PC Exclusives Can't Justify Triple-A Budgets, Says Brink Boss

[No_Remainders]

Actually it was a port that was released 1 year after the PC version. Speaking of which... whatever happened to the Diablo Spawn idea. I liked that one.

... That's an incredibly good point. Would've been fun playing with people... I wonder if anyone still plays on Battlenet?

 

[johnman]

Crysis is pretty much as AAA as you can get and that sold millions of copies.

 

[Jandau]

I'd like to add one more thing: I hope there are as few exclusives as possible. This goes for both PC and consoles. I'd be happy if my console brethren would have access to all the games I can play. Heck, I'd love it if a mouse+keyboard setup became more prevalent on the consoles so they too could enjoy a wider variety of strategy games like the Total War series, and I'd like to have access to some of the current console exclusives.

I'd like to disagree. Patrick Stewart's voice always sounds awesome and soothing... especially used as a narrator... Heck it made Demon Stone playable (although he didn't add anything to Oblivion, the game still sucked) xD

Also... there shouldn't only be a branch dedicated to boob physics, there should be whole institutes...

While Patrick Stewart is a great voice actor, the question here is should that much money go into making one character have a slightly nicer voice? Also, if you're really interested in boob physics, you might want to acquire a pair of real ones (usually attached to a woman)

Music is a huge part of games, and you need somebody good to write it. As for where it is recorded, the London Orchestra is probably money wasted.

But money spent on writing music is well-spent.

Get this, there are professional Voice actors! Yes, people that have never acted in their life, except with their voice. Don't cost as much as Patrick Stewert, and sounds just as good.

Exactly! Paying a high-profile orchestra is likely an improvement over a local one, but is it good value for money? I'd say no. And proffessional voice actors are a much better idea than paying high-profile regular actors. Same quality, lower price.

 

[elvor0]

And we all know Diablo is designed for the PC, and as far as I'm aware, the iphone doesnt count as a platform in terms of ACTUAL gaming

Diablo was on PS1 as well as PC...

Yes I know, that was my whole point. That it didnt work nearly as well on the PS1, hence my saying "DESIGNED for the PC"

 

[scotth266]

They were, but due to their sales, they were ported to other machines afterwards.

Isn't that the point though? That most PC exclusives can't deliver high enough profits to be worth the investment?

 

[Eleuthera]

Music is a huge part of games, and you need somebody good to write it. As for where it is recorded, the London Orchestra is probably money wasted.

But money spent on writing music is well-spent.

I know I'm probably in the minority here, but I disagree. The very first thing I do when I start playing any new game is turn off the music. It has no effect on my enjoyment of the game whatsoever, and I prefer listening to my own music, or even just watching TV whilst playing and the music will be an annoyence.

 

[Pingieking]

I think that the biggest problem with PC exclusives is that it doesn't help any publishers sell their platform. If you look at the games done by third party publishers (publishers that are not Sony/MS/Nintendo), those games are usually not console exclusive. All exclusive games are either first party titles, or they utilize features that only one platform has. These games are done to help sell the console, not to take advantage of the console's user base (Wii is an exception to this, only because it's games generally aren't powerful enough to stand up to PS3 and X360 standards). For the PC, those features are the mouse and keyboard, thus the RTS, MMO, and Diablo-style hack and slash game exclusives (I know Diablo isn't exclusive, but the mouse clicking killing games don't work too well on consoles).

I think that Splash Damage isn't making games that take advantage of the PC exclusive features. So add that to the fact that publishers (those that don't own platforms) hate exclusives anyway, it's not really a surprize that they don't want PC exclusives. If they want to get money for PC exclusives, how about they make an MMO or RTS? If they can design a game that can't be played well with two joysticks, they'll probably get some PC exclusive game funding.

EDIT:

Isn't that the point though? That most PC exclusives can't deliver high enough profits to be worth the investment?

I don't fully agree with that claim, unless you're directing it towards games with huge, 8-digit budgets. In those cases, I would propose that no single platform can justify unless you know that the game will sell regardless of platform. A few points for this:
1) There are lots of PC exclusives that are doing just fine in terms of profits.
2) Blizzard/Valve/Creative Assembly/Paradox have demonstrated over and over again that PC exclusives can produce high enough profits. I am absolutely certain that Starcraft, Orange Box, and probably L4D would have turned the profit even if they were PC exclusives. The console versions greatly increased that profit, which is why they were ported. The exclusives stayed exclusive mostly because those games generally don't work on consoles anyway, which is why the RTS and MMO games stay on PC even if they're extremely successful cash cows.
3) The argument breaks down for big title games because big budget exclusives are primarily designed to sell the platform. Best examples of this are Halo 3, Killzone 2, and MGS4. Sure, you would like to profit from those, but I'm sure Sony wouldn't be commiting suicide over Killzone 2 if it helped them sell a few thousand PS3s. As for Halo and MGS, those will sell several million units regardless of the platform it was on. You can have MGS 4 as a PC exclusive and it'll still sell well into the 7-digit range.

