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

[Something Amyss]

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

And since they're the rule, not the exception, governing by them is a solid way to go, am I right?

 

[Coreless]

I haven't given up on Id, they have been developing for consoles since Doom 3 and to be honest you just can't make enough money to survive only making games only for PC and that is the truth. There are hardly any big name PC exclusive developers (of course Blizzard gets away with it with WoW as a cash cow) and there is a reason for that games are just way too expensive to make and no one can afford any kind of failure. Even developers that have made games that have sold pretty well aren't even safe.

I really don't see Rage as a console port at all considering all systems were developed at the same time, having limited options in the menu doesn't necessarily mean the game was a console port. The megatexture tech is absolutely stunning in my opinion, it looks amazing even with the low resolution textures, Sure I wish every texture could be high resolution but that is just not going to happen and I don't expect it to. Crysis at max settings still uses low resolution textures in many spots because its just not needed on everything. I thoroughly enjoyed Rage and look forward to whet they bring with Doom 4 and only hope they are ready when it finally gets released.

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

If you want a real shooter for the PC check out Hard Reset, it is glorious fun and runs just fine on slightly older systems.

 

[n19h7m4r3]

A high-end PC is nearly ten times as powerful as a console and we could unquestionably provide a better experience if we chose that as our design point and we were able to expend the same amount of resources on it.

This basically translates to

we know PC's are the best, but PC gamers want high quality products that we choose not to make. We would rather be lazy and make games for inferior systems because people who play on those systems don't seem to care. And we're also ignoring Valve's business practice because they make money on PC by creating high quality games, that we, as I said before, don't intend to make. Long live mediocrity!

Guess who's going out of business soon.

This is so true, I love id games. I bought the id games pack on steam when it came out and the only games they have that's not in that pack is Quake 4 and Quake Wars. I own Quake 4 anyway and never liked Quake Wars.

They were extremely sucessful and this just slapped their main customer base ( pc gamers ) in the face.

I'm extremely happy I didn't pre-order the game, even though I really wanted to.

How can CDProjeckt Red which is a tiny company manage to pull off a great selling game like the Witcher 2, and then work on how to get it on consoles without sacrificing any quality.
Not to mention Valve and their non-stop hits.

Carmack himself said that it's the way it should be here, and they made mistakes focussing on consoles.
http://www.firingsquad.com/news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=23760

So how, how did they manage to work on Rage this long and only come to the conclusion this late into the process and then still release and sell a broken game.

I for one am very disappointed in id for this. I hope they can get it back to the qaulity they use to have in their next titles.

 

[JochemDude]

I feel the need to curb stomp someone.

 

[Souplex]

*Marks checklist*
And so Id joins the ranks of Crytek, Bethesda, Bioware, and most recently of all Blizzard in the modern age and are better for it.

 

[FreakSheet]

Bad logic right here, not a leading platform excuses a buggy clusterf*** release? I guess they just shot their entire PC future in the bullocks, chances are people won't appreciate that.

 

[kebab4you]

Not got much to comment about this since people seem split about this, some say we only got 2 console generation left before they lag behind so utterly much that they will become unusable compared to their counter part. While other(Carmack et.c) says console is the way of the future.

Guess I will just have to sit and wait, I just wish dickish developers could learn to fucking port games T.T"

Besides is it really such a smart idea to tell, what's the majority of your fan base, that you are playing on the shit system?

 

[Balobo]

Quakecon is going to be quiet.

 

[theonecookie]

A high-end PC is nearly ten times as powerful as a console and we could unquestionably provide a better experience if we chose that as our design point and we were able to expend the same amount of resources on it.

This basically translates to

we know PC's are the best, but PC gamers want high quality products that we choose not to make. We would rather be lazy and make games for inferior systems because people who play on those systems don't seem to care. And we're also ignoring Valve's business practice because they make money on PC by creating high quality games, that we, as I said before, don't intend to make. Long live mediocrity!

Guess who's going out of business soon.

You know what the funny thing is making a super high end game for super high end rigs would send you out of business a lot quick because you limit your target audience to some silly low figure like .5% but you know common sense is lost on people who buy such machines

 

[shrekfan246]

Snip

This is so true, I love id games. I bought the id games pack on steam when it came out and the only games they have that's not in that pack is Quake 4 and Quake Wars. I own Quake 4 anyway and never liked Quake Wars.

Snip

That'd be because Quake 4 and Quake Wars weren't developed by id.

And

I haven't given up on Id, they have been developing for consoles since Doom 3
Snip the rest

You realize Doom 3 was the last game that they released before they started working on Rage, right? In fact, id Software didn't even develop the expansion pack released for Doom 3. Outside of working on Rage for the past seven years, the only thing id Software has done was release a browser-based version of Quake III: Arena.

And, actually, the console version of Doom 3 wasn't developed by id either. Ironically, it was ported by Vicarious Visions/Nerve Software to the Xbox. id Software developed the PC version.

OT: I think the rest of my post has covered that, really. A previously PC-centric developer spent seven years on a game and it ended up being released for the PC in one of the poorest states I've ever seen a game in. I mean, come on, crashing on load-up on ATI cards because you have Triple Buffering enabled? I've never run into any other game that had issues with that setting.

 

[n19h7m4r3]

You know what the funny thing is making a super high end game for super high end rigs would send you out of business a lot quick because you limit your target audience to some silly low figure like .5% but you know common sense is lost on people who buy such machines

No one ever mentioned making a game for the top 5%.

id always made games that could run on low - high end systems with very different graphical options.

