Firing Squad tackles Consolitis

[Bateluer]

http://www.firingsquad.com/games/Firing_Points_Consolitis/

Ever since video game consoles rose to popularity at the end of the 20th century, PC gamers have had to contend with consolitis, the cancer of the Windows gaming platform. More and more developers and publishers have been flocking to consoles at a time when the rough economy makes it important to maximize profits by tapping into the largest market possible. This has led to most games being developed for consoles first, with the PC version often being little more than an afterthought. If we’re lucky, they may make at least some attempt to upscale the graphics or other features, which some do a better job of doing than others. In this week’s Firing Points, we’ll be looking at the impact consolitis has on games, along with on the industry as a whole.

Its a good read guys, and very accurate.

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

When are the PS4 and Xbox 720 due to come out? When they do, it should lead to a short golden age of game development because for a year or so game makers will be able to push the envelope on game design and be able to have the full product run well on all 3.

That doesn't address the lack of keyboard and mouse for consoles but there is no reason they can't support those for shooters.

 

[Bateluer]

Because the big companies are so focused on catering to the lowest common denominator and trying to emulate past successes, creativity has taken a nose-dive. Making money should be a side effect of game development, not the reason for doing it in the first place. While production values and advertising budgets for AAA games have skyrocketed in recent years, innovation and overall quality have come way down. Unfortunately, deficiencies in the latter are often covered up by overcompensating with the former, which is especially effective in the eyes of a consumer that cares more about outward appearances and celebrity endorsements than actual substance. The sweet irony of it all is that a genuinely good game with virtually zero budget and publicity can be as financially successful as, if not more so than, a AAA title. Corporations have corrupted the industry with their greedy habit of minimalizing risk, and if they don’t change their ways, they will come crashing down in the wake of the indie game revolution.

Dead on.

 

[shortylickens]

They are saying what I've been saying for years.
The big games industry will one day collapse on itself like a neutron star.

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

Mods are kind of like "indie games", just that they rely on a base game to already exist. EA didn't release mod tools for BC2 and it's not looking good for mod tools for BF3, so no Project Reality for BF3. A shame too, really, because imagine what those guys could do with 2011 game engine compared to a 2005 one.

All so that they can sell DLC.

 

[crownjules]

Good article, but nothing new to those who had already perceived the state of the industry long ago. In effect, consoles have placed an artificial ceiling on the PC game/tech side of the industry that is lower than the natural limits of PC technology. And as the article points out at the end, if I can play every game today on the PC with only a $200 video card, why buy the latest and greatest for $500? If too many people start following that trend than Nvidia/ATI have no incentive to continue to push the tech envelope.

But we as consumers are also to blame. If you buy the latest derivative war FPS that fails to bring anything new to the genre, you are casting a vote with your wallet that says to the company "make more of these, you will get my $$$."

 

[Ross Ridge]

When are the PS4 and Xbox 720 due to come out? When they do, it should lead to a short golden age of game development because for a year or so game makers will be able to push the envelope on game design and be able to have the full product run well on all 3.

There's no announcement of future Sony or Microsoft consoles nor any credible rumours of them coming anytime soon. Regardless though, it's not at clear given more memory, a better GPU and somewhat better CPU, console developers can afford to do much more than do with current consoles. A lot of Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 game don't come close to pushing the limits of those systems. A lot Wii titles don't either. I'm not really sure how much consoles are holding down PC graphics and how much of it is just the already high cost of developing games these days.

Take Starcraft 2 for example. It's a AAA game developed exclusiviely for the PC. There's no console port, no possiblity of one, that can hold it back. Does its DirectX 9 graphics blow away what you see in console games these days?

Most the other aspects of consolitis given in Firing Squad can often be pretty definately blamed on consoles. When a games has poor controls and missing features because it's a console port, it's obvious why. Less depth is harder to blame on consoles, as PC exclusive games do also get dumbed down compared to predecessors. Game developers though do from time to time admit the need to "simplify" things for console players.

I think we maybe nearing the limits of what traditional game development can afford to do in terms of graphics. The cost of writing games has grown faster than the size of the market. I don't see anything but the best funded AAA games taking a huge advantage of the next generation of consoles' graphics capabilities. A 1080p version of what we get now the consoles will be more typical, or in other words what we're getting on the PC already.

 

[CPA]

Dead on.

Making money should be a side effect of game development, not the reason for doing it in the first place.

