The future of PC gaming - 2009 edition

[El_Cid]

Well the bit "That is on request from developers and publishers" - would suggest to me that unlike say games on Impulse/Stardock they dont/can't promise no nasty DRM(talking SecuRom here in the case of Sega's MTW2 expansions/FM09 games).
I mix in AAA publishing circles from time to time(for my sins) and really dont have much faith that they would decide not to keep DRM on the digital download versions, unless the digital download vendor specificaly said they were against it. Publishers are not computer technical people(unlike the devs), they are marketing and sales and management mostly, and really have no clue just how effectivly they are helping to kill PC game sales - they dont mean too of course.

Anyway I would predict that there is about a 20% chance that the games mentioned will be free of the DRM that caused me to stop buying them, at a guess. So lets wait and see(I will email GamersGate sometime to try to find out).

[El_Cid]

An interesting article about PC gaming's possible future path:

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=21876

I completely agree with the 'smaller teams' approach, which will equate to less graphics directly and possibly less polish from the less stringent dev. I'm all for less graphics in my PC games - let the consoles do that stuff, it's what they are designed for after all. Time to get back to interesting games on PC?

[DrSpike]

I play "interesting games" on my 360, and there are a dearth of them no matter what your preferences, as I've explained to you many times. Also, it is quite evident that the top end PCs are clearly ahead of the (2 year old now) consoles in graphics capabilities.

So maybe the way forward is for the PC to focus on superficial eye candy laden shooters where it has the advantage, and leave the compelling gameplay to the consoles, where they have the advantage?

[El_Cid]

The amount of 'bleeding edge' PC's out there is a pretty small percentage of the overall home PC footprint(including laptops etc). The graphical qualities of the current range of consoles is very high as is their market share of gaming(in terms of how many sit in peoples homes).

Yes I agree a bleeding edge(£1000+?) PC can display better graphics than a 360 or PS3, but that difference is pretty narrow from what i've seen. The cost of AAA dev has risen hugely and most of that has been fueled by the current gen of consoles, much of that graphic related.

I think the days when a PC gamer could 'snob' it over a console owner due to graphics is more or less over. My experience of console gaming hasn't left me with the same impression as yourself - i find 90% of console games very shallow, pretty unoriginal, hamstrung by the publisher/dev belief that eye candy is the top consideration. They are great for a bit of light relief gaming(imo), but nothing on console comes close to a game of Civ etc, and those are the kind of games i prefer the most - deep, complex games. Gamesthat don't require big shinny graphics to grab you

[lord of the mark]

I play "interesting games" on my 360, and there are a dearth of them no matter what your preferences, as I've explained to you many times. Also, it is quite evident that the top end PCs are clearly ahead of the (2 year old now) consoles in graphics capabilities.

So maybe the way forward is for the PC to focus on superficial eye candy laden shooters where it has the advantage, and leave the compelling gameplay to the consoles, where they have the advantage?

But this

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3911/jonathan_blow_the_next_phase.php

"As an independent developer, there's another thing about the PC, which is there are a very large number of games -- independent games, even -- getting released on the PC.

I'm not the typical gamer, but a typical gamer only has a limited amount of attention. What should they be paying attention to? It's an open question.

And for me, as somebody who didn't have a big advertising budget, how do you communicate to people that this is a game that you actually want to be interested in?

Having it be released on a console, you don't have that problem, because, for example, on Xbox Live, there are only a limited number of games in the pipeline. If a game comes out on a given week, it's notable at least because it's the game of the week that week, right?

From there, if it's well-received on the console, I can still come to the PC and say, "Well, look, this game, a lot of people liked it." Whereas you could release a really good game on PC, and maybe just it never gets word of mouth, even though it's good. I was very concerned with that." "

So basically he's saying the reason they didn't make Braid for the PC first, was cause there were TOO MANY indie games being released on it -in contrast to the 360.

Its like the bar in the Yogi Berra quote "No one goes there anymore, its too crowded"

[El_Cid]

True, it's very difficult to make your indie game stand out from the crowd, and it's where most indies fall down. Marketing your game well(and you can do it with limited budget) is probably more important to an indie than to a AAA. You have got the hardwork to convince a mostly sceptical consumer("an indie game? that will be third rate then?") to even look at your title.

