Want my ass off the 360? Listen.
March 4, 2008
There is a crisis going on with the PC Gaming lately. Iron Lore, developers of Titan Quest, have called it quits. Clifford Bleszinski, lead designer of Gears of War, stated that the PC Industry is in a disarray. Reflexive’s director of marketing Russell Carrol wrote an article on Gamasutra about PC Piracy. It seems everyone wants to play Chicken Little, which I don’t understand because who the hell wants to listen to a chicken? Not me.
So instead of being the pessimistic dick like everyone else, I’m going to give suggestions to PC developers on how to make gamers give a damn about them. I’m not speaking as some dickless marketing guru or an experienced game developer, because that would make me a liar. I merely speak as a gamer who has money, meaning I don’t have to tug mommy’s skirt when I want a new game. In short, I’m your audience.
Why would I do this? Because I feel like I’m part of a community and you guys treated me well during my high school years. So naturally, I’m going to feel the need to give something back. At first I thought I should bitchslap everyone, but traveling all the way to Dallas and California is not cheap. Although I could make a trip to Montreal to bitchslap Ubisoft, but then I would have some French on my hand and that shit is hard to wash off. Instead, here’s some words of advice.
STOP MAKING MMORPGS
I might as well start with the one thing that pisses me the most. Just walk into any EB Games and look at the PC section. Chances are you will be introduced to a wall of MMORPGs that can challenge the Great Wall of China to a duel. It gets worse when some of these terrible games decide to have a collector’s edition with the box big enough to threaten small children.
Let’s get one thing straight: There are way too many MMORPGs out there. Most of them are no more interesting than getting mauled by a grizzly bear with rabies. Yes, we know that MMORPGs can be the cash cow, but the problem is that cow has already been taken by World of Warcraft.
WOW worked because it managed to get its mechanics polished and secured their success by evolving beyond a mere videogame. It has a trading card game, a board game, a manga series, and collectible figures. How fucking crazy does a developer have to be to try to mimic a game with that kind of padding?
The only way to get a piece of that MMO-pie is if they don’t try to copy anything from WOW. How about a sci-fi FPS where players can form corporations and fight for resource-rich colonies? Or a low fantasy setting where magic is the enemy with players forced to co-operate by building cities and equipment to defend themselves? There are countless themes waiting to be discovered which can innovate the genre. The only thing a developer is accomplishing by making yet another game involving the genocide of wilderness creatures is making me laugh. Hell, my balls will laugh. My ass will probably laugh too. We’ll laugh in unison, which would be awesome.
The other way is to simply not get involved in the MMO market. Quick, how many truly successful MMORPGs have been made? Give up? Because I can only count four: Everquest, Ultima Online, Eve Online, and World of Warcraft. Now compare that to the number of them already released and you’ll soon realize spending time on yet another one is just as productive as eating your own money. Take a look at companies like Valve, Stardock, and Infinity Ward; none of them had to rely on the MMO bandwagon to be successful.
GET RID OF COPY PROTECTION
According to Albert Einstein, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. So my question to any developer who uses copyright protection: Are you insane or just retarded? Pick one, you can’t be both.
For years companies have tried countless ways to stop piracy and most of them were futile. Even the ones that require online authentication like World of Warcraft and Steam were cracked by pirates. Yet these brilliant sages who make our games still continue to use these failed protection programs that screw legitimate users like an 8-year-old in a Catholic Summer Camp.
Case in point: Bioshock has a SecuROM protection software that requires an internet connection to “activate” the game and finish the installation. However, you can only activate twice, meaning once you’ve done two installations, you’re screwed. The sad part is pirates who “fixed” this protection were viewed as heroes.
It doesn’t stop there. Some games are programmed to crash if the protection conditions weren’t met. Recent example was Titan’s Quest where at several keypoints in the game, it would check if you had a pirated copy. If your copy was pirated, it would crash itself, but it also made the game unstable. There is also the constant CD checks that kills game performance, something I find baffling because these games don’t even need the CD in the drive to play. I understand the need to protect one’s product from theft, but to automatically assume I’m a criminal when I’m throwing money at the register monkey in EB Games just doesn’t make any sense. Cut the archaic bullshit, it doesn’t work and it’s pissing people off.
DEMOS, DEMOS, DEMOS
This applies more to the entire gaming industry than PC gaming itself, but it’s something that needs to be addressed. Demos suck. I don’t want to spend an hour trying to download a behemoth size file so I get to play the game for five minutes. Demos are being so horribly made these days that some have put a disclaimer saying “This demo doesn’t represent the quality of the final product”. What the hell? The whole point behind a demo is to sell me the game. If they can’t even make a demo properly, what makes these guys think I want fork out money for the real deal?
We need to get back on the days of Shareware. For those who don’t know, you bought a game off a store that was more of a glorified demo for around 5 to 10 bucks. For the most part, they had one entire episode to play which was a few hours of gameplay. You might have not ended buying the full game, but at least you were supporting the developer to a certain extent. The other important factor is they gave a very good overall impression and experience of the game, something modern demos fail to accomplish.
For example, Call of Duty 4 can have multiplayer demo that allows you to play on every map but only in team deathmatch and you cannot level up. Devil May Cry 4 could’ve had the first five missions playable, excluding the cutscenes and leveling up. But why stop with restricted demos? Steam can allow users to “rent” a full game for a day or two for a price. They already allow its users to play certain games for free on weekends.
The current model for demos simply doesn’t work. Hiding numerous features and admitting the demo is garbage aren’t good ways to generate interest in a game. No sane person would buy a car off the spot without giving a test drive to experience it first hand. Why can’t video games have a similar aspect?
MAKE YOUR GAME RUN WELL
They are two things I want when I buy a PC game: Stability and Performance. Failure in either category will make me pissed off at the game, then it will make me pissed at the guys who made the game. It’s going piss me off so much that I will camp a block away from their HQ with a catapult and a family of radioactive moose. Then I will chuck the moose into the HQ and laugh as I watch the developer’s faces vaporize in a nuclear blast before mine does. After that, I will be in hell with them and I will still be annoying with my new buddy Adolf Hitler.
I feel this way because I have been screwed over by buggy games in the past. I’ve had experiences such as laggy multiplayer on LAN, uninstallation being a threat to my hard drive, and games running terrible thanks to poor optimization. I’ve become so paranoid about buying new PC games that I started wearing a tinfoil hat at electronic stores and it’s really hard to get customer service when you look like a douche. Whatever happened to simply buying the game and playing it? I don’t remember waiting weeks for a patch to make Doom or Red Alert playable. Buying a PC game nowadays is a 60 dollar risk.
If the bugs won’t ruin your enjoyment, the performance will. Most mainstream PC games require top of the line hardware to get them to run in acceptable framerates. This is something I don’t understand because developers are trying to run a business, yet they cater to the minority of people who spend thousands of dollars on their PC each year. So even if you wanted to give your money to them, they are telling you to fuck off because you don’t have Nvidia’s latest 800 dollar tattoo on your asscheek.
Meanwhile, games with outdated graphics like World of Warcraft and more recently, Sins of the Solar Empire, welcome cheap bastards like me with open arms. Last time I checked, WOW has enough subscribers to rival Christianity and SOTSE is on top of the sales charts banging Playboy models. Fortunately, companies are taking note of this and are developing games that don’t require a powerful computers. Such examples include Sony’s The Agency and EA’s Battlefield Heroes. Hopefully in a few months, I can list more than two games because this is a model the PC industry needs to adapt to bring assholes like me away from consoles.
March 5th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Great article man. I agree 100% on this.
March 5th, 2008 at 10:38 am
Hear hear.
Pour this guy a beer.
March 5th, 2008 at 11:40 am
PC gamer here: You make a lot of very good points, was a good read
March 5th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Brilliant article, submitted it to Stumbleupon.
