f13.net

Article link : here (http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/62910)


To an extent, they're doing what TV broadcasters have done - pilot, and if everyone watches, it becomes a series.  If I remember right, the makers of Torchlight are doing this as well by adding multiplayer later.  The difference is that Torchlight is pretty much done, single-player wise, and the games affected by this strategy will likely not be.  I can't say I'd pay $20 for that Mafia demo I downloaded some years back, or to play a single race over and over in the next NFS title.

Your thoughts?

I agree with your analogy and I would never pay for the privilege of watching a pilot show, and I would never pay for a demo.

Pachter is out of touch and doesn't understand what demos are for.

It's a result of the overuse of DLC. Games like AVP and BF:BC and Dragon Age and so on and so fucking forth with release-day or week-after-release-day DLC propping up the back-end of sales. From a business perspective it only makes sense to see if you can prop up the fore-end of sales with even more DLC.

Personally, fuck that for a joke. Then again, how much content did the SP of MW2 have again...?

My thoughts are: "please for the fucking love of god, please stop it with the fucking seppuku, PC gaming is getting skinny enough as it is."

DLC as a general rule is not popular, neither will this be. People are going to see it, some will try it but it'll die the death of the virtual boy.

PC gaming? I saw this as console or multiplatform demos pilots. Consoles is where the moneys is at, after all. It's just an exec looking for additional ways to monetise the industry, which in a sense is his job. Just like Kotick Satan trying to and expecting to sell you and I a new plastic guitar and set of drums each year, right until he has a game which fails (band hero, anyone?)

Hm, is this actually true? Yes there's a lot of complaining about it around here and other places on the internet, but is that actually reflected in bad sales for it?

Paying for a demo just seems way beyond the line though.

I don't see me paying for this shit.

"Tweak the game."  Paying for single player beta.   :oh_i_see:

I'm already not paying money for 5 hour long games. Not buying the demos for games I know I'm not going to buy is not going to kill me.

bah, read it wrong... but I do agree with tgr...

They'd have to give me $15-20 off the full game if I buy the demo to get me interested in that, and even then I'd only buy demos for stuff I'm pretty sure I'll enjoy (Dead Space, Burnout, any of Bioware's stuff).  That wouldn't be too much different from something like Gran Turismo 5 Prologue.

It's a logical extension to single-player games of what MMOs have done for years... :awesome_for_real:

Christ, I guess you're right, I didn't see the PSN/XBL in the last paragraph. I guess I'm just too used to PC gamers being the ones getting the shaft.

MW2 SP would probably have been sufficient for the $15 pricerange, if we have to see this shitty idea implemented. And as Velorath says, if I'm to buy a "demo" (i.e. be a paying betatester, essentially), they'd damn well give me $15 off of the finished product.

I would totally pay up to $5 for a demo, but not a penny more.

Look at it this way.  At least they're admitting up front that they're selling you an unfinished product.

See shit like this works ok with small-time studios. I paid for the Mount and Blade Beta because that was clearly a group working on a game that needed funding and they were working on something interesting and different enough that I felt it warranted some money for an unfinished client. Big studios doing it? Perhaps if say purchasing the demo was £5 and you received £10 off the price of the full game but demos are meant to act as advertisements. They give players a chance to evaluate the game itself, not act as a separate source of revenue. Fuck can you imagine if cinemas started charging extra for the trailers at the beginning of films? Also DLC is an interesting concept but generally they're used for nothing more than fluff (yay horse armour!) or adding in something that really should have been in the original game, which is why people hate it. I don't see a problem with using DLC to tell more or new stories within a game but in terms of development costs that probably would be somewhere between pointless fluff/stuff that didn't quite make the original shipping deadline and full blown expansions so studios don't want to do it if they won't be getting full expansion price but the content itself doesn't justify that.

If half the companies around today put 1/10th the work into their demos that Polyphony Digital put into Gran Turismo Prologue, the gaming landscape would seem a lot less bleaker.

You wouldn't pay for it, plenty of people would.

I won't pay for it, so it doesn't affect me and I don't care.

"Sure, in theory figuring that out is part of our job in the first place, but how about you pay us so you can then tell us what sort of a game you want."

Brilliant.

Sure it affects you - you no longer will have the option to get said demo for free.

I'd say its pretty different really.  Torchlight is just a single player only ARPG game, at a price of 20 dollars.  They are making the franchise into an MMO after the fact (though there have been rumors aplenty about the idea of a multiplayer version of the single player game, non MMO).  They were pretty much all in on the project and the single player wasn't really to test the waters.  It was more to put together a solid product on a short time frame, make some money, and then shift focus to another (related) project.


Anyway, Torchlight aside, I think this is a pretty stupid idea.  I can't really see myself paying anything for this sort of thing.  I don't have to pay to watch the pilot of a TV show, and I'm not going to pay for this.  Hell, on the topic of TV I'd rather get a 30 second ad for something when I start the demo than pay for it directly, if they absolutely felt the need for some sort of pay structure.

