Epic’s Mark Reign revealed today that the very beautiful Unreal Engine 4 will be seen “later this year,” but says that games won’t be able to run on the engine until 2014. Last week at DICE, Reign told G4 “people are going to be shocked later this year when they see Unreal Engine 4 and how much more profound an effect it will have.” If that’s not exicing enough, just look at the beautiful image enclosed in this post. This definitely makes sense, considering that we will be seeing some next gen console previews later in 2012, as well.

Last week we published an editorial called “The Hypocracy of PC gamers“. We’ve received a ton of feedback and emails from readers, some good, some bad, but we also got emails from a few game developers as well. One developer wanted to share his story on how piracy affected his studio. These are his thoughts.

I run a small independent PC game studio (which will remain anonymous), and we have a slate of smaller puzzle and RPG games that we’ve made since 2009. We sell the games on Steam and other downloadable services, in addition to selling them on our own site, completely DRM-free. In 2011, we had 12 developers and artists working on new titles, and working on getting our games on the iOS platform. Sales were decent throughout the years, enough to support us and ensure that we could keep updating our games. Then our entire catalog of games was posted on The Pirate Bay and spread to other torrent sites.

“The “bundle” of games hit the torrent sites in January 2011, and by March, sales were down 50%. By May, they were down 80%”We didn’t think much of it at first, piracy affects everyone in this industry, and we believed that sales wouldn’t be affected too much and that gamers would appreciate supporting the devs and buying DRM free games. Then sales went down. A lot. The “bundle” of games hit the torrent sites in January 2011, and by March, sales were down 50%. By May, they were down 80%. We tried to respond to the piracy of our games in several ways. We lowered the price on Steam by 33%. Sales picked up a tiny bit, but it’s impossible because you’re competing with free. We had Steam sales, bundle packs, everything we could. It wasn’t enough, and by October of 2011, I had to let go half of my team — 6 people. We’ve restructured now to focus entirely on iOS games. I dunno how it’ll turn out, but developing on PC and supporting our PC games is not an option any longer. We just can’t afford it.

It’s easy for gamers and game journalists to get on their soapbox and proclaim they know how to fix the piracy issue, they always seem to “know” what developers should do (“Put it on Steam”. “Don’t use DRM”, “Use clever advertising” etc.). But you’re not the ones who have to manage a studio, you’re not the ones who have to make sure your developers get paid so they can feed their families. Our studio was doing just fine before our games hit the pirate channels. Then it all went downhill.

There are some claims that piracy causes millions of lost jobs in the US. I dunno about those numbers, maybe they’re true, maybe they’re much lower. But I know that piracy cost at least 6 jobs in 2011. Six people that I had to fire. Talented, hard-working folks with families.

So to all of you Pirate Bay supporters, all of you “experts” on Internet freedom who support “sharing” and who claim that “it’s not stealing”. From the bottom of my heart and on behalf of those 6 people: fuck you.

UPDATE: Our contributor emailed in this addition to the post: “For all those who ask: I won’t name my company nor the games we make. I’m fully aware that my statements go against most gamer’s beliefs on piracy and I have no intentions of drawing the wrath of the Internet to my company, which is already struggling. And this has nothing to do with quality — our games had a great fan base and we were doing just fine for two years before the games hit the torrent networks.”

Microsoft recently filed a complaint with the National Arbitration Forum in order to get the domain name halo4beta dot net (don’t visit the site, it’s a phishing scam). The site claims to offer Halo 4 beta access, but it’s in fact just a way of scamming users. It’s not the first time we’ve seen something like this, and it’s good that Microsoft is taking swift action. Unfortunately, this being the Internet, it can be quite difficult to track down the owner and operator of the domain.

The next generation Xbox console, rumored to be named Xbox 720, will be sporting a GPU based on the Radeon 6000 series, according to a rumor from IGN. The Radeon 6000 series was launched last year, and the Xbox 720 version will reportedly be close to the Radeon HD 6670 — a mid-range GPU. Despite being a mid-range GPU in 2011, it’s still said to be 6 times more powerful than the current Xbox 360 ATI GPU. Mass production of the chip is said to start in late 2012, which could mean a new console launch at the very end of 2012 or the beginning of 2013. Compared to the Wii U, another new console that’s launching this year, the Xbox 720 GPU will be around 20% more powerful.

More and more clues are emerging about next generation of video game consoles that should be released within two years. The latest clue comes from Gears of War developer Epic, a company which also makes the popular Unreal Engine. A recent job posting is looking for a “Technical Artist” to work on “multiple new and existing IP’s across multiple platforms”. The job ad goes on, hinting at next gen hardware:

“Your goal will be to attack the more complex issues that arise when we push the technology envelope, both in production on current hardware, and prototyping for next-generation hardware”

This could also be a possible indication of Unreal Engine 3. As for next-gen consoles, Nintendo will be releasing the Wii U this year, while Microsoft and Sony are reportedly already hard at work on the next gen systems, which should see release in 2013 or 2014.

There are petitions these days trying to get developer From Software to port Dark Souls to the PC. The petitions have garnered hundreds of thousands of signatures, but it’s still unlikely we’ll ever see Dark Souls on PC. Why? Because PC is a platform with 90% piracy rate.

