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cphite
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Re: Why do gamers accept the Great Platform Divide?

Fri Nov 18, 2011 5:06 pm

FubbHead wrote:
I agree. Not that I find it is something that could be forced upon publishers, but yeah, I kind of bought the game, whatever platform I wish to play it on shouldn't matter. Maybe I wanna play it on my PC, while the girlfriend fancies the console..


You didn't buy the game. You bought a piece of software written for a specific platform that allows you to play the game. That software required a team of developers to write, test, and rewrite code to run on and take (hopefully) take the greatest advantage of that platform. It required a team of business people and lawyers to come to an agreement with the folks who own the platform. It required a team of marketing people to handle whatever it is that marketing people do.

All of those people need to be paid, and use equipment and materials that cost money.

Now, at some point more and more companies might decide to sell you the game in the manner you're talking about, and let you play it on any platform you want. But I wouldn't expect to see that become common practice, because creating three (or more) versions of the same thing is more expensive than creating one, and in order to account for that they'd have to either a) sell the game for a much higher price, or b) come up with a cross-platform version of the game that would run on all platforms but not really run optimally on any of them. (To be fair, a lot of companies are already doing this to some degree or another and the results are as you might expect: crap.)

Now, one might be tempted to say "But Valve did this with Portal 2..." and that would be true; but that's because Valve made a business decision that providing an online version of the game along with the PS3 version would encourage PS3 players to buy the game because folks like to feel like they're getting something extra, or would entice PS3 players who might not yet be Steam users to try out Steam, etc. There could be many reasons to do this, but I'd be willing to bet that none of them are anything along the lines of "Wouldn't it be really, really nice if we did this?" Valve isn't doing this with all of their games, because Valve is running a business.
 
Igor_Kavinski
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Re: Why do gamers accept the Great Platform Divide?

Sat Nov 19, 2011 12:45 am

OK, I concede what you say is valid. But returning customers ought to get a discount at the very least. Say, I bought Deus Ex for PS3. Had a blast with it. Now after spending tons of time with the game, I am kinda bored. I want something different. I'm itching to try the PC version to see the extra detail. I go online and even after many weeks having gone by, the damn thing is selling for 40 bucks. In the end, my curiosity and compulsion might force me to plop down the cash. But at the end of the day, I will still be angry that I had to pay full price for something that I already had. Some sort of promotional discount coupon with every console game would be a nice gesture from these companies to tell us that yes, they do care about us and not just the money. Once one or two of the big fish make a splash, the others will have little choice but to follow. Because no one wants to appear uncool.
 
Bensam123
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Re: Why do gamers accept the Great Platform Divide?

Sat Nov 19, 2011 5:09 am

I think you're grossly inflating the cost of porting games. At some level, all employees need to be paid. When you're talking about a studio of 200 or more people, having a full time accountant, lawyer, and marketing staff is already figured into that. That's why companies shoot their games over all platforms at the same time. It usually doesn't come out JUST for a Xbox because it's easily profitable porting it across all systems. The rare exception to this is exclusives and one of the big companies pay for that right.

That's part of what drives the greed in this case. It has nothing to do with technological or financial limitations and has everything to do with sucking more money out of consumers. Yes, they are already doing your version of B. That is common place. No developer would optimize their game for all pieces of hardware; that is part of why it's so rare to see games made for PCs first and foremost. If they aren't going to develop for superior hardware (PCs), why would they take the time to optimize it solely for a Xbox or PS? Thats pretty much one of the leading causes of consolization. They're making it for a inferior system because it's all around cheaper. When they have such a low baseline in terms of expectations and technology, they can put a lot less into what they're creating. They can put out utter crap by the truckload and people will gobble it up because that is what they're used to.

SPOOFE wrote:
No, PC gaming took its own wind. I remember the late '90s, and I remember every symptom of "consolitis" existing even then. I remember gamers regularly complaining about how devs just "focus on graphics and not gameplay". I remember that Daikatana was NOT a console game! :)


I'm not sure if that's sarcasm or not, but I'll treat it as not. They didn't start dumbing things down for the PC till the current generation of consoles. There were a lot of crappy games before the great consolization took place, that is for sure, and there was a trend where they kept improving graphics and not gameplay... that ended pretty much with Crysis being the hallmark of that. It was beautiful, but the game sucked. There were a lot of games that both looked good and had good game play though. A ton of good RTS's were released in between the 90s and when consolization took place. Yet after consolization happened how many great RTS's have come out? RTS's have essentially died out in the last six years because they're impossible to port to a console.

In the last six years I can only name a handful of notable RTS's. Starcraft 2 is one of them, but that is arguably just a clone of Starcraft. Men of War... Sins of a Solar Empire... Civilization V (lumping a TBS in there)... Three? You could argue the merit of adding Supreme Commander to that, but they never figured it out. The first one had terrible performance. The second one was designed to be playable on consoles, but of course it sucked it up and was dumbed down because of it. There is a buck to this trend, which is the current DotA craze, but I don't think that qualifies as a RTS (more of a RPG).

The lack of good gameplay in games can be attributed to a lot of different things (uninspired or unmotivated developers, developers that don't know what they're doing, lack of vision). The same can't be said about graphics, which is a very quantitative problem. You can simply throw more artists at graphics and improve the engine. That has a very tangible answer. Minecraft is a perfect example of this.

Consolization in it's current form isn't just bad graphics or gameplay, it's having a completely dumbed down game.
 
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Re: Why do gamers accept the Great Platform Divide?

Sat Nov 19, 2011 10:26 am

I'm tired of hearing about how games being optimized for consoles is destroying PC gaming.

