Piracy affects not only musicians and software developers, but also game makers. But it seems game companies are now pointing to piracy for the closure of studios! On a forum post, Michael Fitch from THQ has blamed piracy for the closing down of Iron Lore Entertainment, who are the developers of Titan Quest.
Michael Fitch posted this on the Quarter to Three forums:
- If even a tiny fraction of the people who pirated the game had actually spent some god-damn money for their 40+ hours of entertainment, things could have been very different today. You can bitch all you want about how piracy is your god-given right, and none of it matters anyway because you can’t change how people behave… whatever. Some really good people made a seriously good game, and they might still be in business if piracy weren’t so rampant on the PC. That’s a fact.
Fitch also spoke on the numbers and said that it was astonishing. He cited data from a research that showed that the piracy rate in the United States is somewhere between 70-85% for the PC. As for Europe, it seems that piracy was more than 90%. In the end, he concluded by saying that making PC products is not all fun and games but he is a lifelong PC gamer!