water_wendi
Water is not wet!
Its on Steam afaik. Its very much a party rpg with multiple different possible members.WanderingWind said:
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Dragon Age II: No overhead view on PC, no toolset, audience is on consoles
- Thread starter Ventrue
- Start date
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
water_wendi said:
You, sir, just answered my question with the best possible combination. Steam + BG clone = buying today.
DennisK4 said:
I "threw up reasons at random" to try to show you that you were falling victim to the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, since you were only considering a single variable and automatically concluding that it was the primary cause.
I posted a link to the entry to False Dilemma because you were arguing that Bioware was choosing between releasing a "hardcore" DA or a "softcore" ME. This is a false dilemma both because releasing Mass Effect is not one of the options and because making Dragon Age more like Mass Effect does not make it Mass Effect. There is a continuum between the two.
Finally, your assertion of Occam's Razor is not relevant here. Occam's Razor is not a rule of logic, it is a principle of scientific inquiry, and it is not even well-accepted there. Look at the "Controversy" section in your own link. Furthermore, even if you want to accept Occam's Razor, you have not proven or even tried to prove that the explanation that Dragon Age was more profitable due to being more hardcore is a notably more simple or elegant than any of the other possible explanations I listed earlier.
You have to be joking. By your standard it would be impossible to post anything - unless you have considered every possible permutation of any given situation and were prepared to write a 100 page essay on all the things Bioware could conceivably have considered.tokkun said:
Occams Razor is entirely appropriate here - this is not a scientific debate. Its a forum post about games.
Did you seriously expect me to post every conceivable option Bioware could have chosen between? smh
brain_stew
Member
Pikelet said:
When buying the game gives the same consequence what the hell difference does it make?
DennisK4 said:
To recap:
1. You state that any rational person will come to your conclusion.
2. You make a claim that would require a large amount of evidence to evaluate using logic.
3. You blame me for calling you out on not considering all the evidence, as if it's my fault that you made such a broad claim to begin with.
4. You backpedal by saying that it's just a forum post about video games, indicating that I should have mentally translated your use of "rational" to mean something else (I'm guessing "irrational").
I enjoy theory and conjecture as much as anyone, but call a spade a spade.
Circle of Willis
Neo Member
Now I'm curious how the mechanics will be more console friendly..I'm guessing we'll get a combo system like Dante's Inferno with bloody execution moves and QT events....
Your problem begins and ends here. I stated in manner of forum posts that in my opinion the rational thing to do would be to take the greater success of the DA as the template, and not the lesser success of the ME games.tokkun said:
You take this to mean I am making some kind of mathematical, absolute truth, statement about the situation.
By your standard 99.99% of all posts on this forum can be "called out" for not being a 1000 page thesis on the rational/irrational this and that. Thats demented.
And most laughably, you have yet to offer a single argument stronger than the one I presented: DA sold better than ME.
I didn't backpedal shit. I post in this forum in the manner of forum posts. Not to spend eons considering every logical rationale behind everything.
But I assume we can count on you never making any statements in this forum without first considering every possible permutation of events leading to your post.
Steve Youngblood said:
This is the main problem I think people and overreact-GAF were having with my statement and let me clarify this. Removing the isometric view from PC will more than likely suck, i'm not comparing that. They ARE making improvements to the console version though which may very well make it better then the first one on console. Unless someone here has played the console version for DA 2 then i'm just not going to jump all over Bioware's shit over it. Alot of people jumped all over Mass Effect 2 and it still ended up being a blockbuster and critically acclaimed title so as far as i'm concerned Bioware deserves the benefit of the doubt.
I'm not downplaying the importance of what PC RPG fans want at all. Yea it sucks, but i'm just saying they do have a reason for what they are doing. And despite it sucking for those that did like DA on PC unfortunately if the console versions end up the better for it and the sales of DA 2 justify the change it will end up being negligible to them. I would feel the same way if they put Kingdom Hearts on the Wii with motion controls just because the Wii is the "hotness" right now. The real question is if Kingdom Hearts Wii was made and ended up being a critical success would I still call it shit and swear it off on my dislike of motion controls alone or would I bite the bullet and play it for the game it is instead of the game I want it to be?
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
Dreohboy said:
It's almost like you didn't read the thread! You may want to do that now, kthnx.
Dreohboy said:
Case not fucking closed. Piracy did not suddenly spring into being when Bioware launched DA. Bioware knew damn well piracy existed on the PC, and consoles for that matter - so why release on PC, declare the game a glorious success and then blame piracy for the need to make changes?
You are not making any sense.
water_wendi
Water is not wet!
First thing that i noticed. Quality and length :lolepmode said:
I've skimmed through the threads and I'm no longer sure of what is happening. So in the OP a french mag had a interview with one of the developper which said that they cut the tactical view from the PC version and that they won't release a toolset for part it. In the middle of the thread there is a post from their forums which is somewhat vague and says that the PC version is still tactical but that there is no tactical view in the console version (duh). He also goes on about using a different tool set for II that is somewhat similar to the tool set for the Original but that is updated. Then he goes on about maybe updating the toolset?
Confusing...
