Mark Rein On The Pervasiveness of UT3 Piracy

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hal

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In a recent discussion with TG Daily, Mark Rein declared that there were an astounding 40 million attempts at illegitimate access to Unreal Tournament 3 servers using pirated keys.

update: Mark Rein denies making that statement:

Actually I have no idea where the 40 million number came from. I certainly don't recall saying it.

If that's the case, we'll look for a recantation from TG Daily soon.
 

Alhanalem

Teammember on UT3JB Bangaa Bishop
Feb 21, 2002
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so that's 40 million fools all trying to use the same ocuple of keys to play ;p
But most games (even on consoles) odnt sell 40 million, so many of those had to be repeat attempts.
 

SPIDEYUT2K7

I see a blue screen
Feb 22, 2008
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Is very sad to now that nfo ma8, because every REAL FAN of UT xpend most of their cash by buying the game and also upgrading or buying a new gaming rig to play UT and other games on the PC, im not aproving to use the pirate way like an option for the masses , if u want to play and test the game before you buy it go and download first a demo , and if you dont have any money to buy a game, go and find a job! many of us that are serious gamers or even casual gamers we work very hard to get what we always want like everybody else around, and we are doing the right way right? ok? well trow the first rock if u dont do that! ( i know !!! everybody here also download many things from "rare sites" torrents, usenet and stuff like that but seriously !! if you really like a game go and buy it or get your download but in the legal way!!!!! ):(
 

Sir_Brizz

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Those are obviously 40 million total, including duplicates. I'm betting the number is more like 500,000.
 

Poker

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Apr 17, 2006
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We spoke with Mark Rein, VP of Epic Games, and learned that the Unreal Tournament 3 servers received over 40 million attempts at illegitimate access using pirate keys. That number is huge, and the real magnitude comes when you calculate the retail price of $49.99 (59.99 for Collector's Edition).

If those 40 million players actually paid the full price, it would have been nearly $2 billion more in Epic’s pocket book.
What a load of crap.

I trust that there were indeed 40M attempts as Mr Rein said, but attempts and hypothetical sales aren't necessarily a one-to-one relationship (agreed, it's probably around 500K, or at least somewhere in the six-figure range), and even if that were the case, implying that there exists even a remote possibility that 40M people could be induced to pay full price is just silly (let alone the idea that Epic would "pocket" all that imaginary cash).

Likely this is the result of TGD sensationalizing the issue to boost readership and not Epic purposely trying to mislead anyone, but nonetheless, to the casual reader, please recognize this BS spin for what it is.
 

zeitgeber

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Feb 14, 2006
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this looks promising, 40mil people were smart enough not to buy ut3. there is hope for humanity after all. If i was a game developer i would be thrilled on hearing this news... 40mil potential pre orders for ut4. if i hadnt pirated ut99 epic never would have got the $100+ dollars i spent on future ut games. typical epic bs... making excuses for failure as always
 

Chandler

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Jan 20, 2008
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this looks promising, 40mil people were smart enough not to buy ut3. there is hope for humanity after all. If i was a game developer i would be thrilled on hearing this news... 40mil potential pre orders for ut4. if i hadnt pirated ut99 epic never would have got the $100+ dollars i spent on future ut games. typical epic bs... making excuses for failure as always

You don't make any sense.
 

Alhanalem

Teammember on UT3JB Bangaa Bishop
Feb 21, 2002
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I got UT99 because I played the demo and I was totally fascinated with the voice menu system and taunts- it made me buy the game idk why lol. domination was my favorite gametype in those days.
 

[GU]elmur_fud

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Mar 15, 2005
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I (and many others I know) have a legit copy and have on several occasions have been kicked from the game via a 'a duplicate login has been detected. Your connection to the server has been lost.' error. (According to the threads over on epics forums people are claiming it as a game spy error. Evan Flak.) However this re-raises my doubts.

