Alan Wake: Microsoft preparing to leave PC gamers behind (again)
- Thread starter Richard
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Screw the Ferraris, he's got Armadillo Aerospace!
aaronspink
Veteran
As we've seen repeatedly they are releasing their games a half year late because either they are so broken it takes them that long to get working on a non-single target system, or they are getting PAID to do it. It has nothing to do with piracy. It is just an easy excuse to use so they don't have to actually tell the truth.
aaronspink
Veteran
yet, pc game studios are selling games at a fast rate. Yes there will be people that pirate them, this is true for any medium on any platform. But they still sell and still make a lot of money. Studios releasing delayed or not releasing a game on the PC has NOTHING to do with piracy, it is just a PR friendly excuse.
WHAT?!
Your facts are at best non-existent. No one has cracked the damn PS3 yet. Yes, you can copy the games, but you can't use them.
To get burned games to work on your X360? You have to use a firmware hacking device. it's not easy at all.
Look this shit up before you open your mouth and stick your foot in it.
I agree with this. Some games are not suited for PC platform and would probably sell bad. I also think their game bug testing is slower for PC. But Alan Wake is needed as a timed exclusive for 360 as it really got a weak game lineup with most good ones already out for PC.
Just like many other 360 games. However I still believe piracy amount amngst 360 owners is a bit lower. However asian countries should have high numbers for both. Despite the risk of bricking the 360 there are lots taking the risk as a number counting of downloaded 360 images is roughly equally to the popular PC game download rate on the 5 most popular torrents sites last time I checked.
Of course some console fans would cry that it is unrelaible to count downloaded copies from torrent sites but hell that is how PC piracy is measured. So same measure stick for both!
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Keep dreaming that.
Blizzard has already changed a fundamental building block for most RTS games due to the need to combat piracy. They will no longer be implementing LAN play for any of their multiplayer games moving forward. It obviously still won't remove all pirating of the game. But it cuts off another chunk of freeloading low-lifes.
Pretty much the only PC games not suffering "as much" from pirating are those games that require online authentication everytime you play. And the only real way to force this so far is through online authenticated multiplayer.
LAN play however has let the pirating community circumvent this by fostering hamachi or other LAN over VPN services.
There are already some rumblings of companies wanting to move to full time internet connection required to play their games so that the game can be authenticated at any time. And if there is no internet connection available the game will not run. THAT is how serious the PC gaming houses are taking piracy.
That they would rather lose sales of games to people who have no internet in order to combat piracy due to fact that could recoup those losses and more if they could find a way to stop piracy.
And finally, if PC gaming was as healthy as you believe, you wouldn't see practically all the remaining big name PC devs moving to consoles for primary launch.
There's still Blizzard and to a lesser extent Bethesda... Other than that? There some small studios still, but pretty much all the big players are moving to consoles with a token nod to PC. The losses to piracy even on X360 is not nearly as staggering as those suffered by the PC gaming industry.
Regards,
SB
I think some devs are getting gready. They want to instantly hit a 'gold mine' however it would be quite ignorant for them to think they would if they release crap games/buggy/bad ports on PC. And PC gamers tend to have higher requirements for gameplay etc. I believe most want brain stimulation and well made entertainment and not brain cell killing software and rinse-and-repeat games.
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Thats interesting as for example CD Project Reds founding of the 360/PS3 port almost killed their business. However before that they got big and bought other devhouses and made large patches with much free content on the money they made solely on the PC market.
As developing and optimising games for consoles cost a lot more they need to sell a lot more to recover lossess. So developing for 3 or more platforms at once is to much and some platforms takes the backseat until they recover financially/manpower.
Who knows, perhaps MS has paid Rememdy to put more resources into it to optimise it as the E3 show showed unplayable framerates. Maybe it will be MS 360 title to compete with U2 or such games on PS3.
The real people hurting are not actually the biggest publishers/devs, they're the smaller ones (indie or single-project oriented devs, like Remedy).
I'm rather shocked at how tunnel-visioned the PC gaming community can be, expecting top notch treatment while providing zero (perhaps even negative) incentive for doing so. Well most of it are actually retroactive driven actions actually, with the crusade against DRM and actively supporting a non-neutral storefront that cares more about promoting its OWN devhouse games than selling others'. PC gamers kinda shaped (limited) the games that are available for them because they wouldn't really buy anything else.
If you want the real truth, just look at the indie devs. They really have no agenda from publishers till post-contract and will always choose the financially viable path because that's their livelihood. (I mean the ones that actually make fantastic, polished games that you pay a really small amount for, not some of the crud on Steam that MS/Sony/Nin rejected) . I think World of Goo's reception was the penultimate example that indie devs don' even need to/ shouldn't bother with us anymore- we're too jaded towards the majority of fresh air for our own good I guess.
Remedy's a bit too big to sink/swim due to such reasons, but accusing them of being greedy just because of launch delays is mighty laughable.