I wouldn't be surprised if these features are definitely gone. It seems they are cutting a lot of corners with the game already.
Confusing...
I wouldn't be surprised if these features are definitely gone. It seems they are cutting a lot of corners with the game already.
Steve Youngblood
Member
Well, it's BioWare's prerogative to make whatever game they want. I won't argue that. However, I don't think it's unfair for fans to voice their concerns and feel betrayed about decisions that take the game in different directions than they want. Sure, there's probably some overreaction, but at the same time there's nothing wrong with rightfully feeling betrayed.Ponn01 said:
DennisK4 said:
Case not fucking closed. Piracy did not suddenly spring into being when Bioware launched DA. Bioware knew damn well piracy existed on the PC, and consoles for that matter - so why release on PC, declare the game a glorious success and then blame piracy for the need to make changes?
You are not making any sense.
They released it, they saw the sales, console was
PC was :|. Based on that they decided not to spend money on PC exclusive features and polish the more console specific features. greater than :| after all.How many times..... *sigh*Azih said:They released it, they saw the sales, console was
Bioware said it sold more than expected on PC. MORE THAN EXPECTED.
PC sales was not :| they were great. Do people even care if what they post is even remotely in concordance with the information that is out there.
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
Dreohboy said:
This post would be perfect if you could somehow insert some "$10,000 gaming PC", and "comfy couch" comments.
A Black Falcon
Member
AdrianWerner said:
:lol: Um, no, those are just the latest genres to die, the ones that held out longer than many of the rest... most of the other genres PCs did best faded much longer ago.
Yes I know. That everything big budget on the PC now is an FPS, RTS, or MMO (with the occasional TBS like Civ V) was and is a symptom of the PROBLEM, not a sign of life! I think you misunderstand me...
PC gaming started fading somewhere around 2001 or so. By 2004, it was already well advanced...
But the whole point is that the genres that were popular on the PC used to be different. There used to be an acceptance of variety, and a place for reasonably large budget games that in the last decade would have been considered impossibly niche.
Big budget games did perhaps make the problem worse, if they tempted developers to get even more money by moving to consoles, but other than that, no.
But as I said in my thread (linked earlier in this thread, you should read it if you haven't), the mass market doesn't use DD much. DD is selling to the base, not expanding the market, for the most part. When a game is in a box on the shelf, people in the store notice it, even if it's a "niche" game... but in DD, how likely are people to notice something similar? Somewhat likely, but less, I think.
Maybe someday if PC DD stores hit critical mass in public awareness they can do a better job of what you suggest, but as it is now, no way.
Oh yes, and PC games are also the kinds of thing where physical manuals, maps, etc. are much more likely to be genuinely useful... DD only PC loses something. It's convenient, yes, and with today's exhaustive in-game help systems such things are less needed than they used to be, but still, it's not the same... it's ironic that PC gaming is the one gone more digital while console gaming is more still sold in stores, because PC games are the ones that benefit more from having boxes; manuals and such in console games have never been quite as important as on the PC. This isn't as important a point as the one about visibility, though, it's just a side issue.
Um, no, not even close.
The indie side is sort of like the shareware scene from that period, sure, but besides that, no.
Why do you just accept as a baseline that of course those genres will never be popular, that FPSes are RPGs and MMOs are of course all anyone will really care about? Console game development isn't like that. Even in these days of safe development, the variety of genres that get medium to large budget development on consoles is still pretty healthy. Why do you just accept that of course PC gaming can never be like that again, as it used to be? That acceptance is part of what's killing it, I think... "All North American PC game development will ever be again is Facebook games, MMORPGs, and the occasional Blizzard RTS, everything else has to come from Eastern Europe"... and the more people believe that kind of thing, the more indelibly true it becomes.
Perhaps it is too late, but I'd like to think not.
Ponn01 said:
Not a single thing that Bioware has released about Dragon Age 2 has been promising at all. We see the first screens, which are inexplicably of the 360 version, and they look like crap. Oh well, we say, the PC version will look better and will be the better version to begin with. This new revelation took away that reassurance as well, and makes us all the more fearful that this will end up being a lazy port from the console to the PC. Seriously, the only way this can get any worse if they announce Games for Windows Live support.
Sure but that has nothing to do with how much better it sold on consoles in comparison. It still makes sense to focus on the versions that sold better and not spend a lot of resources on the one that didn't. Compared to the console sales the PC sales *were* :| according to them.DennisK4 said:
water_wendi
Water is not wet!
The thing is the major players in the PC space all jumped to consoles with the Xbox. Its not a coincidence that all this started in 2001. The old showrunners have fled and in that time new life has taken root. Which is why i find it funny that someone like Kotick is lamenting the fact that they have no control over Live and have ambitions toward the PC sector again. Its too late. Between the abandonment on their part and the crazy DRM schemes that have been concocted, PC gaming as it was will never be in their hands ever again. Its not that things are too late for gamers its that the old time developers are dinosaurs too fucking blind to find their way into the nearest tar pit.A Black Falcon said:
ClovingWestbrook
Banned
Dreohboy said:
Are you kidding me? I nominate you for receiving the '4Ever Junior' tag.
