12 Ways Consoles Are Hurting PC Gaming

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Never would have thought Kotaku would do this but it's a good read and highlights the major problems with Consoles.

Let the arguments begin!

 

They hit the nail on the head highlighting the other big problem with GFWL: the PC is not a fucking Xbox, and it's rather condescending to PC gamers to imply that they're really just poor people who can't get an Xbox.

Oh, and in before "piracy is killing PC gaming." I'll believe that when the people start saying "second hand sales are killing console gaming."

 

Actually 2nd hand sales are a massive problem for console development.

 

it's not Kotaku, it's a MaximumPC article that Kotaku decided to repost. which explains why it's a decent read and not a piece of crap like most of what Kotaku posts

 

I've yet to hear that said as often as "Piracy is killing PC gaming."

Either way, whether piracy or used, the developer isn't getting any money, I agree.

That explains the distinct lack of anime-related content in it, then.

 

While people like him are around, nothing will change.

"But it's a busine.."SHUTUP.

 

I thought the Xbox was always the poor mans pc? Its just a compact pc box with a piss poor OS.

 

good read

It's a fantastic read.

P.c has almost become the poor cousin of the consoles.

 

Very good read though nothing I haven't heard before. So true about people who bash on which system is best to game on. When at the end of the day it doesn't matter as long as you get to game......

 

Good article.

Game delays - I've never seen any evidence that the Assassin's Creed series were delayed for the purpose of improving copy protection. I've never looked for it either. Seemed more to me that they were intent on making sure they didn't end up being ugly console ports. I disagree that delaying a game promotes piracy. Any game title worth it's salt is available through the usual piracy channels sooner or later. All that more effective copy protection does is delay how long it hits the black market - but when it does it, it's a free-for-all. What bothers me more is that PC games often come nearly a full six months later than their console equivalent. That's concrete evidence that we're second-rate in the eyes of those developers/publishing houses. Sure there are a couple of advantages. Sneak preview, price watching, walkthroughs, etc.

Lousy interfaces/controls - Is the process to exit Assassin's Creed any quicker and easier on consoles? I don't know. If it's not, then this is a pointless comment. I fully agree with the comments about bad controls and I attribute a large part of that to the emergence of XBox. We've since seen the XBox controller for Windows hit the market and a large percentage of games practically dropping all support for any other controllers, doing a pretty good job of wiping out any competition from the market. Sure there are emulators and in some cases ways to modify config files, but it's not quite the same as having out of the box generic controller support. Smells too much like MS decided to give developers an easy way out when porting to PC. I dislike XBox controllers purely because the left stick and right buttons are too close to the LB and RB buttons. The two furthest digits on your hand are the thumb and index finger.

Dead-icated Servers - not just this but getting sloppy with activation servers. You pre-order a game and can't activate it until the planet has gone full circle (until the release date for every other country has passed)? That's bullshit. Back on dedicated servers though, I'd love to see them integrated so PC players can compete against console players. That's not gonna hapen though - not until player interfaces become more fluid and widespread on consoles. Mouse look versus analog joypad? No contest

One of the reps at a local games shop has been plugging me about pre-ordering games. I used to do it, but now there's no way. With PC games there are too many negative variables, courtesy of the console.

 

The other thing: lack of off-line play. Seriously, why can't I play starcraft 2 without being online?? Even in campaign mode??

 

For a developer a 2ndhand is nearly as bad as a pirated copy. I've seen data from games I've worked on that nearly 50% of the player base was p;laying on a pre-owned/borrowed copy.

As far as consoles killing pc gaming, I'd argue its more that AAA games are now so expensive and financially risky to produce that few developers can make PC only AAA games, the sales generated simply aren't enough to support a team of 150+ for 2-3 years + marketing and distribution costs. PC games are also much more difficult to optimise, test and support than console titles.

It means its only really a viable option for companies with a golden track record guaranteeing sales + alternative income stream to support themselves during development (Blizzard and Valve spring to mind)


Despite what people say piracy is a huge problem I remember reading a Kotaku article afew years back when Assasins Creed 2 was released on PC with some stats from prominent torrent site. I think it was around 15000 copies a day that were being downloaded, just from 1 site.

Of course a pirated copy is not the equivalent of a full price sale, many/most who downloaded would probably not have bought. For a developer is also arguable that its better somebody plays your game for free than not at all, after all if they play it, and love it they might become a paying customer in the future, or they may convince people in their circle to buy. Its much more complex than people try to make out.

The future for games in general is in tightly integrating community (FB, steam etc) features into the game content to help keep people interested the game after they beat it and supporting it with DLC (free and/or paid).

This kind of content is the sort of thing that is easy to exclude from pirated copies, and also makes the player much more likely to buy.

 

If games were fairly priced i'd buy. $100/$110 AUD is not a fair price when we get the exact same discs as UK/US get and they pay half... even with the exchange rates calculated in.

being that no modding/dedicated servers and so much DRM crap thrown in these days.... why wouldn't you want to go and get a pirated copy without all the bullshit fussing about...

Put the disc in, install, maybe apply a no-cd crack and play....

i believe this picture is applicable here.


Click to view full size!

 

I believe that is pretty accurate, just having to have a constant internet connection to play a game is stupid, after all i have paid for the game.
yet in a pirated copy i can just play without any hassles. just quite the stupid thing about the industry atm.

 

Good read, and quite true.

Unfortunately due to the ease of use of consoles it's hard to convince people to switch or focus their purchases on the PC. Especially with young kids, and one time cost for a console, without the need to upgrade it every couple of years.

