Why do hardware companies give so little support to the development of PC games ?

[Annisman*]

This has been on my mind for quite some time. Why do Nvidia, AMD/ATI, Intel and other hardware companies seem to have such small interest in the development of PC games, and more specifically PC only games ?

These are massive companies whose primary concern is the selling of their hardware to the consumer. What better way to sell your hardware than to give people a good reason to upgrade ?

The most obvious example that comes to mind is Crysis. How many people ugraded their PC's to try to play that game ? I know I did. And while even the best hardware at the time (Tri-SLI GTX 8800's) still couldn't play the game on full settings, many still upgraded their systems to give it a shot.

Now, I'm not suggesting that hardware companies make their own games, but why don't they contribute much more than the standard TWIMTBP stamp etc. ?

Hardware companies should be all over PC games in helping the developer put out an excellent product, specifically one that is graphically/CPU demanding. I'm not talking about bloated code that skyrockets the requirements for no apparent reason, but truely ground breaking pieces of software.

Whether it takes vested interest (money) programming help, or other forms of marketing, companies like AMD and Nvidia should be making it their number one priority to give people the desire to purchase their product, espescially their higher end hardware which turns more profit per unit.

This is the fundemental goal of these companies, to make profit.

Many people beleive the console market has severely stagnated PC titles, but there is a way around this. PC only titles, which used to be a much bigger portion of released games ten to fifteen years ago.

How many people would purchase a new PC, or a video card to play a blockbuster PC only title ? You may say not many, but I give Diablo 3 as my example.

Interestingly enough, this is a title that requires almost nobody to upgrade their PC because of it's very low requirements, but I think it shows how many people are willing to purchase a good game for PC only. The release of Diablo 3 helped create a "233% increase in PC games sales" in the month of May. http://www.tgdaily.com/games-and-entertainment-brief/64072-diablo-iii-puts-pc-gaming-back-on-top

There is a market here that isn't being tapped into like it should be.

Why shouldn't the next blockbuster game be PC only ? It would be hard to argue that it would be neglecting it's console demographic because everyone and their mom has a PC in the living room these days.

The big hardware companies should be desperately attempting to fuel the release of PC only games, and contributing to their success. In return they may find much better sales of hardware, and the birth of countless new PC gamers (hence creating possible life-time customers/upgraders). Because as most of you here know, once you go PC, everything else just kind of sucks.

And PC gamers are often fanatical about their hardware (like myself) upgrading their PC's when it's often times redundent for games. (3930K etc.) That cpu alone costs more than any console on the market, but it's not an unheard of purchase for a PC gamer to make. These are big sales that consoles cannot compete with, as once a console is purchased it cannot be 'upgraded' in 5 years by purchasing a new piece of tech. Even the most poverty stricken PC gamer probably eyes a new video card or CPU every couple years, whereas consoles are sold (sometimes at a loss of profit) and then never purchased again. The PC is a gold mine of profit without the proper infrastructure to guide it.

Hardware companies should be looking to 'hook' people to the PC platform, and what better way than to give them an incredible reason to do so ?

 

[wuliheron]

They're in it for the money and they're always looking to get the best bang for their buck. So they tend to look for games that will compliment some new feature they intend to sell on video cards. Metro 2033 is a good example. Nvidia found out about the game and realized it had the potential to be the most advanced stereoscopic 3D engine on the market, so they even sent experts to advise them on how to make it look as good as possible in S3D.

Sometimes it even works in reverse and the developers advise the manufacturers on what they'd like to see on the next generation video cards. AMD's new hardware acceleration for partially resident textures is a good example. They consulted Carmack on what would work best and recently he's been designing virtual reality headsets even though his specialty is programming video game engines.

 

[thespyder]

You have an interesting point, but I think that companies like Nvidia would probably say that they don't have any direct connection to the PC game development companies and hence no real way to assist. So these types of "Investments" usually, for the purposes of investors, need to have a direct and tangible profit tied to them. While the development of PC only high end graphics games would indeed increase the demand for (and hence the sale of) High end GPUs, it isn't like there is a direct or quantifiable ROI.

