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Teeth · Apr 2, 2015

Opiate said:
When I think about "console gamers" today, I think of people who are primarily interested in AAA games with impressive production values, often to the exclusion of anything else. You may not fit this description personally, but it's a common preference, and most people who fit this description have migrated from PC to consoles either significantly or entirely.

This is pretty pigeon-holing and it seems to come from a certain grew-up-with-PC-games point of view.

There's a very distinct style of Japanese game design that was basically non-existent on PC for years and years. Even now, this type of game is extremely rare on PC, even as console gaming is trending towards that same rarity.

Opiate · Apr 2, 2015

Teeth said:
This is pretty pigeon-holing and it seems to come from a certain grew-up-with-PC-games point of view.

There's a very distinct style of Japanese game design that was basically non-existent on PC for years and years. Even now, this type of game is extremely rare on PC, even as console gaming is trending towards that same rarity.

Yes, it's definitely not all console gamers. Also, I did not grow up with PC games!

Teeth · Apr 2, 2015

Opiate said:
Yes, it's definitely not all console gamers. Also, I did not grow up with PC games!

I know you weren't saying it was all, but I even question whether it's the majority. That type of viewpoint seems to follow your oft-maligned viewpoint (that you see in others) that basically boils down to "but Nintendo doesn't count".

UnrealEck · Apr 2, 2015

Muzicfreq said:
Overwatch is uncertain since it is a shooter it can work on consoles pretty darn well. They did say there's no plans on it yet, so who knows.

EQ Next I thought was said to come to consoles at some point.

I'm sure if I moved the goal posts I could find some console exclusive titles which are also possible to appear on PC. But for simplicity and fact's sake, let's just stick with the basics. What we know right now.

Sdkkds · Apr 2, 2015

One thing that has not been mentioned is that ten years ago companies like crytek where unable to make something like crysis on the consoles. Now console hardware is not limiting in the same way, so there is no need too make those type of games Pc exclusive.

Saty · Apr 2, 2015

Nothing happened other than the gaming press irresponsibly and vastly inaccurately reporting on the 'death' of PC and various devs and pubs buying that whilst ignoring data.

The ignorance can be witnessed here when you assume posters would be knowledgeable: Crysis is constantly brought up as the example for the 'last nail in the coffin' of AAA PC exclusives, when for the zillion time, Crysis sold 1M copies in its first month and upwards of 3M units by May 2010 - these figures rival most of Sony and Microsoft's exclusives. In 2007. Where the bullshit 'pc dead' talk was probably at the highest, with a game designed for high-end cards that people say nobody owns. 1M units in the first month.

So no, there's no basis that AAA PC exclusive don't sell. It's the other way in fact. I can't recall any high-profile AAA PC exclusive that wasn't a success.

It's generally safer to target multiple platform with the budgets of today. And no one is chasing devs to make their games exclusive for PC. As far as whether AAA PC exclusive are viable, history and data answer with a resounding 'yes'.

Opiate · Apr 2, 2015

Teeth said:
I know you weren't saying it was all, but I even question whether it's the majority. That type of viewpoint seems to follow your oft-maligned viewpoint (that you see in others) that basically boils down to "but Nintendo doesn't count".

I'm not sure I follow your reasoning here. I'm saying that market trends exist -- different platforms attract different types of consumers with slightly different tastes. This is distinct from ignoring part of the market because it's inconvenient for your argument.

I may be wrong about the demographic trends of consoles, but surely we can agree that some trends exist. Studies have certainly suggested that consoles are more homogenous in their demographics than other competing platforms (PC, mobile).

Atomski · Apr 2, 2015

Goldenroad said:
Who benefits exactly from a game being PC exclusive?

I'm seriously asking. I mean I get how MS benefits from having an XBOX exclusive or Nintendo benefits from having a Wii U exclusive, since they are focused on selling hardware as well, but who does a PC exclusive help? I mean, maybe Alienware or HP or Lenovo should fund some games to help them move hardware, but other than Valve, who do produce their own games (and still release most of them on other platforms), I don't get why a company would put an insane amount of resources into a product that is going to hit such a small segment of the whole video gaming market, other than of course specific genres designed for KB&M.

It does have a lot to do with controls and ui design. Many games that are multiplatform suffer from designed specifectly to work with controllers which are slower and lacking buttons and such compared to mouse keyboard. Also huge console UIs look awful on a screen you are sitting close to.

It's just like how the best VR games will most likely be designed for VR.

Opiate · Apr 2, 2015

Atomski said:
It does have a lot to do with controls and ui design. Many games that are multiplatform suffer from designed specifectly to work with controllers which are slower and lacking buttons and such compared to mouse keyboard. Also huge console UIs look awful on a screen you are sitting close to.

