partyphone
Banned
I'm having a hard time thinking of a problem I've had with PC gaming in the past decade that wasn't solved by either installing the latest video card drivers or reverting to the previous video card drivers.
Therefore, let's purchase a system like the PS4 that can't even play games from 2012, let alone 1998, no matter how much you tinker. Problem solved.
I'd point out that the psychological phenomenon being discussed here -- people being distressed by increased options -- is actually fairly common.
As an example, I've worked for a mutual fund company before, and it's now well understood that offering too many options is a bad idea. If you offer people, say, 12 different mutual fund options, that tends to be viewed positively; people want at least some flexibility. However, if you offer them 200 options, the response is negative, as people tend to feel overwhelmed by the choices.
I think you can create a reasonable argument that more choice isn't always a good thing, particularly as a casual consumer of a product.
I don't see how making and selling broken ports has anything to do with backwards compatibility. Terrible console ports are a problem and have been slowly getting better because people keep complaining.
How's that multi monitor support on your ps3 these days? Oh right it isn't thereAlright fine jeez, system shock 2 was a bad example but the problem still exists that playing multiplayer games on the PC isn't the easy experience everyone makes it out to be.
There are certain games that advertise themselves as multiplayer but yet you cannot play them together unless you're hosting a server. which is fine and all but it's not something your average kid will do.
Even that isn't a big issue though, the problem is that there is a certain degree of unpredictability with PC gaming. The other day I wanted to play CSGO with some friends and I decided to update my video drivers, well I did...but it rendered my main monitor inoperable. No matter what I did that monitor just wouldn't get "detected" so I rolled back my drivers, everything worked out fine but now steam is giving me the bootstraps error, which means having to re-install steam.
Then on top of that flash stopped working on firefox, as well as a few other non gaming related issues.
While my original example was stupid, it is undeniable that PC gaming is a goddamn hassle and that's not a good thing.
another one caught pants down, rebooting, after every little change
While my original example was stupid, it is undeniable that PC gaming is a goddamn hassle and that's not a good thing.
Solution is simple, leave the choice but hide it to the user who isn't looking for it.
Alright fine jeez, system shock 2 was a bad example but the problem still exists that playing multiplayer games on the PC isn't the easy experience everyone makes it out to be.
I took a lot of people's advice and just decided to reformat my pc, I had too much junk on there anyway so I hope this alleviate some of the issues. I do still think there is a future where pc gaming is as simple as console gaming, where you can have all the nice bells and whistles, mods, etc and still have a plug and play experience no different than that of consoles. Until that happens however, I stand by my statement that pc gaming will never be a serious option by the mass gaming public. There is simply too much baggage and backend jank for the average consumer to put up with, when all they want to do is play a game.
We've made great strides in bringing costs down, living room experiences, universal controller support, etc. Why too can't the jank be fixed as well? Valve wouldn't be spending millions on a steam os if they didn't feel they needed to fix something, and that there is a hole in the market for potential pc gamers.
There isn't any real reason to become super defensive at the prospect of pc gaming not being as big a thing as console gaming. I love my pc, I spend an overwhelming majority of time on it versus my console, but I'm not naive, it's not taken as seriously as it should be or as much as I want it to.
Alright fine jeez, system shock 2 was a bad example but the problem still exists that playing multiplayer games on the PC isn't the easy experience everyone makes it out to be.
There isn't any real reason to become super defensive at the prospect of pc gaming not being as big a thing as console gaming.
Many of us, if not most of us, in the business of PC gaming are not interested in our experience being streamlined.I took a lot of people's advice and just decided to reformat my pc, I had too much junk on there anyway so I hope this alleviate some of the issues. I do still think there is a future where pc gaming is as simple as console gaming, where you can have all the nice bells and whistles, mods, etc and still have a plug and play experience no different than that of consoles. Until that happens however, I stand by my statement that pc gaming will never be a serious option by the mass gaming public. There is simply too much baggage and backend jank for the average consumer to put up with, when all they want to do is play a game.
We've made great strides in bringing costs down, living room experiences, universal controller support, etc. Why too can't the jank be fixed as well? Valve wouldn't be spending millions on a steam os if they didn't feel they needed to fix something, and that there is a hole in the market for potential pc gamers.