And so on the game development side, there is very little incentive to make PC only games. When a company rules out console as a market, they effectively cut out 70% or more of their potential sales. So any marginal gain they can have from partnering with GPU developers is not going to offset that. There are still houses that make PC only games, but more and more, the gaming community is console based.

So at the end of the day, companies like Nvidia can't force PC only games so their profit lift is very small indeed. And Game development companies cut themselves out of a market (or three) by going PC only and therefore lose profits. And investors are not going to back something that is a marginal (at best) lift on a much smaller market.

Now, it WOULD make sense for the GPU companies to partner with the next gen console developers to make sure that they get in on the ground floor and guaranteed sales over the life of the console. Just an idea.

 

[JamesV]

I think alot of companies like Nvidia do help developers, we just don't hear about it often. Look at Battlefield 3, and how a driver better suited to it was nearly instantly available - that shows a good working partnership between DICE and Nvidia.

On the strictly hardware side like mice, we see this again with preset profiles for favorite games, and promotional gear like game branded items.

You could also argue that new technology in video cards is exactly what you are calling for - increased throughput of textures allows better graphics, which can make a game better.

Give so little? I'd say they make our current gaming experience possible, which is giving a lot.

 

[Dankk]

Don't AMD and Nvidia kinda do this with their "Gaming Evolved" and "The Way It's Meant to Be Played" monikers, respectively?

 

[gladiatorua]

They do help. I think you forget the fact that a lot of games license their graphical engines from another devs and do not need support from hardware manufacturers. I assume they do support developers of major engines.
Not all games have high fidelity graphics. Hardware manufacturers do not support such games because they have no gain from it and devs do not need it.

 

[Annisman*]

Don't AMD and Nvidia kinda do this with their "Gaming Evolved" and "The Way It's Meant to Be Played" monikers, respectively?

My thought is that the standard TWIMTBP and AMD's "Gaming Evolved" is not nearly enough support.

And that these programs, only benefit their specific brand of product.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Nvidia does throw money and resources towards game developers. That TWIMTBP stamp isn't free. And neither are those Nvidia-specific AA/shadow/Physx options that pop occasionally. I don't think AMD does much of it though, and I think it's reflected in their drivers as they seem to be playing catch-up with new game releases a lot and don't usually have any specific game options or optimizations of their own.

 

[Fire&Blood]

I'm assuming this thread is mostly about graphics/GPU OEM's and to a lesser extent the CPU OEM's, PC components shouldn't be "bottlenecks" to better gaming. PC gaming always had some collaboration between hardware and software devs. Either camp has engineers meet with the talent behind Carmack, Yerli and others.

The issue is that ones in charge don't want to take the leap of faith, on either side. Software guys know (or have learned) that beautiful slideshows don't sell well so they try to compromise by making games scalable and some of the progress is lost in that compromise. Even if the economy was blooming and the PC market was unaffected by consoles and piracy, it's hard to sell games that really push hardware, from the mass end user perspective, they would appear buggy and returned to the store.

On the other hand, why would Nvidia make a GPU that beats it's predecessor with 70% performance? High end GPU is a small market, It can make similar sales with a lower cost product and just stay tuned to AMD or vice versa. Typically the GPU buyers experience a "leap" in progress only when the OEM's stumble into it via die shrink, architecture and part costs going down such as DDR modules.

I'm positive software guys would respond well to all out GPU's and make the gameplay look more like the game intro. Reading between the lines of a recent Cevat Yerli interview, he hints that the next Cryengine will be out soon but better quality real time rendering is about 2 years away.

I would like to see both AND and Nvidia collaborate not only with best seller studios but spread the love equally.

 

[DaveSimmons]

My thought is that the standard TWIMTBP and AMD's "Gaming Evolved" is not nearly enough support.

And that these programs, only benefit their specific brand of product.

Why would AMD spend money to help sell nvidia cards, or vice versa?

As for intel, CPUs sold for gaming PCs is a drop in their income bucket.

