Valve’s Doug Lombardi On PC Gaming

[HardOCP News]

Shacknews has a great interview with Valve’s Doug Lombardi posted today that tackles the recent barrage of “PC gaming is dying” reports in the media. Definitely good reading and worth the click to go check out.

Again, minus the DS, because the DS is this crazy thing by itself. But talking purely in terms of the Wii, the PS3, and the 360, if you added those together and looked at the whole picture, I'd bet you PC would be even, if not bigger than those three systems in terms of the money that's changing hands and the opportunity for doing business.

 

[Serpico]

Shack: Does the responsibility lie somewhat with the hardware manufacturers to market their products in a reasonable way, or is it up to the developers to set sane requirements?

Doug Lombardi: Oh I think it's totally the fault of the developers. Totally the fault of the developers. I mean the graphics guys, their job to keep pushing the envelope, and as they push the envelope, move the lower-end cards down to a nice price point, so that there's always this evolution that's happening. If you're a hot rod type of guy, and you want to spend $400 on the latest thing, you want to have a smoking machine, and when Left 4 Dead comes out you want to run it at its highest resolution with killer framerates, and call your buddies over for a beer and make them all drool over your system, awesome. But if you're just a guy who wants a decent PC for less than a thousand bucks, and wants to be able to run games on it, there should be a card out there that runs games at a decent famerate and decent fluidity. Then it's on us to write for both of those guys.

And this is why Valve succeeds while companies like Crytek complain about piracy and that they are moving over to console development. Yeah, forget the fact that a very small percentage of PCs can actually run Crysis at anything approaching a decent framerate.

 

[Serpico]

Also:

So I mean, I think people just need to do a better job of looking at where gamers are at, being more honest about the system requirements they put on the box, and just sort of taking a step back and saying, "Gameplay is king, performance is second, and graphics are somewhere after that." People have said to us, you know, Portal is cool, but it wasn't the prettiest game. Well, okay, it sold a whole lot, it was named game of the year by over 30 outlets, and many of the people who played it told me they finished it and had a great time. I would much rather have that than have people tell me it was the prettiest game that came out last year.

Valve and Blizzard adhere to this in a huge way and they are extremely successful. Coincidence?

 

[Terry Olaes]

Great interview. Can't wait to read part 2.

 

[mnewxcv]

doug is the man, i always support valve and their products

 

[TerranUp16]

And this is why Valve succeeds while companies like Crytek complain about piracy and that they are moving over to console development. Yeah, forget the fact that a very small percentage of PCs can actually run Crysis at anything approaching a decent framerate.

Crysis was ahead of its time, unfortunately, but we'll see what happens w/it now that the GTX 280 is launching and its modding community is really starting to kick-up. Crytek was in a tough position w/what they wanted to do with Crysis though visually on the high-end (and imo, 25fps is a very decent framerate in Crysis just b/c of the style of the game)- I certainly forsee that the eventual Half-Life 3 and Valve's replacement of Source will undoubtedly utilize much the same logic as CryEngine 2 did visually as by then the 8800's and HD 38xx's and such will be the baseline cards and those are really what many of the technologies that Crysis pushed require just for a baseline (gl to them on the consoles, rofl).

 

[theDreamer]

He makes some excellent points about the focus on the PC gaming industry, but at the same time I must wonder what we would be like without games pushing the envelope on a few games, graphically? I do believe game play and performance are key, but without something that pushes the hardware we lose the urge to upgrade (though not entirely).

I think it is a tough task for developers to find that ground where they can produce an excellent game and bring forth something new in game play, performance, and graphics.

 

[Serpico]

I think it is a tough task for developers to find that ground where they can produce an excellent game and bring forth something new in game play, performance, and graphics.

Valve are obviously doing something right, focusing on gameplay and performance over raw graphics, as one of the few PC development houses that is thriving in a huge way. And don't forget, they still manage to roll new features into Source with every new Half Life 2 episode. They just strike a really excellent balance between the new features they roll in and the ability to scale settings back for older/slower hardware.

And based on Valve's own hardware survey, they know exactly the sweet spot that they need to target. Its pretty genius.