I won't pay for it, but then it's not about me.  I'm not the target audience anymore since I'm 35 and funds are beginning to divert themselves elsewhere.  The gaming budget gets smaller and smaller every year.  It's my nephews and kids who are and they'll fork over the $5 or even $15 without a second thought and do so for the next 20-25 years until their kids are the target.

Just like it was predicted that PC gaming is going to move towards the online-only model AND would include DLC with every game, and not for just trivial "cosmetic" shit.  Hey look where they're headed with that.

You paid for the mount and blade beta because you downloaded the DEMO and realized it was going to be a kick ass game.

I'll pay five bucks for the demo if it means I get to fuck the guy's wife. Mmn... roast beef.

This could work only if what you paid for the "demo" is deducted from the cost of the full game.

If any company could do this right it'd be EA.

I'm not a fan, but the nerdrage in this thread is getting a little thick. I read it more like they plan to release what is effectively substantial DLC as games' prologues. Not Demos, as mentioned in the thread title. Demos for the most part are simply a couple of levels chopped out of the main game that may or may not be any good, and thrown out there, often a little rough and/or unfinished.- This is substantially different from 3-4 hours of content.

The other thing is the perception of valiue. Right now, demos have little to no percirved monetary value. This is because they're for the most part simply a couple of levels chopped out of the main game that may or may not be any good, and thrown out there, often a little rough and/or unfinished.- This guy is talking about a "very high" percirved value and 3-4 hours of content.

I'm reading their plans as a bit more akin to (maybe GT Prologue), or Half-Life episodes, or that Ratchet & Clank mini-adventure on PS3, or the DLC adventures they released for Mass Effect/Fable/Dragon Age/Borderlands. But a little more self-contained. Probably ending on a cliffhanger of some sort with "play the next exciting adventure in 6 months" as the conclusion of the game.

Which is miles away from paying for the demos that are all over XBL and PSN.

I find it interesting that the companies making the most money this generation are the ones not trying to nickel and dime people, while how much a company pursues "alternate revenue streams" is highly correlated with how poorly they're doing.

That could be a chicken and egg problem, maybe the reason some companies are going DLC-crazy is that they desperately need money.

Which companies are you talking about that are making the most money because I can't think of too many publishers right now that aren't trying to nickel and dime people in some way or another?  Nintendo maybe, but I can't really think of anyone else.

And on that note, the MW2 DLC map packs are about to hit.

Because, circus around the IW fonunders aside, clearly MW2 made almost no money for either IW or Activision.  :oh_i_see:

Considering they claim to be planning to adjust the final game based on the feedback, i'd say the "couple of levels of the main game that may or may not be any good, often a little rough and unfinished" seems to be exactly what you're going to get with this scheme, too. Just simply rebranded as "PDLC" rather than "demo" to justify the payment.

The main difference is likely going to be, right now you get the demo which is 'couple of levels chooped out' while with "PDLC" you'll rather be getting 'couple of levels cobbled together' to see if that generates enough interest to justify dragging it out into a whole game. I think they're hoping this will be a cost-saving feature since in theory it allows them to generate some (extra) money from the "demo" without having to produce all the art assets needed for the full product and limit their losses in case it flops badly, but then i feel they're too optimistic about just how much of the art/content they can save themselves from making before they have on their hands anything that's actually worth showing, let alone 3-4 hours worth of a game.

Yeah, I'm quite dubious at how well they could pull this off, but let's remember, they have to have something decent for people to buy it, else it'll fail harder than Ubi's (or EA's) recent DRM attempts.

Or maybe not. I did notice a couple of "yeah I'd pay for a demo" post in this thread, so perhaps we really are doomed.


 :facepalm:

The way I'm reading it (while being old and bitter) is that they want to release a preliminary look into what they're building, get feedback on that, and update the finished product accordingly.

If there had been incentives such as a reduction in price on the finished product, then fine. If they still insist on charging full price for the finished product, then basically what they're doing is outsourcing alpha/betatesting and playtesting. This is something I personally think should either be done by the players for free, or kept in-house.

Charging money for gamers to do their work for them without any rewards later on is (in my view) clownshoes, no matter which platform we're talking about. The gaming industry never ceases to amaze me.

They are merely a reflection of their market.  Someone's willing to pay for it, so they'd be fools to not charge.

Hello, piracy?

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue has WAY MORE than 3-4 hours of gameplay. Has fully functional multiplayer functionalities (which make it endlessly fun) and what is in it is more than enough for dozens of hours of single player enjoyment. I'd say GT5 Prologue really doesn't belong in this thread.

It was also 2/3's the price of a full game.  I think you're missing the point, which is that charging for a beta/demo of a game isn't a new concept, nor one that's inherently bad.  Also, this is information that is being filtered through Michael Pachter, who has a habit of getting a lot of shit wrong.  There's no indication that $15 for 3-4 hours is something EA specifically stated as the business model they're looking at or if that's just Pachter doing his analyst thing.  All EA has said in response to the story is:

Selective quoting by Minvaren. Pachter compares this new strategy to being like selling more games like BF1943.

