PC gamers can't stop complaining

Gabe Newell and Christopher Sundberg (Just Cause 2 developer "Avalanche") are the only two people I've seen in gaming who have said anything remotely sensible about PC "piracy". Newell says that publishers need to provide better services than what the hackers do, and Sundberg states that DRM prevents nothing while frustrating customers, and that the hackers should be considered for employment.


fattypants said:
This WILL happen.

Everyone will complain about the smartphonization of their console games. :D
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Smartphone-ports are already happening; Fruit Ninja is now on the Xbox, and it requires Kinect. Considering how hard Microsoft is flogging Kinect and how high its userbase is already, it will probably happen sooner rather than later.
 
The Witcher 2 sold well for what it was, BF3 is selling well on PC. At least there are still developers willing to give the PC some effort. Just not from Ubisoft or Activison.
 
Litfod said:
Phrases like "the decline of PC gaming" are thrown around a lot, but is it the percentage of the gaming market that's declining, or the absolute number of PC games being sold? I suspect it's only the former. But thanks to the likes of WoW and The Sims, if you don't sell a trillion copies of a game it's considered a failure.
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I think the raw numbers when you include digital sales on steam and alike, plus subscription services such as MMOs actually put the PC market in a bigger position than the consoles, at least in terms of developers profit.

Bobby Kotick said in an interview that roughly 30% of Activisions profits come from the console platform, that gives you some idea of how the PC is still a viable market when leveraged correctly, I'd say developers like Valve would probably agree with that based on their own success. -Source

For the AAA titles specifically, like for example the CoDMW series, the consoles have exploded in popularity and that has dwarfed the equivalent PC market for these kind of AAA games. While the PC market is dwarfed in this case it hasn't actually shrunk in and of itself, in fact it's bigger than ever, there are more unit sales each year and more profit made each year, the market is growing for sure but it's just growing at a rate slower than that of the console platforms.

fattypants said:
This WILL happen.

Everyone will complain about the smartphonization of their console games. :D
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I've done some thinking about this recently, I did this blog post about how the console gamers might react if the quality of console games suddenly dropped to accommodate the mobile platform, I've thrown around the term consolization for long enough in regards to the lowering of quality for the PC to accommodate consoles, it only makes sense that the same might happen for mobiles to consoles, I came up with "mobileization".

The conditions for mobilization eventually being a problem are pretty much there, the reason consolization occured was there was a bigger market of casual gamers on the consoles and that dwarfed the importance of the PC versions simply because of the relative size of the market. But look at total number of tablet devices and mobile devices in the wild compared to console devices, now look at the kind of revenue you can make with ultra-causal games, Zynga who make farmville for facebook are worth more than EA and they did it in a few short years.

I'm rooting for mobileization, I hope it happens, it would be delicious payback for consolization ruining the PC gaming scene :)
 
PC gaming won't die because of two things. RTS and FPS. Both of these are superior on PC vs console. BF3 is a prime example of this, it is selling quite well for PC and offers more because the hardware can handle it. Think 64 player maps. Another example would be starcraft 2. SC2 is exploding right now in the pro gaming scene with 100K people tuning in to watch tournament finals. I would love to see a console run a SC2 custom 4v4 match. I don't know if a console could handle a free for all match which only has 4 players. They just don't have the power because their development cycles are too long.

Consoles have their place, you can own both, gasp! I know...
The reason pc gamers "bitch" is because they are generally older and know what is capable with their hardware. When developers get lazy and do the minimum to push a product into a market for a money grab it shows. It's going to take a developer to realize that you have to put resources to each version and not develop one and try to make it work on another. The labor costs involved in doing it right for multiple platforms would pale in comparison to the revenue generated from a game done right on them all.
 
bigbadgreen said:
PC gaming won't die because of two things. RTS and FPS. Both of these are superior on PC vs console. BF3 is a prime example of this, it is selling quite well for PC and offers more because the hardware can handle it. Think 64 player maps. Another example would be starcraft 2. SC2 is exploding right now in the pro gaming scene with 100K people tuning in to watch tournament finals. I would love to see a console run a SC2 custom 4v4 match. I don't know if a console could handle a free for all match which only has 4 players. They just don't have the power because their development cycles are too long.

