They Wonder Why People Don't Make PC Games Any More

I suspected as much, but the issue is definitely there. I do think a good way of combating both warez and second-hand selling would be to come up with some kind of incentive to buy it at launch, but other than my few suggestions above I've no idea what.

I agree, we have to make people want to buy the games - not horse around with lame restrictions and blocks on the products we want people to buy with their hard-earned money. Otherwise we are just punishing the paying customers.

Isn't it a bit early for this kind of topic again?

I propose we wait another 2~3 months before we argue about it again and end up agreeing to disagree.

Quote from Skjalg

Isn't it a bit early for this kind of topic again?I propose we wait another 2~3 months before we argue about it again and end up agreeing to disagree.

Hehe, I second that motion

The interesting thing here though is the adding of code to prevent second-hand trading - you have to agree that's a new one

They don't make PC games anymore? Shit man, I've been waiting for Half-life 2: Episode 3, STALKER: Clear Sky, Alan Wake, Penumbra 3, Tension (Ice Pick Studios, maker of Pathologic's next title. It's been released in Russia, waiting for it to be translated to English), Left 4 Dead, Serious Sam 3, Sam and Max season 3 (and that Homestar Runner game Telltale's working on), and Survival Crisis Z 2 (James Silva's old website claimed it was postponed for Dishwasher Samurai. I'm holding him to that, he'd better pick it up again after...) for nothing! Damn!

:roll:

Quote from Jetsetlemming

They don't make PC games anymore? Shit man, I've been waiting for Half-life 2: Episode 3, STALKER: Clear Sky, Alan Wake, Penumbra 3, Tension (Ice Pick Studios, maker of Pathologic's next title. It's been released in Russia, waiting for it to be translated to English), Left 4 Dead, Serious Sam 3, Sam and Max season 3 (and that Homestar Runner game Telltale's working on), and Survival Crisis Z 2 (James Silva's old website claimed it was postponed for Dishwasher Samurai. I'm holding him to that, he'd better pick it up again after...) for nothing! Damn! :roll:

As opposed to MGS4, Bioshock, Assassin's Creed, Gears of War (with shitty ports), GTA4, Halo 3, Project Origin, Guitar Hero, Battlefield: Bad Company, Bionic Commando, Mirror's Edge, etc.

They might look on par, but developers are indeed moving from PC to console games, as it's much more profitable.

Project Origin last I heard was a PC focused multiplatform title (I forgot about that one, and I'm ashamed of it. I've been a fan of Monolith since Blood, and I liked FEAR and was only mildly disappointed by the monotonous level design). A bunch of those also have PC versions either out, coming out, or are very very likely: Bioshock, Assassin's Creed, Gears of War, GTA4, Halo 3, Project Origin, Guitar Hero, and Mirror's Edge. Those are all besides MGS4 already released games, I was talking about stuff coming up. I also listed a number of multiplatform games like Alan Wake (360), Left 4 Dead (360), and the Strongbad game (Wii).

You could've made your point much better with Wii games.

Overall though, the PC releases fit my tastes far more. The only game you listed that doesn't have a PC port (or very likely PC port in time for the holidays, in the case of GTA 4) is Metal Gear Solid 4, which is a PS3 exclusive so that's no more of a burn against the PC than it is against the Wii and 360.

I was personally listing all the PC games coming up that I'm personally excited for that are commercial games. I could triple the list size if I included mods and indie games. The developers I like are PC focused. The genres I like (FPS, adventure, CRPG) are PC focused. I'm quite fucking content being a PC gamer. I even pay for most of my games!

PC gaming as a whole is doing far better than you'd think, too. I'm hardly alone. Even for the NPD, which is really shit for viewing the PC audience and sales, reports 58% of American gamers are PC gamers (You have to extrapolate from listed statistics, I got the info here: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20 ... ation.html and before you ask, that indeed counts casual gamers, of COURSE it does)

Outside America, PC gaming is doing better. In European countries, console publishers tend to be late and ignorant of the Euro consumers, and things tend to cost far more, two issues that the PC and digital distribution entirely make non-issues, as at worst case a German gamer can create a US Steam account, or, god forbid, torrent.