There isn't any real reason to become super defensive at the prospect of pc gaming not being as big a thing as console gaming. I love my pc, I spend an overwhelming majority of time on it versus my console, but I'm not naive, it's not taken as seriously as it should be or as much as I want it to.
I have to completely disagree with your conclusion. The PC is an open platform which means more choice, flexibility and, yes, hassle. But that's better in the long run. Especially when you compare it to closed platforms ruled by massive companies only interested in profit.
In other words the hassle is worth it.
It's a pity you gave up on SS2 coop, because that remains to this day some of the most fun I've ever had playing coop with the bros.
Especially given that our Psi player spent most of the time griefing us up and down the decks of the Von Braun.
Is it crashing when you try to load a saved game?
If so, I have the same problem. Deleting BMEngine.ini fixes it, but I need to delete it every single time I play which is really annoying.
Alright fine jeez, system shock 2 was a bad example but the problem still exists that playing multiplayer games on the PC isn't the easy experience everyone makes it out to be.
I I do still think there is a future where pc gaming is as simple as console gaming, where you can have all the nice bells and whistles, mods, etc and still have a plug and play experience no different than that of consoles.
Until that happens however, I stand by my statement that pc gaming will never be a serious option by the mass gaming public. There is simply too much baggage and backend jank for the average consumer to put up with, when all they want to do is play a game.
Solution is simple, leave the choice but hide it to the user who isn't looking for it.
It must be 10+ years since I had any issues like the OP is describing. Also I think I'm finally getting old, these new PC gamers who dislike tweaking and changing graphics settings boggle my mind. I was 11 when I was started fooling around with these things and 13 when learning how to pull apart a PC's guts and have loved it all ever since. To each their own.
you could make an argument that anyone who has kids, owes it to them to invest themselves a gaming PC. it's like a chemistry set. in reality they, just want to make water turn blue or bubble over, but they're accidental learning some basic scientific fundamentals.
we may not be rewriting autoexecs anymore, but there is still a certain hands-covered-in-engine-oil quality to PC gaming, if you find that daunting, you should maybe put down your lobotomised content delivery devices and treat it as an opportunity.
Tell me about it, having a friend help me build my first pc, playing wolfenstein 3d and later ms flight simulator on a neighbour's pc, adding my first extra stick of ram and dedicated gpu was all like christmas to me, the sense of discovery and wonder.It must be 10+ years since I had any issues like the OP is describing. Also I think I'm finally getting old, these new PC gamers who dislike tweaking and changing graphics settings boggle my mind. I was 11 when I was started fooling around with these things and 13 when learning how to pull apart a PC's guts and have loved it all ever since. To each their own.
Pullling apart and rebuilding the old family pc when I was in 4th grade was an enlightening experience.you could make an argument that anyone who has kids, owes it to them to invest themselves a gaming PC. it's like a chemistry set. in reality they, just want to make water turn blue or bubble over, but they're accidental learning some basic scientific fundamentals.
we may not be rewriting autoexecs anymore, but there is still a certain hands-covered-in-engine-oil quality to PC gaming, if you find that daunting, you should maybe put down your lobotomised content delivery devices and treat it as an opportunity.
That laptop is not for gaming, it's a browsing/music/video/school/work laptop with a terrible dual core cpu and a low end integrated gpu. (calling it APU does not make it less shit)
Laptops are also shit value for your money, that's why people don't buy them for games unless they are rich enough not to care that they spend 4x what they would on an equivalent desktop, or because they need to do all their pc gaming outside of their house.
Next time do some research before buying something.
Pullling apart and rebuilding the old family pc when I was in 4th grade was an enlightening experience.
I have to completely disagree with your conclusion. The PC is an open platform which means more choice, flexibility and, yes, hassle. But that's better in the long run. Especially when you compare it to closed platforms ruled by massive companies only interested in profit.
In other words the hassle is worth it.
it must sting to see your kid ask to build a PC to create a handcarved minecraft empire with his friends while you lie consumed by your couch, passively stabbing whichever QTE your moronbox demands in order to unlock the next daytime TV tier cutscene.
Many of us, if not most of us, in the business of PC gaming are not interested in our experience being streamlined.