The only way i know how to battle the problem is only buy consoles exclusives (as i have one), and everything else on the PC...especially multi-platform games.

Paid, not Pirated.

 

So very true on all points there, might as well play most new games on a console. However, the gameplay has not advanced (some titles have even gone backwards) on a lot of "modern" games compared to older PC only titles.

That is how the market is now though, the "core" gamer that once was the majority of the market is now in the minority compared to the "casual" player.

 

Microsoft tried this a while ago. They canned it because even the best Xbox 360 user couldn't keep up with average PC gamers in FPSs, which I always mention to 360 fanboys who say PC sucks

 

From a technical standpoint, yes, but I was talking more about the whole GFWL thing of forced online accounts, shitty things like achievements, "social" gaming, which I couldn't give less of a shit about. (Aside from the fact that it just doesn't fucking work.)

And it took them a year to figure out not to charge PC gamers for multiplayer on it. That was painfully hilarious.

I've been in many an argument that goes like this:

Lithos: "It's fucked. No PC version?"

Some Console Gamer: "Well, it's because PC gamers'll just pirate, anyway."

L: "I wasn't going to pirate it."

SCG: "Whatever. Anyway, I don't know why you're getting so pissed - the game only looks like it's only worth renting/buying used."

Apparently, buying it used makes you morally superior to simply owning a PC.

I'm beginning to wonder if the rental/used market is responsible for the ever-shortening lengths of games, too.

Like an air raid over WWII-era Berlin, AAA is the problem. There's little, if any, middle ground anymore. Triple-A devs see themselves as only makers of stereotypical AAA titles. About the only game I can recall where a big-name dev wanted to do a game without all the AAA baggage is Mirror's Edge, which was one of the best of the last decade in my opinion (and, of course, EA's iced the series.)

It was a fun, naturally challenging, tightly-made game, that focused on gameplay rather than graphics, animation, or getting some celebrity to do the voices. It was small, experimental game (as DICE said.) And it worked. It used the Unreal engine in its basic form - about the only thing added was the coloured lighting engine and PhysX - and those weren't necessary for the core gameplay to function. Relatively low-budget for someone like DICE.

Mirror's Edge focused on story, setting, gameplay, the important things. Art direction over graphics, dialogue over big-name talent, player control over mini-cut scenes, Rihanna Pratchett over some left-brained arsehole from Coding who's just seen a movie and lacks the imagination to do anything but ape it. Not eyelash-rendering, scripted sequences, big-budget voice actors, and easy gameplay - the hallmarks of AAA, which add nothing to the game.

Dead Space was another, almost a sister game, back in the days when EA had it's "city-state" philosophy going.

They've yet to cotton on to the fact that if you spend less money on developing a game, you don't have to make as much to break even. 'Course, the shareholders won't accept it.

And here we get to the crux of all these arguments, which the industry spends billions on to try to get us to ignore it: make better games. That's it. Stop fucking around and make something that's fun to play, not something that looks good on paper or in an E3 show reel. There's a real culture in gaming media of pussy-footing around and look for other reasons as to why Game X did poorly, without little inward reflection.

Maybe your didn't sell well because you released it at the wrong time of year, or piracy, or because a butterfly flapped it's wings in Peru; maybe it was just shit.

Failing that, make them cheaper. I'll be a little less cut up about a developer if a shit game only wastes $30 than if it wastes $100. Making games go from "long-term investment" to "near-impulse purchase" would do well for sales. A lot of the games I've purchased that were under $30 I haven't even played - yet the devs still get my money. If there's any chance of me not being 100% satisfied for $100%, then they can go fuck themselves.

A hundred bucks for eight hours of gameplay is a rip off. They're masturbating if they think their game is worth $12.50 an hour.

True. Very true. With things like staggered release dates, DRM - AC2's probably not the best game you could've picked for this - and the sheer intimidation of forking over $100 for something that has no indicators of quality, aside from marketing, it is indeed complex.

With the AC2 example, I'd be also wondering how many people were just downloading cracks from the torrent files. It would not surprise me at all if downloading that part of the torrent was counted as a full download.

I think it's a new legal quagmire. Piracy isn't theft. Theft has two effects: one, the thief gets something for free, and two, the victim is deprived of that something. Piracy is just the first one. Hell, with pirated games, the publisher's distribution/production channels aren't even taxed.

It's a very one-way street in this post-consumerist world: they make, you buy, and the sense of entitlement some of these guys get (not just in games - in the movie industry and, of course, the music industry - yay, suing school kids for a million dollars for downloading four MP3s!) The very act of putting something on the market entitles you to the sales you expect.

You mean if I pirate games I won't have to put up with creating another login/password to cram inside my noggin, the states of someone in Bumfuck, Idaho who I don't know and don't care about, won't have to be endlessly online, and won't be subjected to direct marketing on my desktop?

BRB, firing up uTorrent. It's faster than Steam, anyway.

 

Not surprising. About the best way to prove it now is to get an XBox fanboy onto a PC with an XBox controller. I've got a mate who swears black and blue the XBox controller is faster than a mouse (BLOPS nut). I asked him if there's a target lock-on button in that game - he reckons nope, just strafe and turn. LOL. Used to play against another mate in R6:Vegas 2 - he insisted on the controller. Got fairly good at it, but nowhere near as good as he could be with a mouse.

 

The biggest problem with the controller is that it's capped to a certain speed, whereas a mouse moves as fast or as slow as you want it to.
That's the biggest problem I had playing Halo on the original Xbox; I couldn't aim fast enough to kill people.