NPD numbers report PC sales as 14% (which is a bit less than you'd hope seeing as it's 1/4 of the available game release platforms), but the NPD completely ignores digital distribution, and for some ungodly reason (according to the Stardock CEO) fucking Walmart. What other brick and mortar stores sell PC games but Walmart and big box stores anymore? It's been three years since I last saw a PC game in Gamestop or EB. But at Walmart the PC game and accessory section is double the shelf space devoted to console games. Even ignoring that, digital distribution is a HUGE sales resource that it's just goddamn criminal that the NPD even bothers listing PC figures at all without counting. There are 15 million users on Steam, and over 10 million active WoW players. On a conservative estimate, I'd be willing to claim a full half of all PC sales today are by digital distribution. 50% is exactly what Stardock claimed for Sins of a Solar Empire (and almost all their physical sales were from Walmart).

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Those are all besides MGS4 already released games, I was talking about stuff coming up.

Gears of War 2 is going to be 360 exclusive (most likely anyway - Mark Rein's words). Halo 3 isn't going to come to PC any time soon, and even if it gets ported, it'll suck ass big time (like Halo 2 did - Halo: Combat Evolved was pretty decent though). Project Origin and Mirror's Edge haven't been released yet. Same for GTA4, which is graphically even more expensive than Crysis to some extend.

Well, actually, the big deal is that more and more developers are developing for consoles as well or even focusing on console platforms - hence why most of the latest good (or innovative - the mainstream has a different view of a good game) games were designed with consoles in mind and released for consoles first or exclusively for consoles. That doesn't mean PC gaming is dead. Or it's going to be dead in a few years. It (and by "it" I mean piracy) might just turn around that badly forcing publishers and developers to develop for consoles only - where they can basically add as much of them anti-pirate mechanisms they want, because people don't give a flying shit about a game that loads for 2 seconds longer or uses a crooked filesystem just to be secure.

As I see it, if you don't have a console you're really missing out on a lot of what gaming has to offer. I know some people don't mind playing a game months or over a year after it originally came out, and they don't mind coping with a keyboard/mouse in games like GTA even though a pad is infinitely better, but I do.

I want to be playing new games when everyone is excited about them, and enjoying the latest innovations. And when it comes to innovations and new games, if you lack a console then you're missing a massive chunk of... well, gaming culture. It's like first watching films a couple of years after they came out and they're old news for everyone else — I just don't like it.

Neither platform is dead though, and IMO if you don't have a PC you're also missing out a huge chunk of gaming culture. Without a PC you don't get to properly experience practically everything Valve's made and a few other key titles too (admittedly not many outside of Valve interest me).

It's weird that games are split up like this, but it's how it is. It's similar to if the movies were split up into two distinct groups, where you had to pay a membership for watching films at two different cinemas which each have exclusive films. While you can get along happily with just subscribing to one of these cinemas, you're going to be missing out on a lot of exciting films by not subscribing to both. Gets even more complicated if you factor in the 360/PS3/Wii divide too, which is why I'm a proponent of owning everything.

Quote from Sindwiller

GTA4, which is graphically even more expensive than Crysis to some extend.

Not even close. I've heard a number of people who own the game compare them to other console games, saying they aren't as good as Gears of War or Assassin's Creed, especially when commenting on the shadowing. Art-wise you could have an argument, though. I find jungles to be rather boring compared to city streets.

I forgot about Project Origin TWICE! Oh my, I'm just gonna go kill myself. Can't handle the shame.

Quote from Thrik

As I see it, if you don't have a console you're really missing out on a lot of what gaming has to offer. I know some people don't mind playing a game months or over a year after it originally came out, and they don't mind coping with a keyboard/mouse in games like GTA even though a pad is infinitely better, but I do.

i disagree with the pad being better for control in gta. in fact, i hate using joypads in most games. for me, they should only be used in platformers like god of war or similar. the aim with analogue sticks is next to useless, and there are less buttons that, although may be placed more ergonomically, are harder to get used to (pressing down on an analogue stick is a good example, as are double r/l buttons on top of pads).

this was perhaps the greatest reason why i withheld buying consoles until about a year and a half ago. if i could, i would hook up a wireless keyboard and mouse and play every console game that way. joypads are overrated.

