Gearbox Boss Says id, Crytek are "Risking Failure"

[Green Tentacle]

Does this guy ever stop bitching for once?

Next he'll be calling DICE and Starbreeze sellouts.

 

[Volucer]

I played Borderlands and found it to be pretty average, when he makes an award winning game or a method of digital distribution then maybe I'll start listening to the crap he's spouting.

 

[In Limbo]

Seriously Randy, you're named after having a boner.

(a) Crytek said some time ago they would develop for consoles from here on in, so that point, aside from illustrative purposes, is irrelevant.

(b) John Carmack is a pioneer, who doesn't need the money (dude designs rockets as a hobby); the Tech 5 engine, from a technical and artistic perspective, looks fantastic. There are scores of current generation engines out there, why should id bother to make another one of those? So you can feel less inadequate, is an answer that springs to mind.

Learn to close your mouth, Randy, it stops the drivel coming out.

What the hell?

a) Crytek backing off from their PC exclusive mindset and moving onto console-friendly engines makes Pitchford's point, doesn't break it. Obviously Crytek execs think they shot themselves in the foot by closing off the console market by creating an engine above console specs. Which is exactly the point Pitchford is making.

b) Carmack hasn't produced a megahit in an entire generation. I like that his team is focused on pushing the technology forward, but their last successful engine was Quake 3. The Doom 3 engine was made obsolete on launch day by both CryEngine on Far Cry and Source on Half Life 2. I really hope he makes a comeback with this, but so far he seems better at pushing forward the iPhone than the PC.

and, if you let me:

c) Gearbox is a major dev with a pretty nice design philosophy. I mean, why are they cool when they do games but not cool when they comment on the competition. I wish more devs would, so we would have more of a creative dialogue going on.

I'm right there with you on all of those points, what I'm saying is that Randy's statements are pointless for exactly that reason.

a) It makes his point so well as to make it irrelevant. Crytek have been publicly moving in that direction since Crysis failed to sell well. They don't need Randy Pitchford coaching them.

b) Hey, I'm not judging the quality of id's games, I'm just saying that John Carmack makes some great innovative tech for the sheer love of it, so doesn't need financial advice from Randy Pitchford.

c) This is the point, I guess. It's not a dialogue, it's pointless attention seeking. You're cool when you go out and make something cool. You're annoying when you take every opportunity to deride people for doing things differently to you. It comes off sounding negative, hostile and, ultimately, childish.

Creative dialogue between developers is a good thing, you're right, and there are forums for that. The gaming media is not - except in the most superficial sense - one of them.

 

[In Limbo]

I disagree. He never says that Crytek are setting themselves up to fail. He says that people who invest too heavily in going ahead of the curve often fail and he exemplifies with Crysis 1. Not a word about the new CryEngine, there.

And then, he says that Rage may be going the Crysis 1 route because it doesn't fit in a DVD so it may not port well to the 360. And, since he's talking to, you know, Xbox Official Magazine, I'd say his comment is actually to the point. Not to mention that he's just done a postapocalyptic free roaming FPS with vehicles in it. Which is exactly what Rage is. And this interview was made during the promotional tour for Borderlands. So, you know, slipping out there that if you're waiting for Rage you're setting yourself up for disappointment doesn't sound like bad marketing to me.

Attention seeking it may be... for his game, so pointless is not the word that comes to mind.

I'm also curious about whether all these people going lynching mob here reacted in the same way when Valve trash talked Sony and the PS3. Was there this narrative of "these Valve guys are pointless attention seekers and need to shut the hell up"?

Because I don't remember that. I remember a massive fanboy flamewar on whether the PS3 was cool or not, but not even Sony fanboys accused Valve of being improper for using the gaming press as a forum to express their technical caveats about the PS3. The argument was about whether the Valve opinions were accurate or not, period.

I'm not sure what we're arguing about any more. You think Randy has a point, and I think he's being a douche about it. Wanna hug it out?

 

[Pimppeter2]

Pitchford is obviously a man searching for the spotlight, but he's right about the generation plus problem. We hit the point of diminishing returns with graphics hardware in ~2004, and at the same time CPU fabrication tech reached a plateau. So not only is it way harder to get the next 50% improvement out of the hardware, but the rewards for doing so are getting smaller and smaller.

Worse, every new generation takes more manpower to make it go, and the EA layoffs show that the last thing we need right now is for development to get MORE expensive.

Actually, he's pretty much been spot on with everything he's said.

I mean, we all love Valve. But as a competetor, Steam is pretty risky. I heard it controls something like 70% of Digital Distribution. You can't let competition control you like that

As for the Xbox Fanboys, I do personally believe there is a little bit to that.