It's just like how the best VR games will most likely be designed for VR.

I want to point out that it can go in any other direction as well. Some games work best with controller, others with touch interfaces, and so forth. Games which try to be playable with lots of these interfaces at once may make mechanical sacrifices they wouldn't need to make if they stuck with a single interface.

But yes, the first thing that comes to mind are RTS games; if they must work with a controller, then lots of mechanical possibilities are immediately implausible. Conversely, a fighting game might be fairly awkward if it were built such that it had to control easily with a keyboard.

StarStabbedMoon · Apr 2, 2015

I don't really know what happened to AAA games on PC, I'm just glad they're gone and we're better off for it.

Relatively open platforms and marketplaces such as PC have something that AAA can't live up to: options. When a publisher makes a AAA game it needs to be THE game to have, not simply a game you have the option of having if it suits you. That's the only way they justify spending this much money and why they back themselves into the corner of yearly sequels. AAA as a concept just doesn't make for good gaming, regardless of how well it's executed or what kind of platform it goes to.

Opiate said:
I'm not sure I follow your reasoning here. I'm saying that market trends exist -- different platforms attract different types of consumers with slightly different tastes. This is distinct from ignoring part of the market because it's inconvenient for your argument.

I may be wrong about the demographic trends of consoles, but surely we can agree that some trends exist. Studies have certainly suggested that consoles are more homogenous in their demographics than other competing platforms (PC, mobile).

I may misinterpret what the other poster is saying, but it can be a sensitive subject since for many gamers, those who enjoy niche games especially, the critical standing among media and any limited consumer audience matters more than it's actual market penetration. Publishers like Nintendo and Atlus, while lagging behind mainstream competitors, still have a disproportionately large influence on gaming media and communities like NeoGAF. To equate an audience with only its mainstream consumers isn't really an accurate way of measuring value of platforms such as consoles, since the most popular demographics will often not represent a good idea of value in the first place, even under ideal conditions.

SneakyStephan · Apr 2, 2015

Goldenroad said:
Who benefits exactly from a game being PC exclusive?

I'm seriously asking. I mean I get how MS benefits from having an XBOX exclusive or Nintendo benefits from having a Wii U exclusive, since they are focused on selling hardware as well, but who does a PC exclusive help? I mean, maybe Alienware or HP or Lenovo should fund some games to help them move hardware, but other than Valve, who do produce their own games (and still release most of them on other platforms), I don't get why a company would put an insane amount of resources into a product that is going to hit such a small segment of the whole video gaming market, other than of course specific genres designed for KB&M.

Gamers

A game that is able to be designed beyond the limitations of a controller can be something unique and meaningfully different and provide different gameplay mechanics and ideas.

Games like natural selection 2, dota , total war series etc would simply not exist if the devs set out to make a multiplatform (controller) game instead of a pc game with its variety of input devices and keyboard and mouse standard.

Now if a game designed around a controller is arbitrarily pc exclusive then yeah that's pretty stupid and sucks for people with consoles.

Still,pc exclusives generally are that rare case where exclusivity means it can fill a niche that wouldn't fit on consoles.
Meanwhile ALL console exclusives are simply anti consumer and anti gamer, they are only exclusive to make that platform more appealing over other platforms in a way that bypasses actually competing over features/price.

They only exist to help platform holders justify their walled gardens, premium prices , online fees and other anti consumer garbage that would never fly in a space that had actual free competition.

You can justify it from a corporate standpoint (and I'm sure people in this thread will), but you can justify anything from that standpoint, including hitting a bag of kittens with a hammer if it's more profitable than hitting an empty bag, but as a consumer and especially as a gamer you can't justify console exclusives.

tuxfool · Apr 3, 2015

Opiate said:
I want to point out that it can go in any other direction as well. Some games work best with controller, others with touch interfaces, and so forth. Games which try to be playable with lots of these interfaces at once may make mechanical sacrifices they wouldn't need to make if they stuck with a single interface.

But yes, the first thing that comes to mind are RTS games; if they must work with a controller, then lots of mechanical possibilities are immediately implausible. Conversely, a fighting game might be fairly awkward if it were built such that it had to control easily with a keyboard.

The difference is that the PC crowd is generally willing to support whatever input scheme works. You don't see many console users willing to plug in a mouse for something like an RTS.

