Cliffy B and Epic claim they are done with the PC, consoles primary focus from here

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Roufuss

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http://kotaku.com/356370/epic-and-t...-on-consoles-because-pc-gaming-is-in-disarray

The man is an idiot, the sales success and interest of Sins of A Solar Empire (so far) blows his stupid little "theory" out of the water that PC gamers just want Sims games and WoW clones. Team Fortress 2 must be doing awesome on the PC for Valve to give it prefential treatment and not jump to the console side of things also.

Maybe if he made good games, and not shitty console ports they didn't even optimize for the PC (Gears of War) and games that are just completely lobotimized to begin with (UT 3) they wouldn't be in this predicament, now would they?

What's hilarious is Mark Rein just stated the PC was their "bread and butter" shortly before Gears and UT 3 came out... what a switch a few weeks makes. This just sounds like a case of sour grapes, where instead of fixing what went wrong, he's just going to cry and switch focus to the 360 / PS3 where they eat this shit up.

In case anyone can't get Kotaku at work, here is what he said:

I think people would rather make a game that sells 4.5 million copies than a million and "Gears" is at 4.5 million right now on the 360. I think the PC is just in disarray... what's driving the PC right now is 'Sims'-type games and 'WoW' and a lot of stuff that's in a web-based interface. You just click on it and play it. That's the direction PC is evolving into. So for me, the PC is kind of the secondary part of what we're doing. It's important for us, but right now making AAA games on consoles is where we're at.
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I don't get what he's comparing Gears to that sold a million, but Gears has been out on 360 for what, almost two years now? Is he really comparing something like Gears PC or UT 3 to that? So I guess we'll still get Epic games on the PC, they will just be quick console ports for a cash in, and the days of Unreal Tournament being a PC franchise first and foremost end with UT 3.
 
Lets not forget that 4 out of the 6 PC gamers I know personally decided not to buy Gears because it just didn't work on PC, plus myself. On one of the other forums I post on, it got such a tongue lashing from all the problems, that there alone probably 20 or 30 people decided NOT to buy it.


Release broken stuff, and of course nobody will buy it.
 
I don't know why anyone would be worried about PC gaming going away or something, if theres a market then someone is going to fill the void.
 
Stop whining because he is right :rolleyes: Obviously you don't want to look at the whole picture and see that pc gaming is not a growing market. Epic isn't the only one saying this and if you can't accept it than tough.
 
Netrat33 said:
Stop whining because he is right :rolleyes: Obviously you don't want to look at the whole picture and see that pc gaming is not a growing market. Epic isn't the only one saying this and if you can't accept it than tough.
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+1. Except for a few rare releases, such as Sins of a Solar Empire, and some racing sims, i hardly do any gaming on my PC anymore. Its all on consoles. Just not worth the hassle and having to wait for ports of the games i want to play, then having them broken or half assed. PC gaming is in backseat now.
 
GOW ran great on my 360, and like shit on my P4 3.6/gf6800/2gb ram PC. expensive PC requirements are the problem.
 
Netrat33 said:
Stop whining because he is right :rolleyes: Obviously you don't want to look at the whole picture and see that pc gaming is not a growing market. Epic isn't the only one saying this and if you can't accept it than tough.
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Bullshit hes right, the fuckers are whining because everyone with brains had the common sense not to shell out for their shitty ports! Simple as that, Epic have become the biggest bunch of arrogant fucks around. The fact that their prick forum moderators ban anyone who voices any constructive criticism about their shitty games is a testament to this!
 
michealo said:
GOW ran great on my 360, and like shit on my P4 3.6/gf6800/2gb ram PC. expensive PC requirements are the problem.
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Your PC is ancient, not "oh crap....my 6 month uber rig is obsolete"....but completely and utterly redundant. The xbox 360 has more recent and advanced hardware than your 4 year old machine, of course GoW is going to run like shit on your machine (apart from the fact that it was a shitty ass port).
 
michealo said:
GOW ran great on my 360, and like shit on my P4 3.6/gf6800/2gb ram PC.
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That's because the above PC is a lot less powerful than a 360.

I don't know what you guys are smoking, but apart from the shitty MS Live stuff, Gears was a very good port (thanks to People Can Fly). Performance was top notch, the extra chapter was great, better texture resolution, mouse/keyboard controls were well implemented.
 
ok, how much do i have to spend to get my PC up to 360 standards, and better yet, why should i?
 
