PC Gaming Alliance Talks PC/Console Crossover

[Andy Chalk]

This is probably a good time to mention that as of the end of November, Garry's Mod has reportedly earned something just north of $3.1 million. I'd say mods are alive and well among FPS fans on the PC.

And I guess you'll have to add me to your growing list of "PC fundamentalists" because your comment about shooters being a console genre is just stunningly wrong. Controllers lack the speed and precision of a mouse, and without the aiming assistance that most console shooters have (and PC shooters do not) console gamers would suffer a virtually immeasurable disadvantage.

I see your point (I think): The average sideways-hat-wearing slackjaw prefers the controller to a mouse/keyboard combo despite its inherent disadvantages, because it's less intimidating. But that in no way means it's a better setup, it just means that the effort to popularize gaming has gone entirely into consoles. Insisting that FPSs are "console genres" is way off the mark.

 

[Nimbus]

You can't argue that a console is better because of controllers. That can't even come into the argument, because PCs have both keyboard and mouse, and controller setups, whereas you can only have a controller with consoles.

 

[Bagaloo]

Oh dear...and we've decended into PC vs Console fanboyism.
Personally I don't particularly mind what format I'm playing on, both have their advantages and disadvantages. One thing I will say is that I tend to buy more games for the PC because they are often significantly cheaper. I don't understand how a machine that was built only for gaming (consoles) are so much more expensive to buy games for.

 

[Chaos Marine]

*Snip*

What PC gaming needs is to get rid of all the fundamentalists who think converting people to the mouse and keyboard is what PC gaming needs

I've been playing games on the PC (Coming from the Megadrive or Genesis to Americans to the PC) and the very first FPS game I played was Zero Tolerance. I thought it was awesome. I then played Doom on my very first PC. A Dell Dimension L500. After that, I swore never again and have been building my gaming machines ever since. Zero Tolerance and Doom are very alike and I didn't really consider them that different. Then I played Quake and I got into the Hexen series. By Hades, after playing with a mouse, realising how awesome it was, I couldn't get over how great it felt to be able to look around and blow monsters and humans apart with near pin point accuracy. I went back to playing Zero Tolerance during a visit home to my grandparents (I took the Megadrive since I couldn't lug the PC with me) and after about ten minutes I just couldn't play it any more.

Civ and EU and Sins are all doing very well. PC gaming is doing just fine--it's just not able to compete in the genres you want it to compete in. The *worst* thing the PC world can do is look on this as the moral crusade people like you four do. That's only going to lead to them throwing away money. I can't stress the realism of Stardock here enough, about "looking at the market as a business not about trying to be "cool".":
http://draginol.joeuser.com/article/303512/Piracy_PC_Gaming

I'm sorry, are you trying to compare the worldwide sales of consoles to PCs?
http://www.destructoid.com/pc-gaming-not-really-dead-after-all-31138.phtml

Anita Frazier, an industry analyst for the NPD Group, a market research firm, noted that in the first two months of 2007, domestic retail sales of PC games reached $203 million, a 48 percent increase over the $136.8 million in the period a year earlier. She noted that these figures do not include revenue generated by PC game sales online, or online subscriptions to play PC games.

Because there's no good reason to think that the majority of them will probably feel the same way me and the majority of my friends, who were all playing games on the computer before even DOOM came out--that it's just more fun on a console.

That's a matter of taste and there's also no accounting for the taste of some.
*Snip*

If anything, the FPS has probably seen the biggest decline in the percentage of fans interested in modding, because the FPS has grown so wildly in popularity among the kind of people who just aren't the type to know how to install a mod, let alone tinker with it themselves.

Yet there are countless thousands of mods for countless thousand PC games.

You really think you're going to get the average Halo playing Bro to care about the gravity gun and hitboxes and Garry's Mod?

Do you even *want* to?

You're right on both counts there. I have had some interesting conversations with people on Xbox Live. My ears still ring with the word fag which never ceases to surprise me with how often someone can insert it into a single sentence. This also is a very telling cause of why it's better on the PC. Most PC gamers (I'm not going to even pretend to be deluded enough to consider every PC gamer mature) are far more level headed than console gamers, look at the 0arguments between MS and Sony fanboys. Go into any random 360 or PS3 game server and suck at it. You'll get called every insult imaginable and fag more than anything else. Do likewise on the Pc and you'll get a few who'll call you an idiot or a moron but the majority will help you out and offer tips and so forth.