He claims the quality of this "PDLC" would be similar to BF1943. The strategy itself seems to be quite a different animal considering BF1943 wasn't a limited pre-release for boxed, fully priced product but a full game in its own right.

My understanding from the article, is that he is extrapolating EA's future direction based on actions that they are/will be soon undertaking.  Hence the "might" in the title and all.

However, if you're charging people for content prior to the game's actual release, what can you actually sell/deliver before then?  A trailer movie, a demo of sorts, or "DLC for the game not yet released."  #3 doesn't seem to make sense, and #1 we'll just grab off of the official site or Youtube, right?


I agree - I think console gaming is the real target audience here.  Heck, mom/dad might even think "well, if it keeps them from buying even one new game at $60, I've saved money."

Interesting as recently Sony has filed for patents (http://www.strategyinformer.com/news/7212/sony-patents-degradable-demos-trial-content-begins-to-disappear) around degradable demos.

Their plans are the exact opposite where the full game is unlocked at the beginning but the more you play or sample the more they shut down. Like in Gran Turismo limiting the car or track choices to a few after sampling the full game.

Wasn't BF1943 a two-force, one-map small-scope game? The scope and size was far smaller than 1942, I know that much.

I doubt they will actually implement that though.  That means all you have to do to pirate a game is to download a 100kb crack executable rather than download the whole game over again.

Maximum profit from the minimum amount of content. Go capitalism.

Innovation...

EA, you're doing it wrong.

I doubt it will play out that way.

For one thing if you release something that needs field testing then that can translate into lost customers for the full version. Also building a slice of a game that has all the functionality and polish of the full game is cheaper but not that much cheaper.

In the end I would guess that the demo/prologue/whatever will be in the bag at the same time as the game and release a few weeks earlier. Keep in mind that one of the reason devs are flocking to day 1 DLC is that you have a pretty small window in which customers will care, and I imagine that applies pre-release as well.

If you release a paid demo thing 6 months in advance that needs major tweaks it isn't going to do much to drive sales of the full game and may actively turn people off.

In a sane world, with sane people, I would agree with you.

In a world with Ubisoft and EA with a current track record of DRM systems that actively fuck you in the ear, and they have the audacity of calling that "adding value to the product", I'm not so convinced.

Crytek to EA: We agree with what you said (http://www.develop-online.net/news/34545/Crytek-foresees-the-end-of-free-game-demos).

(roughly, at least - seems they just don't want to do demos anymore)

"We didn't want those sales anyways."

Yes, the way to discourage people from getting free copy of your software is to make them unable to check it out for free.

Company known for FarCry and Crysis. Yeah, they have every reason to go along with this. It wasn't that Crysis was a tech demo disguised as a game.

The usual passive-agressive bullshit pumped out by these idiots. "piracy costs us money waa waa so we're going to screw with the people who do buy our games." Will Crytek join Ubi's entire 2010 PC lineup along with games like Spore, Sims 3, etc in being things I'll only ever pirate if I want to play them?  :why_so_serious:

I'm 100% onboard with the idea of selling the first 20% of the game for $10 as long as I get the rest of it at $40.  Half the time I don't like the game anyways; I'd rather spend the $10 to find that out instead of $50. 

Sadly, it's going to allow developers to create really fucking awesome first chapters and the rest of the game goes to shit.  I see that being a trend, at least.

Also, the boss of Crytec is a certifiable idiot. There is no free demo for movies? Never in his life he stumbled upon a movie trailer?

Edit: Them being right around the corner in Germany and all I helped the poor guy out and sent him a link to a movie trailer website. Maybe he can educate himself  :awesome_for_real:

Considering the PS3 is not cracked, it could be a very possible.

Wasn't word on street that the PS3 will soon be hacked now that they removed Linux support out of the box? Sony gave them quite some incentives by that.

http://rdist.root.org/2010/01/27/how-the-ps3-hypervisor-was-hacked/

It's still not exploited yet plus they have been removing holes and exploits in old firmwares. The glitching attack still hasn't been in anyway used to compromise the game console to pirate games. The 3.21 update which removed one possible avenue OtherOS is now a required PSN update (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=16985.msg784304#msg784304) (they flipped the switch last Thursday or Friday).

But custom 3.21 firmware that will restore OtherOS might be available soon.  (http://geohotps3.blogspot.com/2010/04/otheros-supported-on-321oo.html)

Right but considering 3.21 has been out for two weeks now, a required upgrade for one week, and nothing has been said from geohot for over a week now. I'd assume work has been delayed by sony's internal checks for the PSN which would defeat his custom firmware. Anyhoo what's the % of people staying with ps3 fats(it won't work with slims) with 3.15 vs the mass that automatically upgraded, not to mention what kind of requirements to connect to use the PSN for authentication to play the demo would be required. It's still technically secure it remains to be seen if you can get around with an infectus (for the slims or fat 3.21 upgraded) to downgrade and then load otheros for a currently non useful exploit in this case.

