THQ director blames piracy, reviewers for Iron Lore shutdown
Category: Industry, Posted: 03/04/2008 at 09:26AM CST by Demetri Kouvalis, Features Editor
As some of you may know, Iron Lore, the developers of the hack n' slash game Titan Quest and the upcoming Dawn of War expansion Soulstorm, recently closed their doors because of a slew of circumstances. THQ's creative director Michael Fitch is coming out and saying that piracy, hardware vendors, gamers, and reviewers are the main reasons why Iron Lore studios shut down.
"If even a tiny fraction of the people who pirated the game had actually spent some god-damn money for their 40+ hours of entertainment, things could have been very different today," he said. It's true, piracy is the number one enemy for the PC gaming industry right now and we need to see a bigger push in protection, because Iron Lore isn't going to be the last developer to fall under the sword of pirates (so to speak).
According to Fitch, hardware vendors "make it harder all the time with integrated audio and video that have little or no driver support, marginal adherence to standards, and sometimes bizarre conflicts with other hardware".
As for the audience, "There's a lot of stupid people out there. That's on account of not doing basic stuff, like updating your drivers, or de-fragging your hard drive, or having antivirus so your machine isn't a teetering pile of rogue programs." Yeah, come on guys, what are you thinking not updating your drivers and de-fragging your hard drive? You should all be smarter than that.
And finally he rips on reviewers saying, "one complained that the game made him carry stuff around, apparently having missed a teleport system, while another had a problem with a bug in a review build, but mentioned it despite it having been fixed." There are always some bad apples in the batch, but one or two reviews shouldn't make or break the overall sales of the game.
"Making PC products is not all fun and games. It's an uphill slog, definitely. I'm a lifelong PC gamer, and hope to continue to work on PC games in the future, but man, they sure don't make it easy," he concluded.
At this point Iron Lore went on to say that they are pursuing licensing opportunities for their own engine and tool set, and that the individuals behind the studio are available for other opportunities. I hope all goes well for the rest of the employees, and I hope this gives the PC industry some insight on how bad piracy is getting.
via [gameindustry]
- Mirror's Edge 11/18/2008
- Multiwinia 11/03/2008
- Dead Space 11/03/2008
- Dead Space 11/03/2008
- Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia... 11/01/2008
- World of Goo 10/28/2008
- View More
- Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe ... 07/31/2008
- Hands-On: N+ 07/29/2008
- E3 2008: Resident Evil 5 hands... 07/25/2008
- E3 2008: Too Human hands-on 07/23/2008
- E3 2008: The Agency developer ... 07/22/2008
- E3 2008: Left 4 Dead direct fe... 07/21/2008
- View More
Kyle Stallock
Updated June 4th, 2008
Indie Games Journalism
Brendon Lindsey
Updated October 19, 2008
Blu-Ray Review: Bond...
Frank Ling
Updated: Aug. 1th, 2008 Are you a game snob?
Eddie Inzauto
Updated Wed, October 28
Silent Hill scribblings
GamerNode needs your help. Register
now and join thousands of gamers in a
crusade to spread the word of
GamerNode!
Join the Node Army!
- Made a wallpaper today. 11/20/2008
- New Xbox Experience 11/20/2008
- What are you listening to? 11/20/2008
- Pimp your.... 11/20/2008
- What game did you play today? 11/20/2008
- Construct Me A Computer <$700 11/20/2008
- World's Longest Thread 11/20/2008
- Aww kmon, no WOTLK threads?! 11/19/2008
- See ya. 11/19/2008
- Black Mesa Cover 11/19/2008
- View More
WOW, he blamed, well, everyone.
How about if they gave final releases to reviews, not buggy ones.
"WOW, he blamed, well, everyone."
Ha. That's exactly what I was thinking. I mean, who ISN'T at fault (besides the devs and publisher, of course)?
So it's not their fault that the game was buggy unless you had brand new drivers which were released after the game was, and that they sent buggy and unfinished code to people because they wanted reviews posted before the game was released?
Why is it never ninjas?
Always blame the Pirates! Geeez!
God forbid the studio take some personal responsibility for their own demise.
While piracy is a well known issue; the industry needs to mature and begin supplying gamers with good products that promotes a want-to-purchase mentality rather than a Ill-download-it-illegally-to-try-it-out one.
I take personal responsibility, here and now, in that I'll sooner download a game to try it out rather than shill out $50 for one only to find out it is total BS and be stuck with it. At least with console games I can return a used game in 7 days for a different title if it turns out to be crap.
Honestly, outside of MMOs how many games were worth purchasing in 2007? 3, 4?
everyone made good points. so i have nothing much to add except that i agree and that thq is useless