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What has happened to big and AAA PC only games?

F

funkypie

Banned
This isn't a PC gaming is dying thread btw, I am a pc gamer myself but I just find the lack of exclusives or games that take advantage of a PC lacking.

most pc games these days by the big companies are all multiplat, sure PC gets the best version depending on your hardware but still.

sure PC gamers get indie titles, MMOs and F2P games in abundance.

apart from certain games like Cities skyline that would be near impossible with a controller, we are not seeing a lot of big games no more.

Apart from Grey Goo when was the last time a decent even semi big RTS was released? I can't think of one, and GG wasn't exactly a big release either.

However, we are seeing a lot of crowd funded PC only games, such as Pillars, Elite and dare I say star citizen. Why should PC gamers have to fund their own gamers, we know pc gamers will buy games, especially good ones, pillars and elite seem to be very well liked, I have not played either yet. Diablo 3 sold record numbers with its PC launch so what is the problem?

It also makes upgrading your rig less of a priority, like I said sure you can get the best looking version of GTA and yeah mod it, scale it up 4k or whatever you do, but these multiplats are not exactly pushing PC either.

On a final note, how often do these multiplats run like shit on PC to? I remember DMC and a few other games off the top of my head being good ports. It seems PC games have to settle for multiplats to an extent and not always getting a great port either.
 
A

Akronis

Member
funkypie said:

However, we are seeing a lot of crowd funded PC only games, such as Pillars, Elite and dare I say star citizen. Why should PC gamers have to fund their own gamers, we know pc gamers will buy games, especially good ones, pillars and elite seem to be very well liked, I have not played either yet. Diablo 3 sold record numbers with its PC launch so what is the problem?
Click to expand...

Because no publisher wants to risk money on something that is still considered niche.

EDIT: Diablo 3 sold record numbers due to developer and brand recognition.
 
M

Mesoian

Member
Akronis said:
Because no publisher wants to risk money on something that is still considered niche.
Click to expand...

Which, to be fair, is how Paradox managed to make 30 million in 2 weeks, by understanding and capitalizing on said risk within a niche.

After all, it's not like the gamers who bought that stuff went away.
 
M

mkenyon

Banned
dirty_bomb.jpg
Click to expand...

dota-2-official.jpg
Click to expand...

gw2-logo.1600230148.jpg
Click to expand...

and other such games.

You can't really discount the crowd funded stuff either. Some of those bigger ones get AAA level funding minus the marketing and publisher side of the budget.
 
T

Tagyhag

Member
Rising costs and the PC audience isn't the one that eats up AAA games.

You also have to remember that there is no PC owner that pays devs to make games exclusively for the PC. If you're going to make an AAA as a third party dev, you'll want to put it out on as many systems as possible.

Maybe Star Citizen will change things if it somehow lives up to expectations but it seems like the crowd funding method was the way to go.
 
X

Xis

Member
Most publishers would rather spend millions making games that can be published on PC + console than spend millions on games that can only be published on PC.
 
S

Salsa

Member
so we actually get good games rather than money blowing spectacles and the necessity for spending money on upgrading hardware isnt as big anymore?

we are doomed
 
A

alstein

Member
Stardock has two big RTS's planned for next year- Ashes and Servo. Ashes in particular is very well-funded.

The big reason for no RTS's the past few years was that AAA graphics, hundreds of units, and 32-bit memory requirements just made things impossible.

You'll see more RTS's once Windows 10 takes off and Vista/7 become the minimum OS requirement.

Age of Wonders III was AAA-quality TBS with lots of Notch money to get it to that standard.

Also, why would a PC-first game be designed to work with a controller? PC standard control is kb+mouse
 
M

monlo

Member
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
 
A

Akronis

Member
Mesoian said:
Which, to be fair, is how Paradox managed to make 30 million in 2 weeks, by understanding and capitalizing on said risk within a niche.

After all, it's not like the gamers who bought that stuff went away.
Click to expand...

I agree. I think it's idiotic that publishers leave PC out of the way-side. The AAA industry sees PC gaming as a bunch of whiny babies though because we aren't satisfied with shit ports so they'd rather not make anything tailored for PC at all.
 
T

The Dear Leader

Banned
I kind of agree with what you're saying, the number of huge AAA exclusive games aren't really prevalent on PC. I do think though that PC is thriving in the so called B-tier type games, stuff like Pillars of Eternity, This War is Mine, Cities: Skylines, and The Talos Principle, just to name a few, games that have a smaller budget for a smaller audience.

I personally think that PC has a great amount of all games, console seems to be indie games or AAA blockbusters with not much room inbetween but for PC the breadth of games that are on the platform are really refreshing.
 
