Overwritten.net
Games => General Gaming => Topic started by: Pugnate on Thursday, February 14, 2008, 06:34:56 AM
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Kinda Depressing:
http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/02/13/gears-of-war-creator-update/
“I think people would rather make a game that sells 4.5 million copies than a million and “Gears” is at 4.5 million right now on the 360. I think the PC is just in disarray… what’s driving the PC right now is ‘Sims’-type games and ‘WoW‘ and a lot of stuff that’s in a web-based interface. You just click on it and play it. That’s the direction PC is evolving into So for me, the PC is kind of the secondary part of what we’re doing. It’s important for us, but right now making AAA games on consoles is where we’re at.”
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Well, that's certainly disheartenting to hear from CliffyB, but at the same time, people have said that PC gaming is dying for like a decade now and still some pretty awesome games keep coming out for them. And some of the bigger hits (not counting The Sims or WoW) sell better today than they did ten years ago.
PC gaming is full of pirates and games don't sell as well from a volume perspective compared to consoles, but PC games are selling alright considering the history of the PC itself.
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PC gaming is full of pirates and games don't sell as well from a volume perspective compared to consoles, but PC games are selling alright considering the history of the PC itself
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=17110
I've got some sad news for you my friend. PC game sales are depressingly down by 60 million this year.
Sales from 2007:
1. World Of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade (Vivendi) - 2.25 million
2. World Of Warcraft (Vivendi) - 914,000
3. The Sims 2: Seasons Expansion Pack (Electronic Arts) - 433,000
4. Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Activision) - 383,000
5. Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars (Electronic Arts) - 343,000
6. Sim City 4 Deluxe (Electronic Arts) - 284,000
7. The Sims 2 (Electronic Arts) - 281,000
8. The Sims 2: Bon Voyage Expansion Pack (Electronic Arts) - 271,000
9. Age Of Empires III (Microsoft) - 259,000
10. The Sims 2: Pets Expansion Pack (Electronic Arts) - 236,000
Take away WoW and The Sims.... and what the hell do you have left?
COD4 sold 343,000 on the PC in 2007. Compare that to over 7 million copies on the 360.
What's next in line? AOE3 at 259,000.
That's pretty horrible.
Consider this: Crysis, UT3, Gears of War, Bioshock, Company of Heroes, Supreme Commander, Quake Wars, World in Conflict, etc etc were all unable to sell 200,000 copies in 2007.
So what the hell is going on here?
Not even a few years ago, these games would have easily sold a million copies each. And it can't be all piracy.
Having said that, I must say that Cliffy B's comments aren't all that valid. First of all, if Gears of War sells 4 million on the 360 and a year later sells 1 million on the PC, then is that really bad considering most people have already played it?
Secondly you take UT3 and you realize that it was basically the same game in a shiny new engine. The singleplayer was an embarrassing joke.
http://www.thesimexchange.com/search.php?string=unreal+tournament+2007
As you can see, UT3 sold virtually the same on PS3 and the PC, despite the PS3 market having far fewer shooters. So the point is, maybe there was something wrong with the game? In the end, yes, we do still have a problem here, but I don't think UT3 was that good of a game to begin with.
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I tried to make this argument a few months ago and was vehemently shot down.
http://www.overwritten.net/forum/index.php?topic=2505.0
I don't think anyone can reasonably deny that gaming has definitely shifted and is console-centric. Games you'd buy on the PC a few years ago are being sold in droves on consoles now. CoD4 is just one example. Developers are going to go where the money is, and right now and for the foreseeable future the money platforms are consoles.
Sure, the PC will always have its niche market, but that market is decidedly smaller than it used to be.
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Where the fuck was I during that thread??
I have to say, that things aren't as bad as those figures suggest. STEAM just hit 15 million users, and by all accounts online sales are eating a lot into this. Yes there is a problem, and yes it is big, but perhaps online sales are one of the reasons for the decline.
Also consider that the 360 has 17 million owners, and STEAM has 15 million active users, so there is a market for PC, even if it is a bit odd.
Keep in mind, that this problem is restricted to North America only.
PC games are selling like hotcakes in Europe. That's why you will continue to see games like The Witcher and Crysis. So unless George Bush decides that its high time he invaded Europe -- which lets face it, could happen -- PC gaming will have enough sales to see at least some sort of activity.
Just going to paste some info on Crysis that I said in another thread where I was having an argument with some ignorant poster. So here is my quote:
I was listening to the 1up podcast, and they were doubting the sales figures. Even people on these forums oftens express disbelief. A wide misconception seems to be that the game in the USA sold 86,000 since it was released, which isn't true:
http://www.thesimexchange.com/blogpost.php?post_id=455
That is 86,000 in the last two weeks of November. Doesn't include December, Jan., etc.
Here are Crysis sales in the USA during December:
http://www.yougamers.com/news/16639_us_pc_game_sales_charts_-_december_22nd/
No2., right behind COD4.
Assuming it even reached 250,000 in the USA, it isn't hard to see why it reached 1 million worldwide, considering Germany and UK Crysis sales are still going strong.
Crysis is still in the top 3 in the UK, and it is selling. In Germany it is still the best selling PC game (ahead of COD4), and in the top 4 overall software sales -- which is incredible. Yes it is beating all PS3 and Xbox 360 titles in Germany.
Recent sales figures:
Sales in Germany:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=32923
Sales in UK:
http://www.yougamers.com/news/17330_uk_pc_game_sales_charts_-_january_26th/
But we do have a problem in North America.
Just thinking of RPGs; Baldur's Gate, Baludr's Gate II, Neverwinter Nights all sold over 2.5 million copies back in the day. Diablo II sold 4.5 million.
Now the last Neverwinter Nights game only sold 1.4 million, and that was largely due to Europe. The Witcher hit over a million in Europe and barely 200 000 in the USA. Meanwhile Mass Effect just hit 1.6 million in two months.
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NPD numbers mean shit because they dont track any online sales. Down $60 million last year? How many of those 15 million Steam users bought multiple games? According to most of the IGN PCGB board, most of those people said they havent bought a game at retail all year, opting to buy games off Steam instead. While that won't be the same for everyone, the simple fact that none of those sales get tracked could easily make up the $60 million. Not to mention the casual game space that sells online like PopCap.
As for CliffyBs comment. Gears was a year old console port that was tied to shitty GFWL, which turned people off it. UT3 is just like the last UT but prettier. Both games requires some heafty systems to make them look their best. Gee, I wonder why they didn't sell 4 million copies of each....
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The problem here is that STEAM don't release sales figures. But come on dude, we are facing a decline here. It probably isn't as bad as it is being made out to be, largely because of online distribution, but even if you consider those titles that aren't sold online, you will notice a big downward trend.
Also you wrote $15 million STEAM users, which is funny. :P
Also I have to disagree with you on the UT3 hefty requirements thing. The game is fantastic at scaling. On my sister's 7950GT, it runs brilliantly. On my cousin's 7300, it again runs really well.
However you can tell where the bloody focus is. In advertising for UT3 in most mags, I saw it said,"Brought to you by the makers of Gears of War."
That I found a bit pathetic. It should be the other way around.
Also for some wonderfully passionate responses, go here:
http://boards.1up.com/zd/board/message?board.id=games&thread.id=596409
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I don't know. Is there a problem? Yeah, a little one. I just don't think its nearly as bad as its made out to be. I'm still convinced that Steam (and stuff like Direct2Drive, plus subscriptions like Gametap) sales would easily account for the slump in sales this year.
I wish the NPD would section out systems. They single out PC software sales, but why not show individual console sales? I want to see how the DS did against the 360. Plus if gives a more accurate picture.
Same with software. I want to see top 10 lists per console. Hell, I want to see top 50 lists. I want to see how quickly things drop off. Looking at just the top 10 list of all consoles combined:
1. Halo 3 (Xbox 360, Microsoft) - 4.82 million
2. Wii Play w/remote (Wii, Nintendo) - 4.12 million
3. Call of Duty 4 (Xbox 360, Activision) - 3.04 million
4. Guitar Hero III: Legends Of Rock w/guitar (PlayStation 2, Neversoft/Budcat/Activision) 2.72 million
5. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii, Nintendo) - 2.52 million
6. Pokemon Diamond (DS, Nintendo) - 2.48 million
7. Madden NFL 08 (PS2, Electronic Arts) - 1.90 million
8. Guitar Hero II w/guitar (PS2, Activision) - 1.89 million
9. Assassin's Creed (Xbox 360, Ubisoft) - 1.87 million
10. Mario Party 8 (Wii, Nintendo) - 1.82 million
You're down to 1.82 million by #10. Yes, thats still a lot. And a lot more than most of the PC sales. But how quickly does it go down from there? Do you get sub-million sales by #15? #20? Where? On a per-console basis how quickly does it drop? Sure console heavy hitter really do hit hard and put up huge numbers, but I'm sure if you look at the entire thing it tapers off quickly, just like the PC.
Though the PC top 10 could teach devs something. They are all games that are fairly easy to get into and dont require a beefy system to run (CoD4 being the "odd man out" I suppose). Maybe thats why you see EA doing Battlefield Heroes.
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Well even by the list you posted, doesn't the difference appear pretty large to you? Sure you've got Orange Box sales on STEAM, but a lot of these games aren't on it. The Witcher should have sold a lot more than 200,000. Company of Heroes deserved to move millions of pieces.
Though I have to say, I think 2008 will be an incredible year sales wise for the PC.
You've got:
1. StarCraft = Estimated 15 million sales
2. Spore = 8 million
3. WarCraft Rise of the Bitch King: 10 million
Then you have Far Cry 2, Fallout 3, Warhammer online, and Age of fucking Conan!
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I don't know. Is there a problem? Yeah, a little one. I just don't think its nearly as bad as its made out to be. I'm still convinced that Steam (and stuff like Direct2Drive, plus subscriptions like Gametap) sales would easily account for the slump in sales this year.
I wish the NPD would section out systems. They single out PC software sales, but why not show individual console sales? I want to see how the DS did against the 360. Plus if gives a more accurate picture.
Same with software. I want to see top 10 lists per console. Hell, I want to see top 50 lists. I want to see how quickly things drop off. Looking at just the top 10 list of all consoles combined:
1. Halo 3 (Xbox 360, Microsoft) - 4.82 million
2. Wii Play w/remote (Wii, Nintendo) - 4.12 million
3. Call of Duty 4 (Xbox 360, Activision) - 3.04 million
4. Guitar Hero III: Legends Of Rock w/guitar (PlayStation 2, Neversoft/Budcat/Activision) 2.72 million
5. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii, Nintendo) - 2.52 million
6. Pokemon Diamond (DS, Nintendo) - 2.48 million
7. Madden NFL 08 (PS2, Electronic Arts) - 1.90 million
8. Guitar Hero II w/guitar (PS2, Activision) - 1.89 million
9. Assassin's Creed (Xbox 360, Ubisoft) - 1.87 million
10. Mario Party 8 (Wii, Nintendo) - 1.82 million
You're down to 1.82 million by #10. Yes, thats still a lot. And a lot more than most of the PC sales. But how quickly does it go down from there? Do you get sub-million sales by #15? #20? Where? On a per-console basis how quickly does it drop? Sure console heavy hitter really do hit hard and put up huge numbers, but I'm sure if you look at the entire thing it tapers off quickly, just like the PC.
Though the PC top 10 could teach devs something. They are all games that are fairly easy to get into and dont require a beefy system to run (CoD4 being the "odd man out" I suppose). Maybe thats why you see EA doing Battlefield Heroes.
I'm sure the numbers do sharply drop off at some point. But you also have to consider that while the console market may be larger than the PC market, it's also much more diluted. So to me, those console sales figures mean more than PC sales figures for the sheer fact that they're involved in much more competition for your dollar.
And I really think you guys are overestimating DD sales. Although I obviously have no way to prove or disprove that.
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Heh, something else I noticed on the PC top 10: 9 of the 10 games are PC only. Perhaps people aren't so inclined to buy multiplatform titles on PC?
*EDIT since seeing your latest post*
I agree that more games deserved to sell better. I guess I can't really be angry that devs want to sell 4 million copies compared to 200,000. Maybe thats the shift that'll happen in the PC world. Games designed where 200,000 is enough to sell. Well...I'll say 2 million. As you can see, only a handful sell more than that.
Speaking of The Witcher, this came out today:
Warsaw, 14th February, 2008. CD Projekt RED is proud to announce that the company's debut video game production, The Witcher, has sold more than 600,000 copies worldwide in just three months.
Adam Kicnski, CD Projekt RED Joint CEO, commented on the sales results: "We are very happy with The Witcher's performance to date. Our goal was - and still is - to reach one million copies sold during the first year. 600,000 games sold in just three months brings us much closer to this ambitious goal. It's a great success for us, made all the more impressive by the fact that The Witcher was created by a completely new team and it is our debut both as a game developer and in bringing our products to a global audience. The task was not easy, as The Witcher brand was completely unknown in many markets, and it was released in a busy season alongside franchises that have been on the market for many years. Yet, I can confidently say that we've passed this trial victoriously. Actually, only now - as we've conquered many of the initial barriers - can we spread our wings, which, of course, we intend to do. Such success wouldn't be possible without our publishers' support - Atari, Noviy Disk and the publishing branch of CD Projekt. They all put a lot of work into the game's promotion in individual markets."
The exceptionally warm welcome given to The Witcher by media and gamers around the world facilitated the commercial success of our game. This grand welcome is illustrated by 48 awards and distinctions - a number which is constantly rising - including the prestigious "PC RPG of the Year" from popular outlets like IGN.com, GameSpy, Play Magazine and the US edition of PC Gamer, as well as the award for "Readers' Choice Winner - Best RPG" at GameSpot (see the full list of awards: http://www.thewitcher.com/community/en/awards/). The game has received exceptionally high ratings from players all over the world, which is manifested in high average scores in players' reviews at sites like Metacritic (9.4/10), GameTrailers (9.1/10) and GameSpot (8.8/10).
Adam Kicinski also hints at the developer's plans for the near future: "Our plans include continuous game support, the release of the powerful Da'jinni module editor, the continued release of game updates and patches, and in late spring gamers can expect a pretty big surprise, which will be revealed at a press conference really soon - February 18th! We are still working on making the game better and we will actively support our fan community, which is getting bigger and bigger. Unfortunately I can't reveal anything further at this time, but I assure you that we won't rest on our laurels and we have very promising plans for the future. We set our standards very high with The Witcher and we surely don't want to lower them in the future."
Woah, bit surprise in 4 days!
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I think denying PC game sales are declining is, well, denial. Piracy is a big reason, but it's not the only one. K-Man made some good points in his thread. Think about the difference between a Gamecube or PS2 and a 360 or PS3. Finally consoles can handle the audiovisuals as well as they need to be. Diminishing returns means diminishing perceived differences between PC and console power. The lack of of a mouse equivalent continues to be a problem for consoles, but only for certain types of games. (And it well be addressed at some point, maybe in a Wii fashion.)
In the meantime, PCs have been going through fundamental upheavals in architecture, and the top games continue to demand the latest and greatest. Multicore CPUs, PCIe replacing AGP, memory differences, 64-bit vs 32-bit, AMD vs Intel, Nvidia vs ATi--no wait, ATi is AMD--XP vs Vista, to SLI or not to SLI, that is the silliness, and don't forget that dedicated 20-amp line just for your PC's graphics. A college-level course in PC building isn't necessary, but it might help if you don't have experienced friends. How's your bank account? Can you afford PC gaming over the next 6 months?
Not everyone is going to go through that shit if they have a viable alternative. What are the console shortcomings that get in the way of using them to simplify the time and money investment in game hardware? (1) What you see and what you hear--handled. (2) Online interaction--handled. (3) Online distribution--handled. (4) Control--needs work for FPS games mostly. (5) Storage--handled.
With those facts whittling away at the mass market, PCs will survive only as an elite, niche gaming environment, and as a casual environment for smaller downloaded and online games like Peggle. The latter can be huge. The former cannot.
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Idol, that's good. Again, what would we PC gamers do without Europe?
Cobra, this is in my mind one of the issues:
http://www.joystiq.com/2006/07/12/epics-mark-rein-intel-is-killing-pc-gaming/
From what I understand, it would cost Intel $4 extra per on board video to make sure all their parts are capable of running the latest games on some level.
But they won't do it, of course.
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I don't think so. He's adding 2+2 and coming up with 7. Do you really think that if it were as simple as to beef up integrated graphics, that it wouldn't have happened already? A good graphics card is a parallel computer. It is fully self-contained, complete with its own processor, I/O and memory. In this case the "O" is all-important, because it goes straight out to the display device. It's not stuck at some internal level on the motherboard.
If you want to be cynical, look at it another way. Graphics cards have created their own need. Now games demand that kind of specialized performance, where once the CPU and support processors sufficed. Graphics chips integrated into the traditional PC architecture cannot compete, and cannot meet the current software's demands.
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And I really think you guys are overestimating DD sales. Although I obviously have no way to prove or disprove that.
I think DD is important, especially this year when its taken off and PC numbers look "down". Its down $60 million this year. Steam has 15 million users. If each of those user spent only $4 on a Steam game you've made up the difference. Thats less than Peggle. Hell, I think I paid that for Geometry Wars on Steam last year. Not all 15 million will buy stuff, but the people buying multiple $50 games from the service more than makes up for it. And Steam is just one service that sells games online. And NONE of them are tracked.
I don't deny that consoles do sell more. As Cobra showed, its easy to see why. Its simpler, its generally cheaper. Oddly enough, I think games being as expensive as they are to make helps the PC, especially with Microsoft in the console space. They are spending assloads of money to create a game on 360, and without very substantial changes you can port it to the PC...why wouldn't you? If you can get 200,000 more copies sold without much effort, it makes sense to do.
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The thing with a console is that one company is buying all the components, putting them together, and then shipping them at a massive loss.
In a PC, you are buying components seperately from sellers keeping profits for each piece so yea... it is tough to go against console gaming when a company like MS is so willing to back it up, yet doesn't give a damn about Windows.
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I thought I saw something about tracking online sales (http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=17327) recently. It definitely needs to be done.
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Steam has 15 million users. If each of those user spent only $4 on a Steam game you've made up the difference
Been thinking about this, and Idol is right. In fact he wins the thread.
Even if 10 million are active, it is easy to see them spending $10 a year. Think about how that NPD list doesn't have The Orange Box, which definitely sold a gazilion copies.
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Yes, it absolutely needs to be done. That Gamasutra article I just linked is hopefully the answer, eventually.
Edit: But note that console sales will be likewise boosted. I've seen people post on the 360 forums that they buy all XBLA releases as soon as they appear. There's a lot of money being made online with consoles as well.
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Suddenly I feel better.
Thanks guys. I love you.
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Idol, that's good. Again, what would we PC gamers do without Europe?
Cobra, this is in my mind one of the issues:
http://www.joystiq.com/2006/07/12/epics-mark-rein-intel-is-killing-pc-gaming/
From what I understand, it would cost Intel $4 extra per on board video to make sure all their parts are capable of running the latest games on some level.
But they won't do it, of course.
Why would Intel do it? They do processors, not GPU's.
Back to what I said in the other thread, there needs to be a standard set for vid cards, basically -- and ATI and Nvidia are the leaders, so they need to do this themselves. The more I think about it, the more I think all these low-end vid cards, just need to go away from PC gaming period. That's namely b/c the mid-range to high-end cards are what ATI and NVidia are putting in major console gaming systems (like the X360) AND b/c those are what vid cards are selling from retail and online outlets.
And this is also what the developers are namely pushing for minimum requirements for the vid card, if you look at things -- all mid-range to high-range cards are supported chipsets in most of these games; all GF cards ending in 600 to 800. So, basically, that would be your 6600, 6800, 7600, 7800, 8600, and 8800.
All them 6200, 7200, 8500 -- they all got to go. This way, retail chains won't sell PC's w/ that integrated junk AND other low-end card stuff. Yes, there's WAY yoo many vid card flavors. Let's cut them DOWN, ATI and NVidia.
Hell, I remember in the market, when basically the GF2 and GF2 MX series ran the vid card market -- that was all before they came up w/ the GF2 Pro, Ti, Ultra, and many more variations of the GF2 card came about when they pretty much began going to the crazy vid card wars w/ ATI, where both were trying to outdo each other w/ every card model being made.
But we do have a problem in North America.
Just thinking of RPGs; Baldur's Gate, Baludr's Gate II, Neverwinter Nights all sold over 2.5 million copies back in the day. Diablo II sold 4.5 million.