Why shouldn't games be optimized for consoles? Consoles are the market. They're profitable, much more resistant to piracy, allow for a stable platform for devs, and consoles are ubiquitious. This is how free markets work.

So seriously, quit complaining about this. Don't hate the player (consoles), hate the game (capitalism).
 
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Re: Why do gamers accept the Great Platform Divide?

Sat Nov 19, 2011 11:35 am

Bensam123 wrote:
That's part of what drives the greed in this case. It has nothing to do with technological or financial limitations and has everything to do with sucking more money out of consumers. Yes, they are already doing your version of B. That is common place. No developer would optimize their game for all pieces of hardware; that is part of why it's so rare to see games made for PCs first and foremost. If they aren't going to develop for superior hardware (PCs), why would they take the time to optimize it solely for a Xbox or PS? Thats pretty much one of the leading causes of consolization. They're making it for a inferior system because it's all around cheaper.
They're making it for an inferior system because those inferior systems are the market. This isn't called "greed". It's called "running a business". You design and market a product that appeals to as many people as possible. If you think you have a superior business model/idea, feel free to start your own instead of of complaining about "greed" on the interwebs.

At the end of the day, PC gamers are all angry and hateful because their platform of choice isn't the market.

Ever stop to really think about why that is?

Hmm.
 
Igor_Kavinski
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Re: Why do gamers accept the Great Platform Divide?

Sat Nov 19, 2011 12:01 pm

I suspect part of the problem is Microsoft themselves. They have a billion dollar Xbox business. It's not in their best interests to make the PC a viable platform for games. If games were as easy to run as put in a disc and start playing on the PC, Microsoft would lose out on royalties that would otherwise go to their Xbox division. And I bet you my kingdom that most of those Xbox gamers (especially the 30-40 years old demographic) switched to the Xbox due to its superior and relatively hassle-free operation. If I were in a cynical mood, I would say that Microsoft deliberately made Games for Windows Live to fail. Just so they could force angry PC gamers to give up the platform altogether and adopt a new religion of gaming. One that lets them have fun without posing any threat to their sanity. Just look at Valve. They want the PC to succeed as a gaming platform because the success of the PC platform is tied to the success of their content delivery platform. So they went to work and showed the world how. Microsoft has an order of magnitude more resources at their disposal to compete with Valve. Do they even care to compete? Not if it means threatening one of their fat cash cows.
 
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Re: Why do gamers accept the Great Platform Divide?

Sat Nov 19, 2011 12:21 pm

Vrock wrote:
Bensam123 wrote:
At the end of the day, PC gamers are all angry and hateful because their platform of choice isn't the market.

Ever stop to really think about why that is?

Hmm.

No mystery there, a good gaming PC is more expensive and requires more work and maintenance than a console, where you just slap a disc in the drive and it does what it's supposed to do. Theres a trade off here in quality, and customizability of the experience as well as replay value but it's not the first industry where the easier/cheaper method wins out because people are either lazy, ignorant, or generally feel like they have better things to do.

I can see people getting upset when things go to the lowest common denominator, it's annoying that Budweiser is the most popular beer in America, McDonalds sells the most popular burger, etc. but Vrock is right the market flows to the cheapest and easiest solution.

Getting that top level experience is always going to mean spending more money, more time waiting, and be generally more difficult to get and use. For the people that care the payoff is worth it, but that will never be the majority.
 
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Re: Why do gamers accept the Great Platform Divide?

Sat Nov 19, 2011 2:03 pm

Igor_Kavinski wrote:
I suspect part of the problem is Microsoft themselves. They have a billion dollar Xbox business. It's not in their best interests to make the PC a viable platform for games.
Newsflash: IT NEVER WAS. PC existed long before Xbox. MS created Xbox because they knew that the PC would never be the gaming platform for the masses.

Igor_Kavinski wrote:
If I were in a cynical mood, I would say that Microsoft deliberately made Games for Windows Live to fail. Just so they could force angry PC gamers to give up the platform altogether and adopt a new religion of gaming.
Uh, if they wanted to do that, they could just stop Direct X development and stop making PC games altogether. Games For Windows Live is an attempt to give the PC platform some of the strengths and similarities of the consoles, not kill PC gaming altogether.
 
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Re: Why do gamers accept the Great Platform Divide?

Sat Nov 19, 2011 2:07 pm

leor wrote:
I can see people getting upset when things go to the lowest common denominator, it's annoying that Budweiser is the most popular beer in America, McDonalds sells the most popular burger, etc. but Vrock is right the market flows to the cheapest and easiest solution.
You don't get mad at Anheuser-Busch or McD's for producing what they produce, though. That's what I don't get from the PC gaming crowd, the pure hatred they have for consoles. Doesn't make sense. I prefer Sam Adams to Bud, and I prefer Red Robin (as an example) to McDonalds. But the PC gamers here are demanding that Bud and McD's make Red Robin burgers and Sam Adams beer, and they get pissed when they don't. It's stupid.
 
Igor_Kavinski
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Re: Why do gamers accept the Great Platform Divide?

Sat Nov 19, 2011 2:22 pm

Vrock wrote:
Uh, if they wanted to do that, they could just stop Direct X development and stop making PC games altogether.


You know, I so wish that would happen. Coz then people will take matters into their own hands. OpenGL will flourish and Linux will overtake Windows as the PC gaming OS of choice. Which is exactly why M$ cannot afford to halt DirectX development.

Vrock wrote:
Games For Windows Live is an attempt to give the PC platform some of the strengths and similarities of the consoles, not kill PC gaming altogether.


If GFWL is the best a multi-billion dollar company can do to save PC gaming, we might as well don our funeral attire and start singing hymns.
 
SPOOFE
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Re: Why do gamers accept the Great Platform Divide?

