Gears of War 2 For PC: No – Piracy is Bad

The last few weeks we’ve often brought up, on the gaming podcast, our reasons behind why Gears of War 2 wouldn’t be a PC title and only an Xbox 360. Our theory was more of a marketing tactic, assuming there would be no PC version because Microsoft wants to focus the attention of their big titles to the Xbox 360 as it’s a real gaming platform and they want more attention on it.  We might have been wrong.

In a recent interview, IGN asked Epic’s Cliff Bleszinski some pointed questions about the PC release. Like us, everyone has been questioning the move to NOT release Gears of War 2 on the PC especially considering the first game made a PC debut and Epic has always been a big PC developer. Turns out, Epic is utilizing the Xbox 360 as a nice big can of DRM.

“Here’s the problem right now; the person who is savvy enough to want to have a good PC to upgrade their video card, is a person who is savvy enough to know bit torrent to know all the elements so they can pirate software.” (ign)

Following this answer he confirmed with a definitive no that we won’t see GoW2 on the PC. Of course, they also underscore the fact that the PC can have a wild array of hardware chipsets for video cards and catering to the masses with compatibility is pretty much a nightmare. A system with great DRM and a closed hardware platform is hard to pass up.

If Epic is going to take this route, will we see other major PC developers take the same road? Had the Xbox 360 been a failure, developers would continue to rely on the PC as their platform of choice for many franchises. Now, with the 360 vibrant and popular, developers are able to build a closed platform game with a high degree of safety against piracy.

Although pirates can produce hacked 360 games, it’s not nearly as easy to get them, create them and make them work on a stock Xbox 360 console. It’s not about making it impossible to pirate, it’s about making it hard enough that gamers will justify purchasing over the work of making the game function on their 360.

If I were a die-hard PC gamer, I’d be afraid of this movement. You’re running bleeding edge hardware that developers are afraid to take advantage of because you might just push the game to a torrent site. And, why would they cater to the bleeding edge customers when all the others don’t have hardware strong enough to play the game.

The chipset excuse seems a bit weak, we’ve always had hardware that’s been good and hardware that’s been old and crusty yet developers do their best to try to accomodate the middle end and high end systems leaving the “System Requirements” specifications on the box to do the rest. Are they just making excuses so they can protect the integrity of their game from would-be pirates?