Crysis (EA game) leak
ea.comThat's a weirdly worded paragraph. The first three sentences are fine, then the fourth sentence is marketing copy awkwardly squeezed in ("Nanosuit lets you be the weapon as you defend NYC from an alien invasion"), then closes with a generic statement about piracy.
Will be interesting to see what effects this has, though. Apart from the simple fact of early availability to pirates, these kinds of leaks can change the early review climate, since now reviews can come from all sorts of sources, not just the journalists given preview copies. What effect that has might depend on how good the game is (and how close to done the leaked version is).
A worse outcome than just the leaked version being available would be if it led to a flurry of negative reviews of the pre-release version, the way leaks of bad films have a much more negative effect on opening-weekend sales than leaks of good films do--- the didn't-see-it-because-everyone-said-it-sucked effect can be larger than the didn't-see-it-because-I-already-pirated-it effect.
The best outcome for EA would probably be a flood of reviews of the form: "wow this is an amazing game but a few things are broken in the leaked version, which I assume will be fixed by release".
A similar thing happened many years ago when an early version of Half-Life 2 got leaked. Reaction was tepid at best, Valve went back and basically re-made the entire game (delaying an already delayed game for substantially longer), but ultimately resulting in an award-winning game with an amazing (for the time) new engine. The pirating of the leak was of course highly illegal, but you could easily argue that Valve wouldn't be where they are now without it. (Half-Life 2 also contributed to the success of the Steam download service, another first for the company.)
My recollection of this is...The person who leaked HL2 actually hacked into Valve's network and could not find anything that could be considered a game, just a bunch of tech demos and assets (I downloaded and played the E3 demo). He essentially announced that Valve was lying to the public about their progress on HL2 right before the originally scheduled release date and delay. I believe Steam was announced before the leak, and released well before HL2 release.
It was released well before the HL2 release, because I remember having HL2 pre-downloaded for day of release.
Steam in various forms had existed for a while; firstly in 2002 as a more efficient distribution engine for Counter Strike then to provide authentication and matchmaking for the HL1 multiplayer after Valve's publisher Sierra planned to turn off their servers in 2004. They offered upgrades for all old HL1 cdkeys to a steam account and then started selling their games (I think Counter Strike: Condition Zero was the first new release) through it too... which wasn't appreciated by Sierra: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valve_Corporation#Valve_vs_Vive...
There was, and is, a lot of FUD about the HL2 leak. One of the confusing factors is that there were actually multiple leaks - at first it was "they just stole some code which no one can get to compile" and by the end it was "there are playable levels". Basically everything Valve had at the time was leaked it seemed - there was a huge amount of assets, a fairly complete engine, multiple levels including bits of the now-infamous E3 demonstration.
The reason it was delayed is, quite simply, that it was nowhere near ready, and I think this would have happened with or without the leak. Valve aren't exactly renowned for releasing on time, there's no way they would have released an unpolished game just for the sake of a deadline.
I had hours of fun with that leaked HL2 tech demo that was essentially a room with a pool of water and a bunch of physics objects to weld together and throw around. Heightened my desire to buy the finished game greatly.
I highly disliked Far Cry, it was the epitome of graphics over gameplay. The graphics were astounding, but the gameplay was a tedious uncoordinated piece of crap. Story basically had all the point of a Mario game, stealth didn't exist as the AI could seemingly spot you from 200ft away with their backs turned (maybe a little exaggeration).
I disliked the game so much that I've essentially avoided any game with 'Cry' in it since playing Far Cry.
IMO the best outcome for EA would be a pre-release that with such great reviews that I would actually consider playing the demo, although that still requires the HDD space that I'd likely prefer to waste on a blu-ray rip of virtually any movie as I'd expect it to entertain me for longer (I love the 5hr gameplay that most FPS now provide, real 'bang' for my buck when I can usually spend less for an RPG that'll give me anywhere from >20 to 100 hours like Mass Effect/Dragon Age)
> I disliked the game so much that I've essentially avoided any game with 'Cry' in it since playing Far Cry.
Somewhat irrational, since Crysis plays differently and the sequels to Far Cry were developed by different company.
I guess that's brand power for you.
His reasoning may be fallacious but his conclusion is correct - Far Cry 2 is a terrible, terrible game. I actually quite enjoyed Far Cry and Crysis though, YMMV.
FC2 strongly polarises opinion more than most AAA games. :) http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/far-cry-2/user-reviews
I worked as a game reviewer, Far Cry was actually one of the games that started making me jaded because we were basically forced to rate it well so that we would keep being supplied review material.
I never touched Crysis, but perhaps I should. I heard much better reviews, but never heard anyone who didn't play Far Cry say it was a great game which is why I avoided it like a plagued corpse.