Consoles have their place, you can own both, gasp! I know...
The reason pc gamers "bitch" is because they are generally older and know what is capable with their hardware. When developers get lazy and do the minimum to push a product into a market for a money grab it shows. It's going to take a developer to realize that you have to put resources to each version and not develop one and try to make it work on another. The labor costs involved in doing it right for multiple platforms would pale in comparison to the revenue generated from a game done right on them all.
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RTS maybe the king on PC. But MW3 sells way more on consoles than on PC. BF3 is slightly better, with console outsell PC by 5:1, MW3 is about 20:1.

Besides, who want to play FPS with a mouse? No force feedback, no real feel of holding a trigger.

Accuracy (I know mouse is more accurate) does not guarantee gameplay enjoyment!!!

So your argument is invalid.
 
owenhehe said:
Besides, who want to play FPS with a mouse? No force feedback, no real feel of holding a trigger.
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Force feedback is a gimmick for FPSs, and one I can do without after owning Halo and various Wii lightgun games. It's kind of novel at first, but it quickly wears off.

Real feeling of holding a trigger? Yes because real guns vibrate like a dildo :rolleyes:.
 
AmberClad said:
Force feedback is a gimmick for FPSs, and one I can do without after owning Halo and various Wii lightgun games. It's kind of novel at first, but it quickly wears off.

Real feeling of holding a trigger? Yes because real guns vibrate like a dildo :rolleyes:.
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True, the novelty wear out quite quickly. But same goes for other way of playing games. The core component is still the game.
 
nerdydesi said:
The publishers and especially Microsoft would love to kill off PC gaming for good. Why mess with things like mods when they will gladly sell you DLC and where it will be the only option left to expand a game? :(:mad:
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I doubt MS wants to kill off PC gaming. Want to knwo the only reason I (and millions of others) run windows? Games. That's it. Alternative OSes can do everything windows can do just as good and a lot cheaper, *except* games. If PC gaming folds, Windows will take a massive hit.
 
Plague_Injected said:
Smartphone-ports are already happening; Fruit Ninja is now on the Xbox, and it requires Kinect. Considering how hard Microsoft is flogging Kinect and how high its userbase is already, it will probably happen sooner rather than later.
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its a ton of fun too
 
He has a point but fudge him. There's FAR more great games to play on the PC these days than I've the time or money for anyway but sure I'd love to see ALL games come to PC.

Consoles suck, don't want one, don't want the crappy gaming experience.The PC is the ULTIMATE gaming experience and if you know what you're doing and have the resources most would never game on anything else.

Sure it's about the game play and yes PCs offer a greater technical and cost barrier but they so completely and utterly outclass consoles at this point that the only reason to game on them is cost and of course exclusive content that you have to play on crap hardware.
 
owenhehe said:
Besides, who want to play FPS with a mouse? No force feedback, no real feel of holding a trigger.
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I remember playing Serious Sam with a Logitech iFeel mouse that vibrated... 10 years ago.
Not sure what happened to that technology.
 
canna said:
I doubt MS wants to kill off PC gaming. Want to knwo the only reason I (and millions of others) run windows? Games. That's it. Alternative OSes can do everything windows can do just as good and a lot cheaper, *except* games. If PC gaming folds, Windows will take a massive hit.
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You make good points but if we look over history I daresay there's few companies you could single out that have undermined PC gaming more than Microsoft.
 
canna said:
I doubt MS wants to kill off PC gaming. Want to knwo the only reason I (and millions of others) run windows? Games. That's it. Alternative OSes can do everything windows can do just as good and a lot cheaper, *except* games. If PC gaming folds, Windows will take a massive hit.
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In the consumer desktop space gaming is a HUGE competitive advantage for Windows over every other OS and Microsoft is very well aware of this

Q-BZ said:
You make good points but if we look over history I daresay there's few companies you could single out that have undermined PC gaming more than Microsoft.
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Microsoft is sort of competing with itself when it comes to PC gaming because of the XBox obviously and there is some truth to what you're saying but at the same time outside of dedicated game companies who does more for PC gaming? Windows didn't become the leading desktop OS without a lot of investment by Microsoft with the biggest investment being DirectX.