Now the last Neverwinter Nights game only sold 1.4 million, and that was largely due to Europe. The Witcher hit over a million in Europe and barely 200 000 in the USA. Meanwhile Mass Effect just hit 1.6 million in two months.
Also, just look at the requirements of those games, when they came out. None of those were stiff, for their time being for their minimum requirements. Plus, that was also the beginnings of a major boom in the PC RPG genre, those years -- something during that time, the PC was in dire need of.
Crysis, GH3 PC, and Stranglehold PC, on the other hand -- very, very stiff for their time.
I'll be curious to see what Mass Effect's min. requirements will be on the PC, myself...probably similar to that of many other current multi-platformed X360 and PC games, like say Bioshock.
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Why would Intel do it? They do processors, not GPU's.
Did you visit the link? The point of contention is onboard video. It should be at the very least capable enough of running games at some basic level. Costs are estimated at a couple of bucks or so per mobo.
A lot of people are pissed at Intel because of this, as Intel on board video accounts for 70% or something.
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Did you visit the link? The point of contention is onboard video. It should be at the very least capable enough of running games at some basic level. Costs are estimated at a couple of bucks or so per mobo.
A lot of people are pissed at Intel because of this, as Intel on board video accounts for 70% or something.
But, really -- how many game developers and games do you think would support an Intel integrated-card, if Intel did such a thing??
Do you think it'll put that much of a major dent on ATI and NVidia w/ their GPU business? Do you think if Intel did such a thing, it would get the hardcore gamers to leave either ATI or NVidia???
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It doesnt have to make a dent against GPUs, it just has to make the absolute bare-minimum better than it currently is. This isnt for hardcores, this is for the person that just buys a computer and wants to play something more complicated than minesweeper.
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But, really -- how many game developers and games do you think would support an Intel integrated-card, if Intel did such a thing??
Do you think it'll put that much of a major dent on ATI and NVidia w/ their GPU business? Do you think if Intel did such a thing, it would get the hardcore gamers to leave either ATI or NVidia???
I mean this in the nicest possible way... what the hell are you saying? :P
This has nothing to do with Nvidia or ATi. It is about increasing the size of the market, so that any Tom, Dick, or Hairy could in theory pick up a game and be at least able to run it without having to worry about GPUs -- things too complicated for them. This would mean that anyone with a computer could at least run Civilization IV, or Unreal Tournament at min settings.
And this is good for ATi and Nvidia as well. With a broader market, newer gamers are more likely to want to upgrade.
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PC gaming is fucked because there are too many players involved with entirely different motivations and goals. That's not going to change. Sure, Intel could spend $4 on their integrated offerings, but they're happy saving that $4 dollars per unit and selling just as many motherboards. Who can blame them? ATI and Nvidia could set a standard and not offer low end cards (the market there is already being eaten up by integrated chip sets anyways) but the mainstream cards are still their bread and butter, yet often can't run the newest games either. What do you want them to do, get rid of those? Lower the price of the high-end cards? Why do that when they make enough money as it is selling high end cards at steep premiums to people who will run out and buy the next card as soon as it comes out anyways. Retailers could only sell PCs with mid-range cards in them, but why? It pushes up costs for consumers who have no interest in playing games in the first place and probably has a negative affect on the reseller and retailer markup. They don't give a fuck how games sell, so why would they make any sacrifices.
Lets not kid ourselves here, PC gaming isn't a victim of anything but poor execution across the board. Console gaming has exploded in recent years and the growth of PC gaming has not kept up. PC gaming might not be 'dying' according to sales, but it's certainly not in the same place it was previously. There's a reason for this: most people find console gaming more satisfying, less complicated, and generally more cost effective. Beyond that, most publishers and developers have found it to be more lucrative and less risky. I don't think they're necessarily wrong in any way.
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I hate these pointless threads. It's all been said before, it keeps being said, and there are lots of things to consider on both sides. But what it comes down to is that PC gaming is not and never has been dying. Sure, it's losing more money to console sales now, but gaming in general is a billion times more popular now than it was 10 years ago, PC or otherwise. Of course you're going to lose more money to less complicated systems when you start massing a huge market of dipshits who don't know how to turn on their fucking microwave, let alone operate a computer, but that doesn't immediately mean that your business is dying off. Add to that most people droning on about the PC's decline drastically underestimate the popularity of online distribution systems (and most I've queried don't even know how many there are, meaning they can't even try to guess at how big the combined user base is across the board... there's an awful lot more than just Steam out there that needs to be considered). Idol pretty much said all that already, and gpw and Cobra pretty much said the rest of it. It's interesting and all, but totally inconclusive and nobody can claim that they know where it's going to lead. Something may need to change in the PC arena, but usually when things need to change, eventually they do.
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I for one look forward to only being able to play Bejeweled and The Sims. I hate choices.
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haha..
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Why is the thread pointless? This isn't a political or religious discussion. Either PC gaming is going down or it isn't. Online sales either make up the deficit from lower sales in stores, or they don't. Opinion is irrelevant. I just want to know what's what, and to discuss why. If this is pointless, so is the entire games board.
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Yup exactly. I am not sure what is OK to discuss anymore. :P
I mean I missed the first two discussions on this, and the whole thread was triggered by what Cliffy B said. I don't think discussing what major ex PC developers are saying is pointless.
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Lets say the 60 million was made up by digital distribution. These numbers i posted in my thread are still alarming
* 1998 - $1.7 billion
* 1999 - $1.9 billion
* 2000 - $1.78 billion (84.9 million units)
* 2001 - $1.75 billion (83.6 million units)
* 2002 - $1.4 billion (61.5 million units)
* 2003 - $1.2 billion (52.8 million units)
* 2004 - $1.1 billion (45 million units)
* 2005 - $953 million (38 million) [5] + $344 million digital sales [6]
* 2006 - $970 million [7]
The sad thing being that saturation of PCs in home has steadily INCREASED since 1998. So more people have the potential to play PC games, but yet the numbers have been on a steady decline.
The more developers see their titles sell on consoles, the less they're going to develop their premiere titles for PC. The culture and attitude has changed for the most part in the past 10 years. People aren't overly concerned with staying 'on top' of the PC spec game, continually updating their systems to stay current. With consoles looking (and playing) as good as they do, the diminishing returns no longer warrant the money spent for incremental increase in graphical capabilities.
You're still able to get a graphically superior experience on PC, but that gap has closed to the point to where its almost nonexistant. And as good as console games look right now, we've barely even tapped the surface of what the PS3 can do, much less the 360.
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You have games that are available online as well as at retail, so there is an excuse that they are selling online which explains the low retail sales. But what about titles that are available only on retail? Their sales aren't being eaten online, so why aren't they selling so well?
Still I stand by the statement that hardcore PC gaming will never die as long as the European market thrives. Crysis has sold a million in Europe, and only taken 2 months. It is still no1 in most of Europe, and is predicted to sell at least 4 million by the end of the year. That's just evidence enough that PC gaming isn't going anywhere.
You're still able to get a graphically superior experience on PC, but that gap has closed to the point to where its almost nonexistant.
hahhahahaa wtf?? I completely disagree with you here. I also have to disagree with your earlier statement from that other thread, about cross platform releases being better on the consoles. In fact I am not even sure where you've come up with that. I've seen this question asked on other forums like 1up and Penny Arcade, and you are most definitely in the minority in your opinion. I am not just talking PC fans here. I've seen most 360 fans comment on how games look and play better on a PC.
So yea I don't know where you'd come up with that, and I can say without doubt that you are wrong.
360 gamers quit PC gaming because their console was an incredible deal, and highly convenient. Today, if given a free exchange, most 360 owners would swap their consoles for a high end PC in a heartbeat.
Like Bill Gates said,"Console gaming will always be but a snapshot of PC hardware."
While consoles at launch look comparable to high end PCs, they don't get any better with age.
The 360 was great deal at the time when the 8800GTX was $600, it isn't really anymore. An 8800GT is about $220 and is 95% capable of what an 8800GTX can do, and is quite capable of outclassing a 360.
Let's start with the game you talked about, Oblivion, which I think you are the first person I've seen say is a better is a better experience on the 360. Again, I can't express my surprise enough, and I am just wondering if you've actually been exposed to PC gaming enough. You don't have to even take my word for it, just ask the question on the general 1up forums, where you will easily find more 360 owners.
So lets start:
Oblivion performance and visuals:
http://www.gamespot.com/features/6147028/index.html
Check out that link.
A medium spec PC with a decent processor and a mid-range DirectX 9 video card like a GeForce 6600 GT allows you to enable a few more graphics settings like view distance and some shadows. Take it easy on the view distance settings since they will lower the frame rate. The Xbox 360 version of the game looks slightly better overall, though not by much. It also runs smoother, though you can't see that from a still image. You can tweak a mid-range PC to look just as nice, but don't be surprised if frame rates dip into the teens.
There you have it. A 6600GT which is less than an entry level PC video card, especially today, is able to run Oblivion on near 360 levels.
Oblivion looks better on a high-end PC than on the Xbox 360. Note the additional foliage visible in the background. We matched up resolutions for screenshot comparison purposes here, but a high-end PC with an AMD Athlon FX-60 CPU and GeForce 7900 GTX graphics card can enable all the settings and take resolutions up to 1600x1200 or more and still maintain smooth frame rates. We noticed that the Xbox 360 version had better antialiasing since our PC version couldn't enable HDR and antialiasing at the same time. Of course on the PC version, you can get rid of jaggies the old-fashioned way by jacking up the resolution.
The 7900GTX outclasses the Xbox 360. This is an old article, from a time when the 7900GTX was top of the line.
With an 8800GT (which is twice as fast as a 7900GTX), you can play at a higher resolution than the 360, and can run at three times the grass density, twice the view distance, double the environmental models, and three times the AI population density -- yet still play at 60 fps.
I am not making any of this up. It is actually how I play Oblivon.
PC: 1 XBOX 360: 0
Oblivion controls:
On the 360, you play Oblivion with the 360 controller. On the PC, you can also play with the 360 controller as well as the far superior keyboard/mouse combination, that allows more precision and a lot more keys for more interaction and immersion.
PC: 2 XBOX 360: 0
Modifications:
Remember the drubbing the PC gave the 360 in the visuals department? Well after you install some of the free and easy to install visual modifications, the PC version of Oblivion looks just far more fabulous. I can't even put it into words. You have to see for yourself:
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?id=41&view=Articles.Detail
It isn't just the visual quality. You've got a far better map, interface, and inventory system. You've got a huge overhaul in sound as well.
And then there are the many numerous gameplay flaws in Oblivion that are fixed. I mean the list is really endless.
What about the 360? Well you have mods, but they suck and they cost money, so -1 to the 360 here.
FINAL SCORE:
PC: 3 XBOX 360: -1
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Continuing on Xbox 360 games looking as good as PC games.
Here is a little game called Crysis:
(http://www.gameguru.in/images/crysis-co-op.jpg)
There is no way in hell the 360 can manage the same visuals an 8800GT powered PC can, as stated by the developers of Crysis. While they are porting it to the 360, they said they will have to compromise on the visuals.
What about games like Gears of War? Call of Duty 4? Unreal Tournament? They all look better on the PC, with better textures, higher resolutions, anti aliasing etc. And again, the keyboard mouse setup is just superior. The PC is also more capable of holding more players in multiplayer games.
In COD4, you can have 32 player matches on the PC, while the 360 is restricted to half that.
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Yeah I'll always take multiplatform games on the PC. Controls better with kb/m? Check. Controls better with a gamepad? Check. Plus it almost always looks better on PC, or at the very least can be made to look better later.
Sure, there is something to be said about popping in Madden on a 360 and playing with a friend. But just because there is that convenience doesn't have anything to do with what FPS games are capable of on PCs vs. consoles. I can't believe people bought and play UT3 on consoles (to be fair I don't know why they do on PC either, but it makes more sense there). Or CoD4... maybe that's a better example.
Convenience I think isn't even a truly fair argument. I bet I can start CoD4 faster on my PC than I could on my 360. All I do is log in and double-click an icon. On a 360 you have the whole boot-up time thrown in there as well. Sure you could say what about CD checks on a PC? Well you have to put the disc in a console too.
The cost of gaming PCs is an issue sure. One that people on this board are very aware of and that does affect some purchasing decisions sure. But if you have the PC, there is almost no reason to own a 360 unless you're a huge Halo fan and can't wait for the eventual PC release.
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Pugnate, I can sum up how I feel about your last two posts in 2 sentences.
In 1999 PC games were far superior to their console counterparts, but today that gap is nowhere near as wide. Crysis is nice, but I'd much rather play a "lesser" version of said game on a 300 dollar console than pay well over a grand to buy a PC that played it at full spec.
Like I said, diminishing returns.
Also, I find it completely hilarious that you began the thread in support of the idea that PC gaming is dying, and then turning an about-face about halfway through.
Speaking of which, I have never said that computer gaming will "die". It will always exist in some regard. However, it's rather hard to dispute the cold, hard fact that console game sales continue to rise while PC sales continue to regress. And that's not something you can even remotely fully blame on the advent of Digital distribution and the fact that figures are unreported.
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And as good as console games look right now, we've barely even tapped the surface of what the PS3 can do, much less the 360.
Seriously now my friend, no offense, but are you dreaming? Do you really believe that??
The 360 has hit a wall, and you won't see any improvements over what you have. The PS3 may have some more power on paper, but is very difficult to program for, and is infact getting games that look worse than the 360.
http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/rpg/masseffect/review.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=gssummary&tag=summary%3Breview&page=2
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/833/833640p4.html
Mass Effect:
There are some technical hitches, however. The framerate can dramatically dip at the worst possible times, and there is a lot of texture pop-in.
All of this success doesn't come without a cost. The framerate in Mass Effect is as erratic as they come. This isn't something that happens occasionally. It happens incessantly. The game also has issues loading textures in when you enter a new environment. Flat, boring scenery gets filled in with details piece by piece for a few moments each time you load in.
Quake IV:
http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/quake4/review.html
In addition, the frame rate is sort of a mess. Any time the action gets heated in a large or complex-looking area, the game starts to spin down to a surprisingly low frame rate, regardless of whether you're playing in HD resolution or on a regular TV. At some points, it gets so bad that the whole game starts to slow down, as well. You'll know when that's happening because the rate of fire on your weapons slows way, way down. Even when there's no action onscreen, just viewing the environments is enough to make the game run at a noticeably choppy rate. While there are still some cool-looking areas, the frame rate troubles drag down the entire experience.
I've read about numerous issues with frame rate drops in Gears of War, Assassin's Creed etc. If you want, I can dig up articles on those too.
I am not saying performance in the 360 is bad or anything. I just find it a joke to suggest that visuals will improve on the 360.
As for the PS3, it may have some more power on paper, but it is too difficult to program for. In fact you will never find a game look better on the PS3.
http://www.gamespot.com/features/6162742/
We expected the PlayStation 3 to ship with several games that first appeared on the Xbox 360, similar to how the Xbox 360 had a lot of Xbox ports at launch. And the PS3 did indeed arrive with a good number of games that originally shipped for the Xbox 360. This gave us the perfect opportunity to compare the graphics on both systems with several cross-platform games. You'd think that the PS3 versions would be exactly the same or slightly superior to the Xbox 360 versions, since many of these games appeared on the 360 months ago, but it seems like developers didn't use the extra time to polish up the graphics for the PS3. We found that the Xbox 360 actually had better graphics in the majority of the games we compared.
What gamespot didn't know at the time was that the PS3 was a nightmare to program for. The majority of cross platform titles to this day look better on the 360.
Here is what John Carmack says:
http://www.xbox365.com/news.cgi?id=GGririiirr05121649
http://www.nordichardware.com/news,1551.html
John Carmack - PS3 "pain in my ass"
Written by Delph1 16 August 2005 22:04
During an interview with Todd Hollenshead, president at ID Software, US gaming magazine found out what the icon and gamedeveloper John Carmack thought about the two coming game consoles that will power ID Software's latest creation, Quake 4. Carmack's grade for Xbox 360 was "great" but he wasn't convinced by PlayStation 3 where the grade was "pain in my ass". This simply a jugment on how the consoles are to work with when developing games and since Xbox 360 will be launched relatively soon the devkits should be better but at the same we can't say we are surprised the PS3 is hard to master.
Rockstar on the PS3:
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/50937
Rockstar product development VP Jeronimo Barerra has revealed that technical issues with the PS3 were partly to blame for last fall's delay of Rockstar North's Grand Theft Auto IV (PS3, X360).
"It's really no surprise to anybody that the PS3 was definitely a contributing factor to that," Barerra told MTV. "Now, we're neck and neck. That's not an issue anymore. But back then that was something we were taking into account."
Grand Theft Auto IV missed its original release window last fall and is now scheduled for release on PS3 and X360 April 29. The Xbox 360 version of GTA4 will be receiving two exclusive downloadable episodes, one before November of 2008 and one after.
At the time of the delay, Rockstar attributed the action to technical issues with both systems, though it was widely speculated that problems with the PlayStation 3 version were the root cause.
Here is EA commenting on the PS3:
EA: PS3 Dev Difficulties Still Impacting Release Dates
http://gaming.monstersandcritics.com/ps3/news/article_1389728.php
http://kotaku.com/351346/playstation-3-development-still-problematic-for-ea
http://ps3.qj.net/EA-still-having-problems-with-PS3-development/pg/49/aid/112767
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You're absolutely right I believe it. God of War II for the PS2 is a great example of how people can pull off great looking games by becoming more efficient when working with a console. Did you think that 2 years after the PS2's release that it would be capable of pulling something like God of War II off?
Quake 4 was a launch title.
I never disputed PS3 was hard to develop for. And we will indeed see better looking games when developers get a better feel for it. There's no reason to believe otherwise.
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Like Bill Gates said,"Console gaming will always be but a snapshot of PC hardware."
I thought Bill Gates also said that 640kB of RAM is all we would ever need.
Look, it's clear that console games are outselling PC games. But is that even a truly fair comparison? I mean we all know what a console is and what a PC is, but in reality it's more subdivided than that. I think it would be interesting to find out what CoD4 sold on the PC, the Wii, the Xbox 360, and the PS3. Did the Wii version, for instance, outsell the PC version?
I mean it's not the like there is a "console version" and a "PC version." There are four versions.
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In 1999 PC games were far superior to their console counterparts, but today that gap is nowhere near as wide. Crysis is nice, but I'd much rather play a "lesser" version of said game on a 300 dollar console than pay well over a grand to buy a PC that played it at full spec.
Umm... again... Oblivion PC vs 360. There is a massive difference.
And it is always the same cycle. When the original Xbox launched, most cross platform games looked nearly the same. But then the gap widened.
Also you are exaggerating the costs here. You can build an 8800GT PC for about $800. Plus PC games in general cost $20 less than 360 games. If you buy 10 console games a year, you've paid $200 extra. But this has nothing to do with my feelings on the retail PC game sales. :P
Also, I find it completely hilarious that you began the thread in support of the idea that PC gaming is dying, and then turning an about-face about halfway through.
So I can't have two thoughts, independent of each other, about two separate aspects of a single subject? Must I either completely support PC gaming, or speak completely against it? That's pretty unfair, isn't it?
Here:
1. I think PC gaming is in a lot of trouble, as evidenced by retail sales data.
2. At the same time, I believe PC games are vastly superior.
How is that an about-face? Both those thoughts can't coexist? I am not a fanboy. :P Just because I believe that PC games are superior in general, doesn't mean I don't think PC gaming is in trouble.
Speaking of which, I have never said that computer gaming will "die". It will always exist in some regard. However, it's rather hard to dispute the cold, hard fact that console game sales continue to rise while PC sales continue to regress. And that's not something you can even remotely fully blame on the advent of Digital distribution and the fact that figures are unreported.
I agree with that.
I thought Bill Gates also said that 640kB of RAM is all we would ever need.
Well what he meant by the snapshot comment was that consoles are only as good as the PCs that exist at the time.
I mean we all know what a console is and what a PC is, but in reality it's more subdivided than that. I think it would be interesting to find out what CoD4 sold on the PC, the Wii, the Xbox 360, and the PS3. Did the Wii version, for instance, outsell the PC version?
I will look that up.
From what I understand the 360 version sold 7 times as much than the PC version, while the PS3 sold twice as many.
Did you think that 2 years after the PS2's release that it would be capable of pulling something like God of War II off?
That's a fair point actually.
Quake 4 was a launch title.
Alright what about Enemy Territory, Quake Wars. And Mass Effect is pretty new.