They messed up with Rage badly, hell they even claim in an interview that they were trying to get the game to run at 30fps on the Intel IGP in the 2600k, which is very weak.

Yet the game barely runs on top end systems with far far more power then a console.

[

That'd be because Quake 4 and Quake Wars weren't developed by id.

Exactly, id were great. Were, it seems they really dropped the ball hard here.
At my college we have a Compyer Games Development course that we offer and all the students in it for all different years are all avid PC gamers.

I asked them if any of them played or bought Rage. 3 said they got it, and none of them could run it. Many of them don't know any other id games because they're so young.

This has already marked id as a second rate console hugging developer to them sadly.

 

[somonels]

Carmack, id, and Bethesta would.

?: Embedding disabled, sorry.

 

[adamtm]

Seriously, why are we still taking shit like this?

I mean as a consumer, not a "PC Gamer".

This is the lowest form of bullshit coming from a dev, and coming from one of the legends in gaming like Carmack, its an outright slap in the face.

As a consumer I expect a product to fulfill a certain set of expectations. A car is supposed to move me from A to B, if the car has no wheels or the wheels fall of at random intervals then the product is flawed.

In the age of NO RETURNS (Steam) this shit should have severe backlash. Yeah you didn't develop it -for- PC but you, well, released it on it so it better at least work in the most rudimentary sense.

id was actually "quite happy" with the state of the game on its test systems, but those were sporting drivers that had gone through "significant internal changes" to maximize performance. "We knew that all older AMD drivers, and some Nvidia drivers would have problems with the game, but we were running well in-house on all of our test systems," Carmack told Kotaku [http://kotaku.com/5847761/why-was-the-pc-launch-of-rage-such-a-cluster]. "When launch day came around and the wrong driver got released, half of our PC customers got a product that basically didn't work. The fact that the working driver has incompatibilities with other titles doesn't help either. Issues with older/lower end/exotic setups are to be expected on a PC release, but we were not happy with the experience on what should be prime platforms."

In short, you didn't just not "develop the game for PC" you outright -IGNORED- the QA for it. By not beta-testing it on a regular machine but only "internal test systems" on drivers -not- available to the public with "significant internal changes".

Are you fucking serious?

This isnt the Borderlands shitty PC-port fiasko, this is gross negligence.
Its basically saying:

"Hey PC gamers are used to buggy releases anyways, lets release it on PC without QA, so we can get a few bucks more!"

Its insulting. Not because id didn't make a PC-exclusive, or because I'm a "PC Gamer" or "PC Elitist" but because they OBVIOUSLY treated part of their customers like disposable sales.
There is not caring about the PC, yeah fine, DoubleFine didn't release Trenched for PC, sadface, but its another thing to treat customers like disposable cash vending machines.

This coming from Carmack, which without the PC platform would not even have a job, is insulting and horribly arrogant.

 

[Simeon Ivanov]

So, RAGE, a game made by id tech ... who made Quake and Doom ... on the PC ... am I the only one who finds this weird?

OT: Well fuck him! I'm sorry, this could be true, but he's just covering his sorry ass! I tough about releasing the game, but fuck this! There are better games to play on my PC.

 

[Callate]

Ever the diplomat, eh, John?

Did you really mean to say "We don't want any more business from the PC-primary gamers who put us where we are today?" Because that's kind of what it sounded like.

I get that it's easier and sometimes more profitable to design with consoles in mind. But putting out a game that basically doesn't work for about half the PC market isn't just a matter of where you chose to aim the level of the tech; it's horrible QA, and it warrants a mea culpa rather than a rhetorical kick in the shins.

Ah well. Between this and the review on Ars Technica, I'm definitely getting a warm glow for not having bought Rage when it came out. See you in the $5 Steam sale, Carmack.

 

[Mr. Omega]

"Well, we did a lousy port job, so we're just gonna blame the platform. Whatever..." is what I"m reading here. Yes, console titles tend to sell more than PC titles, but that has nothing to do with it. It's a bad port job. It's like saying "Well, vanilla ice cream sells better, so let's make crappy chocolate ice cream". Just because one is more popular doesn't excuse a bad job on the less popular one.

And we're also ignoring Valve's business practice because they make money on PC by creating high quality games, that we, as I said before, don't intend to make. Long live mediocrity!

While I do agree with THIS...

we know PC's are the best, but PC gamers want high quality products that we choose not to make. We would rather be lazy and make games for inferior systems because people who play on those systems don't seem to care.

Well, that doesn't sound elitist, arrogant or downright asshole-ish in the least. Nope. Not at all. Heil to the glorious PC Master Race!

 

[coolkirb]

I wonder what is worse him slightly underestimating the PC market or the overestimating of the market that will come from these forms....................all well forms have no real power anyway

 

[godofallu]

I love how the Escapist puts up articles like this with intentionally offensive headlines, hoping to draw people into a troll war.

Who cares what that guy said, or whether he is right or not? The main focus should have been on tea bagging him over the horrid release. Not the consoles part.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

You know what the funny thing is making a super high end game for super high end rigs would send you out of business a lot quick because you limit your target audience to some silly low figure like .5% but you know common sense is lost on people who buy such machines

Yeah, they'd go out of business if they make quality games. Last time I checked Battlefield 3 wasn't a PC exclusive and yet it's oozing with quality. Same thing with a lot of other multiplatform games.