The worst of both worlds (PCs & Consoles)

[RobertPters77]

@wahdangun
Nope. Indie games are not so innocent. Keep feeding the monster and it will grow larger and larger. One day the 'indie' dev will no longer be indie and be another activison, ea or steam.

 

[Zenoth]

PC didn't have DLC before, we had Expansion Packs. DLC's have only come up to prominence in this console generation. The updating games and never fixing is not PC's fault, it the fault of the crappy developers that make the game. People buy these games like Fallout 3 and it's DLC that are horribly buggy so that shows it's ok to release unfinished crap.

"Before"... before what/when? Before "it started"?

I remember back in 2006 when the PC version of Oblivion got DLCs, but back then it wasn't called as such, it was merely called a "pack" (the "Horse Armor Pack", for instance, which if I recall correctly was the first of a few other official plug-ins to be released later on), or also a "plug-in", the name changed as the years passed and it's now pretty much always called Downloadable Content, or yeah "DLCs", but PC had DLCs "before"... before now, before last year, and before the year that preceded that one as well, it started at least five years or so ago, yes, on the PC.

I don't remember exactly when it started though, but I'm pretty sure that Oblivion wasn't the first, there must have been a trend before that, a trend where developers started releasing less complex, less lengthy/shorter "expansion packs" (while still being called expansion packs, although it's not because it's called as such that it indeed makes it a full-fledged expansion pack per se, and the very name "Expansion Pack" itself remained unchanged for a very long time even though not all of them had equally complex or long play time or re-play value in them, nor any interesting/worthy content, then you'd have to go back in time and try to look at the actual "expansion packs" we had and what they offered over the original title, or the sequel).

I can't remember when it "started" on the Consoles either, perhaps the pioneer console, the catalyst that lead to console-based DLCs was the Sega Dreamcast, the first "true" on-line capable console, with an Internet browser (primitive even back then, but still, it worked), and Sega Online, but "DLCs" didn't exist for the Dreamcast, there was no hard-drive anyway for it and all the games were "complete" until a sequel was released, I can't recall even an "expansion pack" for it, that was quite a PC-only thing still back during that time, and it still is quite the case today, I guess it started with the current generation of consoles, since even the original XBOX, or the PS2/GameCube didn't get much in terms of DLCs, or anything at all...

Bah, anyway... I just thought I had to put things in perspective at least for myself. In general PC gaming saw the birth and growth of what is now called DLCs, but it started many years ago.

 

[RobertPters77]

DLC got it's name because instead of going to the store and buying the content. You bought it online and Down Loaded the Content to your console.

 

[Ancalagon44]

Even if DLC has been around since 2005, its definitely still a part of the "New" videogame industry. I would probably say that the "New" videogame industry, and the death of the small studios, started around the time that Quake 3 was released. Before games like that, small teams could create good games. Now, it takes legions of programmers.

 

[Veliko]

What is a small team? How many people did it take to make Dragon Age or Crysis?

What about Defense Grid: The Awakening?

 

[Zenoth]

Even if DLC has been around since 2005, its definitely still a part of the "New" videogame industry. I would probably say that the "New" videogame industry, and the death of the small studios, started around the time that Quake 3 was released. Before games like that, small teams could create good games. Now, it takes legions of programmers.

It still depends on what games you're referring to, you're most likely thinking about so called big budget "AAA" titles, right? Because there's a single guy behind Gratuitous Space Battles and I find that Indie game more enjoyable than Dragon Age 2. You still don't need "legions of programmers" to make good games, the living proof are Indie games (not all Indie games are good, most of them in fact are quite simple and usually boring after a short time, at least for me anyway).

Granted only a few Indie games are actually good, but still, having an army of programmers isn't necessary, even if you do have such resources and all the staff needed to create one of those "AAA" games does it make them good anyway? Well... let's define "good" for fun... that one too is subjective I guess. But look at Dragon Age 2, or Crysis 2, it must have cost them arms and legs to create those games, they have huge teams and are those games regarded as "good"? Well yes they are, by some, but of course not everyone, and that's exactly my point, because there's so much different tastes out there you don't "need" legions of programmers... still today just one guy or a group of coders/artists can do something nice, like four or five guys working at their own pace and end up with something good, it's possible today...