Yeah but the xbox 360 and the PC versions can be hacked/stolen.  This would require them to make a demo that's PS3 only and a separate one for 360 and PC, which is a lot of work for engineering, design and QA.

It's not a chicken and egg problem. It's a problem of gaining the same proportional return on investment when you are a large business compared to a small business. The established companies doing this are hitting a ceiling of diminishing returns.

Personally I'm starting to look to older games, since I honestly believe them to be better games. Worse graphically, sure, but I don't think the new games really give sufficient value in return, gameplay-wise.

I'd happily go for games with less graphical glitz, as long as I thought it was a better game. And I honestly don't think it really takes 150-300 people working on it constantly for 4+ years to satisfy me in that regard, because most of that time and energy is spent (I believe) on modelling, creating graphics and creating the world itself.

I suppose the PC is going to change from being the playground of the bigwigs like EA, ubisoft etc, to the small 1-10 developer who just wants to create great games.

Now excuse me while I go play openttd. Or Diplomacy 2. Or Jagged Alliance 2. Or any of the good old x-com games. Or planescale torment. or or or.

This wasn't much of a game, but it's still probably the best story I've ever seen in any medium,

Is it really that games were better back in the old days or had more replay value, or does it just look that way to you because you're looking at a small list of some of the best games from a 1-2 decade time span and comparing them to all games released in the past few years?

I think if you looked at the top games released on a year by year basis, you'd probably see that the quality now is about the same as back then.  You have a handful of really great titles that have a lot of hours of gameplay or a lot of replay value, and then you've got a bunch of shit (although some years have had much fewer great games, and many more shit ones).

There's nothing wrong with liking and playing old games, but I think you might want to put it in perspective a bit before saying games used to be better back then.

It's almost hard for me to see how someone could have played PC games from the 80s onward and not think that they used to be better.

Console games are another story. Although I will say that in many ways simpler abstract graphics are better at communicating gameplay than super advanced tech. Or put another way I never died in Megaman because I jumped onto a block that turned out to be a texture in the same way I did 5 minutes into Uncharted.

It's certainly true that the vast majority of effort put into "AAA" titles goes to graphical content and relatively little goes into gameplay design, basic mechanics and things of that nature. And the focus on "AAA" content means that certain game types just don't get made anymore since they can't make back that kind of money. (See X-Com the FPS)

That's my spiel, now for something a bit more scientific I googled top PC games of 1995:

http://games.toptenreviews.com/list_ranking_pc_1995.htm

Full Throttle, Gabriel Knight, Command and Conquer, Warcraft 2, Descent, Mechwarrior 2 and Myst. It's even worse than I thought!

1996: Quake. Diablo. Duke Nukem. Moo2. Civ2. Red Alert. Descent 2. Tomb Raider. Daggerfall.

These are some killer lineups! Great, genre defining titles in a wide variety of genres that retain a genuine PC flavor.

call of duty 1 was awesome, call of duty 2 was awesome (played it all the way through a few weeks ago, still tons more fun than W@W or MW2), never played call of duty 3, call of duty 4 was awesome, Modern warfare was okay, if a bit short (10 hours or so?), world at war was pretty shit (what with the invisible walls, but the japs were pretty awesomely in your face, I'll give it that), modern warfare 2 was meh. I mean, seriously, 5-6 hours? what the fuck?

Medal of Honor wasn't quite on the CoD level, but it was an okay romp I suppose.

Brothers at Arms brought some tactics into the mix, but I didn't really like the console influences, even if they weren't as visibly present as they have been in other titles.

farcry 1 was okay (it had long viewdistances), farcry 2 was ruined for me with DRM. Not that the demo enticed me to overcome my hate for DRM.

Mass effect was pretty good, mass effect 2 was also pretty okay (although I didn't play through it 2-3 times like I did ME1). I'd still call that a win for this decade.

Wolfenstein 3D was an awesome game back in the day, but probably won't last today. Same goes for doom, doom2, heretic, hexen etc, even if I did spend literally years playing those games. Quake, Quake 2, quake 3 arena were good because they were moddable (which is where I spent most of my time, playing or fiddling with mods), not because they were that good games in and of themselves. Quake4 never really left an impression on me. Doom3 was scary for about 30 minutes, then it got way too predictable. FEAR from monolith did the horror game so right, however. I'd love to get more from them. Wolfenstein (the new one) was pretty annoying overall.

Having said that, I just fired up Serious Sam HD, which is basically a reimagination of Doom, only with proper 3D and high resolution. It was awesome.

Sim city 1-4 was good, sim city societies was god-awful. I was in on the CitiesXL beta, and I really hoped it would be a better sim city, but they fucked that up by having a balancing issue (at least when I bothered to play), and the fact it had to be online.