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I never disputed that PC games *weren't* generally superior to their console counterparts. I do maintain the notion that a lot of PC ports from console titles are worse. 8-10 years ago it was a much bigger jump from console to PC than it is now. Despite the fact that for the most part PC titles still look better than their console counterparts, the gap has significantly narrowed in the past 10 years. For example, the difference between Quake 2 for PC and Quake 2 for N64/psx is significantly greater than the differences between Quake 4 for PC and Quake 4 for 360.
You're also seeing a generation where people would much rather be able to chill out on their couch and game rather than sit in front of a computer. But that's another discussion entirely.
The dispute isn't whether or not PC games are superior to console games (or vice versa), it's what the public is and isn't buying. And right now the public isn't buying PC games nearly as much as console games.
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Sort of off the topic where the discussion has lead to, but one of the problems with PC vs console that I've always seen is that console developers will actually push a console's hardware towards the end of it's life and thus extend it's usefulness for a few years. It's also during this time that a lot of great gems always come out because people are no longer screwing with the hardware, but focusing on making the actual game portion.
On the PC side of things you have the old moving target problem and instead of trying to get the most out of older hardware, developers just fall back on the knowledge that there's some newer hardware coming out. That probably hurts a little on the game side of things, but also increases the gap between knowing a given piece of hardware and actually using it. I've always felt like the biggest graphic cards were never used to their fullest extent because they're mostly treated as blunt objects used to pound out high end graphics on PC games. I lack the technical knowledge to really back that up, but the fact that all the newest cards simply try to do things faster and with more power than the last card leaves me wondering if developers are really going for elegant code like they would with a console. Somehow console games will look better and better as a system ages, but PC games really require an upgrade to see something better (with obvious exceptions, of course).
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K-Man,
I don't think you will find anyone disagreeing with you on sales. But to me at least, the performance cycle was similar with the original Xbox. In early cross platform titles, the Xbox game were very comparable to the PC. When Morrowind came out, it looked and performed better on the 360, even when compared to existing higher end PCs.
Sirean,
You are correct. Developers do get lazy with PC games, while since consoles maintain the same config, developers can squeeze the life out of them. To take this further off topic, it is good to see you post.
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Pug, you're being a fanboy, and you're ignoring the reality of diminishing returns. Once graphics are are as good as they need to be, a PC with triple the power of the current console generation won't show the majority of people anything they can't see on a console at a much lower price and hassle factor. Diminishing returns were mentioned early on in the conversation. They are one of the factors driving the market.
I've seen Oblivion on a PC that can barely run it right, and I've seen it on a console that runs it very well. Guess which one I'd rather play? Yes, I could spend 4 figures on equipment to run it even better. I don't need to. It's good enough.
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While I suppose "good enough" is subjective, I still think there's a way to go before game graphics are truly photorealistic. I mean Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was fairly photorealistic, but you could still tell it was fake CGI and even a modern monster PC can't render any of that in real time.
I remember being absolutely floored by Doom's graphics and thought they were way ahead of their time. It was most certainly "good enough" at the time. Then Goldeneye came out on the N64 and I thought that was pretty awesome looking, and again, most certainly "good enough."
Anyway, all I'm trying to say is that the current benchmark for graphics will always be "good enough." Yeah, there are diminishing returns in creating games that are ever better looking, but as tools inevitably improve (as they always do), making better looking games gets easier.
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The whole argument is essentially stupid, yes PC games have the ability to look better than console games, but that comes with a hefty premium. Sure, Crysis looks better, but unless you spent $250+ on a gpu in the last year it'll look and run just about as well as Farcry did on the original Xbox. The PC is capable of great things, but a lot of people don't care and there's a very good reason for that.
Turning this into a pissing contest about which is better is just ridiculous. Different machines for different people. As for PC gaming dying, it's all speculation but something probably should be done. As I said before, interests either need to converge or someone has to step up and make some sort of standards. Otherwise every player at every level of production is just going to make things more and more inefficient.
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I've read about numerous issues with frame rate drops in Gears of War, Assassin's Creed etc. If you want, I can dig up articles on those too.
About Assassin's Creed, at least the X360 version won't require a PC From Outer Space to actually run the damn thing. :P
I am not saying performance in the 360 is bad or anything. I just find it a joke to suggest that visuals will improve on the 360.
I think what you might see is designers find ways to pump all kinds of greatness out of what they got for the X360 power -- like what Square has been able to do w/ the FF games on aging PlayStation hardware -- but I also doubt they can compete w/ the newest bleeding technology the PC always puts out b/c it's so upgradeable and always changing.
I don't think you will find anyone disagreeing with you on sales. But to me at least, the performance cycle was similar with the original Xbox. In early cross platform titles, the Xbox game were very comparable to the PC. When Morrowind came out, it looked and performed better on the 360, even when compared to existing higher end PCs.
Morrowind on 360? What?
Wait...Did you mean Morrowind on the XBox Original?
Or did you mean Oblivion on the 360?
I've seen Oblivion on a PC that can barely run it right, and I've seen it on a console that runs it very well. Guess which one I'd rather play? Yes, I could spend 4 figures on equipment to run it even better. I don't need to. It's good enough.
I'll take the PC version w/ the mods.
Plus, down-the-line, when better PC's are out, Oblivion should run even better on those powerful PC's.
Whereas on your X360, you're stuck w/ Oblivion as is, since the console hardware ain't upgradeable.
The whole argument is essentially stupid, yes PC games have the ability to look better than console games, but that comes with a hefty premium. Sure, Crysis looks better, but unless you spent $250+ on a gpu in the last year it'll look and run just about as well as Farcry did on the original Xbox. The PC is capable of great things, but a lot of people don't care and there's a very good reason for that.
Hmmm...shouldn't the GF 7800 and 8600 be able to handle Crysis and still look good, which are both less than $250?
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Pug, you're being a fanboy, and you're ignoring the reality of diminishing returns. Once graphics are are as good as they need to be, a PC with triple the power of the current console generation won't show the majority of people anything they can't see on a console at a much lower price and hassle factor. Diminishing returns were mentioned early on in the conversation. They are one of the factors driving the market.
Guess which one I'd rather play? Yes, I could spend 4 figures on equipment to run it even better. I don't need to. It's good enough.
Wow that's pretty fucking absurd. What the fuck does "as good as they need to be" mean anyway? Have you ever experienced Oblivion on an 8800 card? If they are as good as they need to be be, then please don't tell us in the future how impressed you will be when Elder Scrolls 5 comes.
I've seen Oblivion on a PC that can barely run it right, and I've seen it on a console that runs it very well.
You'd rather play Oblivion on a console than a low end PC? No shit. No fucking way!
K-Man pointed out that Oblivion is a better experience on a console, and I find that to be absolutely untrue. How the hell does that make me a fanboy? I like the fact that it looks a lot better on the PC with all the mods.
I like having the choice. Again, how does this make me a fanboy?
Yes, I could spend 4 figures on equipment to run it even better. I don't need to. It's good enough.
That's bullshit. An Xbox 360 is what, $400? You can build a PC that can give you a lot better of an Oblivion experience with a $220 8800GT.
Turning this into a pissing contest about which is better is just ridiculous. Different machines for different people.
Wow, where am I turning this into some pissing contest?
I am responding to:
You're still able to get a graphically superior experience on PC, but that gap has closed to the point to where its almost nonexistant.
That's all I am responding to.
I am also responding to K-Man's false statement that Oblivion is better experienced on the 360.
And I did acknowledge the "horses for courses" thing. I did point out that the 360 was an incredible deal when the average PC was playing catch up.
Morrowind on 360? What?
Wait...Did you mean Morrowind on the XBox Original?
Or did you mean Oblivion on the 360?
Yeah. Morrowind came to the Xbox and looked and played a lot better than it did on the PC, but then the PC caught up. It is a cycle.
I'll take the PC version w/ the mods.
Plus, down-the-line, when better PC's are out, Oblivion should run even better on those powerful PC's.
Whereas on your X360, you're stuck w/ Oblivion as is, since the console hardware ain't upgradeable.
Don't point that out. That makes you a fanboy.
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It boggles my mind. Why do you have this need to put down the console users? Feeling threatened? Good enough means exactly that: good enough. There is nothing absurd about that. I've seen PC graphics since the 8088 days and I've seen console graphics since the 6502 days. I've seen them evolve, and they are converging.
I'm not alone in perceiving animosity from you in this area. I don't think I'm being paranoid. You didn't simply reply to K-Man. You ridiculed K-Man. I happen to agree with his point of view. No one is denying that uber-PC graphics are better. OK? No one. If you don't get the point by now, you're not going to. So I'm done.
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Though isn't it funny whenever these arguments come up it always degenerates into graphics? When looking at the highest selling PC games, most of them will run on any old POS computer. Look at the stranglehold the original Counter Strike still has on online FPS players.
While I don't think anyone would scoff at playing a nice looking game, maybe PC games should reign it in a little. Make games that run on a wider variety of systems. When you make your game for PC, you're already taking the hard road to sales. Why limit yourself further by requiring the top end machines?
It'll be interesting to see how Battlefield Heroes and Quake Arcade (new name for Quake Zero) do. Not just because they will be free to play, but because they are being designed to run on low spec systems.
I do have a rant about how devs should put effort into creating lower end assets for their games instead of letting the engines handle polygon and texture reductions. Especially texture. Ever notice how textures for older games that had lower res textures look so much better than modern day games with the texture detail slider turned down? Maybe doing something about that would help. I'd be more inclined to play a game with settings turned down if everything didnt turn into a blurry, muddy mess.
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It boggles my mind. Why do you have this need to put down the console users? Feeling threatened? Good enough means exactly that: good enough. There is nothing absurd about that. I've seen PC graphics since the 8088 days and I've seen console graphics since the 6502 days. I've seen them evolve, and they are converging.
I'm not alone in perceiving animosity from you in this area. I don't think I'm being paranoid. You didn't simply reply to K-Man. You ridiculed K-Man. I happen to agree with his point of view. No one is denying that uber-PC graphics are better. OK? No one. If you don't get the point by now, you're not going to. So I'm done.
According to K-Man, Oblivion is better experienced on the 360. He also pointed out that 360 games look the same, which I don't find to be true at all. I am not sure how I can point this out, without it becoming a pissing contest.
Also I pointed out a number of areas where it is better on the PC. Graphically I see a massive difference. That's actually one of the selling points of PC gaming. I am sorry, but that's just how it is. I like how none of the other points I brought up about Oblivion being a better experience weren't talked about, but the visual quality difference was. Why is that such a hot issue, and the others aren't? Why does that seem to strike a nerve?
No one is denying that uber-PC graphics are better. OK? No one. If you don't get the point by now, you're not going to. So I'm done.
That's pretty spiteful.
You say they are better, but then you insert "uber" to make this something about only expensive PCs able to give you a better Oblivion experience. I know you haven't gamed on the PC in years, but it doesn't take a great PC.
http://kotaku.com/345278/crytek-specs-out-an-affordable-crysis-pc
CPU - Intel Core2Duo E6750
GPU - GeForce 8800GT 512MB
Motherboard - NVIDIA nForce 650i Socket 775
PSU - 600W ATX12V
RAM - 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit
HDD - SATA 250GB 7200RPM
DVD - 20x DVD±R Burner
Case - ATX Midi Tower Computer Case
OS - Microsoft Windows XP Home with SP2
A very quick price out of the above components totaled $875 at reasonable online retailer NewEgg, give or take a few choices, but I typically went for the cheapest option across the board and didn't include shipping or tax. I'm sure that more frugal, more experience component shoppers could do better.
You can get that for about $800 now. Not an uber PC either.
Also Corba, check your pm box.
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I'm posting this (http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=240021) just so pugs head will explode:
1996----->2000 the n64 had kept up with PC graphics. It had some serious limitations, but the last few games truly squeezed every ounce out of the hardware, to the point where it could still compete with the ever changing pc hardware 4 years later.
For 1996 it truly was years beyond it's time. Up until 1998 what pc games could (aside from resolution-wise) really pull ahead of the n64? It had the first programmable gpu, allowing for effects in hardware the video cards of the pc's couldn't even do until the geforce 256 showed up. I remember the vertex shader metal effect in mario 64 back in 1996, that was something to behold.
Now the dreamcast also saw release in 1999 (only in japan in that year) however it was graphically obliterated very quickly. The n64's hardware stayed relevant right up until the first truly programmable pc video cards years later, because up until then only the n64 could do some of the exclusive special effects.
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Again, this is why I think these threads are stupid. Without concrete numbers on online sales for PC stuff, which seem to at this point be all but taking over retail entirely, sales can't even be discussed beyond pure conjecture. Yeah, what K-Man said could totally be true. Or it might not be true at all. And all this graphics stuff is just getting stupid. Why the hell would you even try to say that Oblivion and Morrowind ever looked better on consoles? It never happened. Performed better? Sure, but only for some. My PCs performed quite fine and looked much better with both games right from the launch date. Besides, it literally wasn't even a single full day before somebody provided replacements for Oblivion's fucked-up distance textures which to my knowledge have never been improved on the 360 to date, much less the zillions of beauty mods that have become indispensable now.
And as everyone else asked already, does it matter? No, of course not. Nobody's saying you can't be happy with a console. I like my 360 just fine. And yes, eventually I think Cobra's right and things are truly going to plateau, but then even consoles are going to have to change. Why are you going to need to buy another in 5 years when the graphics barely see improvement as things go forward? You'll probably be paying just to update ports to plug into whatever new extra-crisp displays are on sale. Until some new kind of tech gets developed and the playing field completely changes yet again. Who knows what the future holds, especially with news items like Microsoft trying to form hardware alliances, which are the kinds of things we'll probably see a lot more of going forward. Sitting around trying to say that one thing or another is dying because of some half-envisioned future that's likely going to change both playing fields no matter what happens seems even more useless.
It isn't to say that it isn't an interesting topic, but all it ever does is devolve into fighting. Let's face it, we don't know what's going to happen, we don't know where the American economy is going to be at the end of the year, let alone two years from now... blah blah. I don't know if anyone actually agrees with me, but there's my two cents in any case. Pug's annoyance is at least relatively understandable. This topic comes up all the time and has for years, and it always seems to come from the same kinds of people. K-Man is decidedly pro-console despite having also gamed on PCs for a long time, and that's cool, I've got no beef with him and I'd never try to tell him his preferences are bogus. I know why some prefer consoles and there are valid reasons. But then he starts doomsaying the end of somebody else's hobby, and you don't expect that person to be annoyed? Especially when there isn't much concrete evidence? Or any speculation on how things might evolve, just speculation on why it's going to croak? Or any talk about the changes that will likely need to be made within the "opposing" side of the hobby due to many of the same issues? It's easy for people to get offended about stuff where they put in so much time, effort, and money. It just is. And I'm not trying to rag on him, he didn't even start this topic. Pug did. I'm just saying it's easy to get pissed. We like our hobby and want to see it revitalized, but plenty of people couldn't give a fuck if it does or doesn't, and those people aren't exactly of our mindset.
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/popcorn
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Thanks for that well written and highly objective post Que. I do disagree that these threads are stupid, purely because *I* personally haven't been involved in one here. Well not until now.
I also sense this elitist attitude whenever someone mentions enjoying cutting edge visuals. I am probably wrong here, but it is like OMG!? YOU DUMB SHALLOW GRAPHICS WHORE! WHO KARES? ALL ABOUT THE GAMEPLAY FTW!
To me, visuals are a large part of my enjoying a game, even though they are not the most important part.
I apologize to K-Man if I sounded mocking in my tone, but I don't understand why some of the console fans among us were insulted by my saying that PC games look better. I think it is safe to admit that a lot of us haven't been in touch with PC gaming in years. Top of the line computer hardware is extremely cheap at the moment.
Again I apologize to K-Man if he felt insulted -- which I don't think he did. He probably told Pyro,"Man this Pugnate guy is a real dick."
I wish that Xero -- who was the poster who thought we agreed too much? -- was here to see this thread. :P
edit:
which I don't think he did
To clarify, I mean he seems like an easy going person who doesn't take offense from random n00bs online. :P
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Let's find some common ground. I think we can all agree that Melissa Theuriau is the hottest reporter in the world.
(http://static.flickr.com/55/113379558_b166c50cc4_o.jpg)
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And it is always the same cycle. When the original Xbox launched, most cross platform games looked nearly the same. But then the gap widened.
That always happens when a new console drops -- especially these days, since they are putting much higher-end vid cards and other hardware inside them upon the new console's release. When a new console drops, everyone goes "OMG! Amazing graphics competing w/ the PC." Then, you'll get some jump on the "PC gaming is gonna die soon" bandwagon, once they see what the new console can do.
Then, as time goes along since this new console been on the market for a bit, more new vid cards get pumped out on the PC. By the time year 3-5 of a console comes around, since then don't allow for upgrading, a new console is already planned to be coming -- basically, to compete and keep up w/ the power and graphical quality the PC's are bringing forth. Especially since many of the big hit console and PC games -- you got it, will appear on BOTH platforms to try and hit both markets to make as much money as they possibly can off the game. Also, keeping the PC's and consoles closer to each other, that makes life a lot easier for the game dev's, basically -- I mean, really -- who'd wanna port something like Crysis over to a PS2 or original XBox? :P And I'm sure companies who hit the console market and make a ton of cash would love to hit the PC market, if the console's specs are quite under most current PC's or very close to them -- why not port it over and make more money??
I mean, look at Oblivion PC and X360 -- yes, both version look great and turned out well for their respective systems, regardless of what looks better and performs better (PC or X360). And right out the box, you can get a ton of time out of the game, either version of the game.
Do you really need to buy the PC version?? Well, if you want a shitload of more mods and got the PC to boot -- which ain't too heavy, especially when compared to today's standards. If you want PC KB/mouse support, PC version should be what you're eyeballing. Me, I like the mod-scene, the chance to way later on play Oblivion on a better PC (b/c you knew I will buy one, in a few years), playing alone on a high-res monitor, and the option to choose b/t PC-X360 gamepad or PC KB/mouse. That's me, though.
If you don't give a rat's ass about modding, look at the X360. If you don't care that you don't have KB/mouse support and you happen to own a 360, you should go for the 360 version. And if you love the couch and would like to play it on a regular TV or HDTV (if you got one), sit down and play there.
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Let's find some common ground. I think we can all agree that Melissa Theuriau is the hottest reporter in the world.
(http://static.flickr.com/55/113379558_b166c50cc4_o.jpg)
Yes, that is for damn certain!
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1. I don't think that I'm pro-console at all. I just see the market shift and what it will bring (and already is bringing). Sure, I own consoles, and I play more games on consoles, but if a game comes out on PC that I want to play I'm certainly not going to ignore it. Take Orange Box for example. I purchased it for 360, played through Portal, and decided that the rest of the experience is something I'd rather have on PC. So I traded the game in and will pick up Orange Box for PC. My preference of Oblivion for 360 is decidedly a subjective thing, I realize. I concur that the PC version has an innate advantage due to the creation of player modifications and such. In fact I purchased Oblivion for PC a few months ago from Pyro for this very reason.
2. I don't think i'm championing the death of PC gaming in any way. I think it's horrible that PC gaming has gone downhill. The more console gaming proliferates and PC games decline in sales, the more likely we are to see games like Civilization go to consoles. I DO NOT WANT TO SEE THIS HAPPEN. I know a console-based Civ is being developed, but it's sort of an offshoot of the series. A much more simple version of the main game.
I admittedly don't purchase as many PC games as I used to. It's not that I pirate games (I don't), it's just the sheer fact that less and less is coming out on PC that I want to play, period. And when a game like CoD4 comes out, I'm more inclined to buy the 360 version for the sheer fact that I'll see 10-15 of my friends on my friends list at any given day playing it.
My only assertions were that PC gaming was becoming more and more of a niche market, that gaming in general has shifted to become more console-centric, and that PC sales are in a steady decline in-part for that very fact. People are seeing the gap lessened between PC/console games and are opting for the 400 dollar console rather than the "800" dollar PC. And I make an assumption that will continue as more and more developers "jump ship" to console games for more sales. I mean, guys, that's just good business decision making. You go where the money is.
I'm going to be away for most of the weekend, but I'm sure by the time I see this thread again there will have been many responses.
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Let's find some common ground. I think we can all agree that Melissa Theuriau is the hottest reporter in the world.
(http://static.flickr.com/55/113379558_b166c50cc4_o.jpg)
This thread just got a whole lot better.
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I hope Jenny doesn't catch Scott googling hot+french+reporter.