 

[Doug]

Somebody inform that guy that there's an elephant in the room with that theory. It's called World of Warcraft and it devours the budget of any "AAA" title with less then a year's worth of server upkeep, not counting the costs or all the expansions and content patches.

Hah, yeah. I'd forgotten about WoW for a minute.

Even though I'm a PC gamer, you have to admit this is kinda true

Sadly, yeah. For non-MMO's, we can't really expect PC exclusives anymore. Which is a shame, cus I reckon the keyboard and mouse are easier to use in, say, FPS's than a stick.

 

[Doug]

Music is a huge part of games, and you need somebody good to write it. As for where it is recorded, the London Orchestra is probably money wasted.

But money spent on writing music is well-spent.

I know I'm probably in the minority here, but I disagree.

No, not a minority.

The very first thing I do when I start playing any new game is turn off the music. It has no effect on my enjoyment of the game whatsoever, and I prefer listening to my own music, or even just watching TV whilst playing and the music will be an annoyence.

Ok, this is where you enter minority territory I think

 

[Ancientgamer]

I don't think that word means what you think it means....

I'm still unsure what it means. Googling "Triple A Games" gives me an open source strategy game, perhaps that's what I meant by weasel words?

Not to mention half those existed before there was such thing as a "triple A" game.

Oh, it's a recent development? Well how about... almost every MMO then?

The thing is, I've listed some damn good games that are/were PC exclusives that Brink didn't manage to do (And there's a lot more I could add). If he could just do them, then it'd be far better than Extreme FPS Action XXVI or Misogny Fighter XV, especially for us.

It's a colloquialism, but even wikipedia defines it as

"mean something that is high-quality, premier, or excellent."

While those themselves can be somewhat subjective, AAA titles are also typically characterized by extremely high production values, very high budgets, ubiquitous advertising, and something that is generally held to a higher standard. Indie games like audiosurf, or cult games like NOLF or American McGee's Alice do not qualify as AAA, not even close. Add to that most of the games you mentioned either came out on consoles simultaneously or were ported shortly afterwards, I just can't take your post seriously at all.

 

[luckshot]

Weasel words. I mean, I can't think of any Triple A games that are PC exclusives, like Crysis, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Audiosurf, NOLF, Black and White, Starcraft, American McGee's Alice...

Maybe he just meant TripleA [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TripleA_%28computer_game%29] games.

...Age of Mythology, Dungeon Siege, Unreal Tournament, Starcraft, Diablo...

this and the op, it depends on the type of "tripleA game" you're making. is it a really amazing game or are you just planning on spending as much money as you can in any way you can

 

[Calhoun347]

Wrong... Got mixed up.

 

[Terramax]

"the fact that the PC is the only system that has a big enough market for RTS games" doesn't have anything to do with the question of whether it's *big enough* to afford quality voice actors, i.e., it could be the only platform big enough for RTS games, but that market could still be too small for good quality voice actors.

Yes it has everything to do with it. All games want the 'best quality' which is what Paul is getting at. People like you are taking it far too literally when he's talking about using a London orchestra. He's saying their company needs as much money as possible to compete and create a 'tight' product that surpasses that of their much larger competition, and the only way to do that is to rely on the console market.

RTS is a bad example because there's less emphasis on quality music or voice acting as other genres, I'm assuming easier to dev, less competition, and the RTSs community are near exclusive on PC making it easier to cater to their market hence the profit margin will always be much easier achieve than when it's spread out across 4 systems.

An RTS developer will probably gain nothing by releasing their product on a console.

Unlike other genres such as those which Brink are referring to. What if you want to make an exclusive PC FPS, action adventure or racing game? Games which take more money, more programmers, more elements such as music, acting, etc, to produce a product to compete with much bigger competition than Relic could ever dream of going up against? Is the profit still there solely in PC gaming sales? If so then why is it so many are turning to console gaming? It's because those who love those said genres are spread out across the 360, wii, PC and PS3, and the budget for their competitors who make Halo and Killzone are much higher, hence so is the quality.

Not releasing a triple A FPS on a console is commercial suicide.

Of course, this all goes without saying Paul Wedgwood is in the videogame industry, so unless you're a senior member of a more successful videogame company I'll take his word over any of yours.