Whoever wrote this article would not last very long with his own business.

 

[Rhezuss]

From what is going on in the game industry, we won't see any "Baldur's Gate" or Planescape Torment" level of quality games in the far future...

I blame anyone involved in the success of games like CODBO.

 

[darkewaffle]

If too many people start following that trend than Nvidia/ATI have no incentive to continue to push the tech envelope.

The article was alright, nothing real new, but this one point stuck out to me. Discrete, consumer GPUs are a relatively small part of ATI/NV's businesses, are they not? I guess I'm curious if anyone's ever seen figures as to what the market for discrete GPUs specifically are though. Rather, what % of those cards that are sold are for gaming?

 

[Bateluer]

Making money should be a side effect of game development, not the reason for doing it in the first place.

Whoever wrote this article would not last very long with his own business.

Disagree. Its very obvious when a business sells a product solely to make money. They don't care about the quality of the product, they don't care about customer service, they don't support the product, etc. Once they have your money, they're done with you. Contrast to when the people at a business love what they do, love making the product, love it when people purchase and use their product, etc. Its a much higher class of product.

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

I think we maybe nearing the limits of what traditional game development can afford to do in terms of graphics.

I think the level of graphics has gotten to the point where they can ease back on graphical improvements and spend more time on content and balance in games, you know, like map design. Perhaps it is time that they come up with a good graphical engine and it last 3-4 years(or the release of several sucessive titles using it ) rather than developing an all new engine for every single game. Using Battlefield 3 as an example, if Frostbite 2.0 turns out good enough, surely it could last long enough to use it for BF4, and they could concentrate on BF4's content. For example, like the idea I always get back to about combining Battlefield 2 gameplay with World War 2 Online's campaign map. If they didn't have to spend time on a new graphical engine for every new game in the series, they would have time to develop a campaign map for Battlefield.

 

[Rhezuss]

In my opinion, we need more story driven games, be it RPGs or FPSs I don't care but I want to be sat in front of my screen and be suked up in the story so much that there's no effing way i'm gonna get up that chair but to sex, eat, drink, pee and poop.

I want a Planescape Torment quality game story wise. To this day, no other game have been able to even achieve 1/10 of what PST delivered in immersion and story.

I want the "F quality go go bling" mentality to die.

 

[ElFenix]

Disagree. Its very obvious when a business sells a product solely to make money. They don't care about the quality of the product, they don't care about customer service, they don't support the product, etc. Once they have your money, they're done with you. Contrast to when the people at a business love what they do, love making the product, love it when people purchase and use their product, etc. Its a much higher class of product.

for the most part if you make crap you're not going to get return business. and return business is the lifeblood of most places.

obviously when you hold the NFL license you can just dole out crap at whatever pace you want and make money hand over fist.



edit: the ultimate example of people making crap and getting burned by it is atari's ET

 

[darkewaffle]

In my opinion, we need more story driven games, be it RPGs or FPSs I don't care but I want to be sat in front of my screen and be suked up in the story so much that there's no effing way i'm gonna get up that chair but to sex, eat, drink, pee and poop.

I want a Planescape Torment quality game story wise. To this day, no other game have been able to even achieve 1/10 of what PST delivered in immersion and story.

I want the "F quality go go bling" mentality to die.

Are you going to write it? I seem to remember hearing PST's dialogue spanned a volume the size of War and Peace. (Actually now looking that may just be a relative comparison rather than absolute, but still)

You can 'want' that as much as you want, but you also need to realize the sheer amount of time and work that would have to go into that kind of a production. And the relatively small audience to appreciate it.

 

[mindcycle]

But we as consumers are also to blame. If you buy the latest derivative war FPS that fails to bring anything new to the genre, you are casting a vote with your wallet that says to the company "make more of these, you will get my $$$."

 

[arredondo]

There are a couple of omissions that I'd like to have seen mentioned. For one, the success of consoles is a reason certain games come to the PC late and compromised (a la Halo), but sadly some games never even get released, such as Red Dead Redemption (which I really want on PC).

Also, why no mention of the console moneyhat factor? I'm not just talking about the obvious ones like Microsoft purchasing Bungie or co-bankrolling development/marketing for key multi-platform titles (which is legit though bad news at times for PC gamers).

I'm talking about how it's a coincidence that something like CoD: Black Ops can have a marketing campaign saying the game plays best on the X360, which turns out to be true because the PC (and PS3) versions launched with an incredible amount of bugs and performance destructive glitches.