ZombieSupaStar
Member
Azih said:They released it, they saw the sales, console was
:| just seems like such a weird retcon from the "we are surprised at how it exceeded our expectations, I guess rewarding pc gamers with pc stuff is a good idea bla bla bla derp"
and those screenshots have to be a mistake, i mean... unless the are making DA2 for dreamcast, polish my ass.
Archie said:
eh I just read it as self hating pc gamer rant, that belongs at rpgcodex.
(most of the time. anyway
)cartman414
Member
Cheech said:
You're oversimplifying things, big time. For tactical, real-time RPGs with multiple character parties, isometric can't be beat for being able to pause the action and issue commands on the fly. Try doing that on the 3rd person view only console editions of Dragon Age. Oh that's right, you can't.
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
A Black Falcon said:
I know it's your personal quest on these forums to try and convince people that PC gaming is dying, dead, and on its way out, but how can you look at lists like these: http://adrianwerner.wordpress.com/games-of-2010/ and claim such things? Ever since the late 90s I have been hearing about how PC gaming is dying, but with a constant stream of awesome stuff, I just don't see it.
A Black Falcon
Member
water_wendi said:
Your view about this is even bleaker than mine is I think... still, I agree on many points. Microsoft going to consoles was definitely a major blow to PC gaming, and I agree that that has been crucial -- Microsoft used to release many PC games and strongly support the platform, but now they do pretty much nothing. Nobody else can fully fill that void, and Microsoft didn't just leave, they encouraged many longtime PC game developers -- where, of course, the bulk of the best Western development talent was -- into going to consoles too. The result was that console gamers saw Western game quality "rise", when it was just that the better developers were now focusing on consoles.
You're also right that things like DRM have definitely hurt PC gaming, along with broadband internet which does make piracy so easy... I absolutely do not think that piracy is responsible for the decline of the PC, it's mostly a scapegoat and most people pirating games would not buy them if that was the only way to get the games, but still, it has to have at least a small impact. The use of DRM in response, though, shows that sometimes the "cure" can be even worse than the disease... when the pirated version is objectively better (featureswise) than the paid one, many people say, why pay, exactly?
That was indeed one of the major reasons why Western game developers were reluctant to develop for consoles in the first place, after Nintendo created the systems that allow for those forms of control -- they didn't want to have to be subjected to that. Now that they finally gave in and went with it, you're right, now some of them are having second thoughts... but yeah, what can they do now?
Fredescu said:
All kinds of simulations are now rare. Civilian flight sims, sub sims, car racing sims, and military flight sims are merely rare, outside of the action-"sim" arena; mech sims, space combat sims, and some others are completely gone. You may pass this off as only one genre, but sims used to be one of the most central genres in hardcore PC gaming. Through the end of the '90s, tank, jet fighter, submarine and helicopter sims were quite common among higher-budget PC games. Yet now, it's a once-every-several-years event that we get even one, pretty much. What happened? As games started to move towards consoles and development costs rose, demand for complex, deep games of those kinds faded enough that the companies couldn't afford to make them anymore.
It really is a huge loss to PC gaming. So many genres of simulations, simply gone... even Microsoft has abandoned the genre, since they closed their Flight Simulator studio. But remember, back in the '90s it wasn't just Microsoft, but other huge companies like EA that had hardcore PC flight sims as a core element of their game lineup -- remember the Jane's line of combat sims? And Sierra's late '90s Grand Prix Legends is still one of the most accurate and technical racing sims ever made.
I never did play sims that much myself, I more admired their complexity without ever getting good at them, but I did at least love space and mech sims like TIE Fighter and MechWarrior 2... and of course we haven't seen a single new space combat sim in years now. Horrible, for what was one of my favorite genres.
Other genres, such as graphic adventures, wargames, etc., still exist, but in much lower budget and often smaller-scale (for adventure games) forms than they used to. It's not just sims. But it is true that most other genres do still exist in some lessened form (as I've said, it's not like PC gaming today is all bad, there still is good stuff out there for sure), while sims are the ones that really are almost entirely gone, due to the budgets they require.
Basically, console ports, indie games, and Central and Eastern European developers are what PC gaming is today. North America is gone, apart from FPSes also on consoles, RTSes, and MMOs. But yes, Eastern European games are getting better, and there are quite a few of them. That is the main hope in PC gaming today, I think...
But I do have to wonder, will that last if/when consoles become more common there?
ZombieSupaStar said:
I play console games just as much as PC, probably more... I have nothing against consoles. I just wish that their rise in the West hadn't come at the price of losing so much on the PC side.
cartman414 said:
The thing I most hated about KotOR was that you could not issue movement orders for your party members while paused, so while you could queue attacks, you couldn't queue anything else, essentially making the pause system tactically worthless. It meant that instead of playing the game the way I wanted to, by controlling all of my party members, you had to instead just play as one character and rely on the AI for everything else. Simplified, consolized, and not very fun in comparison to the Baldur's Gate system...