AAA's mostly just have to buy shelf space and joe blogs with his console will pick whatever it is up. A simplification, but yeah the trick to being a successfull indie is often overlooked imho. Market your game well - and you need a damn good game, not just a version of something many people can pick up in the free ware/free web based game market.

But yeah untill he had the success on xbox live Steam were only willing to offer him a poor deal, after his success via console they were willing to offer a fair deal. I'm still not a fan of steam, it could be so much better for PC gaming imho.

[DrSpike]

But this

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3911/jonathan_blow_the_next_phase.php

"As an independent developer, there's another thing about the PC, which is there are a very large number of games -- independent games, even -- getting released on the PC.

I'm not the typical gamer, but a typical gamer only has a limited amount of attention. What should they be paying attention to? It's an open question.

And for me, as somebody who didn't have a big advertising budget, how do you communicate to people that this is a game that you actually want to be interested in?

Having it be released on a console, you don't have that problem, because, for example, on Xbox Live, there are only a limited number of games in the pipeline. If a game comes out on a given week, it's notable at least because it's the game of the week that week, right?

From there, if it's well-received on the console, I can still come to the PC and say, "Well, look, this game, a lot of people liked it." Whereas you could release a really good game on PC, and maybe just it never gets word of mouth, even though it's good. I was very concerned with that." "

So basically he's saying the reason they didn't make Braid for the PC first, was cause there were TOO MANY indie games being released on it -in contrast to the 360.

Its like the bar in the Yogi Berra quote "No one goes there anymore, its too crowded"

I don't why that is a response to my point.

However, sure, this is an area the PC should be winning in hands down. But increasingly it is not. XBLA has been successful for a while, and they have just added cheap user made games, some of which are awful as you'd expect, but some of which are pretty good. So I'd say the 360 is about to get 'crowded' too.

[lord of the mark]

I don't why that is a response to my point.

However, sure, this is an area the PC should be winning in hands down. But increasingly it is not. XBLA has been successful for a while, and they have just added cheap user made games, some of which are awful as you'd expect, but some of which are pretty good. So I'd say the 360 is about to get 'crowded' too.

Equilibrium, old boy, equilibrium. Braid is often cited as the best example of consoles taking the creative indy game turf from the PC. But it turns out it was only on XBLA at all because so many indy games are made for the PC. the virgin market of XBLA offset the advantages of the PC. Thats going to happen. At some point as the crowdedness factor on the XBLA increases (as that market becomes more saturated) the shift of indies to XBLA will slow.

Thats in general a necessary context to platform wars, and a reason you need updates to them, you cant just look at the trend from 2004 and extrapolate. With PC RPGs we seem to have arrived at a point where the shift to consoles has slowed.

Now of course with FPS it didnt slow till the PC FPS was reduced to a niche. Will that happen with small indy games? If the words of Braids own designer can be trusted, no.

[snoopy369]

From that article:

What I don't like about PCs is how hard it is to make a shipping-quality game on them, in terms of it not crashing on people's machines, or sounding and looking consistent, or whatever. It's nearly impossible.

Well, actually, it is impossible. What is possible is to do a job that doesn't screw up on that many people's machines. I think that there's no inherent reason for that anymore, so that needs to get fixed. But I don't see anyone working on it seriously.

I think you're taking him at least somewhat out of context; he (to me) says that, at least mostly, the reason he hasn't made the PC version yet is compatibility.

I think it's (obviously) an inherent part of the PC problem; multiple potential hardware setups means multiple sources of failure, and all of the parts of that which contribute to said sources have to all work together properly. And certainly Microsoft, or NVidia, or SOMEONE, could figure it out, couldn't they? AMD, maybe? Build a platform that guaranteed developers, no matter WHAT people buy part-wise, as long as they have AMD and ATI chipsets (cpu, mb, gpu) that the developer knows exactly what to expect; and even if they have higher-end or lower-end stuff, at least the driver-related bugs won't arise, and perhaps put a chip on the board that identifies the performance level and tells the game what it's capable of - allowing the game to choose which performance level to display certain things at [by default, of course - I'm all for allowing people to choose higher or lower settings].