March 5th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Finally developers are getting a clue that not every game on a PC needs to be a Crysis. The biggest complaint is the cost of gaming on a PC. Remove this barrier and offer rentals on Steam (Direct2Drive is already offering Try/Before Buy) and places like Blockbuster and there is sure to be a revitalization in the PC gaming market.
March 5th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
This is a great look on PC games today. Not only do I agree 100% on what you’re saying, but exactly WHAT you are saying doesn’t take a genius to realize.
When a top reviewer reviews a game, they analyze it to the core and rate it down or up on things that anyone without bionic eyes wouldn’t notice.
But this; it’s simple to understand, simple to relate to, and I’m pretty sure it can be simple for PC game developers to go by as a guideline.
*claps slowly*
March 5th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
i’m a pc gamer, and i have an xbox 360
totally agreed.
sins of a solar empire is genius, although i find it boring and slow, but i can still appreciate the genius in it.
March 5th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Granted I am one of the fools who upgrade their PC every year. I don’t do the intel/nvidia thing though as I have grown to hate them. I am an ATI/AMD guy with top of the line AMD/ATI products. My PC makes Crysis my bitch on very high(2x HD3870 xfired).
I don’t mind devs making games that require a lot of power because I’m ready for it.
Event though I agree with everything you say here, I have to say something that most of the whiners are saying in relation to crysis:
“I can’t play crysis on high cause my PC isn’t that good.” So upgrade it you cheap fuckers! I can’t stress this enough. Stop bitching about your shitty 500 dollar rig and invest some money into a good PC that will last you 3-4 years without having to upgrade. If you think your 500 dollar budget machine is going to run the latest games than you are a retard by definition.
WoW is not the end all be all mmorpg out there. Just because more people play doesn’t mean it’s the best. I play all the ones you’ve mentioned and they each have their own greatness about them.
Lastly, I so agree with you on the whole buggy game thing. When crysis was released, it didn’t even take advantage of dual graphics cards! I had an older system then but I upgraded to a twice as powerful PC(roughly $900). Everquest 2 only uses 1 core which makes my dual core almost useless in it. It was working but there was some ’speed hack’ that dual core users could do or something so they simply made the game run on 1 core. IT’s been 2 years since they’ve done this and they have NOT even tried to make the game work right utilizing 2-4 cores. This really pisses me off because in order to run the shadows in eq2 you have to have a fast CPU, which I have at 3.5ghz each core, but it’s just not enough to play it on extreme quality.
I tell you what I’m sick of, FPS games that are all the same. I am of course referring to Frontlines: fuel of war. I was ampted to get this game but sadly I lost interest in it 4 levels in on single player. The game doesn’t especially look that great and there was a serious shadowing issue with my rig. Shadows would flicker on and off randomly(only outdoors) so I had to turn off shadows all together… My machine is more than capable to run any game in existance today at it’s highest setting, it’s just that the games kinda don’t work right on high quality!
March 5th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
I would Agree with almost everything here with the addition of City of Heroes/Villains under teh MMORPG list.
I personally haven’t invested in more then a handfull of games a year compaired to 10 years ago when I would get 30-50 easy.
The PC gaming market is like hollywood these days. They put out a bunch of crap and hope they get one or two good titles out of it. Bring back Quality over Qauntity!
March 5th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Do you write for a gaming site?
March 5th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
I agree so much with this article, I couldn’t write this any better.
March 5th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Very well written. I agree 100 percent.
March 5th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Great article, think i agree with everything actually.
Cheers.
March 5th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
I’ll bet if you said the same things 10 years ago it would be just as relevant. Maybe not the MMORPG part though.
MMORPGS = $$$ in a lot of publishers eyes. They are probably going to be here for a while.
March 5th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Hey Adam, great job in making a point of how amazing your gaming-rig is…. I think the point the author is trying to make is that a large portion of PC gamers don’t have the 500 hundred or so dollars to get a new video card every 6 months. They dont live in their parents basement, and play PC games every hour of there waking lives on daddys dollar. We have REAL expenses to take care of like rent, car payments, vacations, women, etc.. Your comment was stupid as shit.
March 5th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
You and Yahtzee need to team up. This is some good shit right here.
March 5th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
Stardock is making an MMO of sorts.
It’s called Societies.
http://www.societygame.com/Intro.aspx
March 5th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Yep, all valid points. My favourite is the Recommended Spec Hell-hole. I don’t want to spend $800 on a dual chip nuclear powered graphics card that will blow me on weekends simply so I can see water that has a few more reflections than last year’s version (sean’s reply to adam above sums it up). It’s bullshit and not needed. Case in point - I recently got Portal (yeah I know, I’m a late starter) and played it on a 5 year old PC with a Radeon 9600 in DX8 mode and you know what? It played fine. I loved the game, the new concept, the sound, the writing and I really didn’t notice that a few shadows were missing or liquid didn’t have photorealistic reflections. Surprise, surprise but I simply enjoyed the game for the game. Somebody needs to go to the 384th floor of the EA multiplex and take a copy of games like Day of the Tentacle, Sam and Max, Monkey Island, King’s Quest and other early 90’s games of the same ilk (when games were made to be entertaining, not to sell graphics cards) to these Executive VP of Synergistic Fuckwitism & Gaming kids to show them how it needs to be done before the entire PC games industry goes entirely tits up.
March 5th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
I particularly agree with what you said about PC Performance. I really don’t want to spend $800 just so I can play some shallow and boring game like Crysis.
March 5th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
I agree. The PC games market has some serious issues. I do however recommend TF2 as a good PC game and two upcoming games are bound to be good: Spore & Starcraft 2. Other than that the PC gaming front looks rather bleak.
March 5th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
WoW man this is the best article that i have read on PC gaming in a long time you hit the nail on the head 100% keep on going this is something that needs to change
March 5th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
standing muthafuckin ovation son
March 5th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Awesome read, and so very very true. Dee was right on point, we need to bring back games that were entertaining, not just beautiful. I had just as much fun playing Wolfenstein as I did playing Resistance, and got at least a few more hours of gameplay out of it.
Another blogger said it best about MMO’s, “Who’d want to pay a monthly fee to deal with people?” Flagship Studios got it right by including a singleplayer version of Hellgate.
Found you via StumbleUpon.
March 5th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
pork chop sandwiches
March 5th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
Um, what do you have against mmorpgs? That and misspellings made me stop reading immediately. MMORPGS especially the one you list most, World of Warcraft, in your pictures, are fun, sell loads of money, and make people want to play them…. kidna at a loss here because this post pretty much is a bias post not a logical one… you don’t like MMORPG’s so therefore it’s wrong to make them… HUH??!??!!?
March 5th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
high-five to sean –^
March 5th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
are u retarded? he says other developers should trying to mimic WOW because they got it first. he says other devs should try other areas instead of making a wow-clone
March 5th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Doesn’t it make so much more sense to play on a system where the games are tailored to fit the system than one where the system is tailored to fit the games?
March 5th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
I totally agree with this, although I currently play the psp as my main game system, and they too are putting some absolute garbage on the market. I have ran into many buggy games that make them almost unplayable.
March 5th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
This was so true.
One of the only modern games I can play on my computer is WoW, which is impressive considering how outdated the hardware is, but it still makes me mad because I don’t want to play it. I hate it. My roommates and I share a computer room and all they do is play WoW and talk about WoW, and I’m sick of it.
Diablo 2, Fallout 2, and Civ. 3. are all getting very, very boring, game developers. I have all the money I want to spend on games; are you going to punish me because I don’t particularly care to upgrade my machine?
S.
March 5th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
I agree.
And I think Id software deserves some props in this direction. One of the few developers that release games where you don’t have to have the damn cd in the drive. Makes it much easier when I wanna just jump in and rock out some Quake Wars Enemy Territory.
March 5th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
yeah, you are right, they put out bad software on purpose and quality over quantity was better in the past *rolleyes*
March 5th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
100% spot on. We can only hope that some of the higher-ups pull their heads out of their asses and read this.
