DICE: PC Development Has Positive Trickle-Down Effect

News
By Kevin Parrish
published

Making the PC as the primary development platform has its benefits according to DICE.

In an interview with PC Gamer, EA/DICE executive producer Patrick Bach said that leading game development on the PC has a positive trickle-down effect for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Unfortunately, not everyone in the industry agrees, focusing solely on the console sector and ignoring PC gamers entirely due to concerns over "piracy" and "fragmentation." Still, it's good to hear a top publisher/developer stick up for the PC gaming sector as a leading platform despite all those in the business who have settled on consoles.

"Our biggest benefit for the console has been that we’re leading on PC," said Bach. "It has forced us to push the limited technology of consoles compared to the PC to a new level, because we set the bar with what we wanted to create on PC and said, 'How the heck are we going to do this on consoles?'"

He added that by developing primarily on the PC, DICE had to prioritize its decisions on what to toss out for the console versions. "The PC version can include things that are really cool but not key for the gaming experience," he said. "You know it’s easier for you to make those decisions when you have a robust PC build to look at, and the console versions look great because of the PC."

Bach also went on to talk about multiplayer and how a certain number of simultaneous players on one map could be overkill. "Games are about having fun, it’s not about doing the most you can do," he said. "If we can jump two meters it must be better to jump four meters. No. 64 players is kind of the maximum where it’s still fun and you can still control the Battlefield. It’s like I can understand where I got shot from and why."

Guess Battlefield 3 will never see more than 64 players in multiplayer at one time.

Kevin Parrish
38 Comments Comment from the forums
  • bdizzle11
    Guess Battlefield 3 will never see more than 64 players in multiplayer at one time.
    Guess people forgot about the modders who were running 200 person servers in the beta. It'll be a short time before we see the same thing here.
    Reply
  • kcorp2003
    yeah DICE is awesome. really enjoying this game on my PC. the mechanics was greatly improved from the BETA. Knifing my enemy is so much fun. My clan is already setting up tournaments. plus i got accepted into DICE platoon on battlelog. yay :)
    Reply
  • AbdullahG
    The biggest benefit is making the minorities of the gaming world happy. I favor developers that think about the PC gamers first, especially if that's where their roots are from and what really gave them a name. Developers overact when it comes to piracy. If you make a great game and you spend time on it, chances are, it will turn out well on all platforms regardless of piracy. Consoles will bring in the most sales, and you'll benefit PC gamers as well. It's a win for all.
    Reply
  • thestrangebrew
    That's great and all, Dice is cool, but I still can't play BF3 w/o it crashing/freezing on me within a minute of loading. Fix this before worrying about what the consoles look like or how they benefit and I'll be a believer again...
    Reply
  • whysobluepandabear
    Wait a sec, you're telling me a company actually realizes that consoles are poor mans' PC's?
    Reply
  • tomfreak
    PC leading platform is what makes the game sell to some enthusiast gamer. This is what Crysis 2 is lacking. Heck it doesnt even outsell crysis 1 despite with 360+PS3+PC combine lol.

    As for 64players, it is all about map size. I dont see a reason why we shouldnt go beyond 64players, if our map size is right. In BF3 most of map size is smaller than the ones in the classic BF1942. Woudlnt it be fun to have 5 tanks(2 players each), 5 Jeeps(5 players each) 5 Jets, 5 Helis, 20 diff class free-running soldiers doing all that in one big map? In real world with dont fight a war with just 64 soldiers.
    Reply
  • MasterMace
    thestrangebrewThat's great and all, Dice is cool, but I still can't play BF3 w/o it crashing/freezing on me within a minute of loading. Fix this before worrying about what the consoles look like or how they benefit and I'll be a believer again...
    Problem exists between the keyboard and chair.


    DICE will be one of the few companies to survive the longterm. They understand that developing for the PC is developing for the future. Maxing out current console hardware is like hitting a ball passed the pitcher's mound: it was tough when you were 2, but is a joke now.
    Reply
  • tomfreak
    TomfreakWoudlnt it be fun to have 5 tanks(2 players each), 5 Jeeps(5 players each) 5 Jets, 5 Helis, 20 diff class free-running soldiers doing all that in one big map? In real world with dont fight a war with just 64 soldiers.Note I mean all those in 1 side not both sides.

    Reply
  • RabidFace
    Why...why Mr. Carmack don't you have this passion with the PC sector anymore? Oh yeah, I remember, $$$.

    Remember the Shareware days Mr. Carmack? It wasn't about money, it was about getting your product out there.

    And all this crap about piracy is crap. Have less DRM, make a quality game and people will buy your product. Put horrible DRM and make a crappy/buggy game, people won't buy your product, it's that simple.

    The PC market might not be as big as it used to be, as I too have kind of jumped ship, but we still want quality titles, not half assed console ports and DICE realizes this. If the PC gets put first, maybe more people will be willing to buy/build a computer to play those games? I own the BF series up to BF2, and haven't played in years, but looks like I will finally get my BF fix back with BF3. 1943 is ehhh.

    Thank you DICE, I still have your back because I have pretty much given up hope with iD. Even though I own all iD games up to Quake 4, which was solid in my opinion, Single Player was forgettable.

    I wish I had to rig to play BF3, but I don't :( But looks like I will get a solid experience on my PS3. My laptop will at least play all Source games at decent framerates ;)

    GO DICE!
    Reply
  • JOSHSKORN
    I preordered BF3. It came and I tried to load multiplayer. I couldn't past the "LOADING TEHRAN HIGHWAY" screen. On my second attempt a couple days later, I got the same thing. Then, I opened up my Resource Monitor. I found that my 4 GB of RAM had been maxed out. After closing a few other applications, the problem went away. I messed around with the main menu a little bit but still haven't played. Not sure I like the graphical presentation of the menus. I only care about actual game play, which I will check out tonight.
    Reply