Constant delay of PC games!

Ark

So what's with the constant trend of delaying PC games?

Here's just a few of the more recent ones:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/10/05/angrytank-time-codmw2-pc-delayed/

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/09/24/assassins-creed-2-youll-never-guess-what/

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/09/23/borderlands-100hrs-long-slight-delay/

I didn't mind waiting for Capcom's PC games as there latest releases have been really well done and they've always added extra stuff for the wait.

I play most of my games on PC, despite having both a 360 and PS3, I prefer the controls and mods for the PC. This is getting really irritating.

Seems there holding back the PC version to stop it taking away from the console sales and then when the PC version doesn't sell as many as anticipated, the publisher cries piracy.

/end of rant

sicsided

From what I've seen, they are waiting a few weeks, then they release games for like $40. Their way of combating piracy I guess.

3DLee

Add S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat to the list. The game is out right now in Russia/Ukraine, and it comes out in early November in Germany. When does the rest of the world get it? Q1 2010 (estimates are saying mid February). Meh.

Farfarer

As a primarily PC gamer it annoys the hell out of me.

And yeah, when the game's a few weeks (or sometimes months) later on PC, usually riddled with DRM, it gets leaked early and they wonder why people pirate it. I think that tactic only creates more of an excuse for people to pirate stuff, rather than hindering them doing so.

Justin Meisse

The financial guys in the big companies have formulas like "if you give the devs pie 2 weeks before launch it will increase sales by 5%"

I'm only slightly exaggerating

Xenobond

Definitely a reason why MMO's and online only games won't see delays between ports.

Ninjas

In economics they call this "windowing". Movies are the classic example. First you have it in the theater, then DVD, then cable, then broadcast. It is used to make people buy a "more expensive" version. In this case, these people see the average cost to consumers of PC games as a lot lower than console games, because of piracy.

Delays could also be caused by the fact that the PC is a lot harder to develop for, than the fixed set of hardware they have on the consoles

Piflik

I don't mind delays that much...all that counts is that the game is finished...(I still remember playing Dungeon Lords...)

oXYnary

If they make if for both PC and console, chances are it wont work as well on the PC anyways being transferred over most likely to the PC versus what its used to be, the other way around. Gui hell and sluggish performance, little to no updates, and finally, controls that dont respond naturally.

rooster

oXYnary wrote: »

, controls that dont respond naturally.

makes me wish they'd kept dead space in the oven a little longer

danshewan

rooster wrote: »

makes me wish they'd kept dead space in the oven a little longer

Yeah, great game but sometimes the action got a little too frantic with PC controls, and you ended up swinging wildly or struggling to reload. My favorite was playing in the dark, and in mid-fight, surrounded by necromorphs, hitting the wrong numerical number key and bringing up your data logs instead of the inventory.

Ah, good times.

rooster

mouse look was the biggest issue here, they clearly left in the dead zone from joystick input
if you moved your mouse slowly, you could get all the way across the desk with no movement ingame

Peris

PC sales are only a small fraction of sales for multiplatform games, so these delays are there to maximise console games sales.. makes perfect sense, and I guess annoying for the few people that buy PC games still.

Ghostscape

Peris wrote: »

makes perfect sense, and I guess annoying for the few people that buy PC games still.

Judging by the sales charts for most multi-plat games that averages to about 7 people annoyed, which is less than a good fart in a meeting, subway, or supermarket queue.

Farfarer

Peris wrote: »

PC sales are only a small fraction of sales for multiplatform games, so these delays are there to maximise console games sales.. makes perfect sense, and I guess annoying for the few people that buy PC games still.

The delays only emphasise those numbers as PC gamers just give up and buy the console versions rather than wait for the delayed crappy port laden with DRM that we seem to get lumped with

Peris

Talon wrote: »

The delays only emphasise those numbers as PC gamers just give up and buy the console versions rather than wait for the delayed crappy port laden with DRM that we seem to get lumped with

yeah thats the whole point.. they'll buy them on console instead of pirating it on PC.

ctrlZ

Piflik wrote: »

I don't mind delays that much...all that counts is that the game is finished...(I still remember playing Dungeon Lords...)

hehehe
I feel bad.. it was publisher's fault.. I was one of the Artists in that game.. lolz

Piflik

I was really looking forward to the game...and it looked good, too. But it simply was released way too early...I could play it (for a bit...), but there wasn't much content...

I played the demo beforehand and this wasn't bad really. But the full game wasn't much more than that demo...I might go as far and shout RIP-OFF, but I don't...

acc

Peris wrote: »

yeah thats the whole point.. they'll buy them on console instead of pirating it on PC.

Except now they're more likely to pirate it on PC because games are always leaked before the street date and no one is allowed to buy it so if they want to play it when everyone else is excited and talking about it... hello torrent sites.

I mean really, the only people who still want to play these games on PC are crazy hardcore masochists like myself. It's a totally separate audience than your average person who just picks random boxes off shelves because they have guns on them and doesn't even have a PC capable of playing modern games and wouldn't want to put up the hassle of dealing with crashes and bugs even if they did.

Money is not being lost by having PC gamers buy your game.
Money is lost by proving, once again, that piracy provides a superior service to retail.

ebagg

I'd rather have delays than a shitty PC port. I can understand some games are more console-oriented but don't half ass the PC version with a buggy version that runs like shit on a computer that can run Crysis perfectly smoothly on high settings (lookin at YOU Mass Effect).

oXYnary

Peris wrote: »

PC sales are only a small fraction of sales for multiplatform games, so these delays are there to maximise console games sales.. makes perfect sense, and I guess annoying for the few people that buy PC games still.

Except, that's not for the entire world. China, for instance. The other way around. Many people dont own consoles and instead have PCs. Where they can (when they don't pirate because of Chinas rules) use steam like services to buy online versus through box and store methods. Wasn't there a big speal by a ceo (god probably that activision dude), about this at a conference a few months back?