QUOTE | “It seems The Witness is the #1 game on a certain popular torrent site. Unfortunately this will not help us afford to make another game!” – Indie developer Jonathan Blow talking about the unfortunate levels of piracy that he’s seen for his much-praised new game The Witness.
Elsewhere in the business of gaming this week…
QUOTE | “Succinctly speaking, the top 10 PC games earn more than the top 10 mobile games.” – SuperData analyst Joost van Dreunen talking about the $US61 ($86) billion digital games market and how PC is actually an undervalued platform.
QUOTE | “The steady performance of the PlayStation over the last quarter is quite remarkable.” – ICO Partners’ Thomas Bidaux on the impact that a steady stream of media coverage can have, which Sony gets in December with its PlayStation Experience.
STAT | 8.4 million — The number of PlayStation 4 consoles Sony sold during its third fiscal quarter, bringing the total sold this fiscal year to date to 15.4 million, higher than the number sold during all of the last year.
QUOTE | “I think GameStop is taking a very different approach, they’re not a traditional publisher and as a result we have greater control.” – Insomniac boss Ted Price on working with retailer GameStop to publish the Metroidvania-style underwater exploration game Song of the Deep.
QUOTE | “EA’s player experience underscores E3 as the global launchpad for video game news, announcements, and excitement.” – The ESA’s communications head Rich Taylor reacting to the news that publisher EA won’t have a booth at E3 this year but will have its own event next door during E3.
QUOTE | “Time and time again people underestimate the amount of preparation a successful campaign needs.” – Luke Crane, Head of Games at Kickstarter, offering a bevy of tips on how game developers can run successful campaigns on the crowdfunding platform.
QUOTE | “The more people said that we couldn’t do something the more we wanted to do it, if only to piss them off. It’s innate to us.” – Former Criterion developer Alex Ward talking along with Three Fields co-founder Fiona Sperry about their approach to making games and why they’re building a golf title.
STAT | 6 million — The number of copies Konami sold of Metal Gear Solid V (including digital) worldwide after parting ways with famed developer Hideo Kojima.
QUOTE | “I became so frustrated with the games industry generally trying to target everybody.” – Johan Pilestedt, CEO of Helldivers studio Arrowhead, on why they just make games for themselves and ignore the mass market.
Comments
12 responses to “This Week In The Business: Witness Pirates”
Nice links.
Yep, all link to the home page
It’s to remind everyone who’s boss
kotaku is kotaku’s source confirmed?
I literally did not know there was a PC version of The Witness.
Honestly.
I believe that was the point all along.
Blow/his studio and Sony did the marketing circuit on their terms, I understand that.
If you are in the ‘pirates owe him Sweet FA’ camp, then you cannot count out the fact that there was zero marketing push or ‘hype’ for that game ON THE PC because Blow (and most certainly Sony) didn’t spend a cent on it.
He can’t earn back money he didn’t spend.
That should tell you about the viability of the PC as a platform for that sort of dev/studio and game in 2016.
I didn’t know there was a non-PC version of The Witness. I figured it was just being heavily pirated because it’s got a DRM-free release there, and it’s more expensive than non-retail games like that tend to be.
I thought that all pirated games had become DRM free.
Yeah, as opposed to starting out that way without having to potentially wait however long for someone to figure out how to get rid of it.
But people had to know there was a PC version, otherwise they wouldn’t be searching torrent sites for it.
every single link just goes to kotaku.com – could you please update them
By chance I have heard a lot about The Witness but no screenshots or videos have graced my screen from any articles I have opened. Irony?
I already bought The Witness – what more does he want?
I have to say though $40USD is pretty steep for an indie puzzle game. He knew his game was coming with hype so he decided to cash in. Can’t say I am suprised as I am waiting for the price to drop as I can’t justify it’s price in Aussie dollars.