Platform Preferences

[martin]

martin: You do realise that SecuROM enforces the limit? There's been concern about people being unable to revoke their license for one machine and thus being completely barred from playing a game which they own.

I didn't know exactly what it did - I've never heard of SecuROM before, but I can see how that could be a potential problem :/

I have a similar thing with my iPod mini, it can only be linked with 5 machines, well mine is with 3 atm: 1 is my current PC, 2 are the same PC hardware but with old installs of windows :p

Incidentally anyone know how to unlink an iPod and a machine that no longer exists?

[KingAl]

Well, not all flavours of SecuROM include that kind of limit, which is why you may be unaware of it. I just use Ephpod to connect my iPod to computers that it doesn't want to, though I'm sure you can find a hack somewhere.

[Kadayi]

The one thing that makes me shy away from consoles is the fact that as seamless as they are at delivering good game play experiences, they presently lack the ability to go beyond them in terms of integrating user made content modifications/adjustments. If you're just into gaming for gamings sake then they are fine, but if you want to do more then the PC is really your only option as a gaming platform for now. One area where PC developers could and should learn from console developers is in decent interface design though. All to often PC developers fall into the bad habit of going 'I'll assign those commands to the 'L' 'M' 'N' 'O' key, etc, etc" (so you end up with bloated input) or have innumerable type commands, rather than making decent GUI to handle absolutely everything like a console developer has to.

I don't care much for ego shooters since the waste of time that was Half Life 2, though.

I'd actually argue that Half life is the better game, but in all seriousness if you think Half life 2 is a waste of time you should give up FPS gaming now (maybe even gaming full stop), and certainly avoid Bioshock because it definitely won't be your cup of tea.

[Cooper42]

The biggest threat to PC gaming is the profit incentive. Developing for the console is cheaper and makes more money.

What? The PS3 devkit costs ~£20,000 unless you sell your soul to Sony for exclusivity. (Even then they charge you something for the kit...) Deving for the PC is "free". Even if you factor in visual studio and a dev box, it'll still be be cheaper than a devkit. (That being said, MS at one point were happy to give serious studios a xbox360 devkit if they asked nicely... )

The Wii devkit is about £2000 last time I checked, so it's a damn sight cheaper, but PC deving, even if you factor in a whole new machine for doing so, is far far cheaper. Sales... well, that depends on what kind of game you've got going and what kind of outlet you have for said game...

NeoThermic

I'm not saying that all PC games cost money. They clearly don't. As I'm sure everyone here is well aware, some of the best games out there, by far, are produced by individuals or groups on small budgets. I could real off a bunch of free indie games which I count as some of the most inventive games around.

The problem is, on a commercial basis, the PC presents a number of hurdles.
First off, a PC may cost a little. Checking your game works on 80-90% of the PCs used for gaming around can cost a bomb if you want to be pushing graphical / processor heavy games (and bar a few exceptions, it's no secret that PC games sell themselves on either ultra-real or inventive graphics, or expectional AI etc.)

The PC market tends to be much smaller. With PC gamers less prolific in buying games. Console owners tend to buy more games per person, and they tend to retail for more.

Additionally, PC games often require at least some after-release support in the form of patches. Work done without payment. Unless it's in the form of 'expansions' of Oblivion-style charged-for add-ons

Finally, PC games tend to be hit harder by piracy. There's only so much which can be done to avoid it.

It's not that making games for the PC isn't viable. It just seems that making games only for the PC is getting less and less financially viable.


My greater beef is with casual games such as the Sims and film-tie-ins, and the cheap flash-based games (albeit with the occasional excellent one around). They're cheap to knock out, often sell far in excess of technically and gameplay richer games, and do little to push boundaries and allow creativity, which is what PC games have a rish history of taking the lead on.

[NeoThermic]

The problem is, on a commercial basis, the PC presents a number of hurdles.
First off, a PC may cost a little. Checking your game works on 80-90% of the PCs used for gaming around can cost a bomb if you want to be pushing graphical / processor heavy games (and bar a few exceptions, it's no secret that PC games sell themselves on either ultra-real or inventive graphics, or expectional AI etc.)

It's still cheaper to make a few basic common setups than it is to buy a single PS3 devkit. Hell, if you want to know what kind of hardware gamers have, walk towards the handy stats that Valve do: http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html

From those stats, you can build a collection of machines that reflect the most common hardware setups. If your game works on those, it'll work on 98% of the systems that play your game. 1% is docked for accuracy, and the final 1% is the percentage that you must provide after-sales support for.

The PC market tends to be much smaller. With PC gamers less prolific in buying games. Console owners tend to buy more games per person, and they tend to retail for more.