But I'll say this... it was definitely more common years ago, absolutely, back then even "small" studios could make their name known and it'd stick in peoples' mind (there's countless "unknown" studios back then that only created a SINGLE game and voila, they had a rocket behind them propelling them to all summits of video gaming, what about Westwood Studios, id Software, 3D Realms, Volition, heck even Valve! They all started small, but today they're regarded as the giants, well a few of them that is, such as Valve and id Software) but today most "big ones" are casting their shadow on the small bunch, it's tough to find little jewels of gaming today, I found most of the Indie games I like by mistake actually, I would search for a specific genre of game, first I would find results pointing at the big titles, then days later I'd end up in a discussion forum where some people would talk about "that game that no one heard of", and that's how I found such games, well some of them that is, not all of them, but yeah anyway, I made my points.

 

[Ancalagon44]

It still depends on what games you're referring to, you're most likely thinking about so called big budget "AAA" titles, right? Because there's a single guy behind Gratuitous Space Battles and I find that Indie game more enjoyable than Dragon Age 2. You still don't need "legions of programmers" to make good games, the living proof are Indie games (not all Indie games are good, most of them in fact are quite simple and usually boring after a short time, at least for me anyway).

Granted only a few Indie games are actually good, but still, having an army of programmers isn't necessary, even if you do have such resources and all the staff needed to create one of those "AAA" games does it make them good anyway? Well... let's define "good" for fun... that one too is subjective I guess. But look at Dragon Age 2, or Crysis 2, it must have cost them arms and legs to create those games, they have huge teams and are those games regarded as "good"? Well yes they are, by some, but of course not everyone, and that's exactly my point, because there's so much different tastes out there you don't "need" legions of programmers... still today just one guy or a group of coders/artists can do something nice, like four or five guys working at their own pace and end up with something good, it's possible today...

But I'll say this... it was definitely more common years ago, absolutely, back then even "small" studios could make their name known and it'd stick in peoples' mind (there's countless "unknown" studios back then that only created a SINGLE game and voila, they had a rocket behind them propelling them to all summits of video gaming, what about Westwood Studios, id Software, 3D Realms, Volition, heck even Valve! They all started small, but today they're regarded as the giants, well a few of them that is, such as Valve and id Software) but today most "big ones" are casting their shadow on the small bunch, it's tough to find little jewels of gaming today, I found most of the Indie games I like by mistake actually, I would search for a specific genre of game, first I would find results pointing at the big titles, then days later I'd end up in a discussion forum where some people would talk about "that game that no one heard of", and that's how I found such games, well some of them that is, not all of them, but yeah anyway, I made my points.

You're preaching to the choir here. My choice of words was poor, I agree that small games made by studios can be better than big games made by big studios (although this is not always the case).

In fact, I'm an aspiring indie developer myself. If my game ever gets released, I'll let you know.

 

[wuliheron]

You do know that sony/ms/nintendo don't do anything in the hardware design beyond say it must have x or y right? IBM and NVIDIA/AMD do almost everything and the consoles makers design a stylish box to put the hardware in.

The only real reasons for making consoles in the first place is that they are cheaper and easier to use then a PC. It is the cost/performance ratio and longevity of the overall system that the manufacturers must decide on when choosing which x and y to put into their pretty boxes. If they intend for their next generation console designs to last ten years they'd better be capable of blowing our socks off.

 

[Ancalagon44]

The only real reasons for making consoles in the first place is that they are cheaper and easier to use then a PC. It is the cost/performance ratio and longevity of the overall system that the manufacturers must decide on when choosing which x and y to put into their pretty boxes. If they intend for their next generation console designs to last ten years they'd better be capable of blowing our socks off.

They produce consoles because it provides a market that they can control easily. Meaning MS, Sony and Nintendo can make sure that they get a slice from every game sold, which is not the case for the PC.

Manufacturers dont decide on things like that, MS, Sony or Nintendo would. They then subcontract the hardware part out to AMD, Nvidia, Intel, IBM, Foxconn, etc etc, to get an implementation.

 

[Monster_Munch]

If you think gaming sucks now, what do you consider the "golden age" to be? The 8-bit NES era? 16-bit SNES era? The PlayStation + N64 era?

 

[Ben90]

If you think gaming sucks now, what do you consider the "golden age" to be? The 8-bit NES era? 16-bit SNES era? The PlayStation + N64 era?

Pre-widescreen Era

 

[Veliko]

Pre-widescreen Era

So that would be when everyone was stuck with bulky 17" monitors?