In either case though, playing an FPS on a controller simply doesn't not equate to what a FPS should be played like.

 

[Eldritch Warlord]

And I guess you'll have to add me to your growing list of "PC fundamentalists" because your comment about shooters being a console genre is just stunningly wrong. Controllers lack the speed and precision of a mouse, and without the aiming assistance that most console shooters have (and PC shooters do not) console gamers would suffer a virtually immeasurable disadvantage.

And now I rush to Cheez's defense.

The gamepad does not have an advantage over the mouse, but it does have an advantage over the keyboard. Think not in terms of "analog vs mouse" but in "analog vs WASD." I don't want to meet the person who will argue that analog loses the latter battle.

And as a point of interest. The Orange Box for the 360 has no auto-aim and I didn't miss it.

 

[Joeshie]

And now I rush to Cheez's defense.

The gamepad does not have an advantage over the mouse, but it does have an advantage over the keyboard. Think not in terms of "analog vs mouse" but in "analog vs WASD." I don't want to meet the person who will argue that analog loses the latter battle.

And as a point of interest. The Orange Box for the 360 has no auto-aim and I didn't miss it.

The difference between WASD and the analog is nowhere as big as the difference between the analog and mouse. Also, your movement in FPS isn't nearly as important as aiming is, thus lessen the impact of the small gap between WASD and the analog even more. And even when movement is important to the FPS (such as UT or Quake), which platform are those games on? Oh yes, they are on PC.

Also, there is this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIW9-whnRD4&feature=related

You are exactly the kind of people I was thinking of when I wrote:

What PC gaming needs is to get rid of all the fundamentalists who think converting people to the mouse and keyboard is what PC gaming needs

Did I ever say that you couldn't enjoy FPS with a console or that people needed to play their games with a mouse and keyboard? Nope, not at all. In fact, I specifically stated that playing an FPS on a console with a gamepad was perfectly fine, just as playing a racing game on your computer with a mouse and keyboard is perfectly fine. My original point was that the controls of a PC lend themselves much better to the FPS genre than a controller, much like the mouse and keyboard lends itself better to the RTS genre more than a controller. I would appreciate it if you didn't throw words into my mouth Cheeze.

Because there's no good reason to think that the majority of them will probably feel the same way me and the majority of my friends, who were all playing games on the computer before even DOOM came out--that it's just more fun on a console.

I have known plenty of PC gamers who have inevitably moved onto consoles from PC for a variety of reasons (cost of maintaining a PC, lack of different games on PC, complexity of PC), but one thing they will almost always tell me is that they really miss playing their FPS with a mouse and keyboard. Many of them will tolerate a controller, but most of them would prefer a mouse and keyboard.

This isn't something that is widely debated among the gaming community. A large amount of console gamers will simply tell you straight up that the keyboard and mouse is simply better than analog sticks. It's pretty much assumed among the gaming community that the mouse/keyboard is better for FPS. Of course, that doesn't mean it will stop you from enjoying an FPS with a gamepad.

Bullshit. The most modable game I have ever encountered was UMS II. I remember designing two entire sets of armed forces using that game.

That's super fantastic that ONE game was very super-moddable, but when you think of mods, what do you think about? Counter-Strike, custom maps, Team Fortress, DOOM, and a slew of other mods that have inevitably been based off of FPS games. No doubt that other games have impressive modability such as Oblivion or UMS II, but that doesn't make their modding as widespread as the FPS genre has it.

The issue is that the people interested in mods overlap with the people interested in FPSes to a much lesser extent than they did before, because all the new FPS fans are, I think, not the type to mod.

Yes, because most of the new FPS fans don't even know what a mod even is. The closest most new FPS fans have to modding is Halo 3 and even then, that's just the tip of the iceberg of what true modding can accomplish.

You seem to have this idea that because a group of people only know one type of way to enjoy a game (be it with a gamepad or without modding), then they would automatically hate the other side of it or have no interest in it (with a keyboard and mouse or with modding). I know tons of people who were really excited at the prospect of being able to play UT mods on their PS3.

If anything, the FPS has probably seen the biggest decline in the percentage of fans interested in modding, because the FPS has grown so wildly in popularity among the kind of people who just aren't the type to know how to install a mod, let alone tinker with it themselves.

You are right, it has seen the biggest decline because many more people now-a-days are getting into FPS via console rather than PC. Even if they were potentially interested in modding, they can't be interested in it if they have never been introduced to it, could they?

