John Carmack: PC Is Not the "Leading Platform" for Games

[Jamieson 90]

After what happened with Brink I pretty much decided not to go anywhere near any Besethda products and blacklisted Rage. Wow How glad I' am that I made that decision.

PC gaming is getting worse. It used to be that we got console ports that were poorly optimised with poor control set ups but now we are getting products that don't even run properly.

I say vote with your wallet and support good PC titles. I recently bought Red Orchestra 2, a PC exclusive and surpirse surprise its actually a good game. It had it's problems but the developers addressed that or are addressing it.

 

[Royas]

As I said before, if your game doesn't work on the drivers WE have access to on release, it just plain doesn't work. Period. End of discussion. No room for debate.

A dev doesn't get to optimize the drivers and say the game runs well. That this statement was seriously made causes me to believe that overexposure to CRT's in the early days of computer gaming has caused Mr. Carmack to suffer serious brain damage.

 

[adamtm]

PC gaming is getting worse.

No, PC-ports are getting worse, PC Gaming is awesome as ever.

Seriously, people need to try some of the less high profile games on PC instead of focusing on "BAW iD ported RAGE shit".

I'm not planning on getting any high profile games this year, they all turned out to be shit or "meh". WTF happened to that console credo of "sit with your friends at home and play games"? Whats the last game with splitscreen co-op? Demons Forge? Well that one sucked.

While on PC we have Rock Of Ages which is marvelously unique and fun.

Will there be any games that i can play splitscreen co-op with my friends sometime soon? No?

 

[Loonerinoes]

Tell you what. If that's how you feel about the PC, then why didn't you just outright state that Rage was going to be console-specific and save yourself the hassle of optimizing for different graphics. The PC crowd wouldn't have false expectations built up that way and you'd avoid launching a product that YOU KNEW WOULD BE CRAP on it?!

Oh...that's right...you wanted to maximize sales so you decided to do it anyway. That's how 'little' you people care about the PC. You demean it and you feel like it isn't worth your time, but you still want the money from its customer base?

Spiffy.

 

[Cowwie]

And when the game fails to sell well on the pc they will smugly put it down to piracy.

 

[luckshot]

wow, takes a lot of faith in the rest of the market to basically say 'eh screw those guys'

 

[teh_gunslinger]

Save us Blizzard Stardock! Save us Valve!

Fix'd that for ya. Blizzard is now just milking their old franchises without bringing anything new to the table, with outrageous DRM to boot.

I doubt you really want to point to Stardock when we are discussing polish and functionality on the PC. Demigod and Elemental:War of Magic were broken beyond belief on release, but hey, at least you didn't have a conceptual issue with DRM.

I'm willing to forgive them for a lot of things for the sake of Galactic Civilization and Sins of a Solar Empire.

Perhaps you could substitute Stardock with Paradox? That'd make sense as Paradox makes and publishes very good games. In fact their line up has served as my constant hype machine for all of 2011 and Crusader Kings 2 is currently doing it's thing in my brain.

GalCiv 2 does get Stardock of a lot of hooks though.

 

[King_1]

And this is why the game industry is failing. The consoles are too old to do anything interesting and revolutionary on, and yet the top guys aim to make them the target simply for a larger audience. Well guess what; this will fuck up because people take one look and go "seen it before, cant be bothered with it".
At least Dice have the vision to see this and realise to draw in a new crowd you need to push boundaries, something that cannot be done on the consoles. Two colleagues have been looking into PC gaming simply because of the better performance of BF3 on the PC then on the consoles.


The gaming industry is massively out of touch with it's audience.

 

[DataSnake]

If you were wondering why games don't sell as well on PC, this is why.
Incidentally, I'm seeing a lot of console gamers smugly proclaiming their superiority in this thread, but not nearly as much of the mythical "PC elitism".

 

[DTWolfwood]

gotta go with where the money is at! cant blame him for that.

15% of the market isn't worth spending all your time on.

On the other hand aren't PC ports to consoles better console games than Console ports to PC?

all the effort is literally just remapping some inputs.

 

[Zer_]

gotta go with where the money is at! cant blame him for that.

15% of the market isn't worth spending all your time on.

On the other hand aren't PC ports to consoles better console games than Console ports to PC?

all the effort is literally just remapping some inputs.

Nnooo....

Also RAGE was never ported to any platform. All three version were developed in tandem. The majority of this thread is just a bunch of foolish people taking things way out of context... It's sad to say, but Reddit's conversations are more intelligent than what can be found in this thread... I mean that as a compliment to most Redditors, and indeed as an attack to some of the Escapists.

 

[DTWolfwood]

gotta go with where the money is at! cant blame him for that.

15% of the market isn't worth spending all your time on.

