Chris Taylor follows Bleszinski's lead

[imported_Bee]

a few months ago I had to make a decision - buy Crysis or buy Supreme Commander FA. I bought SupCom FA because I liked the first game. It's a great game and I don't regret my decision.

Apparently Chris Taylor is an excellent game designer but alas he doesn't have a clue about piracy:

So one of the reasons we'll see RTSs on the console is because people can't pirate it.

Plain wrong. There's a lot of piracy going on on (especially modded) consoles. And guess what's going to happen if gaming focuses more and more on consoles..... where ever you go, the pirates will follow. And hardware can be modded, software can be cracked. Yes, piracy may hurt sales to some degree, but keep in mind that games like Galactic Civilizations II, which shipped w/o any copy protection sold extremely well. Don't go the least-resistance-route by blaming low sales solely on piracy.

 

[Thraxen]

Originally posted by: lupi
The console market is still dominated by a large block of uninformed "mommy mommy I want this one" buyers along with those that don't think it's "cool" to sit at a pc (yet sitting for hours playing the latest madden or dumbed down fps is ok on a console). And there is also the crowd not intellectually up to maintaining their own pc and see the 3000 price given for prebuilt top end systems and just walk away.

The world is filled with an increasing number of uninformed consumers and in that arena it's easy for consoles to claim victory.

There's definitely a younger crowd on consoles, but hardly the "mommy mommy" types you are talking about... this isn't the 80's. The average gamer is much older now. And, FYI, they're out there on the PC too.. who do you think is playing all those SIMS games? And what makes you think not wanting to replace/upgrade parts in your PC anything to do with intellect? Does that apply to every area? Car repair? Plumbing? Harvesting your own food? Don't lose site of the fact that no matter how "seriously" you may take gaming and your PC, games for most people are mere diversions and entertainment and theres absolutely nothing wrong with that. Your views are the typical BS spouted by a lot of sour PC gamers these days. I swear, PC-only gamers have become the most whiney insecure group of gamers on the planet. A far cry from how things used to be. I hear sour grapes are used to make cheap w(h)ine.

 

[shortylickens]

Its really amazing that games with no code and dont require the disc and COST A REASONABLE AMOUNT dont have as many problems as overpriced crap with codes and invasive DRM schemes.

I hate jumping on the bandwagon but it seems these guys would rather make money than make games. They just want to hire a crapload of programmers and tell them to make the textures and lighting as pretty as possible, spend no time on the story or even game mechanics, then send it out into the world at 60 bucks a pop and wait to become rich.

I still long for the good old days when gameplay came first and graphics were second. I was enjoying myself much more back then. I also liked it better when more titles were being put out by guys working in their basements or one-room offices.

 

[dclapps]

What is funny is that you always hear four or five excuses from a developer, except the correct one: they made a shitty game. Never do you hear them mention a thing about their game, only how it got owned by piracy or market segregation. No matter where an argument like this takes place, it always means one thing: its that person's fault, they know it, but cannot let others think it.

Obviously no one is going to come out and say their game stinks, but we all know there are good games and bad games. Good games, people talk about. Bad games, developers blast piracy. Speaking of piracy, wouldn't the good games get pirated more than the shitty ones?

Also, it's important to note that the PC gaming market is constantly evolving. What once was a side project to a central workstation is now a full fledged business. I would argue that some games used to be about artistic merit, from imagery to storyline. Today's games, everyone can see that the bottom dollar is all that matters. The reorientation of the market may be a reason for slowed sales across the board. Consoles, on the other hand, have never changed. That's just a drop in a bucket though.

 

[nakedfrog]

Originally posted by: Pugnate
Crysis was the best shooter since Half-life 2, that probably lost a lot of sales to piracy, but that doesn?t mean it didn?t sell well. In Europe the game is still in the top 3.

Crysis doesn't even hold a candle to HL2.

 

[Ultralight]

Originally posted by: dclapps
What is funny is that you always hear four or five excuses from a developer, except the correct one: they made a shitty game. Never do you hear them mention a thing about their game, only how it got owned by piracy or market segregation. No matter where an argument like this takes place, it always means one thing: its that person's fault, they know it, but cannot let others think it.

QFT. And as I asked earlier, where are the voices to challenge the Taylor's on the same platform and audience? Who is giving the counter arguments if even the opprtunity is offered? And is the opprtunity offered?

 

[TehMac]

Crysis sold 1 million copies. Crytek's Cervat Yerli isn't being a little bitch and trying to cover up because he knows his profit is pending as more machines get beefed up.

 

[milesl]

The way I see it,PC gaming has never been that huge.It is just too much work for the average plug and play joe to deal with all the technicalities of the platform.

In the last few years the eggsbucks(sorry cheap shot ) has brought PC level graphics and previously awesome PC only games to the plug and play console.This made every average Joe go for it.Consoles have become more wildly successful than PC gaming ever was.Now the console market has become the gaming industry's standard cash cow.

