The reason they dont make games for the higher pc player market.

[Dave]

The higher pc player market goes out of its way to pirate the games

theres no money in it

start buying the games or they are going to be forced to make all their games like prince of persia, and also market them for the console, since its significantly harder to pirate games on them.

[ainmosni]

I buy games that are worth it as my steam record proves...

[Wedge]

What the fuck brought this on?

Also everybody (in the US that doesn't make MMO's, RTS's or is Valve) already makes all their games for console, so I don't know what your point is.

[Sponson]

The higher pc player market goes out of its way to pirate the games

theres no money in it

start buying the games or they are going to be forced to make all their games like prince of persia, and also market them for the console, since its significantly harder to pirate games on them.

Starcraft for n64

[Eschatos]

One major exception would be Russian games.  The piracy rate there is huge but still they only make PC games.  There was an interesting article about it here and here. 

[Wedge]

One major exception would be Russian games.  The piracy rate there is huge but still they only make PC games.  There was an interesting article about it here and here. 

It's not anything surprising, you can't sell/develop for consoles in those regions for a variety of reasons, so they are even less viable.  Really most of Europe outside of maybe Ubisoft in France is still pretty much PC centric in their game development, as it's still the dominant format there outside of the UK.

Seriously though, if you look at a lot of major PC developers in the US from 10 years ago, they've folded up and/or been bought out and/or develop primarily for console now.  There's no real point in saying "buy a bunch of PC games" at this point.  I think PC or not, it's the ballooning budgets of game development that have drug down the quality of games lately anyways.  They cost so much to make now it's crucial for them to appeal to the LCD to keep sales potential as high as possible.

[ZargonX]

I think the real future of the PC market will be smaller developers doing more niche titles.  It's cheaper and easier to develop for PC, and also easier to distribute on your own, so it's a great place for the self-motivated.  Sure, XNA and WiiWare and whatever are supposed to be for "indie" titles, but I think the PC will still be the ultimate outlet for it.

[ainmosni]

[quote author=Eschatos link=topic=2134.msg60879#msg60879 date=1231601091]
One major exception would be Russian games.  The piracy rate there is huge but still they only make PC games.  There was an interesting article about it here and here. 

It's not anything surprising, you can't sell/develop for consoles in those regions for a variety of reasons, so they are even less viable.  Really most of Europe outside of maybe Ubisoft in France is still pretty much PC centric in their game development, as it's still the dominant format there outside of the UK.

Seriously though, if you look at a lot of major PC developers in the US from 10 years ago, they've folded up and/or been bought out and/or develop primarily for console now.  There's no real point in saying "buy a bunch of PC games" at this point.  I think PC or not, it's the ballooning budgets of game development that have drug down the quality of games lately anyways.  They cost so much to make now it's crucial for them to appeal to the LCD to keep sales potential as high as possible.
[/quote]

And here is where the dumbing down of games starts... Because they need to make so much money of them they need to appeal to the lowest common denomninator and that means: prepare for a lot more halo's and gears...

I would argue my point more but I'm ill as fuck and can't think straight, I'm going to hop back into bed...

[A. Crow]

it's ok, we'll always have broodwar.

[x]

heh Ain quoted Wedge's post and then paraphrased it.

[ainmosni]

heh Ain quoted Wedge's post and then paraphrased it.

heh... like I said I can't really think straight at all... this illness is fucking me over big time...

[CaffeinePowered]

In before rant by Caff

[cannedpeahes]

If they tried the same penalties out on the US of A as they do in Russia, there'd be a riot. We consider it our God-given right to pirate games, and we tend to find any way possible to keep from biting the bullet. On the other hand, we pay upwards of fifty bananas for ours, and the our European and Aussie pals get raped even harder.

But with the PC, it's a never ending cycle. Technology gets better, so developers make better graphics, and then tech has to get better again to keep up, continue ad nauseam, and every step of the way somebody's paying out the ass. Consoles have that right at least. They're hardware-unified, they're widespread, and no console gamer ever has to Google what the fuck a segfault error is. Source engine is the closest thing we've got and it's not only showing its age, it's proprietary. A single complete engine with a specific range hardware demands, combined with big halt in the constant production by nVidia and ATI of bigger and better cards, would be the best way out. But it's impossible.