4saken said:
+1. Except for a few rare releases, such as Sins of a Solar Empire, and some racing sims, i hardly do any gaming on my PC anymore. Its all on consoles. Just not worth the hassle and having to wait for ports of the games i want to play, then having them broken or half assed. PC gaming is in backseat now.
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I don't get why everyone keeps throwing Sins of a Solar Empire around as an example of why he's wrong. Sure it's a fantastic game that has garnered a great fan community, but it has no chance of generating the type of sales a company like Epic needs its games to. Gears of War sold 4.5 million copies. It's sad, but Sins won't sell anywhere near that amount.
 
defiant007 said:
Bullshit hes right, the fuckers are whining because everyone with brains had the common sense not to shell out for their shitty ports! Simple as that, Epic have become the biggest bunch of arrogant fucks around. The fact that their prick forum moderators ban anyone who voices any constructive criticism about their shitty games is a testament to this!
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Really? Why aren't PC exclusives selling as well either? you can cherry pick all you want but with ALL the exclusives released last year and many being fantastic, they still are hardly bought.
 
michealo said:
ok, how much do i have to spend to get my PC up to 360 standards, and better yet, why should i?
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To at least 360 standards 7800nvidia or 1900xt ati.
C2D or A64x2 5000+ is where you want to be.

Just should since many games can use that power too. 6800 is gameable, but obviously more games are goign to be pushing requirements and/or ported to pc.
 
Somebody gimme some good RPGs for the PC and maybe I'll change my mind, but IMO consoles are the way to go. More selection.

That being said I'll continue to play PC games and avoid consoles for as long as possible. Bored with the game? Surf porn! "You've got mail!" Post whore at the [H] forums! No Gold account required.
 
eggrock said:
Somebody gimme some good RPGs for the PC and maybe I'll change my mind, but IMO consoles are the way to go. More selection.

That being said I'll continue to play PC games and avoid consoles for as long as possible. Bored with the game? Surf porn! "You've got mail!" Post whore at the [H] forums! No Gold account required.
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Have you tried the Witcher? Awesome game. But I don't think it's helping much

*looks at Atari's finacial losses*
 
Netrat33 said:
To at least 360 standards 7800nvidia or 1900xt ati.
C2D or A64x2 5000+ is where you want to be.

Just should since many games can use that power too. 6800 is gameable, but obviously more games are goign to be pushing requirements and/or ported to pc.
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my problem with doing this is I've done it far too many times in the past. not sure if it's age, or my tastes have changed, but i refuse to upgrade my pc again for gaming reasons. i'd have to pay more than 400$ to get to the same level of power and still doesn't make it easy to play from the couch on the big screen.
PC gaming was great for the almost past 2 decades and i was a huge supporter, but i don't understand the console hatred mentality.
 
meatfestival said:
I don't know what you guys are smoking, but apart from the shitty MS Live stuff, Gears was a very good port (thanks to People Can Fly). Performance was top notch, the extra chapter was great, better texture resolution, mouse/keyboard controls were well implemented.
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Agreed. It was a pretty damn nice port for single-player, with extra content even. What you're seeing above is the typical gamer community bitch fest. GoW PC had problems? Yeah, what PC game doesn't have problems. That's what's wrong with PC gaming today - at best everything seems to only work half-assed until a patch or three comes out. It gets old after awhile.

I fully understand where Epic is coming from. They're a business and they're out to make money - and now they're getting bashed for making a sound business decision? I guess that's what the internet does best though - condemning people and actions on something they know absolutely nothing about.

And I'm the biggest PC gaming fan around. I'd do anything to see this platform thrive so I can keep playing the unique and complex games that come out for it. But first piracy needs to fuck right off. And then they need to lower the price of entry - namely the atrocious price of video cards. Hopefully this so-called PC Gaming Alliance can fix things on the hardware end, because it looks like Valve is making great advancements on the software side.
 
I truly don't believe this trend at all, its just the big giants dieing out because they churn out waves of unoptimized crap, and expect us to felate their bank accounts like all the lobotomized console gamers, waiting for the next Halo episode.

I'd like to see somebody pull off a decent Civ 4 on a console. Gal civ 2 on console. WoW on a console. An RPG that requires at least a 5th grade literacy level.

Doubt these things will ever make it to the console, the console is for the people who don't want an "experience" they want to "blow some shit up."
 
Netrat33 said:
Really? Why aren't PC exclusives selling as well either? you can cherry pick all you want but with ALL the exclusives released last year and many being fantastic, they still are hardly bought.
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What is your definition of selling well? Got any statistics to back up anything you say? There was plenty of whining by EA the other month that crysis did not sell well enough, but last time I checked they had sold well over a million copies. Steam has over 12 million users. And what other exclusive are you talking about...most of the games released last year were either a port or cross developed?!
 