 

[Serpico]

Crysis was ahead of its time, unfortunately, but we'll see what happens w/it now that the GTX 280 is launching and its modding community is really starting to kick-up. Crytek was in a tough position w/what they wanted to do with Crysis though visually on the high-end (and imo, 25fps is a very decent framerate in Crysis just b/c of the style of the game)- I certainly forsee that the eventual Half-Life 3 and Valve's replacement of Source will undoubtedly utilize much the same logic as CryEngine 2 did visually as by then the 8800's and HD 38xx's and such will be the baseline cards and those are really what many of the technologies that Crysis pushed require just for a baseline (gl to them on the consoles, rofl).

It should happen in the next two to three years now that the 8800 series cards are getting seriously affordable. "Budget" cards will be incredibly powerful by that point and a real push towards that level of graphics to the mass market can then be made.

 

[Chombo]

What I like about Valve is exactly that the game runs well on pretty much anything. Granted its not bleeding edge, but its definitely good looking. Its not like Crysis has sold poorly. Over a million sold by now. I think its that they were expecting much more than that. Plus I think has the Very High settings not been unlocked at launch everyone's opinions would be much different.

 

[TerranUp16]

It should happen in the next two to three years now that the 8800 series cards are getting seriously affordable. "Budget" cards will be incredibly powerful by that point and a real push towards that level of graphics to the mass market can then be made.

Oh yes, and considering that I would lop the 9600GT and 9600GSO into the "8800 family" and those two cards are going for around $100 atm... (emphasis on atm).

What I like about Valve is exactly that the game runs well on pretty much anything. Granted its not bleeding edge, but its definitely good looking. Its not like Crysis has sold poorly. Over a million sold by now. I think its that they were expecting much more than that. Plus I think has the Very High settings not been unlocked at launch everyone's opinions would be much different.

Yes, agreed as far as the VH settings go, but imo shame on everyone for giving Crytek a backlash for having those settings unlocked.

As far as Source goes, HL2 was in a very good spot when it was released, but while the Orange Box looks good, imo you still need titles like Crysis to complement it on the bleeding edge. It will be interesting to see how Left 4 Dead looks b/c I'm starting to think that Source may be starting to reach its edge with GTX 280 unless Valve can pretty much manage to get two sets of graphics engines running within Source, but then again it may well not be b/c it really won't reach its true edge/end until engines like UE3 do as well (I'm speaking purely of catering to the high-end here atm).

 

[parasitoid]

Crysis was too ambitious (ahead of its time). That being said, their presentation was slightly flawed. When I installed the game it automatically set everything to Very High and I only had a single 8800GTX. They really should have taken the time to:

A) Lock out graphics options that were too ambitious for the hardware.
B) Release the better graphics once new generation of cards came out.
C) Saved some of the higher graphics for the second episode.
D) Have a better auto optimize built into the game.

The nano suit was awesome. I just wish they would have taken the time to incorporate it into the game play better. Maybe they could have had you use strength mode only to do hand to hand combat. (you get captured; etc. [their attempt was laughable]). Make you use cloak to actually sneak past an impossible task. Speed mode could have been used well as well in some kind of scenario. They left all the features, except some required strength jumps entirely up to the player, maybe this was a mistake.

 

[TerranUp16]

Crysis was too ambitious (ahead of its time). That being said, their presentation was slightly flawed. When I installed the game it automatically set everything to Very High and I only had a single 8800GTX. They really should have taken the time to:

A) Lock out graphics options that were too ambitious for the hardware.
B) Release the better graphics once new generation of cards came out.
C) Saved some of the higher graphics for the second episode.
D) Have a better auto optimize built into the game.

The nano suit was awesome. I just wish they would have taken the time to incorporate it into the game play better. Maybe they could have had you use strength mode only to do hand to hand combat. (you get captured; etc. [their attempt was laughable]). Make you use cloak to actually sneak past an impossible task. Speed mode could have been used well as well in some kind of scenario. They left all the features, except some required strength jumps entirely up to the player, maybe this was a mistake.

