Valve: PC Gaming Alive and Well, But Developers Off Their Game
- Thread starter Junaid Alam
- Start date
Cost of an 8800GT on Newegg: 180 dollars. If your computer is newer than 5 years ago, you can chuck one of them in and play any game on the market. Ta-da.
Even if you need to upgrade your motherboard, CPU and RAM. CPU is 80 bucks (E2200), 4GB of RAM is 110 bucks, motherboard to support it all is 150 bucks. Grand total of all of this is 520 bucks.
Vastly less than the 2000 quoted by PedroSteckecilo... oh wait, he didn't quote anything at all. He pulled it out of his arse.
Even if you need to upgrade your motherboard, CPU and RAM. CPU is 80 bucks (E2200), 4GB of RAM is 110 bucks, motherboard to support it all is 150 bucks. Grand total of all of this is 520 bucks.
Vastly less than the 2000 quoted by PedroSteckecilo... oh wait, he didn't quote anything at all. He pulled it out of his arse.
I completely agree with Lombardi. Valve and a few other developers show that it is very possible to be successful on the PC.
I think the PC is still a viable platform for game developers. Sure, you need a damn good product to get good sales, but for that you get a royalty-free platform that is cheaper to develop for as opposed to consoles. The tradeoff basically is that you either develop for a wide set of hardware specs or you deal with smaller sales.
No matter how often this gets repeated, it never was and probably never will be true that PC gaming is dead or dying. There are quite a few successful PC games out there and the PC is still the primary platform for small game developers, which is where innovation often grows. Perhaps that might change with XBLA, but currently I still think this is true, and probably will stay that way for small developers with big projects, like STALKER or The Witcher, for example.
PS:
I couldn't care less whether consoles are bigger than the PC. Sure, they are. But there are a few steps between "being smaller than the 360 or PS3" and dying or dead. Neither am I a PC elitist, I can easily agree that PC gaming is more expensive and/or more "demanding" than console gaming, although the sometimes outworldish prices console-only gamers put on gaming PCs make me cringe, and I had a PS2 as well as I own a PS3 now. I simply don't get why console fanboys feel the need to talk crap about every platform they don't have and supposedly don't want to have. If you didn't want it in the first place, why do you feel the need to belittle it, even if you need to grasp for straws to do so? If you actually want it, grow up and admit that.
I think the PC is still a viable platform for game developers. Sure, you need a damn good product to get good sales, but for that you get a royalty-free platform that is cheaper to develop for as opposed to consoles. The tradeoff basically is that you either develop for a wide set of hardware specs or you deal with smaller sales.
No matter how often this gets repeated, it never was and probably never will be true that PC gaming is dead or dying. There are quite a few successful PC games out there and the PC is still the primary platform for small game developers, which is where innovation often grows. Perhaps that might change with XBLA, but currently I still think this is true, and probably will stay that way for small developers with big projects, like STALKER or The Witcher, for example.
PS:
I couldn't care less whether consoles are bigger than the PC. Sure, they are. But there are a few steps between "being smaller than the 360 or PS3" and dying or dead. Neither am I a PC elitist, I can easily agree that PC gaming is more expensive and/or more "demanding" than console gaming, although the sometimes outworldish prices console-only gamers put on gaming PCs make me cringe, and I had a PS2 as well as I own a PS3 now. I simply don't get why console fanboys feel the need to talk crap about every platform they don't have and supposedly don't want to have. If you didn't want it in the first place, why do you feel the need to belittle it, even if you need to grasp for straws to do so? If you actually want it, grow up and admit that.
You are aware that a laptop isn't exactly the cheapest method of getting a gaming capable PC, right? As well as you don't buy a PC "just to play a game". While you might not intend to do so at first, you could for example be creative on your PC in several ways, a thing that is completely missing from consoles so far. A gaming capable PC ss more expensive than any console, no doubt about that, but the good thing is that a PC gives you the opportunity to find other uses for it as well. Also, PC games are considerably cheaper than console games, so, depending on how many games you play it might even get evened out by that. (Just for reference: You could get a desktop PC with comparable performance to Plays2's laptop for around 600$, I'd guess)TheNecroswanson said:
Also, Plays2 didn't come across really acting like he's "above us" to me. He just stated that he had recently bought that laptop for 1200$, which is, in fact, far cheaper than many console gamers, including the one he replied to, make PC gaming seem. That's all.