Maybe that's what AMD was thinking in buying out ATI? Would you build an AMD/ATI machine if it meant you were guaranteed to have console-level consistency in games, even if it mean slightly lower performance for the buck? I probably would...

[lord of the mark]

From that article:


I think you're taking him at least somewhat out of context; he (to me) says that, at least mostly, the reason he hasn't made the PC version yet is compatibility.

I think it's (obviously) an inherent part of the PC problem; multiple potential hardware setups means multiple sources of failure, and all of the parts of that which contribute to said sources have to all work together properly. And certainly Microsoft, or NVidia, or SOMEONE, could figure it out, couldn't they? AMD, maybe? Build a platform that guaranteed developers, no matter WHAT people buy part-wise, as long as they have AMD and ATI chipsets (cpu, mb, gpu) that the developer knows exactly what to expect; and even if they have higher-end or lower-end stuff, at least the driver-related bugs won't arise, and perhaps put a chip on the board that identifies the performance level and tells the game what it's capable of - allowing the game to choose which performance level to display certain things at [by default, of course - I'm all for allowing people to choose higher or lower settings].

Maybe that's what AMD was thinking in buying out ATI? Would you build an AMD/ATI machine if it meant you were guaranteed to have console-level consistency in games, even if it mean slightly lower performance for the buck? I probably would...

Well my fault for giving you the wrong quote then

Jonathan Blow: A little bit working on an updated version for Xbox Live Arcade, because there were a couple of bugs in it. There were some more minor things, just little, tiny gameplay glitches. I've been doing that.

I have been talking to people about Braid on other platforms, like the Mac and PC. What's going on is that I took some time to do that originally, and then we hit this season where there were just a zillion PC games out. And I didn't want to release it in the middle of that, because probably nobody would notice.

You indicated at one point you were talking to Valve about Steam.

JB: A long time ago, I was talking to them, and it didn't really work out. Since then, they've come back and contacted me, and they are interested in putting the game up. So it's just a matter of me having a PC version ready that I feel is good to go with.

In fact he IS doing a PC version/port, despite the issues with hardware compatibility. He just didn't want to release it on PC in the middle of this "zillion release" season. IE its crowded.

Edit:I could be misreading and hes referring to thinking of doing a PC version at teh same time or shortly after the XBLA release rather than in place of it

[snoopy369]

He was (again, in my reading of it) talking about "originally" as in "five months or so ago, after Braid was a huge hit for the X360, and I announced that the PC game was under development". Everything I've seen indicates it was never intended for a PC release prior to its console development (in its current form, anyway).

But it is a confusing article nonetheless.

[Unimatrix11]

From that article:


I think you're taking him at least somewhat out of context; he (to me) says that, at least mostly, the reason he hasn't made the PC version yet is compatibility.

I think it's (obviously) an inherent part of the PC problem; multiple potential hardware setups means multiple sources of failure, and all of the parts of that which contribute to said sources have to all work together properly. And certainly Microsoft, or NVidia, or SOMEONE, could figure it out, couldn't they? AMD, maybe? Build a platform that guaranteed developers, no matter WHAT people buy part-wise, as long as they have AMD and ATI chipsets (cpu, mb, gpu) that the developer knows exactly what to expect; and even if they have higher-end or lower-end stuff, at least the driver-related bugs won't arise, and perhaps put a chip on the board that identifies the performance level and tells the game what it's capable of - allowing the game to choose which performance level to display certain things at [by default, of course - I'm all for allowing people to choose higher or lower settings].

Maybe that's what AMD was thinking in buying out ATI? Would you build an AMD/ATI machine if it meant you were guaranteed to have console-level consistency in games, even if it mean slightly lower performance for the buck? I probably would...