Agreed that they probably shouldn't have had anything auto-detect to Very High, but then again for every complaint that it auto-detected Very High there is another that it instead auto-detected Medium... As far as withholding the graphics, the ideal would be for them not to, and not doing so certainly fit with the theme of Crysis as a whole (well, for the first third of the game anyway) which is putting control in the player's hands.

As far as the suit controls go, on Delta difficulty I used Cloak extensively (heh, it's also a good challenge to try playing the game stealthily without using cloak for a sort of "Insane" difficulty) and strength a lot for long-range shoting and speed proved helpful in various situations. Imo, for the parts of the game where control really was in the player's hands, Crysis was (and is) a total blast to play (I can't think of any other game with such large levels and a save system where I've played the first level 15+ times- and gotten a different experience each time to boot!) and the Nanosuit is excellent. It's only when Crytek begins to strip control from the player that Crysis begins to break down. But, ofc, checked ModDB lately?

 

[tickle_me_emo]

I find it interesting Lombardi take sole responsibility for scaling the game, where as Alex St John of Wild Tangent partially blames Microsoft and Intel.

 

[TerranUp16]

I find it interesting Lombardi take sole responsibility for scaling the game, where as Alex St John of Wild Tangent partially blames Microsoft and Intel.

Imo it's a mix. It's going to be interesting to see what the "next generation" integrated chips can do because newer PC graphics technology (such as Crysis uses) like shadowmaps are going to be great for forward scalability but don't scale back too well (that is, if you can run Crysis at >=25fps on Medium, you have a rig capable of handling the technology, and going forward the technology will always scale well back to that set-up but it won't scale well beyond that, so if we were to say the bottom line for that was a 7800GTX then that could potentially be useful yet with that technology for games 2-3 years from now even, but if you have a 6600GT... though, I must say, I have heard of 6800 Ultra's being able to pull Medium settings in Crysis at 1280x1024 and a respectable framerate). The simple answer, ofc, is to just not use stuff like Shadowmaps until the bottom-end of what they can support are better supported, but then you're not making great use of what you can do on the high-end- so then this is where the whole issue with the integrated hardware not being up to snuff comes in.

 

[Menelmarar]

Shack: Does the responsibility lie somewhat with the hardware manufacturers to market their products in a reasonable way, or is it up to the developers to set sane requirements?

Doug Lombardi: Oh I think it's totally the fault of the developers. Totally the fault of the developers. I mean the graphics guys, their job to keep pushing the envelope, and as they push the envelope, move the lower-end cards down to a nice price point, so that there's always this evolution that's happening. If you're a hot rod type of guy, and you want to spend $400 on the latest thing, you want to have a smoking machine, and when Left 4 Dead comes out you want to run it at its highest resolution with killer framerates, and call your buddies over for a beer and make them all drool over your system, awesome. But if you're just a guy who wants a decent PC for less than a thousand bucks, and wants to be able to run games on it, there should be a card out there that runs games at a decent famerate and decent fluidity. Then it's on us to write for both of those guys.

And this is why Valve succeeds while companies like Crytek complain about piracy and that they are moving over to console development. Yeah, forget the fact that a very small percentage of PCs can actually run Crysis at anything approaching a decent framerate.

I can build a system form newegg for around 700-800 with a Q6600/E8400 w/ 4gb ram and an 8800GT. That will run Crysis very fluidly on a 19" display at high graphics, and higher resolutions at slightly lowered resolutions..... so there you go. According to Valve, they succeeded, but somehow, they didn't...

 

[Injection of <3]

I can build a system form newegg for around 700-800 with a Q6600/E8400 w/ 4gb ram and an 8800GT. That will run Crysis very fluidly on a 19" display at high graphics, and higher resolutions at slightly lowered resolutions..... so there you go. According to Valve, they succeeded, but somehow, they didn't...

You missed the point completely. Portal is worth playing on a weak pc, Crysis isnt.

And an 8800gt is hardly enough to appreciate Crysis' graphics.

 

[TerranUp16]

You missed the point completely. Portal is worth playing on a weak pc, Crysis isnt.