(or even playing an fps properly...actually no...that is fine, a mouse would feel like crap at 30fps)

Zabby · Apr 3, 2015

monlo said:
Star Citizen
Lichdom Battlemage
Civilization games
Tides of Numeria
Cyberpunk 2077
Tropico
Kingdom Come: Deliverance

Not sure what you consider AAA, but the majority of AAA games are multiplat since the 360 era

You mean the Wii era.

By the way: cyberpunk pc only. Not happening

texhnolyze · Apr 3, 2015

CryptiK said:
You see how I didn't include MMO's in my statement? Yeah you didn't.

The fact that the few AAA games on PC we have are mostly MMO's says it all really.

All of those titles I mentioned are F2P. Yeah a couple of them are B2P but people still consider them as F2P.
Most of MMOs are free to play. There are actually AAA f2p games, which are MMOs.

Wiktor · Apr 3, 2015

They thankfully died out. The only time when PC was getting anything that could be considered a steady stream of AAA releases was in first half of last decade. Except the problem was that those were almost exclusively FPS and RTS games and they killed everything else. THis was the time where majority of legendary pc studios died and where whole genres went extinct.
I have no desire to see this scenario repeat itself. Currently PC gaming is dominated by small and middle-tier games, as it should be. This is how PC gaming was in 80s and for most of 90s. This is what the whole platform is about.
It's not like we don't get AAAs anyway. Currently majority of console AAAs are coming to PC and from time to time we get rare PC exclusive AAA too. So it's not like we're starved for those. Plus AAA exclusives are pretty much dead on consoles as far as third party devs go.

Almighty · Apr 3, 2015

AdrianWerner said:
They thankfully died out. The only time when PC was getting anything that could be considered a steady stream of AAA releases was in first half of last decade. Except the problem was that those were almost exclusively FPS and RTS games and they killed everything else. THis was the time where majority of legendary pc studios died and where whole genres went extinct.
I have no desire to see this scenario repeat itself. Currently PC gaming is dominated by small and middle-tier games, as it should be. This is how PC gaming was in 80s and for most of 90s. This is what the whole platform is about.
It's not like we don't get AAAs anyway. Currently majority of console AAAs are coming to PC and from time to time we get rare PC exclusive AAA too. So it's not like we're starved for those. Plus AAA exclusives are pretty much dead on consoles as far as third party devs go.

As a big RTS fan the early 2000's were great, but looking back the price was probably too high. I wouldn't want to go back to those days where it seemed like every week you were hearing about some development studio going bankrupt or being bought by a big publisher.

Teknoman · Apr 3, 2015

funkypie said:
I think my point was more of taking advantage of what pc can offer rather than restricting other from playing.

This my viewpoint as well.

spekkeh · Apr 4, 2015

SneakyStephan said:
Meanwhile ALL console exclusives are simply anti consumer and anti gamer, they are only exclusive to make that platform more appealing over other platforms in a way that bypasses actually competing over features/price.

Yes, risky original big budget lossleading games are anti consumer and anti gamer. You may cherish your F2P rackets, meanwhile I'm glad games like The Wonderful 101 are being made.

Air Zombie Meat · Nov 21, 2017

lol at that bump.

wolgoen · Nov 21, 2017

Um....ok. Mods...someones been pasting crap in here, go get the mop and bucket.

RoboFu · Nov 21, 2017

Civilization is still rockin. Umm dota?

Phoenix RISING · Nov 21, 2017

Zabby said:
You mean the Wii era.

By the way: cyberpunk pc only. Not happening

I like how this user is still a junior 2 years later.

dcx4610 · Nov 22, 2017

The problem with exclusives is "PC" isn't a company. Nintendo makes Nintendo games. Sony has first party studios to make exclusives.

Valve is about the only PC-only company and seems they are content just making money on Steam at this point. Microsoft releasing everything on PC now kind of counts as well.

You definitely don't game on PC for exclusives. You do it because you get to play games with the best hardware, all of the deals and getting to keep your games no matter how many times you upgrade and change hardware.

HeRo2055 · Nov 22, 2017

PC is very different from consoles. PC is not owned by a company like Playstation or Xbox. No one is paying money to promote and make games exclusive to PC so that people go and buy a PC. I myself also a PC gamer and I own a ps4 but I actually never cared that much about exclusives like most fanboys do. Many good AAA titles are being realesed every year to PC. Exclusives are just one fruit in a big bowl full of other delicious fruits but if you are that desperate about exclusives you know what to do.

LightofRohan · Nov 22, 2017

As a developer... there is no such thing as a PC exclusives that utilizes PC hardware to its fullest. When you make a PC game you are essentially making a multi-platform title because it has to run on a variety of sku's, so you can never fully optimize a title like you can on console. So since you are doing that already, might as well make a version that can work on consoles as well...

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