You really think you're going to get the average Halo playing Bro to care about the gravity gun and hitboxes and Garry's Mod?

Do you even *want* to?

No, I don't think the average frat player would care and I don't necessarily want them to care. However, I think both you and I know that there are still plenty of people out there who play FPS on consoles that would be interested in, at the very least, downloading mods. I mean, people will fucking pay $2.50 for fucking horse armor or other insane amounts of money just for a little customization. I would think that people like that would be interested in free small mods which also allow for a degree of customization.

 

[Joeshie]

Face it--the worst fanboys in the world are PC FPS people. Not PC people, just the PC FPS crowd. Now, would you stop giving the rest of us a bad name by acting like you've got anything to do with the rest of us? See, when we think "intimidation" from a PC game, it has to do with that time we tried to play Gary Grigsby's Pacific War, and kind of laugh at people who choose that word for using a mouse and keyboard to twitch an aiming reticule around a screen.

Oh come off it. You aren't acting much better in this thread. I can't help but feel that it's because your unhappy that FPS has always had a stronger widespread popularity on PC than your strategy games have had.

 

[Joeshie]

And now I rush to Cheez's defense.

The gamepad does not have an advantage over the mouse, but it does have an advantage over the keyboard. Think not in terms of "analog vs mouse" but in "analog vs WASD." I don't want to meet the person who will argue that analog loses the latter battle.

Also, your movement in FPS isn't nearly as important as aiming is, thus lessen the impact of the small gap between WASD and the analog even more. And even when movement is important to the FPS (such as UT or Quake), which platform are those games on? Oh yes, they are on PC.

You know, to make a value judgment in this thread, I think you've hit on a big reason why some people prefer the console to the PC for the FPS. On a console, maybe movement becomes more important relative to aiming? Maybe some people prefer a different mix of movement vs. aiming?

I'm not sure it's more important than aiming on console. I mean, I usually stick to playing FPS on console, but I have played quite a bit of CoD4 and Halo 3 with my friends who don't own a PC good enough to play games on it. From my experience, aiming still trumps movement.

A probable difference is that PC gamers probably use a strong combination of both WASD and aiming to dictate their movement, while console gamers probably use mainly just their left analog stick.

Anyways, as much as I would love to continue debating this with you Cheeze, I unfortunately have a few finals I need to be studying for so my part in this back-and-forth debate is over for now.

 

[Alex_P]

What PC gaming needs is to get rid of all the fundamentalists who think converting people to the mouse and keyboard is what PC gaming needs

It's not--the FPS and Third Person Shooter and Adventure/Action and Platforming genres are console genres. Period. The majority of people prefer those games with a gamepad whether their first console was a PS3 or an Atari 2600, and there was a gap in their--okay, my--console ownership between the Sega Genesis and the PS2 they got to play God of War.

What PC gaming needs is an Alliance that realizes that the strengths of PC gaming are the mod scene, people who want to play complex simulation games, RTS people (and understand that RTSes aren't really all that complex), and all those little niches, like the people who will be enticed into playing a game knowing that not only is the Armada-Petrolboat included but the Armada-DIESELBOAT too, or that the latest expansion adds 50 years to the timeline of Europa Universalis III and players can see their empires evolve from King Henry IV?s coronation in 1399 to the end of the Hundred Years? War.

That's a great formula for getting me to quit video games altogether.

For most (but not all) shooters, I very much prefer the keyboard-and-mouse interface over a gamepad. The single best feature of a console shooter is split-screen multiplayer, and that is, very sadly, on the decline.

RPGs, likewise, play smoother with a mouse, especially in menus. (They're also the games that most need to be modded, in my opinion, given how crappy the basic mechanics of most RPG video games are.) MMOGs with their particular interfaces -- the combination of RPG stats and inventory systems with all kinds of extra stuff for communication -- are unquestionably the domain of PC gaming right now.

I've got a console. I've played console games for years. But, really, if my favorite genres jump entirely to consoles, I'm not going to follow them -- because I know the games will be worse.

-- Alex

 

[Chaos Marine]

*Snip*
Killzone 2 and the FragFX disagree.

From what I've seen of the videos over at gametrailers.com, Killzone 2 suffers the same bullet sponge/autoaiming nannying gameplay that just ruins FPS games. Then again, I wouldn't really consider Killzone, nor Halo or Resistance to be proper FPS games. More FPS with the equivalent of training wheels. Never heard of FragFX.