And an 8800gt is hardly enough to appreciate Crysis' graphics.

Debatable, but resolution does make a huge difference in Crysis so the 8800GT argument does hold some water given that while Medium settings look great, High is what truly differentiates Crysis from everything else and Very High is just so far beyond... What's also debatable is that Crysis isn't worth playing with weaker PC's/toned-down graphics- those first six missions... trés bien. But those only account for a third of the game. But they also pretty much have infinite replay value (and any two of those first six missions can potentially take longer than all of Portal vanilla). But I'll settle for simply saying that I like both and can't wait to play Crysis with a GTX 280, xD

 

[Moofasa~]

I can build a system form newegg for around 700-800 with a Q6600/E8400 w/ 4gb ram and an 8800GT. That will run Crysis very fluidly on a 19" display at high graphics, and higher resolutions at slightly lowered resolutions..... so there you go. According to Valve, they succeeded, but somehow, they didn't...

Yeah but when Portal came out an equivalent system to the one above did not exist (at least not for $700-$800), but it still performed well.

 

[TerranUp16]

Yeah but when Portal came out an equivalent system to the one above did not exist (at least not for $700-$800), but it still performed well.

Lombardi did say under $1000 And as I recall, the 8800GT came out right around the same time the OB did (a little before, but not more than a month before).

 

[Moofasa~]

Lombardi did say under $1000 And as I recall, the 8800GT came out right around the same time the OB did (a little before, but not more than a month before).

But you're severely missing the point. Yes, you could build a decent machine for a grand (not $700-$800 as you originally suggested) on a machine two weeks after a game comes out and be able to play that game fine. Lombardi talked about buying a $1000 computer eighteen months before a game gets released and still being able to play it fine. With Portal one could do that, but not with Crysis.

 

[TerranUp16]

But you're severely missing the point. Yes, you could build a decent machine for a grand (not $700-$800 as you originally suggested) on a machine two weeks after a game comes out and be able to play that game fine. Lombardi talked about buying a $1000 computer eighteen months before a game gets released and still being able to play it fine. With Portal one could do that, but not with Crysis.

I didn't suggest it, I just made a snide comment afterward, xD

 

[3DChipset]

I'm confused... Is he contradicting himself in the beginning of the interview by saying that PC gamers are graphic whores? Then goes to say that the graphic games don't sell well due to the high-end graphics needed to run and that like 70% to 80% of people can't afford it? So............ How can a developer make money if you try to push the envelope? The developer either gets slammed for the game not looking so great so he can get more consumers to run it. Or that the game looks great but can't run it due to the high requirements? It's sort of a mixed bag on the success of a game.

With a console, you got a fixed system and the developer knows his limitations...

 

[TerranUp16]

I'm confused... Is he contradicting himself in the beginning of the interview by saying that PC gamers are graphic whores? Then goes to say that the graphic games don't sell well due to the high-end graphics needed to run and that like 70% to 80% of people can't afford it? So............ How can a developer make money if you try to push the envelope? The developer either gets slammed for the game not looking so great so he can get more consumers to run it. Or that the game looks great but can't run it due to the high requirements? It's sort of a mixed bag on the success of a game.

With a console, you got a fixed system and the developer knows his limitations...

He's advocating a more incremental approach to high-end graphics (though I don't wholly support that- imo, that's fine for the mass market PC games, but I very much like Crysis and Company of Heroes and such which push the envelope on graphics as well). Nevertheless, you try running the Orange Box on your 360 at 1920x1200 with 4xMSAA and 16xAF and tell me how that works

As for developers knowing console limitations... go play Two Worlds on the 360, xD (and you thought you only had to fiddle with graphics settings on the PC, rofl).

 

[Serpico]

I'm confused... Is he contradicting himself in the beginning of the interview by saying that PC gamers are graphic whores? Then goes to say that the graphic games don't sell well due to the high-end graphics needed to run and that like 70% to 80% of people can't afford it? So............ How can a developer make money if you try to push the envelope? The developer either gets slammed for the game not looking so great so he can get more consumers to run it. Or that the game looks great but can't run it due to the high requirements? It's sort of a mixed bag on the success of a game.

