Well... I am very disappointed. Whatever happened to the days when we had to upgrade our entire computer system just to play the newest game? I can recall when pc games taxed our PC's to their maximum potential. This is what made playing PC games worth their while because the consoles just couldn't keep with the capabilities of the PC. Today's games that have a high demand on PC hardware are usually just programmed very poorly and are poorly optimized. There is a huge discrepancy among PCs games and their performance on new systems. I can think of a few PC games released 2 years ago that still play like pigs even with a maxed out system of todays standards. Many think this is all a result of software piracy. I don't agree with that conclusion. There has always been software piracy. Even the console games are pirated. When we didn't have the internet games were pirated via BBS systems. These companies are just fearful that their new game will be pirated and as a result they fail to spend the time required to make a good game that sells. The game developers are also being pushed to market their games quickly and are not spending the time required to make a quality PC game. When they do make a PC game it is usually just a port from the console. There is nothing worse then a PC game that has been ported to all the consoles. Typically these games are made with the lowest common denominator of all the systems/ consoles in mind. The result is a lackluster game that is no different then hand-me-down underwear (skid marks included). This problem is further compounded by the fact that game publishers are not marketing their PC games correctly anymore. Just walk into your local EB games store and try to find the PC games shelf. It will most likely be at the back of the store and out of the way. There is no real attention being made to selling them. The game publishers have simply decided that consoles are where the money is and they have come to that conclusion out of fear. It wasn't that long ago and I could buy a new game or two a month. Good luck trying to do that now. There is basically nothing on the shelf and nothing being released.

Games don't sell too well in stores, they never did. We have Steam and other delivery systems for that. They're more easily managed, more convenient for the end customer, easier to push updates with and they make eco nuts smile because we're not burning gas on shipping.

And I'm not disappointed in games. They do push our gear to the max. Just because a new game doesn't force you to buy a new machine doesn't mean that it's less demanding than it "should be", all it means is that even "old" hardware is flexible enough to allow it to run decently.

Companies are trying to make money and artists want to tell a story. If they can do that without doubling the polycount every year then so be it.

EDIT: added an on-topic paragraph :)

You have a whole mess of ideas in here:

1) Yes you can pirate games on consoles. Usually it is more involved than downloading the ISO+crack off of Pirate Bay, however. Higher barrier to entry means less pirating.
2) Publishers like console games because console games have a higher percentage of the market. Publishers usually want to maximize profits, and usually that means trying to get as high market penetration as possible.
3) Yes, sometimes games are "dumbed down" so they can fit on a console. But a game that is designed for a console is not necessarily bad on the PC either. There's a certain hint of snobbery implicit in the statement that a game being released on a console means that its inferior.

AS Rycross said, the games are where the money is, and right now the console market is bigger than the PC market.

I'm a recent Steam customer and I must say, I absolutely LOVE it. Digital distribution is the way to go.

One thing I do look forward to is merging the console and PC market. I hate that I can't play PC games with a controller, or that I can't do some console games with a keyboard, or that I have to use a monitor for this and a TV for that, etc.

Quote: Original post by 00KevinWhatever happened to the days when we had to upgrade our entire computer system just to play the newest game? I can recall when pc games taxed our PC's to their maximum potential. This is what made playing PC games worth their while because the consoles just couldn't keep with the capabilities of the PC. Today's games that have a high demand on PC hardware are usually just programmed very poorly and are poorly optimized. There is a huge discrepancy among PCs games and their performance on new systems. I can think of a few PC games released 2 years ago that still play like pigs even with a maxed out system of todays standards.

It's incredibly difficult and frustrating to optimize for PC hardware today. because it's more heterogeneous than ever.

In the olden days, the difference between one PC "generation" and the next was, the the next generation was twice as fast and had twice as much RAM. That's easy.

Nowadays, you have AMD vs. Intel, Single-, Dual- vs. Quadcore CPUs, ATI vs. nVidia vs. the rest of the world, 32 bit vs. 64 bit, DirectX 9 vs. 10 vs. 11, XP vs. Vista vs. 7,...

The OS usually makes a very good job in hiding all this differences from the end user and even from the developer, but if you start digging deeper, you'll notice a lot of differences. An optimisation that works on nVidia cards is slower on Ati cards, what's fast with DX 10 is slow in DX 9 and so on.