The devs want tons of sales fast and are racking up huge budgets on games to get em out the door fast as possible.Console owners are spooning up whatever crap they throw out there.Unfortunately quality suffers compared to previous PC only titles(there are still some diamonds in the rough though).Of course the people who like consoles only (average joe types who like games but not PC's)still don't mind because the games are better than most of what they previously had.

So now they looks at PC sales and say MEH only 1 million units compared to 5 million units because there are 5 times as many consoles out there compared to gaming PC's and proceed to trash the PC as a gaming platform.

Seems like the developers are starting to question if it is worth it to port their big budget cash cows from the console to the PC.
Or in the case of Crysis,questioning if they should go the cash cow route and develop mainly for the console.

Piracy had been around since the beginning and will always be around.They probably have it factored into the budgets by now so it should be a non issue.They are using it as an excuse to bag on the supposedly low PC sales volume(which has never been high).

As usual business is business and the game developers are gonna go where the easy money is.I guess this means more console only games are planned in the future.

Honestly,I am not sure I care because I play mostly older games that are still much higher quality than most of the stuff out there today.

 

[rasczak]

Originally posted by: EvilComputer92


Not to mention the fact that playing an RTS on a console with a controller is like solving a rubik's cube with your elbows.

lol this line here made me lol so loud i got in trouble at work.

 

[Modelworks]

Add Peter Molyneux to the list:
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/51420

Echoing comments made last week by Epic designer Cliff Belszinski, Lionhead chief Peter Molyneux expressed frustration today at what he feels is an increasingly vapid PC gaming market.

"The Sims and World of Warcraft [are] sucking all the air out of the PC market. It's just incredible," said Molyneux to GamesIndustry.biz. "I think it's a huge tragedy. The weird thing is everyone's got a PC, they're just not buying software for it."

Gears of War creator Bleszinski had similar comments to make last week on the topic, categorizing the PC market as being in "disarray."

"That's driving the PC right now is Sims-type games and [World of Warcraft] and a lot of stuff that's in a web-based interface," said Bleszinski. "You just click on it and play it. That's the direction PC is evolving into."

Molyneux elaborated on the web-based sector of the market, complaining of a lack of innovation even within the casual sphere.

"There's an enormous amount of gaming happening with PopCap, Big Fish and Reflective. The fascinating thing is when they first started, all these games came out like Peggle and Mystery Files and Alice Greensleeves and Diner Dash, and it felt quite exciting. There was a lot of innovation going on.

"In my view, that has completely stopped. They're doing the same game over and over again with a different wrapper. It's like a mini-universe in itself which is emulating what's happening in our industry," he added.

I agree with the last statement, not so sure about the rest of his statements.

 

[lupi]

Any debate in pc gaming that revolves around the piracy aspect is nothing but a herring fishing expedition. The end user restriction methods have to date never lasted longer than the release date of the product and have probably cost as many sales as they have saved.


I don't know about Sims as I've never touched it, but WoW probably is the large gorilla seeing the number of players and the fact that many of them denote much of their game playing time to it as they are paying each month for game access.

 

[jjones]

Originally posted by: Modelworks
Add Peter Molyneux to the list:
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/51420

... the same game over and over again with a different wrapper.

I agree with the last statement, not so sure about the rest of his statements.

The only pertinent comment. This is the problem with PC gaming. It's not piracy, it's years of lackluster development that has PC gamers gunshy about buying yet another disappointingly boring title and has allowed consoles to command the attention of the gamers' purchasing decisions. Can't keep doing the same old thing and expect to maintain the sales.

Another problem is gaming requirements have completely outpaced normal computing requirements. Regardless if you can run Chrysis on a 2 year old computer, the perception is that you can't, or if you can, you're only experiencing at best half of the game. Who wants to spend money on that? Or upgrading your system yet again just to play a game? Or spend the extra money on crossfire and sli even if it is time to upgrade?

Look at something like Portal. A unique new game that from all appearances was very well received and contributed greatly to the apparent success of Orange Box. Developers need to continue to push the envelope on 'fun', not on the same old gameplay with just fancy new graphics and gimmicks that ultimately push gamers away.

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: jjones

Originally posted by: Modelworks
Add Peter Molyneux to the list:
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/51420

... the same game over and over again with a different wrapper.

I agree with the last statement, not so sure about the rest of his statements.

The only pertinent comment. This is the problem with PC gaming. It's not piracy, it's years of lackluster development that has PC gamers gunshy about buying yet another disappointingly boring title and has allowed consoles to command the attention of the gamers' purchasing decisions. Can't keep doing the same old thing and expect to maintain the sales.

Another problem is gaming requirements have completely outpaced normal computing requirements. Regardless if you can run Chrysis on a 2 year old computer, the perception is that you can't, or if you can, you're only experiencing at best half of the game. Who wants to spend money on that? Or upgrading your system yet again just to play a game? Or spend the extra money on crossfire and sli even if it is time to upgrade?

I think more developers and publishers need to go back and play some of the older games and see that graphics don't make the game.

I loaded up gametap today and tried a new game, its called blaster miner.
Runs in 2d with decent graphics and sound. I just played it for over 4 hours straight. Its simple in design but was fun to play. It probably will run on any pc out there too.