I know that the third-person-only viewpoint would also have made that hard, as you say, but at least they could have given you the option... but no. But anyway, yeah, I agree with you, except you don't just need that viewpoint, you need those basic tactical options included in the game too.
cartman414
Member
A Black Falcon said:The thing I most hated about KotOR was that you could not issue movement orders for your party members while paused, so while you could queue attacks, you couldn't queue anything else, essentially making the pause system tactically worthless. It meant that instead of playing the game the way I wanted to, by controlling all of my party members, you had to instead just play as one character and rely on the AI for everything else. Simplified, consolized, and not very fun in comparison to the Baldur's Gate system...
I know that the third-person-only viewpoint would also have made that hard, as you say, but at least they could have given you the option... but no. But anyway, yeah, I agree with you, except you don't just need that viewpoint, you need those basic tactical options included in the game too.
But of course, that goes without saying.
For those not to exist is just pointless.All of this is making me feel that the console crowd really doesn't appreciate the merits of tactical RPGing, and that this is beginning to come at the expense of the games themselves if DA2 is any indication. Stinking casuals.
Wiktor
Member
nope, they faded while your beloved big budgeters were all rage, now that those big productions are gone those genres are coming backA Black Falcon said:
How is it a problem? It's only such if you assume that the only correct way for PC gaming to exist is to be densely filled with big budgeted exclusives. That's just your opinion, in reality there's nothing wrong with being niche. Most hobbies people have are niche and nobody sees it as a problem.A Black Falcon said:
Plus, you seem to be shocked that games from niche genres don't have monsterous budgets. As it hasn't been this way in pretty much every single entertainment medium.
2004 was the boiling point and the moment when the market changed, but it was the highest point of this trend. It was the time when truly big games got insanely expensive to make, but still most pc devs didn't see the change soon enough to push the brakes down.A Black Falcon said:
Not really. Modern niche games often have bigger budgets that what you considered "large" in late 90s. However around the time Half-life debuted the acceptance for niche dropped to hell. People were stiill making them, but in majority of cases those titles turned into swan songs. One niche game after another was launching and then flopping epically, dragging it's devs down. Nowadays niche games are doing fine, while back then they often led to death of the developer who was making them. The moment FPS and RTS populairity reached their peak was the moment everything else started to slowly die out.A Black Falcon said:
They did tempt devs, but what's more important is that they tempted gamers. Every market has limited ammount of money in it. As long as there are only small fishes in that pond it's ok, but once you put couple giants in there the food is no longer enough to sustain the whole ecosystem, the smaller predators die out. Eventualy the big fished grew into sizes that were too big even the whole pond, so they needed to jump to another to keep growing.A Black Falcon said:
However once they left, there suddenly was once again plenty of food there, thus the population of small fishes started to slowly getting rebuilt.
If you look at sales of big PC hits you will notice that before late 90s it was rare for a game to sell many millions of copies. When million or even multimillion sellers started to become more common, they simply have eaten a large portion of how much money there was left to be spent on less pretty, more niche and less advertised products. PC market was constantly growing during 90s, but not fast enough.
DD helps with two biggest hurdles for any niche product: avaibility on shelves and profit margins. This along with less competition from giants has created much more friendly enviorement for independent devs (I don't mean just indie, but broadly those devs that aren't owned by everybody else) and it shows. Look at it this way, on consoles DD is much weaker and there market is filled with big budgeted games, have you noticed that in few shorts years independent console devs became almost extinct? While on PC they still form the majority of active studios.A Black Falcon said:
Actualy it is genre wise. We've seen ressurgences of genres and game types that were dying out 8 -10 years ago. At the same time the games we are lacking (pretty much mosty exclusive FPSes), didn't even exist in 80s. Of course there are differences, but I've just meant the general trend among genres and push to niche, hence why I described it as "modernized version of what it was in 80s and early 90s."A Black Falcon said:
It is? I'm not seeing it. There never has been less variety in mainsteam (ie.with big budgets) cosole gaming as there is now. Not to mention console exclusives have pretty much died out too because of rising costs. Nobody is willing to make one unless he gets paid by MS or Sony.A Black Falcon said:
I don't. I think it is how it used to be, or at least quickly heading that way. It's you who can't accept the reality and have baseless expectations that it should be something it never was.A Black Falcon said:
kyo_daikun
Member
Archie said:
You actually read those walls of text? Kudos to you sir :lol
A Black Falcon
Member
Once again on the actual main topic of this thread... Dragon Age OUTSOLD EXPECTATIONS on the PC and yet they still do this. Ridiculous.
... What kinds of big budget games are you referring to, here, if you're bringing things all the way to 2004... and what scale of budgets are you referring to... I still think we are talking about very different things...
Remember, budgets depend on the time they are from. A "big budget" 1994 production is very different from a 1998 one or a 2008 one... each must be compared by the standards of their time. There used to be much more variety of higher-budget games. And they used to be PC-centric -- today, you can only really take that for granted with MMOs and hardcore strategy games, for almost anything else there's a good likelihood that console versions were in mind from the beginning too...
If you design the PC game as it would have been anyway that doesn't always affect anything, but if you compromise your PC design because you're also thinking of console gamers, or make your PC game simpler because you think it's what gamers want now, that's very different. And that happens a lot these days I think.
