Crytek CEO Estimates 20 PC Game Pirates for Every One Legitimate Buyer

June 27, 2008 1:31 PM

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Crytek chief executive Cevat Yerli offered an assessment of piracy within the PC gaming industry, describing the market as "the most intensely pirated market ever."

"It's crazy how the ratio between sales to piracy is probably 1 to 15 to 1 to 20 right now," Yerli told IGN. "For one sale there are 15 to 20 pirates and pirate versions, and that's a big shame for the PC industry."

Yerli added that he hoped to see some change with the release of Crytek's upcoming shooter follow-up Crysis Warhead. When asked if the game would include anti-piracy measures similar to Electronic Arts' activation protocols in the PC edition of BioWare's Mass Effect, the CEO didn't directly specify but hinted at some new ideas.

"Effectively, if the game isn't an online game or multiplayer game—there are challenges regardless of what you do—the game can be cracked. The effort is to make it more difficult to crack, and certainly we're going to make it more difficult this time with Warhead."

Echoing previous reports that Crysis Warhead would be Crytek's last PC-exclusive title, Yerli added that rampant piracy may lead to "less and less games appearing on the PC, or less and less games pushing the boundaries of PC gaming."

"I think our message is if you're a PC gamer, and you really want to respect the platform, then you should stop pirating... We would only consider full PC exclusives—if the situation continues like this or gets worse—I think we would only consider PC exclusive titles that are either online or multiplayer and no more single-player."

Aaron Linde

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Vegetolo

 reply
June 27, 2008 1:36 PM

I wish someone would show some tangible figures.

My guess is, they can't. That's just their reasoning as to why their game didn't sell well.
- Jobos
  
   reply
  June 27, 2008 2:37 PM
  
  So you need to see some 'hard' facts before you believe ANYTHING? Crytek is losing money, exactly how much money is irrelevant, and not the focus of the discussion.
  - Vegetolo
    
     reply
    June 27, 2008 3:27 PM
    
    Yes, I want hard facts. I don't know how much money they made, or how many people actually pirated the game. As far as we all know, the piracy numbers might be in line with other games, and the sales are just lower because no one wants to play the game.
    - xsoulbrothax
      
       reply
      June 27, 2008 8:33 PM
      
      THEIR GAME SOLD WELL FDKGHDGFKJFKJ omg read the article
    - yuried
      
       reply
      June 28, 2008 12:37 AM
      
      if their piracy numbers were "in line with other games" that alone would be pretty fucking sad already - I don't think Yerli is trying to make the point that his game was pirated significantly more often than others anyway
  - jtthe2nd
    
     reply
    June 27, 2008 6:45 PM
    
    And it has nothing to do with high requirements scaring off potential buyers?
    - yuried
      
       reply
      June 28, 2008 12:44 AM
      
      no it doesn't because the X times more people who pirated it surely expected to play it
      
      there was a demo that clearly should have quenched the "try before buy" folks for both gameplay AND performance - also, the base of the "omg high requirements Crysis sucks" comments is often a sense of entitlement - people want all their games to run in their screen's max. resolution nowadays, possible with everything turned to max. including detail settings, shadows and FSAA / AA. Then they don't get 60+ FPS and go cry on internet forums
      
      Funny enough many of them go and pirate it anyway. Nevermind the game looks still very good with lower detail settings and even a lower resolution if necessary, nevermind the game itself is (IMO) pretty fun without the "OMGDX10GRAFIX" effect. But that's not cool in the intarwebz, amirite?