Sat Nov 19, 2011 4:38 pm

They didn't start dumbing things down for the PC till the current generation of consoles.

No, you are remembering things very incorrectly.

A ton of good RTS's were released in between the 90s and when consolization took place.

And RTS's never really picked up on consoles, so if what you're saying had any accuracy, RTS's should still be a thriving, healthy market segment for PC's. I'm sorry, but Warcraft 2 and C&C took over the majority of the RTS scene in the mid-'90s, and everything else was a relative drop in the bucket. And then Starcraft came along and swept up a huge swath of the RTS market in the same way that WoW has kept a massive chunk of the MMO market. Like I said, PC gaming took its own wind.

You can simply throw more artists at graphics and improve the engine. That has a very tangible answer.

Oh yes, it's so simple! Just act like money grows on trees and computers are programmed with kind words and rainbows!

Consolization in it's current form isn't just bad graphics or gameplay, it's having a completely dumbed down game.

And yet dumbed down games existed even when PC gaming was dominant. Something doesn't jive.
 
RealityChk
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Re: Why do gamers accept the Great Platform Divide?

Sat Nov 19, 2011 6:33 pm

If you can't host/server the game, your not
really playing the game. Tailoring the game
for your friends to play is what its all about.

I guess that leaves alot of platforms and games out.
Hp h8-1020 i7 Win7 Pro, HyperX 120 GB SSD
too Old & Lazy to build my own
 
SPOOFE
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Re: Why do gamers accept the Great Platform Divide?

Sat Nov 19, 2011 6:59 pm

If you can't host/server the game, your not really playing the game.

If you can figure out how to host/server God of War 3, I'll eat my underpants and put the video on Youtube for all to see. :)
 
leor
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Re: Why do gamers accept the Great Platform Divide?

Sun Nov 20, 2011 2:36 am

Vrock wrote:
leor wrote:
I can see people getting upset when things go to the lowest common denominator, it's annoying that Budweiser is the most popular beer in America, McDonalds sells the most popular burger, etc. but Vrock is right the market flows to the cheapest and easiest solution.
You don't get mad at Anheuser-Busch or McD's for producing what they produce, though. That's what I don't get from the PC gaming crowd, the pure hatred they have for consoles. Doesn't make sense. I prefer Sam Adams to Bud, and I prefer Red Robin (as an example) to McDonalds. But the PC gamers here are demanding that Bud and McD's make Red Robin burgers and Sam Adams beer, and they get pissed when they don't. It's stupid.

I think what they (sometimes we) get pissed about is going to red robin and getting something that tastes suspiciously like a big Mac. We paid the red robin prices, what's with the 2 partially beef patties, special sauce lettuce and cheese?

That's the real complaint, companies being too lazy to treat the pc gamer properly. It's not restricted to PC, there are plenty of games that began life on one console, got ported to another, and had a bad experience along the way. No one appreciates a bad port, I think if there were less obnoxious examples of that going on for the PC in particular, the outcry would settle down quite a bit. I still can't get rage to work properly on my i7 920 6950 system.
 
Bensam123
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Re: Why do gamers accept the Great Platform Divide?

Sun Nov 20, 2011 6:38 am

Consoles aren't 'just' the market. They were proclaimed that as a bunch of developers jumped the PC gaming scene after they turned out piles of crap and then blamed it on piracy and the PC gaming dieing. MMOs would say quite a bit contrary to consoles just being the market. WoW for that matter is one of them, but there are tons of MMOs of them that are thriving and they don't have a version for the console. Steam is another very good indication of how well PC gaming is thriving. Developers are starting to go 'hey PC gaming isn't dead now' and they're starting to refocus on it, BF3 is the latest example of that.

You don't need a good gaming PC to play games. You never needed a good gaming PC to do it. This ties directly in with the whole ULTRA setting entitlement. People seem to think they HAVE TO play a game on the highest settings. You've never had to do that and it doesn't take a whole lot to play a game on the computer. If you can put a disk in the drive on a console, you can do it on a computer too. These are all issues exasperated by those said developers making crappy games then abandoning PCs for consoles. That particular point is one of the bullets they used against PCs, which was and still is a bunch of BS.

Installing games isn't hard at all and I say that with utmost confidence of John Doe being able to figure it out. Even my dad and mom have figured out how to install applications. If companies actually strived to show people how easy it is to hook a computer up to their TV this would further push consoles out of the arena. This is one of the reasons why Microsoft and Sony try so hard to stay away from that. Like I said that very distinction is the only thing keeping them in the living room.

You can mark my words here and now. As soon as this starts happening, developers start to see how much more you can do on a PC and they actually gain a vision, the next generation of consoles will come out with todays 'medium-high' level of hardware, just as they did the last time. That's how you stay ahead of the trend. You hang the carrot out just far enough so they wont ever bite it or notice they're chasing it and then when they get sick of it, you let them eat it and dangle another one further out.


And RTS's never really picked up on consoles, so if what you're saying had any accuracy, RTS's should still be a thriving, healthy market segment for PC's.


That only works if RTS's were completely separate from the gaming market as a whole (they aren't). If all your friends jump ship and say the ship is sinking, are you going to sit around and play on?

And yet dumbed down games existed even when PC gaming was dominant.


You are correct, there always has been and always will be terrible games. Having variation taken away is something completely different.
 
SPOOFE
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Re: Why do gamers accept the Great Platform Divide?

Sun Nov 20, 2011 3:18 pm

MMOs would say quite a bit contrary to consoles just being the market. WoW for that matter is one of them, but there are tons of MMOs of them that are thrivin

Actually, it indicates the opposite: When a single game is so dominant in a genre for several years in a row - and mind you, this is an industry with very rapid churn and turnover - it suggests a heavy amount of stagnation. Further, WoW is completely contrary to the notion of "PC is teh graphixXx king".