So, to truly optimize a PC game, you don't have to optimize once, but basically for all hardware configurations that are near the recommended specs. And then you have to go ahead and fix all those tiny bugs to make it work acceptable on minimum spec hardware configs.

That's a lot of work, takes a lot of time and costs a lot of money. And actually it even limits your potential userbase because you have to go for higher hardware specs to make it worthwhile, because nobody cares if you've have the fastest renderer in the world on GeForce 4. It will still look like crap and impress no one.

Actually there are only 2 situations where a high end PC game makes commercial sense:
1) As a demo for your engine (see id, CryTek & Epic), which you will sell for millions, if you manage to impress a lot of people (and have a working version for consoles). CryTek probably makes more money by selling a single engine license than all sales of Crysis together.
2) When the extra cost for optimizing is paid by someone else to push their tech. Either an engine company (who would provide the manpower and/or support) or a hardware company like nVidia, Ati or Intel (take a look at those fancy logos at the beginning of the games. Some of them had big checks attached to them ;).

Quote: Original post by 00KevinMany think this is all a result of software piracy. I don't agree with that conclusion. There has always been software piracy. Even the console games are pirated. When we didn't have the internet games were pirated via BBS systems.

Piracy and used games are just a convenient excuse. I don't think anybody with half a clue really believes that.

Quote: Original post by 00KevinWhen they do make a PC game it is usually just a port from the console. There is nothing worse then a PC game that has been ported to all the consoles. Typically these games are made with the lowest common denominator of all the systems/ consoles in mind. The result is a lackluster game that is no different then hand-me-down underwear (skid marks included).

The story behind PC ports is a different one. Usually, when you make a console game, you'll, at the same time, have to build a rudimentary PC version anyways. For testing, editing, prototyping and so on.

Publishers know, that with a certain amount of money spent on marketing they can sell so and so many units of basically any game. And they spend a lot of money on marketing anyways, to promote the console game.

So, you take the rudimentary PC version, that was for free, spend minimal money on making it shippable and sell it to the people who don't have or want a console, but were hyped up by all the marketing. It's an almost zero risk tactic to make a little money extra.

Note that this does not apply to all PC ports out there, there are notable expections. Ironically, those exceptions are often released way after the console version (for reasons, look above).

Quote: Original post by 00KevinWell... I am very disappointed.

I am not disappointed, I accept the market dynamics at work (because I can't change them anyways) and enjoy unique genres (MMO*, FPS) and low price of PC games.

The PC games are not dead, they're different. :)

Quote: Original post by 00Kevin
These companies are just fearful that their new game will be pirated and as a result they fail to spend the time required to make a good game that sells. The game developers are also being pushed to market their games quickly and are not spending the time required to make a quality PC game.

As it has been stated before, you have a lot of ideas in your original post, but I have to stop and say that this one is not completely true. This idea is based on the thought that a game that pushes your hardware to the limit is the equivalent of a good game and thus one that will sell well. We all know such is not the case (just take a look at the casual market). 20yrs ago we were excited when games pushed our hardware to the limits because it meant that instead of being a character made of 4 pixels fighting 2 "enemies" on the screen we got to be a character made of 10 pixels and fight 4 enemies at the same time! Okay, admittedly a bit exaggerated, but you get the point. These days it's not the extra poly here or there or the extra specular-bumped-ultra-lens-flair-bunny-map that makes a game stand out in the long run.

If a game pushes my system to the absolute limit, using code that squeezes every bit of performance possible out every component in my system, it isn't automatically fun. It's technically impressive, but that does not make it a good game. I will agree that often games get rushed to market too quickly, but the simple fact of the matter is that it all comes down to business. Unless you have millions of dollars sitting in a vault somewhere (or you're 3D Realms), you simply can't adopt the "it's done when it's done" mentality and hope to still put food on the table. While I'd love to be altruistic and make games purely for the love of the craft, sometimes you have to balance scope and budget. It's just the reality of life.

[Edited by - dudeman21 on October 11, 2009 6:46:06 PM]

Quote: Original post by 00Kevin
Whatever happened to the days when we had to upgrade our entire computer system just to play the newest game?

I don't know, but good riddance. I don't want to have to splash out another £300 on a new graphics card every time a new game comes out.

Quote: This is what made playing PC games worth their while because the consoles just couldn't keep with the capabilities of the PC.

And they still can't.

Quote:
These companies are just fearful that their new game will be pirated and as a result they fail to spend the time required to make a good game that sells. The game developers are also being pushed to market their games quickly and are not spending the time required to make a quality PC game.

