Epic President: "The Money's On Console"

[uppitycracker]

"Maybe Gears of War [http://www.facebook.com]."

Brown, grey, and on ALOT steroids?

Though I will admit to still liking it, what I wouldn't give for a nice brightly coloured room...other than the...'red level' in Gears of War 2 (if you've played it, you should be able to guess which one I mean).

But yeah, I have to admit, the PC as a platform has lost alot to 'piracy', or as I like to call it, "we can spend less money on development as they have standardised hardware and pay alittle more regardless"

I hope PC gaming doesn't look like Gears of Bore. But the future of it certainly won't depend on things like Facebook and Farmville. Games like BC2, Civilization, Starcraft, ect, will easily be the future of it, and it's a shame a company like Epic is going to be such a small part of it.

BC2?

Oh, and you forgot Demigod, Galactic Civilizations 1/2, Sins of a Solar Empire, and everything else made by Stardock.

Relevent:

Source [http://kotaku.com/5500495/kotaku-census-2010-the-results-in-full]

Interesting - looks like piracy is going to be eventually as big of a 'problem' on consoles as it is on the PC.

lol i was just naming a few, i could have gone on, but yeah.

 

[Tonimata]

Actually I thought it was referring to a president being "epic" rather than the president of Epic

On the other hand, I agree entirely, there is a point where you have to start looking out to feed your developers, and that's where you have to start targeting the mass markets with brown gritty FPS

You know that's why they all do it.

 

[D_987]

I doubt the numbers will have dramatically changed over a few years. Yes Microsoft banned a lot of people - or so they say; but how many of those banned were down to piracy is unknown.

To be honest the fact people are so arrogant they seem to think they know more about the games industry than the president of EPIC games astounds me; he might be wrong, he might not be, but some posters claiming his words are "garbage" is pretty pretentious at best - he obviously understands the industry to a greater extent than anyone posting here.

No, I'm sorry, you can't expect to get away with an argument from authority logical fallacy. That's the silliest thing I've heard - so because he makes games that sell well to only a certain small portion of the console population who like third person over the shoulder cover based shooters, he obviously knows about ALL parts of the gaming market better than ALL of us at the Escapist? I don't see how you can possibly justify that.

Because those posting on The Escapist don't know anything about the industry - he does. It's really simple to be honest - you don't know everything he does about the games industry because you aren't in it; I'm not either - that's why I'm not questioning what he says; he obviously knows what he's talking about compared to randomposter13322. This isn't the first time EPIC games have spoken about PC games piracy either - they've repeatedly stated this fact and still people attempt to bad-mouth the concept with no proof at all - if you're going to argue against what he's saying use facts - not assumptions and rumours (like the old "everyone who pirates buys the game afterwards).

Simply put, there hasn't been a definitive argument against the points made by EPIC (and other developers) to prove them wrong. The fact you're so naive you think the president of such a company won't view all areas of the industry (as in you think because his company makes shooters he'll only view the shooter sales figures) is pretty laughable in of itself.

Interesting - looks like piracy is going to be eventually as big of a 'problem' on consoles as it is on the PC.

Bullshit - the poll shows 23,000 votes - there're millions of gamers linked to Xbox live alone - this poll shows absolutely nothing...

 

[More Fun To Compute]

Interesting - looks like piracy is going to be eventually as big of a 'problem' on consoles as it is on the PC.

Not a problem on PS3. Must be why Epic and all the other console shooter developers like Bioware are PS3 exclusive. Oh, wait.

 

[mad825]

Looks like someone is having a temper tantrum, saying such rambling nonsense is rather idiotic and also somewhat rude to people who game on the PC.

you'd think that someone with his title would have something far more cunning and intelligent to say about the future of PC gaming other than relating it to a on-line browser game and when only 90% of the people who play Farmville (a big guess)play the game on another device that allows internet browsing.
Like others said, Who cares? besides I think I have found an excuse to buy GoW on the PC now...pre-owned.

 

[TK421]

I hope PC gaming doesn't look like Gears of Bore. But the future of it certainly won't depend on things like Facebook and Farmville. Games like BC2, Civilization, Starcraft, ect, will easily be the future of it, and it's a shame a company like Epic is going to be such a small part of it.

Most definitely.

 

[squid5580]

Honesty omg how refreshing! Thanks EPIC for actually admitting you're all in it for the money!

Ya thanks for being honest. Thanks for saying what no one else will admit to. Oh you think gaming shouldn't be all about the cash. What was the last free game Valve gave you? Give it a rest. Making games is a JOB. That is how they can afford to make more games, pay their bills and maybe have a bit of cash leftover for something they might want. Just like everyone else.

Just because a company wants to turn a profit and I dunno not go bankrupt doesn't mean they don't have passsion for what they are creating.

 

[xanith02100]

That's depressing....

Not the PC-abandonment thing, but the fact that the title led me to belive Obama made an epic video-games based announcement

Glad to know I wasn't the only one. And I was really excited too...

 

[D_987]

Blizzard also makes other games and yes, mmo's are piratable, it's called private servers.

Exactly my point - they aren't half as enjoyable as playing the proper game - and aren't, to a lot of gamers, obviously worth the hassle. The very fact the game itself cannot be replicated unlike that of a pirated single-player game is almost DRM in of itself...