But honey, Pug tricked me!
K-Man, to take this in a slightly different direction, I feel one of the problems here is that some hardcore PC gamers want to have their cake and eat it too. We want everything to be open, we want it all to continue to be free, yet at the same time we want the same service that our gaming cousins across the border pay for. That's just not possible.
Why would Microsoft take the time to make GFW as complete a system as Xbox Live, when no one is willing to pay for it?
I've played on my friend's Xbox Live, and it is a fantastic service. But I just don't see Microsoft investing the time and money in that for Windows, when there is no money in it. It was the same thing with DX10. When it was announced that DX10 would be Vista only, a lot of PC gamers were upset. I saw no problem with that, as long as it didn't affect games that came out on XP.
On the other hand we have STEAM that is offering some of what Xbox LIVE offers, except it is for free in terms of money. The only issue there is that Valve eventually will go public, and that's when companies go to hell, having to make bullshit decisions to satisfy shareholders.
The more console gaming proliferates and PC games decline in sales, the more likely we are to see games like Civilization go to consoles. I DO NOT WANT TO SEE THIS HAPPEN. I know a console-based Civ is being developed, but it's sort of an offshoot of the series. A much more simple version of the main game.
When it comes to strategy games and RPGs, I think the PC is still fairly safe. In my view, the console market is still more action oriented. It is why Bioware RPGs seem to come to PC within months of their console releases. The KOTOR games came to PC, in what I remember being three months after the Xbox releases. I think Mass Effect is coming to PC five months after the Xbox release?
KOTOR sold about 2 million on the Xbox while it sold about 2.5 million on the PC. Games like Baldur’s Gate and BG2 sold 2 million each on the PC. Diablo 2 sold about 4.5 million. Neverwinter Nights sold 2 million, while NWN2 sold 1.6 million and is expected to hit 2 million as well. As Idol mentioned, The Witcher sold 600,000, which isn’t a bad start. Though for some reason it hasn’t sold well in America. I suspect that’s because everyone was busy importing copies.
Mass Effect has sold 1.6 million and is expected to cap on the 360 with about 2.5 million. That’s pretty good, but not enough to guarantee a 360 exclusive.
Strategy games still sell better on the PC:
http://www.thesimexchange.com/search.php?string=command+and+conquer
Not counting online sales, command & Conquer 3 sold 1.17 million on the PC, while the 360 version is expected to cap at 470,00
Battle for Middle Earth sold about 2 million on both PC and the 360. Supreme Commander is projected to cap at 900,000 on the PC, while on the 360 projects are abysmal at less than a 100,000. Then again, that’s because it is a more hardcore RTS.
Halo Wars is projected to sell 1.8 million on the 360, which isn’t bad, but doesn’t realize a Halo title’s full potential. While it was always supposed to be an exclusive, they are now talking a cross platform launch.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=180966
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Let's find some common ground. I think we can all agree that Melissa Theuriau is the hottest reporter in the world.
(http://static.flickr.com/55/113379558_b166c50cc4_o.jpg)
That's one bit of graphics I won't be seeing on a console. Very nice. :)
OK, in a less contentious tone. You mentioned Oblivion, and I gave you a short little retort. Let me elaborate, because Oblivion happens to be one of the reasons I feel about this as I do. I played a couple of hundred hours on Oblivion on my PC. It played OK most of the time, but chugged horribly in some circumstances. So I played extensively with the settings, and ended up reducing them a great deal. The main goal was to get combat to move at a pace I could call animated with a straight face. I was able to alleviate the problem further by patching the game (unofficially) to remove all effects which needed Shader 2.0. That affected only the interiors. It kept them from being a slide show, and allowed me for the first time to visit a couple of rooms which crashed the program before.
What I ended up with, at 800x600 resolution on the PC, was certainly passable. But then I saw how much better it all looked and moved at 1280x720. So ironically, the 360 was my step up for me, in terms of graphics and playability. The platform does the game justice, a game which a couple of years before would stress out your only acceptable platform.
If the goal is to be on top of the heap at all times, a console won't cut it. If you liked what you saw last year, and you still think it rocks this year, you might feel differently. That's the mass market, not the elite one. The mass market sells a lot more.
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This is sort of only loosely related here because my rant went on and on, but I typed it up so I'm posting it anyway. Don't feel you need to take my arguments to heart, as this isn't really directed specifically at anybody despite my sort of using Cobra as an example, nor is this an attempt to say that PC gaming is the best thing evar omg I hate consoles. I just started typing something, this came out, and I'd rather indulge myself and defend PC gaming for a minute for a change.
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I still think that's totally looking at the the wrong way. I'm not elitist about graphics even a little bit, nor do I have the latest and greatest rig ever (I almost never do), nor do I care about being top of the heap, yet there are obvious graphical advantages to being on a decent-not-even-high-end PC (and I'm not a graphics whore, so I don't even know why this is bugging me). I mean, your system was current like... what, 6 years ago? Sure, much easier to just buy the 360 version. But even less-hardcore PC gamers who are at least willing to spend a little bit of money here or there on their systems can enjoy big increases for not that much extra cash. If you hadn't bought the Wii, you could have invested that money into a decent video card, and PC games are so much cheaper in the long run, if you're buying new cross-platform releases you can often save 10 to even 20 bucks per purchase! Overlord debuted on 360 for $60. It debuted on PC for $40. I think the difference between Condemned on 360 and its PC debut was even $5 more than that (though that wasn't a simultaneous release... but so what?). A couple game purchases with that price difference and you'd have made up whatever extra money you spent. This is skewing my Wii metaphor, but you see what I'm saying, right? Obviously it isn't purely as simple as that, and nobody's claiming that it is since there are other system options to consider too for such an old rig, but I think price difference is touted time and time again and it's honestly not that convincing an argument unless you're talking about building a new machine purely from scratch. And who the fuck does that every 5 years?
Sure if you're Average Joe Dipshit who can't even program his VCR, PC gaming isn't for you, but... have this 8800GTS (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130325) and it's only $40 more than a Wii right now. Do you mean to tell me that a nice shiny new video card for your PC which has a jillion awesome games both cross-platform and exclusive across the board isn't worth that, but your Wii, which at this point is still all but a one-trick pony with only a couple of must-have games that you've already finished giving you nothing to do but wait around for more is? Obviously that's a different deal than a 360 which has a much more robust library, but even now it's $350 for one of those, almost a hundred bucks over that 8800GTS. Sure, you might use up more of that cost if you have to get a lot of new RAM or a new mobo, and that price difference wasn't the case when the 8800s first came out, but again, I don't even have one of those. I'm on a 7800 and I have very few complaints with my system here. The only games I've had trouble running are a few PC exclusives, and most of them scale just fine. Right now if I bought a lower-end 8800, all I'd have to do is drop the thing in my machine and that would be the end of it. Huge performance increase that will likely last me at least to the end of the console cycle for the most part (barring another game like Crysis 4 years from now, maybe, and even then scaling usually means it's all good).
Eh. I don't know. I still find PC gaming to be infinitely more attractive than console gaming without being all that difficult, time-consuming, or money-consuming. I guess I'm really just thinking out loud here, and again, I'm not trying to change anyone's mind on anything or say that there aren't obvious reasons the mass market is moving more toward consoles... I'm just trying to say I don't think I'll ever understand it on a personal level and I'll always think it's stupid. And I love consoles and all kinds of exclusive games and even genres that never make it to PC. It isn't elitism, nor that I think it would make some huge difference to me if one thing dominated more than the other, I just won't ever understand why you'd prefer a console for anything. It's like people who like to drive automatic cars. Okay fine, I won't tell you not to, but what the fuck? More power, more reliability, better control, more options... you'd have to be an idiot not to prefer that.
Okay, rant over. Forgive me. I'm just lamenting now and not attempting to go over this for the sake of objectivity. I do want a Wii, and I'll likely end up even getting a PS3 at some point when I've got extra cash, but I guess I still have my priorities.
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I actually disagree with what you said about the 360's library Que. Almost all the 360's major selling points already are or will be on the PC.
I honestly think the 360's library is a huge let down. I own one and am constantly browsing the shelves at Best Buy, but I never get anything. Everything good (IMO) is also on the PC.
Edit: "Queue" lol. Sorry. We're always talking about queues here at work.
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Funny you should mention Overlord. The expansion for the 360 version finally came out. I'll be getting that soon.
My system is cutting edge, for 2005. :P The problem is that it can go no further with upgrades. That shiny 8800 sucks too much power, so I'd need a new power supply. That's assuming I can get one that works on AGP 4X, which I doubt I can. Then I'm stuck with RDRAM, fully populated at 768 MB, which means oodles of cash to *discard* and start over with scarce, overpriced larger replacements, so I can get closer to the multi-gigs everyone assumes now. The HDD tech is passe as well, so loading speeds will not be up to snuff. The CPU is stuck at the Northwood P4 level. Max clock is around 2.6 GHz, and it's of course a single core. The one I got runs at 2.4 GHz.
Obviously, I need an entirely new system, yes, from scratch. I could salvage the audio card, but I wouldn't want to. I'm done with Creative Labs. I could have gone that route at one point, but now it's out of the question. Comparing the cost of new PC hardware to the cost of a Wii doesn't follow. The Wii is its own thing, with its own reason for being. Either you want and buy one or you don't. It changes nothing on the PC side. It doesn't even fit squarely on the traditional console side. It's a unique product. OK, I digress.
I'm not sure what else to say. In an ideal world, I'd own everything in this field that I care about. In the real world, I made choices. But the worst part of having to do all this explaining is that it has absolutely nothing to do with the subject of this thread. The issue is whether PC gaming is going down or not, and what are the driving forces behind the market. Somehow it's gotten twisted around by partisan emotion, and everyone in here has been on the receiving end of that stick at one point or another. It's my turn. Fine.
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My point was only that it isn't always as expensive for everybody to upgrade as is sometimes indicated. My initial investment in this rig is going to last me 2 console cycles. It's a bit more expensive compared to what I've paid console-wise, especially with the added cost of a new video card soon, but not by an extreme margin. And the other point was that it didn't take me being some guy who needs to be on top of the pile to make that happen. You can be average and still reap many benefits graphically and otherwise. PC gaming isn't just for some elite few, and I guess maybe that's what I was trying to get at. I think perceiving it that way or trying to perpetuate the viewpoint is wrong. It's more niche now than console gaming, sure, but that doesn't mean it's this weird little elitist cult.
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My system is cutting edge, for 2005. :P The problem is that it can go no further with upgrades. That shiny 8800 sucks too much power, so I'd need a new power supply. That's assuming I can get one that works on AGP 4X, which I doubt I can. Then I'm stuck with RDRAM, fully populated at 768 MB, which means oodles of cash to *discard* and start over with scarce, overpriced larger replacements, so I can get closer to the multi-gigs everyone assumes now. The HDD tech is passe as well, so loading speeds will not be up to snuff. The CPU is stuck at the Northwood P4 level. Max clock is around 2.6 GHz, and it's of course a single core. The one I got runs at 2.4 GHz.
...
Obviously, I need an entirely new system, yes, from scratch. I could salvage the audio card, but I wouldn't want to. I'm done with Creative Labs. I could have gone that route at one point, but now it's out of the question.
I've always found it best to get a brand-new rig every say 4-6 years, if you're going to buy a new PC.
As many games as I've got laying around here untouched due to buying as soon as I can get them very cheap (those crazy CC blowout sales, Gogamer sales, cheap Big Lots clearance racks, etc etc), I might be able to stretch that to 7 years. :P
Some of my favorite years of gaming is when I hit that "I can't ran many just released new games, but I can go play catch-up with my ever-growing collection of games that I ain't touched yet" stack that I've got laying around.
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Yes, that's exactly how old my system is--7 years. It got overhauled substantially, twice. It's given all it's got to give.
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Yes, that's exactly how old my system is--7 years. It got overhauled substantially, twice. It's given all it's got to give.
Cobra, sounds like when you find the right price w/ the right equipment, a new rig should be yours. :)
Sounds like since it's 7 years old, you're way overdue for a nice new bad-ass rig.
Funny you should mention Overlord. The expansion for the 360 version finally came out. I'll be getting that soon.
Unfortunately, Raising Hell PC has not been released in a box.....well, not yet, at least.
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The reality is that we all want a high end PC and all three consoles with a really sweet HDTV. It just doesn't work out that way when you have responsibilities.
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Hmmm...shouldn't the GF 7800 and 8600 be able to handle Crysis and still look good, which are both less than $250?
Hypothetically, yes. In practice, no not at all.
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Hypothetically, yes. In practice, no not at all.
Not even on 1024x768 w/ all Medium settings???
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you're assuming medium settings in Crysis look better than Farcry. They don't.
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you're assuming medium settings in Crysis look better than Farcry. They don't.
Hmmm....
What about Crysis looking on Medium say as good as Far Cry on its Highest?
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What in the name of bloody fuck does that have to do with anything?
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What in the name of bloody fuck does that have to do with anything?
Polar bears.
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What in the name of bloody fuck does that have to do with anything?
hahahahaha.... oh god.
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Hmmm....
What about Crysis looking on Medium say as good as Far Cry on its Highest?
Probably pretty close, although Crysis might run slower.
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Gears looks like trash on 360 after playing it on my new rig. I thought the graphics were amazing before, but playing it on this thing is like playing a different game. It almost feels that way -- I never realized how choppy/blurry the 360 version is.
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I have it for 360 and PC as well, though I have trouble with it on the PC. It gets jumpy. Not like a low framerate... just I don't know... jumpy. A lot of other users were reporting the same problem. I haven't played in awhile though. Maybe they patched it.
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Gears looks like trash on 360 after playing it on my new rig. I thought the graphics were amazing before, but playing it on this thing is like playing a different game. It almost feels that way -- I never realized how choppy/blurry the 360 version is.
Blurry? What do you use for a display?
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I have it for 360 and PC as well, though I have trouble with it on the PC. It gets jumpy. Not like a low framerate... just I don't know... jumpy. A lot of other users were reporting the same problem. I haven't played in awhile though. Maybe they patched it.
I believe they did, although I can't say if it helped or not. The game has quite a few problems.
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Well I Googled it and not only has the stuttering problem not been fixed by any patch, but it hasn't even been acknowledged by Epic Games or People Can Fly, even though the issue is extremely common. Supposedly it has something to do with it acting more like a console game than a PC game with how it streams data.
There are various config tweaks people have suggested, but there does not seem to be any sort of end all, be all fix that works for everyone and in some cases no amount of tweaking will improve the issue.
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Epic have sadly gone the way of consoles. This is reflected in their new Unreal engine, that has numerous PC related limitations that are obviously there because of a console focus.
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http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/853/853261p2.html
Well one of the key things that is really affecting the economics and the success of gaming in general is piracy on the PC. So one of the reasons we'll see RTSs on the console is because people can't pirate it. That's why we're going to see a lot more of everything on the console. When you look at the sales of really hardcore games like Crysis and you think, "Wow, those games should have sold a lot more," you realize that's probably due in large part to piracy. And you realize that a game like Crysis would have done its true numbers if it had launched on console first.
Crysis was the best shooter since Half-life 2, that probably lost a lot of sales to piracy, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t sell well. In Europe the game is still in the top 3.
But piracy isn’t the only issue with the game. How many people were able to run Crysis at the visuals that were showed off at the preceding E3? I personally feel Crysis’s release date should have been pushed by a year, till the hardware caught up.
IGN: There are a lot of people that want to just plug a keyboard and mouse into their consoles. What side of the fence do you fall in on that idea?
Chris Taylor: Once upon a time, maybe ten years ago, I might have said keyboard and mouse, too. That doesn't even come up in the darkest corners of my mind anymore. I could see a little touch screen like an iPhone on the middle of your joypad, but definitely not a keyboard and mouse. It's all about the beauty of having the traditional console type experience with a slight augmentation of an advanced control. It's gotta be robust. It's gotta be able to be kicked around on the floor. You can't have a tricky, complex gadget in the living room. It's gotta be able to take abuse. It's gotta be cheap, otherwise it won't catch on. We don't want to bring all of the baggage of the PC to the console.
That doesn’t sound like Chris the developer talking, rather Chris the businessman.
Well, yeah, because if there's success on the console, people are going to stop making them on the PC because of my earlier point, what's happened on the PC with piracy The economics are ugly right now on the PC. You're not going to see these gigantic, epic investments of dollars on the PC when it just doesn't work. The economics have to work. You're going to see those investments made on the console side and it's going to become a more console-centric investment. And then you're going to see them ported back over to the PC and that creates a different experience on the PC.
That sounds unfortunate, but is a realistic possibility. In fact it has already happened with many games. Right now, us PC gamers are lucky to even be getting ports.
But I have to say, Taylor wouldn’t be throwing a fit if his game had sold well. Honestly, when was the last time he really made a truly great game? Total Annihilation was his best, but since then he seems like the sort of developer who is better at developing engines than actual games. Take into account games like Dungeon Siege and Supreme Commander, which were good, but are relics in terms of narrative.
And the reason I am not surprised is that this guy has been looking at the bottom line for a long while. In a column for PC GAMER, he wrote about wanting to simplify games so that they appeal to the non-gamers. It seemed like he wanted to appeal to the lowest common denominator. I think he is more interested in being part of the next "Wii" than something that appeals to the more demanding gamers.
While SupCom had good RTS mechanics, it wasn’t a complete game by today’s standards. Its storyline, production values, and even unit interaction felt like cheap after thoughts. You can’t just make a 3D engine, polish the game mechanics, and then think the job is done expecting to sell a gazillion copies. Outside of a genre’s niche, buyers expect production values, a well woven storyline, and transition content. SupCom didn’t do that effectively. The days of selling skeletons of gameplay are over, unless you are happy with sales figures that compete with indie titles like Galactic Civilization or Sins of a Solar Empire.
Yes piracy is a problem, but there is a reason why StarCraft II is going to sell 15 million copies while Supreme Commander struggles to sell even a million.
I very much doubt that SupCom would have sold better had it debuted on the 360 first, like Taylor implies. It seems as if Taylor isn’t looking at his game objectively. Company of Heroes has set high standards on what a game needs to do, to compete. Indie titles like Galactic Civ, and Sins of a Solar Empire do see success, but they are happier with a million units sold. If Taylor wants his games to sell like StarCraft, then he’s got to make them complete experiences like StarCraft.
Also, there are reasons aside from piracy why Unreal Tournament III tanked in sales. The singleplayer was an absolute joke! It was basically offline multiplayer missions, with stupid cut scenes in between put together as an afterthought, and it was a totally stupid attempt at applying gameplay logic to the story. They would have been better off putting together a proper campaign ala Gears of War, and boasting the more traditional multiplayer on the side. And while the multiplayer was fun, it still felt like UT2004 in a new coat.
Again, this isn’t the year 2000; rehashes and simplistic attempts do not sell anymore.
You know what I am going to do? I am going to make a flash based game which lasts five minutes, and involves gamers hitting Chris Taylor and Cliffy B with a stick. Then I’ll charge consumers $50 for it, and blame piracy if it doesn’t sell well. Then, I’ll release the same game next year with slightly better animation and a new game mode that allows users to wield two sticks, except I’ll continue to charge $50 and again blame piracy when it doesn’t sell.
Look, piracy is obviously a big issue. But it isn’t the only issue. This is like the Al-Qaeda syndrome, where everything is blamed on the popular target. It isn’t that the popular target isn’t at fault, but it is too automatic a reaction.
Here is one final tidbit, regarding USA RTS sales:
http://www.thesimexchange.com/search.php?string=command+and+conquer
Not counting online sales, command & Conquer 3 sold 1.17 million on the PC, while the 360 version is expected to cap at 470,00. That says something.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=33298
GDC: Molyneux despairs at "tragic" state of PC gaming
Warcraft, The Sims "sucking the air out of PC market," says Lionhead boss
Lionhead boss Peter Molyneux has said that the PC gaming market is in a tragic state, with two blockbusters hogging sales and stagnation in the casual market.
Speaking in an interview to our sister site Eurogamer.net, to be published later this week, Molyneux was sharing his views on the current PC market following comments made by Epic's Cliff Bleszinski that it is in “disarray”.
"I think it's a huge tragedy. I mean, you might as well say PC gaming is World of Warcraft and The Sims... The weird thing is everyone's got a PC, they're just not buying software for it," commented Molyneux.
And while many developers are chasing the casual PC gaming market as the next big thing, Molyneux believes it's already suffering from repetition and a lack of imagination.
