for the system and that’s it , most will just use to play music and Video on the Move . Where you’re paying about the same price for a PSP game to that of a PS3 , which version of the game is one going to get ?

I really like and rate my PSP , but bar when I’m going away , I hardly use the system now