Civilization 1-4 was good/awesome, I'm not so sure about civ:revolution, and the jury's out on civ5.

I haven't played many of the total war games, but a friend of mine says they also went from awesome to not quite good with the last two iterations.

Grand Prix Legends was awesome (even if it could've had a few improvements on the engine side, mainly just removal of a few bugs), I spent probably 2 years playing that game. I liked the physics in nascar racing 2002/2003, which had me racing on nürburgring for a year there as well. GTR was okay, but the physics seemed a bit off, GTR2 was more of the same, live for speed had me playing almost constantly for 3 years I think. Tried forza once or twice, didn't like it. Tried gran tourismo 3 or 4 (I forget), and wasn't really impressed with anything except the graphics.

Has any game really one-upped Syndicate?

Has any game really one-upped openttd? Its graphics haven't changed, but it's still an awesome time-waster, and I'll probably have a serious problem once they get cargo destination in there. That's seriously the only feature I'm waiting for in that game that I can think of right now. Actually, come to think of it, there's simutrans, but that's also made by a very small team.

Sub games I don't think have much gotten better than silent hunter 3 either, mostly because ubisoft insists on releasing them with massive bugs, or in the latest iteration, hideous DRM.

There are very few flight sims being made, but as this genre improved, it probably got a narrower and narrower niche. Shit happens.

Platform games have moved on to mobiles, haven't they?

I'm just going to stop now, but while there are still gems being made today (I'd be silly to say there weren't), the general trend seems to me to be more glitz, less gameplay, less fun, and less of a chance I'll even consider buying a game.

In this environment I suppose EA's idea of making "small demos" for sale at a lower price makes some sort of sense, but I can't help but think that it's still going in the wrong direction. I'm still thinking they're trying to force the market to support larger development teams, when it's not really required for making fun games.

Fake edit: I'd completely forgotten about games like full throttle, gabriel knight, C&C, warcraft, descent and myst. God I spent so many hours writing down clues in Myst, I even spent time away from the computer just looking over the notations and trying to figure out what they meant.

And by god, duke nukem! :heart: :heart: :heart:

Real edit: I forgot about settlers. That has also gone downhill lately with the consoleitis.

Maybe, if you're just talking about PC games and not consoles, and just stuff from the 80's/90's vs. PC exclusive games  (so you could ignore most of Bioware and Valve's output, Fallout 3, most FPS games, Psychonauts, etc...) of the past 5-6 years you have a point.  I mean, I'm not sure who benefits from intentionally ignoring good games like L4D, Portal, Mass Effect, etc... because they're on consoles, but whatever, let's run with it.  In that situation I suppose older PC games do have the advantage since they only have to compete with The Witcher, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Mount & Blade, a lot of the WH40k RTS stuff, Starcraft 2, Civ IV, WoW (depending on how far back you want to go), League of Legends, Torchlight, and probably some other stuff I'm missing.

I do find it funny though for all the talk about how gameplay was better, that 1995's top games that you listed include two point and click adventure games in Full Throttle and Gabriel Knight (which were fun games for the time but by no means an example of great gameplay), 2 RTS games in Command & Conquer 2 and Warcraft 2 (which many would argue have been outdone gameplay-wise by more recent RTS games including the Dawn of War games, the upcoming Starcraft 2, Company of Heroes, etc...) and Myst (which was actually originally released in 1993).

Nothing against Full Throttle, but if you want to try to convince people of the superior gameplay 1995 had to offer, that's not exactly an example I'd go running to since it had pretty standard gameplay for its genre.

Which is it?

Sigh. You're right, I made a bit of a mistake there. CoD4 and modern warfare is the same game, but for some reason I separated it into two games. I'll stand by the classification, however, since it was awesome (especially on LAN parties with 5v5), yet it was okay. The gameplay that was there was awesome, but the game was getting a bit on the short side, which detracts a bit. W@W and MW2 were the most downers in the series.

Portal isn't "a console game", though, is it? I didn't even know it was released on the 360, but seems like it was. Actually, portal reminded me of another great game, "The Incredible Machine". Any equivalent to this that's available on the PC? I would absolutely love a more advanced and realistic version of that.

Also, Lemmings and Worms. :heart:

STALKER: SoC is actually a good game, once they got rid of the bugs. Great atmosphere. S:CS I think was ruined by the tages protection with a limit of 5. S:CoP only has a disc check, I keep meaning to pick that up. I'll probably have to do that later today, while I remember it.

I was going to say I should check Company of Heroes out, but I think I see why I haven't done so. A quick google shows it has/had issues with its DRM. It doesn't matter if it's a good game, when DRM drags it into the muck.

One great example I can think of that underlines one of the major problems with today's PC gaming. Compare ArmA2 and OpFlash2, and you'll see exactly what I mean.

