Are we in a state of flux?

The entire gaming industry was in a state of flux in the late 90's, with nearly everyone rushing towards FMVm,3d and horrendus offsprings of those two. Truly horrifyingly ugly games were produced during those times that have not aged well at all.

However in the end 3d won out and we saw the effect of this with aesthticlaly gorgeous games.

Soon after though, the industry started jumping onto the online bandwagon. There were annoying issues there, but the end result was MMORPG's, multiplayer LAN's, etc.
Whether its good or bad is debatable, though I for one would prefer companies to fcus on single player games rather than multiplayer.

However these days the trend seems to be towards consolization! This was apparent with xbox initially, with many pc games being ported over or even being made for the xbox first and then the pc, but with nex-gen consoles it has really taken off.

Now many dev's are either going console only, or going console first and pc second. This results in dumbed down games (nex gen consoles still cannotmatch the power of the peecee) and other issue.

Do youthink this state is temporary and htat pc-gaming will recalim its throne of dominence? Or are we witnessing the dying croaks of pc-gaming as a major retail-based entity, with a bleak future of console only games being published by major companies and the pc only catering to indie devs?

It's not random. It's because consoles have (more or less) caught up with the capabilities of desktop computers. There used to be a time when PC games where "it" if you wanted technologically advanced games (due to their superior power compared to consoles), and great multiplayer experiences (24 to 60 man servers for FPS games).

But now consoles can do all that too. The only thing they can't do (or rather, aren't geared towards doing) are complicated games with many features. The user input is usually limited to the gamepad (a bunch of buttons and a couple of analog sticks), so the games themselves have to be kept simple. This is obvious when a console game is directly ported to the PC and plays like shit because all the usual keys/features/options you're used to having on PC games aren't there.

It's not going to change unless more people start wanting more advanced games. Though the good news is that there'll always be a fair amount of people interested in these games who, I believe, won't ever disappear. Thus there'll always be a market, even though it may become small.

Do youthink this state is temporary and htat pc-gaming will recalim its throne of dominence?

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lol wat?

Anyway. What i wanted to say:
ZOMG PC GAEMING SI DAED + 7458 adnahaira thread in this month = facepalm.

Doesnt this happen every time a new 'generation' of consoles hits the shelves?


Also, IBR.

in before retardo as well

also - a new generation? bah! xbox360 is already an old shit. no dx10. and we already have dx10.1

yeah I know who cares here - but console gamers do care mostly about graphics.

I don't see PC gaming becoming bigger than consoles for a long time. mostly because of the social factor of consoles.

the more mainstream gaming becomes, the more 'gamey' it is, with focus more on arcade action and competition games you can enjoy with a bunch of friends - see super smash brothers, need for speed, guitar hero and etc.

the new audience (joe blow) would rather have a ssb session with a couple of friends than trudge through a long rpg with characters he doesn't give a shit about.

and these social games are naturally suited to consoles - the more controllers you can attach to your box, the more people you can have playing at once. and no one has to lug around their laptop. its quick to set up and casual. laptops (when used for gaming) tend to scream "nerd" and to scare girls away. but everyone loves the wii, even girls

yeah I know who cares here - but console gamers do care mostly about graphics.

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Bullshit. Most of them care about playing fun games for the simple premisis of having fun. Most of my friends that like pc gaming enjoy deeper strategy and roleplaying games and online gaming. Games that can take a long time to devellop. Most of my friends that prefer consoles seem to enjoy shooters, sports games and arcade beat 'em ups. Games that require less thought and instead seem to be geared towards quicker gameplay. Neither one is better than the other, it's just what you prefer in your gaming habit.

Does anybody thinks that the codex represents the majority of pc gamers? The majority of casual gamers whether it's console or pc mostly care about graphics and shooters and I'm not talking only about the present , that is the situation for decades now. And I would have to say that most pc games (rpgs aside) are far shorter than most console games.

Yeah, I'm with Trash here. To suggest that the millions of gamers still enjoying new releases for systems like the nearly ten year old Playstation 2 care more about graphics than the millions of gamers who would gladly play a rehash of Far Cry to justify the purchase of their dual 8800 GTXs is just ludicrous. PC gamers and PC developers are their own worst enemies.

However playstation jrpg's are also quitedeep storywise, and presentation wise are usually far above and beyond what the pc has to offer.

Their main flawis lack of customization, lack of multiple ways to do quests, extremely linear gameplay, etc. However they make up for this with deep and involving storylines, fun turnbased combat with strategy, etc.

well yes sure, but I still often hear and read much ranting from console and pc gamers about how this new shooter has so so cool graphics and how they are despising something that is 2d or low poly 3d. and the old graphics is often a stop point for them in playing the game.

I don't think I know anyone outside of snotty journalists who gives a shit about graphics technology. That's geeky stuff. Ordinary people don't care for that, that's why they go for something like Wii/PS2 instead of PS3/Billbox.

You should have a look around some forums and see the people recoiling in horror at playing an old game because of the graphics or practically masturbating over a new one because of the latest parallax mapping or something.

