Id's CEO Says Piracy Killing PC Gaming Industry

The CEO of Id Software says that rampant piracy threatens to kill the PC gaming industry. Todd Hollenshead, speaking at the Game Developers Conference, said that more and more PC game developers are turning to home consoles for additional revenue and to offset the losses that piracy creates for them. He even gave a few frightening statistics to back up his claims: in the U.S., up to 50 percent of games sales are lost to piracy and in Eastern Europe and Asia that number jumps to 90 percent.

OK, I’ll not deny that it is incredibly easy to pirate PC games. It’s also not so much harder to pirate console games. Frankly, methinks the problem with the PC games industry has more to do with the fact that all that gets released is derivative shooter after shooter. How many times can you shoot a rail gun at an alien/wolf/henchman and still call it fun?

Rampant piracy threatens PC games [BBC News]

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