 

[Annisman*]

I'm assuming this thread is mostly about graphics/GPU OEM's and to a lesser extent the CPU OEM's, PC components shouldn't be "bottlenecks" to better gaming. PC gaming always had some collaboration between hardware and software devs. Either camp has engineers meet with the talent behind Carmack, Yerli and others.

The issue is that ones in charge don't want to take the leap of faith, on either side. Software guys know (or have learned) that beautiful slideshows don't sell well so they try to compromise by making games scalable and some of the progress is lost in that compromise. Even if the economy was blooming and the PC market was unaffected by consoles and piracy, it's hard to sell games that really push hardware, from the mass end user perspective, they would appear buggy and returned to the store.

On the other hand, why would Nvidia make a GPU that beats it's predecessor with 70% performance? High end GPU is a small market, It can make similar sales with a lower cost product and just stay tuned to AMD or vice versa. Typically the GPU buyers experience a "leap" in progress only when the OEM's stumble into it via die shrink, architecture and part costs going down such as DDR modules.

I'm positive software guys would respond well to all out GPU's and make the gameplay look more like the game intro. Reading between the lines of a recent Cevat Yerli interview, he hints that the next Cryengine will be out soon but better quality real time rendering is about 2 years away.

I would like to see both AND and Nvidia collaborate not only with best seller studios but spread the love equally.

You're defintately right there, a brand new SSD, CPU, power supply or motherboard won't really give people better 'gaming' but to a small extent you are missing what I think is the most important point.

And that is to tap into a a huge new market of PC gamers, which some, in turn, may very well be dedicated to the platform after a few years, like I beleive many of us here are.

And PC gamers are upgraders, which is a never ending cycle of purchasing new hardware, and not just video cards, everything that goes inside a PC.

When I was 17 I saved enough money to purchase a crappy mobo, cpu, ram, power supply etc. and spent my biggest amount on the video card, because I was afterall only interested in playing games, and on a very tight budget. But after 3 or 4 years I wanted things better, much better, and not just my video card, my processor too, and then more RAM, and a better power supply to juice my brand new graphics card which I thought about one day crossfiring, then the games started piling up on my hard drive and I needed a newer, bigger one to hold them. But this time I would make it a Raptor, for better boot and load times....

This is the kind of activity that can spawn from the simple enjoyment of one PC game, and I know not everyone is like me, because I admittedly 'upgrade' way too often, but for many others this is how the trend begins.These are the customers that I think can be gained.

Even the 'used' hardware market doesn't really slow purchases, how many times is a new gpu selling for 300$ one year after it was 600 $ ? That can't be said about a console, an Xbox purchased for 300$ can easily be sold 'used' for 250$, beause the xbox is a year older, but the tech. inside of it isn't.

See what I'm saying ?

Technology advances in the PC market at an infinitely faster rate than the console market. These hardware purchases could more than make up for the kind of investment by larger companies that I am suggesting.

Lastly, you mention piracy as an issue for the PC. And it certainly is, but if you compare PC piracy to the console markets sale of used games, I bet everything would start to even out.

I really think this is not as doom and gloom an issue as some people believe it to be.

 

[Fire&Blood]

The market is simply too small for that. You point to one example of a PC exclusive title that sold well. You can't really argue that any significant portion of those sales was related to new PC sales with Diablo III being the trigger.

I'm with you on this one, I want the PC to thrive but I simply don't see much happening there for reasons I listed in the previous post. Every xbox sold and every title with it as it's primary platform is more proof that after Microsoft "back-stabbed" PC gaming, no one claims PC gaming as it's own, the PC gaming brands just contribute a little to it every once in a while.

An industry wide push, on both the hardware and software side is needed for PC gaming to rise above the consoles far enough to generate the kind of public interest/mass hysteria needed but that push simply isn't happening. Who would sponsor it, when even Microsoft chose xbox and why would they risk everything at stake?

With the piracy argument being exploited and the console money flowing, where is the incentive? As sad as it is, I'm grateful whenever a title that was born on the PC and migrated to consoles is still made for it's original platform.

With the xbox 360 being 7-8 years old, it's easy to wow a console gamer with a PC title, even running on a moderate PC but it's a lot harder to convince him to spend enough on a computer to reproduce that experience on his own.