March 5th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Thank you for writing this. Great, interesting read, and I agree with you 100%
March 5th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
this article needs to be linked by destructoid and kotaku
March 5th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Nice article. You summed up my reasons for buying a console last year. I never thought I’d say it, but I really don’t miss PC gaming.
March 5th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
I absolutely agree with the article! I think PC gaming has fallen very far from the awesome 1990s. Developers and Publishers, pay attention to what the community is saying!
March 5th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
I am a primarily PC gamer, who disagrees with you. Yes PC gaming is hurting right now, but it hurts from the same things that hurts consoles, people only care about making money.
Do you know why World of Warcraft is successful? It appeals to “casual” gamers, it screws over its hardcore section of gamers, so the people that devote 1/16th the time the hardcore players devote are right behind them. World of Warcraft is not an amazing game, it got alot of things right but now suffers from a money hungry cooperation.
The MMO you describe sounds a lot like Eve Online or Tabula Rosa. Look into something before trying to pass an idea as an original one, or you aren’t better than these developers.
Complain about how PC games can’t run on your computer… it’s only because they are more graphically advanced than your console games.
I love how you bash on developers and publishers from using anti piracy. Are you pro screwing people over so they go out of business so they don’t even develop games anymore?
The only things you said that were creditable are the game industry suffers from prove designing and developing, and companies don’t utilize demos as much as they should.
March 5th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
I’ve gotten more gameplay out of Diablo 2 than almost any other game released in the past 7-8 years.
For the love of god, any Devs that are out there reading this, please take note.
March 5th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
@Jaren
“I love how you bash on developers and publishers from using anti piracy. Are you pro screwing people over so they go out of business so they don’t even develop games anymore?”
Are you serious? Sins of a Solar Empire (which was mentioned in the article) was released with zero copy protection and has been one of the best selling PC games of the past few weeks. Games like Titan Quest and Bioshock get pirated because Devs get money hungry and try to screw over legitimate consumers.
March 5th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
“Tabula Rosa”
the sci-fi game that takes it’s interface from WOW and, as the writer puts it, genocide of wilderness creatures? just because a game replaces swords with pew pew lasers doesn’t make it original. lotr is another shameless ripoff of wow’s interface.
March 5th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
Mostly, games are a business. The goal is to make money. There are a few developers whose goal it is to make great games, even ‘art’ (KOJIMA!). Even still the publishers have to make money–they don’t care if what’s developed is good or not, just if it sells.
This is like so many other forms of human creativity in our late capitalist society–books, art, film, theater (Legally Blonde on broadway, anyone?). We wish every movie that comes out would be “No Country for Old Men,” but too many are “Step Up 2″.
And games, like cinema, are produced for a varied audience. For everyone who appreciates the art design and plot of BioShock, there’s someone who just wants to shoot some more Nazis (or play another Call of Duty game). For everyone who wants to level their druid to to 70 (or whatever), there’s someone who wants to play the newest Snoopy game. For every $500 someone spends on a video card, $500 are spent on the Wii.
In a capitalist society, we have faith in the market. We have to believe that the multitude consuming products will lead to greater innovation and prosperity than centralized bureaucracy could. So as well written as your essay is, there are reasons why the industry is in the state it is. MMORPGs are fairly cheap to produce–no script writing, no cutscenes and much of the work for another is already done, just adopt the protocols and whatnot from the last one. If there are so many, and they don’t sell well, that’s because there cheap to make and they catch niche markets.
Just because you don’t buy something doesn’t mean no one will.
If developers are making crappy MMORPGs, what makes you think if they stopped this genre, that they make decent games in other genres?
The only objectively valid point you make, for all of your rhetoric, is to make games run well. There may be people who want to play the stupidest MMORPG we can think of, there may be people who are willing to spend more on their PC than on their parent’s Medicare, but we can be pretty damn sure that no one wants to play a game that is skippy or crashes often.
March 5th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Some damn good points
March 5th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
I play wow and I am looking for more(different) games to play. Tried the EA series but i am not that big a sports fan to really get into those. I don’t like the team aspects of the game as I can’t dedicate a specific time to play. Looking at the new game coming out http://www.battlefield-heroes.com/ that is ad based. It might be interesting to see.
March 5th, 2008 at 10:16 pm
Couldn;t say it better myself. Also along the lines of the whole waiting for the first patch for the game to be playable is terrible. That is why a new golden rule of PC gaming is “wait at least 2-3 weeks after a game has been released before you buy it”. That is a sad state of affairs when the product you push out the door to sell is not what people are handing their money over for. There is a reason why someone like Blizzard w/ WoW and their other titles only need to pump out a game every few years…….because they get the games they have right the first time. It is all about quality, not seeing a couple blades of grass while I go around trying to pwn some nub with my 2024 sonic pulse rifle with extra lighting effects.
March 5th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
I couldnt agree more with this article.
Sin of a Solar Empire is fucking awesome, runs fine on my comp regardless of being ‘out-of-date’ by 4years, which shocked the hell out of me. one other thing i would like to add; Sins of a Solar Empire - THIS is what Master of Orion 3 SHOULD have been!
as for polish… I would add one other thing to all that has been said above… MANUALS. For Fuck Sake.
Ubi, burn in hell. I have to rely on a die-hard fan site to figure out what half the Hero abilities in Heroes 5 and its expansions do and most of their info is from trial and error. your manual sucks. its for a retarded three-year old that is assumed to not understand how to point and click.
ability info, that explains exactly, in game-terms (not some vague, flowery description that i would get if i was buying perfume), what the thing does is critical to any game that has anything like that. EVE, OMG, GET A MANUAL. yes every item in the game has stats, ‘fluff’, and a run down of basic buffs, but the game mechanics are a mystical thing - sweet, agility bonus, what exactly does this do to my ship? how it different from an inertial bonus? the online player guides were a start, but they need to be brought up to date and other need to be written.
polish makes a game playable. One of my favorites was Mech Commander 2, possibly the most sublime thing to ever be branded by microsoft (do not confuse this with the crap that was Mech Warrior 4, which managed to destroy all of the improvements of Mech Warrior 3). game play was good, system requirements werent insane, in game manual was a button click away, and the tool tips were perfect.
March 5th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
WORD!!! Great article…
March 5th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
I disagree with the section about MMOs.
MMOS have big potential, if anything there aren’t enough mmos. compare the amount of mmorpgs to FPSs, or action games, or strategy games. Developers need to be more creative, not stop making them.
“It has a trading card game, a board game, a manga series, and collectible figures”
So what? A good game doesn’t need those things to be good. Why would that scare another developer off?
I enjoy playing Lineage II and I’m looking forward to Aion and APB. I believe if anything, mmorpgs will _eventually_ gain more % of the gaming market.
March 5th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
MMO’s are the cancer that’s killed PC gaming. The last thing we need is “another game involving the genocide of wilderness creatures” as the Author so eloquently put it.
This comment from above me just made me laugh:
“Developers need to be more creative, not stop making them.”
So by coping the already overworked formula of an MMO, they’re being more creative? When you change the feel of an MMO, people won’t play it. When you make an MMO that’s more of the same drivel already out there, people won’t play it. WoW has officially stagnated the growth of future MMO’s because if it’s anything remotely different it becomes dead weight (see: the long list of supposed ‘WoW-killers’).
The only reason you “enjoy” playing Lineage II is because the devs are exploiting your natural need for progression by feeding you the same downplayed gaming mechanics over the last 10 years and slapping a monthly fee on top of it. The game never ends so you keep flushing your money down the proverbial toilet and you become addicted due to your own stupidity.
Wake the fuck up, you’re playing a Job Simulator.
March 5th, 2008 at 11:13 pm
“So by coping the already overworked formula of an MMO, they’re being more creative?”
What? I don’t want them to follow an overworked formula, I want them to be creative.
I personally enjoy Lineage II because of the social aspect, the drama, the politics and economy. There’s nothing like being part of a big clan and having an epic fight for a castle. I also enjoy the progression (and the means of making progression), why does it matter if I enjoy it?
