*spin-off* Game Design: Implications, Marketing, Sales

[Silent_Buddha]

Actually I heard of multiple persons owning two 360s one for online gaming, one off line used to play pirated games. Anyway pirates are not always the ones than buy the least.

It's there but not as prevalent as it may seem. If you look at torrent/forum comments, you'll see that there's a lot more noise about not playing a pirated game on live if you don't want to get banned than there is about having a hacked console + a legit console.

And that questions regarding whether they'll get banned playing X release on their console with Y firmware dwarfs all others.

Also, it's interesting some of the anti-hacking measure's MS has put in. There's been some discoveries of how to open up the console (similar to Xbox 1) with progress being made towards installing Linux.

But MS latest kernels actually blow a "fuse" in the CPU itself (for older X360's) that will prevent the latest hacks to the kernel/OS of the X360. It's a really fascinating battle to watch...

Regards,
SB

 

[Squilliam]

But that was my main question - why do peoople buy the same game more on consoles vs. PC versions? Ease of use as you said, accessibility, probably?

On the PC if you're targetting your savvy userbase you're getting the people who are the most able to spend the time to crack your game. Out of all the entire userbase you've got a catch 22 of the people who cost the most to please (high end gamers) being the ones who can rip your copy protection to shreds without a second thought. This is why I believe the evidence points to this area of gaming on the PC struggling. Though it isn't all bad, and things may be improving. I believe the recent copy protections are working because my friend asked to borrow my Company of Heroes discs which probably means he can't get his downloaded copy to work.

On the Xbox 360 these savvy gamers who want the extra content and multiplayer as well as game installs come face to face with Microsofts validation of the consoles. So they take the savvy userbase and make it most difficult for these people to pirate. Im sure if Live wasn't as well protected the piracy numbers would be completely out of proportion with what we have now. Oh and theres the reputation of unreliability, if you've got a hacked console you're not so keen to get it sent in.