Poor, poor Mr. Hollister. Once again, your enthusiasm for PC gaming will see you waiting patiently while console gamers get to play hotly-anticipated games first. PC Gamers already suffered a blow from the Mirror’s Edge PC delay, and now they have to sustain another: Ubisoft has stepped up and declared that EndWar, their voice-controlled RTS which we glimpsed back at Ubidays, will not be released simultaneously with its console counterparts. It’ll be released at some point, just not immediately. The reason? Filthy, dastardly, scurvy pirates! In a pair of reports on Videogaming247, Ubisoft’s Michael de Plater strongly suggests that EndWar will be released on the PC, saying, “There’s no reason not to.” Then, he turns around and lambasts PC gaming, blaming pirates for killing the industry, and citing them as the reason that EndWar will not see a PC release at the same time as the console releases. I guess that’s a reason not to, then.
“…at the moment, if you release the PC version, essentially what you’re doing is letting people have a free version that they rip off instead of a purchased version,” said de Plater. We’ve heard more than a few companies lately who have come out against PC releases due to piracy, but this may be the first time we’ve heard this particular line of reasoning — that pirated PC copies will cannibalize console sales. It’s certainly a new wrinkle to the debate — after all, presumably the console versions wouldn’t have draconian DRM schemes to avoid, so one couldn’t use that as justification for piracy. de Plater may very well have a point — if the opportunity to snag the PC version were available for free, fewer gamers might pony up the $60 for the PS3/360 version.
In the meantime, of course, honest and hard-working PC gamers get hosed once again — when the PC version is eventually released, those piracy concerns will be just as relevant. Honest PC gamers will have been forced to sit through a delay, while the jerks who would steal the game will still steal it — in fact, more of them might steal it, if they own both a PC and a console. The impatient ones who couldn’t wait will already own it for their console, and their new excuse will be, “Why pay for the same game twice?” Ubisoft will have made more console sales, but the PC sales may well drop. Of course, perhaps that’s what Ubisoft wants, in the first place. I’m so confused.
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