“When you make an MMO that’s more of the same drivel already out there, people won’t play it.”
Sure they will, it’s just a matter of time till the next big one comes.
I really fail to see how having a few unsuccessful mmorpgs are killing PC gaming.
March 5th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Agree 100.
While I do have an excellent system that plays CoD4 on max settings… I shouldn’t HAVE to have this system!
I was forced to buy it because I wanted to keep on playing new games!
If only devs would take heed these words…
March 5th, 2008 at 11:39 pm
“Few” unsuccessful MMORPGs?
Bob Hoskins, did you fail to read the article?
There are tons of games that attempt to take over the MMORPG market like WoW has, but *all* of them have failed because of how entrenched WoW is. It’s decline will not happen because of a new “killer” MMORPG, and that’s what developers need to realize: Stop wasting your effort and go for something new.
Spore is new. Starcraft II will be sufficiently different from Starcraft and Brood War to be new, hopefully without breaking the things that made Starcraft great. There are no other PC games that I am waiting for.
March 6th, 2008 at 12:13 am
I like PC gaming because the versatility of the keyboard/mouse works for me. Several of the games I would play are available for consoles as well as PC. I upgrade every few years with hardware which has become affordable (and outdated) and play games which have dropped in price as well.
As I have less and less time to spend playing, I don’t want to screw around with patching, crashing, etc. An interesting game which runs well is what I am looking for, even if it isn’t completely ground breaking. Pirating a game is a pain in the ass, I can afford to drop $30 on a good game which will be stable.
I am between the ages of 30 and 40, buy 12-20 games a year and am not quite sure which version of DirectX I am using.
I consider myself the average PC gamer.
~J
March 6th, 2008 at 5:37 am
aww, if only these were new opinions. or valid ones.
after all, it’s not like a billion dollar industry can’t get this info somewhere else
the fact is, PC games are made to make money. LET ME REPEAT:
PC GAMING CORPORATIONS WILL SELL WHAT MAKES THE MOST MONEY. THEY DON’T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT YOUR WHINY OPINIONS, OR HOW GOOD YOUR PC IS. THEY SELL TO THE LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR.
get the fuck over it. christ. look, i get the 50% of you are just using this as a thin veil to brag about your new rig. i get that as a video gamer for a few years you feel entitled to offer up your opinions like a holy fucking commandment to people who have degrees in this shit. I get that you can make simple observations. it’s just that I don’t care, and neither does the PC industry. if you want a circle jerk of losers agreeing with each other, go to gamefaqs.
what a waste of time.
March 6th, 2008 at 8:14 am
Izkata, no I didn’t fail to read the article. I don’t count not being as successful as WOW as being a failure. Vanguard saga of heroes might be classed as a failure due to the really bad launch and the low amount of players that don’t justify the high development cost. It doesn’t matter how “entrenched” WoW is, if a great new mmorpg comes people will play it.
March 6th, 2008 at 9:57 am
You made a lot of sense, was fun to read.
Good job on the article.
March 6th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Was with you until I read “There is way too many MMORPGs out there.”
March 6th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Want my ass off the 360? Listen. | Eplayr.com…
\r\nA blunt gamer decides to give some advice to developers who speak ill about the PC g…
March 6th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
This guy not only hit the nail on the head, he sent it all the way through a 3 inch thick piece of STEEL! I remember the old days (not all that long ago, only about 10 years) when we didn’t have ultra fancy super processor intensive graphics (my brother’s purpose built gaming PC can play Crysis smoothly but it still lags on high graphics during more intense firefights and when looking at explosions), 3.6 million player online play and insane copy protection and did have good demos (please people, make a demo out of actual content in the full version, nothing changed, nothing taken out), stable gameplay, smoothness even with a low end computer (in fact, some really old games ran TOO fast on the more powerful computers of the time). It’s sad, I used to be a major supporter of PC gaming but now, most of my PC time is spent looking up stuff ABOUT games rather than actually PLAYING them.
March 6th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
While I agree that PC games have been somewhat downhill lately, I will always prefer using mouse/keyboard rather than a controller when playing an FPS. The two joysticks just don’t compare to the accuracy of a gaming mouse. Also, I have no problem with making games able to run on low-end pc’s, but when I go out and spend my grand a year upgrading, I’d like to play some kick ass games with some kick ass graphics.
It doesn’t rest all on the fault of designers though. When a console game dev makes a game, he knows exactly what hardware that game is going on. PC game dev’s have to worry about tons of different stuff. Ever noticed how ATI and Nvidia have flagship games that they promote? That’s because the games were probably tested on that hardware, written for that hardware. When you have competing vendors using different technologies, it’s hard for the dev’s to keep up. Most games don’t even have support for multi-cpu’s. I think it’s just going to take time for the dev’s to catch up to the hardware.
March 6th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
I don’t know if someone mentioned it. Paradox Interactive makes low requirement non copy protected games. You have a serial key which you enter on their forums and get access to tech support and stuff like that. The games are great also…
March 6th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Get a console, they’re designed for gaming. Run linux on your computer.
March 6th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
You said “Buying a PC game nowadays is a 60 dollar risk.”
I don’t know where you buy your PC games, but new PC games are at most 50 dollars at Bestbuy, gamestop, EB,ect. maybe you just suck at shopping idk , I’m just gonna assume you didn’t even check cuz it takes 3 seconds but you lost credibility for not knowing the price.
March 6th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
—^
You know Canadian pricing is different than Americans, right?
March 6th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
first, I agree one hundred percent. very well written. one complaint to add against the PC industry though; games aren’t as much fun. on average that is. someone up there seems to think that the more complicated and graphically advanced and full of fast paced plot action is what we want. we’re playing a game, and the most important thing above all else should be gameplay. I don’t care a whit about the plot if I didn’t enjoy the game. same goes for graphics. I recently found myself passing up my brand new games for Age of Empires 2, Baldur’s Gate, and Quake 2. why am I doing this? it’s just plain more fun.
March 6th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
found on stumble damn straight. developers need to be more original too, i’m sick at looking at 1000’s of doom clones with fancy graphics but no creativity. totally agree to the mmo’s too.
March 6th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
As a frequent game (along with everything else) pirate, I think the biggest thing in terms of copy protection is that companies need to realize that IT’S GOING TO HAPPEN. Stop fighting it, stop trying to prevent it, because it is going to happen. It’s just that simple. And when it does, it’ll be “Install normal, copy a file” for those of us who have gotten it free. The only people they’re pissing off are the people who purchased it legitimately.
March 6th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Nick Said:
“aww, if only these were new opinions. or valid ones.”
Followed by an amusingly vitriolic response. Welcome to the internet.
The problem is, the ideas expounded upon here aren’t just opinions–the success of Stardock’s games over, say, EA’s, Activision’s, THQ’s, Microsoft’s, and so forth, is precisely because they did everything suggested here. Sins of a Solar Empire overshadows just about every other game out now in terms of sales.
The fact that you didn’t realize how right this lovely little editorial rant was proves how little you actually know about the PC gaming industry, and how it’s in such poor shape. So poor, that even best-selling big name devs and publishers whine about how bad the industry’s doing on just about every major site they can talk to.
While you’re right in that the PC industry at large probably wouldn’t pay attention to the advice given here, that’s more because they have trouble wrapping their heads around the fact that their approach is simply not working.
In fact, they’re trying to sell what makes the most money, but the problem is that they don’t know what will. And it’s obvious that they’re not making the money they’re expecting, when a niche title from a small publisher and developer (Sins of a Solar Empire) is trouncing games like Call of Duty 4 with profitable glee.
(Here’s a hint. Many, many more people play CoD4 than Sins, but unlike the more profitable Sins, the vast majority are pirates. And I do mean *much* more profitable Sins. For a number of very good reasons. Including the “No Copy Protection” concept touched upon here. Ironic that Copy Protection promotes piracy while the lack thereof discourages it, eh?)
