PC Gamers, educate me
- Thread starter MrGalactus
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Let me just say now, Korea has a huge host of other games they play on PC. Hell, Starcraft is starting to be in its death throes over there, with League having largely taken its place over the last couple of years due to KESPA doing some stupid thing that both don't allow non-Koreans to compete in addition to not really allowing new blood to rise up internally.stroopwafel said:
Europe has basically been the PC gamer capital of the world for years, consoles are starting to somewhat die out in North America(and by die out, I just mean they're losing the hardcore crowd largely, anyone that wants to enjoy consoles is fine by me, just don't try to say that PC is shit in anything beyond user ignorance issues), South America, Korea, never really had a console market due to it being alot cheaper to get a PC or to go to gaming cafes. Japan and Australia seem to really about be the only places in the world where console is king, and that's largely because PC has some negative connotations due to social stigma and a larger portion of games being that underage eroge stuff you're talking about being commonplace in Japan particularly and shitty internet connections for Australia.
I assume you meant PC? In my opinion, GTA V handles terribly on consoles. For example, driving while shooting is atrocious with a dual stick controller. But the game handles like a dream with mouse and keyboard. Most third person games handle far better with a mouse and keyboard. Assassin's Creed, MGS V, Splinter Cell, etc.MrGalactus said:
I actually think the opposite. I find the analogue sticks to be far preferable to the keyboard and mouse in third person games. I find they work smoother and I appreciate the gradual movement they provide over the all or nothing of the K&M. In the end if all comes down to options and I appreciate having them on the PC.Ambient_Malice said:
Its been said it is unplayable on XBone due to the texture and object pop in, didn't hear about control issues.Ambient_Malice said:
https://account.xbox.com/en-us/gameclip/49adb99c-e3e7-4743-b3b2-1164645510d2?gamerTag=WCxHENNESSY&scid=03a80100-9ff3-46ea-be76-e00e7fe465df
A: Please point to the source where you saw CD Projekt Red say they needed the console version of The Witcher 3 to survive. I'd genuinely like to see it.stroopwafel said:
B: Steam alone, as of last year, has over 125 million active accounts. That's more than PSN has in registered accounts, and over double what Live has. And this isn't taking into account the number of active accounts on Origin, GoG, Uplay, WoW, LoL, Minecraft, World of Tanks, and any number of other services and games on PC. I honestly fail to see how you can claim PC gaming is a "small part of the pie". That claim has been utter bullshit for over half a decade now.
C: If "most people" get excited over triple A releases, why do indie-developed games like League of Legends, Dota 2, World of Tanks, Angry Birds, etc, bring in vastly larger player numbers and net profits than titles like Halo and Call of Duty?
Most triple-A PC releases are just fine, and in fact most see the PC build being superior to the console builds. The only reason this perception of "PC ports are always bad" is because the small handful of titles that DO get gimped ports have a spot light shown on them, bringing them to the forefront of discussion. The vast majority of triple-A games release without issue.
In fact, I'd wager you'll find just as many console ports having broken releases as you will PC ports. Everyone remember the Master Chief Collection fiasco?
So games like LoL and Dota bringing in untold millions each month, for several years, somehow aren't as "profitable" as console-centric triple-A games?
Yeah, okay.
Yet, those same big publishers are often the ones afraid of innovating and trying new ideas because their modus operandi is to find one thing that works and continue to churn it out until people stop buying it. The big publishers aren't innovating when they release yet another damn Assassin's Creed, Halo, or Call of Duty game. They're sticking to the status quo.
Contrary to that, some of the most original and innovative titles to come along in a decade have been from a mixture of triple-A devs and indie devs making their games on PC.
Not all PC gamers like Dark Souls. Quite a lot don't. And even if they did, this is a bad example. You've no idea if From Software would or wouldn't have made the game on PC had the consoles not existed. You're making a judgement on the legitimacy of PC gaming from an entirely baseless assumption.
Pretty irrational thing to do, frankly.
Starcraft 2, The Witcher series, the Half-Life series, the Team Fortress series, the Left 4 Dead series, the Warcraft series, the Diablo series, the Doom series, Rage, the Crysis and Far Cry series, and countless others would like to disagree.