They (epic games) are upset because they shove console ports down PC gamer's throats, then begin QQing because they sell like beans.

All they have to do is take the same game, slap a 'games for windows' logo on it and send it out the door.

I'm looking forward to thinking about these comments in retrospect during 2010.
 
Canadian in Berlin said:
I'd like to see somebody pull off a decent Civ 4 on a console. Gal civ 2 on console. WoW on a console. An RPG that requires at least a 5th grade literacy level.

Doubt these things will ever make it to the console, the console is for the people who don't want an "experience" they want to "blow some shit up."
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Exactly, those are the kinds of games I love my PC for, and I hope they never stop getting made. I'm a huge Civilization fan, but yeah, the next version is coming out for consoles. I mean seriously, Sid Meier is making a game, a game which he claims is the game he's always wanted to make, on consoles. If that isn't the beginning of the end I don't know what is.

Love you, Sid. Civ 5 on PC only, please.

I'm not going to miss the tired Unreal Tournament franchise to say the least.
 
I have no problems with cross platform games, but TEST THE DAMN THINGS FIRST.

And don't lobotomize them. Of late Console gaming barely qualifies as an art form, regurgitate the same crap on a plate, add some food colouring and call it the next best thing. The tiny bits of innovation still lake more than the faintest hints of intelligence.

if Sid puts out of Civ 5 and its more like an arcade game, I will truly cry for the world.

Some console RPGs are almost exceptions, but the few I've played at friend's houses, bored me to tears. Multiplayer Console games are unbelievable fun.... but... what if you want an intelligent multiplayer contest? Not just "how fast is your thumb" or "how agile are your fingers".
 
LOL, I actually had a laugh at the comments in the OP. How can they (Epic) be so stupid ?
So they prioritize the consoles in the first place (ever since Gears), give PC Gamers essentially console ports, with horrendous UI (among many other things in UT3) and due to the poor sales of their crappy ports, they now confirm that they'll focus on consoles, because PC Gamers are mostly interested in Sims and WoW...

Retarded comes to mind, but then again, they are just thinking about money, which makes sense, when it comes to a money making company...
But still, they could just use the real reason i.e. money and not use the most retarded excuse I've heard in a while.

Oh well, my last purchase from Epic was that UT anthology, which was the last good thing they ever made IMO. From that point on, Epic just went downhill and their comments prove it.
 
Um so why are people coming in with these high expectations for ports?

There's a reason they're called ports - ports blow. Either have it be native PC development, or don't bother at all. TF2 is native to PC, and it is seamless. And there's no way in hell I'd play that on a console.

Oblivion was also a port, but it allowed mods to help deal with it. So that's the most middle ground you want to be - in terms of being a port, but being able to fix it.

Hmm, come to think of it is COD4 native to PC? I don't think I've heard my PC gamer friends saying it has problems, but I have both console and PC gamers telling me to buy it.
 
Itchyeyes said:
I don't get why everyone keeps throwing Sins of a Solar Empire around as an example of why he's wrong. Sure it's a fantastic game that has garnered a great fan community, but it has no chance of generating the type of sales a company like Epic needs its games to. Gears of War sold 4.5 million copies. It's sad, but Sins won't sell anywhere near that amount.
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People are throwing it around because those are the type of quality games needed on the PC to get PC gaming back to where it used to be. Nowadays 90% of PC games are all ported from consoles, and crappily at that.

Its just the most recent example of what type of interest a great game developed for the PC can develop. These games are too few and far between, which has been a contributing factor to the PCs decline.

I for one agree with Cliffy B's stance, and completely understand why any company right now would only want to dev games for consoles. Thats where the money is at. But as a previous poster stated, there will always be new devs to fill the pc gaming void as long as there is a market there. Even if it is smaller. If nothing else maybe we will start to see some long needed innovation in pc gaming.
 
4saken said:
People are throwing it around because those are the type of quality games needed on the PC to get PC gaming back to where it used to be. Nowadays 90% of PC games are all ported from consoles, and crappily at that.
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Straight out of the box without any patches the following make Sins stand out...

1) It works. It crashed on me once, and thats only because Vista, 2GB of RAM and alt-tabbing is not exactly friendly. So Vista killed it for trying to get some more RAM as I alt-tabbed back in. No crashes. No glitches. No stuttering. Great performance.

2) Its extremely balanced already. It was tested thoroughly, there are minimal examples of overpowered things, and most of them have a counter.

3) User feedback is listened to, and implemented when feasible/relevant/not retarded.