Of course niche things have smaller budget. The point is though, more genres used to be popular. And even just within the genres that are now popular, things were different. Not better in every way, there are some great things about PC gaming today, such as the easy access of games from all over... but different, in ways both good and bad.
Once again, no, you're wrong. 2004? As I said, by 2004, the North American PC gaming industry was already well on the way to dead. That process started in about 1999, as budgets started to go past sales.
The late '90s to early '00s era was PC gaming at its best, but it also was sadly on the verge of decline... you are at least right that that moment was obviously not sustainable. But it is quite odd that you extend things several years past the beginning of the problems. It started earlier.
1999, one year after gaming's best year ever (across all platforms), was the year that Sierra and Lucasarts, two of the best developers of the '80s and '90s, began to self-destruct. Lucasarts refocused from a developer which made all kinds of games to one that made just Star Wars games and the occasional Indiana Jones game. By the early '00s they shut down most internal development and became the Star Wars/Indiana Jones licensing house that they are today. Sierra dropped their signature genre, adventure games, closed their original studio and many others, and began shedding people, studios, and projects in a multi-year collapse that ended up in their being assimilated and destroyed by Activision. Both collapses started in 1999. As the two were two of my five favorite developers at the time, this really was a big blow... which was made worse several years later as Interplay, another one of my top 5, also struggled almost to a halt. They were brought down by the fact that Brian Fargo, Interplay's founder, had messed up badly in the mid '90s when he sold the company to Titus, a decision which turned out to be an extremely bad one... at least unlike Sierra and Lucasarts though, their premiere studio, Black Isle, kept up a very high quality level until the end. Sierra and Lucasarts admittedly had let their quality levels drop some, with games like King's Quest VIII, Star Wars: Force Commander, and such.
Budgets naturally have to rise with time, as tech gets better. When I say "large" or "small" I would always mean in regards to the time it's from, of course. You can't directly compare development costs from one era to the next directly.
Compared to budgets from their time, the kind of "niche" games you are probably referring to from the past had much higher budgets proportional to big-budget games from the time than the "niche" games of today do. Of that I have little doubt, though it'd be helpful if you'd give more examples of what you mean by "niche" versus "large"...
Tying those two things together just makes absolutely no sense. How in the world do popular, successful PC games somehow kill it? No.
You're right that that is the era when things started to falter, but saying that games like Half-Life are somehow why is ridiculous. It happened because of budgets, greed, over-reaching, bad decisions in some publishers (such as the ones that took down Sierra and Interplay; in both cases the problems were much more internal than systemic, I think.) and Microsoft going console. And some other stuff, see my thread.
But no, I am sure that the success of Half-Life had nothing to do with, say, why Grim Fandango sold below expectations. That was more because the adventure game genre was already in serious decline, since the million clones of Myst failed to sell (overload any genre and that happens), taking out the whole genre with it...
It's very complicated, and very hard to find the exact reasons for this kind of thing (the US/Western Europe developmental focus all moving strongly in the console direction). I don't have an entirely satisfactory answer yet.
Gamers? Gamers follow the games. Microsoft went console and sold gamers on Halo, so they went console... had Microsoft stayed on PCs instead, many more people, and developers, would have stayed on PCs...
Every generation of consoles overall has sold more systems than the generation before. That is, over time gaming gets more popular and successful. I have little doubt that this is true on the PC too -- hardcore PC-centric gaming is dying, but casual PC gaming is in its best shape ever thanks to Facebook games and such.
That is, I'd expect newer games to sell more overall than older ones... and also, the pie (PC+console at least) gets larger over time.
I do think that MMOs have had an impact on sales for other genres, though. I mean, with so much time and money going into games with monthly fees, cash shops, etc, people have got to be spending less on other games... that's got to hurt things.
What about any of the points I made about this, though? You say this without even referring at all to my points on this exact subject, such as that for the average person DD-only games are much less visible than boxed products, that going DD only cuts you off from the mass market and instead focuses your sales only on your core base (that is, that it's in somewhat less healthy), etc...
As for publishers, I don't think that you're really right about that. If you are, it's only because those PC studios you're referring to are mostly in Eastern and Central Europe, places where the big American and Western European publishers haven't gotten in as much... can you really show that, say, in America PC developers are mostly independent, while console developers aren't?
I mean, it might be hard... first you'd actually need to find PC-centric developers in the US. That leaves you with MMO companies only, I guess. And a lot of the bigger ones are tied to major publishers. There are exceptions of course, but really the whole industry has been consolidating, not just the console side.
You're right that DD has been a big boost to indie developers, though, certainly. It's much easier for indies to get their games noticed than it used to be, and that's fantastic. Huge boost to gaming.
That isn't true. Can you name even one genre other than adventure games that is in better shape now than it was ten years ago? Other than FPSes and MMOs, I mean...
One genre (adventure games) is not a sign of a wider trend.
Even though it is true that on consoles genres have shrunk a bit, with the current stupid idea that 'hardcore means FPS' or whatever they're thinking, still, I think it's incontestable that the console market has a much better genre variety than the PC market does.