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Look, I get it. You like consoles and hate PCs. That's fine. Makes no difference to me. Play what you want to play on whatever platform you want. As long as you're having fun (and not wasting too much money), I'm happy for ya. I personally play on whatever system gives me the best experience for whatever game I'm trying to play; whether that be PC, PS4, Xbox360, my phone, etc. But that said, you really need to reassess your claims.
Well, PC i backwards compatible with everything. So there's definitely that. I personally love having a world of old games at my fingertips. No console will ever have that kind of library. As for steam, it's really a matter of tagging your wishlist and keeping watch on the sales. I also like that if you're PC gaming, and get stuck, you're never that far from a walkthrough.MrGalactus said:
Modding also is WAY easier on PC. Tinkering with the games is pretty much exclusively a PC thing. Though as you said, those glory days might be ending. Whoever thought paid mods was a good idea should be beaten.
I've played and enjoyed a few console games, but for me, consoles died when they abandoned backward-compatibility.
If you're a gamer on a budget, then you're actually better served by PC than console. Why? Because the longevity of a lot of popular games can be extended with mods. From the classics (Doom) to new AAA games (Fallout 4) you'll see a lot of user-made content that consoles never will. Yes, not all of it will be developer-quality, but when you get to play something like Falskaar or The Forgotten City for Skyrim, you'll begin to see why it can be worth it.
Also, if you see someone say something like "you have to buy a $2000 gaming PC", you can safely assume that that person knows ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about PC gaming and that their opinion can be completely ignored.
Also, if you see someone say something like "you have to buy a $2000 gaming PC", you can safely assume that that person knows ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about PC gaming and that their opinion can be completely ignored.
stroopwafel is just confused, it is no wonder, console centric media made consoles out to be the Witcher's savior, like CD Project Red had one foot in the grave already.Vigormortis said:
It would have happened, just Witcher 3 would not have been as big as it is, as a side note they also said the same thing for a console only release.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-05-19-cd-projekt-red-tackles-the-witcher-3-graphics-downgrade-issue-head-on
The quotes stemmed from the downgrade accusations which CD Project Red admitted openly.
I waste the vast majority of my time play MMORPGs. If RPGs aren't your thing, there are MOBAs, MMORPS, & other kinds. These are games that never end. Think of a game where you could play 8 hours a day for 2 weeks & still not be near the end. I find them by watching gameplay footage & reviews on Youtube. They don;t need disk installs. If you're broke, there's good free ones. I recommend a show called MMOGrinder for finding the good free ones.
I think your quotes may have broken. The first quote is mine but the latter two are not.Strelok said:
I've been a PC gamer primarily since like 2007. It's not much different honestly. The major advantage to me is something weird militant PC people never even bring up, which is loading times. Also just kinda generally things run a little smoother, but it's really not too different or advanced. Most games are on everything so you're gonna be playing a lot of the same stuff.
As for prices, wait for steam sales, or sales on other sites like greenmangaming or humblebundle. You can get things a lot cheaper.
As for prices, wait for steam sales, or sales on other sites like greenmangaming or humblebundle. You can get things a lot cheaper.
I think that's a rather disingenuous perspective. Planetside 2, FPS and MMO. PC exclusive, slowly making its way to the PS4 only because it was successful on the PC first.stroopwafel said:
Spore. Not what a lot of people were looking for, but PC exclusive, and very different to most other games out there.
99% of MMOs. WoW, DDO, LotRO, EvE - ect. Never would have even existed as a pseudo genre on consoles if not for the PC.
How about roguelikes and Dungeon Crawls? Diablo series & co would like a word.
MobAs? Started off as a mod for WC3, as many games do [Start of as mods that is], and is now one of the most profitable genres in gaming, whilst being free to play for most of its titles.
See, PC isn't just for weird indies and strategy games. PC plays every type of game out there, many of which simply don't exist on consoles in any meaningful way because - as you said, they're not AAA.
Not being AAA isn't a bad thing, however. Because we were talking about driving innovation. AAA is the antithesis of innovation. AAA is the "Re-release the same game 10 years in a row with a new skin" to PC gaming's diverse and varied gaming ecosystem. If your argument in support of innovation is AAA gaming and AAA budgets, then I'm sorry but its already failed.
Even Witcher 3, as amazing as the game is, isn't that innovative. It is simply a very well polished version of something that has been done a hundred times before. Its still a fucking amazing game, but its not new, its not innovative. It is at least iterative, but it is just a story-driven open-world adventure game in third-person. Sure, some of the biggest, most polished iterations of older games might need the budget of a console game, but don't let that be confused with innovation.
