Publishers need emergency plans to get back to the $50 price point as fast as possible, and move to $40 carefully. Above $40 needs bundles. When has entertainment this expensive survived a recession this bad? I have no specific critique for Ubi (though they have some heavy hitters coming), but I bet it would help, if these prices are implemented with caution. I hope they find a way.

If the concept of a jobless recovery comes true, pushing games back will be devastating and publishers will be trapped.

The Splinter Cell move doesn't surprise me, I suppose. The stuff at E3 looked good, but there wasn't much of it. And then they showed the same thing again on some behind the game vid they put on Game Trailers. Made me wonder if they had finished anything else in the game.
Hope Avatar is good, movie is looking very cool.

Baaah... Here on gamasutra they don't posted the part where Yves blamed piracy for lower sales instead of recession...

Helder, we've added that comment - I believe Ubisoft blamed the economy in their official release, but Guillemot's press conference remarks added piracy as another factor.

This just adds to the shocking amount of games that have slipped to 2010 dates since E3 ended.

More shocking to me is the upfront claim that piracy is a primary reason for such a large drop in their DS revenues, and considering that the bulk of their DS catalog is their "tween" series', it means nothing is safe in these tough times.

Wow, since when did DS shovelware get pirated?

Making a survey asking if a guy want to pirate your game is the same as the police asking a guy if he smoke pot...


But anyway, the view that PC is more pirated is totally distorted, console is MUCH more pirated (on São Paulo, for each pirated PC game, I see 10 for PS2, 7 for Wii and 4 for 360... For some reason DS pirated games are not around on the streets... I guess that selling a pirated cartridge is harder than sellinc a CD). This of course has the nasty side effect that several publishers and companies (including sadly Microsoft) are dropping PC support, WHEN they make a PC game, they make a awfull port (like assassins creed with bizarre console-like controls on the keyboard, or Capcom's Lost Planet that the tutorial screen show a photo of a XBOX 360 controller and make no mention about what keyboard key you are to press... I had to press all keys on the keyboard to figure what key was the "A" on xbox to be able to exit the screen...), then they complain that those games don't sold, blame piracy, and the circle continues...

But really, sometimes Ubisoft disappoint me, they are more and more focused on shovelware (not only DS, but the incredibly dumbed down Prince of Persia instead of offering good difficulty levels for example or games with awesome graphics, animation, story, sound, gameplay... but are boring, aka: Assassins Creed after you saw all mission variations and you are not into just running around aimlessy on buildings) and they INSIST in making DRM, get bashed, remove DRM, put it back... I think that their new DRM that they promised (see Kotaku), will get cracked, legal players will refuse to buy the game with DRM, and Ubisoft will claim that the lack of sales is piracy again...

Sadly, I can comment that at least at my store, we've seen an increase in the tween/kid crowd directly asking about those carts that 'you can put all your games on' or 'that have 100s of games on them'. All we can do is smile and note that we are 'not aware' of such things, but the word is getting out to them some way.

Under a recession, people try to reduce costs. In certain areas, it includes buying second marks. For gaming, it means piracy. The risk (not counting the losses the publishers and developers have right now) is that those who use piracy to keep their entertainment level don't go back to the legal road once their situation improves.

Regarding Hélder's point, I wonder if it is just more visible because there are more console games released than PC games. A pirated console game requires nothing other than the modified console. A computer game requires also a computer able to run the game (take Grand Theft Auto 4, for example). In any case, the point is local to Brazil, and I can make two quick conclusions: Brazil represents very little for Ubisoft since I am not even sure they have a local distributor there (and the volume does not compare with Europe or North America), and it is not possible to translate what happens there to other markets (which I am guessing Guillemot was referring to).

I confess that in an effort to save money, lately my purchases have been limited to the Steam Weekend Deals. The last PC game I paid full price for was Dawn of War 2.

@Roberto

Indeed, it was a local example, but from what I heard it is reflected on other countries... The main reason that console has more piracy is that it is far easier to pirate stuff for it (I mean, for the end user, not the crackers...), for a PS2 for example, you buy one with the modchip already installed (it is not hard to find...) or buy one and search for a modchip company, and then you just insert any PS2 DVD and it work. No need to go into cracks, see if configuration work, and whatnot...

Also I don't believe either that Ubisoft sales here are important, but they have a "shovelware" studio here (ie: that studio they openly said that its market is teenage girls, they do some of those girly "casual" DS games).

But it is not from now, it is since a long time ago I see piracy blaming, and few companies actively acting (like Valve ^^)


And yes, it is hard to "de-convert" from piracy, here in Brazil the piracy rised after a stupid government tax kicked in (ie: games and consoles are taxed 273%), and now it got entrenched into the culture of the people to just pirate stuff, and the developer not getting money is collateral damage, the war is against the taxes (yes, people advocate piracy as a mean of not paying taxes... and in fact, it work)

I actually think that a game/application should not cost more than 25$-30$ (at max). This way, anyone could afford 2-3 games per month and the piracy level will drop. At the moment, i prefer to download games instead of buying them because of the high costs (40-50 euros in Romania where the minimum wage is 150 euros).

Until the game producers accept this, i will continue to pirate the games i play and i will advise anyone else from my circle of friends to do the same.

This kind ofthing amazes me. Does it really not occur to these idiots that there is a recession on and people are simply not prepared to pay £49 or $60 for a game anymore. I know the stupid analysts said that the games industry was recession proof but, come on did anyone seriously believe that!

Now here in the UK we have Activision trying to charage 10 pounds more for modern warfare 2 as if they simply haven't been on earth the last 2 years!

Games have been overpriced for years. When they're at AU$110 for a new game, you think really hard when deciding which one to buy. The harder you have to think about buying a game, the less likely you are to buy any game at all. On the other end of the scale you have iPhone games at AU$1.19 and you think for about 5 seconds before risking your well earned cash.

Obviously full PC/Console games need to cost more than a buck, but if you can get your prices down towards AU$60 or even AU$70, I have to think less, and might even buy another game - even though the combined price is more than the $110 I pay for one game now. Less people thinking hard about buying = more sales = higher revenue.

But what do I know? I'm just a customer...

@Hélder Gomes Filho

At least CAPCOM did learn something(At least if it's from their inhouse Devteam), look at SFIV(granted a Controller is still better suited for beat em ups than Keyboards, but playable. ;) )
After i played SFIV for some hours i have to admit, that's the right way to do a good Port, and judging from the Gamespot HandsOn on Resident Evil 5 and the Benchmark Demo, i think Resi5 will do fine in this regard.

I hope the others will learn from CAPCOM, GRIN did not(And they shoul'd know it better.*)

*In BionicCommando you play the Tutorial and they slap the x360 pad icons in your face even there is none plugged in.(But the Game mechanics/controls are fine else, imo.)

And yeah the pricing in some regions are ridiculous, and then comes Activision with their smartass tactic, but i guess the majority will still pay the price and give Activision and others a reason to hold that course.

Oh and then comes a analyst and thinks that is a great move, i don't know, but i'll highly doubt that they will throw the money against better quality Games to hold a Franchise up.