Jimquisition: Shaming PC Ports Because Why Not?

[Folksoul]

Jim's argument is a rough paraphrase of my absolute hatred of Bethesda. I lump them right in with EA. I may like their products, but I despise how they go about making it. I bought Skyrim, my introductory game to WRPG's, at launch, on PS3. The game simply did not work. Years have passed and I had a friend lend me his x-box version and I enjoyed it immensely. However, if the "optimal experience" for this game requires a ton of user made content, why did they publish it at all? One port outright didn't work. The "vanilla" experience on the X-Box 360 was functional but had a bland, milktoast, story that an intern at square-enix would be ashamed to receive a credit on, and the best version game play wise almost required mods to even compare to the game they were marketing instead of the game they shipped.

Jim is absolutely correct. Charging equal price for an inferior version is outright thievery.

 

[Ishal]

Well, this only applies to FROM and Dark Souls a little bit. It's true they never ported a game to PC and thus didn't have the experience. And from a consumer perspective, its true that is no excuse. But it's not like they were greedy and decided to do it anyways. They didn't want to port it, and lets not forget that it and its predecessor were developed on shoe string budgets compared to the AAA games of their day.

BAMCO wanted it, because the fans wanted it, so they did it. They admitted to it being crappy and apologized for it. Also, Dark Souls 2 is being developed for PC first and foremost. So this problem won't be happening come March. A developer learning from its mistakes and taking a step in right direction for the sequel is what we should want to be seeing.

Jim is correct, though. There are things that need to be done to get things right with certain ports. Derpesda really has no excuse with amount of cash they throw at the big franchises, namely ES and FO.

 

[Callate]

I agree with the major point, but in some ways it almost bothers me more that, depending on the EULA/TOS and how deep someone has to go to make their fixes, the fixer might be on the wrong side of the law. And that, to my mind, is a flaw in the law- no one should ever be in jeopardy for making a bent or broken product work properly. I don't see it as likely that a game's publisher would go after someone for doing so- such would likely culminate in a boycott that might actually stick, if it became public- but it underscores a framework of "supposed to be" that is completely at odds with the way things actually work.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Damn Jim, the weight is starting to fall off you.

Goood job, keep at it!

I didn't think it was possible for you to be even more sexy.

 

[SirCannonFodder]

Almost all PC games cost less but not by much, certainly not enough to excuse shoddy work. If you buy a washing machine where the door isn't fitted to the frame properly you wouldn't buy it for a £10 discount.

IIRC it retailed at 30 bucks, which isn't the typical pricing difference between versions.
[/quote]
$40 IIRC, but then it also came with a lot of physical extras (hardcover artbook, soundtrack CD, "Making Of" DVD, poster, art cards).

 

[Karadalis]

X-rebirth.

A game originaly developed for the xbox 360... then axed for whatever reasons... the ruins scraped up and packaged in a box to be sold as a "PC exclusive".

Despite the glaring obvious lines of code that all point into the direction of the xbox.. and the abysmal and mostly non customisable keyboard and mouse controls. Infact the best way to fly your ship is with a gamepad. Also the low FPS lock.

True this doesnt necesary fit this weeks jimquisition a 100% since the game never actually saw a xbox release... but since the writings on the wall that this game was clearly made for the xbox, didnt made it for whatever reason and then was ported to the PC as a steaming pile of broken code... it still somehow fits the bill

 

[Kittyhawk]

With regards to Dark Souls on PC, I agree it should have been done better. The PC is a format that Namco are getting used to after so many years on consoles. Perhaps they ran out of time or maybe just didn't know how to do 1080p with it. The langauge barrier might have also hampered them from fixing the issue, that many western devs might have easily finished.

Yeah, I'm sure Namco were humble by a random chap fixing it, but in turn such healthy feats of gallantry just help feedback into Dark Souls, a game where other gamers can grief you online or rally with you. Namco can only stand to get better as they embrace PC work more, but without this Dark Souls resolution stuff, nothing might have happened and its community would be less as a result.

More games should come out finished, end of. The realities of development might be different though.

 

[Raziel]

If fans release a patch that fixes the problem, does the publisher release an official patch that does the same thing? Does it use the same code? If it does use the same could as the fan's, couldn't the fan sue them? That could make amusing race between the fans and devs, if the fans win they'd have to be paid or sue.

 

[hexFrank202]

My my, Jim, you sure are losing weight!

