Alan Wake: Microsoft preparing to leave PC gamers behind (again)

[aaronspink]

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.

EA's unable to turn a profit because they've completely ruined their reputation by putting out too much crap and trying to milk anything that was remotely successful until it could implode or pushing things out a year before they were ready to appease shareholders.

Any problem EA has is completely of their own making.

 

[aaronspink]

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.

DRM doesn't work to prevent piracy only to hurt the people who actually buy games.

As far as supporting a non-neutral storefront? Um, yeah, gee maybe because it WORKS, was WAY OUT IN FRONT OF THE MARKET, and sells lots of games, most not their own. Yes they promote their own games, generally only 1 of 5 or 6 games they are actively promoting at any given time. Big friggin deal? what we should go to that horrible D2D website or would you prefer we support EA's website?

Face it, steam has a major first mover advantage and works. Other companies can either accept it or fail.

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.

Anyone willing to put money down that they aren't getting paid by MS for a timed or full exclusive?

 

[aaronspink]

Except EA is better, quality-wise than it was when it was making money. Activision is at a lull, quality-wise and they're making money hand-over-fist. Quality has nothing to do with it, let's not kid ourselves.

kinda funny how things like reputation are generally trailing edge issues?

 

[Neb]

Anyone willing to put money down that they aren't getting paid by MS for a timed or full exclusive?

I think it is pretty obvious. MS beign the publisher and MS needing something for 360 to counter ~equivalent games like U2. Maybe MS has noted that they have decreased their HW sales over the times and need something to fish some customers.

However there is no problem for me waiting for a refined version and if DX11 is in then we have a party going on. Guacamole anyone?

 

[swaaye]

So some of us are arguing that console piracy is somehow equal to (or as easy as) PC piracy and that PC devs are switching to console because they're mean and want to spite PC gamers. lolz

That's fantasy land folks.

Maybe it's different outside the US, but 'round here most of the console people I know aren't very tech savvy and none are pirating games. Sure some of them get ROMs from older consoles, but nobody's doing PS2, Xbox, Cube, 360, PS3 or Wii. They're also a lot less picky about their games and are a better audience for game devs IMO. Not good for me, maybe not good for u, but it's good for somebody who's trying to make a living in the game industry working those lovely hours. And, btw, not too many of them have Ferraris.

 

[Kaotik]

Are Activision and Blizzard still counted as separate entities or as one Activision Blizzard?

 

[obonicus]

EA's unable to turn a profit because they've completely ruined their reputation by putting out too much crap and trying to milk anything that was remotely successful until it could implode or pushing things out a year before they were ready to appease shareholders.

Any problem EA has is completely of their own making.

kinda funny how things like reputation are generally trailing edge issues?

That's such a simplistic analysis that I don't even know what to say. And it's not even true! People actually bought crap like Need for Speed, even after it was no good anymore. Madden is still their most-sold game. They don't have Call of Duty, though, they don't have Guitar Hero. Activision's own reputation for quality isn't great, but in your little world EA's problem is entirely due to reputation?

Anyone willing to put money down that they aren't getting paid by MS for a timed or full exclusive?

MS is publishing the game. MS probably doesn't need to work out special deals to determine exclusivity when they're publishing the game.

or makes it so they don't have to code/test a secondary comms path in the game. They already know that battle.net is cracked...

Do you seriously believe that? They've actually gone on record about fake lan programs allowing people to play SC1 online.

You know who does really well at selling games? Stardock. Small indie doing as good if not better biz than the big boys.

Great, you brought this up. Have you read what Brad Wardell says? You do, of course, realize that at no point in time has Brad Wardell denied piracy on PC platform.

Brad Wardell's platform is:
1) PC was never a platform for huge blockbusters. Publishers expecting that are fooling themselves.
2) Piracy exists on PC, undoubtedly, but isn't a problem if you target the correct demographic. So don't expect shooters from Stardock. Expect Sins 2 and GalCiv 3.

