PC gamers....why must we always get shafted?

[Rad Party God]

I mostly agree with the OP, except for the part about the controls, with is pretty much his own opinion.

If I had a freaking 40 inch TV, I'd gladly connect my PC there and just lay in my couch and play with my trusty 360 controller.

I love PC gaming, but my reasons for loving it are quite different. In this country, nobody can afford a console and start thinking about getting 10+ games without recurring to piracy, even used games are pretty expensive (granted, I managed to get Banjo-Kazooie Nuts n' Bolts in a semi-new state for $7, but that's not the point), so pretty much my reason is, because consoles are freaking expensive here.

I could elaborate more and more reasons, some good, some bad, but everything boils down to this: I can afford PC gaming.

 

[fuzzywuzzums]

It may seem that we're getting shafted at first glance, but if you really think about it, it's only from the big corporations and those fancy-shmancy triple A developpers.
I mean, what's not to like? A bigger degree of freedom thanks to mods opens up a whole new world for those willing to put in the work. They're basically free from corporations and regulations. Plus if you dont want to shell out for a game (or want to "review" it) you can always pirate it. And if you think the company did well you can buy it and support them.

That's just my opinion/view on the subject :3 .

 

[Entitled]

People point to individual games like WoW, The Witcher, LoL, etc as proof of how PC gaming is thriving (as most people do when they post that silly picture), but what they fail to realize is WHY those games succeed: They fill in a void that developers and AAA publishers left in the PC gaming market.

(Incidentally, that same void is presently being filled by a lot of Independent Developers. This is not a coincidence or luck.)

I don't think that this description of events is accurate. It's not so much that there was a point in time when the AAA industry as we know it focused on PCs, then they suddenly stopped, and an entirely different group of indies is filling in the void.

PC gaming has ALWAYS been a niche, we just didn't notice it because gaming itself was niche. Bioware was founded on $100.000, the kind of money that nowadays people easily collect on kickstarter. Sim City was made pretty much by Will Wright alone.

In a way, current indies are the spiritual succesors to these. While individual studios might have grown bigger and left the scene one by one, and new ones have replaced them just as quickly, as a whole, the PC gaming industry has always covered the same market segment, even if the names have been changing.

Saying that AAA developers are no longer supporting the PC, is like saying that children are no longer playing tag (based on your now 20 year old son's playing record). They still do, in their their earlier phase of development.

 

[Atmos Duality]

PC gaming has ALWAYS been a niche, we just didn't notice it because gaming itself was niche. Bioware was founded on $100.000, the kind of money that nowadays people easily collect on kickstarter. Sim City was made pretty much by Will Wright alone.

A fair interpretation, but the problem with that assumption is that it ignores the PC boom starting in the late-90s. PC Gaming pretty much stopped being "niche" around the turn of the millennium, along with most of video gaming.

The number and quality of blockbuster titles from that time alone speak for it...
I'd pin the first real PC blockbuster as Doom, but it didn't really pick up until Quake 3, Warcraft 2/Starcraft, and Unreal Tournament.

It grew pretty substantially until around 2005, wherein several major changes in the business basically worked in unison to kill the PC gaming boom (outside of the MMO market)

Saying that AAA developers are no longer supporting the PC, is like saying that children are no longer playing tag (based on your now 20 year old son's playing record). They still do, in their their earlier phase of development.

Perhaps inadvertently, but that's an analogy that belittles PC gamers.
Seems topical and ironic, given the recent shitstorm...

[citation needed]

How do you know the pc platform was neglected? How do you know any of the things you're saying here? I read all of that as : "Well, actually, " without showing any reasoning behind it. From what I know pc gaming wasn't neglected by a long shot. Just because games for console aren't coming out on pc doesn't mean pc gaming is being neglected.

Take a good long look at a best-seller list sometime.
Try Amazon, or any games referral site.
Pick any year from 2005 to present. Go ahead. I'll wait.

Finished?

Notice how every single one of them will be top-heavy with Console-native games, and even when the occasional WoW-expansion hits the charts, it's still completely outnumbered by console-native tiles.

And THAT, is why I find that picture silly and ironic.

This isn't absolute proof (see why below), but it should give you a clear idea of how bias the business is towards consoles.