Actually, I think I can summarize what I think is the problem with PC gaming today into 3 simple issues.
1) DRM. It has killed 90% of my desire to buy new games, and I always google a game before buying it, to check for DRM.
2) Consoleitis. Cutting of classical PC features, restrictions on what you can do with the game afterwards, controls and interface that are clearly not designed to be as good as it can get, but adapted from the console's restrictions.
3) Much larger teams than before, for what? I don't really think OpFlash2 delivers more content than ArmA2. In fact, it delivers less content than the first OpFlash, and I dare say less than ArmA and ArmA2 as well.

This is all utter crap. Also, that last bit is a personal problem.


Keep going. 1995-2000 were the golden years of PC Gaming. It was nonstop perfection from all the genres. It was bookended in 2000 with Diablo 2, Deus Ex, UT, Sacrifice, and The Sims. Honestly, that period was pretty unstoppable for console gaming also, except it took a bit longer for the PS2 to overtake the SNES as the best system ever.

Edit: 2000 also had NOLF.

-

tgr, more shift key, less rambling. Thanks.

I was listing great games, not the games with the best pure gameplay. PC gaming used to cover a wide variety of genres so of course some of them are going to be simple from a gameplay perspective. If you compare apples to apples then I'd put Full Throttle way ahead of current point and click games and Descent way ahead of all zero of the Descent-style games of today.

Which is a large part of the argument - the number of genres on the PC has winnowed away and moved much more towards console-style games.

But really I think the point here is less that people want exact replicas of games released in 1994 complete with 800x600 graphics and more that they want logical evolutions of those games with modern (but not extravagant) production values. If you look at where PC gaming was in the 90s and where it is now there is a pretty large schism.

Yes.

Last decade has been a lost decade. Yeah, games got 3D and glitzier graphics, but no revolutionary gameplay, other than recent advent of draconian DRM. That and lots of gameplay is done now via the web browser, as many had predicted would come to fruition.

But the late 90s was indeed a golden age of PC gaming — the best RTS implementations (which have yet to be surpassed, sorry WC3 OK but not as cool as C&C, AoE, Kohan, etc.…), MMOG started to flower (EQ, later given a less glitchy skin with WoW), Civ2, Sim universe of games (before they transformed into EA retread status), etc.…

The best example of that schism, I believe, is to be found in the comparison between ArmA2 and OpFlash2. They were both trying to make the "same" game, yet ArmA2 is by far the most PCish of the two, with TONS of features like leaning, authentic aiming based on where the weapon is pointing, not where your PoV is pointing, the ability to look away from where you're heading, etc etc etc. OpFlash2 has better graphics than ArmA2 (albeit not by much), but there's something just wrong when my guys automatically respawn after I reach a certain point on the map during a mission. That's some serious consoleitis right there.

The only way this would be acceptable if full game was discounted by the amount you paid for the demo, if you chose to purchase it.

Zork, Paradroid, Elite, Impossible Mission, and Spy vs Motherfucking Spy beats out all that turn of the century bullshit.

Or maybe some people should listen to themselves for a moment and then stop being retarded.

That modern games run into trouble because they get dumbed down for consoletards is an obvious truth, but trying to claim you'd rather be playing morrowind than dragon age or whatever is just stupid.

I see you grew up at the same time I did.   :awesome_for_real:

Games suck now because no matter how creative you are you can only think up so many games composed entirely of the color brown.

Thinking that that march of time automatically improves all things is pretty dumb to put it mildly.

Oh, really. I haven't played Morrowind, so I've no idea what makes it suck so much compared to today's games that I'd be stupid to say I'd rather play it than Dragon Age. Do tell.

I'm still waiting for updated, non-shitty updates of Desert Strike and Road Rash. Also that SNES Desert Strike-Alike that had you flying an A-10 Warthog.  :drill:

It's sole redeeming feature is the game world.  Almost literally every other component of a game you can name is flawed, broken, kludgy, or nonexistent.

Even assuming you are just talking about PC games, that isn't the problem.

I think a lot of what's going on in this thread is rose colored glasses. I'm sure in 10 years all the kids will be whining about how Call of Duty 12 is shit and MW2 was the pinnacle of the series.  :oh_i_see:

We all have a time that we see as the golden age of gaming. For most of the people here, that's the late 90s on the PC, when PC gamers were still a respected part of the gaming community. All that's really left on the PC now are MMOs and facebook shit, so I can see why people would be bitter. And I could rant about how my favorite genre hasn't been the same since back in the day but really, what's the point?

In some it definitely was, especially during the Xbox era. The first that came to mind - Deus Ex 2.

Also, before the fan patch, the Oblivion UI got a bad case of consolification.

These represent problems regarding PC/console games.

1.) Smaller game zones and less quality art assets due to console restrictions. That one has all but gone away with the more powerful new gen consoles.

2.) Optimization of UI and control scheme for consoles, meaning that makes it suboptimal for the PC, not utilizing the full power of the mouse/keyboard combo, especially in game menu/inventory management.