Uh, no.

Developers allocate their time and money to features that they believe will generate sales. If a feature is difficult and/or expensive to produce, but results in few extra sales, then it is unlikely to make the cut.

Developing highly scalable graphics for example, can be expensive. The programming effort is the tip of the iceberg; there's also the issue of creating the high res textures, models, animations, etc. Combine this with the fact that many modern games are often already very big and content rich, and you have a massive task. And the payoff? A handful of people who bought a ridiculously powerful system - and still have enough money left over to actually buy your game - will enjoy some prettier graphics. You probably won't get many more actual sales though, because most of those people would probably have bought the game anyway.

It's far more cost effective to aim at somewhere between the middle and top end of the hardware curve as your starting point and scale down from there.

Quote:
When they do make a PC game it is usually just a port from the console. There is nothing worse then a PC game that has been ported to all the consoles. Typically these games are made with the lowest common denominator of all the systems/ consoles in mind.

Examples?

Quote:
This problem is further compounded by the fact that game publishers are not marketing their PC games correctly anymore. Just walk into your local EB games store and try to find the PC games shelf. It will most likely be at the back of the store and out of the way. There is no real attention being made to selling them. The game publishers have simply decided that consoles are where the money is and they have come to that conclusion out of fear.

High Street retailers make their money off second hand sales. (which the publishers and developers make nothing from) For sales that actually count, the High Street model is virtually dead; online retailers and digital distribution is where the money is made.

Also, this should probably be in the lounge.

Quote: Original post by BriceMo
AS Rycross said, the games are where the money is, and right now the console market is bigger than the PC market.

I'm a recent Steam customer and I must say, I absolutely LOVE it. Digital distribution is the way to go.

QFT

Quote: Original post by BriceMo
One thing I do look forward to is merging the console and PC market. I hate that I can't play PC games with a controller, or that I can't do some console games with a keyboard, or that I have to use a monitor for this and a TV for that, etc.

To some extent, it's already here. Last game I bought was Batman: Arkham Asylum on steam. I'm playing it on my HD tv with an xbox 360 controller. And it's freakin' awesome. It's the best of both worlds. I have the better graphics and lower price of the pc version (NZ$75 on steam vs NZ$130 for 360 disc in store) and the big tv and better control* of the console.

*for an fps or rts, mouse/keyboard is still exponentially better than controller, but for Batman, the controller is streets ahead.

Quote: Original post by Sandman

Quote:
When they do make a PC game it is usually just a port from the console. There is nothing worse then a PC game that has been ported to all the consoles. Typically these games are made with the lowest common denominator of all the systems/ consoles in mind.

Examples?

Some of the Halo series was ported to the PC, and it sucks.

Quote: Original post by 00Kevin
Many think this is all a result of software piracy. I don't agree with that conclusion. There has always been software piracy. Even the console games are pirated. When we didn't have the internet games were pirated via BBS systems.

There are a couple problems with this statement from a business perspective.

The business must estimate the sales numbers first, then allocate the money for development. There is no point investing $5M for a game that will generate $4M in total revenue.

Piracy throws off those numbers. Back in the day it was fairly easy to estimate the sales numbers. Today it is hit-and-miss.




Yes, games are pirated, and yes, the publishers and studios know it.

Two things have changed:

Games are vastly more expensive to make. We have gone from 4-person teams and a $0.5M total budget for a good game in the early 90's, to today's $3M for a "budget shovelware" title today.

Piracy numbers are much harder to predict. 15 years ago you could come up with a reasonably accurate sales estimate. Since then we have seen a much more difficult time with estimates. Several of the previous titles have had their sales estimates drop due to piracy revisions.



For example, a surge in piracy in eastern Europe severely hurt our studio. About the time we released there were reports of extreme piracy in the region. Our sales globally were just about as expected, except in those regions of Europe where we sold practically nothing. Our telemetry shows several hundred thousand units being used in the area, meaning almost all of them were pirated.

That game shipped with 14 languages on 3 platforms. Most of those langauges were in the pirated regions. This year we are only supporting EFIGS for one title, and we are completely eliminating store sales in Europe for the other.

So entirely because of the variability of piracy, we are providing a less-valuable product to the consumer. It is really a sad thing. If we had a bit more sales revenue we could add so many awesome features, but .... well, we don't.