I Am Alive to be released for PC next month

I Am Alive, a linear post apocalyptic survival game by Ubisoft, will be getting a PC release soon, according to RockPaperShotgun. Earlier, the developers had said that they would not release a PC version of the game because PC gamers wouldn’t buy it anyway. The developers had blamed piracy, and claimed that less than 50,000 people would buy the PC version of the game. Six months later, the game is getting a PC release on September 13. Ubisoft has released a trailer for the PC version of the game.

I Am Alive takes place in the fictional American city of Haventon, one year after the Event, a worldwide cataclysmic event that wiped out most of the human civilization, and left the world in ruins and barely habitable, with the ground now covered by a toxic cloud of dust and ash. The player controls a man who is struggling for survival in a desolated city as he tries to reunite with his long lost wife and daughter.

More from News & Analysis

What is the US HIRE Bill and why is India’s $250-billion IT sector worried? Is the internet dead? What's this theory that OpenAI's Sam Altman says might be true?

Earlier, Stanislas Mettra, Creative Director of I Am Alive, was refusing to do a PC port of the game. Here is what he told Inc Gamers: “We’ve heard loud and clear that PC gamers are bitching about there being no version for them,” said Mettra. “But are these people just making noise just because there’s no version or because it’s a game they actually want to play? Would they buy it if we made it?”

Finally, a PC version

Mettra also mentions piracy as a reason, “It’s hard because there’s so much piracy and so few people are paying for PC games that we have to precisely weigh it up against the cost of making it. Perhaps it will only take 12 guys three months to port the game to PC, it’s not a massive cost but it’s still a cost. If only 50,000 people buy the game then it’s not worth it”.

According to an earlier report, Ubisoft claims to be facing a piracy rate that is higher than 90 percent. As a result of this, Head of Ubisoft Yves Guillemot said that they will be going for the free-to-play market on the PC. Guillemot said, “It’s a way to get closer to your customers, to make sure you have a revenue. On PC it’s only around five to seven per cent of the players who pay for F2P, but normally on PC it’s only about five to seven per cent who pay anyway, the rest is pirated. It’s around a 93-95 per cent piracy rate, so it ends up at about the same percentage. The revenue we get from the people who play is more long term, so we can continue to bring content”.