"There's an enormous amount of gaming happening with PopCap, Big Fish and Reflective.
"The fascinating thing is when they first started, all these games came out like Peggle and Mystery Files and Alice Greensleeves and Diner Dash, and it felt quite exciting. There was a lot of innovation going on. Okay, there weren't great graphics, but there was innovation.
"In my view, that has completely stopped. They're doing the same game over and over again with a different wrapper. It's like a mini-universe in itself which is emulating what's happening in our industry," he added.
"The second thing is, you've got The Sims and World of Warcraft sucking all the air out of the PC market. It's just incredible," he said.
The full interview with Peter Molyneux will be published on Eurogamer.net later this week.
wtf... this stuff is depressing.
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Oh no, WoW and The Sims sells MILLIONS of copies each! PC gaming is doomed! Lets not step back and see WHY these games are selling so well, so that we can create a game that would sell to those gamers. No, that would make too much sense.
And I think the fact that Crysis, the most demanding PC game in terms of hardware requirements, sold a million copies already is telling me that PC gaming isn't as bad off as I thought. The Witcher also sold very well especially considering the brand was unknown in the US, it had little marketing, and is a hardcore RPG that you would think has little appeal outside the hardcore.
Devs just need to leverage the market and stop giving us fucking console ports.
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And I think the fact that Crysis, the most demanding PC game in terms of hardware requirements, sold a million copies already is telling me that PC gaming isn't as bad off as I thought.
Those games didn't sell well in the US dude. We will still see AAA titles, but probably more out of Europe. The point is that it is one thing for fans to be chanting the death mantra, and another for developers. These guys aren't seeing the same success they used to. Again it is a variety of factors, but sad that it is happening.
The Witcher also sold very well especially considering the brand was unknown in the US, it had little marketing, and is a hardcore RPG that you would think has little appeal outside the hardcore.
What are you basing this on? What is "well" for you? The Witcher sold less than 100,000 copies in the US. Crysis sold less than 200,000. Compare that to RPGs of the past that sold 2.5 million, shooters like Doom III that sold 5 million and Half-Life that sold 8 million.
Oh no, WoW and The Sims sells MILLIONS of copies each! PC gaming is doomed! Lets not step back and see WHY these games are selling so well, so that we can create a game that would sell to those gamers. No, that would make too much sense.
Yes, but the why is the scary freakin' thing. WoW is sold by its simplistic leveling up system, and its social interaction, and The Sims... well how many people do you know who played the latest great PC titles, and play The Sims games?
I hope to god developers actually don't take that step.
Anyway I am integrating this with the other thread.
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Doom 3 and Half Life sell well because they are known franchises. Crysis and Witcher are not. Though I didnt look at the breakdown of how the games sold by region. Does that really matter, though? It still sold. Maybe Americans just suck. The PC doesn't have region restrictions so even if all PC dev went European, everyone still benefits.
I don't think the reasons WoW and Sims do well is scary at all.
They are titles with low system requirements.
They both are highly customizable games. Sims you can dress up and build houses or...whatever the hell you do in that game. WoW you can dress up with the various armors and weapons, plus the huge custom UI community.
They are both have a social aspect, WoW with real people and Sims is simulated. People are catching on to this. Battlefield Heroes and Quake Live are going to have community stuff. Steam already has it and people seem to love it.
They aren't strictly combative. This is obvious with Sims, but I have to explain WoW a little. WoW has a lot of combat, but theres much more to do than that. You've got the auction house, the various professions to create things (and sell), you've got different in-game events and holidays, etc. Then the combat itself. You can group with people and its co-op and not just some "boom boom deathmatch" like UT3. You have a goal other than "kill everything" when you take on a dungeon. Of course with Arena, you still have your DM, TDM, and CTF for those that want it.
Thats just what I feel like typing out. I don't want people making Sims and WoW clones. They already do that, and they fail. But there are more fundamental things those games do that makes them appealing that can be translated into more unique games.
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Doom 3 and Half Life sell well because they are known franchises. Crysis and Witcher are not.
Yea Half-Life came out of no where, and wasn't a known franchise. It sold 8 million before STEAM was invented. Though admittedly it had low system requirements.
Does that really matter, though?
No, I was just pointing it out to you since you commented on the games doing well in the US. It kinda matters in that European developers won't be affected, but the US developers will just go console.
Again I disagree with Chris Taylor's comments though.
They both are highly customizable games. Sims you can dress up and build houses or...whatever the hell you do in that game. WoW you can dress up with the various armors and weapons, plus the huge custom UI community.
They are both have a social aspect, WoW with real people and Sims is simulated. People are catching on to this. Battlefield Heroes and Quake Live are going to have community stuff. Steam already has it and people seem to love it.
They aren't strictly combative. This is obvious with Sims, but I have to explain WoW a little. WoW has a lot of combat, but theres much more to do than that. You've got the auction house, the various professions to create things (and sell), you've got different in-game events and holidays, etc. Then the combat itself. You can group with people and its co-op and not just some "boom boom deathmatch" like UT3. You have a goal other than "kill everything" when you take on a dungeon. Of course with Arena, you still have your DM, TDM, and CTF for those that want it.
So basically the future has a lot of Second Life. :) :(
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True, HL1 sales were high. Though it didn't sell 8 million right off the bat. It was slow sales over time. It also helped that HL1 was doing a lot of NEW things in the realm of FPS, and was a solid game. I don't think it would have sold quite as well on its own, though. Counter-Strike probably sold more copies of HL than HL by itself.
So basically the future has a lot of Second Life.
Why so negative? I see all those as positive aspects of gaming. People seem hung up on the "social" part of the thing. Well...oddly, look at Counter-Strike. One of the reasons it became popular was its social aspect. When you are killed, you are turned into a spectator. So you can sit and chat with the other dead players, watch the game, laugh at whats happening, etc. Its very enjoyable even being dead in that game.
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Dwight Schrute: Second Life is not a game. It is a multi-user, virtual environment. It doesn't have points, or scores, it doesn't have winners or losers.
Jim Halpert: Oh it has losers.
...sorry. Couldn't help myself. Continue on.
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I am negative because this works for only a specific type of games.
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This'll be fun. Name a type of game that those things *wouldn't* work for, and I'll try think up reasons that it can.
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I dunno... any serious singleplayer game that doesn't have any social aspects? Any game that pushes the envelope graphically?
Spore is going to use this to its advantage though. Trouble is, I don't want to play Spore all my life.
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This'll be fun. Name a type of game that those things *wouldn't* work for, and I'll try think up reasons that it can.
How about World of Anti-Social Narcissists?
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I dunno... any serious singleplayer game that doesn't have any social aspects? Any game that pushes the envelope graphically?
Spore is going to use this to its advantage though. Trouble is, I don't want to play Spore all my life.
Ok, so a serious game that doesnt have social aspects. Fine. Make use of the OTHER things. Player customization, for example. Same with the graphically intensive games. You don't have to use every idea in every game, but individually the ideas can be used where they make sense.
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I don't think Crysis selling poorly is indicitive of anything other than don't make a game that even a beast PC can barely run properly! And if you have a crappy-looking Medium setting, it should actually run very well on a modern PC, not just slightly better than the vastly superior-looking High setting! Good game, but come on the engine is horribly optimized. No one can play it right.
What did CoD4 do on the PC so far?
Yea Half-Life came out of no where, and wasn't a known franchise. It sold 8 million before STEAM was invented. Though admittedly it had low system requirements.
The original HL was very highly anticipated and had been talked about for years prior to its release. It also used a very unconventional continuous progression, unlike pretty much every other FPS which was very much level-based at the time.
HL made people and designers alike rethink what a FPS could be.
Crysis is FarCry+. The only similarity between Crysis and Half-Life is that they were new IPs. They cannot be compared.
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Well, CoD4 was the #4 top selling PC game of 2007, according to NPD with 383,000 copies sold (not taking into account Steam version sales).
The #10 spot sold 236,000 copies, so Crysis is just outside that figure. And I believe Crysis will be a "long tail" game that sells slowly over a long period of time as people upgrade and want a game to show it off.
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Here's a question: do you think high-profile games developers will still be saying PC gaming is dead when Starcraft 2 comes out and its sales figures are released?
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Thats just what I feel like typing out. I don't want people making Sims and WoW clones. They already do that, and they fail. But there are more fundamental things those games do that makes them appealing that can be translated into more unique games.
The people who buy The Sims games aren't the people who play games like Counter Strike, or Team Fortress 2 or whatever. Social aspects, and showing off what you have done is fine, but the no1 reason people play The Sims is basically to play doll house. That's what sells the game, because it appeals to children, women and guys without testicles.
You could apply the same concept of customization to other games, but then is that the same audience? I see what you are saying though. If you had the next big MMO, that basically allowed you to personalize every aspect of your online life, then that would sell. I can imagine people just playing that MMO without getting involved in the combat at all.
On a side note, remember when The Sims was a hardcore RTS? I used to love that game.
They aren't strictly combative. This is obvious with Sims, but I have to explain WoW a little. WoW has a lot of combat, but theres much more to do than that. You've got the auction house, the various professions to create things (and sell), you've got different in-game events and holidays, etc. Then the combat itself. You can group with people and its co-op and not just some "boom boom deathmatch" like UT3. You have a goal other than "kill everything" when you take on a dungeon. Of course with Arena, you still have your DM, TDM, and CTF for those that want it.
I do feel it is secondary to the one more grinding hour aspect.... Because just about every other MMO that has failed has had the extras you speak of.
People are catching on to this. Battlefield Heroes and Quake Live are going to have community stuff.
Let's see how well those experiments do. But those aren't the sort of games I'd be interested in.
Well...oddly, look at Counter-Strike. One of the reasons it became popular was its social aspect. When you are killed, you are turned into a spectator. So you can sit and chat with the other dead players, watch the game, laugh at whats happening, etc. Its very enjoyable even being dead in that game.
Kinda.... Counter-Strike was popular mostly because it was simple, free, and light on the system. I was hooked on CS for a few years and yes there was socializing in the spectator mode...though a lot of it involved rude things said about each other's mothers.
Ok, so a serious game that doesnt have social aspects. Fine. Make use of the OTHER things. Player customization, for example. Same with the graphically intensive games. You don't have to use every idea in every game, but individually the ideas can be used where they make sense.
You are right, that could help something Unreal Tournament 3. It would have been cool if the tools in the game allowed customization to the degree of Oblivion. If I was able to create whatever look I wanted, I would have had more motivation to play online.
Anyway, how does this help Peter Molyneux and Chris Taylor? :P
Here's a question: do you think high-profile games developers will still be saying PC gaming is dead when Starcraft 2 comes out and its sales figures are released?
Yes, I have a lot of similar thoughts in the "Chris Taylor... the Xbox fans can have him" post. Read them and let me know what you think.
And I believe Crysis will be a "long tail" game that sells slowly over a long period of time as people upgrade and want a game to show it off.
Exactly. That's what I believed as well. Trouble is that it has gone off the charts this past month.
Well, CoD4 was the #4 top selling PC game of 2007, according to NPD with 383,000 copies sold (not taking into account Steam version sales).
Yes it is expected to sell a million in the US alone.
Crysis is FarCry+. The only similarity between Crysis and Half-Life is that they were new IPs. They cannot be compared.
What? I am not comparing them. I was responding to what Idol said about Half-life being a known franchise.
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Crysis falling off the charts doesnt mean its not still selling. Its a slow seller, like I said. It'll drop off the charts because its not selling enough per month to be on them. But over time it adds up.
Its like the opposite of Halo 3. When that launched it sold like 2 million on the first day, then another million in the first month (or whatever, Im exaggerating a bit). But what do Halo 3s sales look like now? I don't see it in the January NPD top 10 (I cant find a 360 specific top 10). It released to explosive sales, and then thats it. It sold to everyone that wanted to buy it. I imagine Halo 3 won't have much of a long tail, especially considering people that haven't yet bought it can probably pick it up used fairly easily (which doesnt help game devs any anyway).
Crysis will always be the system check game. Whenever someone buys a new rig or upgrade, they will run Crysis. Maybe not today, maybe not next month, and maybe not this year. But eventually you will buy a copy if you're into PC gaming.
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What? I am not comparing them. I was responding to what Idol said about Half-life being a known franchise.
Right. You used it as a retort to idol saying the fact that Crysis and The Witcher's disappointing sales can be attributed at least partially to them being new IPs. Hence you compared them in that sense.
I was merely pointing out that the impact of Crysis on PC gaming and the impact of Half-Life on PC gaming are two very different things; for that reason the fact that they are both new IPs and their resulting sales proves nothing. There is no correlation.
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Crysis falling off the charts doesnt mean its not still selling. Its a slow seller, like I said. It'll drop off the charts because its not selling enough per month to be on them. But over time it adds up.
That's been my theory as well, that it will sell steadily. Unfortunately the NPD doesn't provide numbers, so all these theories can't be proven.
Maybe not today, maybe not next month, and maybe not this year
I love it when you talk Casablanca. The only issue is if retailers run out of patience, because gamers love for an excuse to pirate. I haven't been to a North American games store in years, but from I understand, PC games have lost a lot of shelf presence. Do you still see year old games on?
I'll tell you one thing though. In an interview with the GFW podcast, Cevat Yerli talked about the game's sales model being similar to that of the PS3. That made me think that the game will stay at full price.
But eventually you will buy a copy if you're into PC gaming.
I agree. That's one of the things I say on "Crysis is teh suck" threads across the web.
http://www.yougamers.com/news/17331_us_pc_game_sales_charts_-_january_19th/
Anyway the last US data I could find was from the 19th of Jan. How did COD4 go from no1 to out of the list in a week? (edit: Sorry it was a month, not a week)
1 1 The Sims 2 Bon Voyage Expansion Pack Electronic Arts
2 2 World Of Warcraft Vivendi
New 3 Medal Of Honor: Airborne Electronic Arts
3 4 Bioshock 2K Games ( Take 2
5 5 World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pac Vivendi
4 6 Medieval II: Total War Kingdoms Expansion Pack Sega of America
8 7 The Sims 2 Deluxe Electronic Arts
9 8 Civilization IV: Beyond The Sword Expansion Pack 2K Games ( Take 2
New 9 Battlefield 2 Electronic Arts
New 10 MS Age Of Empires III Microsoft
edit:
The original HL was very highly anticipated and had been talked about for years prior to its release. It also used a very unconventional continuous progression, unlike pretty much every other FPS which was very much level-based at the time.
I didn't know if it was anticipated as it had come out of nowhere for me, partially because I hadn't been following it. But I agree that it was a big step in PC gaming, that at the same time could be experienced by everyone.
I was merely pointing out that the impact of Crysis on PC gaming and the impact of Half-Life on PC gaming are two very different things; for that reason the fact that they are both new IPs and their resulting sales proves nothing. There is no correlation.
Both are PC games, and both are shooters. Yes Crysis doesn't have the same impact as Half-Life, but in my mind it does point to a downward trend. Other titles like Quake Wars, and UT3 tanked desperately as well despite being older IPs.
The problem is that we don't have all the information. We can always find some sort of an excuse for these things, by blaming it on the information we don't have. For example we can say that Crysis is still selling steadily (which I hope it is), but then I look at the list and see Battlefield 2 at no9, and wonder how steadily is it selling if it is below even Battlefield 2. That's troubling. This list actually makes no sense to me.
We could blame Quake Wars and UT3 sales on the competition, that is TF2, but again we don't know how well that sold. Though it has to be said, this holiday season the online shooter market was way over crowded. Aside from TF2, UT3 and QW, you had COD4 -- which a lot of gamers bought for the mutliplayer aspect.
In the end, any game not selling well, is selling on STEAM, and if it isn't on STEAM then it is just some other non decline related issue. PC Gaming is still healthy. Everything is fine!
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Blurry? What do you use for a display?
32" LCD for both. I wouldn't call the 360 version blurry -- in fact, it's quite sharp -- but the PC version is just so fucking crisp it makes the 360's "sharp" look like a joke. The difference is shocking when you have both hooked up and running at the same time and switch between inputs.
So, not blurry, but comparatively blurry.
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I haven't been to a North American games store in years, but from I understand, PC games have lost a lot of shelf presence. Do you still see year old games on?
Depends on the game. I can easily find copies of Guild Wars, Diablo, Starcraft, Age of Empires...plenty of "older" titles.
Heres a fun exercise to try (well, maybe not you...not sure what game stores are like where you are). Walk into a Gamestop and find the small area where the PC games are held. It looks tiny compared to how much room the consoles take up, right? Ok, now the fun part: ignore the racks of accessories like controllers, and ignore every used game in the store. Concentrate on only the new copies of the console games they sell. Now, compare each platform independently against the PC. Suddenly, it doesn't look so large compared to PC. Add in the fact that the console game cases are displayed with the cover facing out, and PC games are shelved like books makes the PC space only look smaller.
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The problem is that we don't have all the information. We can always find some sort of an excuse for these things, by blaming it on the information we don't have. For example we can say that Crysis is still selling steadily (which I hope it is), but then I look at the list and see Battlefield 2 at no9, and wonder how steadily is it selling if it is below even Battlefield 2. That's troubling. This list actually makes no sense to me.
We could blame Quake Wars and UT3 sales on the competition, that is TF2, but again we don't know how well that sold. Though it has to be said, this holiday season the online shooter market was way over crowded. Aside from TF2, UT3 and QW, you had COD4 -- which a lot of gamers bought for the mutliplayer aspect.
You're right about assuming. We are all making guesses here. But that's all we have to go on.
I think UT3's poor sales can be directly attributed to the fact that it is nearly identical to UT2004, which itself wasn't that much different from UT2003 except for the addition of vehicles. Plus the UT style is an ancient gameplay type and I think the market has long since shifted. UT2003 rode on the nostalgia of UT. UT2004 was UT2003+ and I think still rode the nostalgia wave created by UT2003. But I think the success of other gametypes in more recent time, (like that in the Battlefield series, for instance) is telling.
ET:QW is harder to explain, but I think it was in a weird place marketing wise. If there was a triangle and at each point there was Battlefield and its fans, Wolfenstein and its fans, and Quake and its fans, ET:QW is in the middle of all of that. And if you think about the different points, I mean those fan bases really don't overlap a whole lot, at least in my experience. My fellow Wolf fans for the most part disliked UT/Quake-style dm twitch gameplay and not many of us were that interested in Battlefield. I imagine the schism between Quake and Battlefield fans was even wider.
I mean yeah, I guess you could say that's a pretty broad market to try to appeal to, but clearly it wasn't that successful. As a former-Wolf fan, I'm not totally sold on the addition of vehicles. I imagine Battlefield fans might be turned of by the sci-fi setting. Quake fans are probably fans of the gameplay, not necessarily the universe (which quite frankly sucks).
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After getting dizzy reading that new tome of information since the title edit, we're back to the same key points. If PC gaming is in decline, the main culprits are piracy and the bitch that it is to have and maintain a system that can handle new technorgasm games. Everything else seems like a blur of speculation. Tell me if I missed something, because I miss shit all the time.
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I don't think maintaining a PC gaming system is any more difficult today than it was since video cards were required.
Though I suppose it's possible people got lost in the switch from AGP to PCIe and were simply unable to upgrade so many components at one time.
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That's not what I meant. You brought the point out yourself with Crysis.
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I think Crysis is an isolated incident though... one game. Correct me if I'm wrong, but there hasn't been a spate of games recently that have done to systems what Crysis does.
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1 1 The Sims 2 Bon Voyage Expansion Pack Electronic Arts
2 2 World Of Warcraft Vivendi
New 3 Medal Of Honor: Airborne Electronic Arts
3 4 Bioshock 2K Games ( Take 2
5 5 World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pac Vivendi
4 6 Medieval II: Total War Kingdoms Expansion Pack Sega of America
8 7 The Sims 2 Deluxe Electronic Arts
9 8 Civilization IV: Beyond The Sword Expansion Pack 2K Games ( Take 2
New 9 Battlefield 2 Electronic Arts
New 10 MS Age Of Empires III Microsoft
...
For example we can say that Crysis is still selling steadily (which I hope it is), but then I look at the list and see Battlefield 2 at no9, and wonder how steadily is it selling if it is below even Battlefield 2. That's troubling. This list actually makes no sense to me.
Keep in mind, BF2 didn't sell so hot upon release. It sold okay, but not like it could've -- b/c like Crysis was upon its release, requirements were VERY STIFF.
