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Crytek moves away from PC-exclusive game development thanks to piracy
Leo Chan - Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 | 11:41AM (PT)


Buuut... Crysis still not coming to consoles

Crytek Studios president Cevat Yerli confirms in an interview with Croatian gaming wire PC Play that the German developer will no longer exclusively support the PC when it comes to development of future IP. Instead, Crytek intends to make greater strides in console game development, though it appears the Crysis shooter series will remain on the PC platform.

Perhaps of greater concern to PC gamers is Yerli's outlook on PC game development; when quizzed over the waning of PC as a gaming platform compared to recent consoles, Yerli bemoaned widespread piracy which is essentially killing business. From a practical standpoint, console game development is simply proving to be more lucrative. Looking strictly at North American industry sales data from the NPD Group, it would appear that Crysis did indeed fail to move mountains despite launching to great critical acclaim; the title sold around 86,633 units during its first month, not even breaking 100,000 copies.  However, North American publisher Electronic Arts insists the title has beaten sales expectations by selling over one million copies as of February 2008.

I believe that’s the core problem of PC Gaming, piracy. To the degree PC Gamers that pirate games inherently destroy the platform. Similar games on consoles sell factors of 4-5 more. It was a big lesson for us and I believe we wont have PC exclusives as we did with Crysis in future. We are going to support PC, but not exclusive anymore.

Despite the cooling love affair with PC gaming, Yerli does recognize that Microsoft remains committed to making things at least a little rosier with its Games For Windows initiative. He wouldn't confirm whether or not future titles in the Crysis series would support the Games for Windows Live! online gaming tools, however.


Crytek moves away from PC-exclusive game development thanks to piracy Image 1

Source: Eurogamer

Alternate Source: PC Play

Section: Console Games, PC Games

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Comments:

  • 0 thumbs!
    bruceleethree | Apr 30, 08 | quote
    Why don't they use Steam? EA is a bastard that's why.

    Pirates make up 1% of the gaming community, especially those interested in products like Crysis. They made a game that most people couldn't play on PC and now they're crying about potential sales. 86 thousand sounds about right for the amount of people that had the power to play this game. There's a reason why WoW is a billion dollar game, it's insanely accessible to even laptops from 2004.

    If they port console games to PC I'm quitting Crytek.

    PC is the canvas which the developer artist has limitless freedom to create, once you go console you're caged.
  • 0 thumbs!
    iamjoe56 | Apr 30, 08 | quote
    Lee shut the hell up! 1%? Seriously!? With the huge amount of pirated games out there, god that is just stupid.

    Once you go console, you make more money, because it is really hard to pirated a Console game. Also, it also means they can push technology further, and create new tech to make all games better. So how about you just shut the hell up, A'right?

    Also, the only reason so few could play this game, was the technique they used to create the super fast load times for that open world. They loaded ALL THE DATA, into the RAM. Thus needing massive amounts of it to store that data. Other wise, with a properly configured machine, you could run Crysis just fine. So, seriously, how about dropping the PC fanboy suite and look at the bigger picture.

  • 0 thumbs!
    Bill Gates03 | Apr 30, 08 | quote
    Yeah, 860 pirates is quite a bit off...

    There have been almost 7,000 snatches off of Blackcats alone, that's not even including all the usenet and other torrent downloads...

    We're talking at least 25% I'd say.

    I just hope they don't limit the PC releases because they are also catering to console owners.
  • 0 thumbs!
    kspiess | Apr 30, 08 | quote
    Piracy is a big problem for PC gaming, no doubt about that.

    The way forward isn't to stop making PC games, but instead, to change the way the games are made, or to make games that people want to buy. Sins of a Solar Empire showed that you can have success, even without using any DRM at all.

    Micro-transaction based online games are also looking like the way of the future.

    The big PC game makers need to change their business models if they want to increase profits.



  • 0 thumbs!
    mercenary_sora | Apr 30, 08 | quote
    "Bill Gates03

    Yeah, 860 pirates is quite a bit off..."

    1% of all gamers is what he meant...
  • 0 thumbs!
    Bill Gates03 | Apr 30, 08 | quote
    Oh, sorry I misread that.

    So when you look at the entire gaming community, what percent do you REALLY thing are pirates?

    ARR!
  • 0 thumbs!
    MDH | Apr 30, 08 | quote
    Piracy certianly is a problem, but developers need to get their heads out of the sand and realize it isn't the only one. The PC has been mistreated for years, often recieving durastically inferior versions of games and having exclusives important to the platform taken away by big corporations (the company starts with an M, took away a game called H, made a platform that survived because of it). Coupled with more expensive hardware, more often buggy and bloated games (Crysis? Bloated? naah!!) and a continued lack of interesting games, plus the small minded developers not developing for low end hardware and adding important features like two player or split screen (Yes, people have controllers in their PC), PLUS titles which are far too niche being the platform's "selling points", what couldn't be wrong? And are developers capable of seeing those problems and assessing them, or are they going to continue to blame piracy whenever they *bleep* up?
  • 0 thumbs!
    iamjoe56 | Apr 30, 08 | quote
    @ MDH

    The issue with developing for low end hardware, is that then PC users feel cheated. As they get an inferior sounding, looking, and playing variant of the Console game.

    Then you outrage the PC community, and eventually, drive the PC into extinction.
  • 0 thumbs!
    ParanahJoe | Apr 30, 08 | quote
    Far Cry was awesome, Crysis just sucks. I think Crytek should just quit whining and start focusing on some better games. Innovation is what sells in the PC genre.
  • 0 thumbs!
    iamjoe56 | Apr 30, 08 | quote
    Why does it suck? it looks pretty awesome, really.
  • 0 thumbs!
    Bill Gates03 | May 1, 08 | quote
    Crysis has really good graphics etc etc, but for me it just seems like a bland FPS to tell the truth. Not that I don't have a lot of fun playing, it's just not the best.

    I haven't played Far Cry sadly (I want to) but maybe it just has better gameplay elements.
  • 0 thumbs!
    JT gAnGstA | May 1, 08 | quote
    From what a variety of reviewers said ( from gameinformer to pc gamer to other reviewers not in our country) crysis is a cool game in single player. Well, most reviewers thought floating in space toward the end of the game was disorienting, other than pc gamer who defended the usage of this kind of gameplay.

    As for the online, it was not bad, but they certainly could of done better.
  • 0 thumbs!
    JT gAnGstA | May 1, 08 | quote
    From what a variety of reviewers said ( from gameinformer to pc gamer to other reviewers not in our country) crysis is a cool game in single player. Well, most reviewers thought floating in space toward the end of the game was disorienting, other than pc gamer who defended the usage of this kind of gameplay.

    As for the online, it was not bad, but they certainly could of done better.
  • 0 thumbs!
    JT gAnGstA | May 1, 08 | quote
    Stupid browser! sorry I double posted.
  • 0 thumbs!
    kspiess | May 1, 08 | quote
    I thought Crysis was pretty good. The multiplayer was a lot of fun (if it wasn't for cheaters.) Ya the space ship bits were annoying. Biggest flaw with the game IMHO was the machine required to run it smoothly.
  • 0 thumbs!
    Bill Gates03 | May 1, 08 | quote
    jt gangsta, more like triple posted

    Well, does 25-30 fps count as smooth with everything on high?

    It barely lags, unless all of a sudden a crapload of stuff goes on.
  • 0 thumbs!
    iamjoe56 | May 1, 08 | quote
    lol. That sounds like me. With everything on medium/low on BF2.
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