So while Microsoft has hurt PC gaming in a way it's hard to imagine where desktop gaming would be without Windows and Microsoft.
 
Ever since Microsoft launched the Xbox ten years ago, they have cared less and less about games on Windows and sometimes will even be openly hostile towards PC gaming.

Look at all the hype that Alan Wake was to come to the PC, one of the first games with DX10 technology and Microsoft suddenly made it a 360 exclusive to promote their console. They probably also convinced Epic to primarily cater towards the Xbox and prevent Gears of War 2/3 from coming to the PC, killing off the Flight Simulator video-game studio, etc. While GFWL sucks, I don't think they created that to purposely hurt PC gaming though.

If I were Microsoft, my wet dream would be to kill off PC gaming for good and somehow make sure as many former PC gamers moved to the Xbox instead of to Sony or Nintendo's consoles. Then, I can force them to pay for online gaming, kill off mods but happily sell them DLC as the only means to expand a game, charge for overpriced accessories (the 360's 20gb hard drive and wi-fi adapter cost $100 at launch!), etc.

The way Microsoft is going with PC gaming, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple decides to become hardcore PC game friendly and get all the PC gamers over to Macs eventually and make Microsoft regret the stupid decisions they are making.
 
ive never even heard of this game so thats probably why his sales would be shit any way
 
nerdydesi said:
Ever since Microsoft launched the Xbox ten years ago, they have cared less and less about games on Windows and sometimes will even be openly hostile towards PC gaming.

Look at all the hype that Alan Wake was to come to the PC, one of the first games with DX10 technology and Microsoft suddenly made it a 360 exclusive to promote their console. They probably also convinced Epic to primarily cater towards the Xbox and prevent Gears of War 2/3 from coming to the PC, killing off the Flight Simulator video-game studio, etc. While GFWL sucks, I don't think they created that to purposely hurt PC gaming though.

If I were Microsoft, my wet dream would be to kill off PC gaming for good and somehow make sure as many former PC gamers moved to the Xbox instead of to Sony or Nintendo's consoles. Then, I can force them to pay for online gaming, kill off mods but happily sell them DLC as the only means to expand a game, charge for overpriced accessories (the 360's 20gb hard drive and wi-fi adapter cost $100 at launch!), etc.

The way Microsoft is going with PC gaming, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple decides to become hardcore PC game friendly and get all the PC gamers over to Macs eventually and make Microsoft regret the stupid decisions they are making.
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yeah, pretty much, although I think Microsoft could completely kill off pc gaming and be just fine. 99% of people dont build buy or use pc's to play video games beyond angry birds, etc....
 
nerdydesi said:
The way Microsoft is going with PC gaming, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple decides to become hardcore PC game friendly and get all the PC gamers over to Macs eventually and make Microsoft regret the stupid decisions they are making.
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LOL! Can you see Apple supporting things like Crossfire or SLI?
 
heatlesssun said:
LOL! Can you see Apple supporting things like Crossfire or SLI?
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For the bargain premium price of 4 times the normal cost, sure!

But in all seriousness, no, there's not a chance in hell that Apple would ever take up the hardcore PC gamer torch. Apple is not exactly liked around these parts, and for very good reasons.
 
If it was profitable to make/port pc games companies would do it. Some do, some don't. It's not like they hate money and won't accept it from pc gamers. Just because your shit doesn't stink and your pc runs circles around a console, it doesn't make your money weigh more.
 
Daggah said:
For the bargain premium price of 4 times the normal cost, sure!

But in all seriousness, no, there's not a chance in hell that Apple would ever take up the hardcore PC gamer torch. Apple is not exactly liked around these parts, and for very good reasons.
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Apple hardcore gaming would probably be too rich for my blood. But there's a good number of Apple fans around here. If you add up everyone with some type of Apple product around here I wouldn't be surprised that it's a large percentage, maybe even a majority.

But yeah, Apple isn't big with the [H] staff for sure.
 
I love how people keep saying lazy developers....