H

HK-47

Oh, bitch bitch bitch.
No the reason people arent making big RTS is mainly because the audience is shrinking and getting eaten by things like MOBAs.

Frankly I dont care for graphical and budgetary dick waving. PC has an amazing library that gets more amazing each year. If AAA exclusives arent a part of that, well I dont give a shit.
 
P

padlock

Member
AAA games are expensive and there's no reason to limit your potential audience when you don't need to.

The only reason consoles get exclusives is because the platform holders pay for them, as a marketing point. PCs don't have platform holders.
 
1

1.21Gigawatts

Banned
As a developers you have to ask yourself why you would do that?
There are certain genres that only really work on PC, but thats about the only reason why you wouldn't bring a game to console.
Of course consoles are much weaker than high end PCs, so technically you could argue that some games aren't possible on console, but you nobody will produce a AAA game that only runs on PCs stronger than Ps4 and XboxOne, because that market is tiny.


So whats left are indies, because its easy for them to bring their game to PC. If they can they will bring it to console, too though. But releasing on console is a little more complicated.
Also RTS, MOBAs and other genres you can't really play well with a controller.
And then there are some crowdfunded games.

But other than that I don't see logical reasons why a developer shouldn't release a console port.
 
I

Ikuu

Had his dog run over by Blizzard's CEO
Because it's cheap to port them to consoles and make more money.
 
F

Fantastapotamus

Wrong about commas, wrong about everything
AAA exclusives from 3rd party publishers are dead, and there is no "first party" on PC.
Games like Bloodborne are exclusive cause Sony either helped make it or they just paid them a bunch of money. Nobody is going to that with a PC game and without that there is no incentive to make it exclusive. Simple as that.

1337 said:
Pirates happened. Like it or not, that's what's up.
Click to expand...

Pirates were always there. That didn't change.
 
C

CHC

Member
We're just at a point where PCs and consoles are no longer that fundamendally different in terms of economics, hardware, and input. Whereas 10 years ago games like Witcher 3, Crysis 3 or FFXIV would have been exclusives, now we're seeing them on consoles because (if you're a developer) there is no reason not to make yourself available to that market.

The PC exclusives that are doing well, however, are not really finished AAA games in any sense, but games that constantly evolve and thrive on community. This makes sense since they take unique advantage of PC's directness - there is no middleman. These are games like DOTA2, Elite, CSGO, WoW, Eve, etc, etc.

So in short, there are exclusives, but the kind of games you're hoping for (finished, one-and-done AAA games) don't make sense to release on PC exclusively.

I don't know why you're so fixated on exclusives, anyway, because regardless of whether or not you have a console, playing on PC is going to be better.
 
M

Mudcrab

Member
Tagyhag said:
Rising costs and the PC audience isn't the one that eats up AAA games.
Click to expand...

There it is. There a more PC gamers than console gamers but tastes and markets are spread all over the place. Which is why everything from Dwarf Fortress to Elite can find success in it's niche, but rarely is anything going to sell 12 million copies at $60 a pop.

For example, modern day AAA titles don't really appeal to me for the most part but I'll buy games like Skylines and crowd-fund titles like Pillars of Eternity forever.
 
T

Tain

Member
The crowd funded heavy-hitters seem to fit pretty well under the "AAA" label.

Unless you're actively trying to reserve that label for the six or seven franchises you don't like, I mean.
 
R

R10Neymarfan

Member
CHC said:
We're just at a point where PCs and consoles are no longer that fundamendally different in terms of economics, hardware, and input. Whereas 10 years ago games like Witcher 3, Crysis 3 or FFXIV would have been exclusives, now we're seeing them on consoles because (if you're a developer) there is no reason not to make yourself available to that market.

The PC exclusives that are doing well, however, are not really finished AAA games in any sense, but games that constantly evolve and thrive on community. This makes sense since they take unique advantage of PC's directness - there is no middleman. These are games like DOTA2, Elite, CSGO, WoW, Eve, etc, etc.

So in short, there are exclusives, but the kind of games you're hoping for (finished, one-and-done AAA games) don't make sense to release on PC exclusively.

I don't know why you're so fixated on exclusives, anyway, because regardless of whether or not you have a console, playing on PC is going to be better.
Click to expand...

And eventually some games will make the jump to console eventually
 
C

CarbonFire

Member
Typically AAA exclusives are either bankrolled or co-marketed by platform holders. They have a direct incentive to keep those titles exclusive to their platform.

No one owns the PC platform, therefore there really is very little incentive for keeping your game off of other platforms if it is feasible to port them. Valve is obviously the closest to a PC "platform holder", but they don't seem real big on releasing games as of late (at least ones not called DOTA 2). Maybe once their VR system comes out we might see more from them (hopefully).
 