Steam is another very good indication of how well PC gaming is thriving.

Steam just shows that Valve saw the writing on the wall; if PC gaming were thriving, they wouldn't have changed business models.

You don't need a good gaming PC to play games.

Of course; Zynga makes lots of games. :D

People seem to think they HAVE TO play a game on the highest settings.

They do if they want "the bettarz graphixXx" touted by the PC fanatical.

You can mark my words here and now.

Marked.

As soon as this starts happening, developers start to see how much more you can do on a PC and they actually gain a vision

Developers will always see how much LESS they will sell on the PC.

That only works if RTS's were completely separate from the gaming market as a whole (they aren't).

The simple fact that you identified RTS's as their own separate category sure seems to indicate that there is a separation.

If all your friends jump ship and say the ship is sinking, are you going to sit around and play on?

If there's a lack of RTS's on consoles, what do all your friends jump ship TO?

Having variation taken away is something completely different.

"Lack of variation" was also a common lament of the PC-dominated late '90s. Ever hear the term "Command & Copy"? "Quake clones"? I think the real issue here is your rose-colored glasses, my friend.
 
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Re: Why do gamers accept the Great Platform Divide?

Mon Nov 21, 2011 5:29 am

WoW was an example of PC gaming still being profitable even though most developers jumped ship for the 'more' profitable console. You could add the recent trend towards microtransactions and f2p games to that as well.

Steam and Steampowered are two different parts of the same company. One that makes games and the other is a distribution system. Steampowered is still thriving and Steam still makes games (Portal 2, TF2s constant updates). They didn't throw away one part of the company for the other.

There are all sorts of variants well ahead of consoles and not the top of the line hardware you can buy. You're trying to take things to an extreme.

RTS is a genre of video games just the same as action or mystery is a type of movie...

You can stop making RTSs and make other games...

Command and Copy? Give me a game that tried to copy CnCs oversimplified RTS style game. That is the first time I've heard of that also the first time I've heard of Quake Clones. It is entirely possible that there was copying that went on before then, but once again that is just about all there is now. Once again you're attempting to take things to an extreme. There will always be copying in any matter of entertainment, the sheer amount and scale of it is completely different. What we're looking at is comparing the amount of variation now compared to what was.


I'm pretty sure at this point you're just trying to troll me though as almost none of those comments warranted responses. They didn't have counter points and only attempted to deflect the points I was making. IE by finding little loopholes and trivial points of conflict... ALL GAMING PCS ARE SUPER EXPENSIVE!!!!1111... 1 Like that.
 
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Re: Why do gamers accept the Great Platform Divide?

Mon Nov 21, 2011 7:10 am

To answer the original post, I don't really care. I don't own a wii, PS3, or 360 so it makes zero difference to me if I get a console version as well.
 
SPOOFE
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Re: Why do gamers accept the Great Platform Divide?

Mon Nov 21, 2011 5:35 pm

WoW was an example of PC gaming still being profitable even though most developers jumped ship for the 'more' profitable console.

Ah, so... it was an exception from the rule, eh? There was a period of time when part of the decline in the PC market was attributed to this one game. That's not a symptom of a healthy, "thriving" market.

Steam and Steampowered are two different parts of the same company.

Steam is Valve's content distribution system. Steampowered is the website one visits to get Steam.

They didn't throw away one part of the company for the other.

Didn't they? Where's Episode 3?

There are all sorts of variants well ahead of consoles and not the top of the line hardware you can buy. You're trying to take things to an extreme.

No, I'm taking things logically. Most PC's can handle Torchlight, and not much better. And each successive step in graphical quality requires an equally successive step in expense, but that works inversely: In order to get the "better graphics" touted by detractors of console gaming, you require significantly more investment, either in time or money or skills (that most people don't have the wherewithal to explore, even if plugging a graphics card into a slot is easy) or hardware (a lot of ready-built PC's don't have a PCIe slot to spare!!).

Conversely, you're trying to suggest that getting a gaming PC is neither expensive nor potentially time consuming. I consider THAT to be taking things to an extreme.

RTS is a genre of video games just the same as action or mystery is a type of movie...

And some people don't like RTS's. I could dig deeper into why the categorical separation is more significant than you imply, but really, "genre difference" is enough to explain it all.

Command and Copy? Give me a game that tried to copy CnCs oversimplified RTS style game.

Dune II, but that's irrelevant.

That is the first time I've heard of that also the first time I've heard of Quake Clones.

That just tells me you don't remember the golden age of PC gaming. Or you merely misremember it.

Once again you're attempting to take things to an extreme.

Once again, I am doing the opposite. Conversely, you have blamed a fantasy "dumbing down" (that doesn't exist) entirely on "consoles" (despite acknowledging that such phenomena are rife in media in general); you had this bizarre obsession with consoles killing your precious RTS's (despite the fact that the market has overwhelmingly favored FPS's since, oh, ever hear of a little game called Doom?)... and, ironically, you name a series of RTS's anyway. If anyone is taking this to an extreme, 'tis you, my friend.

There will always be copying in any matter of entertainment

So you admit that consoles have nothing to do with it.

What we're looking at is comparing the amount of variation now compared to what was.

I don't think that's what we're talking about.

I'm pretty sure at this point you're just trying to troll me though as almost none of those comments warranted responses.

I'm pretty sure that if you thought I was trolling, you wouldn't have responded at all, even if it were just to say that my comments didn't warrant a response (hint: They do). I'm bringing up valid criticisms, and you're getting frustrated because you have no ready-to-order response... and also because you apparently don't really remember PC gaming's heyday. Rose-colored glasses, my friend.
 