Take a look now; you can pick up BF 2 (w/out the expansions) for like $10 these days -- at places like Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Electronic-Arts-Battlefield-2/dp/B0006SL93I/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1203544789&sr=8-1) and Best Buy (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=6980118&st=battlefield+2&lp=1&type=product&cp=1&id=1099387490658). Of course it'll sell well, once it hits that WICKED CHEAP price range -- especially since it was a high-profile game with a big franchise name. It just took a while, for it to really catch on w/ the rest of the world b/c of its stiff-upon-release requirements (which is what Crysis seems to be going through).
BF 2142's requirements weren't that stiff for its time, upon release; it definitely isn't a Crysis. So, there's the people bought that BF 2142 instead of BF2 -- b/c upon release, wasn't much price difference b/t the two, if I recall; might as well opt for BF2142, since it's newer. Now, these BF2142 gamers that have the PC's that can run BF2142, they will obviously be able to run BF2, so they'll pick up BF2 b/c it's so damn cheap -- and to complete the BF collection.
Plus, look at the BF2: Complete Collection that goes for $40 -- that has every BF2 game and expansion in there; that'll sell well just b/c there's so much content in that box to those who missed BF2 completely for whatever reason.
Also, look at the list of games there, Puggy. What game has stiffest minimum vid card requirement there? And what is it? It's probably the GF 6600 minimum vid card requirement from Bioshock, I'd guess. So, what's that tell you? Gamers are going after the game's w/ not-so-stiff minimum requirements, basically.
About Crysis, that's gonna be the next Doom 3 -- meaning it'll sell crazy, once everybody has a PC that can run the damn thing. I know if the game required for a GF 6600 minimum, I've already would've bought it by now.
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Idol,
Yea we have import stores here. PC games sell really well and better than console games in this part of the world.
Again, I haven't seen the state of things first hand, but from what I understand the boxes are often placed near your feet. Hope this is exaggerated. Glad to see they are still selling those, but keep in mind it is as much about placement as quantity.
Scottws,
Your analysis of UT makes sense to be honest. I also wonder if gamers are thinking that we will get another version of UT3 next year, like UT2004 followed UT2003.
As for Battlefield, it did have great success. I don't understand why 2142 failed. People got fed up?
ET:QW is harder to explain, but I think it was in a weird place marketing wise. If there was a triangle and at each point there was Battlefield and its fans, Wolfenstein and its fans, and Quake and its fans, ET:QW is in the middle of all of that. And if you think about the different points, I mean those fan bases really don't overlap a whole lot, at least in my experience. My fellow Wolf fans for the most part disliked UT/Quake-style dm twitch gameplay and not many of us were that interested in Battlefield. I imagine the schism between Quake and Battlefield fans was even wider.
Even though I haven't played it, I understand what you mean. Kinda of a jack of all trades then.
I remember you were really excited for it.
Wasn't W:ET a free to download thing? Could that have had something to do with its success?
After getting dizzy reading that new tome of information since the title edit, we're back to the same key points. If PC gaming is in decline, the main culprits are piracy and the bitch that it is to have and maintain a system that can handle new technorgasm games. Everything else seems like a blur of speculation. Tell me if I missed something, because I miss shit all the time.
Pretty much.
I can now see what Que was saying earlier about not having enough data to form a proper conclusion. :P
I didn't mean to raise this from the dead. I just thought that what Molyneux and Taylor said was newsworthy.
I don't think maintaining a PC gaming system is any more difficult today than it was since video cards were required.
I think when people see how the very best video cards cost $600, and compare that to the Voodoo 2 costing $200, they can understandably draw the wrong conclusions... that PC gaming is very high maintenance. It is all about timing I guess. During the initial life of the 8800, there was a massive gap between the best and mid range. But now everything is very reasonable.
Personally, I think you upgraded with great timing Scott. Your mobo eventually allowed you to even nail a well priced quad core.
I think Crysis is an isolated incident though... one game. Correct me if I'm wrong, but there hasn't been a spate of games recently that have done to systems what Crysis does.
I think that's perhaps because the market is different now. In the past, we had several system raping titles. Games like Unreal Tournament, Quake III and the Aliens vs Predator games -- especially Q3 and AVP -- all were ahead of their time hardware wise.
Then we had Doom III, the next Unreal Tournament, and Half-Life 2, that again required some system power.
These days most of those developers have gone to consoles, and trends are being set on the 360. Personally, I don't think Unreal Tournament 3 looks much better than GoW. Even the engine feels very consolized. The customization options are at a minimum, and the anti aliasing doesn't work well.
About Crysis, that's gonna be the next Doom 3 -- meaning it'll sell crazy, once everybody has a PC that can run the damn thing. I know if the game required for a GF 6600 minimum, I've already would've bought it by now.
Yea I agree with that. I've said before that I have seen a lot of similarities between Crysis and Quake III. When Q3 first came, I can't begin to recall the hatred the fanboys had for that engine. It was just extremely demanding... and now we think of it as one of the most used engines ever. A pity the game didn't sell as well as it should have.
Also if Crysis doesn't sell another copy, it has already made Crytek a lot of money. Look it up on wikipedia. The game's engine has been licensed to quite a few private organizations.
BF 2142's requirements weren't that stiff for its time, upon release; it definitely isn't a Crysis. So, there's the people bought that BF 2142 instead of BF2 -- b/c upon release, wasn't much price difference b/t the two, if I recall; might as well opt for BF2142, since it's newer. Now, these BF2142 gamers that have the PC's that can run BF2142, they will obviously be able to run BF2, so they'll pick up BF2 b/c it's so damn cheap. And to complete the BF collection.
Right, if BF2142 is newer than BF2, then why the sudden surge in sales? Did the price drop? Did they release some mod?
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As for Battlefield, it did have great success. I don't understand why 2142 failed. People got fed up?
I think this is part of it -- a lot of people didn't like the whole ad-generation in-game thing.
BF 2142's requirements weren't that stiff for its time, upon release; it definitely isn't a Crysis. So, there's the people bought that BF 2142 instead of BF2 -- b/c upon release, wasn't much price difference b/t the two, if I recall; might as well opt for BF2142, since it's newer. Now, these BF2142 gamers that have the PC's that can run BF2142, they will obviously be able to run BF2, so they'll pick up BF2 b/c it's so damn cheap. And to complete the BF collection.
Right, if BF2142 is newer than BF2, then why the sudden surge in sales? Did the price drop? Did they release some mod?
Yeah, price drop, from $20 to now $10. It's now $10 at most retail outlets here in the USA -- that just about begs the words "buy me!" Especially w/ BF being a well known IP for MP Shooters. So, even if you don't like the series, for $10, would you take a chance on it? Yeah, $10 ain't likely going to break your bank, if you're a gamer.
Especially if you don't feel like throwing down the $40 for the entire BF2 Collection, $10 sounds nicer. Plus, you can always buy the extra junk later or collection box later, when it's cheaper -- if you like the game.
Okay, now let's also throw into the mix that EA's done w/ BF2. So, like most EA products that they're done with that are good sellers, they will sell a Complete Collection Box -- hence why they always do these for their big name titles (Sims, Battlefield Games, Yearly EA Sports Collection Box, etc etc). And these collection boxes for EA, ALWAYS seem to sell very well. Now that there's the entire BF2 Collection on the market (w/ BF2, the two BF2 booster packs and the BF2 expansion) that goes for around $40 retail. People will look that there's FOUR pieces in the box for $40 and think -- "Hmmm...comes w/ BF2 game, both BF2 booster packs, and BF2 expansion -- that's a lot of content in a $40 box -- I'm SOLD!" I dunno if there's a new BF2 mod or whatnot, but I think just my reason above of getting a good amount of content in one entire collection box is probably enough to make gamers buy the entire collection (like the BF2 Collection), as opposed to buying one whole new game for the same exact price w/ not nearly as much content right in the box (like say Kane & Lynch).
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Well I just read that NPD charts aren't in order of units sold, but money made. (not counting online of course)
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About Chris Taylor and Peter Molyneux, of course they'd call PC gaming dead. They looked at their PC gaming sales history for one game and then looked at their console game's sales for one game (which I'm sure were much huger on the console) -- and then decided "console games make me more money much more quickly, therefore PC gaming is dead!"
I mean, c'mon -- how much big competition did the XBox have for RPG's for Fable?? KOTOR series? Jade Empire? Morrowind? Anyone, can you add any others??? (There has to be...like, a few I missed...)
How much competition does the X360 have for RPG's up against Fable 2? The Mass Effect series??? Oblivion??? Can anyone add some others???
Look at the PC's library for RPG's, you'll be looking through a VERY LONG list to go through....
Same goes for RTS's, as well.
For RTS's, what would a X360 console version of SupCom (or any other RTS Chris is planning to bring to the X360) have against it? Maybe C+C 3?
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As for Battlefield, it did have great success. I don't understand why 2142 failed. People got fed up?
I think of Battlefield fans like this:
casual male console gamer : Madden :: casual male PC gamer : Battlefield
I realize this is a big generalization, and is based only on anecdotal evidence, but that's what I've seen. These types of people just aren't into sci-fi. They just aren't. Plus, it had the huge in-game advertising billboards and some spyware that told EA what other stuff you had installed on your system. I'm sure that didn't help sales at all.
Even though I haven't played it, I understand what you mean. Kinda of a jack of all trades then.
Sort of, yeah. It's got the classic gameplay features of Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, but it adds vehicle features a la the Battlefield series. And then it's set in the Quake universe with the human GDF and alien Strogg.
I remember you were really excited for it.
I was, but now I feel like the vehicles really detract from what made the Wolf games so great. I mean that style is still there somewhere, but the vehicles are very heavily used and overshadow that gameplay a lot. And I just liked the Allies vs. Axis thing from Wolf better than the Quake stuff. The two sides in the other Wolf games were very similar but in ET:QW there are a lot of differences.
Plus I feel like the game is a little unbalanced towards defense.
Wasn't W:ET a free to download thing? Could that have had something to do with its success?
Oh sure. But it was originally supposed to be an expansion of RtCW, which was a pretty popular game in its own right.
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http://download.gamevideos.com/Podcasts/CGW/022008.mp3
Just listen.
I'll integrate this with the the larger thread at some point. I just want you guys to listen to this guy.
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Well I can't really add anything... because well, its hard to because it was really damn fascinating. I think Im going to listen to it again.
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[13:50 - 16:15] Whether piracy is really the cause or not, these guys conclude that it is, and are taking evasive action as a result. So it may as well be completely true. Perception becomes reality.
[16:34 - 16:53] "Even our system requirements are insane. Really, forcing people to spend $1000 to $3000 for the privilege of playing your game the way it's meant to be played--we're limiting our potential markets . . ."
He said it. I didn't. So don't jump on me this time. :)
[18:49] "We're creating this problem, but we're prisoners of it."
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These guys are going console... things don't look good.
When a great game like Company of Heroes doesn't set sales ablaze, and patches are downloaded 5x more than the game was sold, then they've got a problem.
As for the $1000 to $3000 comment, people at the GFW boards got really upset. Check out some responses here:
http://boards.1up.com/zd/board/message?board.id=games&thread.id=607955
Pretty funny stuff.
Here is what Jeff Green, the EIC of GFW mag., and the guy conducting the interview said on the forums after the interview:
Yeah, today's was weird. If you had been in the room with us, it was even weirder in person. Taylor's a totally nice guy and all--but we couldn't quite figure out what was going on in his head, and we could just never get it all to quite gel as much as we wanted to....
Yeah. We've had better guests.
I've never heard Jeff Green say anything negative about a developer, so I was quite surprised.
Anyway I can see why Taylor is upset with piracy and all, but I am just dumbfounded at his want to create simplistic games. He's written some crap in the PC GAMER mag about wanting to have zero complexity...games that are easier to play than Peggle. I honestly think he feels he is about to hit a goldmine on the 360. Let's see.
And who are these people who find RTS games too complex? I am not that smart a person, and I didn't find Company of Heroes all that difficult.
I think Taylor came off as a bit of a jerk. Do read some of the responses on the forums, please:
http://boards.1up.com/zd/board/message?board.id=games&thread.id=607955
edit:
Just wanted to add, that everyone was hoping that STEAM was rivaling total retail sales, when it seems to be closer to representing the same figures as a Best Buy outlet.
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I read some of that thread, until it started to degenerate into the usual argument about piracy, morality, impact, etc. I have no idea what SupCom is. It could be this guy is following the money. Would you blame him? Anything good and even not so good sells in boatloads on the popular consoles. He was commenting about how well the multi-threaded SupCom runs on the multiprocessor 360. The compromises that need to be made are not perceived to be as big a deal as they once were, to move their projects from PC to consoles. More money, lower artistic losses, FTW?
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I wouldn't blame him. Who doesn't like money? What angers me is this whole justification of piracy. If I can buy legit games sitting here, what is stopping these guys. And like you said, perception is reality. Even the guy from Relic, who did Company of Heroes, Homeworld and Dawn of War, talked about priacy being an issue. Yet people just don't want to admit it. This whole thing is a sorry affair. Everyone is angry at Taylor, but no one is upset with the pirates.
And SupCom is the game he made, Supreme Commander.
That's it. I am selling my PC, and am getting a 360. Come on K-Man, show me some games.
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I wouldn't blame him. Who doesn't like money? What angers me is this whole justification of piracy. If I can buy legit games sitting here, what is stopping these guys. And like you said, perception is reality. Even the guy from Relic, who did Company of Heroes, Homeworld and Dawn of War, talked about priacy being an issue. Yet people just don't want to admit it. This whole thing is a sorry affair. Everyone is angry at Taylor, but no one is upset with the pirates.
And SupCom is the game he made, Supreme Commander.
That's it. I am selling my PC, and am getting a 360. Come on K-Man, show me some games.
I wouldn't say they aren't mad at the pirates. More like the pirates are there to stay, like bad weather--so why bother discussing how to waste time on impossible attempts to eradicate them? Better to spend the time on figuring out ways around them, where everyone gets what they want--good games and money.
If I could afford to, I'd buy your PC off of you. ;)
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If Taylor is really so concerned about piracy on PC gaming, he just needs to talk to Valve -- who are pretty good at stopping pirates, since they really do have so much control over their STEAM games and STEAM servers.
STEAM is pretty good at stopping "Zero Day Piracy."
EDIT:
About Taylor talking about gamers buying high-end vid cards and downloading games illegally, I believe it. Many college students I knew at college back when I was in college would do that -- they'd buy the $500 vid card, but they would DL the game illegally somewhere.
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Why is everything this guy is saying big news? I've never even heard of him.
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I don't even like him. He hasn't made anything that didn't fucking suck in years. I can't be arsed to listen to what he has to say.
Also, Steam games get pirated like anything else, you just have to wait a little while. But it happened with Half-life 2 and it happened with Portal and it'll happen with everything else. It's just another example of how intrusive copy protection doesn't actually do anything.
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Why is everything this guy is saying big news? I've never even heard of him.
I think it's b/c he's a PC game dev' that might be planning to do more of his games for the consoles.
[13:50 - 16:15] Whether piracy is really the cause or not, these guys conclude that it is, and are taking evasive action as a result. So it may as well be completely true. Perception becomes reality.
Of course piracy is an issue.
The other problem here is the dev's and publishers are not coming up w/ good ideas AND good execution to combat them. So, they come up w/ ridiculous Protection schemes (StarForce and the newest Securom that dials up) that alienate the legit gamers, making them possibly turn rogue to pirate the game so they don't have to deal w/ the crap protection, the legit gamer will boycott their game, or possibly even BOTH.
[16:34 - 16:53] "Even our system requirements are insane. Really, forcing people to spend $1000 to $3000 for the privilege of playing your game the way it's meant to be played--we're limiting our potential markets . . ."
Yeah, hot everybody can afford to have a Intel Duo Core, GF 8800 GT 512 MB, 3 GB RAM, and Win Vista.
To me, graphics are NOT everything. In gaming, that has been the biggest thing that is always changing. I mean, really -- what was the most innovative game we've seen on the PC for a game? Any brand new genres pop-up b/c of ONE game?
I understand the dev's want to give us the best eye-candy they possibly can, but do we really need that great eye-candy if they can't even get the game run good? I think the way a game is meant to be played is at a good resolution where the game itself looks at least good AND technically runs great. Maybe, just maybe, they should aim more so for the mid-range specs and below out the box. After the game's already a well-oiled machines -- maybe in a patch, they can add techs and features to try and cater to the high-end gamers?
[18:49] "We're creating this problem, but we're prisoners of it."
B/c instead of Chris Taylor, dev's, and publishers coming up w/ good solutions that are done with good execuction to solve their problems, they don't change ANYTHING to benefit the consumer. They just leave things as is; piss and moan; and keep doing the same thing or even worse for the consumer.
EDIT:
Also, Steam games get pirated like anything else, you just have to wait a little while. But it happened with Half-life 2 and it happened with Portal and it'll happen with everything else. It's just another example of how intrusive copy protection doesn't actually do anything.
Right, you have to wait a "little while" -- usually, Valve does well when it comes to "Zero Day Piracy" (to letting the game not get pirated like crazy anytime before the game's official street date is) b/c of the way they have STEAM work.
Valve likes keeping that "Zero Day Piracy" down b/c they want the PC gamer to just go and decide to spend full price on it, as soon as its officially released. Yes, they want lots of sales at a very quick rate.
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Chris is a little odd. First question is about RTS as a genre falling by the wayside as they become more complex and cater more and more to the hardcore RTS players, leaving new players out in the cold. The Relic guy I thought was very insightful, stating that theres a difference between complexity and depth and devs seem to confuse the two and add more complexity. Chris, however, mentions piracy first. WTF? Thats not even the question.
Though I like the thought on system requirements. I know I've got a lower end system right now so of course it would directly benefit me. But I think this is something I've said for a while. Make your games run on lower end systems. And not "run" as in turn everything off so it looks like shit and still only get 15fps, I mean run as in runs well and still looks good. That opens up your audience to more people. Releasing on PC is already limiting, why limit it further to only those with high end rigs?
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Yell you one thing. I can understand the Relic guy bitching, but why was Taylor? What did he expect from SupCom? Yes the game was built on a huge budget, but it had very little artistic beauty to. Secondly, the game is a very hardcore RTS. It isn't like StarCraft, WarCraft or Command & Conquer, that tons of people can easily get into.
I think when you make a hardcore niche focused RTS, then you shouldn't expect more than a few million sales. The fact that you made it so difficult to run on most machines just means you cut your potential market further. In the end, the horsepower wasn't even worth the visuals.
Also, Steam games get pirated like anything else, you just have to wait a little while. But it happened with Half-life 2 and it happened with Portal and it'll happen with everything else. It's just another example of how intrusive copy protection doesn't actually do anything.
D, I never said that.
On the subject though, they seem to suggest that the most sales are lost because of piracy in the first week.
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Whoops, that was from PCG's boards and wasn't from you.
Hell was I thinkin'?!?!?!?
Remind me to never post on two boards at the same time again! :-X
Sorry about that one, bro.
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Ummm...no... it was from these forums. It was from Que. :)
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Ungh, watch the next step of copy protection involve biometrics!
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I am sorry sir, your sperm sample did not match the rightful owner of this software.
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More (http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=17624)
"Flash is the next console," he posited. "It's pointing its way to the future more than the next generation of consoles," with capabilities increasing dramatically over the next 12 months. "Retail PC is in dire straits, but... the web is kicking the console industry's ass."
Gas Powered's Chris Taylor seemed to agree that, at very least, digital distribution of any kind is the way forward, saying, "PC gaming as we know it is dead... secure gaming is the future."
Ex-Sony exec Phil Harrison concurred, saying, "There is a generation of kids who are already on the planet who will never ever buy physical media," to protests by EA's Neil Young that "I don't think it's that simple and you'll get to choose."
"No it will not," said Harrison, who later said he thinks this is the last generation where physical disc media in a case is the primary means of delivery, and that the business model will have to change.
This is the last gen with physical media as the primary delivery method? A bluray (being the new "standard" format) holding 50+GB of data...and you're going to have people download that shit? Get real.
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I've heard that before, probably from the same guy in a different interview. It's bullshit, especially with ISPs getting very close to implementing download bandwidth caps (ala cellphone min.) and throttling techniques.
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PC gaming as we know it is dead? What, Taylor plans to bomb all the developers coming out of Europe?
And I doubt very much physical media is dead. I think people still very much like holding what they own.
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If people want to bitch about system requirements, bitch about Flash. That is the most poorly optimized system I've ever known. It's way too CPU intensive for what it does.
Anyway the disappearance of physical media isn't likely to happen until we have like 1 MB/s down pipes in everyone's homes.
