Crysis and UT3 selling unusually low numbers

[Stark]

PC gaming isn't dead, it's just waiting for the time where computer capability has gotten so good an entry level system can have real time photorealism enabled. :p

If you think the problem with PC gaming is that the graphics aren't good enough, you're an idiot.

Shinova, the Marathon games are good for their time, but have almost no modern 'necessities' at all. I can play them, but I played Doom: they're badly dated.

[MJ12 Commando]

If you think the problem with PC gaming is that the graphics aren't good enough, you're an idiot.

Shinova, the Marathon games are good for their time, but have almost no modern 'necessities' at all. I can play them, but I played Doom: they're badly dated.

I personally don't have any problems with graphics or the lack of same. The problem isn't graphics aren't good enough, but getting good graphics costs money. One significant advantage of modern consoles is "good graphics at affordable prices". With cheap systems that can produce real time photorealism (which requires IIRC 2 orders of magnitude more power than a current modern desktop) that's no longer a problem.

You remove one of those, and you've got at least a significant amount of market share back. The other ones like put-in-and-play and the like are harder to have on a PC but probably not impossible. Assuming, in that case, given the utility of having a computer around the house, is there any reason not to release your game on PC rather than on console where it'd cost more (lowering sales), net you less profit, and generally make less business sense?

Removing barriers to entry for PC gaming, while keeping the relative lack of barriers to entry for PC gaming developers, would be the fast track to resurrecting PC gaming IMO.

But it's fine and quite healthy as is. Maybe not as healthy as 10 years ago or whatever time you want to define as the golden age, but it doesn't show any signs of choking and dying at all.

[Ace Pace]

Removing barriers to entry for PC gaming, while keeping the relative lack of barriers to entry for PC gaming developers, would be the fast track to resurrecting PC gaming IMO.

Which is what MS is doing with XNA. On one side, it's a commercial tool, built to standardise development tools for all Microsoft developers. On the other hand, it's also a pretty kickass platform for making games by hobbyists.

[Vendetta]

PC Gaming isn't dead, it's just playing World of Warcraft.

[Shogoki]

Crysis was nice, but I personally want to see more of the sort of epic, sci-fi adventure type FPS games. Nowdays what's popular are WW2 or realistic modern warfare games, and those have never really appealed to me all that much.

And the fantasy FPS genre is pretty much dead, but it'd be nice if it saw a revival of some sort.

Well, from 2007 you have Bioshock, Jericho and Painkiller: Overdose on the fantasy/sci-fi camp for the PC. Jericho was basically accused of being too "console porty" and mediocre, though. I don't actually think it's that bad a time killer, though, as long as you don't look too much into it.

Painkiller, well, if you liked the first one you'll like the second one, it's basically Serious Sam literally in hell. It's pretty good if you just want to shot something.

[Shinova]

PC Gaming isn't dead, it's just playing World of Warcraft.

And Battlefield 2142, or whichever year it was. Or Counterstrike.... again.

[Tanasinn]

It should play more Team Fortress 2.

[Shogoki]

It should play more Team Fortress 2.

Can't go wrong with that!

[Stark]

I personally don't have any problems with graphics or the lack of same. The problem isn't graphics aren't good enough, but getting good graphics costs money. One significant advantage of modern consoles is "good graphics at affordable prices". With cheap systems that can produce real time photorealism (which requires IIRC 2 orders of magnitude more power than a current modern desktop) that's no longer a problem.

You remove one of those, and you've got at least a significant amount of market share back. The other ones like put-in-and-play and the like are harder to have on a PC but probably not impossible. Assuming, in that case, given the utility of having a computer around the house, is there any reason not to release your game on PC rather than on console where it'd cost more (lowering sales), net you less profit, and generally make less business sense?

Removing barriers to entry for PC gaming, while keeping the relative lack of barriers to entry for PC gaming developers, would be the fast track to resurrecting PC gaming IMO.