With a console, you got a fixed system and the developer knows his limitations...

He specifically says gameplay before graphics, and when it comes to graphics it needs to be a system that can be scaled to a wide variety of systems, both high and low end.

Valve and Blizzard by no means push the upper end of what hardware is capable of, but they make a very good argument that that level of visuals is secondary to the game mechanics itself.

On a side note, Valve has very talented artists on their team. IMO their games look a lot better than games that run on more "advanced" engines that push the hardware further. The right color palette and overall art direction has a lot to do with something looking good, and in some cases it can shore up the technical deficiencies of the software or hardware platform it is running on top of.

 

[TerranUp16]

On a side note, Valve has very talented artists on their team. IMO their games look a lot better than games that run on more "advanced" engines that push the hardware further. The right color palette and overall art direction has a lot to do with something looking good, and in some cases it can shore up the technical deficiencies of the software or hardware platform it is running on top of.

Agreed. If Nintendo could just get some AA on Super Mario Galaxy it would be amazing, xD But yeah, the Wii and particularly Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3 have certainly proven the power of excellent art direction.

 

[Serpico]

With a console, you got a fixed system and the developer knows his limitations...

Consoles do have an advantage of being able to squeeze every last ounce of performance our of their hardware. Look at God Of War 2, an absolutely incredible looking game from 2007 that was cranked out of an ancient console from 2000. The best looking games on any console come out towards their end of life. The situation with the 360 and PS3 will be no exception.

That said, Valve's hardware survey goes a long way towards helping them target the widest audience possible, thus setting upper and lower end limitations on the games they are working on. The PC is a more fluid platform that doesn't get developers optimizing for as much as with consoles, but that isn't to say that limits with PCs are an unknown now that Valve can gather statistics from millions of their customers.

 

[Serpico]

Agreed. If Nintendo could just get some AA on Super Mario Galaxy it would be amazing, xD But yeah, the Wii and particularly Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3 have certainly proven the power of excellent art direction.

I agree, those are both gorgeous looking games and yes, AA would have been the last bit of icing on the cake of Galaxy. Other than some sometimes very apparent jaggies, it was absolutely stunning.

It also reminded me that way too many developers are phoning it in on the Wii. The Gamecube had some fantastic looking games during the time it was out, the Wii is more powerful than the Gamecube and the XBox, and yet a lot of the Wii titles actually look on par with or worse than games on those older systems did. Every now and then you get a game like Mario Galaxy to show what it can really do, but WTF.

 

[TerranUp16]

It also reminded me that way too many developers are phoning it in on the Wii. The Gamecube had some fantastic looking games during the time it was out, the Wii is more powerful than the Gamecube and the XBox, and yet a lot of the Wii titles actually look on par with or worse than games on those older systems did. Every now and then you get a game like Mario Galaxy to show what it can really do, but WTF.

Check-out The Conduit if you get a chance (not out yet, doesn't even have a publisher yet, but IGN has some coverage of it).

 

[ianken]

Crysis was ahead of its time, unfortunately, but we'll see what happens w/it now that the GTX 280 .

People keep saying this but it is just not the case. It was slow eye-candy. There was no new game-play. The AI was dated. The game balance was a joke. The story was laughable. Other than bling at settings beyond any current gaming rigs Crysis brought absolutely nothing to the table.

Even if the game ran at 120Hz with all settings to max it would still be a mediocre offering.

Crytek suffers from the iD Syndrome big-time.

 

[MrkXCeL]

...but I very much like Crysis and Company of Heroes and such which push the envelope on graphics as well). Nevertheless, you try running the Orange Box on your 360 at 1920x1200 with 4xMSAA and 16xAF and tell me how that works ...

cute, but very true, but didn't I hear something about Valve putting in much more development time into the x360 version versus the PC version of HL2 EP2? Wasn't there some talk about how the visuals (not talking about resolution) looked better on the x360 version? Correct me if I'm wrong, maybe this was all talk, or maybe it was patched lateron. I was on the virge of buying Orange Box half a dozen times. Bought HL2, and EP1, HL1, CS1.6, CS:S, but I kept getting those pesky google results talking about how the PC version got shafted and could not justify buying Orange Box based on how EP2 got handled.