Weasel words. I mean, I can't think of any Triple A games that are PC exclusives, like Crysis, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Audiosurf, NOLF, Black and White, Starcraft, American McGee's Alice...

Maybe he just meant TripleA [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TripleA_%28computer_game%29] games.

...Age of Mythology, Dungeon Siege, Unreal Tournament, Starcraft, Diablo...

this and the op, it depends on the type of "tripleA game" you're making. is it a really amazing game or are you just planning on spending as much money as you can in any way you can

Also many of the games Root mentions are before 2005, weren't that financially successful, and/ or were released on consoles also. Then take Audiosurf, which it's enjoyment may only relate to the music that the player puts with it and it's an indie title. I'm not stating the game isn't fun, but, as luckshot mentions, it doesn't rely on the type of quality that Crysis relies on.

 

[Bigeyez]

You may not like his reasoning but he's right though...If anyone truly thinks they can reach more people if they go PC exclusive then if they develop on a console they are sorely mistaken.

The PC market is smaller then the combined console market, period. Thats just a simple fact. It makes perfect sense that if given the choice to develop between a PC and Console a developer goes with a console. Thats just a sound business decision.

The PC market can be considered larger than all the consoles combined, if you count the thousands of free games available for download, Combat Arms to name one. They make their money by charging for the extras, and they make a boatload of cash with this.

Also the fact that PC games are Retroactive, backwards compatability and all that.

However, when speaking of 50 dollar games, then no one is larger than the others combined. Even the Wii.

Also due to Piracy, A game may go to console over PC. In fact, I fully support this decision. However, I believe that after 6 months or a year, they can move to PC. Just like GTA.

But it really isn't. Sure there are more PC's in households then there are consoles but the majority of these PCs simply can't play modern high end games. So the actual PC gaming market is a pretty small section of the total number of PCs out there.

Think about it like this. Why is World Of Warcraft so successful? One of the reasons is because it can be run on 8 year old rigs. Any game that wants to reach the number of PC gamers that WoW does would have to be playable on the lowest of the low end rigs, and lets be truthful here, unless it's an MMO (or some cheap or F2P game) people won't accept a game with "crappy" graphics, physics and light effects like WoW has.

And sure downloadable titles like Combat Arms do work well on PC but we're talking about big Triple A titles here. Look at Crysis. Why were Crysis sales so lackluster when the game was rated so highly by just about every reviewer out there? It couldn't be played on the average PC, thus the market for the game was pretty small compared to WoW's market.

Thats exactly why most independent developers will more then likely opt for multiplatform releases. They want to expose their game to the largest market possible. It's also the reason Microsoft and Sony have to pay millions upfront for exclusives, even timed exclusives, because the developer knows that by releasing on just one platform they are lowering their potential sales and they won't do it unless Sony or MS cough up dough in exchange for their sales taking a hit.

 

[Woe Is You]

I think that the biggest problem with PC exclusives is that it doesn't help any publishers sell their platform.

This is exactly what I'm thinking. One of the things that the PC doesn't have is someone to fund your game if you decide to make it exclusive there. Microsoft isn't terribly willing to do that anymore since they have the Xbox (their game support for Windows is half-hearted at best), Sony has the PS3 and Nintendo has the Wii.

One of the things that I like about the PC is how it's the only really open platform out there. Every other space out there is more or less tightly regulated, which for better or for worse, limits what you can do with your game. This is what I feel developers are increasingly forgetting about the PC: sure, the openness does bring about some bad things, but it's also one of its big draws. In short, the average PC gamer expects different things than your average console gamer does.

Well, at least in my case, anyway. I expect a good game but I also like it if a game lets me do what I want with it. Fallout 3 wouldn't nearly be as fun if I was stuck with the vanilla version of it all the time.

 

[CrysisMcGee]

You may not like his reasoning but he's right though...If anyone truly thinks they can reach more people if they go PC exclusive then if they develop on a console they are sorely mistaken.

The PC market is smaller then the combined console market, period. Thats just a simple fact. It makes perfect sense that if given the choice to develop between a PC and Console a developer goes with a console. Thats just a sound business decision.

The PC market can be considered larger than all the consoles combined, if you count the thousands of free games available for download, Combat Arms to name one. They make their money by charging for the extras, and they make a boatload of cash with this.

Also the fact that PC games are Retroactive, backwards compatability and all that.

However, when speaking of 50 dollar games, then no one is larger than the others combined. Even the Wii.

Also due to Piracy, A game may go to console over PC. In fact, I fully support this decision. However, I believe that after 6 months or a year, they can move to PC. Just like GTA.

But it really isn't. Sure there are more PC's in households then there are consoles but the majority of these PCs simply can't play modern high end games. So the actual PC gaming market is a pretty small section of the total number of PCs out there.

