A dying breed

From my experience, usually the ports are either much better or much worse. Until VERY recently, they've always been very bad. Starcraft 64, Warcraft, Diablo, the Star Trek FPSs, have all been bad. However, the more recent games, like Doom 3 and Unreals, are better than the PC versions.

Star Craft 64 :shudder:

I can't believe I beat that.
 
Man, I just CANNOT imagine trying to play Unreal on a gamepad. It would be like trying to play rugby in swim-fins and a wet-suit. Mouse/Keyboard all the way with FPS, baby.

Hopefully soon we will be aboe to totally cross-platform multiplay FPS games.. I look forward to hunting people in some future Unreal title who are hapmered by that interface. :slug:
 
BCampbell said:
So while I was at work I wnet to NewEgg and specced out a new system. I ended up with an AMD 3000+, 1GB DDR 400 RAM, an ATI 9800Pro 256MB GPU, and a 120GB SATA HDD (along with the case,m power supply, etc etc), and it came to just shy of $700. Including a copy of Windows XP.

That's more than enough PC to play any games out now and games coming out in the near future. If we assume that a basic new PC costs $400-$500, that means a gaming PC is only a $200-$300 premium -- the same price as a console.

I'll get the full list of components when I remember to send it home, but I really don't think the price issue is actually an issue.
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Brian, this is basically the EXACT same system that I had built for me about 6 months ago and I can verify that I can play literally any new title out there at 1600X1200, 4X Antiailasing, etc. at butter-smooth frame rates. 6 months ago I paid $1100 for this same system, but I did have a few upgrades (a really nice pro-end case with a beefy power supply, a DVD burner and a 3-year warranty from the shop that I had assemble it because I'm damn hard on PC equipment... imagine how long your XBOX would last if you ran it 24/7/365 under a dsek and you'll see what I mean). I think it came to about $900 when I parted it out at NewEgg (without my $150 case) so the prices are indeed dropping.

Bottom line: if you buy PCs from boutiques like Alienware or Falcon Northwest then you're either a sucker or have too much money on your hands. I'll always choose to part out a PC then have a trusted local retailler build if for me (so I can have someplace to return it when I inevitable fry something and have an extended warranty to get me back up and running for free) over mailordering from a botique or even assembling it myself. Doing it yourself will save you about $200-$300, but most hardware has onky a 90-day warranty on it and assembling a PC from the ground up is still something that even *I* think is somewhat "advanced".

It must be noted that NewEgg offers up a very good extended replacement plan on all of their hardware, however, for just a few dollars extra per item. NewEgg is a GREAT online retailer- I just got my beloved 20.1" LCD tilting monitor from them and I'll swear by them.

PS- Ghost... I hope you're right about the keyboard/mouse thing, but how will the "I love to play on my couch" crowd react? You sort of need a desk surface to make such a setup viable. Of course all you need is a working USB interface to make such a thing possible...
 
I love tinkering but I always worry that I'll screw something up 90% of the way through and hose a componant. Having a warranty and a technician that genuinely knows their stuff is (to me) worth the extra cash. I always end up puttering around inside of the case as it is, adding componants, lights, fans and fan busses, etc.- that's really the fun part for me anyway. Maybe I'll ask you for advice when I part out my next machine and I'll take the final plunge- I was looking at cheap-o PCs for my son the other day, and it would be pretty simple to assemble, being so basic.
 
ImagoX said:
PS- Ghost... I hope you're right about the keyboard/mouse thing, but how will the "I love to play on my couch" crowd react? You sort of need a desk surface to make such a setup viable. Of course all you need is a working USB interface to make such a thing possible...
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A long time ago I knew someone with a 'gyropoint' mouse that you could literally pick up and use in mid-air by tilting it. Itw as perfect for laptops. I don't know what kind of resolution it had though. Thankfully optical mice can be used on almost any surface.

ImagoX said:
I love tinkering but I always worry that I'll screw something up 90% of the way through and hose a componant.
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Well, as you said you're already messing around in there, and if you know how to hook up a hard drive and some RAM you already know how to do pretty much everything. The hardest part about building a PC is seating the motherboard properly without scratching anything and not be afraid of cracking anything when installing the CPU heatsink. I had someone help me on my first build and haven't had any problems since.
 