4) Its fun.
 
/agree with OP. I own Gears and UT3 on PC.

Trying to play Gears Co-op was a nightmare. There were lots of bugs, getting stuck in walls, no text chat feature, MS Live service was a horrible experience. My free month of Live Gold code was "already used" and I played on the phone with MS for an hour and no one could get me to the right department. I just got tired of UT3 after about a month. The gameplay wasn't innovative at all.
 
Personally I think it's a lame dumbfuck idea... they seem to forget that PC is who made them great... last time I checked you can't make awesome mods for consoles with the same amount of ease that you can on PC. Mods are what kept the UT franchise so awesome, they actually relied on mods entirely to propel themselves forward.
 
PC gaming in some areas seems to be going back to the 'old days' of small, almost underground shops.

The money is in consoles- one configuration to build for and almost guaranteed sales.

However some genres won't work on a console. Flight sims come to mind, and hardcore strategy games- the interface is too limiting unless you go to an alternative HID. Designers must assume the default controllers.
 
THIS REALLY PISSES ME OFF.....


I've been in the 2k4 community for the last 4 years. I have been playing 2k4 waiting for the next UT. 2k7. Then they changed its name to UT3. Then they wanted to add a single player (which was completely horrible and should not have constituted an extra 1 year wait)

When the game finally came out on PC, it was terrible. 100's of bugs and glitches, gameplay that was worse then the original. Graphics, that really didnt impress. I remember seeing UE3 stuff 2 years prior that looked better. A menu that was slow as frozen ketchup that made navigating a mess. there wasnt even an option to add a server to your favorites... If you played 2k4, you know how smooth and fast their menu was, how can you make the sequels worse and with less features?

Console focus, thats why. I dont care what epic says, this game was built for the console from the get go. Thats why its terrible. I console port. WTF. I think they really thought that PC gamers where ignorant, and where going to buy it just because it was unreal tournament. No..... I have many friends in the 2k4 community and they refuse to buy this game. Many of them still play 2k4. I think its funny to go into the UT3 server browser and see less servers and less people playing then 2k4.....

Also, if COD4 is any indication, if you create a decent PC FPS, people will buy it. Last time I checked there are over 16000 servers running when I boot up COD4, and many of thsoe are populated servers. This just goes to show when a manufacturer actually builds a game that people will ENJOY playing, that it will sell well, PC included.

Epic seems to have left its "bread and butter" out in the sun to melt away and be picked off by birds. I refuse to endorse them any longer. I am so disapointed. I thought UT3 was going to be the next big thing, Guess, Ill just have to wait for Quake 5 arena.... Wow was I wrong.

Oh, and dont even let me get into Epic leaving its 360 gamers out to dry. GOW was on the 360, then yo sign some deal with sony, and release UT3 on PS3 first? WTF, I know many 360 gamers that refuse to buy UT3 now. I bet when sales on the 360 drop, Epic will say something along the lines of " oh well our pizza and wings was 360 with GOW and now we are moving on to PS3"

Anyway, just venting here, waiting on Fable 2.
 
I think a lot of the "console hatred" exists because many long-standing PC gamers have seen their favorite franchises bastardized to run on a console and then ported back to PC with poor quality (not just a generic "ports are crap" mentality). Deus Ex, for example. PC gamers have come to expect deep and involving games which we almost never see on consoles.

Now of course it's true that game developers are out to make money, but I think that specifically in the case of the newer generation of consoles we're seeing many titles appearing simply to make the most money (even beyond titles like Need for Speed and Madden; I'm talking games like TimeShift). Nobody says any of the older gen game developers were altruistic, but behind most truly classic titles were game developers that really had a vision for a game they would like to make, and not just one which would garner the most market share.

I'm a longstanding PC gamer, and I'm not that bothered about Epic putting the PC in the "back seat." I don't think they've ever really had much of the same talent we see in a number of other developers (whether it's recognized or not), and UT3 exemplifies this.

The PC market can still sell quite well, and there are a number of titles which show this; I think it's mostly that the overall quality level of games has dropped (again, I believe at least partly attributable to these 'nex-gen' consoles), and therefore the number of people willing to buy these lower quality games once they've been ported back to their PC (with whatever issues they may have) dwindles. The developers of Mass Effect appear to be taking a different (and in my opinion, the correct) approach; they released the game for the 360, but rather than a slapdash port years later, they're reworking components of the game which will make it much better to play on the PC.
 