Yeah, and you know where a lot of that money is coming from? Not from games like Crysis, from games like Sins of a Solar Empire and Civ4 and even those monster games from Strategy First like Victoria and Hearts of Iron.

Contrary to what the lead idiot at Crytek stated, Crysis sold well over a million units exceeding EA's expectation for the game.

That's true. Why is it that ONLY the FPS computer people have this kind of insecurity about their little corner--and I do mean little--of the PC gaming world? You don't see Civ fans going on the same way about Civ Revolutions coming to the console, now, do you? I subscribe to the Civ Fanatics forum--there was way more disappointment with the Colonization remake.

From those of us who play PC games other than FPSes--in other words, the overwhelming majority--we don't really like you FPS people being the voice of PC gaming. You're not really all that representative of the rest of us. You are just the noisy, reactionary tip of the iceberg--visible, but small in proportion.

Now stop blathering on about FPSes and like, make us a worthy Master of Orion sequel!

My first RTS game was Dark Reign. That game still is pure fucking awesome and still has interesting gameplay elements that astounds me for not being standardised at this point. Then I got TA and it's more or less the same and SupCom enhanced even that still. I have a hugely diverse collection of games from Nox to Chaos Gate to C&C, Starlancer to Klingon Academy to Act of War to Gears of War to Gun to Assassin's Creed to Starcraft to Final Liberation to Guild Wars to all the Fallout games to The Elder Scrolls 3(With all the expansion packs) to The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion to FEAR to Deus Ex to the Homeworld series to CoD4 to Evil Overlord to Sins of a Solar Empire to Diablo II (Plus expansion pack) to FlatoutUt3 to everything released by Valve to GTA 1, London, 2 3 and 4 to Darwinia and Multiwinia to Neverwinter Nights 2 to Mechwarriors 2, 3 and 4 to Starsiege to Starsiege Tribes, Tribes 2 and Tribes Vengeance etc etc. I could go on. And on and on and on.

Do not assume I'm just an FPS gamer. My collection of games is massive and widespread.

That's the only point I was ever making. The PC Gaming Alliance I would think should have as one of its goals to keep the industry profitable, not to engage in some kind of moral crusade on behalf of the computer. I could even see it fighting for the PC enthusiast, but, you can do that without believing that you HAVE to make the PC dominant.

Now, as for console players being a "sideways-hat-wearing slackjaw" while "Most PC gamers are far more level headed than console gamers" and the "arguments between MS and Sony fanboys," I have to ask: what does it say about the PC *FPS* crowd that if a person writes a post that is only about the gaming market and economics and contains no value judgments whatsoever, their responses hardly even address that issue and blather on and on and ON about stuff like hitboxes?

Face it--the worst fanboys in the world are PC FPS people. Not PC people, just the PC FPS crowd. Now, would you stop giving the rest of us a bad name by acting like you've got anything to do with the rest of us? See, when we think "intimidation" from a PC game, it has to do with that time we tried to play Gary Grigsby's Pacific War, and kind of laugh at people who choose that word for using a mouse and keyboard to twitch an aiming reticule around a screen.

I mean really--you think it's special you can aim without a mile-wide hitbox? Show me a Deity Conquest victory earlier than 1000AD where you started with Monty, Isabella, and Shaka on your continent with raging barbarians, and then I might be impressed!

The PC Gaming Alliance is a joke. You have Microsoft or rather part of it, Epic who have pretty much stabbed the gaming community that made them in the back and a smattering of self interested others who are more in it for show than anything else. If the PC Gaming Alliance was in any way serious, the first and most important thing they could do would be to set up a PC orientated advertisement company to promote PC games and equipment. Building a PC is a piece of piss and I could toss together a machine in about half an hour. It takes longer to install the OS than anything else and if I could do it, a trained monkey could do it.

 

[kiwi_abroad]

It's not just indoctrination--it's the fact that for a lot of people, some games are more fun on a console, and some are more fun on a computer.



It's not--the FPS and Third Person Shooter and Adventure/Action and Platforming genres are console genres. Period.

First, let me give you my gaming background. I began playing games on my Dad's Atari 2600 in the 1980s when I was but a pup, and have followed through the evolution with SNES and Mega Drive systems through PS1 and PS2, but have no current gen consoles. I have a PC that handles gaming pretty well but is not specifically a gaming PC. I game mostly on the PC, and only recently bought the Orange Box although I had previously played Half Life 2 on a friend's computer at university. I am not a FPS player in particular, I'm not enormously experienced with them, I'm not extremely good at them. I own, and play, most of the games mentioned by name in this thread.