CAVEAT 1: Steam practically has a monopoly on PC game distribution, and being a private company, they aren't especially inclined to share such information.

CAVEAT 2: Regular Publishers won't share all of their sales information unless forced to, or if it "sets records" (records that only they and their retailer friends can see).

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

not geting certain games....I'm still wating for Red Dead Rockstar...yes its 2 years old and Ive already played it on console...but I'm still waiting...[small/]dammit[/small]

Hate to break it to you, but Rockstar has already said that Red Dead Redemption is never coming to the PC. The time-frame does not work for a port and the games original architecture was not made with it in mind.

the fact is when "we" are not being called pirates we are having to hear about how "PC gaming is dying" or some such crap, and I'm sick of it

Who cares? Let the haters hate, PC gaming will never die.

the fact is I know platforms have their advantages and disadvantages...you'd look pretty silly acting like its the biggest travesty/injustice in the world that you can't play Mass Effect on your Wii...because....[i/]well theres your problem[/i]

but do you get the feeling we are being pretty punished for our platform of choice? is it unreasonable of me to want to feel like I'm not being treated like a criminal if I want to play games? is it unreasonable of me to expect games to be released on my systm?

I mean to me this isn't choosing some systm with problems out of blind brand loyalty (as in why can't I play Mass effect on my Wii?)

The Wii requires its own special controller which means that programmers must keep that in mind. PCs require no special controllers, because they can plug in and utilize any controller as long as they can find proper drivers(which they can.) The two aren't really comparable. A lot of devs fill special niches though and some programmers are just really shitty at programming for PC systems, which makes porting difficult for them and why lots of studios don't bother.

I can't stand not being able to see the screen and text clearly (hence why I play on an upright chair close to the TV since I'm lucky enugh to have one in my room)

The game resolution is likely not calibrated correctly(assuming consoles let you choose because I really don't know) or you need to get/wear glasses/contacts(/shoot lasers into your eyes.)

and the controlls...oh god

Agreed; console controls are garbage and even the industry knows it. There have been multiple attempts to allow cross platform multiplayer. They were all canned because the PC players completely dominated the console players. Not because they were better but because PC keyboard/mouse allows for perfect pinpoint accuracy and control that console controllers can't compete with.

my point there is NOT to say which platforms are better (seriously take that argument somhwere else) my point is my choice of systm is vital to my experience and "getting a console" is no fix for issues I feel are unfair

Life ain't fair. But you don't really seem to enjoy consoles that much; so why spend extra money to buy console systems and console games. Most companies really only respond with any degree of motility to one thing: money. If you keep buying consoles and keep buying games for them, the more they will be able to justify not porting to PC. The more they will be able to justify making more console games.

I mostly just write off console games as nonexistent and move on for the above reasons. Plenty of well made PC games and well made PC ports for me to not waste my time on something that is more expensive and less fun.

 

[ElPatron]

call of duty

I'll have to disagree on that. Right now I have few complaints about CoD, but the game is from 2010 and I bought it a month ago and it's up to date in terms of patches. During the release I noticed a lot of hate towards Treyarch because the PC version was not too good.

 

[Atmos Duality]

I just think that the pc market is in no way in a bad position now or 5 years ago or 5 years before that. And I've not seen any proof against it from your anyone else.

It's not in a "bad position" from a business perspective, it's in a "bad position" if you're looking for something to play that isn't a port or an MMO-grinder.

When people talk about how strong the PC market is based on empirical sales, a HUGE percentage of it comes from MMO sales and social gaming.

If you're into that: Great!
If you're not, you were hard-pressed to find variety outside of legacy software.

I didn't take the picture serious either. Why are you so hung up about the picture?

I've already commented twice as to why, and I'm not repeating myself.

Also, obviously all consoles combined do better business than the pc itself. But the pc has a better market share than any individual console.

http://software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/2010/04/19/hear-that-knocking-sound-its-pc-gaming/

Looks about right, and that's NOW, near the end of the current console cycle (2009-2013 Projected).