Think about it like this. Why is World Of Warcraft so successful? One of the reasons is because it can be run on 8 year old rigs. Any game that wants to reach the number of PC gamers that WoW does would have to be playable on the lowest of the low end rigs, and lets be truthful here, unless it's an MMO (or some cheap or F2P game) people won't accept a game with "crappy" graphics, physics and light effects like WoW has.

And sure downloadable titles like Combat Arms do work well on PC but we're talking about big Triple A titles here. Look at Crysis. Why were Crysis sales so lackluster when the game was rated so highly by just about every reviewer out there? It couldn't be played on the average PC, thus the market for the game was pretty small compared to WoW's market.

Thats exactly why most independent developers will more then likely opt for multiplatform releases. They want to expose their game to the largest market possible. It's also the reason Microsoft and Sony have to pay millions upfront for exclusives, even timed exclusives, because the developer knows that by releasing on just one platform they are lowering their potential sales and they won't do it unless Sony or MS cough up dough in exchange for their sales taking a hit.

OK, First off, I was agreeing that when considering 50 dollar new releases, no console or PC is dominate over the other. Yes, I am talking about big Triple A games. Also, Crysis eventually sold 1.5 million copies, and according to EA they are happy with the sales.

Also a LARGE number of games internet can be played on computers that are 8 years old. Popcap and Reflexive Arcade design games like this.

 

[scotth266]

Isn't that the point though? That most PC exclusives can't deliver high enough profits to be worth the investment?

I don't fully agree with that claim, unless you're directing it towards games with huge, 8-digit budgets. In those cases, I would propose that no single platform can justify unless you know that the game will sell regardless of platform. A few points for this:

1) There are lots of PC exclusives that are doing just fine in terms of profits.

2) Blizzard/Valve/Creative Assembly/Paradox have demonstrated over and over again that PC exclusives can produce high enough profits.

3) The argument breaks down for big title games because big budget exclusives are primarily designed to sell the platform.

1) How many of those exclusives are parts of franchises that have loyal, well-established fanbases?

2) The first two are studios with large, well-established fanbases. The other two are well-known for RTSs, a genre which tend to be targeted towards the PC gamer crowd due to the method of control not porting well to the consoles.

3) Most big budget exclusives are funded by the companies that own the consoles: first-party developers. The PC gaming crowd has no such company to back PC gaming exclusives.

 

[Pingieking]

1) How many of those exclusives are parts of franchises that have loyal, well-established fanbases?

2) The first two are studios with large, well-established fanbases. The other two are well-known for RTSs, a genre which tend to be targeted towards the PC gamer crowd due to the method of control not porting well to the consoles.

3) Most big budget exclusives are funded by the companies that own the consoles: first-party developers. The PC gaming crowd has no such company to back PC gaming exclusives.

1) Quite a few of them actually. The funny thing is that PC games tend to have the most established fanbases of any platform. Having been involved in a few of them, I can confidently say that even a niche game such as the Hearts of Iron series have a much more organized and fervent fanbase than most console games. These fanbases are so well established that the fans actually participate directly (not just telling the devs what they want, but actually doing it for the devs) in the development of game patches/DLCs/expansions/sequels, a feat that very few, if any, console game fanbases can claim. In terms of number, I would think that they're no smaller than console fanbases.

2) I'm not sure what your point is. Is that a point against or for my point? I've already discussed the positions of big companies and the PC exclusivity of RTS games in my last post.

3) I've already pointed that out. In fact, I reiterated that point in the sentence right after where you ended your quote of my earlier post.

Bringing this back to the original topic, and to add on an idea that I didn't write earlier. Paul Wedgewood's statement about the state of the PC development market is something that can be attributed to the entire videogame industry. You can't really get AAA game budget style funding for an exclusive game on ANY platform. The ones that do get that kind of funding are either so slam-dunk that it's not a risk for investors (Blizzard, Valve, Epic, or Creative Assembly stuff), or the investors themselves own the platform that it's exclusive to (Halo, LBP, Killzone, Valkyria Chronicals were all funded by MS or Sony). I don't think that PC games are doing particularly bad, it's just a trend in the industry as a whole.

 

[No_Remainders]

And we all know Diablo is designed for the PC, and as far as I'm aware, the iphone doesnt count as a platform in terms of ACTUAL gaming

Diablo was on PS1 as well as PC...

Yes I know, that was my whole point. That it didnt work nearly as well on the PS1, hence my saying "DESIGNED for the PC"

But it was still on the PS1, so you can't really say that it was PC exclusive, which is what this thread is all about.