Future of Cricket Games on PC

[Gurjot95]

First EA, then Codemasters and now Big Ant and Trine have stopped developing cricket games for PC due to amount of sales. No doubt the Cricket games market is very big in Asia but the amount of piracy present, I doubt any company will be ready to make crickets games on PC platform. It has become a major issue now. If it goes on continue like this I am afraid we may not see any cricket game for PC in future.

To avoid this, I think every person should try to get a original copy even if it's not worth the price but to support developers. It's not like we get cricket game every year anyway so paying to developers will surely increase in quality of games and will lead new companies making cricket games.

The main reason for piracy in huge amount is available in Asia is because the government doesn't take any steps to control this. We see how much government is worried about pirated film DVD's and songs but they just don't care about the amount of piracy of PC games just because they are not going to have any profit. Some people don't even know that DVD's they are buying are pirated and not original because of lack of knowledge and awareness. TBFH I myself came to know about this on internet. It's not a one man effort but I hope soon we can see the decline of piracy with increase in knowledge and age and hence will lead to quality cricket games coming out on PC.

Just wanted to share my thoughts and thought we can have discussion on this subject so created this thread. If it's not in right forum then mods please move it

 

[Gaurav_7]

Big Ant

When did that happen? I thought they are developing it.

 

[Gurjot95]

I think I read in Big Ant thread but not sure. Moreover it supports PS move so I doubt they will develop it differently for PC but fingers crossed.

 

[sachin_rocks]

The main reason for piracy in huge amount is available in Asia is because the government doesn't take any steps to control this. We see how much government is worried about pirated film DVD's and songs but they just don't care about the amount of piracy of PC games just because they are not going to have any profit. Some people don't even know that DVD's they are buying are pirated and not original because of lack of knowledge and awareness.

Pc games ??
The os piracy should come first most people assembling a computer in india or buying a computer with no os use pirated copy of windows
and wait photoshop!!
everyone and there dog owns photoshop 99.9% of copies of photoshop by indians here will be pirated
14-17 yr old amateurs in india will of course not purchase photoshop.
How did you get your photoshop???:sarcasm

 

[P Squared]

But the os problem has been solved. Use linux if you dont wanna buy windows. And no most people dont use pirated copies of windows. You get a choice to wheteher buy genuine or pirated and most people use genuine.

 

[sachin_rocks]

And no most people dont use pirated copies of windows. You get a choice to wheteher buy genuine or pirated and most people use genuine.

don't kid
you go to any computer shop in mp nagar and tell i want a home pc assembled they will assemble and install pirated windows on it automatically
and linux is like alien world in india and if you tell linux people remember some black screen that runs on servers

 

[Gurjot95]

Pc games ??
The os piracy should come first most people assembling a computer in india or buying a computer with no os use pirated copy of windows
and wait photoshop!!
everyone and there dog owns photoshop 99.9% of copies of photoshop by indians here will be pirated
14-17 yr old amateurs in india will of course not purchase photoshop.
How did you get your photoshop???

Maybe there is a huge piracy for windows in India but many of my friends have a original one because they all know pirated copies won't work more than a month. Similar with antivirus, many people buy legal copies of antivirus they can't risk their PC and all the work stored in there. Yeah I agree most of people have pirated copy of Photoshop but that's not only in India and I have a trial version of CS5, before I had trial of CS4 or and CS2. Once the trial expires I download different version. I know it's not legal the way I use but it's much better than just to download full version free.

Games piracy is totally a different thing.

 

[thedon5]

Regarding Big Ant, what has the game being developed for PS Move got to do with not releasing it on PC? They are not lazy when it comes to programming controls, it's not a question of how many control schemes they are using. If they develop PS Move controls, it's not the only method of control that's going to be there, they still have to develop controls for Dualshock and Xbox.

Their website says "Current Gen", so that dosen't rule any console out other than PS2.

 

[Gurjot95]

Alright I think I misunderstood that. I thought they confirmed on their website but it was for Tine. Hope they won't rule out PC version.

 

[sachin_rocks]

Maybe there is a huge piracy for windows in India but many of my friends have a original one because they all know pirated copies won't work more than a month.

your friends represent a small percent of indian it population

Similar with antivirus, many people buy legal copies of antivirus they can't risk their PC and all the work stored in there. Yeah I agree most of people have pirated copy of Photoshop but that's not only in India and I have a trial version of CS5, before I had trial of CS4 or and CS2. Once the trial expires I download different version. I know it's not legal the way I use but it's much better than just to download full version free.

That is a legal way but did you ever thought of alternatives to photoshop?

 

[MattW]

At a broad level, a game designed for Xbox 360 is fairly close in design to one made for PC, as most games are designed with cross platform in mind in order to do a PS3 version, doing a game on PC is in it self not the challenge. These games all 'could' be released on PC at a very broad level, it is the detail where it gets unstuck.

As was mentioned to me regarding IC2010, there would have needed to be a person working full time on the PC version to be able to release it on that platform, as well as extra work closer to release. Considering the small size of the studio, a full time employee makes up a noticeable proportion of the dev team, which is better purposed elsewhere. The person would work on things like doing the PC customisations for the game, but mostly on the huge amount of QA that is needed to ensure wide compatibility of games outside the closed design of consoles.

The question for a publisher is simple, is the amount of extra revenue from a PC version worth the additional people to work on making the game. When the margins are already rather tight and the timeframe for development short, dropping PC support is an easy way to remove the pressure.

On the future, I do see light. I've heard from a source that there is a PC version of Trine's game in the works, but that was fairly old info, things may have changed since I heard that. There's also a slight chance of Cricket Life coming out one day, likewise a second edition of Cricket Revolution. Then, there's always the chance Codemasters might do PC versions in the future (perhaps alternating years, or getting another developer to do the port).

I see the future of PC cricket games in digital downloads. For western countries, Steam is the best way. For India/Pakistan, the games download subscription services offer a cheap entry point to legal games, often bundled with the internet access. It wouldn't be a huge money spinner, but doesn't have the overheads associated with the cheap releases on discs.

 

[sachin_rocks]

For India/Pakistan, the games download subscription services offer a cheap entry point to legal games, often bundled with the internet access. It wouldn't be a huge money spinner, but doesn't have the overheads associated with the cheap releases on discs.

but internet download service is still not viable as it takes a long time on slow internet connections and it is much quicker to buy a pirated cd from a local cd vendor

 

[MattW]

but internet download service is still not viable as it takes a long time on slow internet connections and it is much quicker to buy a pirated cd from a local cd vendor

Then the solution is simple, sell a disc containing encrypted game data at the same or close enough to the price of the pirated discs, then once you're online with a subscription game service it would unlock it and install - if you don't, it would either do nothing, or be a restricted demo.

But of course, it is very easy to pick apart things rather than make a constructive reply. The droning of your Linux/Open Source fanboyism is getting really tiresome.

 

[AngryPixel]

Just use the cd keys for online games. That way they can atleast remove pirates from online games

 

[P Squared]

Thats already been implemented as far as I know.