Wow, a discussion on PCs vs. Consoles much more sane than those on the PC Gamer magazine forums. (No offense to any PC Gamer readers or writers out there; I think PC Gamer rocks, it's just that their forums are full of (insert random vulgar expletive here)-type people...I've had a bad experience there, what can I say? :crazy: )

I've encountered my fair share of PC gamers that say that everything wrong with PC gaming can be traced back to consoles, their fanboys (which these kind of people say is every console player ever), and their apparent dominance of the gaming market, thus coming to the conclusion that consoles are killing gaming. What these kind of people don't realize is that the problems affecting gaming today don't start and end with consoles dominating the market over PCs; not only are they complicated, but they affect every platform. It's not a matter of consoles harming PC gamers, it's a matter of the same complex problems harming everybody.

What kinds of problems harm both PC gaming and console gaming equally? One big factor is rising development costs, limiting independent (and possibly very creative and much needed new blood) developers from jumping in and being able to compete. Gamers talk about Halo 2 vs. Half-Life 2 all the time, and the PC jerks (again, just the PC gamer jerks, not all PC gamers, obviously) say Halo 2's inferior to Half-Life 2, and thus since Halo 2 sells more than Half-Life 2 (though these people usually don't know exact sales figures) Halo 2 kills PC gaming by the Microsoft hype machine lowering standards, etc. etc. But one thing these jerks usually don't realize is that Halo 2 and Half-Life 2 are both games that were incredibly expensive to make. Half-Life 2 cost upwards of $40 million, and while I haven't found an article that gives me an exact figure for Halo 2 (yet), my best guess is that it's somewhere in the same ballpark. One's for the PC, the other the Xbox, but they both present the same issue that affects both - with AAA titles like these costing several millions to make, and with such titles being guaranteed hits, truly independent developers won't have the budget to compete.

That's one problem and one example, but I don't think here's the best time to go into them all. I could probably write a book on stuff like this, but I'm too lazy. :tired: And obviously I'm not saying all PC gamers are jerks...if that were the case, I'd be calling myself a jerk, since I too play PC games.
 
i think it correlates to the movie industry in a large way. i hope that soon, independent games will start getting noticed more...picked up by developers/distributors who see the value in the art and are willing to take some risks on artsy titles. i think this will happen as more gamers start to look for things that aren't "the same old shit" that they keep buying year after year as titles become increasingly more and more unoriginal and feature-based.

besides a developer taking a risk on something like this, in a similar sphere as the IFC or sundance channel, maybe we will see (and we are already starting to) more shareware type applications distributed as demo software online...this will cut down on all the distribution costs and allow little guys to cut out the middle man. just some wishful thinking...
 
Consider, though, with movies you pay the same ticket price whether you go see Star Wars XXXVII or Grizzly Man (an awesome movie, BTW). However, in the game industry, lower development costs can mean a lower product cost, for example the number of $20 retail games. Flipnic I thought was a good game that could hev been designed a little better, but at $20 it's certainly worth a look. One of the best games I've played this year was Darwinia and it can be directly ordered for $30. So independent or non-mass market games do have a toehold in that they're cheaper and thsu can pass the development budget savings on to the consumer.
 
Plus, if they are distributed direct to the consumer via download, you cut out something like $15 or $20 per unit of the additional cost that burning CDs, creating boxes, printing manuals and bribing CompUSA to put your game o the end caps for two weeks ends up costing.
 
I think my point still stands, though, although in terms of independent budgetware, it can be different in terms of PC vs. console. The consoles have had their share of budgetware, from Katamari Damacy to Alien Hominid to Phantom Dust, but, at least to my knowledge, developing independent budgetware for the consoles can be a bit of a tradeoff. You may have the backing of one of the Big Three publishers to push your game (because after all your profit is their profit too), but you have to jump through more hoops, whereas, for a PC budgetware title, you can publish it all by your sweet self, but you have to do a lot more to get your game noticed, as PC games by big publishers (EA, Sierra, Ubisoft, etc.) have a lot more marketing capital, and therefore a louder voice, than independent budgetware folks. But I'm no game developer, so I don't know with 110% certainty if this is truly the case, but from what I've seen, I think my guess here is pretty educated.
 
