PC Games dropped from E3
mod
http://www.qj.net/E3-Media-Summit-2008-now-narrowly-focused-on-console-games/pg/49/aid/121612
This just in, E3's board of directors makes more bad decisions... Shocking news I know...
This just in, E3's board of directors makes more bad decisions... Shocking news I know...
Replies
http://www.joystiq.com/2008/06/30/dnf-dev-calls-e3-irrelevant-kettle-black/
Sigh
seems to me - what with user choice of drives, installable content, waiting ages for games to load, really noisy fans, solder overheating and chips falling out, and being able to do shit loads more on yer modern console than just play games - it's getting more and more blurred.
Besides, E3 isn't what it used to be anymore. So It's hard to stay enthusiastic about looking forward to it. Now that it's officially a sweat fest for the open public.
Well, one you pay Microsoft £250 for and the other you don't :P
Does anyone really care about e3 anymore?
Yea piracy!
Yea MS for snatching up PC developers to fill console ranks!
Yea for Games for Windows 9 years too late Yea!
Yea for Intel making the most horrible graphics chip ever and pushing it on anyone and everyone! yea!
ok I'm done...
EQ said as long as Blizzard is around PC is ok. I agree with that, but I think its gonna rest more on Steam (or companies like steam) that provides an easy access to games without the big problem of piracy.
Also... are people forgetting about Browser Based Gaming already? www.InstantAction.com is one company that is really pushing quality for Browser Based Gaming, and I don't think this will go away. What about ID releasing Browser based Q3.
I think whats gonna happen is PC will lose some bigger AAA titles, but more indie devs will step up and produce (most likely) more innovative games at a much lower cost to the consumer and the developer, and it'll be playable on your browser, with lower recommended spec... the future is INDIE!
In fact some companies like valve would argue that PC gaming is the future.
And Valve do have a pretty good track record of making good business decisions. http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=160866&page=1
Not sure about the "indie future" Jason suggested, PC is a massive market, bigger companies won't pass it up.
Remember, the XBox was created solely to prevent Sony from dominating the market. If Microsoft can convert consoles into PC's, and they're doing a damn good job, it's mission accomplished.
Meanwhile the PC industry will be waiting for everyone to catch up.
I can understand the move towards consoles. Harder to pirate (removing the 360 dvd drive and flashing it is honestly above most people) and a consistant platform makes things nicer for the programmers. instead of coding for 3 million combinations of pc's you program for a couple setups (360, ps3, wii, ps2, etc)
You'd be amazed at how something will work on one system, but without logic crash instantly on another
I think that's probably one of the biggest benefits of browser gaming, eliminate the confusion.
They're not really running in the browser. They don't eliminate the need to make them work on every system. They're not crossplatform by design, and most of them likely won't ever be. They're games that are downloaded and run in a frame, optionally fullscreen.
No pc games on E3, well, ppl got what they deserve, as simple as that hehe. With the internet and Free or cash mmos, i usually don't buy pc games. Multiplayer is the actual tendency.
Last year i bought Gears of Wars for PC, exclusively for the Cooperative, and Unreal Tournament 3 due to the multiplayer, very funny the onslaughts. I dislike single player games a lot, to play with more ppl is better.
As a note, think about working for the devil, noone wants
In Blizzard are very Clever, Battle net and the online play is something that forces those common pirates to buy the game if they want to play multiplayer. And like multiplayer is the most demanding thing, they win. I liked so much diablo 2, that i own 2 copies of it, and 2 of the expansion too (i have a brother). Like me, too many people
The bad side of all this i have readed, is that we will only see a good game in a period of 5 years for pc... or maybe more years. The rest will be cheap and bad games. The AAA+ titles will go to consoles where benefits exists for producers.
PC games will never die for sure, koreans studios produce mmos like cookies. And it's becaming the multiplayer platform ^^ by excelence, RTS, MMORPGs, Casual gaming, and FPS.
http://e3.gamespot.com/
To add to this, I recently checked up on the new Hulk game, and saw it ported to PC... and not to sound like an ass, but honestly, if you are gonna port and release shit like that on the PC (not the game, but the quality of port), no wonder people are saying PC Gaming is dying. There are fewer and fewer AAA titles on PC (piracy) and the games that do make it to PC are usually shitty ports...
Something needs to be fixed, and I think Steam is going in the right direction, battle.net as well (multiplayer)
recently, a lot of armies has shown great interest in PC-gaming, and several armies has bought, and train with various PC-sims.
Its a shame there wont be pc games on E3... no chance for news about SC2 or WOW... and more that I dont really care about...
