Skyrim Developer Says PC Development is a Headache

Wednesday in an interview with Joystiq, Bethesda VP of Marketing Pete Hines admitted that PC development can be a "headache," especially when the team is trying to create a universal experience across multiple platforms. He states some of the obvious factors which have reportedly driven other developers completely (insane and) over to the console side, namely piracy and numerous hardware configurations.

"From a technical standpoint, yes, the PC is a headache," he acknowledged. "It just is. A million different possibilities of hardware, drivers, etc. As you saw with Rage, all it takes is some bad video card drivers and years of hard work comes off as 'buggy' when in fact it's a really solid, stable game."

Naturally piracy is also a major factor to deal with in PC development. Other studios and publishers have claimed that services should be offered to convince gamers not to steal games while others force titles to remain connected at all times or come packed with heavy-duty DRM.

"Unless you decide not to make your games available for PC, it's a problem and you have to deal with it," he said. "So we do the best we can to protect it without resorting to Draconian measures, and we continue to enthusiastically support our PC fans with things like the Creation Kit and the ability to create and add unlimited amounts of mods and content to your existing PC game."

Also during the interview, Hines was asked if he could see Bethesda developing anything else other than massive RPGs. He said that he'd like to see Todd Howard develop a modern NCAA football title because both men love the sport. Still, he would expect fan responses to be less-then lackluster given large-scale RPGs is what Bethesda does best.

"We do what we do best," said Hines. "We make big, crazy RPGs, and fortunately for us the previous ones have done really well so there's no reason for us not to keep making them. If that's what we loved doing and nobody wanted to play them, we'd have a problem on our hands."

Guess that means we'll never see another Terminator title from the studio ever again? To read the full Joystiq interview, head here. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim lands on store shelves tomorrow, November 11, 2011, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows PC.

  • wooodoggies
    sissy devs, so they want a huge paycheck with no work? anything worth doing IS DIFFICULT
    Reply
  • amk-aka-Phantom
    Naturally piracy is also a major factor to deal with in PC development.

    Oh STFU, it's possible on consoles, as well!!

    we continue to enthusiastically support our PC fans with things like the Creation Kit and the ability to create and add unlimited amounts of mods and content to your existing PC game.
    I cannot imagine a TES game without mods. It'd be an incomplete experience - I remember all the mods I had in Morrowind, they enhanced the game experience so much!

    As you saw with Rage, all it takes is some bad video card drivers and years of hard work comes off as 'buggy' when in fact it's a really solid, stable game.

    BS, BS, BS!

    You know, somehow The Witcher 2 does NOT have any issues like that and it's one of the best-looking and most stable games I've played!
    Reply
  • campb292
    "As you saw with Rage, all it takes is some bad video card drivers and years of hard work comes off as 'buggy' when in fact it's a really solid, stable game."

    This comment assumes for years the drivers from nvidia and amd/ati with Rage were rock solid and right before release they rewrote the drivers and thus the game seemed buggy. They released the game without testing the game with recent drivers? They could even include the last "good" driver right on the disk - the problem is there wasn't one.

    Come on people, take responsibility. How could any tester have tried a mid-higher end AMD card on that final product and said, "This works great".
    Reply
  • amk-aka-Phantom
    A million different possibilities of hardware, drivers, etc.

    BTW, another load of BS! That's what DirectX is there for - it's a hardware abstraction layer; so when you make a game, you make it for DX, NOT for some "specific hardware configuration". Don't try to bull$h!t the enthusiasts, Bethesda!
    Reply
  • boju
    consoles have made lazy developers.. this makes me sad

    edit; well put amk
    Reply
  • dillonpeterliam
    @amk-aka-Phantom
    You hit the nail on the head with your Witcher 2 comment, It had issues but they were not as extreme as Fallout 3 or Skyrims.
    Reply
  • g00ey
    From a technical standpoint, yes, the PC is a headache
    Well then, take an aspirin and shut up!
    Reply
  • amk-aka-Phantom
    dillonpeterliam@amk-aka-PhantomYou hit the nail on the head with your Witcher 2 comment, It had issues but they were not as extreme as Fallout 3 or Skyrims.
    Skyrim already has issues? :lol:

    When you develop an RPG as huge as Morrowind or Fallout 3, I can tolerate quest issues, because I understand that it's a huge amount of work to make sure all quests come together without interfering with each other. And let's be honest, all Morrowind bugs were fixed in the last patch, although it was quite funny: Morrowind has bugs, Tribunal comes out, fixes Morrowind bugs and introduces new ones, Bloodmoon fixes Tribunal bugs and introduces new ones, then FINALLY they fix ALL the bugs in the patch :D

    Witcher 2 DOES have a few quests that can be broken. It's fine, I always play such games with their Wikia page open to know what I have to avoid in order to not break the quest :D

    But this is graphics issues they're talking about, and Witcher 2 has none. And I can name a ton of other games which might be even console ports and STILL have good graphics and no RAGE-like problems.

    Indeed,

    bojuconsoles have made lazy developers
    Probably why tablet gaming is considered such a profitable market - you can milk way more customers for cash without having to develop much at all.
    Reply
  • dormantreign
    I finished up my review on this game for PC last night and then came here and saw this as a headline, the header may explain why this game is so crappy on PC. I was super disappointing with it. Anyways you guys may want to see my review for yourselves. I didn't give the pc game a high review, but i think it was a fair one.

    youtube.com/watch?v=YqX03R4Q1QE
    Reply
  • LORD_ORION
    No, this is what happens when you develop for consoles and try to port to PC so you don't have to do as much work.

    Also, it is funny they are talking about piracy when Oblivion had no protection, yet still sold awesome on PC?
    Reply