Edit: Nonsense, there are still genres the PC is better for. See my point 2. See how they "streamlined" Civilization to make it run on consoles and how inferior it is to the PC version. Also, mods. If you are into Roleplaying and Strategy games, the PC is the platform to be on. Just look at the differencen in Dragon Age. What you have to realize is that many games just put the console version 1:1 on the PC, and thus you never see that difference or what is "lost" in that particular game. Of course, your examples were shooters, a genre that really shines on consoles.

Hey, I prefer Dragon Age (and Oblivion, and other western RPGs) on the PC to the console, don't get me wrong. It doesn't matter how much "better" it is on PC though, because there are WAY more console gamers than traditional PC gamers. A lot of people here (tgr) don't seem to get that.

The point I was making is that there are only a few genres that are dominated (in terms of sales, not performance) by PC; MMOs and social games came immediately to mind, although I admit I forgot Strategy games. As for RPGs, well, it depends what flavor you're into I guess. Western RPGs are still big on PC, but they're mostly appearing on consoles too. JRPGs however are console exclusive; SRPGs too pretty much.

I'm somewhat wary on sale numbers as a quality statement. Especially since Steam doesn't give out Sales numbers and I for example buy 95% of my games over Steam.

Sales are what drive future development. I realize your point about Steam and I'm not about to get into a pissing contest about the sales figures for Game X; however, I think you'll be hard pressed to name a genre that's still relevant where PC outsells Console besides the 3 I just named. FPS? Horror? Fighting? Action? Platforming? All sell way better on consoles or console exclusive. FPS was just my original example because it was the most recent genre to go full-tilt to the consoles.

Seriously though, you can't think you're in the majority. Maybe here, but F13 hardly represents the mainstream gaming public.

I see your point, and I agree. But thats irrelevant. The PC market doesn't have to be larger than the console market, it just has to be there and profitable in itself.

Plus if you almost exclusively play those three genres you are starved to death on consoles and have no choice but play on the PC. And your money is just as good as everybody elses.

This is no either-or situation.

Fair enough, in the short term. But how before those move to consoles? Strategy games will probably be a while, although there have been gestures in that direction (Civ: Rev comes to mind as an entirely passable, if dumbed down, port). Both 360 and PS3 have added Facebook and Twitter support, so I can't imagine it'll be long before you can get Farmville on Xbox Live. Finally, the list of studios who have attempted or expressed interest in a console MMO would be too long to name; eventually someone will get it right.

Maybe, but with the lower entrance barrier Indy developers will always flock to the PC, hardcore strategy gamers will still live a few years before old age gets them and are a market that won't accept passable dumbed down, and big studios will try to bag a few extra bucks on the side.

PC gaming is dead for so long it isn't funny anymore.

I disagree. I do get that there are way more console gamers than traditional PC gamers, and I know that means the market there will be bigger and more profitable and more interesting for the bigwig publishers. You just have to look at MW2 to see that very distinctly, where the PC port was what, 20% of the entire launch week? And just to reiterate, that is not what I'm complaining about.

I think the games that are released on the PC have gone down in quality when it comes to the gaming aspect. I honestly haven't got that much of a hunger for graphics shock and awe, I'm in there for the gaming experience and/or story. Graphics matter but a few seconds of that, and then it's just ... there. That wasn't the case 10-15 years ago, but we've progressed so far that we're falling into the uncanny valley where we have to start doing a lot more work for very little return in quality (or as it may be, believability).

As for the PC vs Console issue, no games have driven that home more clearly than ArmA2 vs OpFlash2. Playing games like OpFlash2 after having played games like ArmA2, is depressing to me, because I see what the smaller studios are capable of doing on the PC, and I see how the bigger studios appear utterly incapable of doing the same thing. And that is what I'm complaining about.

I wouldn't say PC gaming is dead, per se. We still have developers like Bohemia Interactive who haven't completely given up (and whom I will support for as long as they don't go DRM-tarded), but they're becoming dangerously thin on the ground. Them, and small independent developers like positech with games like this (http://positech.co.uk/democracy2/index.html), so chances are I'll still be able to find games I like and want to buy.

Why should Civ:Rev have to be dumbed down? Is it the controller? Is it that today's gamers are too ADD that they can't even bare the thought of sitting down and playing a game for more than 30 minutes at a time before they have to do something else? What?! I'm honestly at a loss, because it feels like console gamers are speaking a completely different language than I am when it comes to what makes a game good.

Half of it is the controller; moving a pointer with an analog stick is much more annoying than a mouse, and you have a much more limited base of hotkeys to fall back on. The other is that the average age of an Xbox 360 game is probably 10 years younger than the average core PC gamer. Also, have you played Civ: Rev? It's still time consuming, it's just that a lot of mechanics and micro has been removed in favor of accessibility.