But it's fine and quite healthy as is. Maybe not as healthy as 10 years ago or whatever time you want to define as the golden age, but it doesn't show any signs of choking and dying at all.

So your solution to the cookie-cutter, linear and uninspired games of today is ... demand photorealism from developers, and because hardware is cheap this = good games? Making more work for developers = somehow games get better? You're insane. You appear to be saying 'console gaming is better than PC gaming, so to recover market share PC gaming needs photorealism'. Surely - and stop me if this is too obvious - PC games just need... well... whatever makes console games better? I mean, console games aren't photorealistic, not even close.

Frankly, in AU a decent computer costs less than a PS3. Cost isn't the issue: if you're talking about some esoteric definition of 'quality', you should really demonstrate how console games are 'better' than PC games at the moment. Or, indeed, how there are less 'barriers to entry' for developers on consoles than on PC. Or than in the past when games were apparently better. On the other hand, my PC's hardware is significantly better than my 360's hardware (for about the same cost).

[Nephtys]

PC Gaming isn't dead. Just people are making less interesting games and going more for the same shit that's easy to produce in the console style. Back in the day, a creative game (System Shock, X-COM, Privateer, MOO2, SM:AC, etc) would be a complete hit based on it's blend of polish, playability and depth. This reflected that PC games back then required someone with SOME PC experience and may enjoy a more sophisticated game. The other end of the coin was accessable stuff like Doom, or Descent. Good games in their own right.

Nowadays, Consoles are selling because they're 'easy' to play. Halo for example, is a pick-up-and-go game, and there's dozens of FPS knockoffs using the exact same engine. Meanwhile, PC FPS games for decades have been more sophisticated and interesting if you actually had the patience to learn them. The console style of 3rd person 3d Game is easy to think of new titles for. Look at the dearth of 3rd person shooters, most of which are getting more and more difficult to tell apart. One comes out every week. While something on the PC as legendary as Jagged Alliance, Total Annihilation or whatnot comes out maybe every year.

Graphics are totally not the issue. The scourge of porting and the fact that Cookie Cutter game genres exist are. After all, how many games on consoles aren't nearly identical racing, 3rd person or sports games? How many new games on PC aren't ports (for extra money per dev time) or some uninspired RTS?

Case in point: System Shock 2 vs Bioshock. Bioshock has better art, style, atmosphere, combat... but is still a worse game. It's too dumbed down, the level designs are utterly terrible and linear, and offers no variation on how to play. It suffers from control concessions for being multiplatform as well.

[brianeyci]

My dickhole brother says PC games are dead, and when I bring up old games he says they reek and don't sell so there's no point.

It's hard arguing against that. You've said before that an X-COM wouldn't sell Nephtys, so how do I counter that point? Basically his argument goes, graphics are the only advantage PC games have now, because consoles now have Internet and keyboards and mice. He also says that nobody will develop games for the PC anymore since it's cheaper for consoles, and console ports or high budget games that focus on graphics will be the only kind of PC game in the future. I can argue about the potential of PC games until my face is blue and he won't be convinced, because he never plays games that need brains beyond click and shoot and all the evidence so far is on his side.

In short it seems like good PC games are possible but if I have to point to something ten years ago then I lose .

[Vendetta]

Case in point: System Shock 2 vs Bioshock. Bioshock has better art, style, atmosphere, combat... but is still a worse game. It's too dumbed down, the level designs are utterly terrible and linear, and offers no variation on how to play. It suffers from control concessions for being multiplatform as well.

And yet System Shock 2 was bought by three people and a dog. And also has it's own problems, just as intrusive as Bioshock's. Bad inventory system that makes checking your current levels of important stuff unintuitive, laughable weapon balance that renders not one but two weapon classes entirely useless through either rarity or extreme resistance from 50% of the enemies, hilarious weapon degradation rate, and a whole endgame made entirely of suck. (Seriously, Bioshock's last boss was a non-sequitur to the gameplay and an uninteresting fight, but System Shock 2's was laughable, railroaded you into using a particular skill, unlike the whole game previously, and was preceded by the Body of the Many, which absolutely no-one, not even TTLG's most rabid shockling, liked).