Your ideas of what the PC market was, and is, make no sense...
AdrianWerner said:nope, they faded while your beloved big budgeters were all rage, now that those big productions are gone those genres are coming back
... What kinds of big budget games are you referring to, here, if you're bringing things all the way to 2004... and what scale of budgets are you referring to... I still think we are talking about very different things...
Remember, budgets depend on the time they are from. A "big budget" 1994 production is very different from a 1998 one or a 2008 one... each must be compared by the standards of their time. There used to be much more variety of higher-budget games. And they used to be PC-centric -- today, you can only really take that for granted with MMOs and hardcore strategy games, for almost anything else there's a good likelihood that console versions were in mind from the beginning too...
If you design the PC game as it would have been anyway that doesn't always affect anything, but if you compromise your PC design because you're also thinking of console gamers, or make your PC game simpler because you think it's what gamers want now, that's very different. And that happens a lot these days I think.
Of course niche things have smaller budget. The point is though, more genres used to be popular. And even just within the genres that are now popular, things were different. Not better in every way, there are some great things about PC gaming today, such as the easy access of games from all over... but different, in ways both good and bad.
Once again, no, you're wrong. 2004? As I said, by 2004, the North American PC gaming industry was already well on the way to dead. That process started in about 1999, as budgets started to go past sales.
The late '90s to early '00s era was PC gaming at its best, but it also was sadly on the verge of decline... you are at least right that that moment was obviously not sustainable. But it is quite odd that you extend things several years past the beginning of the problems. It started earlier.
1999, one year after gaming's best year ever (across all platforms), was the year that Sierra and Lucasarts, two of the best developers of the '80s and '90s, began to self-destruct. Lucasarts refocused from a developer which made all kinds of games to one that made just Star Wars games and the occasional Indiana Jones game. By the early '00s they shut down most internal development and became the Star Wars/Indiana Jones licensing house that they are today. Sierra dropped their signature genre, adventure games, closed their original studio and many others, and began shedding people, studios, and projects in a multi-year collapse that ended up in their being assimilated and destroyed by Activision. Both collapses started in 1999. As the two were two of my five favorite developers at the time, this really was a big blow... which was made worse several years later as Interplay, another one of my top 5, also struggled almost to a halt. They were brought down by the fact that Brian Fargo, Interplay's founder, had messed up badly in the mid '90s when he sold the company to Titus, a decision which turned out to be an extremely bad one... at least unlike Sierra and Lucasarts though, their premiere studio, Black Isle, kept up a very high quality level until the end. Sierra and Lucasarts admittedly had let their quality levels drop some, with games like King's Quest VIII, Star Wars: Force Commander, and such.
Budgets naturally have to rise with time, as tech gets better. When I say "large" or "small" I would always mean in regards to the time it's from, of course. You can't directly compare development costs from one era to the next directly.
Compared to budgets from their time, the kind of "niche" games you are probably referring to from the past had much higher budgets proportional to big-budget games from the time than the "niche" games of today do. Of that I have little doubt, though it'd be helpful if you'd give more examples of what you mean by "niche" versus "large"...
Tying those two things together just makes absolutely no sense. How in the world do popular, successful PC games somehow kill it? No.
You're right that that is the era when things started to falter, but saying that games like Half-Life are somehow why is ridiculous. It happened because of budgets, greed, over-reaching, bad decisions in some publishers (such as the ones that took down Sierra and Interplay; in both cases the problems were much more internal than systemic, I think.) and Microsoft going console. And some other stuff, see my thread.
But no, I am sure that the success of Half-Life had nothing to do with, say, why Grim Fandango sold below expectations. That was more because the adventure game genre was already in serious decline, since the million clones of Myst failed to sell (overload any genre and that happens), taking out the whole genre with it...
It's very complicated, and very hard to find the exact reasons for this kind of thing (the US/Western Europe developmental focus all moving strongly in the console direction). I don't have an entirely satisfactory answer yet.
Gamers? Gamers follow the games. Microsoft went console and sold gamers on Halo, so they went console... had Microsoft stayed on PCs instead, many more people, and developers, would have stayed on PCs...
Every generation of consoles overall has sold more systems than the generation before. That is, over time gaming gets more popular and successful. I have little doubt that this is true on the PC too -- hardcore PC-centric gaming is dying, but casual PC gaming is in its best shape ever thanks to Facebook games and such.
That is, I'd expect newer games to sell more overall than older ones... and also, the pie (PC+console at least) gets larger over time.
I do think that MMOs have had an impact on sales for other genres, though. I mean, with so much time and money going into games with monthly fees, cash shops, etc, people have got to be spending less on other games... that's got to hurt things.
What about any of the points I made about this, though? You say this without even referring at all to my points on this exact subject, such as that for the average person DD-only games are much less visible than boxed products, that going DD only cuts you off from the mass market and instead focuses your sales only on your core base (that is, that it's in somewhat less healthy), etc...
As for publishers, I don't think that you're really right about that. If you are, it's only because those PC studios you're referring to are mostly in Eastern and Central Europe, places where the big American and Western European publishers haven't gotten in as much... can you really show that, say, in America PC developers are mostly independent, while console developers aren't?