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Re: Why do gamers accept the Great Platform Divide?

Tue Nov 22, 2011 1:02 pm

bensam123 wrote:
WoW was an example of PC gaming still being profitable even though most developers jumped ship for the 'more' profitable console. You could add the recent trend towards microtransactions and f2p games to that as well.


?!?!?!?

More profitable for BLIZZARD.

To a certain extent, gaming is a zero sum market. This tends to be the most true in the MMO market, as people tend to play only one.

Not only that, but since the MMO market bleeds considerably over into the non-MMO PC gaming market ( at least in my personal experience), the fact that Blizzard did so well with WoW means that the market is tougher for other developers.

You've got this completely backwards.
 
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Re: Why do gamers accept the Great Platform Divide?

Tue Nov 22, 2011 8:50 pm

SPOOFE wrote:
Command and Copy? Give me a game that tried to copy CnCs oversimplified RTS style game.
Dune II, but that's irrelevant.
Very few people remember that Dune pre-dated Command n Conquer in the real-time-strategy genre.
 
Bensam123
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Re: Why do gamers accept the Great Platform Divide?

Wed Nov 23, 2011 12:57 am

Glorious wrote:
ore profitable for BLIZZARD.

To a certain extent, gaming is a zero sum market. This tends to be the most true in the MMO market, as people tend to play only one.

Not only that, but since the MMO market bleeds considerably over into the non-MMO PC gaming market ( at least in my personal experience), the fact that Blizzard did so well with WoW means that the market is tougher for other developers.

You've got this completely backwards.


It's tougher for other developers because there is a limited number of gamers and Blizzard has all of them? The amount of people that play games and the amount of people in the world are vastly different. Wii is an example of how your theory does not carry through. Nintendo didn't aim for the same market that Sony and Microsoft did with the PS3/X360, instead they aimed for a completely different market and they're doing very well. You guys are using way too many absolutes to look at an abstract problem. You could add Minecraft on top of that too. What existing market did Minecraft pull all of it's players from? It is no where close to being a zero-sum game.


Spoofe you're being insanely obtuse. This is the very first time I've heard of WoW being a contributing factor to consolization. XD

Valve doesn't need to make episode 3 in order for them to still be profitable on the PC... This is completely losing sight of the original argument though and starting to get down into nit-picking apart parts you don't agree with and then using it to back your non-existant points, something I disprove of. Like this is putting aside that Valve as a company has changed drastically in the last years that has nothing to do with the nature of gaming in general, you can go read some of their interviews on devnet. Heck a lot of your arguments simply disregard variables outside your very precise scientific case study.

No, I'm taking things logically. Most PC's can handle Torchlight, and not much better. And each successive step in graphical quality requires an equally successive step in expense, but that works inversely: In order to get the "better graphics" touted by detractors of console gaming, you require significantly more investment, either in time or money or skills (that most people don't have the wherewithal to explore, even if plugging a graphics card into a slot is easy) or hardware (a lot of ready-built PC's don't have a PCIe slot to spare!!).


Here we go. See, I don't understand this logic. Simply spending less on graphics does not mean gameplay will linearly increase. They are two very distinct parts of the game. Graphics are an engineering problem with an engineering answer. You can simply throw more or less money at it and it goes up and down linearly. Gameplay depends entirely on the developers. Mincraft being a perfect example of just how the two different, like I said before.

Yet we still have titles like Rage that they threw a crap load of money and time at, yet they don't look any better then games made on the UT3 engine. Even if they have the money they can't do anything with it because consoles are so old and decrypted that it's like trying to get a rock to bleed. It very quickly approaches diminishing returns, which I already stated.

Yes, relatively speaking here, you need a better computer to run a game on high and ultra settings. It has always been that way. What is happening now and which we've tried explaining to you, is that everything has stagnated on medium settings (and the computer required to play at the level is quickly approaching the low end). Where even computers made two years ago can play games like Skyrim on ultra just fine (Q6600 with a 4870 for instance). The setting simply doesn't exist anymore. This is part of the entitlement argument I used earlier. You simply want better graphics without having to ever need to replace your hardware, yet that's like beating a dead cow. They can try, they tried with Rage, but you can see the results for yourself.

...but really, "genre difference" is enough to explain it all.


Obtuse indeed.

Once again, I am doing the opposite. Conversely, you have blamed a fantasy "dumbing down" (that doesn't exist) entirely on "consoles"...


lol... I've offered numerous examples, one of which is UE4 being delayed for 8 years.

So you admit that consoles have nothing to do with it.


Have you ever heard the term Red herring?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignoratio_ ... ed_herring

I'm pretty sure that if you thought I was trolling, you wouldn't have responded at all, even if it were just to say that my comments didn't warrant a response (hint: They do). I'm bringing up valid criticisms, and you're getting frustrated because you have no ready-to-order response...


Now that's edging awfully close to 'u mad bro' and 'qq moar'. I am quite glad you can actually perceive what I'm thinking, that makes talking to you much easier. I respond to posts as I see fit regardless of whether or not they are trolling me. Ever see me say "I don't know if that's sarcasm or not, but I'll treat it as not", It's the same thing. Spreading disinformation and sensationalism, even if it's to get me flustered, I will argue against. Consolization has taken place and it's people like you that are helping to perpetuate it. In some sort of messed up manner you think you're getting more when you're getting less.

Google consolitis.
 
SPOOFE
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Re: Why do gamers accept the Great Platform Divide?

Wed Nov 23, 2011 5:36 am

Spoofe you're being insanely obtuse. This is the very first time I've heard of WoW being a contributing factor to consolization.