FarCry was not to good. FarCry 2 was bullshit. Crysis how ever rocks. I really like the stuff I have seen from Crysis 2.
Here's a rewrite that I think is much more pleasant, and would build good will, and probably increase sales:
Crytek has been alerted that an early incomplete, unfinished build of Crysis 2 has appeared on Torrent sites. Crytek and EA are a bit shocked, but surprisingly ok with the news. Saves us the trouble of writing a demo! So check out the pirated, unofficial demo, and be sure to buy the full game when it comes out on March 22nd.
And try not to spoil yourself too much on the leak, the full game is much better already!
I'm not sure how wise this was. I couldn't resist the Half-Life 2 leak, and it did actually detract from my experience of the final game. It was buggy, crashed a lot, many of the levels were completely untextured or unscripted, but there was enough dialogue already in the game to spoil the plot. I agree it could use a more pleasant rewrite, but in their position I would want to put people off playing the leak for that reason alone.
Oh, and they have made a demo - it's been out on the 360 for a couple of weeks I think.
Maybe they should be trying to find the internal source instead of blaming everything on "piracy".
They're probably trying a lot of things... that message there, blaming piracy, it's not meant for you.
It's also not meant for people who play console games but don't use the internet much and don't know how to use a torrent site.
It's meant for the marginal person who could go either way - who might grudgingly torrent a movie or music album that can't be bought in his home country, but feels guilty about it and wants to support content creators.
There's people who are going to buy, no matter what - this message doesn't affect them. There's people who aren't going to buy, no matter what - this message doesn't affect them. There's also a marginal group of people who might buy or might not - they're trying to appeal to them.
Or who knows, maybe they really are just blaming piracy while letting the ship sink. I'd buy that explanation too.
> There's people who are going to buy, no matter what
Most of those people do it out of convenience. They want to play on their console, in the living room with the big screen, and they don't want to fuck around with torrenting ISOs and hacking their machine so it can play copied games. Next to convenience, morality takes a distant second place; they probably pirate music and movies without hesitation. But fans of Crysis 2 have long been awaiting its release, and being able to play it months before its street date, even if it means playing on PC and hitting the torrents, might tip the convenience equation.
That is why this is so dangerous for Crytek.
I, for one, will certainly buy it. I am a programmer myself and I want other people to pay money for my work--hence, I can't justify not paying for other people's work.
I also believe that polishing up a game is just about the most agonizing--and important--work there is (in the games industry). Polish makes all the difference in games. Downoading a pirated pre-release, under-polished version of a game is getting you a sub-par, less fun version of the game and thus undermines the very reason to play the game: to have fun.
I am a programmer in the game industry. Games I have worked on have sold millions of copies. That said, I've pirated plenty of things when the convenience made up for the dubious morality of it. I'm not proud of it or justifying it but that's how it goes.
Since Steam took off, I haven't pirated a single PC game. In fact, I've only played a third of the games in my Steam library because the sales have made it so easy and enticing to buy on a whim. Close the convenience gap and offer extra benefits and you can easily turn most normal middle-class adults like myself into happy paying customers.
> Downoading a pirated pre-release, under-polished version of a game is getting you a sub-par, less fun version of the game and thus undermines the very reason to play the game: to have fun.
That is correct. But if you think this will prevent most fans who have been eagerly waiting for the game then you are mistaken. It's the short-sightedness of human nature.
Maybe they should figure out a business model that is based less on controlling distribution archaically.
Ultimately I think this is very unfortunate. I seem to remember reading that Crytek said that they were releasing Crysis 2 on consoles as well as on PC due to the high piracy the original Crysis had (the original being a PC exclusive, and piracy on consoles being much less than on PC).
Something like this could be the straw breaking the camel's back for Crytek releasing their next game on PC (and I don't blame them).
"Piracy continues to damage the PC packaged goods market"
That sounds quite oddly phrased. Why is it not "the PC gaming market" or something to that effect? Why should anyone care about a specific distribution model?
Ok, let me make a nice analysis of responses about that post:
1) EA is obviously upset. They are asking people to wait to buy the game. This has two main reasons. The first being that the beta release is still buggy and will give a bad impression. The second being that they don't want people who would have otherwise bought the game get impatient and download it. Possibly seeing what a heap of crap it is.
2) EA did not bash the community. They just said "fans, please support us, piracy hurts our industry." Piracy of course referring to actually downloading and helping spread it. The response is basically "piracy is good, stfu, fuck off, you deserve it assholes". The response is completely blown out of proportion unless the OP was modified later on.
3) EA has nobody to blame but themselves. However they know this, and did not blame anyone else in the post. The responders seem to think otherwise.
4) I hate EA as much as the next buy, but lets be fair here.
That is all.