So the money–as it turns out–proves the rant right, after all.
March 6th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
[…] is a good blog. Some should read this. Gamereh on this subject […]
March 6th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
yeah i’m not even a real PC gamer and in fact play the FFXi MMO but no doubt about it you are absolutely right.
March 6th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
why dont you guys just stop arguing and just play whats fun for you?
i got a wii beacuse of the good gameplay and i plan on upgrading my pc….. but one thing about voice chat.
in pc games nobody talks and are rude.
when i had a 360 everybody was friendly and talked.
maybe the pc gamers are all just pissed cuz they have to pay so much more to play.
very nice read.
March 6th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
Speaking of Sins of the the Solar Empire…
I downloaded a “liberated” copy, installed it, gave it a try. The very next night, I hiked over to the local EBGames and bought myself a copy so I had a serial to register so I could download the updates. Nicely done, Stardock.
Too many MMOs? No… Not enough variety in MMOs. I used to play WoW and I play EVE Online. I’m sure those verb tenses I chose are meaningful.
However, there is some credence about console devs having it a little easier, since they know what hardware platforms they’ll be programming for.
On another note for PC Gaming… Audiosurf.
Wandered over here from reddit.
March 7th, 2008 at 3:22 am
I think the core of the problem being discussed here revolves around the problem of standards in the PC gaming industry. Hence production of DirectX 10 and the Games for Windows campaigns. Copy protection and game stability and reliability depends on standards. It is one thing to have minimum requirements on games, but even with these requirements being met on two systems, a game running on one machine is never guaranteed to run on a different machine with different parts. Therefore one thing that is important in PC gaming that is not an issue on consoles is the issue of new bugs experienced with hardware never tested. And it is not possible to test ALL hardware before a launch. Hence patches and updates. And of course if there was no copy protection, makers of PC games would not have good returns on their investments, because many many people would be playing their games for free. You cannot go down to the rental store and rent a PC game because these massive games need to be installed on hardware in-order to run. Right now the PC gaming industry is running on hardcore PC gamers who are willing to push out the money to upgrade and maintain their computer hardware and software in order to play a few PC games. And instead of pc gamers having a large collection of mediocre games, most of the gamers look forward to and invest time and money in games that are great. Which is one reason why I think MMORPG’s are sought after. Holy crap I can go on and on why you can’t just expect a higher volume of better games on PCs. Maybe I should go blog about it myself. There are many many types of MMO’s out there and a lot of them are free to play as well. Idk. I guess it sounds like your asking for PC games to be more like console games. Well like I said before, I think Microsoft is working on this with Direct X 10 and Games for Windows. The bottom line is.. there needs to be a standard. Remove the variety of hardware issue that the PC gaming industry has to deal with. Much like Java has done for a lot of other software solutions. There needs to be a standard virtual machine/API that everyone can get that runs pc games on any computer without needing to install games. Basically a virtual console. Then we can rent games on physical media or even download them from an iTunes like vendor. Ok, another bottom line. Consoles are built to play games. PC users use there pc’s for many other things and oh yeah they play games on them too. If games are all your worried about, don’t play PC games. Save the money on hardware for console games. IDK, I’m going nowhere let me stop.
March 7th, 2008 at 6:11 am
I almost choked on a piece of atmosphere when I read the notion that MMOs are great games. Great social networking programs, maybe. But as far as games with any variety or innovation go, PCs can, and have, done much better. And let’s face it, most MMOs are WoW-ripoffs, and they fail financially because they can’t take away WoW’s staggering market share.
But that’s more of an opinion than a fact, I suppose. Thing is, it’s a perfectly valid opinion, especially when you’ve played games on the PC for more than half a decade. As I suspect most “No more MMOs” grognards like myself have.
Now, it’s not a bad idea to make PC gaming more like console gaming if you’re talking about standards, hardware, performance, and the like. The only real difference is control scheme, really, and it’s a rare and curious PC gamer who prefers FPSes with a 360 controller. It would make playing games on the PC much, much more convenient.
However, standards like this wouldn’t do much to stop piracy. Hell, there are plenty of people who pirate games on the Xbox 360! If you have a hard drive, you can make just about anything a reality.
On the topic of piracy… While it makes sense to have copy protection from a logical outsider’s perspective, the only problem is that it simply does not work. A game’s copy protection usually gets cracked less than a week after said game is released. In the case of high-demand games, it might even happen on day one, or before the game is actually on the shelf. (Pirated copies can get released early, if someone with access to a pre-released copy decides to play Buccaneer. Review copies sent to magazines or gaming websites come to mind.)
“And of course if there was no copy protection, makers of PC games would not have good returns on their investments, because many many people would be playing their games for free.”
To be frank, many, many, Many(!) people are already playing their games for free. Infinity Ward’s conservative estimate is that 90% of all people who play Call of Duty 4 do so with pirated copies. And this is just based on data indicating when people are trying to play online multiplayer without a legit serial key.
Copy Protection simply does not work. The issue of piracy is not a technological one at this point, because no technology will be able to stop it. It’s a social issue. Everybody pirates, nobody feels bad about it, and the developers who work their asses off to make their games (often in sweatshop conditions *waves to EA*) don’t see a single penny from millions of people who are enjoying the fruits of their labor. Heck, even then, the same developers probably feel no guilt whatsoever in torrenting DVD rips of their favorite TV shows and movies.
The key is to find another way to combat piracy, using something that, unlike most forms of DRM, actually works.
Which is why we keep mentioning Sins of a Solar Empire and its publisher, Stardock. They have NO copy protection for their games, and yet people would rather buy their games than play it for free. No, seriously. Check their sales. It’s Hilarious and Ironic.
Stardock eschews the traditional mode of thought with regards to pirates and customers. Most publishers place inconvenient copy protection schemes on their games to discourage pirates–meanwhile, legitimate customers *also* have to put up with the inconveniences of copy protection. And while pirates will get around the protection very, very quickly (and never have to deal with it again), the legitimate customer has to put up with that inconvenience every time he or she wants to play the game. Sometimes, copy protection even breaks computers (Starforce) or refuses to let you actually play the game (SecuROM). And pirates who break that copy protection wind up looking like heroes because, frankly, they get rid of the hassles so that even legitimate customers can get cracks to allow them to enjoy their games hassle-free.
Pirates wind up offering a *Superior* product than the publishers, thanks to the perspective that automatically assumes all customers are potential pirates.
This is where Stardock is different. Instead of assuming all customers are potential pirates, thereby alienating customers and losing much of their market to *actual* piracy, they do the opposite. They assume every pirate is merely a potential customer, and they provide incentives to buy the game legitimately–the pirated copy, in effect, becomes a demo. In speaking of incentives, I mean access to updates, patches, community features, and online multiplayer. Heck, their games even have a built-in side door to allow pirated copies to be converted to legitimate copies after purchasing a legit serial key. Instead of forcing the potential customer to uninstall the pirated copy and reinstall it legitimately, they’re willing to show enough good faith to pirates and say “Thank you for deciding to buy our game. We appreciate your patronage and we’ll let you get back to playing now.”
This might all sound silly and sentimental to people who don’t play many PC games, or haven’t been doing so for very long, but the approach works and the sales figures prove it. Piracy isn’t just about getting games for free (though that’s certainly no small part of it, let’s be frank), it’s also about getting to play games without having to be hassled, insulted, distrusted, or having one’s computer broken by the game’s publisher just because you were foolish enough to have bought a game legitimately. Ask how many people get cracks for games they bought, just to get around the inconveniences the copy protection puts them through.
A publisher that’s willing to treat its customers with respect is a breath of fresh air we’ve been waiting decades for.
…
As an aside, while the mainstream and hardcore PC gaming market is suffering immensely, especially compared to console gaming, it bears mentioning that the PC video card industry (those funny little devices that allow people to play graphics-intensive games, ie. nearly all of them)is doing quite well, actually. Obviously, this is because you can’t pirate hardware through BitTorrent. A whole lotta people’re playing games that require graphics cards, but they’re obviously not actually paying for the games themselves. If it weren’t for piracy, PC gaming would be as healthy, if not more so, than console gaming.