The PC game market is still huge compared to when I started playing PC games. I think that if games like WoW and The Sims can come along and grab huge sales numbers, it goes to show that the PC market is still alive and kicking. Hell, even Crysis sold more than a million copies (even with their absurd system requirements, and then they cry about piracy).
One thing you are seeing a lot of is that games are cannibalizing their own PC market. Microsoft has a policy about releasing their games early on XBox, but a lot of other games come out at the same time. I can tell you right now that if I couldn't play CoD4 on the XBox, I would have played it on PC.
We are still near the peak of the last console release. The PS3 is just now getting some really AAA titles. Wait a couple years and people will be talking about the PC again.
The fact of the matter is that the old financial model that supported PC gaming is largely dead and buried. This is largely thanks to rampant piracy. (and the constant expansion of high-speed internet that makes piracy so much easier) So game studios looking to produce the AAA PC titles of yesteryear are going to be out on their ear. Independent studios with control over their distribution pipeline are the ones thriving right now. This includes studios like Valve. Valve uses Steam as not only a digital distribution system, but a measure against piracy. All of the features they give you for free are a red herring. A very effective and welcome red herring, obviously. But the real strength of Steam is that it insures Valve against piracy. (and by extension, those developers who sell their games over Steam) MMO's are also an attractive alternative to boxed gameing, as their business model guards against piracy and insures continuous revenue.
Simple browser-based gaming such as Garage Game's new initiative, Quake On-Line, and Flash games, are all cost-effective and reach a broad demographic. Efforts like these can either make their profit through advertising, or serve as springboard's to other services and platforms. Flash in particular is a great platform for prototyping game concepts before migrating them up to consoles or digital distribution systems. The broad distribution of the Flash player and the short attention span of most internet users makes flash gaming an ideal way to beta test unproven game ideas.
If anything, PC gaming is bigger and more expansive than it's ever been in the past. It's just beginning to adopt different, more varied forms. When the monetization of on-line gaming stabilizes, we'll probably begin to see more order and structure come to PC gaming. For now though, PC gaming is definitely in a transitional period.
Well, actually, piracy is more rampant in territories like Asia. Free game structure titles are all well and good, and definitely have a place in the future of PC gaming. However, it is true that they are fairly new to the PC gaming scene, and in no way subscribe to the classic economic models on which PC gaming is built. We've already established that controlled systems like Steam are profitable and supportable, and will figure in heavily to PC gaming to come.
But the traditional box in a store model of PC gaming is on the way out, and just about everyone knows it. You know what kind of games are still selling in that economic model? The kind that have very low production values. (and thus involve much less risk to the developer and time investment to the end-user) The future of PC gaming is not really in doubt. (as you so vigorously proclaimed) But it is definitely changing from what it once was.
Console games generally require installed mod chips to be pirated effectively. This means that piracy is still possible on consoles, but it is also considerably more trouble when compared to PC piracy. To pirate a PC game, all you need is a fast internet connection and a torrent client. No soldering required. So consoles present a much more financially reliable platform for the commercial distribution of games in the traditional boxed model. That is really why so many developers and publishers are so keen on console gaming. They are worried about their bottom line, and consoles provide them with the desired level of stability. The obvious benefits of PC gaming don't hold up to the financial costs.
MS at least would tend to disagree with you:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/windows-based-pc-largest-platform-in-world-says-schappert
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=160866&page=1
according to market research:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/industry-revenue-57-billion-in-2009-says-dfc
I would think that for exclusive AAA titles this "PC retail issue vs piracy" of course is more of a problem. Then there is a giant mix of different hardware, making it even harder/costly to sell the "game experience" for PC. However dont underestimate the shear amount of "smaller" games or that online stuff.
So with the combination of "online" games, and then "delayed" PC game releases I would think that the PC as well keeps dominating (just by volume).
The thing is that we dont perceive it that way as we think of those console/major titles first... which obviously get first and foremost made and sold on consoles.
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http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=160866
When Valve summoned a handful of US and UK journalists to its Seattle headquarters at the end of last month, it promised to talk about the future of Steam, its digital distribution system. That it did, revealing the ambitious Steam Cloud service for remote storage of game data, and boasting that it would soon be making more money selling games digitally, all the while remaining untroubled by piracy.
Valve mastermind Gabe Newell and his cohorts had an ulterior motive for bringing reporters together, however, and unusually for an ulterior motive, it wasn't a wholly self-interested one. It was this: to evangelise the PC as the games platform of the future.
"This really should be done by a company like Intel or Microsoft, somebody who's a lot more central to the PC," says Newell, pointing out that companies like Blizzard, PopCap and GameTap would have just as much to say as Valve about how PC gaming is leading innovation in technology, business models, and community-building. But, notwithstanding Microsoft's occasional promotion of Games For Windows - an initiative Newell refrains from attacking directly, but exudes disdain for - that support has not been forthcoming.