 

[MartinX]

On a side note, Valve has very talented artists on their team. IMO their games look a lot better than games that run on more "advanced" engines that push the hardware further. The right color palette and overall art direction has a lot to do with something looking good, and in some cases it can shore up the technical deficiencies of the software or hardware platform it is running on top of.

Blizzard did exactly the same sort of thing with WoW (and W3), they deliberately chose a sort of cartoony art style that didn't require high resolutions or massive textures to look good, so it looks good and runs fine.

The ones who fall down on the technical side are the ones going for the more "realistic" look, because you absolutley need high resolutions, high detail textures and lots of polygons and/or shaders to pull it off without looking crappy, which kicks the crap out of most systems and immediately limits appeal to potential customers. I mean, I didn't buy Crysis purely because I knew it wouldn't look/run good on my PC, and I know I'm not alone.

Also, there's a lot to be said for good code optimization, prime example COD4, there are lot of games out there that manage to look AND run worse, the only excuse for that is that the underlying engine is crap, or has been poorly ustilised.

 

[maleficarus]

The reason why I have always considered PC gaming a cut above console gaming is for the simple fact that you can tone the settings to suit your hardware needs and also when new PC games comes out they usually have something new and exciting to see. You don't really get that with console gaming as you have a set of pre determined specs that for the next 3 to 5 years cannot really alter. As for the argument that PC gaming is more expensive I disagree. By the time you buy all the things that make a console gaming experience truly enjoyable you have spent all most as much if not more these days. The days of $200 PS2's are over.

Everything starts with the PC anyways right? There was a trend that I saw back 8 years ago now I believe that when I first say it made me wonder why. Don't know if you guys can recall but back then PC game boxes were twice the size of console game boxes and when you walked into an EB or Wal-Mart all you really noticed was PC games. They all of a sudden did a 180 and reduced the size to equal console game sizes--this in effect took the emphasis away from PC gaming back to console gaming. Wasn’t that at around the same time as Microsoft’s Xbox release? Enough of my rant. On a finally note I think of PC gaming as total content while console gaming is more arcade fun.

 

[Replicant1911]

wow that valve guy has a really good head on his shoulders

 

[Megalomaniac]

Also:



Valve and Blizzard adhere to this in a huge way and they are extremely successful. Coincidence?

Add Stardock to that, they also adhere to that idea.

Oh yes, i kinda liked Dougs answer about the gaming alliance and MS.... didnt Doug work for MS before Valve?

 

[AciDeX]

Add Stardock to that, they also adhere to that idea.

Oh yes, i kinda liked Dougs answer about the gaming alliance and MS.... didnt Doug work for MS before Valve?

+1 for Stardock, I just spent 6+ hours last night playing Sins of a Solar Empire for the first time. My friend and I setup a LAN skirmish to "break in" my roommates new rig I just built him last week(E8400, 8800GTS[G92], 4Gb DDR2800) both systems ran the game beutifully at max settings(1680 x 1050) and I was even surprised at my performance with my steadily aging CPU and ancient RAM lol.

These three companys are doing something right thats for sure. I'd also like to add The Witcher to the list, its using the Aurora Engine if I remeber the [H] reveiw correctly and looks really good too allthough can stress the system at high settings easily.

 

[Mehen]

But talking purely in terms of the Wii, the PS3, and the 360, if you added those together and looked at the whole picture, I'd bet you PC would be even, if not bigger than those three systems in terms of the money that's changing hands and the opportunity for doing business.

Wii, PS3, 360 vs. WoW alone?

I'm sure the consoles are ahead there, but still...

 

[gmcustom]

Wii, PS3, 360 vs. WoW alone?

I'm sure the consoles are ahead there, but still...

I think he is saying if you look at PC gaming worldwide and include everything. (Remember NPD doesn't count certain retailers like Walmart, doesn't count etailers, digital distrobution, subscription fees, and is US only) That the amount of money changing hands matches if not beats out all the consoles put together.