Your picture of the average consumer is also totally warped and seems to come more from game journalism than actual statistics.
it must sting to see your kid ask to build a PC to create a handcarved minecraft empire with his friends while you lie consumed by your couch, passively stabbing whichever QTE your moronbox demands in order to unlock the next daytime TV tier cutscene.
"no son, you wouldn't understand. these games are for grown ups"
I've been primarily a pc gamer for about three years now, and while it was awesome in the beginning to be able to play games at 1080p/60 frames a second. My tolerance for the level of bullshit I have to put up with has about run its course. It's not the price of entry, the mouse and keyboard, or playing games at a desk; those issues have already been addressed and largely fixed. It's the constant pc tinkering and general clunkyness that keeps people from pc gaming.
Disabling a keyboard driver to get a game to work, editing ini files and replacing .dll files on a regular basis, certain settings like DX11 or physx breaking a game, windows updates interfering with your game in the middle of a session, limiting certain games to two cores so they don't crash every 10 minutes, poor optimization, games being broken at launch, shitty 3rd party drm, and a whole bunch of other crap that is still common place and shouldn't be tolerated.
I just now reached my breaking point after not being able to progress in Arkham City due to constant crashes during the Mr. Freeze fight. I tried just about every fix I can think of: disable rivatuner-nope, disable D3Doverider-nope, evga precision-nope, restore all default nvida values- nope, update and restore drivers-nope, disable DX11 and physx- nope, and the list goes on and on ad nauesum for about an hour before I just decided to say fuck it, I'm not putting up with this anymore. There goes my money and about 6+ hours worth of play time down the drain. The time I spend to play games shouldn't be taken up with me pulling my hair out just to get a game to function properly, or just work for that matter.
And don't think I'm just being ignorant to the share of issues that plague consoles as well, but at least the only example of a console game I can think of that just flat out refuses to work is Skyrim for the ps3. Spending time to "fix" pc games and deal with the bs is a regular thing for me These issues have really made it hard to decide whether or not I should upgrade, or go ahead with consoles for next gen and for-go the extra bells and whistles with pc gaming.
I truly hope Steam os addresses to fix these issues, otherwise pc gaming will always be a shadow to consoles in terms of public awareness and publisher recognition. I say this as a core pc gamer, and I'm sure I'll get plenty of people playing dumb and telling me how wrong I am, but until people start to really address this and voice concerns, pc gaming will never be something that's taken seriously.
...for you.
I don't understand the confusion- PC construction, driver issues, OS issues, etc. are a hassle for some people. A hassle some don't want to deal with.
I hope that the PC continues to become less of a hassle but I understand completely that some people don't want to deal with it, especially as they get older and time is at a premium (family/work).
I still build my PC because I like it and enjoy it but god help me when things go bad on PC it's beyond frustrating. Thank goodness for the PC community that exists to help resolve issues or I would've given up long ago (looks sternly at Fallout 3).
That is mostly a cultural thing more than an issue with the platform itself, given how this situation is quite different in other countries. It'd be a good idea to research more into that before claiming this. Particularly in Europe and Latin America.And your view of the average consumer seems to be dictated by neogaf and living in an internet bubble. Any time I tell someone that I play games on pc, they look at me like I'm some kind of crazy person, or the most hardcore gaming freak on the planet. They either tell me, "oh I didn't know you could play 'real' games on pc, or "pc games look like shit and are garbage" referring to games like The Sims, facebook games, minecraft, etc. The idea that you could play games like Batman, Call of Duty, Battlefield, etc on a pc is a totally foreign concept to some people.
And I think the amount of money and the number of people PC gaming demonstrates that it's not some niche thing.
Every time I consider building a gaming PC, I see a thread like this and remember why I don't.
It's easier than it's ever been and getting easier. And pre-built systems are getting cheaper and cheaper.
And I think the amount of money and the number of people PC gaming demonstrates that it's not some niche thing.
Eh.Crazy timing.
Any time I tell someone that I play games on pc, they look at me like I'm some kind of crazy person, or the most hardcore gaming freak on the planet. They either tell me, "oh I didn't know you could play 'real' games on pc, or "pc games look like shit and are garbage" referring to games like The Sims, facebook games, minecraft, etc. The idea that you could play games like Batman, Call of Duty, Battlefield, etc on a pc is a totally foreign concept to some people.