Where console platforms have merciless and well-funded PR armies poised to combat any criticism, negative stories about the PC - mostly publishers, or developers like Crtyek, complaining of rampant piracy and flat sales - run unimpeded. Sales data that focuses solely on boxed copies sold at retail appear to back them up. Valve has had enough. "There's a perception problem," says Newell. "The stories that are getting written are not reflecting what is really going on."
Although all consoles now offer download services and support for indie game development, Audiosurf's creator believes his game could only have happened on PC.
You want figures? There are 260 million online PC gamers, a market that dwarfs the install base of any console platform, online or offline. Each year, 255 million new PCs are made; not all of them for gaming, it's true, but Newell argues that the enormous capital investment and economies of scale involved in this huge market ensure that PCs remain at the cutting edge of hardware development, and consoles their "stepchildren", in connectivity and graphics technology especially. Meanwhile, Valve's business development guru, Jason Holtman, notes that without the pressure of cyclical hardware cycles, PC gaming projects - he points to Steam as an example - can grow organically, over long periods of time, and with no ceiling whatsoever to their potential audiences.
More pertinent, perhaps, are the figures directly relating to games revenue that the retail charts - admittedly a stale procession of Sims expansions and under-performing console ports - don't pick up. "If you look into the future, there's an important transition that's about to happen, and it's going to happen on the PC first," says Newell.
'Valve: Why the PC is the future' Screenshot 2
Valve is continuing to produce its Team Fortress 2 promo videos because they continue to increase sales. With online distribution, there's no reason to stop promoting a game after launch.
At its heart, he explains, is a shift from viewing games as a physical product, to viewing them as a service - something that is also happening in other entertainment media. Digital distribution is part of that; more fluid and varied forms of game development, with games that change and engage their communities of players over time, are another; as is, naturally, the persistence and subscription (or otherwise) revenues of MMO games. None of this is reflected in the sales charts analysts, executives - and gamers - obsess over.
Valve sees 200 per cent growth in these alternative channels - not just Steam, but including the likes of cyber-cafes as well - versus less than 10 per cent in bricks-and-mortar shop sales. Steam has a 15 million-strong player-base with 1.25 million peak concurrent users, and 191 per cent annual growth; none too far off a console platform in itself. The PC casual games market, driven by the likes of PopCap, has gone from next to nothing to USD 1.5 billion dollar industry in under ten years, and has doubled in size in just three. Perhaps most surprisingly, Valve has found that digital distribution doesn't cannibalise retail sales - in fact, a free Day of Defeat weekend on Steam created more new retail sales than online ones
And then there is the game that many claim has been the death of PC gaming, but that Valve sees as its greatest success story, and its future. "Until recently, the fact that World of Warcraft was generating 120 million dollars in gross revenue on a monthly basis was completely off the books," Newell says. "Essentially, [Blizzard is] creating a new Iron Man every month, in terms of the gross revenue they're generating as a studio. Any movie studio would be shouting about that from the rooftops. But it was essentially invisible."
Newell thinks that WOW is "arguably the most valuable entertainment franchise in any media right now", and also believes, rightly, that it could only ever have happened on the PC. He also tips his hat to South Korea's Nexxon for its enormous success with free-to-play, microtransaction-driven games like Kart Rider and Maple Story, soon to be aped by EA's Battlefield Heroes.
There is another reason for the gulf between the perception and the reality of the games market, Valve thinks, and it's a geographical and linguistic one. The dominance of the English language gives the US and UK games markets, where the PC is weakest, undue prominence. In several major Western markets - notably Germany and the Nordic countries - the PC performs much better. What's more, in the emerging markets of China, Korea and Russia, where gaming is seeing unprecedented, explosive growth, console install bases are negligible, and the PC is king. Valve thinks that there's a silent majority of global gamers who are skipping the console era entirely, the way these developing nations already skipped dial-up internet.
Steam is available in 21 languages for this reason, and Valve reckons that its speedy localisation and lack of physical distribution is an effective counter to the piracy common in these markets. It's also allowing Valve to get games to players in regions traditional channels don't support. "PC's are everywhere in the world," says Holtman simply. "PC's are the same all over the world. All of sudden, if you can open up emerging markets and go somewhere like Russia or South East Asia, you've gone way further than you can go with a closed console. There are 17 million PC gaming customers in Russia alone."
'Valve: Why the PC is the future' Screenshot 3
Newell believes WOW: Wrath of the Lich King shipping "will have a larger impact on moving the PC forward as a gaming platform" than initiatives such as the Gaming Alliance.