 

[DementedSheep]

In defense of the Dark Souls devs they were upfront about the fact that they had never done a PC port and did it only because they were asked to do it anyway by many fans. It was priced cheaper, came with additional content and had "controller highly recommend" on the cover. I don't even think it was that bad a port. It never glitched on me, it was just missing some features people often expect of a PC game and didn't look as nice as it could have. Still not ideal but I'm willing to cut them slack for that.

Skyrim has way too many bugs. The fact that it's a huge game only gets it so far and doesn't excuse gamebreaking bugs. Even the main quest is bugged to hell. I've never managed to do it without having to use console commands to trigger a stage at some point which is unacceptable.
The first thing I do for every Bethesda game is get the unofficial patch for it and don't buy them on release because know it going to need patching.

 

[Norrdicus]

The biggest problem I had with the video is how Jim rather degraded those who made those mods/tweaks to get a PC port to work. Don't remember the exact words but I believe he was calling them plain and your average guy sort of thing. That bothers me to an extent, namely because not only do these average "guys" love to mod and change a game (for the most part) but also because there have been at least 3 success stories of modders being so popular that the land a job at Bethesda or Bungie. I wouldn't call them average at all; I'd call them better. They know what they're doing and even if the PC community needs to "fix" certain parts of a game, they are, for the most part, incredibly helpful. In a way, I almost prefer Elder Scrolls/Fallout games to suck because modders will be so much better at it and even teach you how to do it yourself.

You took Jim's words completely the wrong way. He did call Durante stuff like "layman" and "average joe" because by strict professional standards that's what he is. Doesn't matter how good he is, compared to the people making and porting these games, Peter "Durante" Thomann is a but a dedicated hobbyist as far as we know, despite his Ph.D. in computer science.

 

[qeinar]

I get kinda mad at the developers when a spokesperson for the game says some simple feature was impossible to implement, and then have that same feature implemented within a week by the community.

 

[Aeonknight]

If fans release a patch that fixes the problem, does the publisher release an official patch that does the same thing? Does it use the same code? If it does use the same could as the fan's, couldn't the fan sue them? That could make amusing race between the fans and devs, if the fans win they'd have to be paid or sue.

Um, no.

Just because you added a semicolon here and there doesn't negate that the other 99% of the code was written and belongs to the devs. Not to mention you don't own the rights to the IP. And even if you had a legal precedent to stand on, as soon as it becomes a trend, devs would then do what they can to make it as hard as possible to access the code, which makes fixing the problems they left in harder, and your ports even worse.

 

[MorganL4]

In all fairness to the guys who made Dark Souls, they came out and said (Im paraphrasing) "Hey guys, the reason there is no PC version of Dark Souls is because we suck at porting to PC, its not something we can do well, so we weren't going to do it. But since you keep asking, here is our best attempt." In other words they bent to the pressure of the community and knowingly put out an inferior product, having TOLD everyone that it would be an inferior product. So yeah, I don't really blame them, they were up front and honest about it.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-06-07-from-software-having-a-tough-time-porting-dark-souls-to-pc-frame-rate-issues-remain

He doesn't say those words exactly but it is pretty much the gist of it.

 

[Barbas]

Gosh, what can I add to that? Damn good show, man. Well said.

 

[VikingKing]

Next time I hope Jim will talk about the way DLC is no longer the extra content for a game, but seems like original content that was cut then put back in, like the Catwoman DLC for Batman Arkham City.

 

[The White Hunter]

"Japanese devs don't know how to PC port"....
um... what?
Racist.

If anyone doesn't know how to PC port... it's Bethesda.
For anyone who isn't a tentacle monster, a Hindu god/dess, or an elitist hipster... the base keyboard and mouse for Bethesda games are unplayable with these human hands and fingers.

At least they include controller support on their PC titles for all the humans who play.

Skyrims default UI is unbearably worthless witha mouse and keyboard, why are the keys for actions in the menus so inconsistent?

 

[deathzero021]

Stop it right there. I knew he would go after Dark Souls but I just have to say this because it's really irritating me: Dark Souls for PC is NOT broken, or shitty, or buggy. In fact it plays perfectly, more so than the majority of PC games out there. I played that game longer than any other game in the past 8 years and still it never crashed ONCE, I never experienced one "bug" and I certainly don't think the game is "shitty" in anyway.

The PC gaming community was experiencing a classic nerd-rage moment. simply because the game didn't allow for 60 fps and more control on the visual output of the game, something that's not entirely uncommon in many Steam games I own, yet this game due to popularity attracted a lot of hate for it.

