Titan Quest Developer shuts down due to Piracy?
The developers of the awesome Titan Quest and its expansion Titan Quest: Immortal Throne have shut their doors and closed shop. Iron Lore Entertainment has announced via its official website (http://ironlore.com) that it had ceased game development as of February 19 and that former staffers were on the hunt for positions elsewhere. The official statement blames “several unrelated events” that left Iron Lore unable to secure funding for its next project.
However THQ’s Director of Creative Management has ranted that Iron Lore shut down primarily due to rampant piracy on the PC.
Michael Fitch, Director of Creative Management at THQ, publisher of both Titan Quest titles, helps to shed some light on part of the reason in a rant posted yesterday to the Quarter To Three forums.
His targets? Piracy on the PC platform and dealing with hardware vendors, two factors which make developing for the platform “an uphill slog”, are at least partially to blame.
Fitch says that Titan Quest actually did okay. But that’s about as positive as his venting gets.
“We didn’t lose money on it,” he says. “But if even a tiny fraction of the people who pirated the game had actually spent some god-damn money for their 40+ hours of entertainment, things could have been very different today.”
Fitch goes on to lament, “Some really good people made a seriously good game, and they might still be in business if piracy weren’t so rampant on the PC. That’s a fact.” He also points to distressing data that “pegs the piracy rate at between 70-85% on PC in the US, 90%+ in Europe, off the charts in Asia.”
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