So even Wardell recognizes that if you want to hit it big, PC is not your platform. It's not Payola. It's not Sony and MS paying off developers to program for consoles. Publishers, with the actual numbers, see that these games do better on consoles. Maybe this is a self-fulfilling prophecies -- by pushing out more and more bad ports on PC, the consoles seem a more and more attractive prospect. I mean, the '$500 Crysis PC' isn't so great when games that look much worse than Crysis need more hardware than Crysis to run half-decently.

 

[obonicus]

Are Activision and Blizzard still counted as separate entities or as one Activision Blizzard?

A single company.

 

[Kaotik]

A single company.

Well, that kinda explains a lot of the profits then
I wonder how big portion of it is from WoW, anyone got percentages?

 

[obonicus]

Well, that kinda explains a lot of the profits then
I wonder how big portion of it is from WoW, anyone got percentages?

From Kotaku, for Q4 2008. MMOs earned almost as much net revenue as all consoles, excluding handhelds. PC is about 3.5%.

I'm assuming that the sales for Wrath of the Lich King went into MMORPG, as well. Also, this is Q4... the quarter that saw CoD5 and GH:WT released, but I think that may be counter-balanced hy WotLK.

 

[_xxx_]

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.

Thief is a bad example. While it surely wasn't crap, it was also no fun at all and too demanding for most "normal" gamers. It is a niche product really.

 

[_xxx_]

Except EA is better, quality-wise than it was when it was making money. Activision is at a lull, quality-wise and they're making money hand-over-fist. Quality has nothing to do with it, let's not kid ourselves.

Depends on how you define quality - I meant it in terms of marketing potential kinda like "compelling product for the masses" and not necessarily the perfect game with Oscar-worthy plot.

Have they 'exploded'? Maybe it's because many more retailers are offering used game services? Think about that.

According to the current voices on the net yes, they literally exploded. It may be because of more retailers doing it, but (taking myself as an example) I guess most people will order them online anyway due to even lower prices. I bought about 10 used or older games in the last two months via Amazon and Steam (all below $20), which is a record for me in such a short period (now if I only had the time to play them all...).

 

[_xxx_]

My impressions are actually the reverse, more are going over to PC as evident by the large amount of PC building threads/help on building/etc popping up all over the net compared to before. People feed up with crappy framerate, tearing, low standard graphics, failures like the RROD or similar etc and severly limited 'media station' functions. They want to play games from more and wider categories, they want mental stimulation. Hence the PC is there for them.

I could imagine that people had enough of the pricing politics for the console games and the pirating which was quite common on consoles got way harder or nearly impossible with the latest consoles. Over here you pay up to 70 Euro (>$90) for a brand new hit, which is beyond ridiculous same goes for music CD's which began going >20 Euro recently).

 

[aaronspink]

That's such a simplistic analysis that I don't even know what to say. And it's not even true! People actually bought crap like Need for Speed, even after it was no good anymore. Madden is still their most-sold game. They don't have Call of Duty, though, they don't have Guitar Hero. Activision's own reputation for quality isn't great, but in your little world EA's problem is entirely due to reputation?

Yes, most of EA's problems are reputation based. They've burned out many of the core markets for things like NHL/NCAA/Madden, etc. They also developed a large reputation for releasing games way before they are ready, with tons of bugs, and squeezing hit games by releasing sequels until there is nothing left.

The only publisher that I think has a worse reputation among gamers is SOE.

Do you seriously believe that? They've actually gone on record about fake lan programs allowing people to play SC1 online.

How late is SC2 now? Fake Lan vs Fake battle.net? Whats the difference?

Great, you brought this up. Have you read what Brad Wardell says? You do, of course, realize that at no point in time has Brad Wardell denied piracy on PC platform.

I'm well aware of what Brad has said.

