First, crysis takes more processing because of physics,and ur arguement is conflicting with it self. First u say graphics don't matter, then u r complaining about graphics compared to far cry. What do u want every developer to make all there games look like they are 6 years old? Ur argument makes no sense. If u want to play with ur current graphics card, just stick too ur older games like far cry and half life 2. No one is twisting ur arm to buy a new graphics card or games when they come out. Obviously the pc is the only platform that can push that kind gaming technology, so thats why they are making these games, cuz there are people who actually want to play better games then the ps3, or xbox360 can handle.Besides, lots of pc games are still being made that don't require top notch hardware too play. And, u don't have to spend 800 bucks on a video card. wait 6 months and the price will come down. Or, play games with the settings turned down, to console quality. Yes, u turn down the settings on these games, turn AA down to 2x or off, and turn the res down, and turn some settings too med or low, and u have console quality game then. Then, u only need like a $150-300 dollar card too play them. See, problem solved. Just takes a lil education.
you didnt understand what i was saying
i am not saying make games look crappy i am saying make them more efficient. crysis doesnt even use full cpu usage and on the lowest setting it will look worst than far cry and it will also run slower than far cry
i am not saying use the same game engine, i am saying that many developers don't work hard on optimizing their code because they feel that new hardware will make up for the inefficiency
on many programming challenges you will see users develop a program that does 1 thing, some users will do it in 100 lines of code and other users will do it in 500 lines and some users will get more performance out of their program as compared to others
what many game developers are going for now is making their games to run on hardware that doesnt yet exist
Well being able to play PC requires a bit of savvy on the gamers part. Too many people don't know enough about their machines. The myth that you constantly have to upgrade is BS. The myth that it cost too much is also BS. People fork over $400 for an Xbox360 or even more than that for a PS3 (before price cut). I got my video card for half that price... FOUR years ago. My machine can run almost any game except for crysis. Well I CAN run crysis on lowest setting, but then it looks horrible.
Then their are people who swear they can tell the difference between 60 fps and 100 fps and then the people who run at 100 fps and swear they can tell the difference even though their monitor is only drawing 60 frames. So this leads to some people to constantly upgrade because they think they have to play at 3000x1900 resolution with 200 fps with all effects on. So when they play the latest game and its down to 180 fps they freak out and buy 3 of the latest video card and duck tape em together. So this produces a myth that PC gaming is expensive and require constant upgrades which is false. This is why consoles thrive because their is a standard in both hardware and software. You can't change your resolution, their aren't 100 options to turn off/on various effects. Everyone will experience the game the same way. For those that find maintaining their PC too overbearing then consoles standardized experience is very appealing, now that console gaming has seemingly caught up with PC in the graphics department. That same standard is also very appealing to developers because they don't have to worry about 10000000 different machine configurations.
There really isn't any game out there that can be considered a step forward in the graphics department versus consoles. Before the new consoles came out, most PC games could be considered a step forward over the consoles. Crysis looks good, but not that much more than COD4 and most of the load from crysis comes from the long draw distances and rendering all that foliage plus the physics. If crysis was made with mostly indoor enironments in mind like in HalfLife2 then it'd be a more forgiving game hardwarewise. So maybe PC games just need to take that step forward over consoles just as console took a step forward to catch up, but it seems developers like being able to put a game on console and PC at the same time for maximum money makeage. Or they could take a page from the Book of Blizzard and develop a game that most PCs can run? I mean I ran WoW on a GeForce2 MX for gods sake. Not only an ancient geforce 2 but of the MX variety. And the game still looks pretty good.
About piracy, it appears that PC games suffer more from piracy, because its just a simple download away from a virus/ad ridden website. I'm not sure how console piracy works, but I've seen people stick in a burned DVD and play games. It certainly isn't as easy.
Also I disagree about the death of AGP being a cause. That happened awhile ago and would be relevent if PCIE was just introduced recently. And the point about MMO subscription based games is also contradictory. WOW is the most successful MMO ever and the best selling PC game by far. Saying that subscription based games is killing PC gaming and then use WOW, a very successful game, as an example kinda disaproves your point.