Webimpulse said:
but, at least to my knowledge, developing independent budgetware for the consoles can be a bit of a tradeoff. You may have the backing of one of the Big Three publishers to push your game (because after all your profit is their profit too), but you have to jump through more hoops, whereas, for a PC budgetware title, you can publish it all by your sweet self, but you have to do a lot more to get your game noticed
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That, plus you have to pay licensing fees for any console you develop for, and those fees are STEEP. If you develop for the PC then you don't have to pay to license. Bottom lne is that I don't think we will EVER see anything resembling an "indie game scene" for modern consoles because of the proprietary hardware such devices use and the ruinous license fees that they charge just to allow you to develop the game for that console. Some small degree of this sort of independent development does happen with very old game systems, but it's onlt feasible because in all of the cases that I know of, the systems are so very old that their patent holders aren't really interested in going after a small group of fanatical fringe-dwelling fans.

To make a comparison to indie film or music is impossible- it would be like Kevin Smith having to buy a license for every proprietary film projector that he planned to run his films through before even beginning shooting on Clerks, or some indie music group having to obtain a proprietary license to record digitial music in a specific format that could then be burned to CD before they even purchase instruments or write down a single note... the only thing that makes "indie" developement efforts possible is the availability of incredibly cheap (if not outright free) authoring tools- 16mm flim, DAT, audio tape and talent. In gaming's case, those indie tools are the PC and some basic tools such as Photoshop, 3D Studio max, possibly an engine, maybe a Flash toolkit and lots and lots of talent.
 
ImagoX said:
To make a comparison to indie film or music is impossible- it would be like Kevin Smith having to buy a license for every proprietary film projector that he planned to run his films through before even beginning shooting on Clerks, or some indie music group having to obtain a proprietary license to record digitial music in a specific format that could then be burned to CD before they even purchase instruments or write down a single note... the only thing that makes "indie" developement efforts possible is the availability of incredibly cheap (if not outright free) authoring tools- 16mm flim, DAT, audio tape and talent. In gaming's case, those indie tools are the PC and some basic tools such as Photoshop, 3D Studio max, possibly an engine, maybe a Flash toolkit and lots and lots of talent.
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Well, it's still possible, albeit rare, to get a truly independent title on a console. Check out Alien Hominid, for instance...it started off as a Flash game, a free one, on Newgrounds.com, and the creators decided to start their own company after talking to a mutual friend in the gaming industry. The way they pushed their indie game to the consoles was through the publishing company O3 Entertainment, founded by a former Capcom of America bigwig who started the publishing company as a way to push smaller developers to the consoles via his connections in the gaming industry. So the creators of Alien Hominid talked to O3, who footed the bill for them (including the proprietary fees), Alien Hominid gets published on the consoles, and everyone lived happily ever after. Okay, not quite, but an otherwise low-budget, independent game managed to worm its way onto the consoles via knowing the right people. Your point still stands, but I'm just saying it's not completely impossible to get an independent game pushed onto a console.
 
Hate to drop in on the topic belatedly but PC GAMES AND PC GAMERS ARE NOT DEAD!!

In fact, its a growing industry. There's more kids playing MMORPGs now worldwide than there ever was and thats thanks in part to great titles. IMO the PC will become an entirely different breed of gaming experience over the next few years. It simply goes without saying that a dedicated gaming pc can absolutely wipe out any console's performance hands down. And you have to remember that a PC is not just a games console.. You have the million other things you can do on pcs too.

In terms of games though, I do agree to a certain extent that some games are more suited to consoles, just as some are further more suited to arcade machines. However the genres that the PC is good at, it will continue exponentially to get better at and the calibre of games will no doubt still be hitting us year on year. You can safely say that at least 10 titles per year released on the PC will absolutely blow console titles out of the water in terms of gameplay, community, graphics and overall gaming experience. FPS is a cracking example. When this hits the level where graphics are virtually life like....whao...

I guess there will never ever be a fair comparison between the two as consoles are gaming platforms and even gaming pcs have the functions to do a million other things so its almost like comparing apples to pears because theyre both fruits.

I can foresee huge movings in the pc game industry over the next years as they get a kick up the backside from the attack of the consoles....and I reckon when pc games want to be outstanding, they'll be flipping outstanding!!!

Sorry. For me, hands down you cant write of pcs yet.
 
Oof. Unfortunately the Revolution is looking to simply dominate the FPS genre. With Metroid Prime, I think that it will just end computer's run as a gaming thing.
 
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