I have been pondering this for some time. I, too, think that a return to the ´home-computer´ would be desirable. You know, like in 8-bit-times, where you had certain machines with certain hardware, like Apple IIc or C64 or Atari 800XL or whatnot. Since the hardware for PC doesnt seem to develope that fast anymore (think about how long the Pentium II lasted), integrated tabletop PCs with less upgrade capability could make for a cheap, yet still powerful alternative to OSA-towers. Have like 3 machines on the market at any given time, 1 low-end (today, maybe 1Gig, single-core, standard graphics, 250GB HD, 300€), 1 mid-ranged (2 Gig, dual-core, 3850ish GPU, 500GB HD, 500€) 1 high-end (4GB, quad, 4850ish, 800GB, 800€) and update the pallette every year or so. You could always use the old chassi-design for the new models, with the top one having X-fire capabilities (2 graphic-slots). Each model should have 2 memory slots, with the one being stocked by default. That would be it, upgrade-wise. Of course, DVD-burner and WLAN should be standard, as well as many USB-ports and stuff like that...

Dreaming on, the models could feature retractable hinges on the top of the chassis (tabletop), where you could attach a screen, making it a portable system (you still need external power, but you can easily carry the whole thing). The screen would come without foot by default, which again could save production cost. Likewise, the tabletop should feature a little ´drawer´, (which when empty allows air-flow for cooling), where to put the keyboard, when turned off and/or moving.

[El_Cid]

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/01/pc-gears-of-war-drm-causes-title-to-shut-down-starting-today.ars

rather embarrasing, but nothing surprises me with AAA PC gaming currently. They really want us to all just buy consoles!(whisper! whisper!).

I'll only oblige by buying last generation consoles off course - to fight "the man" etc

[El_Cid]

I have been pondering this for some time. I, too, think that a return to the ´home-computer´ would be desirable. You know, like in 8-bit-times, where you had certain machines with certain hardware, like Apple IIc or C64 or Atari 800XL or whatnot....

I think they are now covered by consoles in terms of what the industry wants, especialy as you can go on-line and get programming them now(XNA etc).

The PC is still the most versitle and open platform to develope on though, and probably will always remain so unless MS really locks down the platform via the software. I think the biggest problem in PC dev, and it's really only a AAA dev problem as that is the industry driving the constant hardware upgrades, is that of wide hardware variations. Most PC's are not cutting edge spec wise(office and general home PC's and laptops etc) but the AAA's always target their games for the much smaller part of the hardware market.

And this goes back to my belief that the quest for ultimate life like graphics has been also one of the reasons for many of the problems in gaming in general(and PC gaming now), from hardware issues to costs of developement to 'lack of depth' in most of modern gaming.

Looking at games made in the 90's(mid to late) and the technology level of PC's then, I think you can plot a downward sliding graph in terms of game ambition(apart from improved graphics) compared to modern hardware power. You always get exceptions to the rule of course, i'm not trying to make a blanket statement but I do notice a trend.

Hmmm actualy what we need in PC dev is the kind of thing that the Wii represented in the console market. And no i dont mean lots of party games with physical action controllers! I mean less concentration on graphics above all other aspects of what a game is.

this is why i see indie and small dev PC games as the future of PC gaming, they are the guys who dont need/have the graphics hang ups and can concentrate on producing truely deep and interesting games. It's not entirely happening right now, but I can see it coming...........which leads me nicely onto a thread i wanted to link to

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=22173

I should just say I am not exactly a Stardock fan-boy(i.e. I dont stalk them/work for them/think the sun shines out of their you know what etc), in fact I only own 1 of their games(Gal Civ Gold), BUT I do think they are part of what the future of PC gaming should be about, polished near(as good as?) AAA quality games that try to do more than just move a zillion graphicaly bloody polygons around the screen as fast as possible.

We just need more Stardocks imho and PC gaming will be quality for years to come

[El_Cid]

After reading about the tax breaks Stardock got from the govenor of Michigan, and various uk industry lumineries like Brabben and Molyneux complain about the uneven playing field of development in the uk it seems our governent response, which was to complain about these tax breaks to the WTO, has come to nothing, as it should.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=22250

If they put that effort into actualy supporting game development in the uk we would not be in the position of falling into 5th in the world table(from 2nd!). I hope this slap in the face and poke in the eye helps them see things more clearly - "help our games industry be competative!"

And now for something completely different, an article with some links to a selection of indie PC games:

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=22210

And finaly a link to one of my few 'looking forward too' games:

http://elementalgame.com/index.asp

TBS rpg is the way to my gaming heart