The majority of PC gamers will never pay for their games, no matter how many Steam sales Valve has, no matter how much the game are marked down, no matter how easy and convenient and DRM-free it is: it’ll never be better than free. Last year, a whopping 4 million PC gamers pirated Crysis 2. When time comes for Crysis 3, which platform do you think developer Crytek will focus on? PC or consoles? Even Portal 2, which is made by Valve, a company with a God-like status among gamers, was pirated more than 3 million times on the PC.

“If you didn’t pay for it, you stole it. Doesn’t matter if its a physical copy, or a digital copy — the developer won’t get paid for their work.”Developers like Valve can afford to put out great and expensive PC titles: they have an established fan base who are going to buy the game no matter what. But when it comes to small developers, and especially first time developers, it’s a very different story, as Bohemia Interactive showed last year with the release of ArmA 2: for every 3 people who bought the game, 100 pirated it. The head of Bohemia said the statistic was “really worrying for us as a mid-sized, independent, PC-oriented developer”.

Politically correct PC gamers insist that services like Steam and lower prices are the solution to game piracy, but Steam has been around for a few years now, as have other digital distribution systems. Has PC gaming piracy gone down? Not at all. Granted, publishers share some of the blame: restrictive DRM solutions have certainly driven away some legitimate gamers. But before you start praising “non-DRM” solutions, know that there are no true “non-DRM” services. Steam is a DRM service. If you don’t believe that, try and give one of you Steam games to a friend. Try and sell the game that you bought and rightfully own — oh, you can’t. That’s because you don’t own the games in your Steam library, technically you pay for a “subscription” to them.

With those kinds of numbers, why should From Software make Dark Souls for the PC platform? If 9 out of 10 gamers will pirate the game, that’s not a good business proposition. And when multiplatform titles do get a PC release, it’s usually in the form of a bad console port. That’s where the hypocrisy lies: elitist PC gamers complain about bad ports and developers not caring enough about the PC platform. But then they pirate the game anyway. At least 9 out 10 times. The tired old excuse that “online piracy isn’t theft, because it’s just a copy” is bullshit. If you didn’t pay for it, you stole it. Doesn’t matter if its a physical copy, or a digital copy — the developer won’t get paid for their work.

“If I was a developer, would I spend my resources developing for a platform with 10% piracy rate, or 90% piracy rate?”For the record, I don’t own a console. I’m a PC gamer. And all but one (Battlefield 3) of my 40+ games were bought on Steam. But unlike many other legitimate PC gamers, I don’t complain when a developer decides not to release a PC version. Or when they decide to spend most of their resources on the console versions. Nor I don’t complain about bad PC ports that are released years later. I understand their reasons. If I was a developer, would I spend my resources developing for a platform with 10% piracy rate, or 90% piracy rate?

Face it, we PC gamers don’t deserve any more exclusive titles. We don’t deserve proper PC versions or ports. We don’t deserve a truly non-DRM system. By pirating 9 out of 10 games, we have’t earned the right to any of those things.

Sincerely,
A PC gamer.

According to a new report coming from Chiphell, which has a decent track record when it comes to GPU leaks, Nvidia has decided to launch the next generation GPU, GTX 680, earlier than expected. The original launch was slated for March/April, but due to AMD’s slight lead, Nvidia decided to release the card in late-February.

The GTX 680 is said to offer the same performance as AMD’s 7970 card, and will ship with 2 GB of RAM and a clock speed of 780 MHz. The GTX 680 will reportedly be followed by the GTX 700-series later this year.

According to new findings, Ubisoft’s draconian DRM system is even worse than we thought. The company has received heavy criticism for the limitation it puts on PC players, like having a constant Internet connection in order to play offline games. Now, it appears that the DRM software also monitors your hardware changes, and if any major changes are made, the game won’t run. Those changes could include a simple graphics card upgrade.

PC enthusiast site Guru3D found out that if you swapped your graphics card, Anno 2070 would no longer run and would refuse to be installed on the system. We dunno about you, but this is definitely taking it too far.

DigitalBattle is growing fast as a source of off-beat, interesting gaming news that otherwise might not be covered by the mainstream gaming media. We’re now actively looking for writers and contributors to the site, both in news, editorials, and opinion pieces as well.

Requirements: pretty good (like, very good) English reading and writing skills, preferably with some experience writing for others sites. You have to be 18+ years of age to apply. You have to know the ins and outs of the gaming biz, and of course, you have to be an avid gamer. Preferably with a sense of humor.

Please send links to previous works or sample news stories/articles you think would fit for DigitalBattle. You can contact us and apply here.

We’re ready to kick off a new contest here at DigitalBattle! This time, you get a chance to win a $150 gift card to GameStop, which can be used at any one of GameStop and EB Games locations in the US.

To enter the contest, all you have to do is follow DigitalBattle on Twitter and retweet this post. That’s it! Good luck to everyone!

Contest rules: contest is valid to entrants aged 18 and over, and residing in the United States. The contest will end on Friday, January 20, 2012. Winners will be notified via Twitter.

UPDATE: the contest is now over, the winner has been notified via Twitter.