Again, this is actually another point in favour of innovation on the PC. Marketing and advertising it is well known focus on 'focus groups', and building games to those focus groups, which results in things like the Assassin's Creed series where the same damn game has been released probably 20 times now, just with a new skin and maybe 1 different gimmick each iteration, because you need to NOT innovate to be 100% certain that your game will sell enough to earn back your 50 million dollar investment. That budget isn't a blessing for innovation, its a curse, because you have to earn every cent of it back. As you say later, games are about making money, and innovating doesn't make money. It risks it. Far safer to spend much smaller budgets on that, and save the big budgets for the 'sure hits' that you won't let stray too far from what is accepted already. As I said, look at Consoles, look at PCs, look at the games on each. Tell me which has the more varied ecosystem of games. Its not consoles. They are notoriously samey with their games, because they feel they need to make all their games the same to follow the latest fad, and try and cash in on it. Its something that has been talked about for years at this point.
Thing is, games don't need to cost $50 million dollars to innovate, nor to turn a profit. Civilization V was innovative for the 4X genre. Hexes, multi-turn combat, complete rebalance of everything in the series so far, eventually a new custom religion system... Sure, MAYBE those features had been done individually in one or two very old games, but look at 4X games before Civ V, and after, and some of those features that were well received are now just a core part of the genre.
If you want to do things similar for big console games, you're looking at open worlds which started back before Daggerfall even... On the PC, you're talking FPS which was kickstarted by Doom... On the PC... We're talking cinematics in games which came about way back in the arcade machine era. And these weren't one off games that were ignored and then the same idea came up years later. These are games that Defined this whole deal, and then were copied continually in the following years by many games in the same genre.
Dark Souls is, amusingly, also a rather poor choice of example by you. The reason you seem to have picked it seems to be that it started on the console, and then moved to the PC, more than because of any actual history to it. Dark Souls was, amusingly, ported to the PC because the PC audience made a very convincing case that they were a profitable market segment to go after. Prior to that, the game wasn't developed for PC not because it wouldn't have been profitable on the PC, but because it and its predecessors were made by a company that had ported [Fairly unsuccessfully] the whole of 1 game to a PC in their lifetime, and developed primarily for consoles from the get go. This is a symptom of game development in Japan, where outside of eroge and visual novels, most games are just made for consoles because Sony and Nintendo dominate Japan's gaming ecosystem, and have for decades. If the company had of been a Western company, odds are the game actually would have been developed for PC first, and then moved to consoles. Also could have stayed similar to how things did happen, but in the Western sphere the easiest way to break into game making has always been through the PC, where you never had to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars to get your game onto a specific console, and had full rights over your game when released if not through a publisher.
About the only Console & company I will give the title of innovation to is Nintendo and their products. Because, as you said, its not commercially feasible to drive innovation. Nintendo just don't give a shit. They've made a ton of commercial flops due to innovation, but they just keep going at it. PC does the same, though I'll say less than Nintendo at times because I'll again repeat, Nintendo doesn't give a shit - they at least were headed by a person who truly just wanted to make new fun things. Sony and Microsoft? I don't think them, or most of the games on their systems, have innovated for a very long time. The AAA space has been stagnated for a decade or more, in my experience since the end of the PS1/N64 era. Because its not commercially feasible to innovate. Hence AAA and console companies don't, as they want to turn a profit. PC has for years, as the goal of many developers isn't to rake in millions - its to make a fun, cool game for others to play, and then that game catches on and earns a fortune. See Minecraft as but one example.
If we're going in the 'if it weren't for' argument, if it weren't for PCs, consoles wouldn't exist. We wouldn't have FPS. We wouldn't have RPGs. We wouldn't have the Xbox because Microsoft would never have earned the money from its PC centric sales to make its own console. We would never have exited the 2D graphical arcade era, because it would have been more profitable to just keep making arcade machines with new versions of the same game, than to actually create a new game, or try something different. But PC parts manufacturers strived for more. They created graphics cards capable of creating 3D games, and the PC gaming market took them on board and made 3D games. They constantly improved performance year on year, and year on year more complex games were made.