Of course "enthusiast PCs" sales are going to be up, and so will sales.
Two factors:
1) Console Market Saturation
2) Console Obsolescence

And even with the Wii effectively pushing 6 years of obsolescence (11 years going by processing power; it's just a Gamecube with a minor upgrade and a gimmick) it STILL wields the strongest sales.

Also, within that same link, take note of the software sales.
MMOs are raking in the big bucks, with "Traditional PC Game Software" being dead last in all categories.

And I'd bet that most of that category was padded with ports of software from consoles, which isn't a point at all in its favor for the purposes of this topic.

I'd like to see that last category disseminated further into "Console-Native" or "PC-native" software. It would explain very quickly why I wasn't at all impressed with PC game offerings until the last couple of years.

 

[Syzygy23]

Ooooh a vault thread about pc and consoles. Gotta post in this.

piracy, ease of developement, lower expectations, ease of marketing

Consoles are just easier. Dont quote me on that.

Too late, I quoted you.

But with that said, you hit the nail on the head. /thread

 

[MorganL4]

Umm the premise of the rant is kind of made null and void by the company Valve, The companies success as both a developer and a publisher, and ( to my knowledge) the fact that they have never once released a game that was not available on PC.

I mean you could make the same argument saying: Why do consoles always get shafted? Skyrim and the PS3, the severe lack of the MMO and RTS genres representation on the platforms.... I could go on. I mean really there are positives and negatives to both.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Your argument will never be valid.

Neither will yours.
We're done here.

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

lots an' lots an' lots an' lots of stuff like mods are realeased on god**** xbox first or something.

Uh, the PC has way more mods than any of the consoles. Official mod support is all but none-existent on console and mods in general are very rare. Except on Smash Bros. Brawl but, even then, all you can do is replace character models and make really long replays and shit. Nothing like what you see on PC.

 

[Stavros Dimou]

Because console games are cheaper to produce and thus much more profitable and we live in a market driven society.

Where do you base that console games are cheaper to produce than pc games ? I assume you have evidence ?

If "making pc games" is much more expensive than making games for consoles,then explain me why most independent developers who have limited budgets only make their games for PCs ?

You are wrong. Development IS actually taking place on PCs,and all games,even console exclusives are BUILD on pcs.The console development kits are versions of consoles that developers use in the final stage of developing,optimization. But before a game can run on a development kit,it has to run on a computer,and as such by the time you have a game playable on a console,it means it can also be played on a computer. Have you ever used a Game Engine in your life,like the Unreal Engine or the Cryengine,or do you speak out of your imagination ?

The only extra work a game made for consoles would take for it to play decent on a PC,is to design a PC-specific UI,something which can be done much faster and easier than other things like e.g. programming gameplay mechanics,and appropriate keyboard+mouse support.

Most PC gamers while they would welcome improvements like better textures or something,will be fine with a port if just it's GUI and controls aren't broken.
The complaint is that these two things can be done very easily,yet some developers skip them.

 

[Athinira]

Snip

Borderlands? Mafia II? Half-Life? -_- They could have tested games that actually use RAM lol. I'm thinking, some pretty MMOs, Crysis (64bit), Skyrim and Metro. Metro is a great example of RAM.

Ah, the "No true scotsman" falacy. Sorry to say it, but looking at the system requirements of those games, none of them seem to be at any point beyond the games you mention. In fact, from my observations, the biggest memory hogs of the above games you mention is Skyrim because the game suffers from memory leaks. I've seen it use up to 2,3 GB of RAM, but nothing beyond that point. Even world of Warcraft has never reported anything above 900 MB's to me, and that's with around ~200 of those megabytes being devoted to addons (which take up quite a bit of memory when you have a lot of them). It's worth noting of course, that this is usage in the normal RAM, and that video RAM is an entirely separate issue.

You are also incorrect in your reply to GoaThief (about minimizing the game causes it to show less memory). Process memory is only shuffled to the SWAP-file if the normal RAM runs out of space. Simply minimizing the game to the background doesn't change the RAM-usage (both normal RAM and video-RAM), it's plain and simple bullsh*t.