[Shogoki]

My dickhole brother says PC games are dead, and when I bring up old games he says they reek and don't sell so there's no point.

It's hard arguing against that. You've said before that an X-COM wouldn't sell Nephtys, so how do I counter that point? Basically his argument goes, graphics are the only advantage PC games have now, because consoles now have Internet and keyboards and mice. He also says that nobody will develop games for the PC anymore since it's cheaper for consoles, and console ports or high budget games that focus on graphics will be the only kind of PC game in the future. I can argue about the potential of PC games until my face is blue and he won't be convinced, because he never plays games that need brains beyond click and shoot and all the evidence so far is on his side.

In short it seems like good PC games are possible but if I have to point to something ten years ago then I lose .

It's actually cheaper to produce games for the PC than for any console, since there are no entry barriers, anyone can pick up his preferred developing tools, develop, and publish a game, the limit is in how much resources you want and can put into the effort.

On a console, you pretty much have to buy everything developer related from the hardware manufacturer, usually for tens of thousands of dollars, then you have to shell out royalties to the same manufacturer for each unit sold, that's why console games have a $10 or so mark up on the PC version.

The reason why you want to develop console games is they have a large user base that has bought the platform specifically for gaming. That, and it's also a more dynamic market in that it eats up fads like there's no tomorrow, in part because every new console makes everything before it obsolete, and though there's some backward compatibility, it's goes from being a secondary function to being just totally bogus and slimy (PS3 and their quietly removing BC from the 40GB version, i already know 2 guys who went "WTF!" when they discovered it was gone the hard way).

On the other hand, PC games can have horrendously long life times (to publishers), any MP FPS release has to go up against the likes of CS, and every RTS has to deal with Starcraft, games that have been around since before the PS2 was even fucking released, but which still hold up tons of gamers that wont buy anything else and rather replay the same map for years on end and keep going back to it after they've changed computers 3 or 4 times. How many people still play Halo or even Halo 2?

[Vendetta]

Out of interest, are there any numbers for how many people actually still play Counterstrike?

[Stark]

And yet System Shock 2 was bought by three people and a dog. And also has it's own problems, just as intrusive as Bioshock's. Bad inventory system that makes checking your current levels of important stuff unintuitive, laughable weapon balance that renders not one but two weapon classes entirely useless through either rarity or extreme resistance from 50% of the enemies, hilarious weapon degradation rate, and a whole endgame made entirely of suck. (Seriously, Bioshock's last boss was a non-sequitur to the gameplay and an uninteresting fight, but System Shock 2's was laughable, railroaded you into using a particular skill, unlike the whole game previously, and was preceded by the Body of the Many, which absolutely no-one, not even TTLG's most rabid shockling, liked).

You forgot the skill system that became totally irrelevant when they gave you 5000 skill points near the end. What character development decisions?

I'd be interested in figures on server populations myself - lots of fairly good PC games seem to have quite small online playerbases.*

[Shogoki]

Valve doesn't seem to record peaks per game, but they do have current stats on steampowered.com

Game Current Players Current Servers Player Minutes/Month
Counter-Strike 114,534 80,770 7.777 billion
Counter-Strike: Source 31,267 38,969 2.137 billion
Counter-Strike Condition Zero 14,059 12,401 853.125 million
Team Fortress 2 10,966 4,288 352.137 million

[Stark]

Holy shit. More people play CS than CS:S and TF2 combined.

