Ubisoft Shanghai creative director Michael de Plater has told VG247 that a PC version of EndWar would most likely be shipping alongside the console SKUs if it wasn’t for rampant PC piracy, and that copyright theft is essentially destroying the PC games market.
“To be honest, if PC wasn’t pirated to hell and back, there’d probably be a PC version coming out the same day as the other two,” he said, talking of the voice-controlled RTS.
“But at the moment, if you release the PC version, essentially what you’re doing is letting people have a free version that they rip off instead of a purchased version. Piracy’s basically killing PC.”
We asked if piracy was the main reason to keep EndWar off PC.
“Yeah, at the time of release,” he said. “You know, the level of piracy that you get with the PC just cannibalizes the others, because people just steal that version.”
Ubisoft recently sued the PC game disc manufacturer of Assassin's Creed for contributing to the game's piracy. Assassin's Creed has sold millions of copies on consoles, but the game has only seen a comparative trickle of PC sales. Ubisoft is blaming a leak from Optical Experts Manufacturing for most of the game's PC woes. Cliff Bleszinski recently noted that piracy was the primary reason that Gears of War 2 will not appear on PC.
Ubisoft creative director: “Piracy’s basically killing PC”