On the other hand aren't PC ports to consoles better console games than Console ports to PC?

all the effort is literally just remapping some inputs.

Nnooo....

Also RAGE was never ported to any platform. All three version were developed in tandem. The majority of this thread is just a bunch of foolish people taking things way out of context... It's sad to say, but Reddit's conversations are more intelligent than what can be found in this thread... I mean that as a compliment to most Redditors, and indeed as an attack to some of the Escapists.

Sources sir i demand sources for this statement

 

[Saelune]

Dismissing and otherwise disingenuously underestimating the power that the PC holds over the market is directly shooting your profits in the proverbial foot.

Why don't you ask Valve how much their PC-centrism is hurting profits, hmm?

Don't forget bad PR. I mean, he said that he would anger people by saying what he did, so why did he even say it in the first place? All that's going to happen is you annoy the PC crowd even more than they already have because 'LOL thay dont mattar' -.-

I would rather companies NOT pander to simply make sales. Would also help if the PC crowd were not filled with stuck up snobs. PC gamers could either sit on their imaginary throne, and put down consoles, or atleast accept that consoles have different kinds of advantages that help them get around better. That I dont have to install my game to play it is kinda a big deal.

Um... the kind of 'pandering' I'm referring to is 'making a game that isn't horribly broken and then not telling the consumers that it's somehow their fault'. Not sure why you're trying t ostir up a console war either.

Um, I cant start a war thats been waging for years, and whats the point of discussing anything if people are afraid of disagreement?

 

[Mister Linton]

And this is why the game industry is failing.

Orly? Failing?

 

[Zer_]

gotta go with where the money is at! cant blame him for that.

15% of the market isn't worth spending all your time on.

On the other hand aren't PC ports to consoles better console games than Console ports to PC?

all the effort is literally just remapping some inputs.

Nnooo....

Also RAGE was never ported to any platform. All three version were developed in tandem. The majority of this thread is just a bunch of foolish people taking things way out of context... It's sad to say, but Reddit's conversations are more intelligent than what can be found in this thread... I mean that as a compliment to most Redditors, and indeed as an attack to some of the Escapists.

Sources sir i demand sources for this statement

For which statement? I made a couple here.

For the development being done in tandem for all platforms, see here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0H75Aq8ncc

If you want sources for the comment having to do with Reddit conversations concerning RAGE, well you try searching RAGE and tell me the results you get! lolol.

 

[DTWolfwood]

gotta go with where the money is at! cant blame him for that.

15% of the market isn't worth spending all your time on.

On the other hand aren't PC ports to consoles better console games than Console ports to PC?

all the effort is literally just remapping some inputs.

Nnooo....

Also RAGE was never ported to any platform. All three version were developed in tandem. The majority of this thread is just a bunch of foolish people taking things way out of context... It's sad to say, but Reddit's conversations are more intelligent than what can be found in this thread... I mean that as a compliment to most Redditors, and indeed as an attack to some of the Escapists.

Sources sir i demand sources for this statement

For which statement? I made a couple here.

For the development being done in tandem for all platforms, see here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0H75Aq8ncc

If you want sources for the comment having to do with Reddit conversations concerning RAGE, well you try searching RAGE and tell me the results you get! lolol.

that answers that.

i don't reddit

 

[repeating integers]

It has come to the point where I avoid all games that are released on both the console and the PC. The reason is simple, it is basically a guarantee the game will be a bunch of crap on PC, with possibly horrible controls, brutal GUI and such awkward, buggy overall experience that's it's just not worth it.

Not to mention I refuse to play FPS games on console. A gamepad is not made for such games, when I know what I can pull off with a mouse and keyboard, I feel like an idiot with a gamepad in my hands.

And oh, mr. Carmack has obviously not had any media training. What he says might be essentially true, all the money is in the console gaming. He just sounds like a douche telling it like that, because of the current situation with his own game.

Too few game developers dare to develop the actual gaming genre. They just copy stuff that has worked before.

Fixed. Projecting is a minor issue (read: don't be offended, we all do it) but it bugs me sometimes.

OT: While the rage from PC gamers is quite amusing, this is just rude and insulting to them. "Oh your preferred platform doesn't matter, it's not where the money's at, so we're not gonna bother making our game properly for it". If you're going to do something, you do it properly.

 

[Jennacide]

Fuck you Carmack, you used to be cool.

PC "not being a lead platform anymore" is a self fulfilling prophecy. If you keep shying away from it, then yes, it WILL have inferior sales and audience to a console release. How about you start doing PC lead again and see how it works out, you think too poorly of PC gamers.

 

[King_1]

And this is why the game industry is failing.

Orly? Failing?

Yes. Look at games like Crysis 2 - massive costs and yet months later it's in the bargain bin. A lot of devs, and more so the publishers, have lost touch with their market.