I say “if not more so” because I also count the booming casual, amateur, and indie PC gaming market. A lot more people play Peggle than Gears of War. And the vast majority of these people are never counted because they’re not hardcore gamers or the “mainstream,” and don’t usually play games. They’re housewives, bored office workers, the elderly, and so forth. And they buy games, too. Just not the ones we’re willing to count. Most sales charts comparing console sales with PC sales ignore casual games, or even digitally-distributed games. Yes, MMOs too. If one were to include all of these figures, then PC gaming is healthier than ever–and certainly much healthier than some consoles, including the PS3’s surprise recovery.
If piracy could be dealt with, even only by a bit, PC gaming for us hardcore mainstreamers wouldn’t be in nearly as dire straits as it is now.
But at least I’ll always have my indie RPGs.
March 7th, 2008 at 6:52 am
top article, I agree with everything, have a link :)
March 7th, 2008 at 6:55 am
[…] market and prophets of doom proclaiming the death of PC gaming around the web, its nice to see someone who cares enough to tell the devs and publishers how it should be. I’m not going to add anymore to this, Mark […]
March 7th, 2008 at 8:49 am
I have to agree with most of this article as someone who has downloaded literally hundreds of games. my computer has everything from crysis to black&white 2 to neverwinter nights, call of duty, and tons of freeware/shareware games on it.
that said, i’ve purchased maybe a twentieth of the games i have downloaded. not because those ones had copy protection that was unbreakable, or even because their online was disabled.. i bought them because they were good, and fun to play.
i download games before i buy them because of the substantial amount of crap that’s hurled at me when i walk into an electronics store. of the 200ish PC games that i’ve downloaded, i play 5-6 on a regular basis, and have paid for those games. that would be battlefield 2142, starcraft, unreal tournament(all of them), warcraft 3, freelancer(which, might i add, has minimum requirements rivaling a box of matches), and most of the command and conquer series.
i don’t even play most of those games online. i enjoy the instant action in unreal as much as the online play, because it’s FUN TO PLAY. /adds to the essay list in the comments.
March 7th, 2008 at 9:00 am
Great comments, hell - buy this person a few beers !
March 7th, 2008 at 9:53 am
Jesus “H” KEEERIST, I could have used a whole 1TB of hard drive trying to put together what you said in a few simple paragraphs. Simple and straight to the point. I like that!
March 7th, 2008 at 10:54 am
I think the developers need to carry on making games graphics how they are however they all need to make a low setting which sticks and never moves! It means that everyone can upgrade to a certain spec PC and know they will be able to play the games that are coming out for the next 5-6 years or so. Spending $800 every 5 years really isn’t much too ask.
March 7th, 2008 at 11:09 am
every five years? lol. more like every few months. most of the time you’re only upgrading because of shit programmers not graphics.
March 7th, 2008 at 11:55 am
i havent enjoyed a PC game since Starcraft.
great article.
March 7th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
You forgot one point: LINUX SUPPORT
March 7th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
The piracy part is too true, and the MMORPG part too. Great article!
March 7th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
sad that none of the mainstream sites like kotaku haven’t picked up this up. they shouldnt call themselves gamers
March 7th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
Truly agree with all of this! I’m mostly however going to pick up on copyright protection.
I have a simple plan for the copy right protection, it just requires people to actually do it! (ewww).
My plan is, if it has copyright protection (like bioshock) its reviews get something like a 2/10. People could choose to overlook this, but when “Awesome best game ever” is at the back of a pcgamer magazine with 12%, you may not notice it, all because it had copyright protection.
On a side note on that, there wasting time and losing potential customers. There is always a way, there will always be a way (applies to anything ^^) to beat copyright protection.
If people actually did my plan, we could do something about it. The “Low rate copyright protection review scheme” shall be victorius!(spelling?)
March 7th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
well you guys relise(sp?) that if rather than continuing to buy the crappy games and used the damaging impact of piracy to kick them off the market we could use their cash chasing scheme against them by only making well built games financially viable because thats how capitalism works.
its like evolution but more fun (and faster and with many more interesting Darwin award esk mistakes).
but personally i ditched PC gaming long ago, around the time of Black and white 2, to move over to Linux and develop my own games and find that much better than the shit thats came out of the industry in greater and greater quantities, but hey all that means is that when i leave collage and start my own company i can afford to not worry so much about the competition cuz ex-gamers know whats wanted
March 8th, 2008 at 2:50 am
Great article. This is the first “takes-longer-than-45-seconds-to-read” article I have actually been able to read in the past week.
I agree 100% with the article. Especially with console games being a $60 risk. I don’t want to buy a game just to find that the Release Date and Game-Is-Playable Date are 6 weeks apart.
Thanks for the good read.
March 8th, 2008 at 8:05 am
Only thing I’d add is multiplatform (Linux and OSX specifically) support, but I’m in a minority there. I just hate limiting my mainstream PC gaming to only ONE of the three machines I run.
Thank goodness for free games like Cube (FPS) and Battle For Wesnoth (TBS), though. Good fun, no price tag, runs on old hardware, and Windows/Linux/Mac.
March 8th, 2008 at 8:07 am
One more thing to add.
Blizzard, at least, has Mac support built in, and has since forever. Aside from great games (don’t play WoW though, that game bores me), thats a big selling point for me.
If they can do it, standard, on every release, with one CD, no hacks, tweaks, or patches required, why doesn’t anyone else?
March 8th, 2008 at 8:10 am
Love the article… but
The major problem I have with article and the comments below are the sections of people talking about how they can’t play new games on their pc’s because of outdated hardware.
The problem the can be brought into one simple line: Can you paly gears of war on your playstation one?
what?? you can’t?!? how dare they make you UPGRADE your console to play the new games!
Give me a keyboard an mouse on a console and bring down the price a few hundered bucks and I will play it no problem but till that time I will continue with my budget pc (500 bucks for a dual core amd 3.2ghz, with 8 gigs of ram, 1TB storage and an Nvidia 7900GS overcloocked to almost 1.5 times it’s original speed.. aka Shop around and build your own)
March 8th, 2008 at 8:25 am
Okay, okay, this really is my last comment.
About copy protection:
Blizzard (yes, them again) released a patch for Starcraft fairly recently that allowed you to play on Battle.net (their free online gaming service) WITHOUT the CD, which, for online play, was essentially half of the copy-protection for online play. Now, this isn’t a major step, especially since the game is quite old (thought still quite amazing), but it just gives us fans more freedom to what we want with our games.
There have been rumors of a Diablo II patch, and some of us who still play that game as well have predicted it might be a legal, official no-CD patch similar to the one we got for Starcraft.
Like I said, its not a HUGE step forward, but it appears Blizzard may be looking that direction.
March 8th, 2008 at 9:52 am
Lets be realistic. The reason gaming sux on pc is cause most games are downloadable from most torrent sites. Who cares what games are being played as long as the pc gaming industry can make some money off it. I personally am a fan of mmo’s and offline games, but i think most games now require either A. Ultra Video card=$300 or more. B. Next gen gaming platform=$300+ C. a horrible taste in games(aka. Chicken little and such) I for one, dont care if my games require Dx10 or a ps3/xbox/wii. We as gamers need to get back to the roots of gaming, when graphics werent everything, and GAMEPLAY was the main focus. Now i understand that with the hardware cap back then didnt allow for next gen lighting or physic trials, but the most pretty game wasnt always the most fun game. I for one still play older video games, finding that most games produced now, lack in replay value, or value at all.
March 9th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Folks, the problem with PC games is that it’s too costly to build. There’s just too many hardware and software platforms to support, which multiplies development and support costs.