[SAVAGE-0]

Peaches brings the interesting point acout upgrading hardware but picture this... the game company's are OWNED by the hardware companies... their games are selling how they sell and being pirated even more so, BUT no1 can play them without upgrading their machines every 2 years... 50 bucks a few times a year or 300+ in parts? maybe its all just a conspearacy!!!

It's really not like they are even trying though... look at Valves games... do you know any1 with a pirated copy of TF2 etc? that system (steam) is like 10 years old... software companies really dont have to put much work into making their games more secure.

[cannedpeahes]

I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a conspiracy, but I think it's a scheme where everybody suffers. For developers, the cost of creating a game that's up to par these days can hurdle $25m depending on how ambitious you are. The hardware to run a game like that can cost consumers - in a new build - a good $1200 and easily more for a capable system. Nobody's willing to just settle. And we've reached a point of diminishing returns on the visuals. Sinking more money into graphics is starting to yield fewer and fewer noticeable results.

Consider consoles, where instead of upgrading hardware, better graphics are yielded with clever use of software and resource allocation. They've got that much right. With the investment in time, effort, knowledge, and money required to be a PC gamer, the only thing really keeping us from extinction are the fact that we're a cooler crowd to play with.

[Wedge]

What THE FUCK are you talking about?  You sound like one of those rambling console fanboys that have this imagined view of the PC gaming that is a few years out of date.  Nobody has made a high budget, system pushing, PC only, game since Crysis, and nobody ever will make another one either.  And they're even planning console versions of that now.  PC hardware hasn't gotten significantly better in the last 2 years, it's just gotten a lot cheaper.  Hardware upgrades now just let you run things with higher resolutions and more AA.  Nvidia's 8 series launched over 2 years ago, and there is nothing made or being made that won't run on that level of card.  The only types of games that will come out for PC only now are those that simply aren't possible on consoles for reasons other than graphics.

The "cycle" you are talking about is already over, the ceiling has already been hit.  Any major developers are either making their games for consoles now, so the graphic and hardware cap is set at the tech for those, or they still make PC games because they are smart enough to make their games run on a wide range of systems, like Valve.

[shoopfox]

Maybe you'd need a $1200 computer if you bought it from like... Dell or something O_0

[Versus]

agreed with wedge.

also, shoopfox, i love your avatar.

[MrGrey]

i will pirate everything forever.. music, movies, and games until the whole system breaks down and collapses.  I feel there shouldn't be a price tag on certain items, people should pay what they think they should.  I'm sure many of you are thinking "well then people would pay nothing" and I don't feel that is true... look what Radiohead did, they had their fans pay whatever they wanted for "In Rainbows" and made more money then they ever did on any album.  I think if people really enjoy a certain game or whatever they will pay good money to show support.  Just my theory...

[cannedpeahes]

No, nobody really makes PC-only games like that anymore because the market is so tiny it just wouldn't be profitable. And you can easily run the games on a two-year old card and I do. Consider Assassin's Creed. It debuted on PS3 (an expensive system), but also on the X360: now, a $200 machine. The minimum specs require a dual-core processor, a $100+ investment on its own if you want staying power, then add other parts and that skyrockets. Mine cost $800 when I bought it. Yeah, it's still a decent system, but when you think about it, it cost 4x as much an Xbox 360 and in a develop-and-port type of industry, it's really no more useful than one.

PCs are a heftier investment to begin with, and are obsolescent right out of the box. The console "generation" concept tends to get it right in that when you stake your greenbacks on a console, you know a couple of things:
A) You're not being outdone by your neighbor. By anybody. Unless they buy a different console or a PC.
B) Everybody's playing with more or less the same gear, no getting trumped by some shut-in misanthrope with a seven-gajillion DPI laser mouse, a Zboard, and a 6-pack of Bawls'.
C) If your console breaks down, you can go cry to Mamasoft and they'll ship you a new one.
D) Your system will be as current as everybody else's for at least a couple of years.

And they haven't made any huge technological leaps besides, perhaps, upgrading their default APIs to DX10 (not huge in itself) and introducing shader 3.0 (an old innovation). But it seems reasonable to a lot of developers to build an engine from the ground up for every game they make, Unreal 3 and Source being exceptions to that, and apparently it costs a lot of money to build instead of license.

And might I add: four of these were released in the last two years, and two are set for future release. And I haven't owned a console since 1999, I just think their business model is superior to ours.

What I'm saying isn't that consoles on the whole are better, just that the PC gaming industry has done little to none to make the system accessible and popular and it's a mistake we can't afford to continue making.