Now, with that on the table...

I think you've got it wrong Cheeze Pavilion.

Not so much with the first point, although I think there's a flaw with that too, but mostly the second that I've quoted.

I want people to think back to 1997. The world was in the early throes of madness as we were subjected to the first number-one hit from the Spice Girls. Titanic grossed enough money for Fox/Paramount to buy, oh, let's say Spain. And, amid this (subjective) cesspool of dross, the N64 had for us the wonder that was Goldeneye.

Remember how many hours you've whiled away playing Goldeneye?

Now, this is a leap of logic here based off personal experience, I may have had a different experience to many of you, but, what made Goldeneye so damn good for me, my friends, and every single person I've nostalgised about Goldeneye with, was the split screen multiplayer. I know entire flats that used SSM Goldeneye to sort out the mundane details of communal living, such as who did the dishes, or cleaned the bathroom, or went shopping for food. One even constructed an elaborate cardboard cross to partition the screen and prevent peeking at your friend's screen. And that's really the operative word here: friend.

Local multiplayer is what made Goldeneye really, really fun and as such, successful enough that the phrase "No Oddjob" is relatively common gaming vernacular amongst people of a certain age group. It wasn't specific to Goldeneye or FPS either, take something like Mario Kart from the same generation of games. Strong local multiplayer helped set a good FPS game apart on a console, simply because without setting up a LAN at - and there's no denying this - reasonable hassle, it didn't really exist in a pre-broadband internet era on PC.


Subsequently, internet access has got a hell of a lot better, at least in my part of the world, and local multiplayer has been overshadowed by online play. In this respect, much of the tangible advantage that consoles had in terms of multiplayer potential is erased, and it really does come down to personal preference.

Where I think you are wrong is that is IS indoctrination, at least to a degree. If you associate strongly with something like Goldeneye, then you are much more receptive to the idea of playing Halo on today's TV consoles. Where before there was a difference in favour of the console, now there is not.

Now, the second point I disagree with from a control standpoint. You state later in the thread that you prefer to play FPS on a console because it has a more forgiving hitbox, or rather, you identify with this as a reason to dislike PC FPS players. I don't think I'm out of line in drawing that conclusion.

Fact of the matter is, the aiming aspect of control is ALWAYS tighter on a PC than on a console version of a game, be it with a larger hitbox, or auto aim, or whatever. For many players, this is a good thing. If you game to experience powerful, flowing story, then the ability to plow through a game is great for the flow of plot, and faster targeting and target elimination will certainly help there. Better yet, go play something that has powerful, flowing story. Sorry, that one was out of line.

Just don't confuse that with them being first and foremost a console genre. At best these days, it's 50/50.

 

[Andy Chalk]

The gamepad does not have an advantage over the mouse, but it does have an advantage over the keyboard. Think not in terms of "analog vs mouse" but in "analog vs WASD." I don't want to meet the person who will argue that analog loses the latter battle.

And as a point of interest. The Orange Box for the 360 has no auto-aim and I didn't miss it.

But we're talking about the overall control scheme here. (At least I am.) If you're talking strictly about WASD vs. the analog stick for player movement and nothing else, then I'll grant that the playing field is more level but that becomes a question of what you were brought up on. The mouse, however, is unparalleled for speed, responsiveness and accuracy.

The fact that TF2 for the 360 had no auto-aim is an interesting point, one I wasn't aware of. Since you're playing exclusively against other console gamers, it becomes less relevant; generally speaking, do you think the 360 crew would have success against experienced PC FPS gamers in cross-platform contests? Someone also mentioned in another thread that the TF2 scene on the 360 was pretty much dead, if that's the case do you think the lack of aiming assist could been partially responsible?

 

[Chaos Marine]

I don't have time at the moment to make a detailed response but I was talking to a friend about this recently, he's both a PC, PS3 and Wii gamer and he told me that the PS3 can actually use a keyboard and mouse control scheme. I thought that would be a great way to see which is better but he told that the controller and mouse and keyboard servers are kept separate. A pity. And to the above comment about having to go through Dell to get a console attachment for the PC? Bollocks. One of the best part about PC gaming is that you can update your rig and that every part of your computer, thanks to it's modular design, allows switching of components. If you had to go through companies like Dell, the market for it would crumble before it could ever be born and the idea, if it does take hold, will certainly be an interesting concept and a good means for console companies to minimise the cost of designing and building their machines.