James Delahunty
31 Jan 2007 10:26
Sports Interactive has been forced to abandon its Eastside Hockey Manager because of what the company describes as "mounting piracy". Managing director Miles Jacobson explained the situation in a forum post right after the company released the final patch for the game. Despite getting excellent reviews, the game's sales simply did not pick up, even in its strongest location, Scandinavia.
"The sales in Scandinavia, that had pretty much kept the game going, dropped heavily, from our analysis of the situation, mainly due to the game getting hacked before release, and pirated," Jacobson explained. The company had opted for digital distribution instead of offering a boxed version for the title.
"We had more licenses than any other hockey game in history, it was the best Hockey management game in the history of gaming. So, despite Hockey being a bit less popular post the hiatus of the sport in the US in 2004, we still couldn't fail, right? Wrong. The orders came in a drizzle, rather than a flood," said Jacobson.
"We scratched our heads trying to work out what had gone wrong. And then someone pointed out that the game was being pirated, and was available as a torrent from lots of different pirating sites. Then we sat there and watched as the claimed amount of downloads on those sites went up and up, as sales stayed static." he added.
Whatever your stance is on file sharing, you have to understand the frustration you would have if you were in this situation; watching a game you paid to develop get excessively pirated and not sold. "Basically, the game did not bring in enough money to cover the development costs, let alone the license fees on top of that," Jacobson explained.
"So we've had to make the decision to stop development on the game for now - it doesn't mean that it'll never come back, but for the foreseeable future, there will not be another version of Eastside Hockey Manager." he added. He said anyone working on the game has now been relocated to other projects within the company.
Jacobson also has some words for people who've downloaded the game illegally: "And to those of you who pirated it, this is what happens when you steal. There are no excuses you can give that are valid for stealing - you have lead to the demise of a game that you enjoyed playing."
While you can easily understand the anger from the company over this problem, you still have to wonder whether anyone who downloaded the game illegally would have ever considered buying it at all.
Source:
GamesIndustry.biz