Would Pirates Have Bought Crysis?

Edge Online has some quotes from Harald Seeley taken from an upcoming interview with the Engine Business Manager at Crytek about controversial remarks by Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli about the dire impact of PC piracy on sales of Crysis. While some argue that piracy can increase game sales by letting players take a 'try before you buy' approach, Crytek business manager Harald Seeley isn't one of them. Based on downloads of the last Crysis patch, he argues, there were 'a lot more active [Crysis] players than there were unit sales.' And since those pirates are still playing the game months after release, Seeley reasons that "then they were a sale that didn't happen but probably would have had it not been possible to obtain the game illegally." He also makes observations about DRM, saying: "For example, the consoles themselves are, in one sense, simply very good DRM technologies that consumers welcome and pay for, in order to receive the benefits that come with them..."

Crytek, the studio that created the hardware intensive Far Cry and Crysis games exclusively for PC, has repeatedly stated that the upcoming Crysis Warhead will be its last PC-only game due to the abundant piracy of PC games. But just because Crytek is no longer developing PC exclusives, that doesn't mean the company will abandon the platform. "We want to continue to provide our fans in the PC world a rich and engaging experience," Seeley explained to EDGE Online.

The studio will soon release Crysis Warhead, a spin-off of the original, which will be PC-exclusive (the title was in development prior to the studio's commitment to multiplatform development).

We have a discussion thread open on this topic in our forums, check it here.