A key shift in this brave new world of games as services rather than products - and one that runs contrary to the traditional image of PC gaming - is a move away from graphical fidelity being the yardstick of progress. "As a company that's really proud of the job we do with graphics it's funny to say this," Newell says, "but we get a better return right now by focusing on those features and technologies that are about community, about connecting people together."
He cites easy uploading of gameplay videos to YouTube as a bigger source of entertainment value than marginal improvements in graphics. "I think that people thinking about how to generate web hits on their servers are a lot closer to the right mentality for what's going to be successful in entertainment going forward, than somebody that's used to having conversations about how to get end caps at Best Buy."
The revolution in distribution and business models also offers a major new opportunity for smaller games - and smaller games developers - to thrive. The demands of retail - the logistical problems of getting boxes to shops, and the budgetary drain of huge marketing campaigns - mean that bigger is necessarily better in the traditional games market.
Not so on Steam and its equivalents, says Valve, pointing to the huge success of indie darling Audiosurf, as well as its own Portal. "As you move away from that huge first weekend, big blockbuster mentality," says Newell, "you're getting back to an area where smaller and smaller groups can connect with customers. I think you're going to find that the enjoyment of being in the game industry as a developer on the PC is a lot greater than outside of it."
He's backed up by an actual indie, Audiosurf creator Dylan Fitterer. This one-man development, created without financial backing - impossible on consoles, due to the cost of development kits - was the best-selling game on Steam full-stop at its release, outclassing many big-budget titles. "I didn't have to ask anybody if I could release it, except for my wife," Fitterer says. "It took a few years, and I was pretty darn tired by the time it was ready. Something like certifications? No thanks." He also points out the tight limitations of console servers versus PC servers for online gaming; Audiosurf's scoreboard for every song ever recorded would be out of the question on a closed platform.
Holtman argues that Steam and Steamworks - the suite of free tools it offers - revolutionise the environment for developers and publishers. The auto-updating system means that a game can be developed right up to release and beyond. It eases painful crunch times, and allows game makers to respond to their audiences, publishers to develop their titles as continuously evolving franchises rather than finite products.
"All of a sudden, PC games become this thing that's reliable and up-to-date," says Holtman. Team Fortress 2 designer Robin Walker weighs in, noting that the PC version of the shooter has had no less than 53 updates since its release last year - something that certification cost and time have prohibited for on console - and that this "ship continuously" ethos is a key component to the success of the best multiplayer titles. Steam, he says, makes that process fast and transparent.
"I don't want anyone between me and my customers," says Walker. "I want to write code today and I want all my customers running it tomorrow." Possible on the PC - Steam in particular, naturally. Not possible on consoles. For his part, Fitterer added achievements to Audiosurf in a total of two days. This constant iteration creates a feedback loop between developer and customer that, reckons Walker, can only improve the quality of the game. "The more I talk to my customers, the better my decisions will be. Without a system of talking to my customers, I will make bad decisions."
'Valve: Why the PC is the future' Screenshot 4
Crysis' low sales and endemic piracy was interpreted by many as a death knell for the PC, but Valve thinks it could have been avoided.
The implication is a striking one: sporadic, excessively controlled updating means that console multiplayer games will never reach the heights of their PC counterparts. There is a counter-argument - that PC games descend into a poorly-defined, indistinct mess of constant patching - but it is effectively squashed by the fact that, if you look for a multiplayer game with the longevity and massive popularity of a WOW or a Counter-Strike on console, you won't find one (with the very arguable exception of Halo).
Auto-updating is the reason Valve created Steam in the first place. It's the reason it now finds itself in an odd position for a developer: semi-publisher, leading distributor, market analyst, agony uncle and technocrat - not to mention defender of a platform that's still being proclaimed dead, when all signs point to the very opposite.
At the end of the day, PC gaming's health - and its trickiest challenge - comes down to a bottom line that even the format's detractors can't refute: there are just so many of the damn things. "We think the number of connected PC gamers we are selling our products to dwarf the current generation of consoles put together," states Newell. "There are tremendous opportunities in figuring out how to reach out to those customers."
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=164253
It's mostly Intel's fault for making crappy video chipsets.
Intel is way worse than S3 ever was.
People buy a new PC from Dell, Gateway, E-machines whatever and they expect to be able to pop in a game and have a good time, and with Intel.. its just not likely.
Browser based games are a huge market, they are part of the future but they aren't it exclusively.
The Atari didn't manage to kill PC gaming and I dont think the Xbox 360 or PS3 will either.
I own a Wii to play quick fun, family/guest friendly games (with the exception of Zelda and Metroid). That is the role of a console in my home. I have no desire to buy a PS3 or Xbox360. I'd simply rather play games with mature themes and complex control schemes on a PC and reserve my console for playing casual friendly games.