There have been 2 diablos, a starcraft, 3 warcrafts and 6 expansion packs between them. None of them are mmos, all are pirated to various degrees and Blizzard never threw a hissy fit about how much they are hurt by "lost sales", which if the popularity of the PC versions of ubishit's games are anything to go by, are actually a negative number due to the (lack of) word of mouth advertising.

Blizzards games are all online games (as in they all offer online modes) though are they not? It's pretty common knowledge that online games are not pirated as often as single-player games - particularly when Blizzard utilize a service such as the recent Battle.net-thing. Again like Steam, it's DRM in of itself - and proof that Blizzard are a company different to other developers whom are struggling due to piracy.

Something I ramble about here.

And unless they are sued by their publisher for not having enough security, they won't get in trouble by something which has no proven effect beyond viral marketing.

Don't they self publish anyway?

 

[thiosk]

I agree, if you want to sell highly derivative shooters that have hardly innovated since HL2, then yes, the money is on console.

 

[Bruce Edwards]

What I find strange is that these companies which are abandoning the PC all got their start on the platform.

Obviously they make more sales on consoles. This is a given - the number of consoles vs. the number of gaming PC's makes this a no brainer. (Plus, most people enjoy the plug & play aspect).

The real contributors I suspect are second hand sales and the delayed release. When games come out on the PC three to six months after the console version, of course they are going to sell far fewer copies. Many gamers will have given up on waiting and purchased the Console version (if they even knew the PC version was in the pipeline).

EA,Valve, Ironclad/Impulse and Blizzard seem to have found relatively easy methods of increasing sales on the PC, without (totally) screwing the gamer.

So really, I don't agree that the future of gaming is farmville. More likely to be World of Warcraft ...

 

[squid5580]

"the future of the PC market lies with games like Farmville."

I haven't even bothered reading past that point. All he gets is a +1 moron stat in my mind.

Why so? He most likely correct, I mean Farmville apparently has an average of 30 million people playing it daily. Wow, arguably the most successful game in the world, wishes it could have those numbers with a total subscriber-ship of around 12 million.

Because the market that plays Farmville is not the market that plays games as we know them.

Exactly the point. The market is changing. He could sell out like other companies have and will continue to do so to cash in on these other gamers. And if he was this passionless monster like people are trying to make him out to be then he would. The alternative is to move where he can stay out of the red and keep making the games he is passionate about.

 

[D_987]

Look at the recent Humble Indie Bundle thing... Pay what you want, you could even get it for free if you wanted, yet that still made quite a bit didn't it?

It made a lot because it was for charity yes, people were willing to pay for such a pack. But any AAA title attempting such a feat would be sales-suicide - it's pointless to use that as a counter-argument to the point made in the OP.

Besides, that very pack was pirated rather heavily too [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.193955-Who-Would-Pirate-the-One-Cent-Humble-Indie-Bundle?page=1].

 

[raankh]

If they're saying they can't sell games for PC, then good riddance. As much as I admire Epic's ability to produce cool engines, I don't really see the relevance here. It's not like there's a lack of game engines for pc game developers.

If they don't have a viable business model for the PC game market, to bad for them. I'm not shedding any tears.

Blaming it on piracy is just bad form. Insincere, is what it is.

 

[Woodsey]

"the future of the PC market lies with games like Farmville."

I haven't even bothered reading past that point. All he gets is a +1 moron stat in my mind.

Why so? He most likely correct, I mean Farmville apparently has an average of 30 million people playing it daily. Wow, arguably the most successful game in the world, wishes it could have those numbers with a total subscriber-ship of around 12 million.

Because the market that plays Farmville is not the market that plays games as we know them.

Exactly the point. The market is changing. He could sell out like other companies have and will continue to do so to cash in on these other gamers. And if he was this passionless monster like people are trying to make him out to be then he would. The alternative is to move where he can stay out of the red and keep making the games he is passionate about.

No, the market isn't changing; they're separate groups.

And I seriously doubt that someone who solely games on a PC and played Wolfenstein 10 years ago now plays Farmville as his game-of-choice.

 

[D_987]

No, the market isn't changing; they're separate groups.

And I seriously doubt that someone who solely games on a PC and played Wolfenstein 10 years ago now plays Farmville as his game-of-choice.

Exactly the bane of these threads - "I doubt"; in other words you're just making this stuff up and have no evidence to back it up - not even reasoned logic. I think you'll find - out of those 30 million people playing Farmville - there will be some that played Wolfenstein 10 years ago the odds are stacked against you if you say otherwise...

They aren't separate groups at all - people can play both Farmville and Fallout you know...

 

[Woodsey]

No, the market isn't changing; they're separate groups.

And I seriously doubt that someone who solely games on a PC and played Wolfenstein 10 years ago now plays Farmville as his game-of-choice.

Exactly the bane of these threads - "I doubt"; in other words you're just making this stuff up and have no evidence to back it up - not even reasoned logic. I think you'll find - out of those 30 million people playing Farmville - there will be some that played Wolfenstein 10 years ago the odds are stacked against you if you say otherwise...

They aren't separate groups at all - people can play both Farmville and Fallout you know...

I meant Farmville and only Farmville.

Obviously if they play both then there's no problem, and if they play both then there's no reason to suggest that the future is only in games like Farmville.