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

[scotth266]

1) Quite a few of them actually.

I'm not sure what we're arguing about then. My whole point was that AAA PC exclusives are not worth the investment these days for new developers, because they're not getting paid to maintain exclusivity, they have no previous income to stand on, and they have no fanbase to sell the games to.

 

[Pingieking]

1) Quite a few of them actually.

I'm not sure what we're arguing about then. My whole point was that AAA PC exclusives are not worth the investment these days for new developers, because they're not getting paid to maintain exclusivity, they have no previous income to stand on, and they have no fanbase to sell the games to.

I don't think that we're arguing anymore, probably just misunderstood each other a bit.
And yeah, that's basically the point, with the addition that even with a huge fanbase, there's still no reason to stay exclusive to PCs. It's not like they're going to lose their fans by porting the game over to the consoles. Basically the only thing keeping currently exclusive games on the PC is the keyboard and mouse.

 

[scotth266]

1) Quite a few of them actually.

I'm not sure what we're arguing about then. My whole point was that AAA PC exclusives are not worth the investment these days for new developers, because they're not getting paid to maintain exclusivity, they have no previous income to stand on, and they have no fanbase to sell the games to.

I don't think that we're arguing anymore, probably just misunderstood each other a bit.
And yeah, that's basically the point, with the addition that even with a huge fanbase, there's still no reason to stay exclusive to PCs. It's not like they're going to lose their fans by porting the game over to the consoles. Basically the only thing keeping currently exclusive games on the PC is the keyboard and mouse.

That and the hardware updates.

 

[Xivilai87]

Leaving out the whole voice acting and music thing, lets look at piracy. how many millions did EA lose from the leak on Sims 3 a week before launch. hundreds of thousands of downloads, each meaning EA loses $50 a pop.

i always hear people complaining about how games dont come out for PC exclusivley any more, but its the same people who will go home and download the game for free instead of buying it.

if i developed a PC title, and only made back 1/4 of the development costs because everyone decided to steal the title instead, i'de be moving to consoles too

Amazingly it apparently still sold 1.4 million copies in the first week alone and 7 million "items" sold in their electronic shop making it the "Best launch of a PC game in the company's history". Till now it sold over 4 million copies worldwide...

Apparently a game isn't part of the "cool kids" anymore if it hasn't sold 5-7 million+ like "Halo 3" nowadays. It's not like anything changed for the PC market other than consoles becoming standardized PCs and eating away at sales while keeping the tech development down to a "console level" for most if not all games.
Back in the day selling 200-500.000 copies was an amazing accomplishment and they were happy about it...

Also see Blizzard... as much as I hate it that they're part of Activision now, they're still one of the best and most profitable game developers worldwide and they're completely PC exclusive for now.

all true. but i'll ask the question, how many more copies would have hit the sales chart if it people werent able to pirate it?

MMOs require online purchases and monthly subscriptions, but even they are vulnerable to theft. look at all the warcraft private servers. if theres 1,000,000 people on private servers, thats $15,000,000 blizzard loses monthly, all thanks to piracy. and that also brings up that fact that the blizzard downloader still works even if you havent purchased the game, so you get the game free, all 3 versions, and play for free.

some titles do pull through, i wont deny that. but i think publishers and developers are realizing that as long as piracy is as easy as "search-download-play", PC exclusives are a losing market. Crytek isnt developing console exclusives for that reason.

 

[Alandoril]

Actually, yes you would be surprised how much sound really matters in a game. Devs ignore it at their peril. Just like good writing...oh wait