I'm going to have to call bull on your claims until you provide some real evidence (using those "real games" you mention or similar if necessary) that above 8 GB of RAM increases performance - Burden of proof is on you, not us. I'd say that at best, it will increase loading performance because of SuperFetch (if you play a game often, Windows will preload the files into RAM), or you can - alternatively - use a RAM-disk software to store game files which will be able to improve loading times even beyond what SSD's can deliver you. But beyond that, i don't consider anything beyond 8 gigs to be worth it except if you're running a lot of background stuff.

Ball is in your court.

 

[Athinira]

Ah, the "No true scotsman" falacy. Sorry to say it, but looking at the system requirements of those games, none of them seem to be at any point beyond the games you mention.

Did... Did you just say Half-Life 2 and Borderlands have comparable system requirements to Crysis and Metro 2033? You did... Well, that's something.

Since we are discussing RAM usage here, i only looked at the RAM segment of the system requirements and not the entire sheet. It's obvious that the requirements for GPU and CPU processing power are vastly different between these games, but the RAM requirements aren't that different (Half-Life 2 might be the exception, although ironically it's the game with the most improvement in FPS when going from 4 -> 6 -> 8 gigs of RAM).

Now with that out of the way, you can go back and respond to the rest of my post.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Because console games are cheaper to produce and thus much more profitable and we live in a market driven society.

Where do you base that console games are cheaper to produce than pc games ? I assume you have evidence ?

If "making pc games" is much more expensive than making games for consoles,then explain me why most independent developers who have limited budgets only make their games for PCs ?

You are wrong. Development IS actually taking place on PCs,and all games,even console exclusives are BUILD on pcs.The console development kits are versions of consoles that developers use in the final stage of developing,optimization. But before a game can run on a development kit,it has to run on a computer,and as such by the time you have a game playable on a console,it means it can also be played on a computer. Have you ever used a Game Engine in your life,like the Unreal Engine or the Cryengine,or do you speak out of your imagination ?

The only extra work a game made for consoles would take for it to play decent on a PC,is to design a PC-specific UI,something which can be done much faster and easier than other things like e.g. programming gameplay mechanics,and appropriate keyboard+mouse support.

Most PC gamers while they would welcome improvements like better textures or something,will be fine with a port if just it's GUI and controls aren't broken.
The complaint is that these two things can be done very easily,yet some developers skip them.

You attack me as if I'm some anti-PC gaming console gamer and in that you are mistaken. I do no believe in platform exclusivity. I will game on anything as long as the games are entertaining. In fact the vast majority of the games I have been playing lately have been on PC, so chill.
As for evidence, well ok I don't have any concrete evidence; my statement was based on the fact the hardware (and often software too) is never consistent among PCs and therefor that would make Q&A a much more extraneous and time consuming process and we all know that time = money. Whereas consoles all have constant hardware and software making Q&A much simpler and less time consuming thus saving money.
Of course that's all based on logical deduction and nothing really solid so take it for what it's worth.

 

[Aesir23]

I just want to know why PC games released later. It's like...X360/PS3 release: September 6th. PC release: September 18th.

Well, the setup from system to system on a console is fairly standard. The setup on a PC can vary quite a bit between each individual machine and they need to take that into account.

 

[Athinira]

"Might be the exception"? Half-Life 2 asks for a recommended RAM of 512MB. While Metro asks for 8GB of RAM for a smooth performance (as stated by the developers). How is that a "possible" exception to your statement that the RAM requirements aren't that different?

Well guess what: The reason I said Half-Life might be the exception was to emphasize that the REST of the games in the Toms Hardware Test would be more relevant to look at than Half-Life when comparing RAM-usage.

So why on earth you are focusing on Half-Life 2 in your reply again, leaving everything else relevant out?

Please respond to the points I made. This cat and mouse game of semantics isn't really productive.

 

[sammysoso]

The industry isn't malevolent, there is no agenda against PC gaming.

There's just not as much money as there is in the console market. They're a business, they go were the money is.

Also, piracy, while overblown by the publishers, IS a problem. One they'd rather not deal with.

 

[Atmos Duality]

I don't think so.

I do.

Especially now that:

1) You've now changed the context of my original argument based on a false conclusion
2) Some of the games you listed don't even fit the criteria for your new argument

 

[Risingblade]

PC gamers are harder to please so companies say fuck it and stick to consoles?