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.