I mean, it might be hard... first you'd actually need to find PC-centric developers in the US. That leaves you with MMO companies only, I guess. And a lot of the bigger ones are tied to major publishers. There are exceptions of course, but really the whole industry has been consolidating, not just the console side.
You're right that DD has been a big boost to indie developers, though, certainly. It's much easier for indies to get their games noticed than it used to be, and that's fantastic. Huge boost to gaming.
That isn't true. Can you name even one genre other than adventure games that is in better shape now than it was ten years ago? Other than FPSes and MMOs, I mean...
One genre (adventure games) is not a sign of a wider trend.
Even though it is true that on consoles genres have shrunk a bit, with the current stupid idea that 'hardcore means FPS' or whatever they're thinking, still, I think it's incontestable that the console market has a much better genre variety than the PC market does.
Your ideas of what the PC market was, and is, make no sense...
Wiktor
Member
2004 was the last year we had numerous big budgeted PC FPS exclusives released in very short period of time. We not only got Half-Life 2, but also Doom 3, Far Cry and PC only Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault. Heck, we even got numerous mid-size ones like Tribes or Painkiller. And remember, this was a point where budgets for this type of titles already were passing 10+ mln dollars. HL2 did cost AFAIR 40 mln to make. That's one of the reasons why I named 2004, because it was the birth of mentality where 10+ mln dollars was what you needed to make high profile action game.A Black Falcon said:
You see, this is where I completely disagree with you. Modern niche games have bigger budgets and far bigger production values than they used to have ten years ago. To me that's a good thing, while to you it's a huge problem that niche games don't have 20+ mln budgets. I don't understand where did you get the idea that niche games should have non-niche budgets. It doesn't make any sense and it's completely out of touch with reality. Did you complain that Donnie Darko, Dr Terrible or Memento didn't have 100+ mln budgets either? Or that a small theatre doing difficult niche plays can't afford to have Broadway-quality of costumes and big-name actors? In every entertainement form it's accepted as obvious thing that if you make something niche you can't get the budget mainstream provides.A Black Falcon said:
No, they weren't. Even those niche genres are more popular now than they were in their "golden eras" or ten years ago. More people play those games than ever before. The only difference is that other genres' popularity grew faster, that's all.A Black Falcon said:
You're lookin at reality of those years through rosse colored glasses. In late 90s and early 00s the only reason why you saw plenty of games from many genres is because devs were too blind to see that by making them they were killing their company. There never was a period where FPS/RTS and niche genres were both hugely popular. Once the former became popular the market turned to slaughterhouse to everything else. To me it's not "PCgaming at it's best" when niche releases mostly meant death to it's devs.A Black Falcon said:
We already are way past the point where tech was the primary apsect that determined production values of games. I can directly compare production values and budgets and see both are higher now even for niche. I can't see how can you assume that in market that's fully commercionalized and valued in dozens of billions of dollars there would be no budget differences between products that are aimed at smaller audiences vs ones that are aimed for mass public. THose less mainstream genres are doing now much betteer than 10 years ago, they sell better, they are more popular than ever, they have bigger budgets and production values than ever before. They grew a lot, you're just complaining it's not enough and they should have grew as much as mainstream genres, despite the fact that you won't find a single market on Earth that would develop in such way.A Black Falcon said:
Yes, but I fail to see why I should judge them based on how they compare to other genres. They have bigger budgets and production values than ever before and that's a good sign to me. I concentrate on games themselves and how they are, not how they compare to other titles.A Black Falcon said:
Right, because people have ulimited money and ulimited time. That's where there's no such thing as competition. Great thinking :lolA Black Falcon said:
Nope, it's reality. Games like Half-life became huge hits thus reducing the ammount of money and time people had avaible to spent on more niche productionsA Black Falcon said:
I am sure it had everything to do with it. 1997-1998 was the moment adventure started to die out, because they simply could not compete with fps sales. Devs threw on the market some of the finest games this genre has ever saw, but the eyes of general public was already concentrated on FPSes, RTSes, 3D graphics, online multiplayer and stuff like that. Non flashy adventure game that had traditional gameplay, didn't make use of the expensive Voodoo GPU you just bougt and couldn't be played online just could no longer compete in that market.A Black Falcon said:
And if they stayed in result I'm not sure if we would be seeing such strong ressurgence of niche genres as we are nowadaysA Black Falcon said:
Wrong, both are growing. One is just doing it as faster rate than the otherA Black Falcon said:
Sure, but it doesn't grow fast enough. You see it now on consoles too, it led to death of independent developers and extinction of 3rd party exclusives and is responsible for decline of many game companies today. Consoles are just experiencing it a many years after PC gaming went through the same thing.A Black Falcon said:
but people suddenly buying millions of copies of RTS/FPS games and then spending hundreds of hours in their online modes in late 90s didn't have any impact on sales of other genres, right?A Black Falcon said:
Except that the speed of console gaming growth in US and UK have already cut plenty of those games off the market and directed them to their core base. DD is a solution that helps to live through this problem, not a reason why the problem exist. Devs do not abandon retail presence because of DD, they can survive lack of retail presence thanks to it. Heck, if you look outside of US and UK you will find plenty of games that are DD only in those countries get normal retail releases.A Black Falcon said:
DD proved to be a saving grace for many niche devs because it allowed them access to their core base. Its not like a company that makes ultra hardcore niche products will ever attempt to take a shot at mainstream, retail or not. DD provided devs with a way to make more money of that core base (which was growing anyway, just not fast enough to give it a shot as mainstream shelves). In the end devs just want to make games they love and make a living on them. Most don't bother with "mainstream" presence. Nowadays unless you're a giant you will get pennies out of retail sales anyway. DD might not be as mainstream, but if it helps to bring enough money to make devs stay afloat then I really don't see any problem with relying on it.