I described the impact of WoW as a symptom of a not-very-healthy market. I don't think I've spoken on "consolization" other than to essentially describe it as a product of exaggeratedly fond memories.

Valve doesn't need to make episode 3 in order for them to still be profitable on the PC

A game company that doesn't need to make games to be profitable? Sure sounds like a different market than when game companies actually did need to make games to achieve the same.

What is happening now and which we've tried explaining to you, is that everything has stagnated on medium settings

More rose-colored glasses. nVidia and ATI never paid devs to make their hardware products look modest.

Obtuse indeed.

If you don't or won't understand how "different genres" might appeal to "different markets" or "different demographics" or whatever such, I don't think there's any way to NOT be obtuse when speaking to you.

lol... I've offered numerous examples, one of which is UE4 being delayed for 8 years.

And there are numerous other examples that predate "consolization" or "consolitis" or whatever bigoted-term-of-the-week we have thrown around. Games have been delayed since before consoles had 16 bits. If it existed BEFORE consoles dominated the market, the fact it also exists AFTER consoles became more popular is indicative of nothing other than that sometimes products get delayed.

You seem to have this venerable near-worship of the technology and the graphics and the ooh-la-la spectacle of the whole thing, but you're so focused on being a good fan that you forget that there's downsides to creating all this wonderful glory. First off, it's expensive. Big investments require bigger guarantee of return. That bigger return is, more often than not, superior on consoles. The fact that consoles dominate the market is what makes the market itself so profitable, which guarantees the injection of capital and the devotion of resources, which is what allows anybody to show off the technology, graphics, and ooh-la-la spectacle at all.

Bugs? Glitches? Unfinished games? Patches?

Rampant! Constant! EVERYWHERE in the PC gaming market. Heck, Fallout 2 shipped VERY incomplete. Loved the game. Deus Ex had graphical weirdness, and that consumed over a hundred hours of my life. The Wing Commander games crashed like friggin' CRAZY, but damned if I didn't put up with the frustration because locking on my Broadsword's torpedoes was that durned satisfying. Ultima VI... on that note, Ultima VII, man, was that game pure insanity with the strange quirks it had but I just... couldn't... stop playing.

Don't talk to me about examples, son.

Have you ever heard the term Red herring?

It's at this point that I start to suspect you don't even know what you're arguing anymore.

Consolization has taken place and it's people like you that are helping to perpetuate it.

Signs of schizophrenic paranoia. Yes, PC gaming certainly is a healthy, healthy market.
 
Glorious
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Re: Why do gamers accept the Great Platform Divide?

Wed Nov 23, 2011 9:33 am

bensam123 wrote:
It's tougher for other developers because there is a limited number of gamers and Blizzard has all of them?


It isn't any easier, and that's the point.

You seem to think it is, and that's bizarre. The fact that Blizzard can make tons of cash off a MMO that millions play for 10+ hours a week doesn't mean, as you indicated, that the market is flush for cash for other developers. It means the opposite.

bensam123 wrote:
The amount of people that play games and the amount of people in the world are vastly different.


But the amount of people that play the kind of PC games you want and the amount of people who are willing to play the kind of PC games you want is not.

bensam123 wrote:
Wii is an example of how your theory does not carry through. Nintendo didn't aim for the same market that Sony and Microsoft did with the PS3/X360, instead they aimed for a completely different market and they're doing very well.


....by making games completely unlike their competitors.

This exists on the PC too. You just don't care. Zynga is the analog to the wii. They make simple games that are very different from the FPS/RTS/etc... but yet are WILDLY popular. They tapped into "the amount of people in the world" market that you keep speaking of, but as I said, that's not the kind of PC gaming you're looking for.

But it isn't BF3, there aren't any "ULTRA" or "LOW" settings, and it doesn't fit the paradigm of PC Gaming that you want to see more.

bensam123 wrote:
You guys are using way too many absolutes to look at an abstract problem. You could add Minecraft on top of that too. What existing market did Minecraft pull all of it's players from? It is no where close to being a zero-sum game.


...the same one? Everyone I know who plays minecraft, including myself, is/was a RTS/FPS/RPG PC gamer. Yes, this is anecdotal, but the point is that I know LOTS of people who play Farmville/MafiaWars but have never touched that kind of PC gaming.

And minecraft, in fact, has dissuaded me from purchasing other PC games. I would have considered getting Rage, but the reality of it is that when I'm at my desktop PC I'd rather be playing minecraft. There are several games I've overlooked because of it, and I think I've only bought two PC games this year: BF3 and Deus Ex. I can directly blame mineraft for that.

Just as plenty of my other friends who used to be avid old school PC gamers, but now play MMOs, buy considerably less PC games these days.

bensam123 wrote:
Spoofe you're being insanely obtuse. This is the very first time I've heard of WoW being a contributing factor to consolization.


I'm with SPOOFE. A lot of those avid old school PC gamers only play WoW on their PCs now, but many of them still have consoles. When they are at their computer, they're playing WoW. When they are at their couch, they play other things.

bensam123 wrote:
Valve doesn't need to make episode 3 in order for them to still be profitable on the PC...


Yes, they have Steam. At this point they don't even really need to make games. And they don't. They effectively just publish them. Portal/L4D were built from developers that Valve pulled in, not their original development team.

bensam123 wrote:
Where even computers made two years ago can play games like Skyrim on ultra just fine (Q6600 with a 4870 for instance).


That was still a high-end computer two years ago. And the vast majority of people don't buy high-end computers. A lot of them buy laptops, just to start.

There are a lot of people with PCs, yes, but a ridiculous amount of them have a budget CPU with integrated graphics.

