Pretas wrote:They're never going to use Steam for fear of devaluing the collectible price points of their games to rock bottom, and the fact that anything on PC is far more likely to be widely pirated.
And that's why they are cowards, what's the point of being afraid of porting games to PC if YOU ALREADY sold out all your copies including re-prints, and you cannot make money off used copies! And since you cannot make money off used copies, devaluation of your game doesn't matter SHIT because things are already out of your control. Ignoring easy money oppurtunities that won't put you at risk is failing business 101.
Also, probably the reason they don't want to do PC is that they cannot make a GOOD kickstarter off it, here's why, all people would pay for, would be just PORTING the code, no licenses (outside steam greenlight, other indie distributions don't charge as much or at all. At worst it would be something like a license for FMOD) which would backfire on their stupid marketing practices pretty badly.
I cannot stop but grin that you pointed out PIRACY as the main reason, actually piracy isn't the worst reason they would be afraid of, it's that if they made a quick buck of a port and screwed up, they would get bad reputation that would keep expanding and eventually make them look shit everywhere, KEEP in mind that the game's price can do the same, if they asked $60, they would be pretty much done for in PC market. That can be a legimitate reason, if you are a bad dev. Considering how much Neo XYX DC release was a fail, we all know how bad would that be.
Now as for piracy itself, that's a touchy subject, you cannot stop pirates from pirating your game because you only make the matter worse, and there will be pirates who even pirate FREEBIES so the price doesn't matter that much to them unless it's severely overpriced. But, here's the thing, did it stop Crimzon Clover from going to Nesica? No? Did it stop CCWI from coming to steam and now GOG? Nope! Piracy can be overrated, it is a thing, but you cannot make big eyes about it anymore as a developer, it will only hurt you. It's a case of "Deal with it".
So pretty much, they are bad at business 101 and more than that, and by them I MEAN the internal staff in NG Dev, not the artists they hire or composers. NOW before any of you goes rogue on me, keep in mind, this is just my opinion, i've already exhausted what I said, I won't be arguing my opinion, it's just a point of view.