There still are plenty of american studios making PC games, there are barely any independent ones on consoles at all. Even if you take a look at European studios you will see even there independent console ones are close to being extinct. Sure, you might bash on those PC centric studios for being niche and indie or whatever, but they still exist.And they are allowed o because PC gaming didn't turn into mainstream circus like oconsole one did. The budgets were simply rising a lot faster on consoles, especially marketing budgets. While PC is still market dominated by small companies and cheap titles, console one turned into videogame version of Hollywood during summer.A Black Falcon said:
For example wargames, simulation, puzzle and 4X. Each in better shape than 10 years ago and insanely better shape than during mentioned 2004. The market is much more friendly to those titles now than it was 10 or 6 years ago.A Black Falcon said:
I think it's incontenstable that it has much less variety.A Black Falcon said:
Nope, what doesn't make sense are your bizzare out of this world expectactions and demands.A Black Falcon said:
I care about games, you care about market shares and that's the main difference between our argumentations.
To me when the genre itself is doing better on it's own, it's more popular etc, that's a success, to you it's a success only when it increased the marketshare, the piece of the pie.
Using analogy, look at tabletop RPG market. To me it's in better shape than ever. People make more money on it then ever before, never before has so many people played those games as there are today. The production values of average game have gone through the roof, from black and white booklets with softcover and crappy inside art to beautiful full color hardbacks filled with stunning paintings. To me that's a success.
However using your aproach it's not, because videogames are more popular now then they were in 80s and compared to them tabletop RPGs are petite in size. So even if pen and paper grew, videogames grew faster. I see no problem with that, as I get to enjoy tabletop RPGs in better shape and form than ever before, to you it's a problem becasuse solely because there is this other market out there and it's bigger.
A Black Falcon
Member
Just this one for the moment...
... Um, what? This has almost nothing to do with the quote it's supposedly a reply to. I said that because computer technology is improving so fast, game budgets are similarly increasing over time. Team sizes are increasing over time too. All costs are increasing over time. So comparing the amount of money spent on a game in 1994 to one in 2010 is insane because the 1994 game had much lower costs involved in its development, irregardless of inflation.
That is not true in movies, where moviemaking tech hasn't changed in many decades. Any comparison to movies is absolutely invalid. Because of the speed of technological change, gaming is very different from things like music or movies.
So, if a niche game today has a larger absolute dollar amount budget than a game 15 years ago, that says nothing about whether it's a larger-scale production. You need to take into account the time it was developed in as well. Newer games are going to have higher budgets than older games of a similar level (small, medium, big-budget) because they have higher costs. That doesn't mean that the newer higher budget game is somehow a higher-end product for its time than the older lower budget game of the same class, though. It's likely not. Direct dollar-value comparisons across time are just about worthless in this industry thanks to how different things are because of improving technology.
Eventually gaming will hopefully get to a point where it is actually possible for anyone who wants to to make a game for a reasonable sum, as is true for music or movies, but currently that is very far from the case, and that isn't changing.
AdrianWerner said:
... Um, what? This has almost nothing to do with the quote it's supposedly a reply to. I said that because computer technology is improving so fast, game budgets are similarly increasing over time. Team sizes are increasing over time too. All costs are increasing over time. So comparing the amount of money spent on a game in 1994 to one in 2010 is insane because the 1994 game had much lower costs involved in its development, irregardless of inflation.
That is not true in movies, where moviemaking tech hasn't changed in many decades. Any comparison to movies is absolutely invalid. Because of the speed of technological change, gaming is very different from things like music or movies.
So, if a niche game today has a larger absolute dollar amount budget than a game 15 years ago, that says nothing about whether it's a larger-scale production. You need to take into account the time it was developed in as well. Newer games are going to have higher budgets than older games of a similar level (small, medium, big-budget) because they have higher costs. That doesn't mean that the newer higher budget game is somehow a higher-end product for its time than the older lower budget game of the same class, though. It's likely not. Direct dollar-value comparisons across time are just about worthless in this industry thanks to how different things are because of improving technology.
Eventually gaming will hopefully get to a point where it is actually possible for anyone who wants to to make a game for a reasonable sum, as is true for music or movies, but currently that is very far from the case, and that isn't changing.
kyo_daikun
Member
So.......... who's looking forward to killing more dark spawn?