Many people have made many different points regarding the slump in PC gaming. Here's my .02, having played video games since NES back in 1985 (23 years of gaming), and I believe it all boils down to one issue..
Nobody can keep up with these hardware requirements. 5 years ago, you could pay $180 for a Radeon 9700 pro and that was enough. Then, it was decided that PC gamers should have the option for 2 graphics cards running in tandem. NOW, we're looking at spending upwards of $1000 to have 3 graphics cards running a game (Crysis) at under 60 fps. The same thing goes for processors. From single core, to dual core, and now Quad-core $1200 cpus that can't run games at the full 60fps that all games are meant to be played at.
We've gone from DDR to DDR3 in, what, 6 years? My PS2 lasted that long, and as developers got better and better at programing for the system so did the graphics. Meanwhile, my ram became essentially worthless.
Don't get me wrong, the evolution of computer technology SHOULD continue at its current pace. It's a great thing. But at the same time, it is destroying PC gaming. Programmers don't give a damn. They aren't limited by any constraints, so they never learn to utilize the technology to its maximum ability. So the cycle continues. Technology is constantly left in favor of the next big thing, while consumers get the shaft paying hundreds of dollars for minimal increases in framerates.
Not to harp on Crysis again, but think about it. You could pay $300 for another 8800GTS, and gain 5-15 fps... OR, OR, you could take that money and buy a PS3 or 360, and rest confident in having a stable platform that will last you for years.
Is it really that hard to understand? This isn't rocket science. It isn't poor marketing, a shift in demographics, or any of the like. It's the PC gaming industry shooting itself in the foot. Ask yourself why WoW is so popular, and at some point you'll have to admit that it's because PEOPLE CAN PLAY THE GAME on their average systems.
Keep in mind some of my favorite games have been PC games. That doesn't change my frustration with what's happening however.
Many people have made many different points regarding the slump in PC gaming. Here's my .02, having played video games since NES back in 1985 (23 years of gaming), and I believe it all boils down to one issue..
Nobody can keep up with these hardware requirements. 5 years ago, you could pay $180 for a Radeon 9700 pro and that was enough. Then, it was decided that PC gamers should have the option for 2 graphics cards running in tandem. NOW, we're looking at spending upwards of $1000 to have 3 graphics cards running a game (Crysis) at under 60 fps. The same thing goes for processors. From single core, to dual core, and now Quad-core $1200 cpus that can't run games at the full 60fps that all games are meant to be played at.
We've gone from DDR to DDR3 in, what, 6 years? My PS2 lasted that long, and as developers got better and better at programing for the system so did the graphics. Meanwhile, my ram became essentially worthless.
Don't get me wrong, the evolution of computer technology SHOULD continue at its current pace. It's a great thing. But at the same time, it is destroying PC gaming. Programmers don't give a damn. They aren't limited by any constraints, so they never learn to utilize the technology to its maximum ability. So the cycle continues. Technology is constantly left in favor of the next big thing, while consumers get the shaft paying hundreds of dollars for minimal increases in framerates.
Not to harp on Crysis again, but think about it. You could pay $300 for another 8800GTS, and gain 5-15 fps... OR, OR, you could take that money and buy a PS3 or 360, and rest confident in having a stable platform that will last you for years.
Is it really that hard to understand? This isn't rocket science. It isn't poor marketing, a shift in demographics, or any of the like. It's the PC gaming industry shooting itself in the foot. Ask yourself why WoW is so popular, and at some point you'll have to admit that it's because PEOPLE CAN PLAY THE GAME on their average systems.
Keep in mind some of my favorite games have been PC games. That doesn't change my frustration with what's happening however.