I'm rather shocked at how tunnel-visioned the PC gaming community can be, expecting top notch treatment while providing zero (perhaps even negative) incentive for doing so. Well most of it are actually retroactive driven actions actually, with the crusade against DRM and actively supporting a non-neutral storefront that cares more about promoting its OWN devhouse games than selling others'. PC gamers kinda shaped (limited) the games that are available for them because they wouldn't really buy anything else.
If you want the real truth, just look at the indie devs. They really have no agenda from publishers till post-contract and will always choose the financially viable path because that's their livelihood. (I mean the ones that actually make fantastic, polished games that you pay a really small amount for, not some of the crud on Steam that MS/Sony/Nin rejected) . I think World of Goo's reception was the penultimate example that indie devs don' even need to/ shouldn't bother with us anymore- we're too jaded towards the majority of fresh air for our own good I guess.
Remedy's a bit too big to sink/swim due to such reasons, but accusing them of being greedy just because of launch delays is mighty laughable.
The games industry isn't some magical source of filthy lucre. Just look at publishers' financials. Activision's doing well, Nintendo's doing well, but even EA's been unable to turn a profit for a few quarters now.
Well producing crappy games certainly won't help the sales, but that's normal business and has nothing to do with piracy. What did they produce last year besides a bunch of always the same yearly sports games updates?
Tchock: "top-notch treatment", is that how you call a game which is not buggy, doesn't require five patches to work properly and is not a rehash of some years old crap? C'mon, you know that's bull.
I have had no pirated games in years - just so you don't think I'm defending piracy or some such. But as a regular buyer, I was arsed more than once (last example being Prey, the DVD didn't work for some reason although it had no physical failures/damages so I had to dl the game from Steam, which thankfully worked with the code from the retail box).
Tchock: "top-notch treatment", is that how you call a game which is not buggy, doesn't require five patches to work properly and is not a rehash of some years old crap? C'mon, you know that's bull.
I have had no pirated games in years - just so you don't think I'm defending piracy or some such. But as a regular buyer, I was arsed more than once (last example being Prey, the DVD didn't work for some reason although it had no physical failures/damages so I had to dl the game from Steam, which thankfully worked with the code from the retail box).
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Oh, c'mon. When has ANYONE been afraid to release buggy games on PC? They're doing it now! There's no certification. Not that long ago companies were making games primarily on PC. There's a kajillion PCs out there. Gaming PCs are cheaper than ever. You don't have to pay up-front to press your games. Still, the focus has shifted to consoles.
Blizzard doing well. I am not sure if Activison would still write black numbers without the WoW Millions. Additional the core PC Business (without WoW) are only ~5% for Activison. They are primary a console company with a huge PC MMO department (called Blizzard). The numbers after SC2 and Diablo3 are out could be interesting.
The reason why Vivendi-Blizzard merged with Activision was because Kotick was doing a good job of running the company. That's why he's still running the company. Activision has Call of Duty and Guitar Hero, and it had those before the merger. But yeah, outside of Blizzard it's mostly console. But I was responding to _xxx_'s claim that everyone's making money in the game business.
I didn't say "everyone" though As in any business, the capable ones do make (loads of) money, people producing crap don't.
By the way, the sales of used/older games exploded in the last months so maybe, just maybe - the failure could be in the retail pricing politics? Think about that.
As in any business, the capable ones do make (loads of) money, people producing crap don't.By the way, the sales of used/older games exploded in the last months so maybe, just maybe - the failure could be in the retail pricing politics? Think about that.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Really?
Thief was hardly crap and yet it didn't sell well. Thief II was even less crap and it didn't sell well.
Crysis wasn't crap and it didn't sell well.
There are lots of games on PC that aren't "crap" that don't sell well. The CoD series sales were in serious decline which is why it moved to consoles. And consequently started to see sales rise.
Calling something "crap" because it didn't sell well is just an excuse/cop out. Well there is some truly horrendous crap available Cryostasis for example. You have other stellar and reasonably priced games that are really good that don't sell well. Demigod for example. Which is pirated more than it is bought.
Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how long Blizzard can stay PC centric even with the WoW cash cow. Almost everyone else is moving to console if they can afford to.
Regards,
SB
Thief was hardly crap and yet it didn't sell well. Thief II was even less crap and it didn't sell well.
Crysis wasn't crap and it didn't sell well.
There are lots of games on PC that aren't "crap" that don't sell well. The CoD series sales were in serious decline which is why it moved to consoles. And consequently started to see sales rise.
Calling something "crap" because it didn't sell well is just an excuse/cop out. Well there is some truly horrendous crap available Cryostasis for example. You have other stellar and reasonably priced games that are really good that don't sell well. Demigod for example. Which is pirated more than it is bought.
Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how long Blizzard can stay PC centric even with the WoW cash cow. Almost everyone else is moving to console if they can afford to.
Regards,
SB
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