PC Gaming Alliance President Trashes LucasArts

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
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PC Gaming Alliance President Trashes LucasArts


Star Wars: The Force Unleashed [http://www.pcgamingalliance.org/] for the PC, saying the studio "hasn't made a good PC game in a long time."

The Force Unleashed was developed for virtually every platform under the sun, including the Xbox 360, PlayStation 2 and 3, the Wii, PSP, Nintendo DS, N-Gage, iPhone, other mobile phones and even the iPod Touch, but a version for the PC was never produced. According to Cameron Suey, producer of the PlayStation 3 [http://www.xbox.com] editions of the game, that decision was made because of the wide range of PCs on the market, many of which are not powerful enough to run the game properly.

"Someone with a $4,000 high-end system would definitely be able to play the Euphoria, the DMM and really technical elements of the game. But someone with a low-end PC would have a watered down experience, they would have to turn all the settings down and it wouldn't be the same game," he said in a May interview with VideoGamer.com [http://www.videogamer.com/xbox360/star_wars_the_force_unleashed/preview-921.html]. "On the other hand if we made that game for as many people as possible, because we are trying to make mass market games, something that everybody can enjoy, well then it's not taking advantage of what those $4,000 systems can do. So one way or the other depending on how you build that lead PC SKU, it's not going to be for the same amount of people, it's going to be not as good or only for a select few people."

The decision brought a storm of PC owner rage down upon LucasArts and Suey, who nonetheless affirmed his position [http://www.videogamer.com/news/12-09-2008-9308.html] in September when he said, "The truth of it is, the way this game is designed, based around these physics, that are simulation based and very procedural, it would take a very powerful PC to pull them off. This is definitely stretching the Xbox and the PS3 really to the farthest they can go."

But Randy Stude, president of the PC Gaming Alliance and also director of Intel's Gaming Program Office, is having none of it. In a recent VideoGamer.com interview of his own, Stude commented on the LucasArts decision, and he was swinging for the fences. "That's not an educated answer. In the last several years there have been at least 100 million PCs sold that have the capabilities or better of an Xbox 360. It's ridiculous to say that there's not enough audience for that game potentially and that it falls into this enthusiast extreme category when ported over to the PC. That's an uneducated response," he said.

Harsh words, but for Stude, that was just the warm-up. "LucasArts hasn't made a good PC game in a long time," he continued. "That's my opinion. They make some pretty good games for the Jedi Knight 2 [http://www.wii.com], and even their strategy games weren't that great. So I can understand why they would make that call."

Stude was really off to the races now. "They're not really creating product within LucasArts themselves," he claimed. "They're going at it job shopping their IP. That may be a little controversial for me to say, but that's what I see. There's no development team necessarily within LucasArts any more, they've basically turned into an intellectual property machine and supporting the PC, why should they? It really doesn't fit their property."

When you're on a roll, sometimes you just have to run with it, but it's still unusual to see this kind of heavy-handed criticism being thrown around so openly. On the other hand, it's Stude's job to keep the spotlight firmly fixed on the PC, and in that regard I think we can say, "Mission accomplished." Whether his diatribe lights a fire under other developers considering a move away from PC gaming is another matter entirely.


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Lt. Sera

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Apr 22, 2008
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They make it for the Wii and then say the game couldn't run on an average PC? Who ever came up with that excuse should get fired.
 

Zomni42

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Jul 22, 2008
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Yeah, but George Lucas owns the damn company. He won't fire himself... no matter how many times we ask. Just one more bad decision he's made.
 

Robert0288

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Jun 10, 2008
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I think the whole lot of them should get their head examined. I forget which artical it was, or exactly who said it. But it was something along the lines of: We're not making this game because people that have good enough computers to run it are smart enough to get it for free off torrents. Now that I think of it it might have been Gears of war 2.

This along with the current shinanigans EA is pulling with its 'security' features and limiting downloads, makes me really happy somone is publicly blasting these companies.

And its true Lucas Arts in my opinion has been dropping the ball ALOT lately.
 

curlycrouton

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Jul 13, 2008
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People getting angry that SW:TFU hasn't been released on PC?

We should be happy! We've been spared the horror.

Thank you Lucas Arts, thank you.
 

destroyer2k

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Oct 12, 2008
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This guy is right I mean the game is possible on pc, but like he said there weren't any god games for pc for a long time (and on consoles too).

And just look star wars: tfu was a bug land (and all the great engine it has were really bad engine like dmm I mean wtf treas doesn't break in rile life like in star wars: tfu and). And I better don't go for fracture who ever like this game is brain washed.
 

araczynski

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Oct 20, 2008
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i love the $4000 pc argument. if anything, i'm guessing they didn't want to take the time to put in higher quality textures, as the game would look like crap on most pc's.
 

Bluntknife

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Sep 8, 2008
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All of a sudden Lucas arts hates the PC.
They said fracture wouldn't be able to run on an average PC either,
I'm pretty sure the reasoning behind this is that most PC gamers have standards when it comes to games and we wouldn't pay for the crapfest that is force unleashed.
On the plus side though, we can rest easy knowing that none of our PC gamer brothers had to endure the torture of another horrible starwars game. :)
 

Littaly

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Jun 26, 2008
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Makes no sense, they could have ported the "nerfed" Wii/PS2 version if they really wanted to...
 

SimuLord

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Aug 20, 2008
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The people at LucasArts are probably sitting in their offices thinking "if we do a version for the PC, half the people are going to whine about it being 'a crappy console port', a third are going to complain about the copy protection no matter how minimally invasive a DRM we use, and most folks are just gonna pirate it. Why bother when the consoles print money?"

PC games are a niche market because PC gamers are inherently a niche audience, and we've mostly brought this condition on ourselves.
 

johnman

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Oct 14, 2008
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Lucas Art not making a good Pc game in ages? What was their good console game then?
 

karpiel

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Apr 18, 2008
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LucasArts seemingly could do no wrong in the 90's, but now they're basically unrecognizable from the studio which put out stuff like TIE Fighter.
 

Eldritch Warlord

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Codgo post=7.74524.837835 said:
PC games are very far from a niche market my friend, PC Gamers just have higher standards. High standards these lazy Developers and Publishers can't handle anymore.
I believe you've confused "higher standards" with "a larger ratio of well-played gamers".

I can see how you'd like to count yourself amoung the elite douches (worded differently in your head I'm sure) but your observation comes about because to be a PC gamer you really have to be passionate, not that PC gamers are universally connisseurs of fine gaming.

Consoles make things easier for everyone, hence the abandonment issues that brought about this "PC Gaming Alliance." But you still have Valve and Blizzard on the high horse with you, very fine company if a bit late to the party.
 

yonsito

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Nov 14, 2007
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People from the pc gaming alliance have the best names.
There's a Kevin Unangst and now there's Randy Stud, how cool is that.
 

Jumplion

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Mar 10, 2008
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I'm no PC gamer, but seriously?

"The truth of it is, the way this game is designed, based around these physics, that are simulation based and very procedural, it would take a very powerful PC to pull them off. This is definitely stretching the Xbox and the PS3 really to the farthest they can go."

This is complete bullshit.

Everything this guy has said is complete bullshit.

It's bullshit with chips for god's sake!!
 

Amnestic

High Priest of Haruhi
Aug 22, 2008
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very powerful PC to pull them off.
Apparently 'very powerful' means £400 and two years old these days.

I didn't realise the American economy was so dead that £400=$4,000 dollars. Learn something new everyday. ;D