I really have to disagree with you. I dont think hardware is an issue. People like to use extreme examples like saying you "need" triple SLI just to be able to play crysis. This is utterly incorrect. Yeah, if you want to play crysis at 1900x1080 resolution with 8xaa and 16x anisotropic at 60fps, ya, you need triple SLI. On the other hand if you're like the vast majority of pc gamers and you dont have e-peen issues, you just play it at something reasonable like 1280x1024 or 1440x900, possibly with 2xaa or no aa at all and 4 or 8x anisotropic filtering, and get perfectly reasonable framerates on a game like crysis. Hell, i have an 8800gts 640mb card that i paid ~330 for christmas of 2006 and a C2D e6600 at 2.8ghz and i was able to acheive an average of 22fps outside, with all the dx10 features turned on through a hacked ini file, if i took it to *just* DX9 i average 26-27fps, which is perfectly playable. On a side note, i have a friend who has a lowly x1800xt who is able to play the game at medium settings, which stills looks remarkably good (main detriment is lighting, textures and what not still look great). So no i dont think developers are killing PC gaming by making games have higher hardware requirements.
Moving along, i'm not entirely sure why there is such a hatred for subscription based games. Honestly i've had so many issues in the past with crappy/slow/unstable servers for other online games that i would gladly have paid a company a fee each month to have something that was fast/stable/etc 98% of the time. Not only that, you get more bang for your buck. For the same $50USD that you pay for a game that may have 15-25 hours of gameplay, you can easily get several hundred hours of gameplay out of a game like WOW or Tabula Rasa, etc.
Edit: Sorry had to come back to finish the post, had to leave in a flash.
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"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
I really have to disagree with you. I dont think hardware is an issue. People like to use extreme examples like saying you "need" triple SLI just to be able to play crysis. This is utterly incorrect. Yeah, if you want to play crysis at 1900x1080 resolution with 8xaa and 16x anisotropic at 60fps, ya, you need triple SLI. On the other hand if you're like the vast majority of pc gamers and you dont have e-peen issues, you just play it at something reasonable like 1280x1024 or 1440x900, possibly with 2xaa or no aa at all and 4 or 8x anisotropic filtering, and get perfectly reasonable framerates on a game like crysis. Hell, i have an 8800gts 640mb card that i paid ~330 for christmas of 2006 and a C2D e6600 at 2.8ghz and i was able to acheive an average of 22fps outside, with all the dx10 features turned on through a hacked ini file, if i took it to *just* DX9 i average 26-27fps, which is perfectly playable. On a side note, i have a friend who has a lowly x1800xt who is able to play the game at medium settings, which stills looks remarkably good (main detriment is lighting, textures and what not still look great). So no i dont think developers are killing PC gaming by making games have higher hardware requirements.
Moving along, i'm not entirely sure why there is such a hatred for subscription based games. Honestly i've had so many issues in the past with crappy/slow/unstable servers for other online games that i would gladly have paid a company a fee each month to have something that was fast/stable/etc 98% of the time. Not only that, you get more bang for your buck. For the same $50USD that you pay for a game that may have 15-25 hours of gameplay, you can easily get several hundred hours of gameplay out of a game like WOW or Tabula Rasa, etc.
Edit: Sorry had to come back to finish the post, had to leave in a flash.
Let me frame my argument in a slightly different way to illustrate my point.
What are the most popular, most-played computer games in the status quo? WoW, The Sims, CounterStrike 1.6, Starcraft.
What are the most popular, most-played console games in the status quo? Halo3, (soon to be) GTA4, GoW...
Players are choosing to play new games on console rather than on the computer. Why is that? It certainly isn't customizability, which is superior on computer formats. It certainly isn't multiplayer connectivity, because PC has that on lockdown too. Graphics? The newest wave of PC games have superior graphics, and that's not just Crysis.
It's affordability. $350 for a 360 guarantees you many years of uninterrupted gaming at a guaranteed increasing level of visual quality. Contrastingly, $350 for a nice graphics card guarantees you several years of gaming at a guaranteed decreasing level of visual quality.
To maintain quality on pc as games evolve, you are forced to upgrade frequently. Meanwhile, a console purchase guarantees you the latest level of quality no matter what over a 4-6 year period of time.
Also, I'd like to revert back to my point that developers are SQUANDERING the computing power that is available to them. Smart developers like Valve and Blizzard are the exception, rather than the rule, and their financial success in the gaming industry is evidence of that. Wrath of the Lich King will still see a high level of playability across an extremely broad range of hardware configurations. Likewise, HL2: Episode 3 will also be playable across an extremely large range of systems.