I'll say it again. Consoles don't drive innovation. Innovation is a risk, and not 100% certain profitability. So the AAA companies that live on consoles don't like it, and don't innovate. Up until recently, consoles have also been very hostile to indie or small developers, and with their locked hardware have stifled hardware innovation as well. The PC is ever changing, as are its games. Consoles may fund their yearly releases worth $50 million, but I'll be honest and say most of the time [Sole exception thus far is the Witcher series] those games look worse than PC exclusive games, and innovate less. Consoles aren't needed for innovation, and they certainly don't drive it [Again, exception of Nintendo, because Nintendo just don't give a fuck]. What they do drive is repetition, and a constant graphics arms race that they can never win. That's not innovation though. Innovation has never been a AAA thing, or at least hasn't been for decades. Its the realm of Indies, small publisher studios, and Nintendo, because Nintendo don't give a fuck.
Even when looking at FPS, which one is more innovative? Natural Selection 2, or Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3?
AAA doesn't innovate. How about Team Fortress 2 [Again, wouldn't have made it to console if not for PC], or Battlefield 4 [Ironically the same case, but now focuses more on its console audience than its PC]?
I am honestly struggling to see where you can make the case for console innovation. Look at the games. Yeah, console games have bigger budgets. They also waste it on copying the big game of the day, rather than trying something new.
That is b/c pretty much everyone has a PC(or laptop) and social media account so you expand the audience to soccer moms, kids, elderly etc. and their Bejeweled/Farmville/Candy Crush browser crap which obviously increases the numbers tremendously. However I thought we talked about quality games here not shovelware. If you look at people who are willing to buy a new AAA releases you see the sales figures are higher on consoles.Vigormortis said:
See above. Candy Crush is the best selling game of all time and cost nothing to make, nor does it initially cost anything to buy. It simply taps into that reptilian part of the brain that rewards addictive behavior and made King billions of profit in microtransactions. Even Call of Doodle doesn't get anything near that level of garbage. The 'gaming' landscape is diverse and encapsulates anything from F2P, shovelware, browser games, MMOs etc. all of which PC/phone/tablet is 'King' but for the sake of argument we talked about 'core' games here; the ones enthusiasts talk about on websites like this one. Again, the games that wouldn't be feasible without consoles.
Fair enough but it are always the same tired examples to 'prove' how AAA-games are failing. What about Batman, Human Revolution, Dark Souls, Witcher 3, Last of Us, MGS5 etc. all really awesome games that wouldn't exist without consoles?
Not at all. If Sony Japan(a console manufacturer) didn't fund Demon's Souls than Dark would have never existed either and that is even ignoring the fact that PCs have no single company to market the game that would be necessary to receive a budget in the first place. It's a console game marketed as a console game.
The only exception on your list is The Witcher but all the other games are either decades old, strategy games, FPSs, MMO's and variations of the same game. All of which PC indeed excels at. Though again modern AAA FPS-games wouldn't be feasible without consoles.
I don't 'hate' PCs just got ripped off in 1993 by someone from the mustard race with long hair, a Pepsi and a Daikatana T-shirt. (poor joke I know.
)Lol this has got to be a joke. The Nintendo of the past(nes/snes/gameboy) sure they were pushing innovation but modern Nintendo with its overreliance on antiquated IPs(or rather, just Mario) that comes out once every blue moon on a flopped console left high and dry by Nintendo itself(while trying to monetize every item some schmuck on Youtube tries to make about one of their games); yeah, they are just a shadow of their former self.Joccaren said:
What the hell do Facebook games have to do with what I said? I pointed out that Steam alone has more active users than Live and PSN have registered users. Factoring in Facebook and other users only widens that sizable gap, it doesn't diminish it.stroopwafel said:
I'll be honest. I laugh a little every time I see the words "core gamer". It's such an falsely elitist and exclusionary phrase.
And you really need to drop the "triple-A games wouldn't exist without consoles!" claim. It's a claim so woefully ignorant to the state of the industry I can't believe people still make it.
Again this claim that these games wouldn't exist without consoles. You're basing your entire argument on an assumption. You've nothing to show that backs up this claim. Not a thing. Yet you keep using it as the crux of your argument. It's just...baffling.
I'd argue that, if consoles didn't exist, PCs would be the primary (if only) source of gaming entertainment. As a result, the number of PC players would encapsulate those who would have normally used consoles instead.
Again, an assumption. If Sony Japan hadn't funded the game, who's to say another company wouldn't have?