Look, I agree they were missing some basic features that have become common for 3D PC games but those features are extra, they are not required to play or complete the game and enjoy the experience the entire time, LIKE I DID. I eventually did get the all-mighty mod every one seems to think "fixes the game" but in reality, i think most people saying that no nothing about what the mod really does. The mod is sloppy as you would expect from something made in less than 24 hours. Many of the mods features will freeze the game or cause graphical glitches, decreased performance and choppy frame rates. It barely makes it look any better and despite how powerful your PC maybe, the game was not optimized for 60 fps and all those increased visual effects, the game will run poorly and you will experience real bugs caused from an unofficial modification of the game.

So all i want, and i know this is asking too much, is for people to be reasonable, to understand the difference between missing features you want and being broken. this game, in it's original state plays perfectly more than almost any other 3D Steam game I have. it's a shame it's being seen as "one of the worst ports" all because it lacked a graphics feature, i can think of a shit load more games that perform way worse and actually does contain many bugs and crashes often.

Also i refuse to believe GFWL plays any part in the hate, sure people hate it because they're stupid but anyone whose played the game knows you won't be noticing it after the first 5 seconds of launching the game and with auto-login you'll barely even notice the logo. after launching the game for the first time, i completely forgot it existed. it is by no means the end of the gaming world and it isn't the only online game that requires you to LOG IN before playing, hell i've played Single Player games that require me to log in before playing.

EDIT: watching more of the video... i'm getting the feeling Jim is trying to make these games sound way worse then they really are. Perhaps simply to rage on companies and developers, i'm thinking he might just be redirecting his rage from something else onto this, or he really does want to jump at every chance to get the PC gaming community behind him as he points out the next "enemy of gaming". This video is not quality like many other of Jim's in the past, this video really is nothing but a baseless rant.

 

[Quiotu]

I really don't get the extent of the flack against Bethesda. Perhaps because I've just been blessed with few issues. I've played Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Skyrim (Can't really count New Vegas by the way Jim it was made by Obsidian and published by Bethesda). The only game I've only had slight trouble with is Fallout 3 and if I remember, it was quite a while ago, it was because I was mucking about for the first time with mods ( IE. CTD-ing instead of the rare autoclip or droid rocketing across the sky).

I won't say I haven't encountered bugs or glitchs, I have autoclipped through the ground before and there's a bird permanently stuck in a tree just outside of Riverwood in Skyrim but, the only time I've CTD is running a ton of mods or in New Vegas which ya, putting that in the hands of Obsidian and Bethesda I'm surprised the game ran at all at launch.

Bethesda has admitted they even leave some bugs in because they're funny and I agree when I see robots just fly across the sky in Fallout 3 it's pretty fun. Now is this really a good excuse? Maybe not but, it doesn't break the game or ruin my enjoyment so I can deal with something like that.

Does this give Bethesda a free pass not to fix there games? Far from it but, I don't know personally I don't remember really having any trouble with their games to an extent that I'd say they weren't doing there job. However, I've played all of these for PC so I don't know what it's like for the console people (At launch too by the way, so maybe I do forget the launch state of the games but, if I can't remember anything it couldn't have been that bad or I've succeeded in supressing the nightmares *Upon editing I do remember it took them forever to get Operation Anchorage in a working state and it being delayed due to the bugs at launch but, that's about it)

Maybe I just have good luck with their games

Well I'm guessing the answer is that you haven't been playing their games on consoles lately. Their issue in my mind is the exact opposite of the subject, they release very sub-par efforts to the consoles. Their biggest crime is throwing three or four games on the PS3 with the exact same game-breaking issues and never fixing them. Even with Skyrim, which supposedly has a new upgraded engine, some of the very same issues plagued it on PS3. Basically no one buys their games on a Sony console because they're apparently too incompetent to make their games run on 7 year old hardware after FOUR attempts.

That is Grade A bullshit development no matter how much goodwill you have with the PC crowd.

 

[mrdude2010]

You know, Jim can be a smug little shit sometimes, but he's usually pretty spot on with his commentary. It's unacceptable for the first 3 weeks of a game's release to be essentially a beta test while everyone (devs for consoles, modders for PC ports) try to get everything functional. It should be functional on day 1. If Goldeneye randomly erased your save file or had enemies clipping through walls, it wouldnt've sold nearly as well.