Brad Wardell's platform is:
1) PC was never a platform for huge blockbusters. Publishers expecting that are fooling themselves.
2) Piracy exists on PC, undoubtedly, but isn't a problem if you target the correct demographic. So don't expect shooters from Stardock. Expect Sins 2 and GalCiv 3.

You forgot one of his other comments that anti-piracy measures only hurt those who don't pirate the games.

And Wardell hasn't said that the PC isn't a platform for huge blockbusters, he's said that's not a market they target.

So even Wardell recognizes that if you want to hit it big, PC is not your platform.

so you say, but SD has hit it big with some of their games.

 

[N00b]

Thief is a bad example. While it surely wasn't crap, it was also no fun at all and too demanding for most "normal" gamers. It is a niche product really.

Blasphemy! Ban him! Ban him!

Seriously. Thief was not a niche product when it came out. Everyone I know how played it loved it. And it didn't sell badly, it just didn't sell huge. And the reason it did not become a blockbuster wasn't gameplay, it was graphics. Back then and now most people will choose graphics over gameplay for certain genres unless hype or word-of-mouth is very strong (think Deus Ex).

 

[Demirug]

How late is SC2 now? Fake Lan vs Fake battle.net? Whats the difference?

For a Lan mode you need to deliver everything that is needed to start a match as part of the client. If you have a server based system you can keep some elements on the server. This way people net to reimplement the server stuff before they can play without the official server. Therefore a server based system could be made much harder to fake.

 

[_xxx_]

Blasphemy! Ban him! Ban him!

Seriously. Thief was not a niche product when it came out. Everyone I know how played it loved it.

Exactly the opposite case here, I know noone who even bothered playing past the first few levels. I tried it too (the first and second one) and had enough after less than an hour. It was a good game for people who like stuff like that, but to me it felt more like work then like fun. DeuxEx was way more compelling, still one of the best games out there even today.

 

[obonicus]

The only publisher that I think has a worse reputation among gamers is SOE.

And yet Free Realms is growing incredibly fast. Reputation isn't as important as you think, other than among forum PITAs like us. And most companies know that all we'll do is bitch, anyway.

How late is SC2 now? Fake Lan vs Fake battle.net? Whats the difference?

It's not fake lan vs. fake battle.net. It's that, for the world's biggest competitive/e-sports game, Blizzard will force all players to go through battle.net to play. Why? Piracy was one of the stated reasons. The other reason, 'ensure a quality multiplayer experience' is silly, when talking about LAN play:

"We don't currently plan to support LAN play with StarCraft II, as we are building Battle.net to be the ideal destination for multiplayer gaming with StarCraft II and future Blizzard Entertainment games. While this was a difficult decision for us, we felt that moving away from LAN play and directing players to our upgraded Battle.net service was the best option to ensure a quality multiplayer experience with StarCraft II and safeguard against piracy.

And Wardell hasn't said that the PC isn't a platform for huge blockbusters, he's said that's not a market they target.

On a GFW radio podcast he did actually say that.

so you say, but SD has hit it big with some of their games.

It was successful, especially considering the budget, but Sins, their most successful product did half a million at retail at last count. That's not big by console terms.

 

[obonicus]

Depends on how you define quality - I meant it in terms of marketing potential kinda like "compelling product for the masses" and not necessarily the perfect game with Oscar-worthy plot.

Well, sure, but that's not something anyone's even arguing about. What you're saying is that successful games make companies money, and it's no wonder that, when making unsuccessful games, that they don't make money. It doesn't really bear a discussion, does it?

According to the current voices on the net yes, they literally exploded. It may be because of more retailers doing it, but (taking myself as an example) I guess most people will order them online anyway due to even lower prices. I bought about 10 used or older games in the last two months via Amazon and Steam (all below $20), which is a record for me in such a short period (now if I only had the time to play them all...).

Older games aren't used games, not if you're buying them new. Just to make a distinction. But again, I'm not saying there's not more used game purchases, just that there's many reasons for it.

 

[_xxx_]

I meant older -and- used together.