Right now, XBox and PS games sell more, are harder to make illegal copies, and are easier to test and support. It’s a miracle that some development companies still believe in the PC platform. I wouldn’t.
March 9th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Kirgen: If sony released a new playstation every 6 months then you’d have a point. They don’t though, they release a new one once every 5 or so years and don’t charge $800 for it.
I always custom build my PCs, shop around for the best gear and everything you’ve suggested. However, when you take into account that I don’t live with my parents, have to pay rent and bills, and currently live on a shoe string budget (I’m a student) I just can’t afford to fork out money for the latest and greatest all of the time. I’m pretty sure most gamers can’t either which is what the author was trying to say.
March 10th, 2008 at 2:30 am
I agree on everything you said except for the MMORPG stuff.
First of all WOW isn’t the best MMORPG(It’s a matter of opinion), it just got the attention of a more “casual” group of gamers. WOW wasn’t the first MMORPG. You say that a lot of MMORPG tries to copy WOW but the truth is WOW copied it’s concept too. WOW wasn’t the first MMORPG to use that concept. And instead of complaining about MMORPGs being the same and suggesting a “better” concept. Why don’t you develop one? you whinny SOB.
March 10th, 2008 at 5:26 am
HEY FUCKTARD PHILLY!
Read the entire fucking article before you make
such an ignorant statement.
March 10th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Great article. I totally agree that the PC gaming market is in a lull. One thing that pissed me off about the market was when they (companies) stopped producing baseball games for the PC. Sad, sad day. Nice article.
March 11th, 2008 at 1:13 am
I don’t know if it was intentional, but the post sounds a lot like a Yahtzee rank.
As for the points, I agree with all of them. MMORPG’s may have a few standouts, but honestly, how many players will switch from a MMO that they’ve spent a lot of time on to a new, untested MMO? And frankly, how many times can the MMORPG mold be copied? Why can’t a developer use the Massively Multiplayer part and apply it to a non-RPG genre? MMOFPS, maybe? Sounds crazy but it could work.
And, how I miss shareware. I know a ton of people who bought the full version of Wolfenstein 3D or Doom after playing the shareware versions. It’s a tried-and-true form of distribution.
And quit telling me to upgrade my fucking computer, assholes! Not everybody can drop $800 bucks for a top-of-the-line video card, not to mention the potential cost of having to upgrade other components to run the card (and game) efficiently, but a $50-60 computer game every now and then won’t take a very big chunk of my budget. I just want some games to be nice to relatively older machines.
March 11th, 2008 at 4:49 am
I’m just now gettin gused to PC gaming, but I must say I agree with this entirely. Not that I’ll get off of PC gaming, there are certainly good points, but these are what bugged me as well, especially the MMO bit. There are so many shitty MMOs (and I’m not counting WoW here) that are considered classic when the only halfway decent one is Ragnarök Online, and I’m not ashamed to admit that even THAT is an acquired taste.
Fortunately the creators of City of Heroes is developing a superhero MMO that’s based on actual skill, rather than traditionally leveling up, and I can only hope to God they have something there.
Anyway, great list :D.
March 11th, 2008 at 6:46 am
totally agree…but since i live in a country where law enforcement is minimal…full games can be bought for less than a dollar each (60 cents to be exact) and me and my friends upload them with eMule/BitTorrent …. i say…download a pirated version first, then if u like it….BUY IT!
March 11th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Very well written, lots and lots of great points. Thumbs up to you, my friend.
March 11th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Great article, nicely written and indeed hits the bullseye, some really great points.
I will make it clear from the start I am an FPS junkie and just don’t have the inclination to buy a game and then pay $15 a month for the right to play it (you know who you are) and since we are all having the dick measuring contest on our gaming rigs, I will chuck my hat in too and say that all the games mentioned above I have probably purchased recently (Crysis, COD 4, HL2 etc etc) and they will happily play along at the highest specs but you know what, the game I play the most is the first PC game I bought over 5 years ago.
Halo.
Why would this be? I have ashit hot rig, it will run the “best games” on the market, why waste time on a 6 year old title?
PLAYABILITY
Its not the prettiest game and it doesn’t need a sub-atomic particle generator to run, its just plain and simple good honest fun, add to that the you can download FOR FREE a custome edition that allows you to install literally 100s of custom made maps (made by gamers i might add and not devs) and you have IMO, the perfect combination.
Devs, prettiness is getting old now MMORPGS bullshit is too, we know what you can make with some pretty game graphic engines but give it a rest now, give us something thats going to be fun for years and not just a few weeks.
Be original in this modern gaming era, make a game that will last more than 10 hours of gameplay and then become a boring piece of graphical art or at most a pretty looking coaster.
Ty to Stumbleupon for bringing me here!!
March 11th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Buggy: Yes I do tend to agree that some people find it harder to shop around and find the spare money than others do.
Meanwhile this is my first new computer in 4 years I belive, I am 26 and don’t live at my parents house, as a point in fact I own my own house, have not worked in almost a year because of a shoulder injury, and have been living on $1000(us) a month for this last year seeing as it was a workmans comp injury.
I love mmorpg’s and I was looking at one of the big ones coming out soon “age of Conan” and I can predict that it will flop for one major reason -Graphics- it is using DX10 and everything looks the highest quality. Two problems with that NOWHERE can I find somewhere that says you can turn the graphivs down to a decent point and two dx10 only works with vista at this point and I will not use vista(it lowers perfomance to ‘look pretty’) and I am not the only person out there that says the same about vista, most comapanies are offering ‘downgrades’ to xp and making a massive profit doing so becvuase noone wants it.
Last Point: I played a game called Auto Assault mmorpg car shooting gameplayed it right to the point that they closed there doors(not enough fan base to support it anymore) it did NOT run on vista(the point here being that it is not the only game that does not run on vista)
March 12th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
WoW isn’t popular because it has trading cards, board games and action figures. So, you’re saying I got into WoW because I found out they made trading cards for it?
It is popular because it is an easy to get into MMO and very enjoyable to a lot of people.
March 12th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
The author’s ideas for MMOs have actually already been done. It’s not the companies fault as much as it’s the poor support they get from people. We’re still just barely finishing up the first generation of MMOs. They’re still relatively new, so you can’t expect them all to be winners. The next generation MMOs(Age of Conan, Warhammer, etc.) are actually looking very promising.
Also, a large portion of console games are also created for the PC. Xbox 360 controllers can even be used on the PC to give it more of a console feel. The main points are that a game should be well polished and have a good demo? You’re definitely right, but was it something that people honestly didn’t know already?
March 13th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Video games make more money than movies. Period. They are not failing. Maybe PC games are, because you need to spend 3 times as much on a gaming PC as a PS3.
I think its funny that many of you think you can just wave a magic wand and people who are not creative, people who are business men (and women) will all of a sudden become artistic and creative geniuses, all capable of transforming their communities, as did WoW or Portal, or will Spore.
On that note, I think Danielle Steel should write books more like Shakespeare or Michael Bay should make movies more like the Coen brothers. No wonder Hollywood is losing money to video games: they (who’s they?) need to replace everyone who sucks (like Stallone) with people with talent (like Kaufman)! Now why don’t they do that? Seems easy enough!
I agree with Nick and with Ryan.
And to anyone who “agrees 100%”, are you that incapable of thinking for yourself, that there isn’t even 1% that you disagree with?
March 13th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
I am an ATI/AMD guy with top of the line AMD/ATI products. My PC makes Crysis my bitch on very high(2x HD3870 xfired).
—–
Lol. Stubborn fanboyism of the highest order. This brought to you by an ex-AMD fan by the way. They just don’t cut the mustard anymore.
And by “makes Crysis my bitch”, I do believe you mean runs at 30fps. Just.
March 13th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
I liked the article, i am one of the minority (high end machine) which i saved like hell for and wont be upgrading for a few years to come. Funny thing is the only game i regularly play is BF2 which is 3 years old, ive played cod4 on high and it was fun but not enough.