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It's like I've stepped into an alternate reality last couple of days. Go back to two-button controllers? Flash is the replacement for consoles? WTF?! Could these guys be further off in left field if they tried? Flash is years and a complete dev-team overhaul away from ever being capable of anything like that, let alone the internet infrastructure. Is the air in those ivory towers too thin for those guys' brains, or is there something they see from up there that we can't?
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Today's PA
A week or so ago, I read over Steven Totilo's off the cuff interview with Cliff Bleszinski, who is also known as CliffyB, and is still sometimes called Clefairy B. In it, Clifford makes a few personal observations about the PC as a gaming platform - namely, that it is schizophrenic in its focus. The industry itself apparently agrees, but it hasn't spared him any heat. Epic's Liar-King Mark Rein scuttled out from a rotting log to do some damage control, but noone on the Internet remembers anything for more than a week anyhow. It's wasted effort.
This "heat" I referred to, and it is not difficult to find, ranges from the merely rankled to full on psychotic episodes. To an outside observer, it must look like Stockholm Syndrome. It's hard to imagine that there are those who still see the PC as ascendant, and not merely one option available to gamers, an option fraught with costs in time and treasure that not every person feels like fucking enduring when they get home from work. The rationalizations at play in these threads are feats of such liquid mental agility that I wish we could put these minds to work on renewable energy or on the fabrication of advanced polymers. There are profound advantages to a hand-built, precision twiddled machine, running a (relatively!) wide open OS - I've done so for well over a decade. It is this generalized potential that Sony has done their best to emulate in their latest console foray. But it's certainly not the only true way to amuse yourself with electronics, and by dismissing the fixed gaming platforms you are actively sabotaging your own happiness.
You can't point to Valve's success - as so many do in these threads - and claim that the entire PC market is doing incredibly as a result. Valve is a single company. Valve isn't even a developer, in the traditional sense - it's a development environment, where by some bizarre alchemy newly hatched auteurs are thrown together with the best gaming humorist who has ever lived, and a few months later they deliver a three hour experience that overshadows the output of an entire industry. They worked on Team Fortress 2 for eight years. The 1.5 million sales of Orange Box on the console are, to them, something like a rounding error. Their software platform virtually defines digital delivery, community, and user created content. This is simply not what life is like for most developers.
Team Fortress provides an excellent example, actually. We started playing TF2 once our shit was out of the way recently, and there was a problem on Gabe's machine where the game won't run fullscreen. Yes, I checked the dropdown. Listen to my story: after updating this, and changing that, and looking up some other shit, and then rebooting, I was able to make it work. Mostly. "This is why I don't play games on here" he suggests lightly. And why should he not say this? How had we been enriched by the act? Not all toil is virtuous. Some toil is just regular old slavery.
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It's funny, because he goes off on rationalizations and using the same old arguments, but he's doing the exact same thing in reverse. It's just another post spouting the same stuff everybody else does. I still say these arguments are pointless and nobody is ever going to change anybody else's mind. Even the PA guys, who I think are generally intelligent and often insightful, are repeating the same lines about it. Nobody has anything new to say and they never will until something major changes.
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Well the PA guys have stated several times dating months back, that they are frustrated with PC gaming and what not, and I think Tycho went on to say he hated how difficult PC gaming was.
I think this is just a case of finding stuff to support your dislike.
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You know; I don't really see why anyone actually cares all that much. Like, it's not that big of a deal. PC gaming will never fully die, and if the bulk of developers move to consoles, buy a console once to thrice every four years. Really, with HD tvs and all that jazz, there's not as big of a difference as there used to be.
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http://www.developmag.com/news/29331/The-PC-market-is-not-dying-says-newly-formed-PC-Gaming-Alliance
He offered up stats on the US and worldwide PC games market, saying the former (not including casual games) in 2007 generated $2.76bn revenue, a year-on-year rise of 12 per cent, accounted for 30 per cent of gaming revenues in the territory, and was set to make $9.6bn - a rise of 16 per cent - in 2008. For the global games market the figures were $8.3bn in 2007, up 14 per cent, with 2008 revenues set to be $9.6bn, up for 16 per cent.
There are 263 million onlne PC gamers worldwide, added Stude, saying it was proof that the PC gaming market's death has been greatly exaggerated.
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The best way to avoid economic catastrophe is to restore consumer confidence. Anyways, this whole thing is cyclical.
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cyclical
Definitely.
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Well the PA guys have stated several times dating months back, that they are frustrated with PC gaming and what not, and I think Tycho went on to say he hated how difficult PC gaming was.
I think this is just a case of finding stuff to support your dislike.
Actually, it's a case of posting things relevant to the conversation and generating discussion.
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I was referring to PA's comments that have been consistent with their other thoughts through out the year, where they've taken anything negative to support their views, while ignoring positive news.
I wasn't directing that at you, if that's what you meant, which I am actually not sure of. :P
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Ah, I completely misunderstood you. Sorry about that.
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'tis OK. I can see how you took it that way after our... 'ahem... debates. Honestly, I am pleased this thread retains your interest. I don't mind the discussions continuing.
As for PA, I have heard them say plenty of times that they've started to hate PC gaming. I actually think it was Tycho, -- I probably shouldn't be grouping them together -- who has said many a time that his problem comes from all the tweaking, time wasting, and the crashing etc. I can see why he says that, because these guys seem extremely busy, and given the choice, they'd rather spend their free time gaming seamlessly.
At the same time, I remember when PA strongly disagreed with IGN's Assassin's Creed review. They felt it was more of a game that needed to be enjoyed at a leisurely pace, rather than be rushed through at a pace that only reviewers on deadlines work. I think some of that holds true for PC gaming as well. To do it right, you need to be a bit more relaxed both in terms of state of mind, and time.
Just a recent personal story. A few weeks ago, it was the last Sunday of a major holiday here, and I invited my cousins over for a LAN party. I had three computers hooked up. One was mine, one was my sister's, and the third was my office work PC. Basically we had about six hours, and two of those precious hours were wasted with bullshit. I had forgotten that I had added a new sound card to my sister's PC without installing the new drivers, and basically spent the first hour trying to reinstall the old card drivers without realizing it was a different Creative card. Then the next hour was spent with us screaming at Gears of War, which wouldn't recognize the second PC on LAN.
Turned out that one couldn't play GoW CO OP PC LAN, unless signed on the internet with GFW Live. That I found absolutely ridiculous, having paid $50 for the game, and having wasted an hour on patching, and restarting. Despite my obviously pro PC stance, I kept thinking, I wouldn't be having these problems on an Xbox 360.
In the end it was all worth it. We rocked out with Company of Heroes on LAN, as well as SupCom, UT3 and Rainbow Six: Vegas. It was all amazing fun at a level that I could never experience with a 360, on a TV shared with my opponent. And some of the problems setting it all up, were just stupidity on my part. But some weren't, and that's when I really started to hate GFW Live.
Anyway the point of all of this is that I can see where Tycho is coming from, because part of my frustration that day stemmed from having a limited amount of time. As a working professional, some of the hiccups of PC gaming are harder to swallow. At the same time, these guys seem so busy, that I think they probably have a far lower tolerance level.
By the way, I found this fucking hilarious.
(http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2008/20080227.jpg)
That's two PA comics I have LOL'ed at in the past month.
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I have none of the problems Tycho mentions as far as issues. Maybe his PC sucks and has a problem. It's not like there aren't 360's out there that are breaking left and right.
The only problem I ever deal with is patch management.
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He mentioned having an 8800GTX computer etc. I think his primary concern seems to be 100% convenience.
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Consoles can break. PCs can break. That's a separate issue, even after Microsoft's botch job on the original 360 design. The issue being discussed here is the time cost to get a game working right across the board. No one here can deny the extra time and aggravation investment the PC takes. When there's no good choice, everyone will put up with it. When there is, only those who are passionate about PC games will put up with it.
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I think his main point was the fact that years ago it was worth it to go through and 'deal' with a PC in order to get a superior gaming experience. Now we can boot up a console and 'settle' for a little less quality and not have to worry about compatibility (360 death notwithstanding).
Ultimately I'm just glad to have the choice.
Admittedly I haven't purchased many PC games in the past few years. One I made a point to purchase was Civ IV (and both expansions). Very excited for the game. Got it home, installed it, and fell victim to the graphical glitches that plagued the unpatched version. I was so damn frustrated with the game. All of that got ironed out, but man there's nothing worse than getting a bright and shiny new PC game home that you've literally been waiting YEARS for only to have it not work properly on a high end system. But shit like that has to be acceptable in PC gaming, if only for the sheer fact that developers have to accommodate for so many hardware setups.
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Consoles can break. PCs can break. That's a separate issue, even after Microsoft's botch job on the original 360 design. The issue being discussed here is the time cost to get a game working right across the board. No one here can deny the extra time and aggravation investment the PC takes. When there's no good choice, everyone will put up with it. When there is, only those who are passionate about PC games will put up with it.
I vehemently disagree. What aggravation? I guess if you equate installing a game to aggravation, then I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.
Sure, I suppose there are exceptions like Crysis which take some fiddling to get working with acceptable speed. But that is no where close to the norm.
Admittedly I haven't purchased many PC games in the past few years. One I made a point to purchase was Civ IV (and both expansions). Very excited for the game. Got it home, installed it, and fell victim to the graphical glitches that plagued the unpatched version. I was so damn frustrated with the game. All of that got ironed out, but man there's nothing worse than getting a bright and shiny new PC game home that you've literally been waiting YEARS for only to have it not work properly on a high end system. But shit like that has to be acceptable in PC gaming, if only for the sheer fact that developers have to accommodate for so many hardware setups.
I'd be putting on blinders if I didn't admit that EA uses consumers upon release as beta testers, but that stuff isn't totally isolated to PC games. The Wii version of GH3 has mono sound even thought it's advertised to have Dolby Pro Logic II. Ask Que about that one game on PSP that gave him fits. Madden '07 on 360 is full of tons of graphical glitches and guess what? They never got patched.
Look, I can admit that PC gaming has disadvantages. I'm not going to put hardware because there are upgrade costs with consoles too in terms of purchasing new ones and accessories. You have ease of use, the fact of installation, patches, and potential hardware incompatibilities.
But there are advantages too: better visuals possible, better performance possible (generally), possibility of user-created content and modifications, vastly cheaper, better control options
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I'd be putting on blinders if I didn't admit that EA uses consumers upon release as beta testers, but that stuff isn't totally isolated to PC games. The Wii version of GH3 has mono sound even thought it's advertised to have Dolby Pro Logic II. Ask Que about that one game on PSP that gave him fits. Madden '07 on 360 is full of tons of graphical glitches and guess what? They never got patched.
Look, I can admit that PC gaming has disadvantages. I'm not going to put hardware because there are upgrade costs with consoles too in terms of purchasing new ones and accessories. You have ease of use, the fact of installation, patches, and potential hardware incompatibilities.
But there are advantages too: better visuals possible, better performance possible (generally), possibility of user-created content and modifications, vastly cheaper, better control options
The upgrade costs aren't nearly as much on a console you buy every 5-7 years. Hell, I've got the cost of 3 ps3's in my PC right now, and it's nowhere NEAR top of the line any more.
Sure, you'll get an occasional shitty/buggy release on console, but surely you're not denying the problem is more prolific on the PC side of things. As far as the wii version of Guitar hero is concerned, they're replacing the discs free of charge. I realize that the resolution to that problem is a shitty one, and it should never have happened to begin with, but it is a solution.
Plus, most of those buggy console releases aren't the fault of the hardware, but most likely the victim of shitty development. PC games kinda get a pass because they have to combat so much hardware. But a buggy game on a console shouldn't happen. If it does happen it's going to be 99% of the time due to negligence on the dev's part.
I agree with you on the advantages. In fact I never denied these facts. Although the better control option thing is debatable, depending on the game.
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The upgrade costs aren't nearly as much on a console you buy every 5-7 years. Hell, I've got the cost of 3 ps3's in my PC right now, and it's nowhere NEAR top of the line any more.
Would you use a PS3 for the exact same things you use your PC for? If yes, then you have a point, but I'm guessing the answer is no.
Plus, most of those buggy console releases aren't the fault of the hardware, but most likely the victim of shitty development. PC games kinda get a pass because they have to combat so much hardware. But a buggy game on a console shouldn't happen. If it does happen it's going to be 99% of the time due to negligence on the dev's part.
Same as with a buggy PC game.
I agree with you on the advantages. In fact I never denied these facts. Although the better control option thing is debatable, depending on the game.
What I really meant was in most cases you have the choice to use a gamepad or a kb/m. So if a gamepad is better for a certain game, it's trivial to use one.
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The upgrade costs aren't nearly as much on a console you buy every 5-7 years.
If you bought the 9800pro at the time of the Xbox, it doesn't mean your 9800 is performing any less. It can still run Oblivion to the best of its abilities at low settings, which is more than the first Xbox can do. With the PS3 you are stuck with its tech for its lifespan. Isn't that the same with a video card? The 8800GT even five years from now will continue to be able to run games at the same level as a PS3... well maybe not, but you get what I am saying.
In terms of hardware value, PCs find it more difficult to compete because console manufacturers are willing to sell their systems at a loss. A loss they recoup as technology gets older and cheaper to manufacture, as well as with higher priced games.
Console games typically are $20 more than PC games. I'd say in the life time of a console, you are buying thirty games? (Unless it is Nintendo, which is when it is maybe one :P). I think my brother bought a total of thirty for his Xbox and PS2. So in a life time, aren't you basically paying back the money you saved on the hardware?
Sure, you'll get an occasional shitty/buggy release on console, but surely you're not denying the problem is more prolific on the PC side of things. As far as the wii version of Guitar hero is concerned, they're replacing the discs free of charge. I realize that the resolution to that problem is a shitty one, and it should never have happened to begin with, but it is a solution.
Yup there is no denying that.
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I buy more used games than new, but point taken.
I won't generally spend 60 on a game unless i'm chomping at the bit for it on day one (cod4, halo 3, etc)
Generally I'm out 30-45 for a console game.
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Would you use a PS3 for the exact same things you use your PC for? If yes, then you have a point, but I'm guessing the answer is no.
You jest, but since I finished graduate school my PC usage has devolved into basically surfing the net, checking email, posting on messageboards, and playing games - All of which could be done with a PS3 at this point in time.
Not to say that I prefer to use the PS3 for computer-related things. But if the PS3 had a better interface in that regard I'd probably consider it.
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Come on. I'm not some spin meister here, trying to undermine PC gaming. But why do I have to defend or justify something we all know already? You pop open a console's tray, slide the disc in, close it, and it works. It works every time, as long as the hardware works, and the disc is readable. With a PC, you're lucky if installation is the end of the chores. I'm not going to fucking argue anymore. I thought we all stood on the same ground here, shared common experiences, and had come to like conclusions. Guess I was wrong.
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Come on. I'm not some spin meister here, trying to undermine PC gaming. But why do I have to defend or justify something we all know already? You pop open a console's tray, slide the disc in, close it, and it works.
It works every time, as long as the hardware works, and the disc is readable.
In most cases, yes.
That didn't happen for many w/ Assassin's Creed on the PS3.
With a PC, you're lucky if installation is the end of the chores. I'm not going to fucking argue anymore. I thought we all stood on the same ground here, shared common experiences, and had come to like conclusions. Guess I was wrong.
In my lifetime, for the many issues I've had w/ PC games -- usually were luckily from the game itself, not b/c of some nasty copy protection. Consider me lucky, I guess. Usually, it was say I hit a bug or something -- quest cannot be finished b/c of something not on my end (b/c they forgot to program something in for such an instance), game causes a CTD for some sort of odd issue, etc etc. I've hit technical issues from the game that just cause the framerate to basically die -- usually b/c too much is happening on-screen for the game to handle itself well.
I did have trouble for example w/ booting XIII and Uru for the longest time, b/c it just wouldn't start b/c of its copy protection (Securom) didn't like my REAL COPY for some reason. XIII fixed that issues w/ a patch and it ran fine. Uru fixed it w/ a patch that removed the CP (Securom).
I been lucky, when it comes to StarForce. Sure, boot times w/ a SF game might sometimes be long or not happen, but usually, it'll boot next time around for me.
I did have the occasional issue w/ SoundBlaster Drivers, where they got just corrupt and the sound died. Then, I'd have to re-install them.
Oh, I recall having to drop down to (not-too-much) older NVidia drivers on my older PC b/c the drivers wouldn't work w/ certain games for some reason.
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Cobra, I didn't mean to antagonize you. It just seemed to me that you were overemphasizing the problems of specific experiences. A vast majority of the PC game experiences I have are 1) Open Box, 2) Insert Disc 3) Install Game 4) Play.
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I second what Scott says here. It seems to me there is much overemphasis happening here. Sure, we've all had problems with PC games now and again, but it's what, maybe 1 in 10 games that actually has any hiccups, let alone huge ones? I own hundreds of PC games and I've had few enough problems with them that I could most likely specifically remember every major bug that ever happened if I went back through my collection trying to recall them. And frankly, these days I've run into a lot more console game bugs than I ever used to. People are getting lazy and shit is getting shipped too early. I agree console games should be more bug-free than PC games just because of the hardware non-issue, but that's not always happening. Both the DS and PSP ports of Puzzle Quest were completely broken, and this was never fixed. No money refunded, no patches (you could patch a PSP game in theory), no new fixed copies of the game, nothing. That game was a waste of my money. That's only one small recent example, and it's definitely the worst I can think of, but there have been other issues here and there. There were a couple recent 360 games, The Darkness being the one I'm specifically thinking of, which had glitches that pissed off some people. Most weren't game breaking, but they were still glitches (quests uncompletable, achievements not being given, etc.).
Anyway, I think Scott hit the nail on the head. You guys are entirely overemphasizing specific experiences. Either that, or you've had infinitely less luck with PC gaming than I've had in my lifetime.
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A strike against PC gaming for me is my constant desire to play old titles. i realize not everyone is like me, but I have every system I've ever owned dating back to the NES in my apartment. If I want to play RC Pro Am, I put the cart in and play it (yes, i can do that because my NES doesn't blink).
Now, getting Shadow Warrior to work correctly in XP? Hell, I could sooner turn water into wine.
Now, this isn't a huge deal for a lot of people. But it is for me. And I don't have the room/desire to keep an older PC around to run this shit. And I realize this is mostly microsoft's fault by not allowing for compatibility. But it's a huge issue for me, and one that I don't have on the console side of things.
In fact this problem really pisses me off. i have a perfectly great copy of return to zork that I can't get to run correctly in XP. I haven't played the game in years and I want to. Same with my copy of Civ 2.
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Actually if you want to get technical about it it happens on the console side. You don't want to keep an old PC around but you keep your old NES around to play those games. How is that really all that different? Though I do agree that the legacy support in the new OSs sucks, and we gotta use stuff like DOSBox to play old games.
Anyway, I just wanted to post this: CliffyB can't make up his mind. (http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/02/28/epics-mark-and-cliffyb-explains-what-pc-gaming-alliance-means-for-gamers-disarray-dismissed/)
Multiplayer: “Cliff, you buy it? PC gaming is back?”
Bleszinski: “Abso-frigging-lutely. The thing is, I think everybody coming together in that kind of way will essentially kind of help re-glue things back together and kind of help fix the market. I have a big PC gaming heritage and I love playing games with a keyboard and a mouse, as well as a console, and I’d just love to see it.”
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*reads CliffyB comments*
We all should do more for awareness of schizophrenia.
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Actually if you want to get technical about it it happens on the console side. You don't want to keep an old PC around but you keep your old NES around to play those games. How is that really all that different? Though I do agree that the legacy support in the new OSs sucks, and we gotta use stuff like DOSBox to play old games.
Anyway, I just wanted to post this: CliffyB can't make up his mind. (http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/02/28/epics-mark-and-cliffyb-explains-what-pc-gaming-alliance-means-for-gamers-disarray-dismissed/)
It's a personal choice, I admit. however, preserving and playing old console games is much easier due to the advent of roms and good emulators. Not that it's a replacement for playing it on the actual system (because for me, it isn't). But keeping old consoles around to me is much cooler than keeping a junk PC in the corner to play old titles. Not to mention that with PC's it really shouldn't be an issue to begin with. I mean honestly how difficult would it be to allow for older games to run in windows?
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I agree with you there. We can thank out great overlords at MS for that bunch of bullshit.