The PS3 and Xbox360 have BOTH sold over 50 million units. That's over a 100 million systems.

Do you think there are even 10 million computers with a 4870 graphics card or better?

The industry only sells about 100 million discrete graphics cards a year, and of those, how many do you think are for high-end gaming? 10%? How many in SLI, relegated to older systems, or used exclusively to play WoW?

I mean, even BF3, one of your examples of the possibility of a resurgence in PC gaming sold more copies for the consoles by a factor of EIGHT.

bensam123 wrote:
Consolization has taken place and it's people like you that are helping to perpetuate it.


:roll:

Good grief.

I have all three consoles and a PC that plays BF3 fine. I'm not going to change. Neither is anyone else.

If I'm part of the problem, well, I just don't want your solution.
 
l33t-g4m3r
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Re: Why do gamers accept the Great Platform Divide?

Wed Nov 23, 2011 5:49 pm

I think this divisive console vs pc debate is pointless. If anything, the two are converging and there's nothing wrong with that. PC's have issues with graphics not being optimized or standardized, whereas consoles have a set target. Consoles essentially have solved the PC's hardware-range problems by force, which considering nobody was willing to do this voluntarily, is a good thing. Low settings are a joke, whereas Ultra is always a sell out to SLI. Where's the balance? If it takes console ports to achieve a balance, so be it. I'm not going to complain about ports because they look good and play smooth, unlike pc exclusives that just slap on insane eye candy and end up being unplayable, while medium settings look like a blurry mess. Games like BF3 and Deus EX are how it should be done. PC gaming is making a comeback, and ironically it's probably due to console ports. Mods, lower prices, digital distribution all help too.
 
MrBojangles
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Re: Why do gamers accept the Great Platform Divide?

Wed Nov 23, 2011 6:30 pm

SPOOFE wrote:
I thought a PC is a PC is a PC, and that there's only one kind and style and design, with a single hardware setup, everywhere in the universe!




You are Correct sir..... well at least everywhere in the iniverse anyways.
Amd Phenom 2 560(unlocked to 4 cores at 3.8ghz),xfx Radeon 6870 (ty again tr ^^ ),Cooler master haf case, 4gb of drr3 1600 ram, win7 ultimate 64bit
 
Bensam123
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Re: Why do gamers accept the Great Platform Divide?

Sat Nov 26, 2011 7:39 am

You seem to think it is, and that's bizarre.


It is! Blizzard didn't pull their fans out of their rump. There definitely weren't that many players in the MMO world when WoW started out. Things have grown immensely and all game developers are focusing on is what already exists. Not generes, but pies that other companies are reporting in sales. I already gave examples of companies that are looking for players outside of that pie and are quite successful.

But the amount of people that play the kind of PC games you want and the amount of people who are willing to play the kind of PC games you want is not.


The example was showing the vast difference between the amount of potential customers and the current customers. It isn't a zero-sum game like you described.

This exists on the PC too. You just don't care. Zynga is the analog to the wii. They make simple games that are very different from the FPS/RTS/etc... but yet are WILDLY popular. They tapped into "the amount of people in the world" market that you keep speaking of, but as I said, that's not the kind of PC gaming you're looking for.

But it isn't BF3, there aren't any "ULTRA" or "LOW" settings, and it doesn't fit the paradigm of PC Gaming that you want to see more.


Why don't I care? I never said I don't care, I've been arguing completely to the contrary to that.

You just added fuel to my argument that PC gaming isn't dead at all and there is plenty of growth to be had on the PC, social gaming is growing plenty (heck that's what my top quote reply is about). You are right though, Farmville isn't a AAA game and neither are Zynga games.

Everyone I know who plays minecraft, including myself, is/was a RTS/FPS/RPG PC gamer.


There isn't a bias in there somewhere, is there?

A lot of those avid old school PC gamers only play WoW on their PCs now, but many of them still have consoles. When they are at their computer, they're playing WoW. When they are at their couch, they play other things.


It's entirely possible for someone to own more then one gaming system. I don't know how this contributes or detracts from consolization though. WoW players only play WoW on the computer? I've talked to plenty of people in game who would say otherwise to that. A lot of players from WoW spend a great deal of time on DotA and DotA clones (LoL and HoN).

Portal/L4D were built from developers that Valve pulled in, not their original development team.


Portal, TF2, and L4D are all made in house. Portal was a in house side project, there wasn't an original development team outside of Valve. Developers from L4D were hired, but not to make a sequel and there aren't separate branches of the company that work exclusively on these games. The employees themselves can come and go between projects. Go read up on Valve a bit.

That was still a high-end computer two years ago


A Q6600 and a 4870 isn't high end. There were models above both of those when they debut. All of them fell into the sweet spot. Arguably a 4850 would be a better companion to a Q6600. Q6600 debuted in 07 and 4850 in 08. That's four and three years ago. Both of them were replaced two years ago by a new series and again recently. So there have been roughly two architecture changes that have been taken place between when these parts were released and when they're still capable of playing Skyrim on the highest settings today.

Do you think there are even 10 million computers with a 4870 graphics card or better?


Yes. Steam is quite shy about actual numbers that can be generalized, like how many total users have taken their survey, but well, look for yourself. This is just Steam users, not the total volume shipments of Radeons that are a 4870 or better. Steam lists %s, but doesn't give overall numbers. Closest thing I can find is that Steam had 25 million users in 2009. I wasn't able to find numbers on volumes of shipments AMD has done when doing a bit of googling. They list market shares, but not overall volumes.

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/ ... /?sort=pct

The industry only sells about 100 million discrete graphics cards a year...


How about a source on that? That aside, how many years have consoles been out for? You gave me a total number of 50 million... That is over six years. Using the random number you pulled out of your bumm, that's 600 million graphics cards over the last six years.