But assuming it's 2 separate issues and that indeed there are 40 million people (or at least 40 million attempts) out there who want to play but either refuse to or can't buy the game. I would say there needs to be some serious butt kicking on the part of epic. And a big frickin PR campaign to boot.
 

MonsOlympus

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Those are obviously 40 million total, including duplicates. I'm betting the number is more like 500,000.

Yeah I was gonna say is that unique keys, times attempted access or what? Thats not 40 million copies of the game that would have sold otherwise.
 

Wowbagger

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[GU]elmur_fud;2125551 said:
I (and many others I know) have a legit copy and have on several occasions have been kicked from the game via a 'a duplicate login has been detected. Your connection to the server has been lost.' error. (According to the threads over on epics forums people are claiming it as a game spy error. Evan Flak.) However this re-raises my doubts.

But assuming it's 2 separate issues and that indeed there are 40 million people (or at least 40 million attempts) out there who want to play but either refuse to or can't buy the game. I would say there needs to be some serious butt kicking on the part of epic. And a big frickin PR campaign to boot.


I think youre on to something there.
But its not going well together with the popular "OMG piracy kills PC-gaming lets go console" theory ;)
 

MonsOlympus

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May 27, 2004
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Well what I dont get is if there is actually 40 million people out there who could buy the game that puts any console game sale to shame even the whole GTA3 series games across all platforms.

Why would it be better to move to console and not stay with PC and actually try to prevent the piracy? Even if you can get half that number paying for the game its a massive win.

I personally see it as a big ploy because game developers are becoming more and more bias towards consoles. I can certainly see the issue at hand but not all those 40 million people are going to rush out and buy a 360 and ontop of that legitimatly pay for the game on 360 either.
 

Grobut

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Oct 27, 2004
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What a load of crap.

I trust that there were indeed 40M attempts as Mr Rein said, but attempts and hypothetical sales aren't necessarily a one-to-one relationship (agreed, it's probably around 500K, or at least somewhere in the six-figure range), and even if that were the case, implying that there exists even a remote possibility that 40M people could be induced to pay full price is just silly (let alone the idea that Epic would "pocket" all that imaginary cash).

Likely this is the result of TGD sensationalizing the issue to boost readership and not Epic purposely trying to mislead anyone, but nonetheless, to the casual reader, please recognize this BS spin for what it is.

You took the words out of my mouth.. or fingers, whatever.
 

zynthetic

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I'm inclined to believe that stat includes more fasle-positives from the duplicate-login issue as well. I imagine someone who bought the game isn't going to give up as easily trying to connect as someone who warezed it.
 

lol911

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May 17, 2005
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Mark shouldn't whine. Next time if they make a good game maybe they will actually get comparative sales.
 

nELsOn

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assuming that these really were illegal attempts and not some poor guys with crooked vision who typed in the wrong key - most of the people who pirated the game (or any game for that matter) would NEVER have bought it in the first place.

this is not to say that piracy does not mean losses from an economic point of view - it obviously does. but these numbers are absurd. what i'm worried about is that the frequency of these reports somehow feels like a giant excuse to kill off at least a fair bit of pc gaming.
 
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saracen16

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Apr 23, 2008
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No kidding. Looks like UT3 is making more "sales" than it really is ala. official figures. 40 million in a span of around 5-6 months since the game's release... that's quite a lot. Thankfully, I have an original copy. Only thing is that I have not tried it yet b/c I'm planning to upgrade my rig over the coming few weeks.
 

TheSomian

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These numbers are realistic. Even if you don't want to believe it. 75% of the ppl i know are playing illegal game copies and about 50% are playing illegal copies only.

But why do honest PC players have to be punished for that?

and another thing: There are illegal copies on consoles, too. There are just no CD-keys to prove them. I know people, who learn about cracking the console even before they buy them and dont buy consoles that haven't been cracked yet.

and I'd realy like to do something, but I can't =/