*chokes* The main reason console games retail for more is because the console manufacture makes a loss on each console sold. In order to claw back this loss, the games are marked up so that if enough of them are purchased, they break even. PC game developers don't have to worry about loss on the sales of computers, they just need to make sure they turn a profit on their game.

Additionally, PC games often require at least some after-release support in the form of patches. Work done without payment. Unless it's in the form of 'expansions' of Oblivion-style charged-for add-ons

And surprisingly now do console games. The fact that the current gen of consoles have a HD is almost purely down to the idea of being able to patch the game after release (and it's already happened with a few games)

Finally, PC games tend to be hit harder by piracy. There's only so much which can be done to avoid it.

Indeed, but you can't say that consoles are immune from piracy. Consoles just have something greater to worry about, hardware hacking.

It's not that making games for the PC isn't viable. It just seems that making games only for the PC is getting less and less financially viable.

Ha. If you really believe this, then I'm shocked. If it's getting less financially viable, then you'll see companies stop deving games for the PC. So far I've seen nothing to show this. Hell, if that were the case, Valve would make HL2:EP2 console only. God help them if they decide to do that...

My greater beef is with casual games such as the Sims and film-tie-ins, and the cheap flash-based games (albeit with the occasional excellent one around). They're cheap to knock out, often sell far in excess of technically and gameplay richer games, and do little to push boundaries and allow creativity, which is what PC games have a rish history of taking the lead on.

Uhh. The Sims 2 itself, excluding the cash-in expansion packs, was a decent game. It's *still* in the top 10 PC games chart. You name a console game that is still hanging in the top 10 more than 100 weeks after it's release?

NeoThermic

[shinygerbil]

If it's getting less financially viable, then you'll see companies stop deving games for the PC.

You're missing Cooper42's point; making games only for the PC is becoming less and less viable. As far as I can see, more companies are developing for 360 or PS3 as well as the PC. You'll see companies stop developing only for the PC, though...

Case in point: Valve. Of course they're not gonna make HL2:EP2 console-only; they're gonna make it multiplatform, because that makes more financial sense, especially with all this middleware and technology around so that games can pretty much be developed for all consoles with decent compatibility right from the start. The thing is, though, making it PC-only would be just as stupid as making it console-only.

The Sims 2 itself, excluding the cash-in expansion packs, was a decent game.

That doesn't change the fact that it was probably pretty damn easy to make

[NeoThermic]

If it's getting less financially viable, then you'll see companies stop deving games for the PC.

You're missing Cooper42's point; making games only for the PC is becoming less and less viable.

No, his original point was:

The biggest threat to PC gaming is the profit incentive. Developing for the console is cheaper and makes more money.

In other words, he's saying that with console deving being cheaper (it's not), it'll be a huge threat to the PC gaming section. (it won't ever be)

NeoThermic

[Cooper42]

Co-developing games for the PC and consoles may now be easier, given that the current gen. consoles are not all to dissimilar from PCs. And this is clear from the flood of multi-platform releases that have consistently become the norm over the past few years.

PC games used to take a while, sometimes years before they'd appear on consoles (e.g: Deus Ex / Half-Life)

Now a PC release is tandem to PS3/360 releases.


I maintain that there are still things, albeit less than before, which can only be done on PC games.

However, if the larger publishers expect releases across-platforms on launch, as this provides better returns on output, then it possible this will stifle some of the boundary-pushing which the PC game market is known for, given that publishers will be limiting developers to what is possible on multi-platforms.

[Kadayi]

There is quite an interesting interview at Rock, Paper Shotgun with Gabe Newell from Valve that sort of plugs into this whole debate regarding PC gaming and Consoles:-

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?p=180

[Shrimpster]

Personally, I thought the game was incredible, visually jaw-dropping, though it felt just a mite long at the end (probably just me getting frustrated at repetitive reincarnation as the enemies got ridiculously hard to kill near the end-game, or perhaps that I did a 20 hour bioshock binge and played it straight through).

The plot twist in the middle was awesome, would you kindly tell us what you thought of the game when you finish it?

[Nutter]

I thought it was good but not quite the fps revolution that it was hyped up to be. It also really needed to be more challenging but the story was really good.

A small graphic note is that on the xbox 360 low resolution textures quite often will be shown for longer than they should making it look awkward. This seemed to happen almost 50% of the time when showing the sea slug after harvesting little sisters. So it looks good most of the time on xbox 360 but has some hiccups.

[PMAvers]

The 1960sness was quite nice though.

60s?

20/30s from what I've seen - Some very pretty Art Deco...

I seem to recall it changed style from 20s to 60s during development.

If memory serves, Rapture was built in the 30's-40's. The "current" day that takes place in the game is in the 60's, though. (Remember the Happy New Year 1959 sign?)