I worry about the pc games market, it seems like everything the studios do pushes people to DL games. And i wonder how many people who have commented here DL games?
I hope developers wake up and see that what we want is less buggy games that everyone can play, graphics are not priority just look at the nintendo ds!
March 13th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
No one has even mentioned DAoC??
I must really be under a rock. I really enjoyed this one until EA bought it.
March 13th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
Wow man, I feel ya. Hellgate London was a 60 dollar beta test. I stopped buying EA games cause I lost 2 of my battlefield CDs and had to actually crack (read pirate) them to play them again. And MMORPGs are crap to me cause I can’t stand one style of game play for months at a time so why would I want to pay so much money per month. *sigh* Oh well, with the success of the steam model, maybe we will see plenty of smaller companies making good games and releasing on there.
March 14th, 2008 at 7:51 am
Did you just vomit shit out of your ass or what?
Your article was a load of shit. So keep trying non buddy, and stop being gay it’s making me want to vomit out of all directions.
March 16th, 2008 at 1:47 am
Yeah, but at least Dark Age was, from what I’ve read, the closest thing to the MMORFPS thing that was mentioned. Sure you had the level grind, xpacks, etc, but the PvP was as close to UT2 that I know of.
The only complaint was you needed to be pretty well committed to compete… not for the casual gamer, (again pre- EA).
March 16th, 2008 at 4:54 am
Gotta love Stardock’s approach.
A year or two ago, those Starforce jerks were trying to push their crappy protection scheme and had published a link to a torrent of Galactic Civilizations II (a Master Of Orion-like turn based space strategy game) to prove a point that having no protections made it easier to pirate. Yes it did. Starforce games are hard to crack, or were at least, because you had to follow a bunch of zany stuff like disconnect your CDROM drive and whatnot to use a virtual driver to get around Starforce, which made it not worth it.
When I heard about them posting that link, and knowing that I like those MOO type games I went and bought GalCiv2 sight unseen and was very happy.
Anyhow, my point is that if you create a quality game, people will buy it. Trust your customers.
March 17th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
“How about a sci-fi FPS where players can form corporations and fight for resource-rich colonies?” Yet you already mentioned EVE Online, so perhaps that’s asking for more of the same anyway, just not more WoW.
Not that I don’t agree, I love EVE to pieces and would love to see someone try and improve on it, but not as much as I would like to see something truly original in the MMO market. I like Massive Multiplayer Online, I just detest WoW, EQ and all the games that work more or less like them…
March 18th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Sci-fi thingy bob?
starportgame.com
V. good
March 18th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Bloody good article, some good points with evidence to back it up. I agree 100%. Especially with the section about the constant pushing of graphic boundaries, requiring the newest graphics cards that are the size of a small PC, costing more than the PC together, just to run the things.
Perhaps the PC industry could stop trying to get ahead with ever better graphics and cater more for the type of easily affordable graphics card that the masses have.
March 18th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
I agree that there is to many MMORPG games out. I remember 10 years ago when we was out buying games for our PS1, it was so fun going around the mall watching all the game titles available. When you want to buy games today there is only some sucky mmorpg games you dont want to buy.
March 19th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
[…] My PC Games Better, Dammit Gaming Eh » Blog Archive » Want my ass off the 360? Listen. So instead of being the pessimistic dick like everyone else, I’m going to give suggestions to PC […]
March 20th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
Sins of a Solar Empire is an excellent example of a game that is truly for gamers. You can install it and play single and LAN games without any sort of a serial number, however, if you want some of the other features, such as online play, you have to have a serial number. They make the game good enough that people will buy it, yet they also want people just to have it. What a great strategy!
March 21st, 2008 at 9:47 pm
As a PC gamer and console gamer I have to say I totally agree.
With the consoles you can go out and grab a game, you know it’ll run, it’ll look up to standard with the machine you have and will last a good while.
PC games ….. IF you’ve spent hundreds of £s or $s in the last 6 months on your machine you have a good chance of being able to run the game … but its not a certainty. Even if it does run, unless you’re impressed by realistic rain patterns or prescise wave emulation etc (Because, of course, theyre hugely important in games …. pffft….) then there’s little point.
March 21st, 2008 at 9:53 pm
Haven’t upgraded my PC in 4 years and I haven’t missed a single thing yet. It’s always awesome to find genuine classic, wonderfully made games at ridiculously cheap prices in bargain bins anyway.
March 27th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
im 41 and have been playing games since i first discovered pong in 1975 and this man has a point, i got my first pc after playing doom shareware on my mates computer.
April 2nd, 2008 at 12:26 am
All very true.
April 5th, 2008 at 2:18 am
Amen to everything! Especially copy-protection!!
No I’m not a pirate. I buy every single game I own, and I still have the boxes and everything to prove it. I have been buying games eversince I could afford them. Even now… no, ESPECIALLY now, with the hoops they make legit customers like me jump through just to play their games due to copy protection, makes me seek out NOCD cracks just so I can stop hearing my DVD drive creak and groan everytime they do a “check” to make sure I have a legit disk. The worst was Starforce and I was hit by this “virus” when I bought Rainbow Six Lockdown. You can bet I got rid of the game really fast, even before I finished it.
When Half Life 2 forced STEAM onto me just to play the game in SINGLE PLAYER, I swore I’d never buy another STEAM-powered game. And I never have since.
April 8th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
There was no need to mention you are not a developer or a marketing person. Your article made that abundantly clear. While you were correct on the Bugs and Demo section, you know nothing about Copy Protection or MMO’s and are polluting the internet with your asinine ramblings. Now, to address your ignorance. And yes, I’ve been a game producer for 7 years, so I do know what I’m talking about.
MMO’s keep getting made because they do not have to be successful on a WoW level to turn a profit. Keeping 100k concurrent subscribers is enough to keep an MMO in business. Do you know anything about the game markets in China or South Korea? MMO’s are the biggest money makers there and will continue to be for quite a while. And in your list of successful MMO’s, you left out Lord of the Rings Online, City of Heroes/Villains, Guild Wars, and RuneScape.
Copy protection is needed and will continue to be part of PC games. It is one of the only tools publishers have against piracy. It doesn’t stop piracy, but it does slow it down a little. Think of it as a car lock or alarm. Will a locked car with the alarm on assure it will not be stolen? Not at all, it is a deterrent, not complete protection. Can it be a pain to fumble for your keys with arms full of groceries? Yes, but it’s better than not having any locks and someone stealing your car. I do agree that the recent developments in copy protection are just plain silly and make the games more difficult for legitimate users to play.
Your Demo observations were dead on. Some publishers realize their importance and demos are now being planned for and should hopefully keep getting better. The development community understands how important they are from a marketing standpoint. That being said, there is not always the time or manpower available to put out a quality demo. In this case, smart developers don’t release one. Unfortunately, most will still release a subpar quality demo or fake it enough to be fun. I’m looking at you Blacksite Area 51.
And, finally, bugs. Bugs suck and they are part of every product ever released. But there is no reason to release a game with ‘A’ level bugs which cause a game to be unplayable. I’ve worked on a few games which we were forced to ship with several ‘A’ bugs. This is usually done to appease the publisher bean counters because ‘our stockholders are expecting another release this quarter’. Don’t blame developers for buggy software, blame the publishers who concentrate on the bottom line, not whether or not a game is fun.
April 11th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
I agree with most of this and would like to add that game developers are totally missing it. We do not need total GORE or PORN. Remove the junk! Clean up the games so a wider audience can enjoy it.
We also don’t need trainers on violence or swearing. There is enough of that already.
If they spent less time on making games ‘too real’ people might take a break from ‘reality’ to play them.
April 19th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
THREE WORDS.
WOLFENSTEIN: ENEMY TERRITORY
That game summarizes everything written here and more.
GET IT NOW.
May 4th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
I agree whole heartedly dude. Don’t forget cross-platform games like what EVE has done.
Speaking of which, I just got EVE working on linux. Time to run away and play.