Console -> you write the code once, it works, 10 million people buy it, the game still works, no one has a different experience, no one whines it's running to slow, or it's crashing to desktop, or sound is stuttering.

PC -> you write the code once, the people with crossfire bitch it's not optomized, the people with SLI bitch it's not optomized, you write it to support those instead the people with intel GMA bitch it's to slow, the people who bought a best buy "gaming" system that has a ati 6450 bitch because they were promised it could game, so why can't it run your game. ATI releases new drivers that break something it's your games fault. etc etc etc.

Yes, not developing for PC is really lazy.
 
''Perhaps it will only take 12 guys three months to port the game to PC'' So that's why is each second PC port total unbalanced fail.
 
Fail said:
This is pretty much a dead horse, I was going to write up a novel addressing this, but decided not to, instead here's some cliffs.

Cliffs: PC Gamers spend a lot on their rigs
PC Gamers want the best possible gaming experience, which is why they invest in aforementioned rigs and peruse websites like this in order to make an informed purchasing decision on hardware
PC Gamers know about Steam sales and know they can get games cheap
PC Gamers expect patches and updates for their games
PC Gamers are divided on DRM with the anti-DRM people being more vocal than the ones who just take it
PC Gamers can smell bullshit from miles away
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Yes yes and more yes!

Also, I do not understand the Piracy thing at all, in Games or movies or anything. How can they use that as justification of who will or will not buy their game. How is it possible for companies to specify they will loose xxx amount of money because of piracy. That's assuming that every person that pirates a game would actually buy it if they weren't able to pirate it.

I think they use that as smoke screen for. we put alot of time and money into this game and it turned out like shit and no one wants to buy it so we'll blame it on piracy and write off the losses.
 
nobody_here said:
thats why people get turned off from pc gaming, they have to research and upgrade and tinker......
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That's a casual gamer. They just want a car that can get them there, they don't care how. That's fine. But for motorheads, they want to tweak and get the most out of their cars. But either way, the bottom line is the average joe doesn't want to think about anything, they just want something they can be a vegetable at for a few hours. Average person is very good at that.

Originally Posted by Fail View Post
This is pretty much a dead horse, I was going to write up a novel addressing this, but decided not to, instead here's some cliffs.

Cliffs: PC Gamers spend a lot on their rigs
PC Gamers want the best possible gaming experience, which is why they invest in aforementioned rigs and peruse websites like this in order to make an informed purchasing decision on hardware
PC Gamers know about Steam sales and know they can get games cheap
PC Gamers expect patches and updates for their games
PC Gamers are divided on DRM with the anti-DRM people being more vocal than the ones who just take it
PC Gamers can smell bullshit from miles away
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Amen brotha. What these devs are really saying is they are lazy and cheap and don't want to put the extra effort into something. Sort of par for the course in this shitty generation of game developers. But that's ok, we got superior game devs who don't have a problem selling their wares to PC gamers. We don't need Ubishaft, who gives a fuck about them? I got 100+ games on Steam alone, and only one of them has Ubishaft's logo on it. Maybe if they released games that gamers wanted instead of consolized shit then maybe people will buy their putrid console port games on the PC. If his low IQ diatribe is true, then why is it that SKYRIM, a SP-only game mind you, has 3x more players playing it on Steam at any one time than MW3, a mainly MP game? BECAUSE IT'S A SUPERIOR GAME. I can't remember the last game that Ubishaft has come out with what could even be considered half as good as Skyrim.

Bottom line: you suck donkey cock and can't evolve with the PC gaming DNA so you call it quits. Meanwhile all of the game dev houses will continue to sell us games that are far, far superior to any of your subhuman console ports. Good luck with your consoles, we don't care.
 
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CannibalTrout said:
Yes yes and more yes!

Also, I do not understand the Piracy thing at all, in Games or movies or anything. How can they use that as justification of who will or will not buy their game. How is it possible for companies to specify they will loose xxx amount of money because of piracy. That's assuming that every person that pirates a game would actually buy it if they weren't able to pirate it.