Regarding the graphics vs. gameplay, I'm with you 100%, and that's not a problem unique to PC games. Look at fucking Final Fantasy. Since FFVI they've been trending hard away from gameplay and more toward graphics and presentation. This is happening to all of us, and if you want to really stand behind that argument I'll back you up. In return, stop using stupid terms like consolitis, indicating that consoles are the minority. They're not, you are, and they're not going away.

I haven't played Civ:Rev, no. Strategy games and consoles strike me as more annoying/awkward due to the controller, so I haven't even considered it.

As to the average age of a console gamer vs PC gamer, I'm not really sure that's all that relevant in and of itself, as I probably fiddled more with my computer when I was between 10 and 15 than I think console users do today. I'm starting to wonder if it isn't more a generation gap thing, where they just have a very different outlook on things.

My outlook is 100% PC (with the exception of a few 360 games right after I was given one by my employer, and ME1), but hearing it's an everlasting trend over the whole gaming industry doesn't exactly strike me as a huge surprise.

As for consoleitis, it's not trying to make it sound like consoles are the minority. Far from it. It's more that I call the entire change a disease on gaming as I know it, and consoles seem to be at the forefront of that change. I can dial that back a bit if it annoys you, but I won't make a promise to never use it since it's just how I perceive the whole situation. At least we're in agreement on one of the problems, I'm probably just being more of a bitter vet about it than you are. (oh god I've played EVE for far too long)

My gaming background was Commodore 64 -> Amiga 500 -> PC + Console (PS, Xbox, Xbox 360), plus some other diversions (gaming at arcades and on BBC Micro / Acorn, etc). Consoles have not been, nor are now, a disease on gaming.

PC gaming isn't dead, but it is moving away from being the major platform to develop single player games on and towards other things. I remember reading complaints that adding in mouse support in adventure games made things too easy; there is always a tendency to look back and think that what came out in your youth is better than what is around now. In most cases, it isn't so much better as it is very familiar and blanketed by the warm cocoon of time.

I first played through Planescape this year.  It's as good as people say it is.

I'm playing through xenogears and enjoying it. Game would've been much better if they got better translators, which seems like the norm nowadays.

Yet strangely BC2 PC sales were greater than either console according to the developers twitter. Perhaps indicating that Console users are more trend driven or putting out a known "PC port" hurts your sales. That number may also include steam sales though, who knows?

Kageru, are you talking about this quote (http://forums.electronicarts.co.uk/battlefield-bad-company-2-pc/933150-updates-servers-now-soon-7.html#post13100931)?


Because obviously 'playing online' and 'sales' are different things.

I was going to let this topic go, but I figure I should just point out a quick distinction. There's a trend towards making things simpler across the board, but in my view the console's controls hasten this or directly cause this to happen on other parts than just gameplay. That is, UI and stuff like auto-aim or auto-snap-to. I tried God of War 2 on the PC once, and I couldn't help but get annoyed with how the character snapped to structures. Same with mass effect 2 (I didn't test out ME1 on the PC). That's the disease part I'm referring to, which may or may not be a definition others agree with. I'll drop this subject for now though, don't want to shit the thread up more than I already have.

That does surprise me a bit, to be honest. But when you say PC port, do you mean like MW2 put out a port from the console, or that BC2 is marketed as a PC game ported to the console?

And just to include UnSub's post, does this mean that europeans is where the PC market is, while the americans are more the console nation? And if so, it would be interesting to know why, and what the piracy rate for both consoles and the PC were in the respective regions.

Yes, I went looking for the original tweet and couldn't find it, so it looks like I mis-represented it. Still thought it was an interesting comment. Though given how short the single player is I can't imagine who would buy it for that.

By "Console port" I meant it's a console game with the minimum work to get it running on the PC, rather than a full fledged release.

I think that comment came across more harshly than I intended.

Also, a lot of the PC gaming press took the comment exactly as you did, and used it to say, "SUCK ON THAT, CONSOLETARDS".

On consoles, lots of people buy games they may never play multiplayer on. The barriers for a PC player to play multiplayer aren't anywhere near as high as they are for consoles.

May or may not be relevant, but these are some interesting numbers:

http://dubiousquality.blogspot.com/2010/05/electronics-arts-wtfening.html


I can see why they'd like to get us to pay for demos.

Another naked EA cash grab (http://www.easports.com/onlinepass). Doesn't really affect me, since I don't rent or buy used games, but still not a big fan of the precedent.

I love the marketing speak on that link, it almost sounds like a good thing. I never knew product keys could be so riveting.

That's awesome.  :why_so_serious:

It's just following in the SOCOM footsteps to make money off preowned game sales. Which raises the question of "who is buying last year's EA Sports game to play online?"

That question, reversed: how long does GameStop keep the old EA titles on the shelf / at a premium value?

On the shelf, forever. At a premium? Up to the launch of the next year.

It is slightly more naked than what they did for Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age, or The Saboteur.  On the other hand, it's the game's online stuff so it doesn't really feel any more egregious to me.