Netrat33 said:
Have you tried the Witcher? Awesome game. But I don't think it's helping much

*looks at Atari's finacial losses*
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I've thought about it, but..

looks at Atari label... looks at ToEE and thinks about bugs and lack of support... shudders

I guess I can't be picky... I loathe Atari but there is so little choice. Take one for the team and all that.
 
Cliffy B makes me laugh...

I do understand this thinking and his comments seem to be the general thought of a lot of people in the industry. This thought is somewhat echoed last week when EA wrote that games are to risky to take chances on because of money, and the day of the garage programming is over - PC gaming is in a slump. There is too much risk in taking creative chances, so the public will have to deal with same old. Both statements are saddening – but true.

But it’s odd to me, though. In general, you’ll still have to develop quite a bit of game pieces on PC, even with SDK. Also, as consoles get more advanced, they’ll gradually become more like PCs, as we’ve already seen that within the last generation. I feel the differences will eventually be non-exsistent.

But at the point of PC/Console equality, one would think that there might be a possible resurgence of PC games, but as others have stated, horrible ports leave bad taste in people’s mouths.
I'd honestly rather have a platform specific title that was great than have the developers resources spread so thin when they try please everyone$ - only to have a crappy port, or buggy POS.

These are the times.
 
When you start writing games cross platform, the better platform inherets all the restrictions and constraints of the weaker platform. Epic sold out, made more sales by appealing to the console audience and turning the PC version into utter crud.

They've become a company who are not willing to put the effort into making a truly good PC game, that is tailored for PC audience, rather they'd prefer to take the cheap option and give the PC users lower quality cross developed (or ported) games. This naturally results in lower PC sales, if they didn't fuck up some of the most basic elements of UT3 it would have sold a lot better.

I think if that's all their going to do, I'm not going to be sad to see them go, lets shift our support to people like Crytek who have taken the lead in developing next generation content and actually know how to build a solid PC game.
 
quadnad said:
I think a lot of the "console hatred" exists because many long-standing PC gamers have seen their favorite franchises bastardized to run on a console and then ported back to PC with poor quality (not just a generic "ports are crap" mentality). Deus Ex, for example. PC gamers have come to expect deep and involving games which we almost never see on consoles.
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Sounds like a decent justification to me. It would be akin to having a hatred for paparazzi newspapers because they were destroying the writing quality and integrity of journalism. This could then possibly lead to heavily biased government influenced newscasting....
 
Frosteh said:
I think if that's all their going to do, I'm not going to be sad to see them go, lets shift our support to people like Crytek who have taken the lead in developing next generation content and actually know how to build a solid PC game.
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Oh, no. Crysis is an unoptimized piece of crap and Far Cry looks better and I can't run at 3000x2000 with max. settings on my Radeon 200XPXTXXXGSX, multiplayer sucks blah blah blah. [/sarcasm]

Some people *deserve* consoles. The rest of us suffer for it. :mad:
 
Bye bye Epic. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.
 
quadnad said:
I think a lot of the "console hatred" exists because many long-standing PC gamers have seen their favorite franchises bastardized to run on a console and then ported back to PC with poor quality (not just a generic "ports are crap" mentality). Deus Ex, for example. PC gamers have come to expect deep and involving games which we almost never see on consoles.
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You couldn't be more "on the money" even if we converted Bill Gates' fortune into cash, built a mountain out of it and put you on the top.
 
Canadian in Berlin said:
You won't see me complaining. Look at Stardock (Galciv2 + expansions and Sins). How about the Witcher? (big publisher, small developer).
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Silent Hunter!

quadnad said:
I think a lot of the "console hatred" exists because many long-standing PC gamers have seen their favorite franchises bastardized to run on a console and then ported back to PC with poor quality (not just a generic "ports are crap" mentality). Deus Ex, for example. PC gamers have come to expect deep and involving games which we almost never see on consoles.......
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Well put. And true. PC has become the bastard platform, and it's kinda sad.


Xenozx said:
Also, if COD4 is any indication, if you create a decent PC FPS, people will buy it. Last time I checked there are over 16000 servers running when I boot up COD4, and many of thsoe are populated servers. This just goes to show when a manufacturer actually builds a game that people will ENJOY playing, that it will sell well, PC included.
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Didn't Infinity Ward just release a statement saying how disgusted they were with the amount of pirated copies they were seeing online? =(


Frosteh said:
I think if that's all their going to do, I'm not going to be sad to see them go, lets shift our support to people like Crytek who have taken the lead in developing next generation content and actually know how to build a solid PC game..
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Ugh. Crysis wouldn't be my pick as the poster child for PC gaming. Irregular framerates, questionable AI, and a couple game-breaking bugs that forced me to restart the entire game.
 
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