I think they use that as smoke screen for. we put alot of time and money into this game and it turned out like shit and no one wants to buy it so we'll blame it on piracy and write off the losses.
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How does this idiot explain Skyrim doing so god damn well on the PC then? Oh that's right, it's not a shit game by a shit publisher with shit DRM. Maybe someone should show this primate how other game companies go about it. But that would require paying attention and actually having a working brain and a good work ethic to do, so I am not holding my breath. I will just continue to point and laugh at Ubishaft for being a subpar DNA not worthy of surviving in the PC environment. Good riddance.
 
CryingGod said:
If you even read the forums for a few minutes you'll find out that it's 100% true.
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So? PC gamers are a demanding market, we don't like bullshit, we expect more for our money, and we actually educate ourselves on what we are buying. Those are things that companies like this don't want. So they blame it on piracy. Meanwhile Skyrim and other superior games made by superior companies have no problems selling like hot cakes on the PC regardless of it being SP only. Their piracy argument is a scape goat. Instead of fixing the actual problem, i.e. shitty games that PC gamers could care less about, shitty DRM that any low IQ troglodyte knows doesn't work (except punishing the legit buyers), they blame the big bad piwats. Pathetic. Lazy. Why don't they just get into the banking business if they don't want to do any actual work or adding something to the economy?
 
silentsnake09 said:
than we would be left with no games lol
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Not true. Games that are released for PC will be games development with equal efforts. Today, the development effort on console is much greater than PC.
The reasoning that we won't have games by not accepting the console crap being released on PC, is one of the main reasons why PC game quality is suffering.
If devs think they have us by the balls by using the aruguement of us not having any games on PC, they don't see a need to improve the quality on PC.

It's not all or nothing. People will continue to produce games for PC. The best console games make an effort to polish their PC versions with equal effort, i.e. Batman/Metro/Skyrim etc.
The bad games on PC are terrible because they didn't care to factor in the PC during development, like the dev in the article. Why would you continue spending money on those titles?
Also, PC gamers don't need a flood of games like console gamers do, we tend to stick to games much longer than them. I prefer quality of quantity.
 
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Piracy is such a convenient and bullshit justification for all sorts of crap. And a total lie. Its like when our govt uses the 'think of the children!' argument to censor stiff and 'you're all filthy terrraaarists' to take away our freedoms.
 
Buxaroo said:
That's a casual gamer. They just want a car that can get them there, they don't care how. That's fine. But for motorheads, they want to tweak and get the most out of their cars. But either way, the bottom line is the average joe doesn't want to think about anything, they just want something they can be a vegetable at for a few hours. Average person is very good at that.
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and average joe is the one who determines the future of gaming on all platforms, if there is not enough sales to continue pc development, there wont be pc games. you can call it casual if it makes you feel better, but casual = majority = $$$$
 
jorojr said:
Looks like Ubisoft is in damage control mode now. Blame it on the "language barrier."

http://www.incgamers.com/News/29708/i-am-alive-dev-clarifies-pc-stance

If this came from any other Publisher not named Ubisoft, I would give them the benefit of the doubt, but their anti-PC rhetoric is well known.
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As others have pointed out in blogs, you'll see how that douche spoke perfect English in his first interview pissing all over PC gamers. Then he suddenly goes "me-no-speaky-English" at the second interview for convenient PR.

Ubisoft also announced that Ghost Recon: Future Soldier will not come to PC, the PC will get a special online-only version.
 
If you think PC Gamers are the only bitchy ones you should try managing support for a software company. People are just horribly bitchy regardless when shit doesn't work for them. My 2005 software that has long been discontinued won't work on Windows 7 !1one GIVE ME A FREE REPLACEMENT OF THE LATEST VERSION OR I WILL BITCH ALL OVER THE INTERNETS AND TELL EVERYONE YOU KILLED MY DOG!11one

I assume these people take their old cars to the dealership and demand the latest model for free.
 
Why does everyone care about the piracy argument so much? For your sake, you should hope it is true because if it isn't, then that means that even fewer people are playing these games than the few copies that sell. This would make it even less worth it to make PC games if the potential to sell games (because no one is even pirating them) is not even there.

And yes, PC piracy is rampant even if you guys want to deny it.
 
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