1

1337

Member
KINGofCRA5H said:
eh, maybe. I think it's actually about the money. There just isn't much to be made on a PC exclusive game that isn't F2P.
Click to expand...

And they moved to free to play because people would play it for free anyway. This way at least they monetize their games.
 
H

HK-47

Oh, bitch bitch bitch.
Tain said:
The crowd funded heavy-hitters seem to fit pretty well under the "AAA" label.

Unless you're actively trying to reserve that label for the six or seven franchises you don't like, I mean.
Click to expand...

By heavy hitters you mean Star Citizen? Cause that the only game I can think of that has an AAA budget and was crowdfunded.
 
G

Gunslinger

Member
KINGofCRA5H said:
eh, maybe. I think it's actually about the money. There just isn't much to be made on a PC exclusive game that isn't F2P.
Click to expand...
I agree too aside from MMO most large PC games are f2p. Even the MMO genre is dying. Every single p2p MMO post wow failed miserably. They either went f2p or was shut down. B2p games don't find much success on pc unless its made by blizzard lol.
 
S

Shantom

Member
funkypie said:
Apart from Grey Goo when was the last time a decent even semi big RTS was released? I can't think of one, and GG wasn't exactly a big release either.
Click to expand...

There was Attilla: Total War in February, and the Ardennes Assault expansion to COH2 in November. Starcraft 2 is still going too. Can't think of many big new IPs in the genre aside from GG and Planetary Annihilation.
 
E

EdwardTeach

Member
The total war games (and to a lesser degree dawn of war) are probably what could be considered AAA pc releases.
Any particular genres you have in mind that you feel we are lacking? There are still many entire genres that are exclusive to pc. For other genres it makes sense for them to be multiplat if only to justify the budgets.
 
L

loganclaws

Plane Escape Torment
There are still pc exclusives that are considered AAA like Lords of Xulima and NeoScavenger. Another upcoming title is Underrail.
 
H

herod

Member
we're running out of retarded publishers that you guys probably class as 'AAA'.

there are plenty of large budget PC exclusives, you're just looking for ones that match multiplatform and console vendor tier budgets, which are naturally going to be higher than any PC publisher can afford.
 
M

MatrixMan.EXE

Member
Because the cost relative to the market for AAA games on PC just doesn't match up in such a way that its really viable. In fact, the only reason a lot AAA PC games exist these days is because they have console SKU's to mitigate the lions share of the dev and marketing budget. That's where the AAA money is made, predominantly.

In that sense, thank god for consoles. I doubt Witcher 3 or Arkham Knight would be what they were without the promise of console audience money upon release.
 
F

Fuchsdh

Member
If PC gamers were regularly paying $60 for their games, you'd see more AAA games targeted at PC gamers first.

But they aren't, and the PC platform has lower barriers to entry for smaller and indie titles. So you'll continue to see more of the latter on PC solely or first, and AAA games will continue to be console-focused or multi-plats.

CarbonFire said:
Typically AAA exclusives are either bankrolled or co-marketed by platform holders. They have a direct incentive to keep those titles exclusive to their platform.

No one owns the PC platform, therefore there really is very little incentive for keeping your game off of other platforms if it is feasible to port them. Valve is obviously the closest to a PC "platform holder", but they don't seem real big on releasing games as of late (at least ones not called DOTA 2). Maybe once their VR system comes out we might see more from them (hopefully).
Click to expand...

Also a good point. Because the PC gaming ecosystem is relatively fragmented and there's no ability to totally integrate it and capture all the money (except for perhaps Valve, who still serve mostly as a platform rather than producer), there are different economic incentives that don't exist outside of consoles.
 
H

HK-47

Oh, bitch bitch bitch.
Fuchsdh said:
If PC gamers were regularly paying $60 for their games, you'd see more AAA games targeted at PC gamers first.

But they aren't, and the PC platform has lower barriers to entry for smaller and indie titles. So you'll continue to see more of the latter on PC solely or first, and AAA games will continue to be console-focused or multi-plats.
Click to expand...

Sure just 10 more bucks and we'd totally be getting PC focused AAA games...its not like most console exclusives are either created or subsidized by platform holders.
 
I

impact

Banned
They're there OP, it's just that they're almost all a multiplayer game (WoW, GW2, Dota, CSGO, Dirty Bomb, etc) or some kind of strategy/sim type of game (that new Total War thing, Cities: whatever, etc)

so my PC just gets used for console ports and CS :p I'd much rather play Bloodborne than anything I could find on my PC right now. Pillars of Eternity could be cool, but it's just not my style of game at all. Bloodborne is much more my style.
 
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