 

[wuliheron]

They produce consoles because it provides a market that they can control easily. Meaning MS, Sony and Nintendo can make sure that they get a slice from every game sold, which is not the case for the PC.

Manufacturers dont decide on things like that, MS, Sony or Nintendo would. They then subcontract the hardware part out to AMD, Nvidia, Intel, IBM, Foxconn, etc etc, to get an implementation.

Like you say, their control doesn't extend to the PC market so they still have to compete. With new portable PCs and portable consoles coming out that means the TV consoles have to up their game, but if they become too expensive then they have compete with desktop PCs. Therefore cost/performance is everything and they must provide even greater incentive for people to buy their product rather then a portable or a PC.

 

[darkewaffle]

SSDT

 

[gorcorps]

IMO the biggest issue is the lack of respect on both sides (gamers and devs).

Devs don't seem to respect our time anymore, and expect us to wait till they work out bugs and patches. A lot of people don't have time for that garbage anymore. We don't have time to keep going back to the game to check and see if its playable yet. If it doesnt' work the first time a lot of us move on to the next game that may work better. I was interested in Dragon Age 2, but the demo was unplayable. It took patches and driver fixes to make it playable (not all the devs fault, but still) but now I'm over it. I'm not sure I'll ever touch it until steam has an awesome sale on it. If it worked great from the get-go I may have bought it as I was itching for an RPG. ANY RPG.

At the same time PC gamers don't seem to respect devs all the time. Anything that's connected to consoles at all is automatically dismissed before we get a chance to play it. If you played a demo and decided it's not your thing, that's fine. If a friend tells you it's terrible and you have similar taste, that's fine too. But if you haven't even experienced the game and are dismissing it only because the devs may have also produced a console version, then that's stupid. You're not even giving the game a chance at that point. There have been games that I personally have found to be fantastic on the PC despite having console versions as well. I'm glad I gave them a chance. Then of course you have the pirates that obviously have no respect, but I won't go any further as it's obvious.

 

[taltamir]

I love Impulse, and hopefully gamestop aquiring it doesnt hurt us, with that being said you do have to 'log in' to steam to play your games, but I'm pretty sure you can do it off-line.

wait, what? Gamestop acquired impulse?

 

[Ancalagon44]

IMO the biggest issue is the lack of respect on both sides (gamers and devs).

Devs don't seem to respect our time anymore, and expect us to wait till they work out bugs and patches. A lot of people don't have time for that garbage anymore. We don't have time to keep going back to the game to check and see if its playable yet. If it doesnt' work the first time a lot of us move on to the next game that may work better. I was interested in Dragon Age 2, but the demo was unplayable. It took patches and driver fixes to make it playable (not all the devs fault, but still) but now I'm over it. I'm not sure I'll ever touch it until steam has an awesome sale on it. If it worked great from the get-go I may have bought it as I was itching for an RPG. ANY RPG.

Thats not the developers fault - its the publishers fault. Publisher says ship by this date whether you are ready or not. We arent paying for you to produce a polished and stable game, we are paying you to trick people into buying your game even if its unstable. If it does well you can fix it later (except some PC games, even successful ones, never get patches at all).

At the same time PC gamers don't seem to respect devs all the time. Anything that's connected to consoles at all is automatically dismissed before we get a chance to play it. If you played a demo and decided it's not your thing, that's fine. If a friend tells you it's terrible and you have similar taste, that's fine too. But if you haven't even experienced the game and are dismissing it only because the devs may have also produced a console version, then that's stupid. You're not even giving the game a chance at that point. There have been games that I personally have found to be fantastic on the PC despite having console versions as well. I'm glad I gave them a chance. Then of course you have the pirates that obviously have no respect, but I won't go any further as it's obvious.

This I dont really agree with. A lot of the console ports I've played have been consolized. If they cant spend the time to replace "Press Start to begin", then I'm sorry they arent worth my time.

So many PC games are negatively affected by sloppy ports that I can easily understand why gamers are put off by ports. Bulletstorm, Crysis 2 and Dragon Age 2 all suffer from the port disease I think.

 

[Annisman*]

wait, what? Gamestop acquired impulse?

Yep, did it a few days ago, it actually makes sense, now they will have a legitimate medium of competition in the digitial download market for PC.