It's not just about "ePeen." It's about being able to rely on your investment. Having played video games for so long, I can firmly say that graphics do NOT equal quality of gameplay. Having said that, watching your game descend into a choppy slideshow whenever the action gets intense (which frankly are the moments we play for) is a major discouragement and detractor from the quality of the experience.
Love it or hate it, until more companies start following the lead of companies like Blizzard and Valve, you will see more and more gamers switch to console. Of course that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Valve makes excellent products that are worth our money and scale very well from system to system.. I have a fairly old PC and I still can run CSS, and HL2 with very good fps... (not the biggest fan of the movement feel though)
We are constantly told how the next great chip is a revolution.. and while it is to a degree, I feel as though the games are not utilized correctly..
PC games require way more investment for the user then do console games.. (which is why console gamers can afford to purchase more crappy titles and ports.. and another reason why PC gamers will download a game and make sure they like it before flopping down another 50 bucks on a loser!)
For example.. even though I feel CPU power is insanity.. and alot closer in stock then alot of people would have you believe, I do not feel there is very much headroom in todays hardware... although I hope this changes this year and I plan to drop many thousands of dollars on a brand new rig...
I want to get one that is at least going to last me 4 years of new software titles...
Now think about that.. having to spend many thousands of dollars every few years.. or at the minimum waiting until you simply cannot wait any longer and dropping a thousand or slightly less..at around the 6 year mark.
That is a vastly more expensive market then your even most dedicated console gamer...
I think the second take guys missed a vital factor that might be affecting PC game sales:
PCs are more expensive than most of the consoles (often by 3 times or more), and I mean bang-for-the-buck PCs, not the high end models (which can be 10 times as much). So more often than not people with larger amounts of disposable income will be able to afford them, which usually means people with decent jobs or multiple jobs (the children of these people aside) who have less free time. I'm not trying to make any kind of rich vs poor social statement. I'm just saying that if you own a decent, modern gaming rig, you probably had some disposable income, which in most cases means you had to spend time working for it.
In my case, I work long hours to make more money and certainly don't spend all my free time at my computer, and thus do not have much time to play games, even though I'm a hardware enthusiast. I pick my games very carefully, because I can only play one or two at a time, and even then it can take me the better part of a year to get through just one.
Now if in 2007 you have 4-5 shooter games come out (ie Crysis, UT3, COD4, etc), and your market base is realistically only going to buy one of them, of course you aren't going to have high sales for all of them. And this is especially true if those games all need a computer that is no more than a year old to run them at decent frame rates - forcing people to upgrade constantly - again, you need more money. In addition, I have found that I like to play a mix of games. If COD*4* and UT*3* come out, and I've played COD2 and UT1 already, I'm less likely to buy these new games, even if they are revamped. I feel like I've already been there, done that. Certainly you have title-fans, but I wonder whether the average player can be described by the fan-stereotype (WOW aside).
I upgraded my graphics card this year after only owning my previous card for 1 year, and I had the money to do so, so why not buy that "new set of hub caps" and show it off to my friends? But then I realized that there are about 10 titles from the previous 3 years that I'd always wanted to play but never had the time to play. And my old card could have run them just fine (and if they are old, they will be half the price or less!).
And then there is the WOW phenomena; all the people I know who originally bought WOW are still playing it. If you've found a game you really like (and I think the WOW people will agree that it is better than sliced bread), why buy games that are going to be less enjoyable? As far as I can tell, WOW sucks up most of your free time in any case. [Note: I don't play WOW, so I may be talking out of my under-side]
In summary, I think the people who own the more powerful PCs have less time to play the games, and the market is just saturated with too many games that require too much new hardware.
I certainly agree that pirating is a top issue, as more than 50% of the gamers I know have at least a few pirated games. But I think the consoles are also cheaper and thus more easily accessible to people with more free time to play the games.
Message edited by mrgrey on 03-06-2008 at 01:36:39 PM