[MJ12 Commando]

So your solution to the cookie-cutter, linear and uninspired games of today is ... demand photorealism from developers, and because hardware is cheap this = good games? Making more work for developers = somehow games get better? You're insane. You appear to be saying 'console gaming is better than PC gaming, so to recover market share PC gaming needs photorealism'. Surely - and stop me if this is too obvious - PC games just need... well... whatever makes console games better? I mean, console games aren't photorealistic, not even close.

The real time photorealism statement is because at that point there is no further ability to improve graphics, which takes away the ability to slap "SUPERIOR GRAPHICS TO EVERYTHING OUT THERE" on a game and sell it that way.

The ability to more or less ignore system requirements, as well, would open up genres for quite a few types of games. What I'm saying is "console gaming sells more than PC gaming, and to get those sales back, the easiest way is probably just to wait for the natural progression of technology to make PC gaming superior again." We're getting stuff that's overall, easier to use, more easily installed, and the like.

Besides, cookie-cutter, linear, and uninspired games aren't anything new. They've existed all the time. Sure, modern games may be shorter, but there were quite a lot of cookie-cutter, linear, uninspired old games. The amount of good games to dross was pretty much the same, IMO, especially when looked at by modern standards.

Frankly, in AU a decent computer costs less than a PS3. Cost isn't the issue: if you're talking about some esoteric definition of 'quality', you should really demonstrate how console games are 'better' than PC games at the moment. Or, indeed, how there are less 'barriers to entry' for developers on consoles than on PC. Or than in the past when games were apparently better. On the other hand, my PC's hardware is significantly better than my 360's hardware (for about the same cost).

In the US a decent computer costs quite a bit more, same with China, although due to games being more expensive it does actually become cheaper to buy a gaming PC for ~1000 (upgrades, of course, skewing this) instead of a $300 XBox if you buy enough games. If a computer costs less in Australia than a decent console that's something else entirely.

I said that there are less barriers to entry for developers on a PC, PC games are cheaper to sell, and get the developers more profit. Thus, all else being equal a PC game is going to be more profitable than a console game. The point is that a game on console is much easier to pick up and play than a PC game, and has less systems requirements checking, and that user friendliness gets sales. Graphics don't hurt either, and that's a natural progression of computer technology.

[Uraniun235]

The real time photorealism statement is because at that point there is no further ability to improve graphics, which takes away the ability to slap "SUPERIOR GRAPHICS TO EVERYTHING OUT THERE" on a game and sell it that way.

Actually, until people start releasing a comprehensive library of open-licensed "photorealistic" content, the big companies have an even bigger advantage in that they can afford to pay a small army of artists to create the photorealistic content for the photorealistic engine to use.

This is a big part of why production costs have been going up; all of that increased resolution and graphics fidelity requires a lot more content and a hell of a lot more artist man-hours. ID was able to make Commander Keen with what, one guy doing the art? In contrast, it would be totally impossible for one guy to do all of the art for a game like, say, World in Conflict.

[brianeyci]

It's actually cheaper to produce games for the PC than for any console, since there are no entry barriers, anyone can pick up his preferred developing tools, develop, and publish a game, the limit is in how much resources you want and can put into the effort.

On a console, you pretty much have to buy everything developer related from the hardware manufacturer, usually for tens of thousands of dollars, then you have to shell out royalties to the same manufacturer for each unit sold, that's why console games have a $10 or so mark up on the PC version.

I mentioned the startup fees too, but only because I didn't want to lose the argument. In the end U235 is right. There is no barrier, but to be successful you need a team of programmers for top notch graphics. The question is can a spreadsheet game still make money? Can hex-combat games still make money? Can text-based games still make money? Can games without graphics still make money? Graphics don't really matter, but you cannot have crap graphics to be successful; at least they have to be above average or average, and the bar keeps going higher and higher for what's average. The open source model is not ideal for making games, due to the sheer amount of work.

So it's entirely possible that to make a PC game that sells, you need craploads of money, more than a console. A console at least is designed for gaming, while with computers you have to worry about compatibility. If it wasn't for DirectX it would be a thousand times worse.