 

[TerranUp16]

cute, but very true, but didn't I hear something about Valve putting in much more development time into the x360 version versus the PC version of HL2 EP2? Wasn't there some talk about how the visuals (not talking about resolution) looked better on the x360 version? Correct me if I'm wrong, maybe this was all talk, or maybe it was patched lateron. I was on the virge of buying Orange Box half a dozen times. Bought HL2, and EP1, HL1, CS1.6, CS:S, but I kept getting those pesky google results talking about how the PC version got shafted and could not justify buying Orange Box based on how EP2 got handled.

Propaganda... My friend has the OB on his 360 and it looks significantly worse than it does on my PC (the lack of AA is obvious) and I'm not the only one who has mentioned that (and I'm definitely not the first on these forums to mention that). Valve themselves have stated numerous times that the PC is their first priority, and the only reason that there is even a 360 version of the OB and a 360 version of Left 4 Dead is because it's relatively easy money for them and doesn't take them a great deal to convert their PC version over). And between Portal: Flash Map Pack and TF2's Badlands, Gold Rush, and Medic updates, the last thing the PC version of the OB got was shafted. And, once again, resolution and AA are huge, imo, in terms of the OB's image quality, and those are two things the 360 version of it doesn't have and it really shows.

Wii, PS3, 360 vs. WoW alone?

I'm sure the consoles are ahead there, but still...

WoW alone? Have you checked the size of Steam lately? 15 million users, Orange Box sales that were exceeding sales of its console brethren by a double digit number (and it's probably a three digit number by now courtesy of how PC game sales work vs. console game sales). And it's not like Call of Duty 4, Crysis, Unreal Tournament 3, Bioshock, etc... have sold paltry amounts either on the PC.

And SoaSE is awesome =)

People keep saying this but it is just not the case. It was slow eye-candy. There was no new game-play. The AI was dated. The game balance was a joke. The story was laughable. Other than bling at settings beyond any current gaming rigs Crysis brought absolutely nothing to the table.

Even if the game ran at 120Hz with all settings to max it would still be a mediocre offering.

Crytek suffers from the iD Syndrome big-time

Don't like the AI? Head over to ModDB and install the latest mod that buffs it up. Don't like the game itself? Download a mod. Like the first six missions but hate the rest of the game? Download custom maps that are reminiscent of those first six missions. Yay PC!

But really, Crysis's AI (caveat- I play on Delta mode) put-up a good fight and perhaps more importantly did a very good job at being believable. This isn't GRAW on the 360 where an enemy can somehow headshot you with his back to you. In Crysis, the AI does a very good job of knowing only what it's supposed to. At times, that limits it, and at times it acts dumber than it has to or perhaps should, but if you allow yourself to immerse yourself in Crysis and don't set about with the only goal of breaking the AI, then it is very effective AI. But it's AI- it can be broken, and you can screw with it and whatever.

But yeah, the story was laughable. But the graphics are not. And when I said it was ahead of its time, I was speaking of its graphics.

 

[TerranUp16]

Part 2

As far as any Wii efforts, imo Valve just needs to make their own versions of such mods as Half-Life 2 Wii (which lets you use the Wiimote and Nunchuck in HL2 PC).

The Free Weekends are definitely great- I haven't used them personally, but one of the big justifications for piracy is that it allows for a fuller demo and more informed purchase and definitely free weekends can pound such a justification into the ground (and if there's any truth to such justifications, they should also be great PR as it would show that Valve properly recognizes certain people's concerns).

As for the free-to-play model, this, imo, is Lombardi's only major faltering point. He seems more fixated on microtransactions whereas if you look at EA and Battlefield: Heroes they're much more interested in ad revenue. I very much doubt that heavy-handed microtransactions will catch-on in the Western market, but advertising certainly can as long as it's handled well and the link between the ads and getting to play the game for free is clear. What's further interesting is that Steam itself is largely bereft of advertisement- all the ads it has are geared towards directing users to certain Steam products.