 

[gorcorps]

Thats not the developers fault - its the publishers fault. Publisher says ship by this date whether you are ready or not. We arent paying for you to produce a polished and stable game, we are paying you to trick people into buying your game even if its unstable. If it does well you can fix it later (except some PC games, even successful ones, never get patches at all).



This I dont really agree with. A lot of the console ports I've played have been consolized. If they cant spend the time to replace "Press Start to begin", then I'm sorry they arent worth my time.

So many PC games are negatively affected by sloppy ports that I can easily understand why gamers are put off by ports. Bulletstorm, Crysis 2 and Dragon Age 2 all suffer from the port disease I think.

Is it REALLY port disease or is it simply lack of time or vision? There have been games that are on all systems that IMO don't exhibit such things... The Chronicles of Riddick and KOTOR were both released on the Xbox as well as the PC, yet I think most remember them as fantastic PC games. The Orange Box was released on everything, yet I think most of us would say Valve is still fairly PC focused. People say Crysis 2 is worse even though I disagree. You say DA2 has it, yet DA:O was on consoles as well and you didn't bring that up. In fact I think most people at this point would say DA:O was built for the PC... yet when it was released that's NOT what people believed. Where is the line that seperates universally bad ideas from bad ideas caused by consoles?

This is my problem... people blame consoles for problems that may be there regardless. Only if it's not on consoles they just call it something else. If you look at Spore and how much it fell flat, I'll bet that if it was released on consoles as well people would blame that for the reason it's terrible. Though from what we see games are perfectly capable of being awful all on their own.

 

[Ancalagon44]

Is it REALLY port disease or is it simply lack of time or vision? There have been games that are on all systems that IMO don't exhibit such things... The Chronicles of Riddick and KOTOR were both released on the Xbox as well as the PC, yet I think most remember them as fantastic PC games. The Orange Box was released on everything, yet I think most of us would say Valve is still fairly PC focused. People say Crysis 2 is worse even though I disagree. You say DA2 has it, yet DA:O was on consoles as well and you didn't bring that up. In fact I think most people at this point would say DA:O was built for the PC... yet when it was released that's NOT what people believed. Where is the line that seperates universally bad ideas from bad ideas caused by consoles?

This is my problem... people blame consoles for problems that may be there regardless. Only if it's not on consoles they just call it something else. If you look at Spore and how much it fell flat, I'll bet that if it was released on consoles as well people would blame that for the reason it's terrible. Though from what we see games are perfectly capable of being awful all on their own.

I think blame is fairly well apportioned. I mean, yes no one moaned about DA:O because it was good. DA2, by all accounts I've seen, is not bad but not as good, and part of the reason for that seems to be simultaneous console development.

Yes, thats not always the case as you point out. Some companies have whatever it takes to produce a game for PC and console simultaneously and not make a hash of either one of them. Valve is such a company. Other companies have the technical know how, but not the will or resources. These companies produce the ports we all hate, and sadly there are more of them than companies like Valve.

 

[Tom]

This thread is full of nonsense.

Want good games ? Let game makers make money. There's even a pirate in here complaining about the quality of his stolen games..

DLC is a way for developers to make money, that means it's an incentive to produce. And as consumers, we should want more production, not less.

2. Complaints about innovation. Want new designs ? stop buying the same games and expecting something new. Buy sequels if you want more of the same, not something new.

3. Steam. I've been buying PC games since 1987 or so. I've never had it so good. Steam makes games easy for me to buy, and developers get to make some money.

4. Casual games. Casual games don't hurt gaming, they help it grow. There are gonna be more hardcore gamers than ever, if hardcore gaming is fun.

Honestly, there has never been more games, and kinds of games, than there is right now. I think some of you are just suffering from game burn-out, you know too much of anything isn't fun. Especially something as meaningless as gaming often is. Gotta spend some time being useful to humanity, then you'll feel better.

 

[taltamir]

Yep, did it a few days ago, it actually makes sense, now they will have a legitimate medium of competition in the digitial download market for PC.

did they buy stardock, or just impulse?

 

[KaOTiK]

did they buy stardock, or just impulse?

Just Impulse

 

[ImpulsE69]

The best game ever was Pacman(arcade, not that Atari2600 crap). It's been steady downhill since then.

 

[taltamir]

The best game ever was Pacman(arcade, not that Atari2600 crap). It's been steady downhill since then.

tetris is better