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Ok, everyone has one post left on this subject. Please fill this in:
I like ______ more than _____. I can either be reasonable and just admit that I like ______ over ______ because ______ and be happy to go about my buisness enjoying ______ or I can be a total fucking douche and try to convince others that they are wrong if they feel otherwise. No one wants to be to a douche, so I'm going to shut up now and spend my valuable internet arguing time discussing equally inane topics like cars vs. trucks.
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A strike against PC gaming for me is my constant desire to play old titles. i realize not everyone is like me, but I have every system I've ever owned dating back to the NES in my apartment. If I want to play RC Pro Am, I put the cart in and play it (yes, i can do that because my NES doesn't blink).
Now, getting Shadow Warrior to work correctly in XP? Hell, I could sooner turn water into wine.
Now, this isn't a huge deal for a lot of people. But it is for me. And I don't have the room/desire to keep an older PC around to run this shit. And I realize this is mostly microsoft's fault by not allowing for compatibility. But it's a huge issue for me, and one that I don't have on the console side of things.
In fact this problem really pisses me off. i have a perfectly great copy of return to zork that I can't get to run correctly in XP. I haven't played the game in years and I want to. Same with my copy of Civ 2.
Return to Zork and Shadow Warrior are BOTH supported by DOSBOX. (http://www.dosbox.com/)
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Well bud, I sure invite you to get either working properly in dosbox on my setup. Because after hours upon hours of trying I couldn't.
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Frankly, DOSbox sucks. VDMSound was vastly superior, but I don't think it's being developed anymore. Still, could be worth a try even though it's a bit older now.
It's funny, because you and I are a lot alike K, I love to play old games all across the board. And I don't think anybody will disagree that the lack of support for older stuff on PCs is lame. Still, you can get *almost* anything to run now if you know what you're doing. Unfortunately, it does take the know-how with some of that stuff (especially since most programs like DOSbox suck in terms of user friendliness). I guess the only people to blame for that are Microsoft. That's a cliche, but... who else is to blame in this case?
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DOSBox is great, but it takes some figuring out. User-friendliness is definately an issue.
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Frankly, DOSbox sucks. VDMSound was vastly superior, but I don't think it's being developed anymore. Still, could be worth a try even though it's a bit older now.
It's funny, because you and I are a lot alike K, I love to play old games all across the board. And I don't think anybody will disagree that the lack of support for older stuff on PCs is lame. Still, you can get *almost* anything to run now if you know what you're doing. Unfortunately, it does take the know-how with some of that stuff (especially since most programs like DOSbox suck in terms of user friendliness). I guess the only people to blame for that are Microsoft. That's a cliche, but... who else is to blame in this case?
Blame Apple.
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Ok, everyone has one post left on this subject. Please fill this in:
If everything seems credible then nothing seems credible. You know, TV puts everybody in those boxes, side-by-side. On one side, there's this certifiable lunatic who says the Holocaust never happened. And next to him is this noted, honored historian who knows all about the Holocaust. And now, there they sit, side-by-side, they look like equals! Everything they say seems to be credible. And so, as it goes on, nothing seems credible anymore! We just stopped listening!
We can start our own gaming news service! We already knew enough about past, current and future games. Now we also have the sensationalist controversy, where no one can agree on what really is and really isn't. Not only that, we can't even agree whether we're sincere or partisan. We're there, guys. We're there. Bring on the anchors.
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I'm not the biggest Valve and STEAM fan...
But Valve really laces into all of the anti-PC chat that has been going around.
Too much good stuff for me to quote here, such as NPD really needs to track digital sales from the Net; PC gaming is going leapfrog consoles b/c of the hardware; PC gaming is better suited for modding and the DLC stuff; etc etc...
Just read it. (http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=17744)
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I used to have D-Fend as user-friendly front-end to DOSbox but it just couldn't cut it fully and it's been discontinued.
By the way DOSbox has implemented all the sound code from VDMSound since it was discontinued.
PC's are great for classic gaming but consoles are digging up that market as well; leading with the Wii.
Lombardi's argument makes a lot of sense. I'm starting to respect Valve for their views and their effort to revitalize PC gaming.
In the end PC is more than a gaming system to me.
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Tim Sweeney of Epic Games expresses his displeasure w/ some things -- from Best Buy selling PC's lacking good video cards to Intel's integrated chips. (http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/36390/118/)
TG Daily: But we mostly talk about conventional retail sales. Do you see an increasing divide between the Pc and consoles?
Sweeney: Retail stores like Best Buy are selling PC games and PCs with integrated graphics at the same time and they are not talking about the difference [to more capable gaming PCs]. Those machines are good for e-mail, web browsing, watching video. But as far as games go, those machines are just not adequate. It is no surprise that retail PC sales suffer from that. Online is different, because people who go and buy games online already have PCs that can play games. The biggest problem in this space right now is that you cannot go and design a game for a high end PC and downscale it to mainstream PCs. The performance difference between high-end and low-end PC is something like 100x.
I'm glad someone touched on this; I been saying this for a while, that it's not good for Best Cuy, CC, and other stores to sell PC's w/out even half-way decent graphics cards, since pretty much a very high precentage of the modern PC game's require them.
And many new games right now seem to want a GeForce 6600+.
TG Daily: Let’s go back to the gaming PC. What would you think if everyone would pursue a sort of an ease-of-use approach? For instance, in last two years, there were efforts to bring external graphics to life. It was supposed to be a compact box that would have a powerful discrete card inside. But in the end, it turned out that Vista's driver mode (LDDM) was incompatible with that.
Sweeney: External graphics?
TG Daily: A year ago, the PCI-SIG certified the PCI External standard, which enabled the conventional PCI slot to extend through several different cables. There were several Taiwanese companies such as Asus and MSI that demonstrated products based on different cards. In the end, you simply needed to plug the external box into a notebook or a desktop. Prototypes were using the ExpressCard interface.
Sweeney: Oh... that's cool. Actually, this would be a really good idea. We always joked that there will come a day when you won't be plugging a graphics card into a computer, but you would connect the computer into an Nvidia box, because they were quite loud and using a lot of power. But this idea would be really good. I didn't know there was actually a development in that area.
External video card...oooh, I like the sound of that. It'd make it REAL easy and painless to basically swap a video card out, w/out having to open the computer and all.
Sweeney: Sadly, this would not solve a problem that we have today, and that is the fact that every PC should have a decent graphics card. A PC should be an out-of-the-box workable gaming platform.
I agree w/ the bold statement for sure -- I mean, look at consoles, now they pretty much come equipped w/ a graphics card. Really hurts for ALL PC's to NOT come equipped w/ one.
TG Daily: What about notebooks?
Sweeney: For notebooks this could be a really good solution. There is no room to put a fast GPU into that compact form.
External graphics board for a notebook...I could see that being a good idea; since most PC games utilize namely the desktop video cards.
And especially since some PC games, flatout on the box say -- "laptop video cards not supported."
TG Daily: What are your thoughts on the future of the PC as a gaming platform? Is scalability the future – we hear AMD talking about Spider and Nvidia is selling Triple SLI that will keep us upgrading over the next several years. Or did the industry lose its focus?
Sweeney: PC gaming is in a weird position right now. Now, 60% of PCs on the market don't have a workable graphics processor at all. All the Intel integrated graphics are still incapable of running any modern games. So you really have to buy a PC knowing that you're going to play games in order to avoid being stuck with integrated graphics. This is unfortunate, and this is one of main reasons behind the decline of the PC as a gaming platform. That really has endangered high-end PC game sales. In the past, if you bought a game, it would at least work. It might not have been a great experience, but it would always work.
TG Daily: Can that scenario change?
Sweeney: Yes, actually it might. If you look into the past, CPU makers are learning more and more how to take advantage of GPU-like architectures. Internally, they accept larger data and they have wider vector units: CPUs went from a single-threaded product to multiple cores. And who knows, we might find the way to get the software rendering back into fashion.
Then, every PC, even the lowest performing ones will have excellent CPUs. If we could get software rendering going again, that might be just the solution we all need. Intel’s integrated graphics just don't work. I don't think they will ever work.
TG Daily: These are harsh words. It looks like Intel has a lot of things coming down the pipe.
Sweeney: They always say ‘Oh, we know it has never worked before, but the next generation ...” It has always been the next generation. They go from one generation to the next one and to the next one. They're not faster now than they have been at any time in the past.
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The kind of video card that validates that 100X-performance statement of his is a powerful, dedicated computer in its own right, crammed inside the case with the mainstream computer. It's unreasonable to expect such a beast to be included in every budget PC at Best Buy. In fact, it's rather silly. I don't buy the argument that Intel could magically change a few details on its silicon and come up with a competent integrated graphics solution. If that's the case, then why does it take a leaf blower, an electrician, and a price tag that rivals a whole budget PC to play Crysis? Is Nvidia incompetent?
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No, the people who made Crysis are.
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Mark Rein has been saying the same things, and I agree with some of what these guys say. I don't see anything unreasonable about having on board video be at a level that allows you to play modern games at minimum levels. They talked about this on GFW radio, and Intel basically needs to charge $3-$4 extra per mobo to make it happen.
The kind of video card that validates that 100X-performance statement of his is a powerful, dedicated computer in its own right, crammed inside the case with the mainstream computer
I think the 100X thing gave you the wrong idea Cobra. I think he is talking about how they are unable to make engines that are flexible to a degree where they can scale to a level playable on the onboard video. It won't take a 100X improvement to be able to play Unreal Tournament III or COD4 with integrated video.
If he is saying that onboard video should allow games to be played at maximum specs, then that is indeed stupid. But I doubt that's what he is actually saying.
No, the people who made Crysis are.
Actually Que, Crysis is more optimized than S.T.A.L.K.E.R. or Oblivion.
Yes, that is huge difference. If we go back 10 years ago, the difference between the high end and the lowest end may have been a factor of 10. We could have scaled games between those two. For example, with the first version of Unreal, a resolution of 320x200 was good for software rendering and we were able to scale that up to 1024x768, if you had the GPU power. There is no way we can scale down a game down by a factor of 100, we would just have to design two completely different games. One for low-end and one for high-end.
That is actually happening on PCs: You have really low-end games with little hardware requirements, like Maple Story. That is a $100 million-a-year business. Kids are addicted to those games, they pay real money to buy [virtual] items within the game and the game.
Yea, see, that's pretty reasonable. He wants integrated video to at least allow games to run at min. spec. That's a fair request.
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I kinda miss Ragnarok Online.
The latest patch definitely streamlined Crysis a bit more too.
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Sure Pug, but holding up STALKER or Oblivion in comparison is pointless. Those games were horrendously optimized and I'd call the developers out on those for their poor work in that area, even though I love both games. To paraphrase Gertrude Stein, poorly optimized is poorly optimized is poorly optimized.
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Yup you are correct. The Crysis performance does leave much to be desired. I am just wondering if that's how well games with such open environments run. I am thinking to other games with similar environments like Operation Flashpoint, Ghost Recon, Morrowind, Tribes... and I remember they all didn't run as well as they should have. Even Far Cry had tons of performance issues.
As for this Tim Sweeny thing, he isn't the first Epic employee to say this. And considering that Epic and Intel are both part of the "gaming alliance', I wonder if Intel will pay heed.
I seriously doubt it though.
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FarCry had performance issues? I thought it ran like a dream. I've said before that I feel like FarCry and Crysis are opposites. With FarCry I was impressed with how it ran despite some pretty amazing visual feats. With Crysis, I'm surprised it runs as poorly as it does, especially on medium.
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Well it did till the game was patched, but honestly, FarCry did scale beautifully.
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Tim Sweeney, in part two of the interview.
Basically, Sweeney talks about why he thinks DX10 will be the last relevant Graphics API. (http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/36410/118/)
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Over time, I think that the whole graphics API will become less relevant, just like any other Microsoft API. There are hundreds of them in Windows, file handling, user interface and things like that. It is just a layer for people who don't want direct access to hardware.
That is such a narrow view. What a standard API does is make your code independent of whatever follows it. On a console, that doesn't matter, because what follows it is always the same thing (on any one console model). On PCs, you can have several competing technologies to make that 100X leap in performance over the software pipeline. Right now, I guess Nvidia is king of the roost again. That doesn't have to be the case always in the future, and Nvidia itself may want to radically alter their graphics-rendering hardware. Anything which programs the graphics hardware without a standard API would be completely incompatible with future video cards. He's right about it being the most optimal way to do it, on a single immutable hardware setup.
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Yeah that's stupid. Lots of devs use DirectX over opengl because the DirectX API is supposedly a lot easier to work with. Yet Sweeney is saying things are moving more towards talking to the hardware directly?
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Cobra's argument makes a lot of sense. Direct communication with the hardware is relevant only when the hardware is all the same as in consoles, or even Macs.
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Alex St. John of WildTangent expresses his feelings on PC gaming -- he basically blames Microsoft for a bloated OS (Vista) and Intel for destroying the gaming market w/ their cheap integrated graphics boards. (http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2277507,00.asp)
Here's some stuff from Part One.
Alex St. John: I've known Tim Sweeney a long time, and he makes a very important point. To be clear, PCs are fantastic gaming platforms, in spite of Intel and Microsoft. And they should absolutely be pinioned for the stupid stuff they've done to make the PC not as good a gaming platform as it would inherently be without their help screwing it up.
Ouch.
ASJ: And so the shame of it is, the PC's a fantastic gaming platform, superior to anything anybody's every imagined, superior to every console, and Microsoft and Intel put crap in the PC that make it not so good. And so if you see a PC that is not denuded by things interfering with it by Microsoft and Intel, in many cases like an Intel crappy graphics chip, or a bloated Vista operating system, it's a fantastic gaming platform. And the shame is, if the low end of the PC market, the mass market PCs that everybody buys did not come with these crappy graphics chips on them and was not burdened with a fat OS, that the PC would be a larger contiguous gaming platform than all the next-generation consoles combined, probably would be clearly superior; the PC is the home of the most profitable game in history generating more revenue than the top 10 console games combined—that's World of Warcraft generating a 1.2 billion dollars a year in revenue, that's a pure PC game.
So it is clear that PC gaming absolutely killed [the market] in terms of revenue, killed it in terms of consumer usage—the average console gamer, according to Powers Associates, spends more time playing PC games than console games.
ET: Really?
ASJ: Yep, they do. They spend more money on the console, but again that's Microsoft's and Intel's fault.
ET: How is this Microsoft and Intel's fault?
ASJ: Two problems. Two really simple ones. The first one is that, from many points of view, Microsoft and Intel come from an enterprise background. They're enterprise-centric. So in many respects the consumer market, from their point of view, is an after market for stuff really designed for the enterprise. And the consequence of that is in many cases subtle but important. Because what it means is that game and media support and keeping the operating system out of the way is secondary to, in many cases, silly security infrastructure and a lot of useless OS junk that impedes the real-time performance of games unnecessarily.
The second thing, in Intel's case is, they ship the cheapest, crappiest graphics chip they can as the commodity component—they push the OEMs to do that, because really what they want to do is sell that big Intel chip, the processor, if they can, because that's really where their core expertise is; from an enterprise perspective, GPU is kind of an afterthought.
ASJ talks on WoW.
ASJ: ... Why is World of Warcraft the most profitable game on the PC?
ET: Community.
ASJ: Yeah, but what makes it so profitable? There are a lot of community games out there. What is it about a massive multiplayer game that makes it make so much revenue? Is it just community?
ET: Why don't you tell me?
ASJ: There's one very important feature: DRM. You can't f---ing steal the thing.
ET: Ah. Gotcha.
ASJ: You can't pirate a community. So an MMO has two properties that make it hugely valuable. One is community; frankly, that's almost secondary. The truth is, you can't steal a community-based game. And because you can't steal it, you get all the revenue from it. All a console is is a giant DRM device. A console's job is not to enable you to play games, but to stop you from playing games you didn't pay for. If a console goes online, and plays community based games, its primary value, the reason Microsoft and Sony make the console and get a third of all the revenue, because they control the DRM and security. It's irrelevant if the games are community based games. The developers don't need their DRM and community; therefore, what idiot would share revenue with them?
You just make PC community games you're gonna reach everybody, because the average console gamer plays more PC games than console games—they have a PC—so again, you're out of business.
A real migration from CD games to online games would break the console business model, so you either have to make up an entirely new one, or believe that consoles as we know them are gone.
Part Two of the interview. (http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2277868,00.asp)
ASJ: The PC box business in 1998-ish was 2.2 billion dollars. Today, it's about one billion dollars, plus 1.2 billion in World of Warcraft subscriptions. Frankly, there's another billion dollars in advertising around Flash games that people often don't count in that, so the market actually grew, but the point is, if you ask where did all the PC box shelf space go to, it's not like the PC game business collapsed. The money just moved to entirely different business models and the market actually grew in those business models. So that what you see is that selling a box for fifty bucks is kind of a legacy business model, and I think that's the major transition that's taking place; that's if you want to make money selling games for the PC, it's gonna be in a different business model than demanding fifty bucks for a cardboard box and a piece of plastic.
This is why I think the NDR needs to report the sales of online games -- b/c I think w/ things like STEAM, Direct2Drive, Metaboli, and the upstart of more and more other places to purchase-to-download-games over the years, this is why retail sales are down in the stores; b/c those online services are getting their huge share of money now, too.
ET: So on current PCs, where the market is fragmented, how does something like the Orb guarantee a dependable playing experience?
ASJ: We do a couple things that are very clever. First off, we detect the system configuration requirements for all the games in the catalog, so you only see the games on your machine that are going to work on [your system]. And you can also ask, hey, what do I need to have in order for this game to work?
That's a pretty good model -- let the program detect what games you CAN play.
And then, there's your list of things you can't play that you can look at; and you can let that detect what you part(s) you will NEED to run the game.
That's great for casual PC gamers who know nothing about video cards and other hardware; they could find out the part that need and just go to the store and not try to decide b/t 30 different video cards that could run their game. Quick fix.
ASJ: Ninety percent of consumers are not that technically sophisticated. So when they walk to the store to pick up a game they want to buy, reading the edge of the box to figure out if the system requirements match their machine—they can't do it. They have no idea. They don't know what their machine is. And so that is meaningless information. So they either buy the box and take it home and the game doesn't work then they're pissed off that they have to return it, or they say, "Ah, this probably won't work, and I've had a bad experience before, so I'm gonna buy a console game."
In the online distribution model for the Orb, one, the console will detect what games will work and won't in your machine. Second, it doesn't cost anything to try the games on your machine for free. So there is no disappointment factor that you slapped down some money on a game that's not gonna work.
So the Orb, and the online business model, solves that problem in two ways. First, it doesn't make it a high tax if the game doesn't work, and second we detect what games are gonna work on your machine, so the consumer has a good indication….
Idea: a game's official website could do that, too -- if you want to see if you can actually run the game, select an option to let the website scan your PC to see if you meet the listed requirements. That'd be good for casual gamers. Actually -- do any actual official website for a game actually have such an option yet??
Now, I'm curious, since I don't really mess much w/ STEAM, since STEAM's a very popular online-game distribution service -- I really use it just to play my games, basically.
When you go to STEAM and look at a game to buy-to-download, can you have The STEAM Program scan your PC to make sure you meet the requirements for the PC game you're looking at to buy-to-download from STEAM?
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Um, doesn't System Requirement Lab's "Can You RUN it?" (http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/referrer/srtest) do that?
In any case isn't that one of the many purposes of demos? A demo is supposed to give you a taste of the product and a relatively accurate idea of how it would run on your system. In most cases I've noticed that the demo performs amazingly well compared to the final product.
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Um, doesn't System Requirement Lab's "Can You RUN it?" (http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/referrer/srtest) do that?
Yes, it does.
But, you don't usually see that site supported on one game's official website, normally. IT would be nice if say casual gamer jumped onto callofduty.com and there was a link to that site in there to let the casual PC gamer check to see is CoD4 would run on their PC.
In any case isn't that one of the many purposes of demos? A demo is supposed to give you a taste of the product and a relatively accurate idea of how it would run on your system. In most cases I've noticed that the demo performs amazingly well compared to the final product.
Yes, but not every game gets a demo before a game's release.
But see, some games get demos after its full version release (Witcher, Sins of a Solar Empire). Some games NEVER get a demo period (Oblivion).
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Publishers need to take advantage of this service.
True enough about demos.
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MSNBC weighs in:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23800152/
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Um, why doesn't the Wild Tanget guy just get to the point and start talking about how all his spyware will rape my machine?
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Um, why doesn't the Wild Tanget guy just get to the point and start talking about how all his spyware will rape my machine?
B/c he's trying to sell you his spyware? :P