Tom Clancy's Endwar PC delayed due to piracy

We can predict the forum discussion already as it's pretty much the same whenever the topic of piracy is broached. One side says piracy is bad, while the other says that games are too expensive and that every pirated game doesn't equal a lost sale - so it goes, endlessly.

Apparently though, some publishers are through trying to find a way to solve the problem and are instead tackling piracy in a more direct way by just not releasing a PC version. That's what Ubisoft's Shanghai director Michael de Plater has confirmed is happening with Tom Clancy's EndWar, which is due out this year.

"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," said Plater in an interview with VG247, found via RockPaperShotgun.

Plater pulled no punches on the matter either, refuting the usual excuses of pirates and instead boiling the matter down to it's cold, insensitive core; piracy is killing PC gaming.

"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."

Of course, just because Ubisoft has owned up to the matter doesn't mean they are the only ones doing it - we're suddenly questioning why Mirror's Edge PC was really delayed until next year. And the same with Gears of War PC and Mass Effect PC - it isn't as if DICE, BioWare and Epic have strong histories of being console developers primarily.

RockPaperShotgun goes on to discuss a few of the other issues surrounding the statement, such as the fact that of all the pirated platforms it may be the consoles that are actually most pirated, thanks to the DS and PSP, before calling Ubisoft out to put irrefutable proof of these claims before customers. It's worth a look - but be sure to come back and tell us what you think in the forums.

Is piracy really killing PC gaming, or is PC gaming being offered up as a scapegoat to try and hide the threat of piracy?

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