But let's say you're right on Dark Souls. Being able to point to one game doesn't back up your claim that triple-A development wouldn't exist without consoles. All it proves is that Dark Souls wouldn't have been made had Sony not funded it.
I'm genuinely starting to wonder what it is that you believe constitutes a game being triple-A. If games like World of Warcraft and Team Fortress 2 don't, then I'm truly baffled. But regardless, I'll still address your points here.
"Decades old". No, they aren't. Even the oldest among them, Quake, had an installment in the series in 2007.
"The Witcher is an exception". No, it isn't. The Witcher series has always been PC-centric. CD Projekt Red is a PC developer. The third installment was ported to the consoles, it wasn't developed with them as its core platforms. And if your argument is "Witcher 3 wouldn't be what it was without consoles!", it wouldn't have been what it was without the PC platform either.
"Modern FPS games wouldn't be feasible without consoles". Seriously? Please tell me you're just having a laugh now. I'm not even gonna bother refuting this one. It speaks for itself.
You realize that reinforces the idea that you hate PCs, right? That you'd hold a grudge for 22 years.I don't 'hate' PCs just got ripped off in 1993 by someone from the mustard race with long hair, a Pepsi and a Daikatana T-shirt. (poor joke I know.
Since apparently popularity, quality, profitability, notoriety, or fame aren't indicators of what constitutes a "core game", care to share with the rest of us what does?stroopwafel said:
Also:
"game sales on consoles still outperform PC"
PCs = 37% of the gaming industry's global revenue
Consoles = 27% of the gaming industry's global revenue
If the consoles are outperforming the PC platforms, then it seems I've been doing math wrong for years.
[sub]On a side note, I find it fascinating that they lumped VR devices in with the console/entertainment-screen category. Without PCs and PC-centric companies, VR as we know it today simply wouldn't be where it is. And that's not an assumption, that's a fact. It was PC-centric companies and engineers who started work on these devices. Console makers had no interest whatsoever until they saw the profit potential in what the PC guys were doing.[/sub]
Eh, I've got over a hundred games in my steam library and I paid sub-£10 for the vast, vast majority of them. Wait for sales, is all I can say.
do a search for sites that sell PC games in your local area. You do not have to go through steam only. Also to get a DVD drive for a pc if you want it costs around 50 usd or less. PC games are usualy 50% cheaper than console games. If you game a lot you save a lot of cash. Its cheaper faster more convinient in every way.
The IP thing isn't a sign of lack of innovation. Mario, between games, has at times innovated more than entire AAA publisher libraries. Its also released a number of similar games within the IP.stroopwafel said:
Innovation isn't about just slapping a new name on something, its about actually doing something different. The WiiU, whilst not necessarily well received, did this. And some early games on the system showed the potential of it, however Nintendo was in a market dominated by the PS and Xbox, and thus most games created multiplatform wouldn't utilise such functionality, as it'd be wasted dev time on the majority of their supported systems.
Even this generation I've still seen Nintendo do more new with their games and consoles than I have the other companies, by and large. Sony and Microsoft are slowly getting there... But slowly is the word. Making it a bit easier for Indies to publish to their platforms was a good first step, but first party they're still just doing the same tired shit year after year. They rarely, if ever, do anything different. Even Kinect and such have had similar technology in use for years, and honestly are probably less utilised than the WiiUs controller screen.
I can play every Halo, and the 'innovation', if you can call it that [Honestly, it was more homogenisation than innovation, but W/E], ended at 2. I can play Zelda, and I do, and almost every fucking game I play is quite different. Ocarina of time, arguably the first 'modern' open world game, Majoras Mask, with its 3 day time control system, Phantom Hourglass with its complete revamp of how the game plays and the perspective its played from to take advantage of the 3DS controls, Link between Worlds, harkening back to the older days of Zelda in world design and art, and trying a way of having you start with all your equipment [More or less] and letting you do your dungeons in any order, rather than doing them sequentially to unlock more equipment.
Hell, even Splatoon is a fairly innovative take on the team based FPS genre. Its done more new for the genre than most AAA FPS games have for years.
I look at AAA games and, whilst they may all have different names, they are all essentially the same game, with a different skin and story. Occasionally something new pops up, but that's rare, rather than with don't-give-a-fuck Nintendo where every game is something different from the last.
Yeah, there are reasons for keeping things near the same. That's not called innovation though. I stand by my statement, Nintendo has been more Innovative than Microsoft or Sony for decades, even this generation.