In the end I had to mention that if all the retards ditch computer games, good since they'll start making good games for the tiny market. But I'm not sure if a bunch of Internet guys playing a small amount of open source games or games from 1995 counts as "alive"... if it ever gets to that point I'll have to suck up my pride and admit, yes PC games are dead.

[MJ12 Commando]

Actually, until people start releasing a comprehensive library of open-licensed "photorealistic" content, the big companies have an even bigger advantage in that they can afford to pay a small army of artists to create the photorealistic content for the photorealistic engine to use.

This is a big part of why production costs have been going up; all of that increased resolution and graphics fidelity requires a lot more content and a hell of a lot more artist man-hours. ID was able to make Commander Keen with what, one guy doing the art? In contrast, it would be totally impossible for one guy to do all of the art for a game like, say, World in Conflict.

Shit. I totally forgot about that. Please accept my head meeting my desk as a concession of sorts on that point. It would give bigger companies an impressive advantage.

However, there is still quite a large market for low-budget casual games, which is probably going to be a significant part of the future of PC gaming. I love Astropop and Bookworm and the like to total bits, even if their graphics are primitive and their gameplay is simple. I've probably spent almost as much on PopCap games and Jets N Guns and simple arcade games in the last year as I have on buying actual games. :p

Of course, the fact that my PC sucks right now may have something to do with it.

[Stark]

That's ironic considering I mentioned 'photorealistic graphics' making more work for the developers some time ago.

I think both console and PC industries are in a predicatable situation: they just make bland shit that sells, not 'good games'. When Halo3 is considered 'innovative', innovation is clearly at an all-time low. There is plenty of life in the indy gaming scene on both consoles and PC, however.

[Sarevok]

Even the best photorealistic games feel like shit. It's like I am scrolling through a 3DS Max like program. The game world is purely cosmetic nothing behaves realistically. Oh there are occasional "look here and buy a 500 USD PPU !" physics moments but like everything else it's just a gimmick.

When was the last time a game's physics engine allowed breaking a chair with melee attacks and impaling generic supersoldier with the chair's broken wooden legs ? Why is it not possible to break things, make a cross and crucify enemies and set them on fire ? Why is that the cool body armor on bad guys is a pretty texture instead of hardened plates that stop bullets ? Why do enemies in FPS games never run out of ammo ? Are their AI so bad they nead infinite ammo cheat ?

FPS games still have not stopped cloning Doom. They failed to progress beyond the idea of a floating gun moving in a 2.5D world gunning down jumping textures that look like monsters. The problem with FPS is not that everything has been to death but almost nothing has been done since it is easier to give Doom 256 MB textures. some superficial gameplay changes and call it Crysis.

[MJ12 Commando]

The problem isn't so much almost nothing has been done but more that nobody's ever compiled all the really innovative ideas from FPSes since the days of mouselook and tried to put them together. The last time there was an FPS that tried to do something truly revolutionary, it was called Breakdown, it had total body awareness, an interesting/incomprehensible (depending on which side you were on) plot, and quite a bit of environmental interactivity. Nobody ever heard of it even though it was well received critically, and I think it bombed here (although I have no frigging idea how it did in Japan.)

Doom was the originator of the FPS genre, more or less, so it's expected that most FPSes have some similarities with it, although I know and fully agree that they really should be branching out more. How I'd love another Breakdown or Deus Ex type game, or even something like DICE's newest FPS project.

[CaptHawkeye]

With Crysis' failure, i've pretty much lost hope in the ability of action FPS developers to deliver any of these things. The only thing they ever offer now is a "zomg X magical power/time control/super suit" gimmick to give the game a slight differance in personality over all of the other Dooms.

Honestly, the only shooter worth getting excited over for me is Operation Flashpoint 2. And when you think about it, it's absolutely hilarious that a game released back in 2001 did things that current action games are still struggling to do.