...how many do you think are for high-end gaming?


High end gaming died with consolization, that was the point of all this quoting. That even if they have a 4870 they still produce more horsepower then a six year old Xbox 360. That everything is based around that six year old hardware and therefore you can play on the highest settings today and still be perfectly fine on ancient hardware (which is still newer then the even older consoles). You don't need a high end PC today or even a couple years ago.

I mean, even BF3, one of your examples of the possibility of a resurgence in PC gaming sold more copies for the consoles by a factor of EIGHT.


I'd really like to see a source on this. I've heard nothing of the sort in either sales numbers since pre-orders or sales exclusively to either the Xbox 360 or the PC. All I can find is stuff like this:

http://bf3blog.com/2011/11/battlefield- ... -combined/

It states that the Xbox 360 sold roughly 4x as many as the PC, which were statistics from a third part company, not EA. Yet at the bottom it fully states that ORIGIN sales have not been disclosed. In other words, the software distribution system that is required to play the game.

I have all three consoles and a PC that plays BF3 fine.


I bet one system makes BF3 look a heck of a lot better and has a lot of perks on the side of it.

If I'm part of the problem, well, I just don't want your solution.


What do you believe my solution is and why don't you want it?
 
SPOOFE
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Re: Why do gamers accept the Great Platform Divide?

Sat Nov 26, 2011 5:59 pm

You just added fuel to my argument that PC gaming isn't dead


High end gaming died with consolization

It seems to me that you're arguing at cross purposes, here.
 
MidnightFrost1701
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Re: Why do gamers accept the Great Platform Divide?

Sun Nov 27, 2011 6:22 pm

SPOOFE wrote:
You just added fuel to my argument that PC gaming isn't dead


High end gaming died with consolization

It seems to me that you're arguing at cross purposes, here.


That's only true if you think that better graphics are the only (or even primary) reason that PC-only gamers choose PCs over consoles. I myself consider the better graphics no more than a perk. Even if PC graphics were precisely as good as consoles (or even worse), I would still choose a PC because I've despised every controller that's come out since the Super Nintendo, and I want to play with a keyboard and mouse. I understand why people in the PC vs console debate like to bring up graphics so much (it's hard to bash consoles with, "I just like my keyboard and mouse better"), but lets please not pretend that that's the only reason to pick a PC. Now, I have no idea what percentage of PC-only gamers don't consider graphics to be a major factor in their decision, but I do think that it's at least possible to make an argument that PC gaming as a whole could be thriving even while high end PC gaming isn't. (Again, note that I'm not making this argument myself; I simply think that it could be done without any logical contradictions.)

Now, on to the main point I wanted to address, which has nothing to do with consoles. It's this notion of "entitlement" by PC gamers who expect to play on "Ultra" settings with mid/low-end systems. My own experience with playing (of all games) Crysis on (of all cards) a 4870 makes me pretty familiar with precisely the feelings that can lead to a sense of "entitlement." I naturally wanted to play the game on the max settings, which turned out not to be realistic near the end of the game. I even posted here asking if I needed to upgrade my card. I was assured that people with better cards than mine had trouble in those portions of the game too, so I sucked it up and turned down the settings to finish the game. However, it irked me to feel like I was missing out on something that I'd already paid for. It would be like ordering a meal with chicken, vegetables and pasta but being unable to eat the pasta because I'm on a low carb diet. Sure, it's my own choice to be on the diet just as it's my choice not to have a high end system, but I nonetheless felt a bit cheated at having paid the same amount for the game as someone with a machine that could take advantage of everything the game could offer. I personally didn't quite feel that I was getting my money's worth.

Granted, the rational part of me fully recognized that my "savings" came in the form of not having spent as much to upgrade my system in the first place, but feelings aren't always rational, and we're never going to force the general public to discount their irrational feelings when they make purchasing decisions (and marketing firms would be in big trouble if we did). Would I have skipped buying Crysis if I'd known ahead of time the trouble I'd have with the graphics? Probably not entirely, but since the game wasn't a high priority in the first place, I might very well have considered postponing my purchase until after I'd upgraded my card. I can believe that other people may have heard the rumors that I didn't and were soured on the game before they bought it.

If this phenomenon does indeed have a measurable effect on sales and leads to developers dumbing down the graphics so that most people can play on "Ultra" and feel good about their purchase, then it falls to some clever marketing company to find a way around this. Maybe a dumbed down version of the game can be released for slightly less money than one where you can play with the best graphics that were developed. That way the low and mid-range gamers can feel as if they're getting every bit of performance possible from the money they actually spent. Blaming irrational consumers for this is ultimately just unproductive. The game companies need to figure out a way to keep everyone happy (and hence maximize their sales).
 
Zoomastigophora
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Re: Why do gamers accept the Great Platform Divide?

Mon Nov 28, 2011 12:23 am

MidnightFrost1701 wrote:
Maybe a dumbed down version of the game can be released for slightly less money than one where you can play with the best graphics that were developed. That way the low and mid-range gamers can feel as if they're getting every bit of performance possible from the money they actually spent. Blaming irrational consumers for this is ultimately just unproductive. The game companies need to figure out a way to keep everyone happy (and hence maximize their sales).

This will likely just peeve everyone involved. High-end gamers will feel like they have to pay a premium just to use the expensive hardware they paid for, and lower end (and less aware) consumers won't understand why there's a version of the game that doesn't come with all the bells and whistles. I think PC games just need better out-of-box settings so players aren't prompted to try to manually configure the graphics options. That way, the warning that pops up when you deviate from recommended settings will actually have some meaning (a message that fewer and fewer PC games are displaying nowadays).

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