Er, most forums like that are going to be full of 'hardcore' gamers, people who are at least as nerdy as the average person on this board, and have half as many friends in real life (I mean, we have our P&P groups, right?).
The stigma attached to playing games is pretty much gone now, and most people playing games - who should be kept distinct from people who refer to themselves as 'gamers' - will be pissing about with Peggle or something lite on the Wii, not Crysis, simply because they don't want to invest in the time or hardware required.

Hey, don't piss on the Wii, guys -- I think it's pretty brilliant, myself. Even if you play nothing more than Wii Sports, I feel like you get your money's worth. It's fun to play for half an hour at a time, especially with other people; having a Wii is a lot like having a fooz ball or ping pong table, only you can play by yourself too sometimes. Also, the tank game that comes with Wii Play (which includes a Wiimote, and therefore effectively costs only about $5) is brilliant in its addictive simplicity. I love tank game . . .

In the end graphics whores don't mean shit (well maybe to singleplayer games). Gameplay is what matters, nothing else. I don't personally know a single "hardcore" gamer that doesn't agree with this. Even when it comes to shooters.

http://archive.gamespy.com/stats/

The only exception in the top 6 currently and usually is CoD4. Partly because it's new, partly because it copies the gameplay of CS while its dumbed down aspects makes it more accessible to newbies, and partly because of graphics. CS:S and BF2142 have near identical gameplay to their big brothers, both have varying degrees of increased graphical fidelity yet far smaller player bases. Pricing doesn't vary noticeably, except of course the hardware to run it on in the case of CS:S.

With WoW you have the same thing going on. Hardcores and casuals playing the same game while many graphically more advanced MMO's exist.

......

the problem so many developers are facing is that pc gamers simply arent buying as many games as console gamers and apparently some of them cant manage their money properly (hi, iron lore) while others can.

they often blame piracy but i think the main reason is very different, at least when i look around in my circle of friends and neighbourhood.

console gamers seem to be buying 3 times as much games as pc gamers.

is it because pc gamers download 10times as much games on the other hand ? not in my experience (despite that includes lots of pirates but hey thats another thread...)

here s what i m experiencing among pc gamers:

- 1 plays WoW since its release and if he ever gets bored, it ll probably be for another MMORPG that he ll play for years. he buys 2-3 games per year, one of them beeing a WoW expansion and the other 1-2 merely as a quick distraction.
before WoW he played Diablo 2 over and over and over....

- 2 are modding/mapping geeks. they spent the last years with Half Life 2 and now jumped ship to crysis which apparently has an awesome editor/engine. inbetween they occasional buy a different game here or there but most of their time is spend mapping, modding or playing mods/maps for HL2/Crysis.

- 1 plays some world war online MMOFPS that i know little about other then that since he got it, he hasnt played anything else.

- 2 play FPS in teams, Enemy Territory most of the time. Only other games they buy are funnily enough RPGs and luckily enough they have good enough tastes to enjoy The Witcher over Oblivion.


before i bore you to death with the hobbys of people i know the pattern is obvious: there are enough pc games that are entertaining for months or years.... that many pc gamers simply dont feel the need to spend their money on buying the masses of new games comming out.

for consoles that seems to be different, at least the console gamers i know seem to spend shittons of money on buying games.

one of the HL2/Crysis modders i mentioned above is a hardware nerd who basically buys the new best graphic card every friggen year. funnily enough he s spending less money on his hobby than the average console gamer i know with his 20 games per year....

what can the industry do about this ? to be honest: not much. either you accept that you cant expect console-like sales and thus manage your budget accordingly..... or you jump ship (but dont be suprised when the console market becomes oversaturated).

should this worry us ? dunno about you but i have both many many great games already available that i want to (re)play but simply dont have enough time and more good games on the horizon. funnily enough 2 of them are pc exclusive and free to boot: planescape: purgatorio (NWN2) and mechwarrior: living legends (crysis)
and both look absolutely stunning even to the graphicswhore in me.

As for this whole talk on graphics, I do quite like to have pretty graphics in a game, and I am not ashamed of saying it. But it has less to do with the technological level of those graphics and more to do with their artistic implementation.

For example, all the Infinity Engine games are graphically stunning. There are great handpainted backgrounds in them. Torment was especially the best looking of them, because every character was shown larger and in more detail. Honestly, I was really impressed when I saw the beginning of Torment with the Nameless One waking up in the Mortuary.

Now, Crysis is among my favourite games for how plain fun it is, but the graphics actually have nothing to do with it. Sure, it has an amazing graphical renderer, but it is used in a tropical island with soldiers in it. That simple setting really limits how good the game can look. Besides, it's a shooter, and you don't have time to admire how pretty everything is, as you're busy trying to survive or thinking of how to kill people. It's not like in RPGs, where you have all the time to view and admire the setting. The only time the graphics of Crysis did impress me was the 30-minute alien ship level, and that was where the artistic quality of the graphics truly shined (Although it was far less fun than the rest of the game).

ricolikesrice said:

they often blame piracy but i think the main reason is very different

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yes, we already established pages ago what was the reason. they are blaming piracy because really nobody wants to buy their games - because their games are shit. look who complains about piracy - guys who made titan quest? well titan quest is just another diablo clone - and we have lots of that stuff each year. Mollyneux? well who's fault that you're crazy and your games are boring and now they will be retarded?
piracy was here since the ancient times and why doesn't it bother devs who actually make good games?