Crytek: PC Gamers Shouldn't Fear Next-Gen Consoles

[John Funk]

Crytek: PC Gamers Shouldn't Fear Next-Gen Consoles

There's no reason why AAA-level games can't be free-to-play.

Crytek's Cevat Yerli has, for many years, been in the business of making jaw-droppingly gorgeous PC games and helping other games get made via his company's CryEngine. But with the next generation of consoles more-or-less impending, Yerli says that PC gamers have no reasons to fear the PS4 or Xbox 720. "I think PC gaming should never fear. PC gaming is always going to be on the public's eyes," he said.

"The only thing that will happen is that PC gaming is going to change and adopt different business models - and we are trying to change it ourselves with high quality, premium free-to-play titles." Indeed, Yerli thinks that the free-to-play market has room for even the biggest of big-budget titles, and with big-name studios like BioWare [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/111259-Team-Fortress-2-Goes-Free-to-Play-Meets-the-Medic] exploring the space, it's hard to argue with him.

According to Yerli, there is "absolutely no reason" why gamers shouldn't be able to get AAA-level games for free, legally. To him, it's one of the critical failures in thought of the Western gaming development model. "How can you justify 10-30 million in production going in to a game that people are going to play for free? There is no royalty calculation possible in traditional minds."

Instead, Yerli thinks that developers should be looking to the models popular in the East, only applying Western standards to avoid the "crappy quality" that tends to be synonymous with "free-to-play" in gamers' minds.

"I went to Korea in 2006 and I was blown away by the way people play games - online, connection and social... that's their lifestyle ... So when I came back I said, 'I want that kind of business model in the Western world with the quality of a Crysis.'"

Source: CVG [http://www.computerandvideogames.com/354427/pc-community-shouldnt-fear-next-gen-consoles-says-crytek-ceo/]

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[Worgen]

The main reason I don't like free to play is that it really only works well with multi player games, it is hard to justify a free to play single player game and make it the kind of thing that is possible to win without paying a cent.

 

[RatRace123]

I don't know. I'm iffy about the current "free to play" model being established to AAA games.

Suddenly EA's whole jab about "purchasing bullets" starts looking like a scary reality.

 

[Viper114]

Make Crysis 3 free, or do a hell of a job making something that's damn near equal in scale, and then we'll talk.

 

[RvLeshrac]

What? "PC Gamers shouldn't fear..." Can we stop making up fake problems to solve? Since when have PC gamers ever "feared" a new console? We don't deride them because we're "afraid" of them, we deride them because they're deserving of derision.

What we "fear" is douchebags like Yerli who keep proclaiming that the buy-a-bullet model is the "future of gaming."

 

[Rednog]

Bleh, I am not a fan of free to play. Way too many companies treat it as the free to play basically being a demo and to get anything of substance you basically have to pay up like a full game; or they turn it into pay to win. It should be hey you can still get something out of the game but it might take you longer/ you have to invest more time as opposed to paying. And even then amount to unlock should not be astronomical. This frustrates me the most because in games like Tribes or League of Legends you essentially have to pay way more than any $60 AAA title to unlock everything, that to me is just plain bullshit.

 

[Woodsey]

*Reads title*

Fuck yeah, now let's all get in a circle and touch wien-

*Reads rest*

Oh, this. Bleh. Call me old fashioned, but I'd rather just pay for something and get it over with - and I rarely give a shit about multiplayer, and I don't really see how the F2P model is going to fit with single-player.

 

[Corven]

I was in the line of thinking that most pc gamers want the next gen to come out due to how the current gen is holding things back.

 

[Waaghpowa]

What? "PC Gamers shouldn't fear..." Can we stop making up fake problems to solve? Since when have PC gamers ever "feared" a new console? We don't deride them because we're "afraid" of them, we deride them because they're deserving of derision.

What we "fear" is douchebags like Yerli who keep proclaiming that the buy-a-bullet model is the "future of gaming."

Don't forget lazy development that leads to bad games, aside from that though, I was coming into the thread thinking the exact same thing.

 

[blackrave]

What? "PC Gamers shouldn't fear..." Can we stop making up fake problems to solve? Since when have PC gamers ever "feared" a new console? We don't deride them because we're "afraid" of them, we deride them because they're deserving of derision.

What we "fear" is douchebags like Yerli who keep proclaiming that the buy-a-bullet model is the "future of gaming."

Don't forget lazy development that leads to bad games, aside from that though, I was coming into the thread thinking the exact same thing.

And also slowly losing our freedom to set up things
(like video&audio settings and controls)

 

[Micalas]

He seems to be mistaking fear with being completely underwhelmed.

 

[viranimus]

No theres no reason why they cant...

But there are a hell of a lot of reasons why they shouldnt. Starting with.. if you paid for a game, you should not have to continue paying for it.


Seriously its time to pull the plug cause this kind of garbage is getting out of hand.

 

[Chairman Miaow]

What? "PC Gamers shouldn't fear..." Can we stop making up fake problems to solve? Since when have PC gamers ever "feared" a new console? We don't deride them because we're "afraid" of them, we deride them because they're deserving of derision.

What we "fear" is douchebags like Yerli who keep proclaiming that the buy-a-bullet model is the "future of gaming."

I actually thought PC gamers WANTED a new console generation, so that they stop holding us back, the scum. I'm bitter, can you tell?

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Free to play means multiplayer. I don't give a flying fuck about multiplayer games.

And of course PC gamers shouldn't fear next gen consoles. They're gonna be expensive and even more obnoxious to use than they are now. The era of 'insert disc into tray and play' is gone. Consoles now suffer from everything that PC suffers (constant patching, online activation etc.) and it has no benefits of a PC (better graphics, choosing between a controller or keyboard and mouse, monitor or TV etc.) On top of that you have to pay to play online on Xbox 360. It's only gonna get worse next gen if they decide to introduce ads in games. I don't understand why people buy consoles.

 

[Doom972]

The main reason I don't like free to play is that it really only works well with multi player games, it is hard to justify a free to play single player game and make it the kind of thing that is possible to win without paying a cent.

What about the old shareware model? Divide the game into a small number of episodes, each with a beginning and an end, and give the first episode for free. The rest of the episodes can be sold as DLC. With digital distribution being what it is, this model could be much more successful than in the 90s.

OT: I don't see what there's to be afraid of for PC gamers. If I was a current-gen console owner I might be afraid about what will happen to my XBLA/PSN games or my DLC.

 

[Weaver]

I still don't get what this has to do with the next gen consoles?

 

[Orcus The Ultimate]

That's why i'm starting to invest in a Gaming Personal Computer.

Consoles are getting way too restrictive in all it's policies; while PC's have Moded Content, some singleplayer games even have a multiplayer mode made by fans and such.

And you don't have to worry to pay and change from 1 console to another and worry about the Retrocompatibility issues that happened for example with the Playstation 3:

PS1 games-> Yes there's retrocompatibility
PS2 games-> NOT! (only 20 and 60 gigs models)

Later on => Marketing started selling you PS2,(and arcade (remember MAME 32?)) games in the late PS Store at varied prices (which was proably inspired by Microsoft money machine: Xbox's Live Arcade and also those Premium accounts which provoked the creation of PSN+). Back then, with the "not so many" PS3 accounts, i remember, there wasn't "payable favoritism" and as so, everyone was able to enjoy demos, trailers, and stuff... now you can't.