I thought driving any vehicle in GTA was horrible when I played San Andreas with keyboard/mouse.

Quote from Thrik

I thought driving any vehicle in GTA was horrible when I played San Andreas with keyboard/mouse.

I actually found myself driving better with the keyboard when I played SA on the PC than on the Xbox, where I first played it at a friend's. Being able to mouselook around me while driving was a GODSEND.

Now FLYING, that was a bitch. Eventually I rebound the countrols and switched fully to flying by keyboard, which worked OK but precision shooting things on the ground was still just about impossible. The flying training was far harder than the actual flying missions ingame.

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Neither platform is dead though, and IMO if you don't have a PC you're also missing out a huge chunk of gaming culture. Without a PC you don't get to properly experience practically everything Valve's made and a few other key titles too (admittedly not many outside of Valve interest me).

Penumbra And of course all the awesome RTS's

Quote from Sindwiller

Penumbra And of course all the awesome RTS's

And all those wonderful indie games... (which Penumbra is one of).

You know, console gamers would flip right the fuck out if Survival Crisis Z were ported to Xbox Live Arcade. 11/10, game of the century, holy shit, omg. Though, the aiming would be simplified to a Smash TV type "Aim in a direction, not at a specific place" method, that would detract from it.

That "The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai" game Silva's working on doesn't look nearly as interesting. A sidescrolling beat 'em up is so blase and tame compared to an open ended isometric sandbox action RPG set in a supernatural zombie apocalypse.

http://www.hlportal.de/?site=news&do=sh ... ws_id=6026

I know it's german but you can find some additional links below.

Core statements:

In less than 3 months from now Steam and the Steam CyberCafes will make more income than the retail market

Valve isn't affraid of pirating - Gabe N states that a software pirate is "A customer you didn't serve right" - so the fault for most software pirating is the failing support (read: Cashcowing EA and Ubisoft)

Steam will hopefully soon feature automatical driver-updates, futher software downloads like FireFox.

Like the Stardock dude said, the people who wouldn't have bought your game if they hadn't been able to pirate it don't count, you do not factor them in as participants, you do not cater to their needs or wishes. They are simply irrelevant.

Copy protection has two ends of a scale, one end is the stardock side where they basically have no copy protection and the other side is the harsh DRM/rootkit shit that does nothing for your sales except bad PR.

In the middle you have the usual copy protection, but across the board no matter how well your game is protected it will be cracked, simply because there are very talented people out there who crack games for the sake of cracking, not just because they want to play the game for free, in fact most crackers buy their own games in order to crack them.

An example of the "DRM/Rootkit shit":

I bought Neverwinter Nights 2 and the expansion not too long ago and was surprised that my above-average computer was chugging along with stutters and occasional freezes until I read that it was a common issue traced to securom and that the unofficial fix was simply to pirate/crack the game... People who didn't pay for the game were having a better experience than I was simply because of the obnoxious copy protection, this shit makes me mad. This form of antiquated business models needs to be eliminated and rearranged into digital distribution.

Also, the "80-90% piracy rates" thing kind of gets to me, just like the RIAA makes up bullshit estimates for how much money the record industry is losing to piracy, there's no effective way to gauge your losses. Not everyone who downloaded your game/album/movie would've paid for it had they not been able to get it for free, and in the case of good products, those non-loss downloads are actually generating GOOD PR through indirect word-of-mouth. It's no justification for pirating, but it's a valid point none the less. Like the phrase goes "83% of all statistics are made up on the spot".

I think that, as has been said often in this thread, digital distribution is the way, and the only way to reach people who pirate everything just because they can. Like with steam, not only are you getting your game online with minimal effort but you can access it from anywhere, you can have updates streamed to you as they are released and with the new SteamCloud, they store your configs and savegames as well.

I never feel good about pirating games, they are genuin work in some other way than a tv-series is I believe. Last game I remember pirating was Linux version of Postal2 just because it was "wow! A game for linux"

Somehow games feel closer to home.

Quote from Inveramsay

I never feel good about pirating games, they are genuin work in some other way than a tv-series is I believe. Last game I remember pirating was Linux version of Postal2 just because it was "wow! A game for linux"

Try Warsow and Savage 2, not to mention all the games that work flawlessly with Wine.