For a game that barely looks as good as a COD game released four years ago, there's no way in the world that top PCs shouldn't have been screaming max performance and quality if not for (likely) under-the-table shinanigans. That's the kind of stuff I want some brave journalist to openly wonder about.

 

[Phokus]

Dead on.

Because the big companies are so focused on catering to the lowest common denominator and trying to emulate past successes, creativity has taken a nose-dive. Making money should be a side effect of game development, not the reason for doing it in the first place. While production values and advertising budgets for AAA games have skyrocketed in recent years, innovation and overall quality have come way down. Unfortunately, deficiencies in the latter are often covered up by overcompensating with the former, which is especially effective in the eyes of a consumer that cares more about outward appearances and celebrity endorsements than actual substance. The sweet irony of it all is that a genuinely good game with virtually zero budget and publicity can be as financially successful as, if not more so than, a AAA title. Corporations have corrupted the industry with their greedy habit of minimalizing risk, and if they don’t change their ways, they will come crashing down in the wake of the indie game revolution.

It pisses me off that some game companies try to use scantily clad female characters to try to cover up their deficiencies. If i want to see sex on the screen, i'll tap into my terabytes of porn, i don't give a damn about that shit in gaming.

 

[Phokus]

Making money should be a side effect of game development, not the reason for doing it in the first place.

Whoever wrote this article would not last very long with his own business.

You cheerleading the Walmartization of every fucking industry in the US is leading to garbage being pushed onto the consumer from every fucking angle. God i hate republicans.

 

[Phokus]

for the most part if you make crap you're not going to get return business. and return business is the lifeblood of most places.

obviously when you hold the NFL license you can just dole out crap at whatever pace you want and make money hand over fist.



edit: the ultimate example of people making crap and getting burned by it is atari's ET

Here, let me negate your whole point: The TV industry, music industry, and movie industry pushes out fucking garbage and they still rake in millions and they keep pushing out crap because the consumer keeps opening up their mouths to receive it. The gaming industry isn't immune to this.

I'd like to know how fucking American Idol, Big bang Theory, Jersey Shore and other shitty shows thrive yet genuinely awesome TV shows like Fringe are on the 'fringe' of being cancelled. Oh, that's right, because the American consumer is full of morons and corporations happily dumb them down.

 

[shortylickens]

Yeah we keep complaining about all the crap forced on us by the corporations but the bottom line is they are just catering to the masses, who routinely spend assloads of money on garbage.
Music went seriously downhill starting in 2000, aside from a few notable exceptions.
Ditto movies.
And most games on all the platforms.

Yet the whole world and Americans in particular spend more money on entertainment each year. EVEN WITH THE ECONOMY SPIRALING DOWNHILL!
Isnt that freakin hilarious?

PC gaming is the only place to get something original and only then the small indie stuff that has no advertising. We should all be damn grateful we even have it.

 

[Corporate Thug]

Making money should be a side effect of game development, not the reason for doing it in the first place.

Whoever wrote this article would not last very long with his own business.

dead on.

 

[Skurge]

Here, let me negate your whole point: The TV industry, music industry, and movie industry pushes out fucking garbage and they still rake in millions and they keep pushing out crap because the consumer keeps opening up their mouths to receive it. The gaming industry isn't immune to this.

I'd like to know how fucking American Idol, Big bang Theory, Jersey Shore and other shitty shows thrive yet genuinely awesome TV shows like Fringe are on the 'fringe' of being cancelled. Oh, that's right, because the American consumer is full of morons and corporations happily dumb them down.

Wait, what? Fringe is about to be canceled? Noooooooo!!!!!11

 

[TurtleCrusher]

Now this is a quality article. I agree on all points.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Disagree. Its very obvious when a business sells a product solely to make money. They don't care about the quality of the product, they don't care about customer service, they don't support the product, etc. Once they have your money, they're done with you. Contrast to when the people at a business love what they do, love making the product, love it when people purchase and use their product, etc. Its a much higher class of product.

Unfortunately I would have to disagree. Especially in this economy, the point of a business IS making money. If you love what you do, but keep losing money, you will ultimately go out of business. If you "love" your business and sell a quality product, it will be a financial success if you price it properly. However, you still have to make money.
I dont want this to seem that I am pro business. In fact, I am very much against the way a lot of companies do business. It is unfortunately a reality that you have to make a reasonable profit to stay in business.