 

[hooflung]

The developers are trying to capture new markets with old content. These guys are full of shit and blame the players just like the bean counters putting shit DRM in games that does nothing but make problems for the legitimate gamers. Who the hell are they trying to fool =/

 

[TehMac]

They're trying to fool people who get xboxes and are 12 years old who have never seen games before.

 

[kirilus]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
Crysis didn't sell well? Last time I checked 1 million copies is classed as "well", especially since it's a PC exclusive with steep system requirements.

According to Tom'sGames it did not even reach the 100,000 mark in the PC section.

 

[EvilComputer92]

Originally posted by: kirilus

Originally posted by: BFG10K
Crysis didn't sell well? Last time I checked 1 million copies is classed as "well", especially since it's a PC exclusive with steep system requirements.

According to Tom'sGames it did not even reach the 100,000 mark in the PC section.

That news article is far outdated. On release it initally didn't sell well. 3 months after it's release it had sold a million copies

 

[imported_wicka]

Originally posted by: legoman666

Originally posted by: MmmSkyscraper
Crysis didn't sell well because they told everyone it wouldn't work on their machines, along with the shoddy beta and the demo confirming that. Then there's the fact that it was published by EA, with piracy bringing up the rear. I'm sure COD4 is doing gangbusters on the PC sales-wise so he is talking bollocks.

yea, and it was a boring rehash of far cry.

I so didn't want this to be the case, but it's absolutely true. I played CoD4 before Crysis, and after 20min I was just bored. For some reason Crytek took the worst part of Far Cry (drive around island between bases) and ctrl+v'd it over the first two levels.

 

[imported_wicka]

Originally posted by: wicka

Originally posted by: legoman666

Originally posted by: MmmSkyscraper
Crysis didn't sell well because they told everyone it wouldn't work on their machines, along with the shoddy beta and the demo confirming that. Then there's the fact that it was published by EA, with piracy bringing up the rear. I'm sure COD4 is doing gangbusters on the PC sales-wise so he is talking bollocks.

yea, and it was a boring rehash of far cry.

I so didn't want this to be the case, but it's absolutely true. I played CoD4 before Crysis, and after 20min I was just bored. For some reason Crytek took the worst part of Far Cry (drive around island between bases) and ctrl+v'd it over the first two levels.

EDIT: Also, as the profit margins fall in PC gaming, developers just have to make better games. You'd be a fool to think that we are going to have the same amount of games coming out, but the ones that remain are going to be a lot better.

 

[TehMac]

I really don't think Chris Taylor can be taken seriously anymore. Supreme Commander was an overrated RTS, one of the more boring ones I have played, his optimization was over emphasized, and the game has about as much asymmetry as one apple has from...well an apple.

 

[destrekor]

why does everyone point to Crysis sales as the defacto measurement of PC gaming? It's lower sales can be attributed to a few things: DX10 requirement, and thus Vista required = smaller market. Also, graphics are key... the hardcore gamers have rigs capable, but a lot of casual gamers may not be able to play the game as of right now. Maybe in a few years, so we'll see if Crysis picks up in terms of lifetime sales or not.

 

[TehMac]

Crysis sold 1 million copies anyway, which is the defacto sale number that makes it successful.

 

[Fenixgoon]

Originally posted by: destrekor
why does everyone point to Crysis sales as the defacto measurement of PC gaming? It's lower sales can be attributed to a few things: DX10 requirement, and thus Vista required = smaller market. Also, graphics are key... the hardcore gamers have rigs capable, but a lot of casual gamers may not be able to play the game as of right now. Maybe in a few years, so we'll see if Crysis picks up in terms of lifetime sales or not.

no, that's just their point - despite crysis' high requirements, it STILL sold well (1+million copies)

 

[Craig234]

On Crysis - I bought it, haven't opened it, my computer would shut down if I just put the box near it.

On Chris Taylor - made my favorite RTS ever, Total Annihilation, but haven't been a big fan of anything after, and his interviews tend to turn me off a bit too. SC was especially disappointing by not being a real TA 2.

My days of 'buy anything Chris Taylor makes hoping to support him to the next TA' are probably done now.

It's odd how people who should know better make sort of formulaic games later, like the Diablo creators who went to Flagship and made the computer-generated Hellgate: London levels. that are poorly reviewed. And do I need to mention TA: Kingdoms, even though that wasn't Taylor? Most disappointing sequel in history, perhaps?

 

[skace]

Originally posted by: Craig234
It's odd how people who should know better make sort of formulaic games later, like the Diablo creators who went to Flagship and made the computer-generated Hellgate: London levels. that are poorly reviewed. And do I need to mention TA: Kingdoms, even though that wasn't Taylor? Most disappointing sequel in history, perhaps?

FYI Diablo had computer generated levels. It was one of it's biggest features. The problem was that Diablo's computer generated levels worked better than Hellgates. It's much easier to computer generate catacombs that look largely like a giant puzzle than it is to computer generate a city. That should have thrown up some red flags during their design phase.